Trying to be thankful

Yesterday sucked. There's not really any other way to describe it. Obviously the main reason was because Daddy wasn't there, but other factors compounded on that....Christiaan had to work, I came down with a stomach virus the night before, and Carter fell and busted his lip pretty good. Last night I lay in bed trying really hard to think of reasons I should still be thankful despite all the doom and gloom, and I think writing them out will help solidify them in my brain so my thoughts don't immediately go to sad ones.

• Its been one year this week since Christiaan moved here


• My daddy got to be a part of our wedding. God totally orchestrated the whole thing. I'm trying to wrap my brain around it all still, and I'm writing it out to post on the blog so that I don't forget how it all happened.




• My boss and coworkers have been amazingly understanding and helpful while I've been out for the last almost 2 weeks. They just stepped in and handled things in my classroom and I have not worried about one thing.




• My son is (relatively) healthy and more than happy. I've been watching him put Froot Loops into the mouth of a happy meal toy penguin and pouring them out for the last 20 minutes. How much more content could he be?




• I have totally awesome friends. Not sure why people are so nice to me.




• My family has actually gotten closer, if that was even possible




• I have a job, period, and it pays the bills. Well mostly.




• Our faith family at church is incredible, and I leave church feeling so uplifted every time. No drama, No fighting over what people are wearing or what songs we are singing, just honest pure worship. C3 celebrated one year this past month, and I am amazed at how it has grown. We have met some awesome new friends through church.


• As I have been a lazy bum today due to not being quite over this stomach virus, I have spent most of my day watching Carter play or helping him shoot Nerf darts. He has even let me snuggle with him quite a bit! Even though I feel like crap pretty much, I am thankful for this day with my boy just to enjoy being around him. He is growing up way too fast and I am not doing a very good job of journaling his maturing.

I am sure there is much more that I could list out but like I said, I am having a hard time being very glass half full right now. This last 2 weeks have been incredibly hard, and I think it will get worse before it gets better. Please pray for our family, especially my mom.

No Words

Waco Weekend and Suckiness

This past weekend we escaped from life briefly to visit Waco family and attend Baylor homecoming. We didn't make it in until late Friday night and basically went straight to bed, then got up early and went to the parade. It was freaking cold, and Carter's nose had started running, but he enjoyed it. Especially since they throw "tendy" off the floats for the kids to fight over.


I'm guessing he thought he was the grand marshall

A few layers deep

Da bear

This was by far the coolest float. It was chock full of old school toys

More toys

And a giant original Game Boy! Complete with a person dressed as Mario inside! How clever.

Collecting tendy

We left a grouchy, yucky-nosed Carter with Nana and went to the game.

Jazzy lasted until the end of the 3rd quarter, when she declared that the game was almost over because Baylor was winning, and I broke her heart when I told her that there was a whole nother quarter left. Her daddy took her home shortly after. :)

Sunday morning Carter woke up early, partially due to the time change and partially due to the fact that he was obviously getting sicker. We again left him with Nana so that we could visit Christiaan's home church. After delicious lunch and a little more visiting, we grudgingly loaded up the truck and headed back to Dallas.

This week has started off with a bang. Dad has not been doing well the few days, and by the time we got back to Dallas Carter was officially sick, like with a fever and all. Not just teething. I had some issues at school that I had to handle first thing Monday, and I was not looking forward to any of it. By Sunday night Christiaan started complaining of a sore throat and runny nose. Awesome. He stayed home with Carter yesterday and took him to the doctor today for a diagnosis of.....strep. So Christiaan has an appointment tomorrow morning to get tested for what is obviously strep also. Which means that I took the day off work to stay home with Carter, since my aunt Karen is staying with Dad tomorrow. Life is just one giant shit storm after another these days. I am taking leftover antibiotics to avoid the plague. But honestly?? It was not a very hard decision to take off tomorrow, despite the fact the Kasi will be gone too. This school year is dead to me.

I'm praying for a better end to this week. Otherwise, we may not return from our next Waco trip. :)

Halloween 2011

On Saturday I decided I was brave enough to take Carter to the pumpkin patch by myself. Its just down the street, and generally not crowded, and I had noticed they still had a good supply of decent pumpkins left. Even though he was lacking in the nap area that day, he was super excited to see all the pumpkins!

We moved quickly away from the tinier pumpkins and towards the larger ones that he was less able to pick up, as I was afraid I would spend my paycheck paying for pumpkins my kid threw and broke.

They had a pallet of gourds, none of which were red or remotely round, yet Carter insisted on calling them apples.

Squealing as he realized he was in a sea of pumpkins

I put him in the middle of a pallet in an attempt to get a good shot, and when he fell between the slats I couldn't help but take a picture before picking him up :)

So since he couldn't lift these huge guys, he just pushed them over.....

It wasn't me, I swear

This thing is so lumpy!

Sweet face

We ran into Mrs. Sue, my friend Melissa's mom, at the patch, and before she left she bought him a pumpkin and left it at the front for him. He was so excited to have one of his own that he could carry around! He has shown it to anyone that has walked into the house, and carried it around that whole night.

Do you notice a theme in these pictures?? He refused to look right at me.

Monday nig-cht we had trunk or treat at our church. We dressed Carter up as a cowboy, for lack of other creative ideas, and the fact that I was not willing to waste money on a costume that he would refuse to wear. But I think that he turned out looking pretty darn cute!

We borrowed Uncle Bubbles' (Caleb) rubber band gun that my grandpa made him, since it has a "C" cut in it.

And the hat is dumped. At least I got a couple of pictures!

Jason and Chelsea had their car set up next to ours, and Carter was obsessed with their game. We tried for the first 2 hours to keep him out of the water, but eventually he was digging stuff out of the bottom and we ended up stripping him down before we left because he was soaking wet.

Brycen was also a cowboy!

He is very into "tendy" now. Sugar freak!

Carter and I took a ride on the hayride, which I thought might scare him, but he ended up joining in the older kids' chant of "faster! faster!"

Christiaan and I dressed in all camo. He went and found me a camo shirt and hat, so this was the best we could do in the costume department. Hey, I got a new hat out of it! :)

So Halloween this year was more of a success than last year. No major screaming meltdowns due to a costume freak out. And our trunk or treat was very successful too! Ready to move on to November and the beginning of the holiday season!

One last thing.....according to my blogger stats, someone searched "dart gun for animals" and was linked to my blog....say what??