Sunday Photo Favorites #4

Cupcake Academy

Thank you so much to Michele of Pinkletoes. You are no less than amazing. You taught me more than I could have ever learned on my own. It was so wonderful to hear your stories and learn your tricks. I hope I can do a session with you someday before the boys grow up. I think everyone deserves to spend some time with you.


My favorite pics of the day....of course it helps to have such a BEAUTIFUL model!!!

Thank you Michele for taking a couple of me and Rach too...

Next time I'll make ya sit still long enough that I can get a better picture of you. Girl..you are a mover and a shaker. Anyway, thanks again for everything. I'm even more in love with ya now than I was before I met ya!!

He's SIX...oh yes he is.

gone are the days of him saying "I too yittle mommy".

gone are the the times he looks back when I drop him off at school to make sure I'm still there.

gone are the days he asks his bubba to help him pick out his clothes.

gone are the nights he let me rock him in my lap.

with a blink they are all gone. he is six. he is big, dontcha know?

bittersweet is not a word I use lightly...this is what this is to me. bittersweet.

hold on to your babies, they grow right before your very eyes.

happy birthday eli.

New Family Traditions

Sometimes your life takes a turn. Sometimes it's a doozie and leaves you feeling stranded. Sometimes you make the best of falling off the road and sometimes, not every time...but sometimes you are pleasantly surprised at what the new turns have to offer.

We had quite a rough year last year and knew that Easter would probably be the hardest of all. Easter was one of Pop-pop's favorites and he LOVED to hide the eggs and watch the kiddos find them again and again. It was the last holiday we spent with him. We knew it would be rough this year.

With loving and wide open arms my Aunt and Uncle graciously invited us into their home so that we could go out and be with Calee and Ady's "Granny and Pop". Since the boys were teeny tiny, they haven't known them as Uncle Ernie and Aunt Sandy, only as Granny and Pop. Though we missed having B and Hunter there, the house was full of love, wonderful food, laughs and brand new family memories. Good times were had by all.

The adult kids even gathered around and did crossword puzzles together. What a hoot. Only my brother and sister-in-law could make doing crossword puzzles HIL-AIR-REE-YUS!!

I KNOW that Fisher had a flashback and a momentary panic attack when Calee said the blessing at the dinner table. Read HERE to see why he would have such crazy feelings about eating blood and bones...bless his butt.

Even though it was 40 below zero...just like it is every Easter...the kiddos all had a blast finding eggs and helping Baby Austin to find his eggs too!!

Fisher took a spill on "K" girls bike and really really banged up his leg and elbow. There was blood a flowin' ever whar. Me being the mom I am...well, let's just say that I do other mommy duties SO much better. I tried not to cry along with tha child as I was pouring hydro peroxide into his bleeding wounds. In steps my hero of a brother. HOW does he know how to be sucha good parent when he has no kiddos of his own? Amazing. He held up Fisher's arm like it was nuthin'. He dug around in his cuts to make sure there was no gravel in them. WOW. Again, my hero. You can IMAGINE the scene before my hero of a brother stepped in...All Fisher had to say to me before that time was "God, I was so happy before this happened, Mom. Are you going to have to take me to the doctor, Mom. I really didn't plan for this to happen, Mom." All of this was between great big sobs and tears. It's amazing I even could decipher what the boy had to say. Calee stepped into the teeeee-ni-nee bathroom (keep in mind I am ULTRA chlostrophobic) and said, "Hey Fisher, can you imagine if you would have landed on barbed wire how much worse it would have been?" Princess Ady stepped in and said, "Can you imagine if it had been ME?" (meaning how much worse it would have been.) CRACK me up!!! ANYhoo...the boy is all cleaned up and healing quite well and I have to give a shout out and a thank you to the princess, K girl and my hero of a brother for all their help in the teeee-ni-nee bathroom yesterday. Fish says thanks too.

My point of this whole hoopteehoo is that I wanted to say that making traditions and family memories is a wonderful and incredible thing. Oh yes, it's extremely hard when your world is turned upside down, but it always feels so much better when you have the love of others to swoop in and help you make new memories.

Thank you Y'all. Your love is endless. You are an amazing family.

Sunday Photo Favorites #3

Here are this Sunday's favorites of the week.

Tony and Lori - best picture I've ever gotten of them.

Eli - Hook 'Em Horns with new batting gloves!!

Rusty - slightly irritated with getting his pic taken.

Mom - LOVE this picture of mi madre!!

Baby Austin - Too CUTE!! Coldie Coldie!!!

Sweet Smells

So, my sweet husband...well he surprises me quite frequently with flowers, "just because." I often tease him that it's because he likes to see fresh flowers in the house even more than I do, but I know it's because he just likes to put a smile on my face.

Well, he happened to bring some beauties home the other day and they've been sitting on the table for a couple of days. I happened to come around the corner and little "Mini Mac" aka Sullivan was enjoying them too!!! I had to go grab my camera so that you could enjoy the flowers and Sullivan too!!

Sunday Photo Favorites #2

My handsome Mac - dip 'n all Y'all...

Fisher

Eli

Sullivan



Gosh, I'm lucky.

No, No, No...I haven't forgotten you Blog..I'm here

...I've just been on Spring Break right in my very own living room!

So, now that I must clean til my bones break because well, I have Bunco next week...I have decided to take a little break from Mommyworld and blog a bit.

Let's see...this is how Spring Break Russell Style went

Day One:

Well, it was a wee bit rainy and all, so we did a LAWT of this...

and then we also went to FINALLY see Alvin and the Chipmunks with Dadddy and Sullivan. A family affair.

Day Two:

Now day two was a little more "out of the box"...besides the usual 850,000 "boyz in tha hood" that we have over, Fisher and Eli got some quality brotherly time in my jumping on the tramp-ON-0-line

OOPS!

Day Three:

This was probably the boys' favorite day. We had Jack and Lindsey over and I took them to see The Spiderwick Chronicles. What fun!!!

Those kiddos can join us ANY ole time. What sweet kids!

Day Four:

A whole lotta Guitar Hero and other "gaming fun" Whew. We really went crazy over Spring Break, didn't we?



Day Five:

THIS was my favorite day. Even the blue-tongue slushy drinks were quite a hit. We spent the day with Nonie and went to Chili's in San Marcos and then down to Canyon Lake to tour a resort there. We had fun hanging out with Nonie and just spending the day!!





Now, I apologize if I've made you a little jealous, but possibly if you try real hard, maybe you also will be able to enjoy your very own Spring Break Russell Style someday.

Sunday Photo Favorites #1

... As you can see, Sullivan has adopted some crazy kinda alien looking smile. It was far from soothing to my anxious nature this morning when I was getting these shots and my frustrations were extremely high. The problem with this? Those silly alien pictures of Sully ended up being my some favorites. Go figure, huh?

Missy's pictures she took at her photography class this weekend were what inspired me to get off my rump and start shooting away at the boys in my house. Here are Missy's shots. While mine don't quite measure up, I do enjoy taking pics of my kiddos. I can't wait to get these developed and put them in their scrapbooks...Oh, say....in the year 2020!
Have a great week!! We're Spring Breakin' right here at home - YEEEE-HAW!!

The "Gracie May" Debate...

Sooooo...my precious little bundle o' pink...(well- not really, but she's the only other female I've got to cling on to in the house)...anyway, so she went to get her baby making equipment removed today. Can I just say BLESS her pea-pickin' heart?

After the LONG day at EmanciPet (we'll get into that later)....and after shivering all the way home like the part Chihuahua/Boston Terrier/Whateverelseintheworld that she is, and after getting to Nonie's house to pick up the boys, she had to endure the poking and prodding of said BOYS!!

The conversation was educational (I guess) and very informative (maybe) and well, it went a little something like this:

Moi: Boys, you must be careful with Gracie, she had surgery today and she's sore and doesn't feel well. It will be a while before you can wrestle around with her.

Fisher: Surgery? What surgery? What happened?

Moi: It's on her tummy see?

Fisher: SICK! What the world did you do that to her for? Huh, Mom?

Moi: Fisher, we had to have her baby making parts taken out so that she doesn't have any more babies.

Eli: She's not going to have any more babies?

Moi: No Dear, this is the best for everyone.

Fisher: Did they remove her yucky boobie things too?

Moi: What? No....no son, she still has her yucky boobie things. (After all, he must learn early on that just because we women must suffer tremendously there's no need for all that, right?)

Eli: Did they remove Huw Weenuw? (aka "Her Wiener", in Eli language)

Moi: No, Eli..she doesn't have a wiener.

Eli: She DOESN'T have a weenuw? Where did it go? What happened to it?

Moi: Eli...she NEVER had a wiener...she's a girl.

Sullivan: Huh, she doesn't? That's just silly. (Thank you for your little man input Sully!!)

Good LORD in heaven above. Now, I know that most folks believe that God only gives you what you can handle...but REALLY? Now tell me how I'm going to handle this conversation in say oh....just a few short years down the road when it's a fer real conversation Y'all. I can't barely explain why they don't cut off boobies and why girls don't have WEENUWS!!

But really, thanks to EmanciPet for their incredible selfless work they do day in and day out to make it more affordable to get your animals spayed and neutered. As a non-profit organization they need all the help they can get in donations. After $177 for shots, hysterectomy, and all the other hullabaloo, I could only afford to donate $20.00, but I'm sure they were thrilled, nonetheless. The ladies were very helpful, very knowledgeable and gracious and kind. Now because it was non-profit it's in a scary place with scary surroundings, but we got through all of that...my little Gracie and me. She is back home and recovering well...please be thinking of her tonight when her rest period is over and the boys return home to "check out her SICK wound"!!

I Saw God Today

This post is inspired by the George Strait song titled I Saw God Today. Heard it yet? It's pretty wonderful. The chorus goes like this:

I saw God today.
I've been to church,
I've read the book.
I know he's here,
but I don't look near
as often as I should.
Yeah, I know I should.
His fingerprints are everywhere
I'd just slow down to stop and stare
opened my eyes and man I swear
I saw God today.

...And well, I've been taking notice of a few things lately:

An American Flag waving in troubled skies...

Green light Go to God...

The perfect rose from my grandmother's funeral...

A beautiful tree everyone probably drives by and never even peeks twice at...

The sun shining through...

A good cloud about to chomp away a bad cloud...

And do you know what is special about this picture????

as I was about to post it (keep in mind Mac hasn't a clue what I'm writing about and the picture was covering the whole screen in my photo editing software)...but while I was just about to post it I told him to look at the picture I took outside the boys' school today and do you know what happened? He starting singing "I Saw God Today." I said, "Seriously?" When I explained to him what had just happened, he said..."We always do that Babe!!"

Amazing what you'll notice if you just make yourself stop and see His fingerprints.

An Anniversary, A Rodeo and a Slumber Party

This weekend was mine and Mac's 11th wedding anniversary. As of February 24th, we've actually been together FIFTEEN years. It's been quite an amazing ride we've been on. Ups and downs and all arounds. I couldn't imagine my life with anyone else. Mac is my rock. He's my everything. He's my laugh when I am feeling down and my constant when I am doubting. He is a wonderful friend and husband. God gave me a gift when Mac came walking into my life.

My best friend Missy and her husband Russ invited us to go to the Rodeo this weekend, to celebrate our anniversary. My wonderful Mom had the kids AND the dogs over to spend the night so that Mac and I could make a full night of it. Well Folks, we had a BLAST. We didn't much see the Extreme Bull Riding and only saw one song performed by The Randy Rogers Band, but a great time we had, for sure. We perched ourselves in the Founder's Club for a few hours while we talked and drank and told funny stories. Well, and we consumed a wee bit of spirits also. (But we'll not talk about that....gracious, I'm too old).

After an evening of full-filled rodeo goodness, we headed back to Russ and Missy's for a Slumber Party. We proceeded to play Rock Band and Y'all...if I could have caught the Partridge Family that we were that night on film, believe me - I would have. And I would have shared it with Y'all. I think my dimples STILL hurt from laughing so much. WHAT FUN!! Thanks guys!!!

The next morning we got up and got to spend some time with RileyRoo and we also got to sit out on the back porch and drink coffee and talk and talk and talk.

And do Y'all know what my favorite part of the weekend was? When Missy leaned over and said to me..."I just love sitting on my porch, don't you?" (I know how important her back porch is to her...she's written about it here). But the best part is, she followed up her first statement by saying..."and I just love sitting out here with you." Russ looked over and said, "Well, that was kind of a weird thing to say." But you know what Y'all? That small statement meant more to me than she will ever know. I will cherish it forever and I think we should all go the extra step to tell people just how we feel about them, even if we think it might be a small and silly little thing...it could be huge to the recipient.

So anyway, thank you to Mac, Missy, Russ and Riley....I LOVE sitting on the back porch with Y'all.