Candy

I gave Candy a bath today. She was very dirty from the mud and rain. I always think she is so cute after a bath! Greg thinks that she looks like a Muppet. Here she is after a wash and blow dry.





For Mother's Day I asked for dog training classes. We have never done that with any of our other dogs, but Candy is so big, her nose touches the top of our kitchen table. Poor Collins eats so little already, now he has to block his food from the dog. It is funny to look at the table while the kids are eating breakfast and see Candy's head slowly raise up next to Grace. She likes to check out what they are eating just before she goes in for the kill. Collins doesn't stand a chance with his little hand full of food dangling below the table. Who is she kidding anyway, by checking it out first? She would eat anything, especially if Collins looks like he is already enjoying it himself. I will try to get a picture of Grace guarding her food, she has become very good at making a circle around it with her arms. Candy has helped me teach her not to get up from the table until she is finish! : ) Needless to say, training is on our summer to do list.

Wild Weekend!

Our weekend was suppose to be a little busy, with Grace's end of the school year picnic on Friday, Greg's Mom's Birthday Saturday, and Memorial Day cookouts and Pool opening.

Friday morning started with me yelling "Last Day Of School!" spontaneously through breakfast, just enough to have Grace so excited, that she almost wet her pants! :) Here are a few pictures, you can tell she is having a hard time standing still and looking at the camera.






Well, with everything on track, I dropped Grace off and did some running around before the picnic. Then when we(Greg, Collins,and I) arrived at school, I was even early. I saw my friends car, who I had talked to that morning. She had told me that she had gone to the Minute Clinic and she had caught her daughter's Strep Throat, and she also had a double ear infection. I noticed that she was laying down, and when I got to the car to wave, she looked at me and she was on her phone and her eye's were all red. I thought she was on the phone talking to her husband and crying because she felt sick. I went back to my car, and that is when she laid on the horn. I went back to the car and she was still laying down, so I opened the door. She said that she was having severe stomach cramps that felt like she was in labor. If you knew her, you would know that she never ever complains, even when she probably should. Since she wasn't pregnant, it was very alarming, and she handed me her cell phone, and asked me to call 911. The next 2 hours are a blur. Luckily Greg was there, so after the Ambulance got there I was able to go with her to the hospital. I met her Mom there, and we waited all day while Jennifer was in horrible pain. Her husband was out of town at a golf weekend in NC, and he was driving most of the afternoon to get to the ER. I finally had to leave around 5pm, and they still didn't know too much. Her Mom called me later to say that she was in the ICU and the Infectious Disease Dr. said that she had pseudo toxic shock from the strep virus and that the next 24hours were very critical for her. It was pretty awful, I spent most of the weekend waiting for calls from her Mom for updates. She has now been up graded to a regular room, and she calls me for our normal morning talks. However, she still is so tired that she can't sit up for longer then 10 minutes. Like I said before, she doesn't complain, so even though she says she feels good, I can tell by her soft quite voice (not normal) that she still is feeling pretty bad. Here is a picture of her with her little girl who was in Grace's class this year.




The rest of the weekend went like we thought. Saturday, Greg went with his parents to see Indiana Jones, and then the kids and I met them for dinner at Long Horns for Brenda's Birthday. Then on Sunday we went to Greg's sister's for a cookout and birthday cake. Monday we went to the pool for a few hours and then had a calm day at home. The kids enjoyed the pool, Collins loved that Star 94 was there. He was dancing like crazy in the water! : ) Hopefully next weekend will be less eventful. Although, it is not looking like it will be. I am going to dinner and movie with the girls Friday night, then we have a kids fishing contest at my parents neighborhood, then the last dance class before the recital, then Henley's(grace's friend) 5th Birthday Party. Then on Sunday we have Greg's family reunion in Ellijay from 10-5 and then my Mom's birthday party Sunday evening. My head is spinning already. On top of all of that Jennifer should be home from the Hospital on Sat. or Sun., so I need to cook a few dinners for her freezer. Well, I better go and lay down! : )

Mother's Day, Birthdays, Father's Day... Oh My!

Well, it is the season for our Family Celebrations. Collins kicks off the season with his Birthday on May 1. Then in May we have Mother’s Day, Claire’s (niece) Birthday, Nana (Greg’s Mom) Birthday. Then in June we have Mom’s Birthday, Greg’s Birthday, Max’s (nephew) Birthday, and Father’s Day. Every weekend until July is booked with some sort of Celebration. It is a good thing that we all like cake!

Today is Claire’s Birthday, but we had the Party on Saturday evening. Grace and Claire are in the same Pre-School class, so she took her a card and daisy today. Lucky for Grace, Claire brought cupcakes! All in all it was very exciting for our average Wednesday at school. When I picked her up, she announced that she had a new friend, and she would ask him his name tomorrow. I guess today she just called him “hey you!”.


Claire’s Birthday Card! She loves High School Musical. She gets so embarrassed whenever someone talks about the movie, and now with the power of Photo Shop I can make her cover her eyes and giggle!


Claire and Max (one of her brothers)
My sister makes her kids Birthday cakes every year. They are always delicious.


Grace likes HSM also, so watching Claire open her presents was so exciting! When Grace gets excited she raises her shoulders over her ears and grins from ear to ear.

Collins' 2nd Birthday

Yesterday was Collins' 2nd birthday. We are having a party this weekend for him, but we did have cake, cards, balloons and a few gifts. We started the day heading out to Publix to get a cake, and then we ran to Kmart for a new hose. Exciting I know! We like to live on the edge! I like to make all of our newly planted trees and shrubs get to the point where they give up all hope for a drink of water, and then I buy a hose! After that fun it was like 10am, so we shot home for some Diego and Laundry, and of course being asked 102 times by Grace "Can we have cake now?". Then we had a surprise visit from Aunt Missy and Claire who stopped by with a musical Thomas the Train balloon. This of course was a huge hit with the kids. Then Grandma stopped by with sprinkle donuts and few gifts. Collins and Grace were both bouncing off the walls at this point so I was pretty sure that Collins wouldn't nap. Luckily, I was wrong. He fell asleep quick and slept for his usual 2 hours. I cut the front and back yard and put new pine straw in the planters. I still only teased the plants with the sight of the new hose, because I ran out of time. After Collins got up we had dinner and then went out back to play and wait for Daddy to get home. I watered all of the plants, and they all seemed very happy. After Greg got home it was cake time finally!!! We did some singing, candle blowing, and cake eating. Then it was bath time and new PJ's from Grandma. Thank you Grandma! And last but in my opinion certainly not least, BED TIME! The day was done around 8:30pm. Then Greg blasted out the door after I made one attempt to get him to help me clean up the kids toys, because my back was killing me from cutting the grass and laying pine straw. He said that he didn't have time, because he was headed to his friend Mark's house to watch "Alien vs Predator". So with the final bit of energy that I had left, I crawled around on the floor and picked up all the toys. Then I watched a little television and went to bed.

I wrote this blog two weeks ago, but I never posted it. I am definitely getting better, at least I wrote something. I am going to try to add some pictures from the Birthday Festivities!

Enjoy, and I will write more later!