Summer is here!

It's 80 something degrees now outside and definately swimming weather! Bentley and Allison came over yesterday afternoon and we took the kids across the street to the neighborhood pool. I forgot to take my camera unfortunately. I'm thinking about taking her back over there in a little bit so I'll have to remember my camera. I've really been missing our "old" house lately. Spring and Summer are my favorite seasons of the year. I've really missed planting hundreds of flowers in my 10 flower beds at the old house and I've missed our pool! I loved sitting out on the back porch and listening to the water fall on the pool and looking at all of my awesome flowers. One of the first things I do when I wake up is open all of the blinds. The whole back side of our old house were windows. I can't tell you how many times I would walk through the house and look out the windows to see my crystal clear pool and all of the color from my flowers. Now, I look out the back windows to see a wooden fence and apartment buildings. While we have been very blessed to be where we are, I still miss my old house. I'm very thankful for the positive outcome of a rough time in March! I was telling Allison yesterday I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't sold our house when we did.

Hopefully we will be able to have a pool at our next house. For the flower beds, those are a must, but if they aren't already there at the next house, I will make them!

I'm not weak, I'm a Survivor!

It's been a while! I've had so much going on lately I can barely keep up! I feel overwhelmed! I've been really stressed here lately and my allergies are really bad this year so I've not felt good for almost 3 weeks now! With all of the crazy stuff in life going on and so much more but way too many details to write, I have to stop and take time to write down the cute things Gracie says. She always brightens my day and takes my mind off the negative stuff around me. This morning we were in the car on the way to take her to school. Just out of the blue she said, "mommy, when I put my hands in my mouth that gives me germs." I said, " yes it sure does Gracie. Where did you hear that?" She said, " my daddy told me that and when my daddy tells me something I remember!" I just laughed at her! She says some of the funniest stuff sometimes! Jimmy has been out of town since Tuesday so I immediately had to call him and tell him what she said. We got a kick out of it!

Gracie has been getting ready for her dance recital in a couple of weeks. She had dance pictures this week and I took a bunch of pictures while the little kids were posing and stupid me deleted them before I got to save them to my computer. I was so mad at myself. I don't know what I was thinking! I have a lot of pictures that I haven't had time to post. I'll share a few of them.

I took Gracie on a bike ride this past weekend. It was a beautiful weekend!

If you know me very well, you know that one of my favorite things to do is plant flowers and do gardening. The picture at the very top is one of my pink Gerbera Daisies. For Mother's Day, my mom bought me a plant stand called "The Amazing Plant Stand." You can get them at the craft fairs and they have a website called amazingplantstand.com. Those are the only 2 places you can buy one. Here is a picture of mine. I'm in love with it!

Gracie's first Razorback game!

We took Gracie to the Red and White game yesterday and she had a blast! We've gone to the last couple of Saturday practices and she plays with all the little kids out there. I took some good pictures of us at the game. She is quiet the little trooper! I think she'll be in for going to some real games with us when the season starts!

And of course, Jimmy 60 pounds lighter! We are so proud of him! When he saw this picture of himself yesterday he said, " I look good!" I couldn't help but die laughing at him! Yes Jimmy, you do look good!

I know it's been a while since I've posted! I have a ton of pictures to post. Gracie was being so photogenic at the game. She usually hates the camera because I take so many pictures of her. Hopefully I'll be able to share those soon! But for now, I'm off to Wal-mart!

Easter Weekend!

We had a great Easter weekend and we hope everyone else did too! Saturday we went out to my parents land and played all day! Gracie got to ride on BaBa's new tractor and we got to fish. Jack had a great time running around too. Sunday we went to church and then went back to moms and ate brunch. Gracie hunted Easter eggs and then we came home and cleaned out the garage. I fixed a turkey and mom brought over some casseroles for dinner and we ate and watch the terrible Razorback game. I took a ton of pictures this weekend and a lot of them were really good! But there is way to many to post. These are some of the good ones!

Gracie waiting for church.

Notice Gracie's little pony tail! We finally got rid of the headbands about 2 months ago!

Gracie with her Easter eggs!

She found one!

Gracie with Ba Ba on his new tractor!

A Little Behind!

Well, I don't really know where to start... It's been about 3 weeks since I posted my last blog and so much has happened since then. To start off, for anyone who is wondering, most of my baby plants are making it. I moved them out on the back deck last week since the weather was so nice. I thought that would help them get some sun but afterall, I don't think it did. I think the deck is a little too covered. Only one tray of them drowned from all of the rain yesterday. I went to Branson and forgot to move them. Oh well, we still have 5 trays left. Here are pictures of the plants today. Day 28.... Can't believe it's been that long since I've updated!








If you are wondering why I've been so busy during the last 3 weeks, Jimmy lost his job, we sold the house, moved, and I've been busy trying to keep up with school. I know that all seems like a lot and it is! I'll try to explain what's going on without writing a book.

Jimmy worked for Fayetteville Auto Park. This "new guy" took over and decided to cut everyone's pay and let some people go. Apparently, they "terminated" Jimmy's position. They told him that he should have made HALF of what he did last year. Yes, that means a HUGE pay cut. They didn't want to demote him and they couldn't expect him to stay if they would have just given him a pay cut. Besides that, they changed their hours from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and they added a midnight madness sale once a month. So really, this "new guy" expects these people to have no life other than work.

To look on the bright side of things, all of this was really an answered prayer. Jimmy had really been hating his job for the last 6 to 8 months and he knew this new guy was going to make things worse. Here is the weird part... I showed the house to this couple on a Monday night. When Jimmy got home we were talking about how these people really liked the house. He made the comment to me that if we sold the house he could quit his job and find something he really wanted to do. So the next day, I got up and helped him get his stuff ready. I took this picture of him before he left for work on his last day. He was 30 pounds lighter and about to have life changing events happen!



So this picture was taken before he left work that morning. He found out his position was eliminated at 10:30 and we sold the house at 3:30 that afternoon. We have had our house for sale for a year and a half. And for some unknown reason, our house sold on the day he lost his job. We felt like it was meant to be. We knew all of this was happening for a reason. We had actually talked about staying in the house a couple of weeks before. That's why we painted and replaced light fixtures. We had just failed to take the sign out of the yard. Good thing we didn't! The couple wanted to close on the house in two weeks which made things a lot more stressful. So we sold the house on a Tuesday, moved out on Saturday of the same week, and then closed on the house on the following Thursday. It was very stressful but it was better to get it all over with instead of waiting 30 days and dragging things out. Now, looking back, we are so thankful things happened the way they did!

Seeds To Baby Plants!

Today is day 4 for our seeds. I noticed yesterday morning that our seeds had sprouted! Gracie has been sick so she slept in yesterday and I couldn't wait for her to wake up so I could show her our baby plants. She was so excited! I didn't get around to taking pictures of them yesterday because I sat at the table studying all day. But today, her they are! Day 4!

You probably get the point now, our plants are growing! And we are so excited! Look at the last picture (above) and at the top right corner there is a really tall seed that sprouted! It's like twice as tall as the others! These are my red and white Zinas. Hopefully they will all turn out to be nice size plants!

Watch it Grow!

Gracie and I did a fun project today. We went to Lowe's before gymnastics this morning and bought the kits to grow your own plants. Since I am a huge flower fan in the spring, I thought this might save a little money in the long run. Plus, Gracie will have fun watching the plants grow. I bought these plastic trays that have one round pellet in each hole. You add water and the pellet expands to dirt. Then you put your seeds in the dirt and then watch them grow over a few weeks. We have 7 trays of all different plants. When the plant grows and we have our last freeze, you are supposed to be able to plant the plants in the dirt outside. Gracie and I are super excited to watch these plants grow! Hopefully I won't have to spend so much money in the spring time on my flower beds.

This is what some of our trays look like. Hopefully they will grow quickly!

Now, if I could only get my 20 loads of laundry folded...Sigh...