Shopping! Hobby or Obsession?

Before I begin I just wanted to give you all a heads up. Aaron is no longer Aaron. He asked me the other night, "Why did you change everyones name but mine?" I think he is feeling a little left out, so we will now refer to my loving husband as "Leonard". You ask and you shall receive.

Ok, now on to the fun stuff. I know everyone should have a hobby. Since I have had children and they consume most of my time people have told me, "you should find something you love doing and that you're good at. You need a hobby." Everyone needs to get away from reality every now and then and have an escape. Shopping is my escape, shopping is my hobby.

I know some would beg to differ. Some, I am not mentioning any names, Leonard , think it is more of an obsession. Good try on the whole Hobby bit, right? When I am not working, not caught up in planning any upcoming events, not at Church, or not playing with the kids, I am shopping. I shop online, in magazines, in stores, and sometimes while I'm sleeping in my dreams. That mostly consists of car shopping, but none the less, it is shopping. Problem? I think not!

I am a woman. Every woman likes to shop, right? The only thing on this earth I hate shopping for is bathing suits. I try not to get myself in positions that would call for that shopping trip. I kind of keep one bathing suit that I can wear no matter what size I am during those dreaded summer months. I am sure it is very appealing to others. Hopefully this year I will be so excited to shop for a new bathing suit for the first time in years. HOPEFULLY!

So, back to the lingering question, hobby or obsession? Leonard, Ellen and Hazel can attest to the fact that when I am shopping, it is rarely for myself. My hobby is to buy things for my children and others. It is like I can't stop. My 5-month old son has a closet full of shoes. Shoes, really? He is 5-months old. Where is he walking to? Ok, I think I am beginning to answer my own question asked above. I don't like where this is going. I am not even going to mention the drawers, closet and bow hanger of "pinks."

Ok, so now that I realize I might have an obsession, what is the first step? Admitting there is a problem? Not quite sure I am ready to do that. I still think I have a pretty good case on my hands. I do it all for others, so that makes it ok. That's it, I am the most selfless person I know and I use shopping to keep myself in check. Ah, that is the sound of sweet relief. For a moment there I was worried.

What is better than a selfless hobby? How can I stop being selfless? I mean, I would stop if I absolutely had to. I know there are people in this economy that can barely afford to keep food on the tables for their families. If I knew them, I would be the first one there with a shopping cart ready to fill to maximum capacity. I don't want to come off as materialistic or spoiled because I definitely am not. My kids, that is another question that I may or may not refuse to answer at this time. Have you met my daughter?

Have a great night and weekend. We are off the Austin tomorrow for the night. Be back on Sunday.

Toodles!

My Bleeding Heart for Babies

This morning on my drive in I was listening to my "morning show" on KSBJ. I am just about to turn out of the neighborhood and I hear, "Mike an Becky are in the operating room as we speak having their precious baby boy 10 weeks early." Let me back up a little. Mike is one of the morning show hosts and his wife, Becky, has been on bed rest for about 10 weeks with Pre-Eclampsia.

Right after I heard this news I just got this overwhelming bleeding heart for their family. I could not help but remember back to my 6 week scare. Their baby boy is only at 30 weeks gestation. He will be delivered prematurely. I know that God has his hand in this and I am faithful he will be just fine.

All of this talk makes me really think of a great friend of mine, "Charlotte", that has been in the hospital for 5 weeks now. Charlotte is expecting twin baby boys. About 5 weeks ago she was admitted due to those boys wanting to come out early and meet their Mommy. Charlotte is only 29 weeks pregnant and the doctors just aren't sure how much longer they will stay in utero.

I talk to Charlotte almost daily and let me tell you, she is so amazing! Of course she has hard days staring at those 4 walls, but who wouldn't? She knows that this hospital stay is what her boys need. She knows that she is where she is supposed to be, and around the doctors that have hers and her boys best interests at heart.

Charlotte and I struggled with infertility together until we were both blessed with the pregnancies of "our 3 sons." I got pregnant with Hudson in April and her main goal was to be pregnant before I gave birth. Get this, Charlotte found out she was pregnant the week of my baby shower, in November, that she was co-hosting!!!! How Great is our God?

It was not until a few weeks later that she learned she was pregnant with not one, but two babies! I can't even begin to put her and her husbands elation in words. I received that phone call and the excitement in her voice, the remnants of tears of joy that lingered, and the shock of the life changing experience she was enduring. Wow, it was such a touching moment! I think I was more happy for her at that moment than I was when I learned I was pregnant. All of our prayers had finally been answered!

With Charlotte in the state she is currently in, I constantly pray that the daily roller coaster of emotions never gets her too down on herself. Of course she is so excited to be pregnant and can't wait to meet her boys, but then again knows that she will more than likely have to leave there without them for a short period of time. I just know that God has his hands over her womb and is giving those boys all the time they need to be healthy and strong when they are born. They may be little things, but Lord knows those little babies are the most resilient. I am going to continue to walk in Faith knowing that those boys will be born, nursed to perfect health, be home in no time, and the play dates will begin. I don't know though, 3 is a crowd. Those little cowboys will be ganging up on my cowboy before we know it. Ha!

Charlotte, every morning you wake up and those babies are still in your belly,and even once they are delivered, I want you to be reminded that you are constantly in my daily thoughts and prayers. This time in the hospital will feel like it was only 3 days once you are home with those babies and your true chaos begins. I also want you to look at this beautiful picture below and know that miracles do happen, babies do prove those doctors wrong, with a little help from you. Even when they are born so little and fragile, they can still end up with the chunkiest cheeks in the world! I know this goes without saying but I also hope that you to continue to Praise God in Your Storm! Love ya, Girl!

***Update***

Mike and Becky's baby boy was born weighing in at 3lbs and he is breathing on his own. Thank you, Jesus!

Justifications and Epiphanies

So, about a month ago I had a doctor visit and they found a T-Wave abnormality in my heart. As I was meeting with the doctor afterwards he tells me, "Your heart is trying to work overtime to keep up with the extra weight you are carrying around." Ummmmmmmmmmmmm..........What do you say to that? "Yeah, you're right I'm a fat arse and I like my heart being abnormal, it really sets me aside from everyone else. Everyone wants to be original, right?" Yeah, I'm going with, No!

I left the appointment and really just kept trying to justify all of this excess weight I have gained over the years. It is so easy to convince yourself that there are reasons for every piece of chocolate you eat, every glass of wine you drink and every piece of cheesecake that follows a large pasta dinner. I even went as far as telling myself, "Oh, you're ok, every time you go to Starbucks you order the NONFAT peppermint mocha." Then came the, "Wait, I am fine, I just had a baby. I will lose it all sooner or later, ew, there is a Jack in the Box." What?!?! Who says that?

I went through about 7 strings of emotions before reality finally set in. This is my heart we are talking about. Heart disease is the number one killer in women. I was just told I had a heart abnormality, I could die from heart disease. I have two babies at home! There is nothing that has ever whipped me in to shape quicker than that epiphany.

The doctor gave me a great book to read. He gave me a few vitamins and he gave me a journal to start tracking my calories and my daily food intake. I have been religious with all of the vitamins, I have read the book front to back more than once, and the food journal, not so much. I think about doing the food journal everyday. A few times I have actually started the day out writing what I am eating and how many calories it contained. At some point I get too busy and see it the next day when I am thinking about doing it all over again.

I wanted to share the most important thing I have learned. I had never heard this before but I am definitely living proof that it works. You should have consumed 70% of your daily calories by the 7th hour you have been awake. For me, I have eaten 70% of my allotted calories by 1:30 pm. Dinner should be your lightest meal of the day. I always thought it was the other way around. You learn something new everyday.

Today I had my 4-week follow-up and I have lost 11 lbs since my first appointment on April 1st. He was so proud of me. I had another EKG this morning and the abnormality is nearly gone. With the change of lifestyle, and the exercise I am trying to fit in to my nightly schedule, it is working! I am finally losing weight! I am finally (5 months later) back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Now it is time to concentrate on the pre-clomid weight. Ugh!

I was very back and on forth on whether or not I was going to blog about this and then another light bulb went off in my head, this is another way to hold myself accountable.

Every Thursday morning I am going to get on and post my weekly weight loss. I am not looking for a congratulations, or a "good job, Les!" I just want to have a scheduled weigh in and like I said, be held accountable!

Toodles!

Blue's Dedication

I briefly discussed "Blue's" dedication in my last blog. I wanted to get back on this evening and give it the attention it deserves.

Sunday, April 26, 2009, our beautiful baby boy, "Blue", was dedicated to the Lord. I have been excited about gatherings before, but this one was different. I get excited about the kids birthdays, cocktail gatherings, and hosting Easter at our house, annually. This was a different excitement. This was a proud excitement. I was so excited to share our church with family and friends that had never attended.

I know asking people to be at Church on a Sunday morning at 9:30 am is early. Only 5 of the 25 people we invited are regular "church go-ers". I knew there would be some last minute phone calls I would receive before we left the house of people backing out. I just knew I would receive about 3 more text messages on the way to the church of more people backing out. Hey, Lesley, have a little faith, right? I did receive one phone call from a friend that would not be able to make it to the church because a death of a family friend. Obviously, I was not upset at all and completely understood their absence.

So, on the way to the Church, we are on the beltway about to exit and I hear my text message alert go off. It is about 9:10 am at this time. Before I even read the message, I said, " who is this backing out?" Much to my surprise, it was Ellen asking me if we were already at the Church because they were! How heart warming is that?!?! Ellen, her husband and her 3 girls were sitting in the Church parking lot waiting for us, with the guest of honor, to arrive.

We got out of our car, ran in to some others in the parking lot and then all walked in together. When we got inside the Church my Mom's whole family was already sitting on the front row. Cici and her love were already sitting in the congregation as well. Do you get this feeling, do you get this excitement? I was elated. We had 4 rows of family and friends there to see our baby be Dedicated. What else in this world is important? At that very moment, NOTHING! I was where I was supposed to be, I was with the people I loved more than anything in this world. My heart was over flowing with emotion.

I feel like I need to pause the story. I need to give this glory to God. I need to stop and praise God, first for the baby boy that we are here celebrating today, and secondly for the friends and family that cared enough about us to be there to witness this blessed event. If it weren't for you Lord, none of this would be possible. Thank you!

We began with Praise and Worship. I absolutely loved the song choices, the sermon was BOLD and AMAZING, and the Dedication itself was indescribable.

We were called to the stage. I was holding "Pink" while Pastor Ed was holding "Blue". Aaron was standing there with this distinct look on his face the whole time. Here is the "look", below. I promise, he was happy to be there, maybe just a little tired. Ha!

"Pink" did a great job on the stage, overall. She was a little curious and wandered back and forth. We tried to let her do her thing so we could concentrate on "Blue". She was all over the place, she had to check it all out. Here she is after she went over to check out the instruments.

We were on the stage for a total of maybe 5 minutes. It was all such a blur. I want to say that I remember everything he said but if I did, I would be lying. It was like that brief moment after you have a baby and you can't remember a thing about the labor. I know we talked about what a blessing he was and I know we talked about him coming and praying over us when we were in the hospital. I will be very excited to receive the DVD of the service so I can watch it and really take it all in. Here are a couple more pictures from the event I would like to share.

I particularly love this last picture because although I talk about how faithful our family is, in this picture you can actually see it.

We thank everyone who shared in this event with us, and we thank Pastor Ed for performing this Dedication. I will sleep better at night knowing both of my children have been dedicated to the Lord. Their mind, body, and soul are given to you Lord and I pray that you lead them in every step they make. I pray that you put your hand over their minds in every decision they make. Most of all, I pray that as a family we never stop walking in Faith knowing you are present with us, always and forever.

See you tomorrow, Toodles!

Holy High Waters

Nothing like a good night of sleeping to the sound of the rain. Usually when this happens it stops some time during the night, right? Well, someone forgot to hit that off switch in the Houston area. The rain dumped non-stop starting some time in the middle of the night and not stopping until close to sun rise.

Those of you that don't live in the Houston area can not turn on your TVs and see the catastrophic floods we endured. It is BAD here today. Thank goodness I have a very flexible schedule and was able to take my time coming in today. I had to try three different routes to get me here before I found one I would have not been swimming in later. Don't get me wrong, I am always up for a good swim but my body is no where near ready for swim suit season.

Aaron is home today with the kids. We were not able to make it to Vava's due to the high waters. You know "Pink" is loving being home playing with Daddy and "Blue". I am sure she has asked for candy and cake all afternoon. She has probably made some kind of bargain or deal to receive it. It's hard to tell that little girl, no. She takes after her Mommy and loves her sweets, not to mention the bargaining power too.

I am hoping by the time I decide to bust out of here the waters have calmed and dried up some.

Ew, gotta go. Ellen just signed on IM and we need to discuss an up and coming business venture. Another post, another day.

Toodles!

MAC and Me

We had such a busy and amazing weekend. I was not going to get in to the string of events from yesterday until I had uploaded the Dedication pictures so I am going to skip over that for now. I will tell you, it was one of the most proud moments of my life and we could not have hand picked a better crowd to share it with.

So, a couple posts ago I had mentioned the fact that my two year old loves to get in to my make-up, right? Fabulous! Well, I have a pretty funny and LONG story to share. Let me start from the beginning.

About a week after we moved in to the new house, Aaron had a business trip planned. He was gone from Sunday to the following Friday. What did I learn in this time period? Patience! We got ourselves in a great routine in no time at all. This week was "Blue's" 4-month check up. We were given the thumbs up to begin cereal and baby food. I started with cereal for breakfast, lunch, and cereal and a vegetable for dinner. Well, at the beginning it took a good 20-30 minutes to get him to finish his dinner. In this time, "pink" would usually either find her way back to her room and watch TV or she would linger in the kitchen playing with the water dispenser. One night during feeding time "Pink" was not in clear sight. I assumed she was in her bedroom watching TV. I finish feeding "blue" and we walk back to "pinks" room. She was not in her room. I began calling her name. We walked around the whole downstairs, well I thought the whole downstairs. I hear a little something coming from my bedroom. I walk in and there she is..."Little Miss Make-up" meets "The Bride of Chucky!" She had my lipstick all over her face, she had blush all over her forehead, and a few different eye shades in small circles strategically placed around her face. I guess we could call it an organized disaster.

From this point on, it has been an every other day occurrence at the least. I know what you're thinking. How about you start putting your make-up out of her reach? It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks! And, it's easy to teach a new dog new tricks! She has always loved standing in the bathroom while I am getting ready watching me apply "my face." She will stand there and repeat, "I want some" over and over. To appease her, I would barely sweep my blush brush on her cheeks and that would make her laugh. Then she would move on to something else. So much for that happening now. She is in to make-up like a fat kid is in to cake.

She completely emptied my blush, she ruined and emptied 2 compacts of eye shadow and finally, she ruined 2 tubes of lipstick. This weekend I was finally able to make it to the MAC counter to replenish. I bought new powder, blush, 3 compacts of eye shadow, lipstick, and lip gloss. Was I mad, no! Every girls loves going shopping for new make-up. This just made my bill a little larger than originally anticipated.

We had Ellen's oldest daughters 5th Birthday Party on Saturday morning so I was very excited to use all of my new make-up. I opened every single box and put the new make-up in my make-up bag. Everything was so new, and crisp. Oh, and I am just positive it looked exactly the way the MAC girl did it in the store. Maybe NOT!

Saturday afternoon we were all hanging out in the living room and I notice "Pink" is not present. I automatically jump up and think, "Oh no!" I ran back in to the master bathroom and there she was, "Little Miss Make-up" meets "Rambo!" She had rolled my new lipstick up her cheeks making perfect lines slanted upward. Of course while doing so, she broke off the tip. She opened my powder compact and ran her fingernails all through the perfect texture. She opened all of the new shadow colors and they were barely touched, but touched. The only thing she could not quite grasp was the tube of lip gloss. Do you think I could find all of the above available in tubes resembling lip gloss? I think not.

The top shelf of the linen closet has a new resident. Guess who? MAC!