God answers prayers...even mine!

We are home! We have actually been home for a few days now...but I needed some time to catch up before paying any attention to my seldom read blog:) We had a wonderful time with our families, but it was time to come home--or at least the kids thought so! I could have stayed another few weeks, but JJ wouldn't sleep and Miracle was getting super crabby from too much play time with cousins. Our trip to Michigan was a nightmare. JJ started to break out in some sort of rash. He would not eat or sleep. He never ran a fever so I was totally perplexed. I am assuming it was hand, foot, and mouth disease. I probably missed the slight fever earlier in the week. He had some sores on the top of his mouth and a red rash on his body. I wanted to run straight to the ER but held back knowing how expensive an out of town visit could be. I decided to wait a few days until a pediatrician was open. After a few days of EXTREMELY fussy baby...the rash disappeared. After dealing with this for the first part of our vacation, we almost had to return to SC early because of some trouble with our dogs. Thankfully that worked itself out. The weather was pretty chilly (completely out of season even for MI), but we managed to enjoy ourselves anyway. Miracle had a great 5th birday and has decided she wants to move to MI. After our 13 hour trip home on Monday, we stopped at Little Ceasars to get a cheap pizza for dinner. This is when Miracle asked me if we could go back to MI after we went home and ate pizza. It was too cute:)

Though our vacation was a blast, there were two things weighing on my mind the entire time. The rising gas prices and our upcoming car taxes. They were almost $500 dollars last year! Well I decided to just quite worrying about it and let God have the burden. When we got into SC gas had dropped 15 cents and is still dropping. To make things even better, my car taxes are less than half of what they were last year. PRAISE THE LORD! It is so nice to know that God is watching out for my little family!

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On our way....

We will be leaving for our trip to MI in the next few hours. I am one of those people that will be so excited to go somewhere right up until its time to leave. I am wondering right now if this will be worth the stress? JJ is kind of sick and my husband got hurt at work yesterday. Sometimes it seems that the fun times are the most stressful. Oh well...once the trip is underway, I will be excited again and no longer apprehensive. The stress will be fun....and I CANT WAIT TO SEE OUR FAMILIES!

Summer Bliss and Making Memories

Here is a shot of the new hair for this week. My first teenie tiny cornrows. This is her real hair too. I am so happy for her that her real hair is actually starting to grow. Its been a long hard road! This style should work well for being in the water a lot....here we come Michigan!

This is our first summer where JJ is old enough to enjoy playing and Miracle is not in school. I hated the thought of regular day care all summer. The kids would not even notice that it was summer break. I wanted them to be able to play outside and have tons of free time. For this reason, I decided to bribe my sister into watching my kids for a few weeks in June. I felt her house would be a lot more fun for my two, plus she has kids that adore playing with JJ and Miracle. I also think it is great for them to be building great friendships with their cousins. I have wonderful memories of summer days with my cousins back in the day...and this is their chance to start making some of the same types of memories. My sister keeping the kids means a much longer drive for me each morning and afternoon, but it has been so worth it. They have spent their days playing outside, swimming, watching movies, and even playing in the rain. They have had a blast. This will be their last week with Aunt Christy, and I am sort of sad that their fun will end. Ms. Dana, our perfect day-care lady/adopted grandma, will do a lot of fun things with the kids too but it will be different. She has to have a more rigid schedule which is inevitable in a daycare. The kids will still get to swim and eat snow cones and play outside a lot....but nothing compares to the good old summer days spent with cousins!

Below is a picture of Miracle getting ready to slide into the pool!

This is JJ enjoying the swing.


Here are the cousins...the three musketeers:)






After this week, we will all be heading to Michigan for a week with both of our families. It will be fun and full of good memory-making. Then Miracle will stay with Nana and papa for a week while the rest of us journey home for another week off. After this, all will return to normal. The kids will go back to daycare, I will be back at work, and the start of school in August will be looming in the future. YIKES! Summer always goes too fast for my liking!

Who Knew?

Who knew that when I was little and learning to braid that I would adopt an african american whose hair had to be braided very intricately? Who knew that during those hours and hours of teaching myself to french braid my own hair, introverted and extroverted, that it would be very useful to me someday? Only God knew...isnt His plan amazing once we are able to look back on it? This is a picture of my hard work today....Phew...another style down:)

And this is my little man trying to be like his daddy. It turned out so cute that I had to post it:)

These are my babies, and I am so thankful for them. Looking back, I would have never guessed that my life would be what it is now. However, I could not be happier or more thankful to God for all that I have!

Back to work and counting down the days

It has been such a wonderful week off! Being a working mom has its ups and downs...one of which is not being able to spend alot of free time with my children. We made up for some lost time this week. It was so enjoyable to make memories together and have time to think about things we will do together in the future. I also enjoyed alot of "mommy" time while the kids played together. I got to watch my fill of Lifetime movies, read some great books, and clean my house. I got a little overwhelmed with all of the free time towards the end of the week but made myself enjoy it anyway. Both of my kids are growing so fast...and I really want to cherish the moments that we have together.

I spent some time babysitting my neices and nephews over the weekend. The kids had so much fun!

I think I want to be a swimmer when I grow up Mom:)

Now we start counting down the days until we go to Michigan for the 4th of July. We go every year...and are starting to get very excited. Miracle loves seeing Nanna and Papa and Grammy and Grandpa so much. JJ is getting older and should be able to enjoy it more too. Its such a fun time....ONLY THREE WEEKS OF WORK BEFORE WE LEAVE!

The Intrusion

I have this week off and am totally and completely enjoying it. I started the spring cleaning yesterday. Just to let you know how well that went....I started with our bedroom. I cleaned out closets, organized, and vacuumed. Once this was done, I had a grad plan to start with our bathroom and work my way to the front of the house which is the living room. Having decided this, I collected the broom and dustpan, the Windex for the mirrors, started the mop water, grabbed a sponge and headed to the bathroom. At this point, I began cleaning in earnest. I scrubbed the sink, I washed the toothpaste splatters off the mirror, I washed the base boards, I swept, and then, feeling quite proud of my quick progress, I went for the mop. Upon returning to the bathroom, I started to mop shortly before realizing that a giant spider had made himself comfortable on the floor right in front of my toilet. If you know me you know that I am SCARED TO DEATH of any and all spiders. However, being the only adult at home and knowing that JJ was sleeping, I held in my frantic screams. As soon as I moved, the spider ran under our shelf that's across from the toilet. I frantically ran to the kitchen and got some spider killer spray. I entered the bathroom, very apprehensively, and sprayed all around my white shelf knowing that at any moment the spider could come scrambling out. I did this quickly and then stepped back to wait....and wait....nothing come out. I was determined to find that spider and kill it. After all, I am one of those people who likes to think my house is spider free, and I had no intention of changing that. I got brave and moved the shelf a bit...still nothing. Finally, I sprayed all around the shelf and shut the bathroom door. I put a towel under the door and decided that my bathroom was off limits until the husband got home to find the intruder. Guess how much cleaning got done after this? None. I sat on the couch and wondered about that spider. Pathetic huh? Well, Mr. Spider is now resting in peace thanks to my wonderful husband. Thank goodness:)