Garden, Basketball, Fussy and Pool Progress

It's been a great week.  We've really enjoyed having Andy back home and have put him to work right away!  We have deconstructed my garden, which was a very sad day for me, in order to get the backyard ready for the pool excavation.  I tried to pile up my good dirt (yes I value my garden dirt!  We have to pay for good dirt here in Texas!) around my fruit trees and rosemary bush in the back corner of the yard.  Hopefully I will still be able to use the dirt when I rebuild the garden, or as I landscape behind the pool.  I have the grand plan that I can landscape with eatable things, but we shall see.  Andy started working on taking the swing set....let's just say he's still working on it ;)  He's got a grand plan, hopefully it will work, otherwise he will be scheduling some hired help as we need to get it done ASAP.  Love that he thinks outside the box, but sometimes it's wayyyy out of the box, lol!  LOVE YOU DEAR!!!!

Tyler started basketball on Saturday.  We found a league that has a practice an hour before the game so that the practice and game are all on the same day!  Audrie and I weren't able to watch because we went to the general women's' meeting, but apparently he did great!  I am so glad that he is having a positive experience.  He just hasn't found a sport that he really, truly loves.  He even made a 3 point shot and they won the game :) He really likes his team mates and his coach seems like a really good fit for Tyler...he even said he couldn't believe he had never played on a team before.  (Although Tyler's only purpose in going to scouts is to play basketball afterward, so technically he has played A LOT, just not on an organized team).  So good news there!

Audrie is doing well.  We are thinking about getting her into volleyball again, but we shall see.  The time commitment would be on a Monday or Tuesday so that is the only reason we are hesitating.  She seems to be doing well otherwise.   I really enjoyed taking her with me to the Women's meeting, and she seemed to really enjoy the one on one time, which was great.  On the way to the meeting I told her how I always like to go to general conference with a question and how this meeting was a part of general conference.  So we talked about some concerns she has in life, one particular one being that she doesn't seem to have any real good friends from church (she ALWAYS brings our neighbor who's not a member to activities).  Before we went in we prayed together that she would be able to find an answer to that problem within the words of the speakers.  Within the first few minutes of the first talk one of the speakers said, "Focus what we have in common instead of our differences."  She popped up and I looked at her with wide eyes, in which she reciprocated recognizing that she had received an answer.  It was a really neat moment. 

Kaylee is doing well although going through a VERY fussy, lots of crying phase.  Maybe I need to start giving her that liquid multivitamin again, she cries about everything lately.  Poor girl, it seems to be her only way of communicating lately.  She is loving school though and is definitely our most boy crazy daughter!  She came home talking about her boyfriend and how she was going to invite him to her brithday party (which btw all our children are each already planning due to the pool coming! hahaha).  I promptly explained she is not allowed to have a boyfriend, etc, etc....which I feel we talk about ALL THE TIME.  She doesn't seem to understand.  Hopefully she got it this time, but I'm sure we will have a boyfriend relapse.  Heaven help us when she gets to be a teenager!

Sam is going good as well.  Andy brought her an Elsa (from Frozen) shirt from Orlando while he was out there last week and she wants to wear it every day, all day.  She is such a joy that girl; although there is some feistiness coming through lately.  She is usually very happy and very upbeat, so hopefully the attitude will subside and her sunshine will prevail!

I don't have much for pictures lately.  But I will include a cute pic of Audrie with a new hat she got during spring break.

Smoke and Mirrors

What a morning it has been.  Oh my goodness. 

It all started yesterday.  While Andy was gone I bought a new table and chair set for our kitchen since that one was truly falling apart.  (Hallelujah!)  They called to set up a delivery time right as we were walking out the door...they said between 1pm and 4pm.  I said, "Um sorry that just won't work."  Basically they said too bad, because if you don't agree you will be paying a restocking fee... to which I responded with, " you've got to be kidding me!"  And thinking "#*@$*@#*!"  Of which I repented later...but seriously, what the heck?  Anyway, I arranged for someone else to pick up from carpool, which was no easy feat. 

Then we rushed out the door to sacrament meeting, fatherless due to Andy's trip.  Sacrament meeting was so horrible (because of my dearly contentious, and fussy children) that I ended up in tears...in front of all to see...not the best way to start church.  But we plowed forward, ever forward!! 

This morning started off as usual waking the kids up at 6am, getting them ready, etc until I got in my van promptly at 6:45am to take Audrie to carpool.  I put in the keys to turn the car on...and nothing, completely DEAD as a doornail, no clicking absolutely nothing.  I call Andy, he turns around in mid commute and comes to my rescue.  We hook up the cables, and van starts up beautifully.  We then walked into the house talking about how to proceed with the morning when we hear this HORRIBLE sound from the garage.  We run, we open door, we see a SMOKE filled garage.  I have seen Andy move lightening fast before (when Tyler was drowning in a pool @ 2 years old), but I think he may have moved even faster this time!  He SLIDE across the car to turn off the ignition faster than I could get a syllable out.  Actually thinking back it's actually really comical, but considering my form of transportation is up in smoke (haha) it's not that funny.

So my car was towed to the repair shop and we are awaiting the diagnosis.   Not sure how I am going to get my kid from carpool yet, but I will figure it out! 

I am praying the furniture guys get here before 3pm so I don't have to pay a restocking fee, and I am hoping the car isn't going to cost a boat load.  BUT I am counting my blessings!  If Andy didn't get home yesterday I would have been scrambling trying to figure out what to do and if it happened while out driving it could have been even worse.  Blessings for sure!

Coincidentally on this expensive day, we are supposed to be signing our pool contract.  Wonder if this is an omen :)  I really hope not because I want that pool dang it!

On a more positive note, I sure am grateful for my husband.  When he's gone life sure is not the same!  So glad he is home and able to be a part of our lives :)  LOVE YOU Andy!

Bedtime Woes

Tonight we went to bed like this because the goggles hurt:

...But she loved them too much to take them off and fell asleep like this:

When I pulled them off of her the accumulated tears drizzled out....;)

Oh to understand the mind of a 3 year old.

Spring Break

We had a great weekend filled with church, meetings and various other church related activities.  Sunday is definitely not a day of rest at our house :)   I enjoy the challenge though (most of the time).

We started off the week with the worst ice storm I have ever seen in the 11 years we've lived here (took me back to VA).  There was probably 1/2 inch of ice on everything except the roads -- amazingly enough.  They didn't even delay the public schools at all down here, which I thought was dumb.  But they have had to cancel school twice which used up all of our makeup days (one which is Memorial day- Yes the Texas folk are not happy about being told they have to go to school on Memorial day!  There will only be few kids there that day guaranteed.  Makes me proud to be in Texas, way to go American Pride!!).

We put on our YW New Beginnings program last Tuesday which went well, not quite as polished as I would have liked, but overall it was good.  I am just grateful it's over.  Then this past Saturday we had our YW's fundraiser which turned out SO much better than I thought it would.  We made about $1250 which is a blessing.  We are hoping that it will knock $80/girl off the price of camp.  Glad that is over as well, now I can sleep at night (sometimes I so wish my mind had an off switch!!). 

Andy and I went on a "pool tour" to see some of the pools the first company we are interviewing built.  They were gorgeous.  Really, really pretty, but the final bid we received from him was really high, so we're hoping to talk him down a bit.  We shall see.  We still are waiting on another company to give us their bid and quite honestly I'm starting to get impatient!!  I just want to start already.  But this is a big purchase and we have to be smart in this process!

We are praying for Lach!  Hope the doctors can figure out how to help him best in a speedy manner. 

We started off Tyler and Kaylee's spring break today.  We went to the park, played some tennis and went on a bike ride.  I realized I must be sunburned because I just scratched my forehead and it hurt!  Ha!  Audrie's spring break starts next week, but we are going to take her out Thurs and Friday just so we can do some fun things all together.  It's definitely making it trickier to have two spring breaks to deal with!  

Blue Bell Factory

We drove up to Brenham and met up with the Ford family (plus the Ford grandparents!) and toured the Bluebell icecream factory.  I didn’t get a lot of pics due to the “no picture rule” but it was really cool!  I think Tyler has a new life goal…to work in the factory (they get all the want of free icecream, hahaha).  

Side note:  Ever since this tour Sam has suggested we "sneak to the ice cream factory" on several occasions....in fact one Sunday when Andy and I left the kids home alone (we were delivering goodies) Tyler called us in a panic because he couldn't find Sam.  He said he had looked everywhere, but I was certain his "looking" wasn't good enough and she was hiding in the house.  We turned the car around after a couple minutes of him assuring us she was NO where to be found.  As we pulled in the driveway we saw Audrie holding Sam's hand returning her from a walk she had gone on ALL BY HERSELF down the street.  Upon inquiry as to where she was headed she said, "I was going to the ice cream factory!"  We put door knob covers on the front door immedietly.  She's such a hoot!

Big Feet, Single Mama

Sorry I'm slow.  It's hard to find time when you are single mom-ing it :)  Plus Audrie is on her spring break so I'm trying to entertain her to my best ability....which is hard, she's actually pretty bored, but we are trying to make the best of it!

Andy left early Monday morning to go to conference in Florida, which I don't think was a coincidence timing wise.  I think he was meant to go see his parents while they are going through this tough recovery process.  Getting old is for the birds!!!  We pray for you guys every day.  Anyway, we miss him, but glad he is there and will be able to help his padres out.

I am getting quite impatient about this pool building process.  We are waiting on our final (re) bid so we can use it to talk the contractor we really like down.  Hopefully he will send it over asap and Andy can call him to haggle...I want this done before memorial day if at all possible!!!  If we signed a contract this week we would get done the week before memorial day.  I have promised the kids I wouldn't make them go to school memorial day (it is one of our makeup bad weather days) and wouldn't it be fun if they could swim that day!!!  I'd get mother of the year award for sure, hahahaha.  Anyway, barring no bad weather we could meet that deadline.  Let's sign already!!! ;)

Tyler is sure growing up lately.  Not only is he getting super tall (I can look him in the eye when he's standing next to me) but he's starting to build more confidence.  He struggles with some attitude/anger moments that are inevitable with teenagers but he is really maturing in other areas.  For example; just a couple of days ago he came inside from playing with the neighborhood kids and said, "Mom, we made a clan.  I am the leader of the clan, but we made some rules.  There is a no cussing rule.  I told all of them if they cussed at all they would be kicked out of the clan!"  He's one of the older kids in our neighborhood and really has a great ability to be a wonderful example, so I am glad he's finally feeling confident enough to declare such a thing.  Definitely a PROUD mama moment :) 

I am going to take Audrie to get some new shoes.  I am tellin' ya shoes are like candy around here.  Audrie especially goes through them SO FAST!  She was a size 9 the last time I bought her new ones, so we will see what this round brings.  She's already in my size, so she better slow down on the feet growin'!

Temple, Work and Pools

First off I want to make a disclaimer that I DID write last week, but alas my email woes continue....and I did write 3 times last week and lost them.  By the third time I threw my hands up and gave up!  So now I have learned to write in 'word' until Andy has time to figure out the problem!  Super frustrating (and dad I tried your suggestion and it didn't help...so unsure how to fix it.). 

Anyway last Saturday was a highlight for me and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. Andy and I were planning on going to the temple, had a babysitter lined up who canceled last minute.  But instead of letting it get the better of us, we decided to let Tyler babysit.  Normally I don't feel comfortable letting him babysit yet when I have no way of communicating, but we decided to go for it.  And it worked out great.  We were able to do a couple of names from Andy's line and it always feels so good to do family names!  We went in trying to confirm our feelings regarding Audrie's schooling and came out not only feeling like we were making the right decision for Audrie, but I got answers for other questions I had without even really seeking answers!  It really was an awesome temple session.  While in the temple I just kept thinking back to a conversation I had with Audrie.  I have kept the decision for her to stay at the private school or go back to public school very open with her.  We have talked a lot about it and I often ask her, "so what are you feeling about school?"  And she and I have gone back and forth about staying or going. 

Anyway, one time while doing reading, I asked her the usual question and instead of her usual banter, she sat right up and said, "Mom, I need to go back to Stanley." (the public school) Then she put her head down, pondered for a moment and then looked up with tears in her eyes. "I didn't know how to be confident," she paused and then continued with a quivering chin, "and now I know how.  It's time for me to go back."  She was obviously feeling the spirit and I felt the power of her words.

Despite that conversation I continued to question the decision of putting her back into public schools.  But while in the temple I just kept replaying that conversation over and over again.  Then I remembered the scripture the Lord showed me when I was making another big decision, which said,

3 Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation.

4 For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand.

5 Remember this, which I tell you before, that you may lay it to heart, and receive that which is to follow.

I knew it was the answer and that I simply needed to have faith.  Which is clearly a weakness of mine because it is sure hard for me!!!

In other news Andy has worked all weekend....he is still at work at 7:25pm and has alluded that he may have to pull and all nighter...yeah, not feeling super happy about that.  But when duties call what's a wife to do?  They have had some serious catastrophes that they have a deadline to fix by tomorrow morning, thus everyone has to be on call.

On a more positive note we are seriously considering getting a pool!!  We have had one contractor come out already and give us some graphic designs and a quote.  You can see a couple of shots he gave us of his suggested design attached.  Pretty huh??  Wish the mountains were in the background like his depiction shows, but alas we are in suburbia ;)  There will be some modifications but the general idea will probably end up being the same.

The kids just spent over and hour making brownies (from scratch mind you) and pudding (not from scratch) for me....making me close my eyes as I walked into a candle lit dinner table :)  They even CLEANED up their mess!!! Miracles never cease!  Hahaha, seriously it was very sweet (it was only laced with half a dozen crying sessions by one or the other...not too bad as of late, HA!).