Baby News!

No, we're not pregnant. But my brother and his wife are!

(They realized they spelled Christmas wrong after the fact...still cute though!)

They told all of the family today! We were all holding hands and having our Sunday lunch prayer, and little did we know that when Dad said "Amen" we would look up and see a message on their shirts!! So surprising! What a cute way to tell us! Dave's wife Sarah is due December 23rd and we are all so very excited.

Today was also Father's Day! It was a good day. Dad had a great time and Dave really thought it was a special one since he is almost a daddy himself. Here are a few pictures of Dad with his gifts.

We had a blast and really enjoyed being with the whole family.

So I need some help. Does anyone know how to customize your blog a little better? For example, I wanted a background of my own, one that wasn't from the few I can choose from on here. Can you tell me how to do that? That would be great. Also, can you explain to me on how to create a list of link's to other people's blogs that will appear on my blog? That would also be great.

Ok, that's all the questions I have for now.

Quick Post

It's been a while since my last post. I apologize to all five of you who read this blog...which makes me want to address something...

Would anyone else like to follow my blog? Come on, you! You know you want to. I've recently found some friends blogs, and have added them to the blogs I follow. I just wanted a few more followers myself.

Summer has arrived, and we are enjoying every minute of it that we can. Our back yard and patio are looking fabulous, (will post a picture soon) and we have nightly popcicle dates together. Daniel loves popcicles. We talk about our day, discuss future plans for the house and our lives, tell each other the joke that is on our popcicle stick, and enjoy all the work we have put into our yard. Speaking of our yard...

We have a vegetable garden! We're growing tomatoes, jalepenos, okra, broccoli, and strawberries. So far we have enjoyed a few ripe strawberries. Two jalepenos are almost ready to be "harvested", and we've got an explosion of little green tomatoes everywhere. As far as the okra and broccoli go, well, nothing's happening with them so far except plant growth. I guess that's a good thing though. I am really looking forward to the day where I can make actual garden fresh salsa.....ahhh....OH and we have herbs too! Cilantro, garlic chives, lavendar, mint, chocolate mint, and pinnaple mint.

I will leave it at that for now. More to come later this week!

Spring? With snow?

What is up with this weather! I cannot stand it when it starts to get nice and warm and things are greening up, just so it can snow again. Grr. We had to cover our flower bed in the front because some of the plants had already started to come back and start growing. Better safe than sorry!

I've been super busy with school lately. I had my first mid term on the 20th (Biology) and I'm just glad it's over. Didn't do so well...but that's neither here nor there. (..what does that even mean?...) I took that day off because we were heading to Branson for the weekend! So I took my test at 9 am, ran home, and we were out the door by 11! We got all the way to Garfield when Daniel realized we left our tickets to Silver Dollar City at home! We were going there the next day with his entire family! So we turned around to go back home and get them. Good thing, because we got there and I found all of Daniel's clothes hanging on the closet door. He had left them and wouldn't have had any clothes in Branson!

We had a blast though. It rained all day on Saturday while we were in SDC but we still had a great time. Sunday we met my parents at the malls and shopped a while before heading home. Here are some photos of SDC!

It's Been a Long Time

Sorry for the blogging delay, but I haven't been able to sit down long enough to post a new blog! There's been a lot going on. FIRST THINGS FIRST! We lost our camera during the Christmas holidays! So that means when the ice storm hit, we didn't get any photos of it! I was sad. Thankfully, we recently found it and it happened to be right where Daniel said it would be: at his sister's house. Thank goodness because that saved us about $200. Secondly, right after the ice storm my dad was in an accident with a tree. I apologize for not updating you earlier, but he is doing well! He's not totally back to normal but he is making progress. He's still got some pain but he is taking medication for it. I took a picture of him this past Sunday while he was sitting in his chair!
I am very glad he is recovering. He even went to church for the first time since the accident! Hooray!

Next is school. School has been tough this semester. I am taking my first online class and it happens to be Biology. It's weird and I'm always afraid I'm going to forget to turn something in. I'm a bit anxious about the two exams we have. (Mid-Term and Final) Western Civilization has been a blast! I love that class and I really enjoy the information we are being taught, so it's super easy for me to retain all that for the tests. So far I have taken two quizzes (100% and 80%) and one exam (today) and I feel like I did great on the exam. I need to study up more for the next quiz and get that grade back up but I think it will be easy.

Last Wednesday and Thursday Daniel was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on a business trip. It was the first time he was away and I had to stay at the house alone. It wasn't a big deal until I got ready to go to sleep at night. I don't like being alone at night now. I ended up sleeping with just about every light in the house on. I don't know why, but it made me feel safer. This didn't help me sleep any better though. I was exhausted from Wednesday on! Soooo tired. I ended up making him a two layer red velvet cake with white chocolate cream cheese icing right before he got home. And I went ahead and did a double batch and made cupcakes for work since we were having a food day that Friday. They were a hit. The cake is FANTASTIC! He brought me home a t-shirt and all is well now.

Now for the biggest news.....the Friday before his trip (2/6) after work we were supposed to go get groceries. He was really wanting to leave so we hurried down the road. He told me he wanted to go ahead and get my valentine's day present...which I didn't think I was getting one..?! We kind of decided not to do gifts! Anyway, he pulled the car into the parking lot at AT&T and we went inside and got me an iPhone!! HOORAY! I couldn't believe it! Needless to say, it's the coolest piece of technology I have ever laid hands on. They threw in a free pink protecting sleeve thing since we bought a car charger for it! See!

It's pretty cool. Daniel loves playing word games and sudoku on it, and I love playing drawing games and taking pictures with it. He's a sweet guy for getting it for me.

So I think that about covers it for now. Enjoy these last few weeks of winter! I cannot wait to blog about our Spring planting!!!

What a day

As much of you know we had a big ice storm hit Northwest Arkansas this week. There has been ice everywhere and on everything and MANY MANY trees have been destroyed because of it. Many people have been trapped inside their homes with trees blocking their driveways. Well, today I got a phone call from my mom that a tree had fallen on my dad as he was trying to clean it up and the music leader at our church was taking him to the hospital. He works at our church and he was trying to cut down a tree that had fallen on the fence. We're not totally sure on exactly what happened, but the tree managed to hit him in the chest, the side of his neck, and it caused him to double over in a way that damaged his back. I immediatley left work to meet them there. After several hours at the hospital they discovered that he had a broken sternum, two broken vertebre and a contusion on his lung. By this time everyone in our family (plus the pastor and his wife) were in the waiting room. He is doing better now but was in a tremendous amount of pain for a while. He can't really move very much and is dependent on someone else to take care of him. Mom is having to feed him since he cannot really lift his arms. They said it would take about 6 weeks for him to recover so my mom is going to have her hands full for a while. He is still in pain but the have given him some Morphine and it has helped. He was able to have normal conversations with us somehow, I thought that the drugs would make him loopy but they didn't. He did really well. He told us that after it happened he just laid on the ground for 5-10 minutes and calmed down, then got up and walked into the church to get help.

Please pray that the pain will subside and for a speedy recovery.

My Day Off

I had a fantastic day today! I took the day off from work to celebrate my birthday weekend.

8:30am
I went to NWACC to try and sell one of my books back. They wouldn't give me a refund because it "came with another book" so I had to sell them back together. Poo.

9:30am
I stopped at the Crossover branch to visit my old work family. It was so nice to see everyone. It had been about 5 months since I'd seen them!

11:00am
I went to pick up my brother at his house. We went and picked up my mom from work and the three of us went to Chili's for lunch! (And yes, I did use one of my coupons! Free Molton Chocolate Cake and Ice Cream!) After that we took Mom back to work, and we went shopping! We went to JC Penny's, Sally's Beauty, and 3 consignment shops! I got a cute little cardigan, some sweat pants, and a cool thermal thing for my flat iron. You can slip it on your hot flat iron and throw it in a drawer, bag, suitcase and it won't melt anything nearby. Dave found some good deals too, and then on my way home (5:30pm) I stopped at Gordman's and bought a purse for $7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND they wouldn't even let me use my coupons because it was already on sale! But still.....$7.

It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed spending time with my brother.

Happy Birthday to me!

No topic

Well, Christmas was a blast, and Daniel and I decided we miss it now. We were both getting ready for work this morning talking about how we wish it were Christmas again. From January 2 until Spring it seems boring, cold, depressing, and it drags on and on. I'm excited about Spring time already.

I wanted to thank my friend Jenni for sharing some very valuable information in her blog. She informed her readers that she had signed up for several E-clubs online. In case you aren't sure what this is, (like I was at first) I'll give you some examples. She wrote that she had signed up at Arby's website, and they sent her a coupon for a free mint chocolate shake thing just for signing up!!! (not sure of the exact name) Well, I took her advice and signed up for as many e-clubs as I could find. So far here are all the coupons I have received.

SONIC-
choice of a FREE regular Tots
a regular CreamSlush® Treat or a medium drink (birthday)
one free item from the value menu

GORDMAN'S-
20% off any single item
$5 off next purchase (birthday)
15% off any single item (just for signing up)

APPLEBEE'S-
Free dessert shooter (birthday)

CHILI'S-
free order of chips and queso with a purchase of any entree

ARBY'S-
Free medium Dr. Pepper with any purchase
and of course the free Mint Chocolate shake for signing up.

I had signed up in December, so this is pretty impressive. Also, my birthday is this month so I'll probably be getting more soon! (YAY!) Jenni, this was an awesome idea and tell Scott that you are the smartest person I know. Imagine how much money you could save, everyone? Now, you have to expect that your email inbox will be fuller than normal, but it really is alot of fun getting the emails because most of them have had coupons for free stuff! Also, I am a coupon user so this is right up my alley.

Now, after talking about free food from Sonic and Arby's, here are my plans for 2009! Again Jenni, I agree with you 100% about not calling them "resolutions", but instead calling them "goals." I don't really have many because if I have too many, I'll be overwhelmed. I am currently in school so a current goal I have is to do well and continue to take classes until I at least get my associates degree. Another one of mine is a very common resolution that 90% of the world will share with me......get in shape. Now, this is not just one goal for one reason. I have learned that if I am going to do something, I have to schedule an event that will be considered as my deadline for this goal to be met, otherwise I cannot do this event. In 2007 I had my wedding in June to push me to diet. (by the way, dieting is not a goal of mine...eating better-yes, dieting-no) Now, this year I have a few "deadlines" to help me out.
1. We are planning on taking our vacation the last week of September this year. Currently we are planning to go to Glacier National Park in Montana. I am SO PUMPED about this! Now, I have to drop a few pounds before our vacation, because we are planning on hiking and stuff.....so that's a pretty good goal if you ask me.
2. Whenever we have kids (could be 1 year 0r 7...I have no idea, don't get your hopes up) I want to be in very healthy shape. I have read that women who are overweight when they become pregnant are more likely to be fat and have a horrible labor and all kinds of stuff that is scientifically accurate but I can't think of them all now.....anyway, the point is I want a good pregnancy when the time comes, and I want to have a better chance of having an easier labor and all those things that can be good because I'm healthy. Pretty good reason. (also, I want to be healthy when I'm 70 too...)
3. This is the one I am really excited about. I decided that some time before our vacation I am going to run in a 5k race! Daniel and I want to do it together, but I have to tell myself I'm doing it with or without him. (it would be great if he ran it too...) So, if you know of any that will be happening after June then let me know! I bet it will take me that long to get ready to run 3.1 miles.

There you have it. This turned out to be rather long, and I apologize but I was on a roll.

Have a great 2009!