How did I get so lucky?

So I some how was rewarded for my hubby's accident. We were lucky enough to get an AMAZING deal from one of my closest friends and got this mini-van. That's right! I am now a "soccer mom"! This is my sweet little baby now! (my old car)
Is'nt she cute! and this is my new ride! So pretty! It does some crazy things too! I have only had to call my friend twice now (in a matter of 30 minutes)to figure stuff out. Like how does the radio shut off? It kept right on playing after I turned the ignition key off. Apparently it shuts off when you open the car door. I guess everyone gets to hear me jammin' to Veggie tales now!Brent is getting my car and although it isn't new it will be exciting for him to have a little bit more of a manly car! He won't have to cram his really, really tall self into a car the size of a clown car. YAY! For us!

Thankful for my husband being safe!

I got a phone call today and new instantly something was wrong. It was "Gina, Gina, I was in an accident and my chest hurts". Fear, pure fear! I honestly don't know what I'd do without Brent. My best friend. My one true love. The love of my life. Brent was driving 55 MPH and a guy turned right in front of him. It's like hitting a wall! Not only that they guy had a daughter about age four in the front seat in NO CAR SEAT! Thankfully she is okay with only a head bump. The car is obviously totaled and the most exciting news is that the guy was un-insured! Woo! Hoo! If you didn't get that, that was sarcasm.
There's my cutie all dressed...well...in a dress!
Here's a look you get why you say a pretty girl in a dress!
He's home resting now...thankfully!

Two things I regret and one thing I didn't have to

2010....WooHoo...Yippee...YAY....Not so much! I am seriously not trying to start my what I think is the first post of the year off like that but I am finding it so hard not to. Let me vent, just vent! I'm going to start by going back to right after Christmas and the passing of Brent's Grandfather. The day after Christmas Brent's mom was in town to visit and it was great. The day after that how ever was not. We had received a phone call that Grandpa had passed away and we all scrambled on what to do. Does Brent's mom fly back up? Does Brent and his mom just go and fly up together? Do we all go together including the kids? Every thing was just so last minute and we decided to leave the next day and drive a straight 16 hours to Pennsylvania. But before we were going to make that trip Brent had to drive and hour and a half over to my parents house to drop off Elvis our dog which has stayed with them numerous times. We made the trip to Pa. and there was lots a people, lots or family, lots of food, lots of stress and a family that is amazing about not showing their feelings and capable of crying when no one is looking. Not being immediate family I felt a bit useless although I felt like Grandpa was as if he had always been my own. I think the hardest thing for me was to sit and occasionally get a glance of Grandma sitting every so sweetly in a chair in a quiet room by herself just starring off. I kept wondering what she was thinking. Yes, I'm sure she was thinking about Grandpa but what about Grandpa. 60 years of marriage what one specific time was she thinking of exactly. It made me want to cry. My first regret is that every year we go up for hunting season and this year we didn't do to a new move and finances. This is the time when we get to see Grandma and Grandpa and this year we didn't. So I regret the decision we made even if it was the right one.
When we got home I didn't even un-pack. I had a day and a half and we were to be heading to my parents house for the weekend to pick up Elvis. Brent was to leave from there to Mobile Alabama for a business trip for a week. The day before I was to head over my folks called and said Elvis ate up their throw rug and he wasn't well. What possessed my dog to do that is beyond me. He is almost 9 years old and is not a destructive dog at all. I tried to get some kind of idea of how bad off he was and asked if my father would take him to the vet for an X-ray to which he did. The vet couldn't see much and said he wasn't quite sure. Unfortunately they didn't have an ultrasound machine. When I arrived the next day I was in the house for 10 seconds and scooped him up and raced him to the vet because he was for sure ill and going to die. They allowed me to sit if on the surgery since I used to work for another vet there into town that was a friend of his. The process is amazing and wonderful that we have people that make life choices like this to save animals and people. I actually took photo's of the whole process and took photo's of what was in his system and he confirmed that he would have died be the next day. Elvis never got better after that and went back in for another surgery and the day after that (yesterday) I had to take him to the vet and put him down. I couldn't even breath and I couldn't be there while they did it. I feel selfish that I didn't stay by his side but I couldn't even breath. Even on deaths door through my tears he'd try to comfort me with his cold nose up against my face. I kissed his head and left.I then went to pick the kids up and headed home! After a long, long week of being at someone else's house with two kids going stir crazy, a husband out of town for a week and tending to a sick dog and oh! I had to deal with food poisoning! 24 hours of pure awfulness and that was like nothing I had to ever had to endure. I'm not entirely sure what my second regret is exactly. Do I regret not taking him to a kennel? Do I regret not just staying home? Do I regret not just holding and petting him one last time instead of rushing him out of the house. I do regret getting mad at him for constantly following me to the bathroom. There just wasn't enough room for both of us in there. He was 87 pounds! He was my first baby. Besides Maka that passed away of Cancer a month after Sawyer was born. Elvis was one of my first babies almost 9 years!
Before all this was going on I did have plans to go to Destin on that very weekend that I went to pick Elvis up. My friend was getting married. This is no ordinary friend you see. Brad was my maid of honor for my wedding. No I did not dress him up in a dress. We were married on the beach and he wore a Hawaiian style shirt. I met brad almost 16 years ago I think. He is truly an amazing person and a amazing friend. Obviously capable of alot if he has been friends with me for so long! I swayed back and forth on the decision of whether to go to his wedding. I'm not quite sure why either. I never met his soon to be bride or if I did we had met briefly some odd 15 years ago and maybe not in the best....hmmmmm... shall I just say light. I wasn't swaying on my decision out of ugliness or jealousy or anything other than not knowing where I stood still in Brad's life. He was going to have a wife now and I know that if my husband had a close friend that was a girl that I would not be having it at all. Our past was silliness and fun. It was speeding through town listening to the Gap band. It was late night BBQ rib eating. It was 4am drunken swims in the ocean. It was him holding me as I cried after numerous break ups and after my divorce. It was us sitting in the back yard of the town house talking about our past and our lives. It was his first tattoo and me getting the same thing in the same spot so we had something ever lasting. We didn't need a tattoo to show our ever lasting friendship. Now that I am typing it seems as if he did more for me then me him. So... Brad thank you! I'm so glad that we went to the wedding. I realized the love he had for her as I watched him stare at her as she talked. As he teared up when she teared up. I watched his thumb rubbing her thumb as they held hands in comfort and in love. I cried. I cried. Did I cry because it was all so strange or because I felt old or because I was truly happy for him. I am so happy for him. The next day on facebook I had friended her and my happiness grew stronger. I watched as her posts throughout the day were I love my husband and I am so happy. I am so glad that I went and that I did not have to regret not going to my best friends wedding!

Time for school!

 

So I have never been one of those mom's that went around saying to others "Look what my kid can do" But today I am! As I was washing dishes when Memphis says to me "Mom dog is spelled D-O-G Right?" I wiped my hands and walked over nodding yes and low and behold I see this piece of paper! He had already spelled horse and had just finished spelling dog!!! He just turned four in October and he has never had any interest in anything that included writing, drawing or coloring until two weeks ago.I just couldn't believe it! I wish I could say it was because of his awesome mom and dad teaching him but knowing my luck he learned it from Barney or Curious George or something! Either way.....Woo! Hoo! Look what my kid can do!!!!

This is for Luke

I wanted to get some pictures posted from Christmas but things just didn't go as planned. It was a wonderful Christmas and we got lots of fun stuff. My parents came over Christmas Eve and stayed the night. It's always so much fun to watch the excitement on the kiddo's faces when they see that Santa came. My parents left Christmas night because my mother in-law was due in early the next morning for a visit all the way from Pennsylvania.I was hoping for a great visit with hopes of her relaxing a bit since she had just took on the task of caring for Grandma and Grandpa. If you seen my previous post about grandpa being ill and in the hospital. He was doing better yet his lungs were never going to get better. They had decided to put him in the nursing home down the road to get that much needed around the clock care. The day before my mother in-law headed down they transferred him over and he was settled in just fine. Anyways the visit was going great and we had decided after a long day of rest and hanging around the house that we'd take a 2 hour trip over to Albany Georgia to an aquarium. when we arrived it was a bit frustrating. We sat at the pay window what felt like forever. A long game of who's on first and what's on second! All we had asked is if they gave a military discount. We wanted to see the movie (kinda like IMAX) of the dinosaurs. The kid (maybe 25) not only forgot to ring up one of the kids granted that could have been our mix up to but he didn't add the movie payment. My mother in-law had numerous payment slips now. We finally finished paying and by the look on all of our faces we were quite exhausted or maybe a bit annoyed from that whole process. But quite honestly who wouldn't be in this rush, rush, rush fast paced world. We headed in to the exhibit and it was great fun. Fish every where and lizards and birds! We were about to head to the third floor when we received the phone call. The only thing that I had prayed for before Ann (my mother in-law) came to visit was not to get this call. I was thinking about it the other day that I didn't even pray for her safety flying like I usually do. I just prayed that Grandpa wouldn't pass away while she was gone....and he did. We were walking up a ramp and for some reason in my gut when I heard the phone ring I new.Maybe this is how it was suppose to be. Maybe she was not suppose to be in town or even there. But I am sure in some way she feels guilt. Grandpa was an amazing person and it's amazing that a Grand father IN-LAW can feel like as if he was my own my entire life. I'm not good with words and what exactly I should have said. But, we did in deed start trying to figure out what we should do and it meant leaving the aquarium. We had only been there for 30 min. or so ...I think. I had told Ann that I was going to ask for her money back ( it was super pricey). I just dreaded the fact that I was going to have to talk to the guy. You know the one from before. Just getting in was a ridiculous process and here I was going to try and get money back. So I headed to the window and he could see we all had been crying and were visibly shaken. I explained the situation and he got his supervisor. Whew! Thank goodness! The process still takes a bit of time so I talked with "the guy" who's name is actually Luke. As we talked he stopped mid sentence and said "I have a prayer book" nothing more just that. I told him that was great. He then asked if he could have Ann's name and Grandma's name to add to the prayer book. He then explained that he had read the book the Purpose Driven and how that and other things had changed his life and he lives for God! The other things were heart breaking and humbling and made me want to curl up and cry. See Luke actually had a Brain Tumor and then had two strokes which made him go into a coma for six months. They were going to pull the plug and he went on from there. He explained that he had to learn to talk, walk and eat again and is still a bit slow but said he had so much love for his Lord! He then came walking out of his glassed in room to give his condolences and hug everyone. I still wanted to cry. Cry for the lose of a great man and cry for meeting one.

So this is snow?

 

A Merry Christmas it is...I made bread!

So I know that you think that I should be posting fabulous photo's of the "fam" and huge smiles of excitement from the kiddo's and I eventually will! But for now I wanted to post that I have mastered the "Weller rolls"! Woo! Hoo! Love you Grandma Weller! XOXO! Yes, one is missing cause we had to try them out! Tee! Hee! What?!?! You say you want a closer view of all that yummy-ness! Well than here you go!

So this is Christmas....

I feel like I am a hamster running in circles on that squeaky wheel! I know there is a million things I have to or need to get done! This morning I woke up (again not by choice) at 5 am and just couldn't believe that it's Christmas eve! Where did the month go? Anywho, I know I am not going to have time later to get some photo's up so wanted to post them now...yes...at 6:11am! We did some running around last weekend and had only a small list of errands to do. Starting with fixing the spare bedroom bed. I'd love to say I have no idea what happened to it or that the kids broke it by jumping on it. But, that is not the case...I sat on it! Well, actually I plopt down on it. Is that a word? Plop, plopped, plopt? Either way it was quite sad and maybe a tad bit of an eye opener. In my defense it's a home made bed, bed frame and head board! Yup! I'm going with that! Bad craftsman's ship! So anyways I wanted to get a few photo's of this past weekend posted because I have a feeling I'm not going to have that much time to do anything here in the next week or so. It was a pretty good low key weekend which is always nice! So we headed to Lowe's to pick up some wood to fix the bed and actually got there right when they had started their Lowe's kids craft making class. We decided to stay and do the craft with the kiddo's and it was great fun! We were making Pet treat keepers or at least that what they said they were suppose to be. I am not great at following directions and am a totally hands on or visual kind of person. I think Brent was leaning away from me so I couldn't peek at him and Memphis's "Pet treat keeper"! So mine...um...I'm mean Sawyers and mine ended up looking like an actual "pet treat keeper"! You may be saying to your self "Yes, you already said that and what is the difference between their (Brent and Memphis's) pet treat keeper and your pet treat keeper. Well see below...I think we just kinda gave up. Well after that we headed on over to Ace Hardware. Memphis asked if we could go to the MAN store and go look at all the dead stuffed animals. So that's just what we did! I'm not sure about anyone else's Ace Hardware but ours sells guns, ammo and has an outside shooting range! Simple and free entertainment for the boys! ALL THREE OF THEM!When we got home we decided to do a Christmas craft and that to was great fun but always stressful when they'd rather play with a tub full of glue then actually do the craft! Mom what can I glue now? Mom what can I glue now? Hmmmm? Your Mouth?!? Nah! I didn't say that but I'd wonder if they'd do it though. We ended our evening the same as usual with a little computer time for Memphis after the kiddo's bath. It always makes me laugh because that poor boy can't do anything with out his brother being right next to him. Sawyer just adores his big brother! As crazy as this month has been and as fast as it has flown by. It was nice to have a simple down time kinda weekend! If I don't get to do it later I want to tell everyone to have a Very Merry Christmas!

Christmas for the kids and fun with friends!

Wordless Wednesday: Grandad O. & Memphis...long ago!

My favorite time is also my saddest

The photo above is of Grandpa Weller. Grandpa Weller is Brent's grandpa but feels very much so like he is mine and as if he has been my entire life. I truly love and adore all my grand parent in-laws. I am also lucky to have married into an ENTIRE family that I love so much. I know that's not always the case with a lot of people. Right now Grandpa is in the ICU in Pennsylvania and of course we are sad that we can't just pop over to see him. Grandpa is almost in his 90's and has been married forever to grandma. I wish I could figure out how to work this darn scanner because I would have posted the sweetest photo of him and grandma on their anniversary. I have the photo on our fridge! we received an e-mail this morning from Brent's mom letting us know whats going on with him. I had previously stated in an older post about how Brent's mom had recently taken on the position of caring for Grandma and Grandpa and let them move into their house. Grandpa became ill maybe days after they moved in. I told Brent it's almost as if his mind and body new that grandma...the love of his life...was in good hands and now safe and being taken care of. Grandpa has ALWAYS been wide eyed and aware of everything at least until yesterday. He has now been talking about things like an airfield in Rhimersburg and smoke. Obviously, Grandpa was in the military! These times in my grand parents lives are my favorite times and they are my saddest times. My favorite because they are so often remembering things about their pasts and I get to learn so many things about them but it goes hand in hand with the fact that they are elderly and they aren't in a right state of mind.Dementia of some sort maybe.
This makes me actually think of my grandma. I was never a really great kid growing up and at young ages I was crazy naughty and fought alot with my brother and the teen years..well...that's a whole long drawn out story! I was never real close with my Grand mother on my dad's side and wasn't even sure she actually cared. When I married Brent later in my mid 20's I took Brent to Tennessee to meet her and by this time Alzheimer's had already kicked in pretty bad. She would repeat everything..alot! But, I got to hear amazing stories. My grand mother was CRAZY SMART and had a ton of degrees she also taught in Africa and wrote books that were published. I can only remember her watching one show my entire life and that was Jeopardy! To be fair I don't think that I truly appreciated her until later in life either. While we were there she told us a story of her in Alaska and bob sledding with sled dogs. She even pulled out photo's of the whole experience! Our visit was good and a bit short. While we were there we hit up the pink palace and the Memphis Zoo and of course Graceland! She only met Brent once and that was the last time I saw her but til the day she died she said how proud she was of me because we went to museums when we visited her and how much she adored Brent. She was proud of me and I am so thankful for her being so proud of me and as much as I wished that I had taken the time to see her again... I am good. I have this glorious image of her standing next to sled dogs like in the photo and great stories whether she meant to tell us or not.
We never got a chance to make it to Pa. for hunting season this year and that's when we usually get to see all of Brent's side of the family. We just moved to Alabama and we aren't financially stable enough to make the trip since the big move. We will be going up during the spring and have had the trip planned now for a while. I can't wait to tell Grandpa how much I love him and give him a hug. Of course Brent feels the same way. He has an amazing love and a truly amazing respect for Grandpa Weller. Please pray for his healing!

Yee Haw!

 

Making Cookies with grandma!

 

Obviously not my cookie!

 

So as I posted before we were heading to mom and dad's to do the annual cookie decorating. This was Brents masterpiece! Yes, by the way that is Deer blood he had made dripping from the arrow and I'm thinking the deer was someones pet by the silver collar it was wearing...Hmmm...maybe Santa's!

One for the "fam"! Beautiful brown eyed boy!

 

One for the "fam"! Sawyer's smile!

 

Don't touch, Don't touch, Don't touch!

 

This is the first year that Sawyer has been mobile and we have had a tree up. I'm exhausted just writing Don't touch! I have said this for a couple weeks straight now! He's just so darn cute!

Creepy little lady bugs!

 

So one more crazy new experience here in our new home of Alabama. All of a sudden we have lady bugs EVERY WHERE!!! Honestly there are like 30 in each window ledge of our house. Not on the outside either! I have no idea how they are getting in or where they came from. I have no idea if it's their "breeding season" or what. But, I do know that it's all male lady bugs because girl lady bugs aren't the pretty red and black ones. So I guess that throws out the whole breeding thing...I think?!?! Seriously where did they come from and why are they clinging to my window screens? It's not like the were in the house and screaming to get out now. They have to know how all one million of them got in. Memphis walks around with them on his hands and that's kinda creepy too. But, it's even worse when he tells me that he wants to take his "lady bug brother" to Walmart with him...to which he did! I later found him dead on the floor board of the car!