A Real Day of Rest

Today has been really relaxing and I'm so excited about it.

I just have chilled. I haven't cleaned (well I picked up a little), I haven't done laundry, I've honestly just chilled.

Jon got up this morning and made Lyric and I breakfast of fresh strawberries and bananas.. yum!

Then he had to go downtown to an immigration appointment, and around this time Lyric should be going down for her first nap. Well she hasn't been taking a very long afternoon nap, so Christina and I decided to cut out the morning nap and make her just have one nap a day. Well she gets so tired in the morning still, so around 10:30-11:00 she was fussy and crying and wanted her pappy (Passy). So I called my sister and she sent down the troops to keep her occupied :) My nieces Ashlyn, Madysen and Kadyn came over and kept Lyric up till 1pm :) We ate lunch together and they played with the Little People, and colored and we watched Princess Bride. Parents of only children totally understand the fabulousness of having other kids over to occupy your child. You just havd no idea.

I just now put Lyric to bed and hopefully she'll have a good long nap that will coincide with my good long nap :)

No shabbat meal tonight as my parents are in DC, so I am hoping that we literally don't do anything all day and all night. I would be fine not even leaving the house :) I feel like I just need a major recoop time and life will become peachy.

Last night I literally woke up 4 times to pee. I am having some major constipation problems and I think it's making my bladder hold even less pee than normal. That was SO annoying! But then I keep reminding myself it's only going to get worse from here... :)

My dearest me (dear meat) friend Missie is having her baby boy today! She went in this morning and I can't wait to hear all the details, and yes she will dish all those details because she's cool like that :) Her blog always makes me laugh :)
So good luck and congrats Missie!

So off to watch more Law and Order SVU. I'm in season 3 now, and I've already seen season 6 and 7, so only 2 more seasons to go :)

I hope everyone has a relaxing/productive/fun day today!

Shabbat Shalom!

First of Many

I know, I know. I have been a horrible blogger as of late.
I can't help it! Would you like to take a look at my weekly calendar? it's nuts. I'm doing something like every night of every week.
Though I can't complain all that much because this weekend, I had my first of many long weekends. Yes that's right. My work schedule changed to 30 hours a week and now I don't work Fridays.
How amazing is that! It was so nice to fall asleep on Thursday and know that Friday morning your alarm wouldn't go off (though your 1 year old alarm and your baby dancing on your bladder would). Jon woke up when he heard the baby, I guess out of routine and got her up and fed her breakfast and I didn't wake up till after 9.
I then proceeded to do a boat load of laundry, which has hence found itself on the floor of the guest bedroom.
I also didn't get our house cleaned... and to many of you that doesn't seem that big of a deal, but we are now into the 3rd week without the floors/bathrooms being cleaned... it was not ok. But once again, we were busy all weekend.
Friday the Frederick's flew in from Cyprus to help prepare for Ryan and Tiff's wedding. We also celebrated Norm's birthday that night too.
Here are a few pics:


Praying over the birthday boy :)


Ashlyn Rose


Dad singing with the birthday pudding


Norm orchestrating his praise (please note he is not 55, but 51, however my mom could only find 2 fives)


Judah is now 6 months old, he is getting SO big!


Ry and Lyly


Maddy showing her braid


Landon, Austin and Hannah


Lynn and my mom


Court (looking oh so busty), Christina and moi!


Then on Saturday I finally cashed in on my Mother's Day present, and I got a "I survived the 1st trimester" pregnancy massage. OMG, it was glorious. I did not want it to end. I still have enough left on my gift card to get another massage, so I'm thinking I will wait till November then have a "I survived my 2nd trimester" massage. I get relaxed just thinking about it. sigh.
After that, we quickly had to leave for Ryan and Tiff's house in Dallas where they were moving in. When we got into Dallas, we discovered that 75 was shut down. So it took us forever to get to their house. Lyric was getting bored, so we stayed entertained by making silly faces.




She is getting so big!


I was of no help, but I did play house nanny (my sister and all her kids were there). We played hide and go seek and let me tell you. Lyric is the worst hider ever. She follows me and stands right in front of me smiling saying "mama" and pointing. I would be like, "go away" and she would just laugh. She totally kept giving my awesome hiding places away.
They also have a cute swing in the back that Lyric had fun on:



Sunday I actually got out in the sun for a bit. But I realized why I'm so white this summer. it's because I hate to be hot! And you can't go outside without getting hot.
We did find a way to ensure that my daughter does not drown in the pool. We put a floatie swim bathing suit on, with floaties. She resembles that kid from "A Christmas Story", you know the little brother Randy that has to wear that snow get up and he can't move or put his arms down? Ya, that's Lyric, but she has the summer version. But she doesn't go under and she can float around the pool without me holding her (or being in a floatie) which is what she wants because she thinks she's 6 and can swim by herself.

Anyways, this weekend was so nice. I can't wait to have a repeat this weekend! Working 30 hours is rockin' my world! :)

Back from Internet Silence

Wow. This is really unusual of me, but I haven't even so much as LOOKED at a computer since Friday. I'm so not joking, like I have no idea where my laptop even is (though it's somewhere in the house- I haven't actually looked for it yet).
But you know what I was all weekend?? SICK!
OMG, I'm never getting pregnant again! I know I said this with Lyric, but I just can't do it! I told Jon he needed to run off and get a vasectomy while I still remembered the AWFULNESS of morning sickness! All I want to do all day long is throw up! And this weekend, I puked each morning. Even this morning. I puked. I even puked at work, and that is AWFUL to puke in a public restroom. I swear someone had just done their business in that toilet that I had my head in. Which of course only made me puke more.
However, one semi-cute thing has come out of this. Now my daughter Lyric comes with me into the restroom and while I am up-chucking, she puts her hand over her mouth and makes gagging noises. It's quite adorable and I even manage a smile between heaves! Even after I'm done, she keeps up her performance. She wants to be just like mommy! :)
The one thing I need to keep reminding myself is that it's not NEAR as bad as it was with Lyric. My worst time this pregnancy is when I wake up and when I'm going to bed, but the day is semi-manageable. I've only thrown up in the morning so far.
Which brings me to my 2nd point. I've decided that I'm pregnant with twins. Why, you may ask? Well let me tell you. I don't think I can do this whole nausea thing again, so if I am pregnant with twins I am going to bet that we wouldn't have anymore, as long as at least one of those twins are a boy. SO yes. I am putting the thoughts out there that I am pregnant with twins so as to not have to go through this again. Hey, it could happen, My grandmother was a twin and I have twins on both sides of my family (though none on Jon's) I know, that's a HUGE stretch, but until my doctor tells me otherwise, I am going to keep on believing that I am having twins, thus this is the last time I will ever feel evil morning sickness again. Whatever gets me through the moment :)

Well as you can imagine, I didn't really do a lot this weekend. We had a great family shabbat on Friday though. It was SO good to get the family all back together. We had a really awesome time of prayer over eachother which was really encouraging.
My camera was running out of batteries, so here's all I got, and some of these are from the iPhone.

Two of the most adorable girls on the planet


We continued the head shaving trend with my little brother Preston






We kept Preston's hair like this to freak out Abby


Little Lyric


Family Shabbat- it doesn't get better than this:


Lyric and I


Family fun








Preston shaving off his Jewish curls/Mohawk


At one point in the evening the two year olds (Kadyn, Korbin and Saeler) decided to all sit on the piano bench together and play. It was SO cute as they were dancing and laughing. Of course, I didn't get the cutest part on camera... it always works like that doesn't it. By the time you get the camera, the cute-ness is all but gone. But I did get a video:


The two year olds playing the piano:



Then on Saturday we went bridesmaid dress shopping with Tiff and Sunday I did NOTHING all day. Like seriously nothing. Only getting off the couch to pee. I laid there like a dead fish as I felt HORRIBLE all day. But Jon and I ended the night by watching Dexter Season 1. which was fun.

Well anyways, I've been working on FAA compliance stuff all day, and need to get back to it.

Later people.

Shabbat Shalom!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and peaceful Shabbat tonight!

We will finally be celebrating it as a WHOLE family again for the fist time in 5 weeks! I'm SO thrilled!

I've been wanting some challah like none other!!! Yippee!!!!

It's FRIDAY!

I can't remember a time where I've wanted my work week to be over so bad. Nothing awful is happening, and it's not like I hate it, I just really was ready for the weekend, like on Wednesday!
I kept trying to think of a good reason to take today off... but I just couldn't come up with one and didn't feel like burning a precious day off for no good reason!

SO, ya. Here I am, in the last moments of my work week! Yippee!

Last night was Saeler's birthday party and the night was TOTALLY cut short due to the imminent threat of thunderstorms, hail and tornado's. It didn't even end up being that bad, but the party ended quickly and I felt so awful that we all bailed. I mean, I wasn't even scared. We should have stayed longer, but I think we got caught up in the mass exodus of the evening. A group went over to Court's house to hide in the basement. Well before the mass exodus, we had a great time eating pizza and hanging out. There are a lot of babies around here! Goodness! It's fantastic! I love that my daughter has so many kids her age to play with and I love that I am so blessed to have Christina watch her while I'm at work. It's so nice to be able to totally trust that your daughter is being cared for and loved on when I can't be there.

I have pictures from the party, but they are on my camera, which is in the possession of my sister, who is in San Antonio with her family... so no pictures for the entire weekend. What on earth am I going to do??!

I hate that she left without me. She will learn that she will never want to go on vacation without me again. It's way too boring to leave me behind.
And I'm going to figure out a vacation to go on and not invite her just so she can see how it feels! It's going so awesome too! Waaaaay fun, and you're not invited Courtney! So there!

Tonight at Shabbat we are having a bunch of people over who are going to Israel with my parents in May. It should be fun. I don't have time to cook anything so I'm just bringing my chicken spaghetti leftovers. It was a bit on the cheesey side, but what's wrong with that? Huh?!

Well I need to wrap up the day. Much love to everyone and Shabbat Shalom!
Pesach is tomorrow night, so remember to say a prayer, thanking God for all he's brought you out of in your life.

Much love!

Purim

Hello everyone!

I'm getting off work early today and I'm so excited because tonight we are celebrating the festival of PURIM!
It's the Jewish festival which celebrates when Esther saved the Jewish people from annilation. I have a funny story I wrote about it if you care to read it. I'll post it later! :)
Anyways, tonight at Shabbat, everyone is dressing up in costumes! I think the Vandeputs are going to be Pirates! :) I think I'm going to make Lyric a boy pirate and draw a beard on her! :) hahaha!

So I'm off work in about 10 minutes, but just wanted to wish everyone a fantastic PURIM!

I'll post mucho hilarious pics later!

Shabbat Shalom!!!

Pictures From Shabbat!

We had a fantastic night at Shabbat this past Friday. It was Tiffani's birthday and so we all got together and celebrated! Lot's of fun! It took me forever to get these uploaded because Brad (who took almost all these pictures-- click HERE for his site) put up a blog and because I already saw most of these, I just mentally checked it off like I had already posted a blog about it.
So anyways, the night was so gorgeous, we spend the first part of the evening outside letting all the kids play.

Lyric and Tiff checking things out


Korbin flying


Saeler playing tball


Lyric playing tball


Korbin was the mac daddy that night. Here he is hitting on Lyric


Then Kadyn


But he doesn't really like younger women


But he loves him some Kadyn!


But how could he choose Kadyn over this gorgeous girl!


Racing with the girls


We always end up having a jam session of some sort


Dad playing the mandolin


Aaron on guitar


Korbin playing the piano


The girls dancing


Lyric praising Jesus


We had ourselves a regular little praise session! :)

Us girls


My beautiful nieces



Ryan praying a birthday prayer over Tiff


The kids table


Lyric in mid-run. She thinks she has to run everywhere now, but ends up falling... silly girl.


and she is obsessed with this backpack. She carries it around all over my parents house


Tiff blowing out the candles


Saturday night we went out for Aaron's birthday, so I'll post pictures of those once I get home.

Much love!

Shabbat Shalom!

Tonight we are finally having a family shabbat. It seems that one thing after another has come up and it feels like we haven't had shabbat all together in centuries!
I really miss it when we don't get together, so I'm super excited about tonight. My mom wanted me to bring hot sauce, and it just so happens that last night I was wanting some good hot sauce so I made a huge thing of homeade hot sauce, so I'll bring that tonight!
We have the whole group back together tonight: Benjamins-Vandeputs-Watkins-Fredericks-Shulls and Smiths!

Woohoo! I'll make sure to bring my camera...

Oh and can I just mention that I am SO glad it's Friday! I am really ready for a day off!!

I finally got a video of Lyric walking, but I can't upload here for some reason, so just go here to see her walking up a storm!

Oh, funny story. I got a call from Jon this morning that Lyric had called 911. I had given her my old cell phone and of course she could really play with it because it didn't have a chip in it. So I dug through our file cabinet and found an old pay as you go phone chip that Jonathan had gotten right when he moved here. So I put it in and have been letting Lyric play with that. She thinks it is so much fun and plays with it all the time, even when playing with other toys, she'll still have that one in her hand or right by her. Well Jon said this morning that she called the emergency line and was on with them for over a minute before he heard the woman's voice... "hello, hello, are you all right". Apparently, even if it is an old phone, you can still call emergency numbers on it.

Lyric was heart broken when Jon took it away. Any tips on how to get her to be able to use the phone without worrying about it calling the emergency line? If I don't have any chip in it at all, when you turn it on, the only option is to an emergency line, so I can't give it to her without a chip...

Anyways, any tips on that would be helpful, because she really likes to play with it.

Well we are going out to lunch with a co-worker who is currently on maternity leave, so I better keep working on this project, because I'm sure it will be a long lunch.

Everyone have a GREAT shabbat!!