Saturday, March 31, 2012

The Ups and Downs of March

March has been a really busy month for us.  Wow.  We have had a lot going on and am ready for some down time, but I don't feel like that will be happening any time soon. 
March started out a tad bit on the sad side for me.  One of my best friends that was also my coworker ended up leaving for another job opportunity.  I miss her so much.  We still talk, but she has been in training in her new job and is super busy so we don't get to talk as often as I would like.  Hopefully I will get to see her this week!  Fingers crossed.  I can't believe it has been a month since I've seen her!  Crazy!
The big news for me is that I got a new car!!!!  Well a new to me car.  Ha!  I had a 2001 Honda Accord and loved it.  Someone offered to buy it and I couldn't pass on their offer.  So then began my car search.  I couldn't decide between a minivan or a car.  I'm not a huge fan of a minivan, but they are so convenient for families.  I just felt silly driving around with one child in a minivan!  The gas mileage was also a factor and the cars just got so much better mileage.  I wanted another Honda, but found a 2010 Toyota Camry.  I felt like a trader, I've been a Honda owner and think they are just awesome cars.  I have to admit, I am now a Toyota fan as well.  I love my car.  It is my first vehicle with leather seats.  It was even cold enough one morning to put the heated seats on!  Oh the small things.  After going six years without a car payment it will be hard to get used to having one again! 
I also ran my first Half Marathon.  I trained hard for this.  I was so excited.  I didn't care about how long it took me, I just wanted to run the entire thing.  I got up to 11 miles before the race, so I knew that I could push it 20-25 minutes to run those extra 2.1 miles.  I was nervous that my running watch was off a little bit.  I didn't feel as fast as it was telling me I was going.  I tested it a time or two and it wasn't off that much I though.  WELL bad news.  It was REALLY off!  I will get to that.  The day of the race it was really hot and muggy out.  My nerves were shot!  Well we took off running and I did pretty good through the first 5 miles.  It was HOT though and I was sweating like crazy (most of my training was in the winter and it was easier to run).  Around mile 7 I got a cramp in my side and it was over from there.  I think I made it a little over 7 miles and finally decided to walk.  I was so upset that I had to walk.  BUT I didn't want to get sick or have an injury.  We walked a good bit and tried to run, but good gracious it was hard to get back in it.  My legs felt like they weighed 100lbs each and they had cramped up from stopping and going.  YUCK!  So, needless to say it was probably one of my hardest runs ever.  I did finish and it took around 2 hours and 43 minutes.  I ran a 10 mile race in December of 2011 and it took 1 hour 43 minutes.  SO that shows what a bad run it was.  Oh an my watch!  So when we got to mile 9 I looked at my running watch and it said 11 miles.  It was WAY OFF!  So when training, I only ran 9 miles total before the half.  I will do another one this winter.  Hopefully that will go better!!!  Here are a few pictures from my adventure.  One of my best friends husbands ran with me and I am so happy he did it with me.  Richard was awesome!
This was us FINALLY finishing :-)

We did it...ALL DONE

Garrett and my parents got me this balloon and attached it to Buzz!  Perfect!
After the race I had the best lunch ever!!!  Cook Out cheeseburger with fries and onion rings and a milkshake!  YUMMY!  Oh my goodness it was delicious!
Josh and I also celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary!  I can't believe we have been married nine years now.  Seems like just yesterday.  We have gone through a lot together and I couldn't imagine doing it with anyone else (except maybe Ryan Renolds...ha).  We haven't had a chance to celebrate yet because I had my half marathon that weekend.  We are going to go to Charlotte sometime this year and go whitewater rafting again.  We did it last year it was AMAZING!  I can't wait!  Here are some flowers I got from my parents and Josh:
How lucky am I???
My future sister-in-law turned 30 and we got to meet her family for the first time and have a big family celebration.  It was so much fun.  I am lucky to have her as a future sister-in-law.  She as is beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.
Oh the other up and down thing has been my motivation for exercise and eating healthy!  Ugh.  I have a wedding to be in June 9 and have some weight to shed!  Time to get on it!!!!
The weather in March has gone from cold to HOT.  I hope that we have a true Spring!  Here are some pictures from March.  It was a fun month. 
Checking out the cars on his hiney!

Playing outside checking out an airplane :-)

LOVE bubbles!!

Love this face!!!

Doing a little gardening!

Helping daddy!

Friday, March 30, 2012

Big Dreams

Well I bought my first ever lotto ticket today.  The jackpot was HUGE...640 MILLION dollars!  I think I have been dreaming over the past 8 hours about what I would do with that money?  It is fun to dream.  I decided I would still work for a little bit, but eventually would volunteer instead of work. 
Here are a couple of my dream purchases (in a random order):
Drive from North Carolina to California in a big tour bus (rockstar style) and visit as many states as possible.
Get a new house
Have another child
Give back to the church
Pay off debt of family members
Go on a crazy vacation, somewhere tropical.
I would love to do fun things for others like pay for one week of daycare for all the kids at G's school.

My dad said he would by a Krispy Kreme store for Garrett.  Although I don't know who would get more use out of that (me or grandmommy)!  haha!


I had many other dreams too, but those were just a few. 

No worries here though...we did not win the big lotto!  Oh well!  Back to work Monday!  haha!

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The best gift I could ever get

Before being a parent I would hear people say silly things like "I don't want my child to get any older, I want to freeze this time forever" and "I am so sad that my little on is starting school it makes me sad that he/she is growing up so fast".  Before children I thought these statements were the most ridiculous thing that I had ever heard!  I would actually roll my eyes and let out a sigh.  Boy how times have changed!  I would love to freeze Garrett at this age!  He is SO MUCH FUN!  This has been my favorite stage BY FAR!  He is so loving, silly, funny and the best gift I could ever wish for.  I sit sometimes and just think of how sweet he is and it warms my heart to no end.  We got a letter in his box at school this week about how he had been extremely kind to one of the teachers telling her how pretty she was and gave her a kiss.  The teacher said it made her week.  I cried reading the sweet letter that she wrote knowing that he is being so kind to others.  I came home and tried to read the sweet note to Josh, but couldn't even make it through it without crying.  And sadly I am getting teary eyed just thinking about it.  I gave him the biggest hug and told him to keep being the sweet little boy that he is and that I was so proud of him.  I'm sure he doesn't even realize how happy people are because of him. 
There are so many things I love about this little boy who is growing up so fast.  Here are a few of the things that he is doing right now and just make me SMILE:

1.  As in a previous post he loves to tell stories.  Every night he makes up a story.  They are very detailed and are basically a story mixed of things that had happened to him mixed with monsters, cars and bad guys that batman has to get.  I look forward to these and am going to try and record some because I forget the stories so easily.
2.  He tells me I am pretty about 10 times a day.  He is such a little flirt.  He loves to compliment people and loves to be complimented himself.  If you tell him he is handsome he just grins and says "awww"
3.  He loves to talk.  All day long.  I don't think he takes a breath from the time he wakes until he goes to sleep because he doesn't stop talking.  One day he was playing and talking to his toys and he looked at me and said "mommy did you hear me not talking to anyone? "  I smiled and said "yes buddy I did". 
4.  His imagination.  Oh my word.  I love it!  I could sit and listen to him play for hours.  He plays with cars or Buzz and Woody and just has a ball.  He makes up scenes and does such a great job!
5.  He can drink a Capri Sun faster than any person I know!  He can kill one in about 5 seconds.  This makes me a bit worried for his college years.  I'm sure he will be a huge hit around the parties!
6.  If he is talking on the phone with someone he thinks that they can see him through the phone.  I haven't told him any different because it is pretty funny.  He says "did you see that?" and I have to say "I think grandmommy missed the truck crashing" so the person on the other end knows what is going on. 
7.  He still refers to Josh and I as "my daddy" or "my mommy" but does it when he talks to us.  He will just say "My daddy I need..." or "I love you my mommy". 
8.  He is sooo enthusiastic when you surprise him with ANYTHING!  The ooohs and aahhhs are fun.  He will make the smallest little thing the biggest best thing in the world!!!
These next 2 things just happened as I was doing this blog:
9.  He loves to play the game Come Find Me.  I used to love this game.  Now it is fun for about the first 2 times and then gets really old, but I love the innocence in it.  He hides and tells you where he is.  For instance he made me come sit in the closet with him and Sandy.  Then he walked behind the door and said "come find me mommy".  He doesn't think I know where he is.  Ha!  Love it.
10.  He loves Sandy.  Our poor Sandy.  Her little world was so calm before G came along.  Now she is constantly being pat and rubbed and touched and annoyed!  Ha.  She tolerates him.
11.  He loves basketball now.  Every night when we get home from daycare he asks if we can play.  He is actually really good and makes his shots about 60% of the time.  I love to watch him dribble the ball.  His mouth is wide open!  Ha!  He really gets into it.  On a side note Josh has told me that I'm not allowed to be out there anymore because if G gets "hurt" and I'm there he acts really emotional and cries.  Apparently Josh doesn't put up with that.  I will still be out there.  :-)
12. His choice of clothes/shoes.  It it's tacky to me, it's a win for him!  Any shirt that is construction orange (you know that really BRIGHT orange) is a must for him.  We are lucky enough to have one with monster trucks on it.  He is almost outgrown it (oh darn).  He also has those spiderman shoes that light up that don't match a thing that he owns.  HE LOVES THEM.  I've learned that things that make him happy are a win no matter how tacky.  It makes me happy to see how happy they make him.  I did however make him go to Old Navy and pick out 4 plain shirts that he would wear that don't have designs on the front.  We will see how it goes!
13.  When he eats anything sweet you can tell that he is like his mommy and loves sweets.  He will not remove the sweet (donut, cookie, cake) from his mouth until done.  He keeps it up to his lips.  I guess he is scared someone will get it.  He also eats his cupcakes from the top down.  All the icing first then the cake.
14.  He loves to say the blessing and sing "Jesus songs".  He busts out with Jesus Loves me and a few other ones randomly and it makes me so happy.  One night in his prayers when listing his friends he is thankful for his number 1 friend was Jesus.  LOVE THIS BOY!
15.  He is SO SMART!  His memory is ridiculous.  About a week ago he was in the fridge looking for pudding and grabbed one of mine.  Mine has a lot of fiber in them.  When he went to grab it I said "Don't eat that!"  Garrett asked why and I said "Because it will make you stinky!"  (It was the first thing that came to my mind).  G looked at me with a confused look and I followed it with "only grown ups can eat it".  About a week later on the way to school he asked me what my school looked like.  After explaining to him that grown ups get done with school and we go to work he sat there for a minute and said "When I grow up I'm going to get finished with school and eat foods that make me stinky".  OH DEAR.  He associates being a grown up with being allowed to eat foods that will make you stinky.  I went ahead and warned his teachers in case he said anything.

I could go on and on, but I seriously sit sometimes and could just melt thinking of how special our little guy is.  I never knew that being a mom would be this much fun.  It is a lot of work, but so worth the rewards that we get!

How could I forget this...He loves rocks!  He brings home about 10 rocks every day and we have a jar full.  It's the little things that make him happy.  The first day he brought them home I thought he had found rotten teeth.  They are gross looking, but they are rocks (thank goodness)

Friday, March 9, 2012

"Mommy I've got a story for you..."

Boy we have a little one with a BIG imagination.  I can't tell you how much I just love this and have been looking forward to this time.  He will sit and play with his toys and make conversation up with the different cars/super hero's.  It's fun to listen to him when he doesn't know we are listening.  He will put them in time out and everything.  Ha!
His favorite thing to do is tell stories.  Every night before he goes to be he says "Mommy (or daddy) I've got to tell you a story."  The story used to be "There was a wolf and he would huff and puff (insert blowing noise) and blow the house down.  That's the end of my story."  He would then say "your turn mommy".  I would try and do a story with him in it.  "there once was a prince named Garrett".  He would stop me and say mommy you are silly, I'm not a prince.  He would laugh and laugh! 
Now the stories have become longer and sillier.  We were at daycare and he said "mommy I've got a story for you"  He says "One day daddy was going down the street and two cars crashed and daddy lifted the cars over his head!"  Bahahaha!  It tickled me!
Mainly his stories consist of most of the things that he has seen throughout the day or whatever is right in front of him.  Tonight his stories consisted of his cars that are on his wall.  I hope that he keeps getting more detailed in these stories and they don't stop any time soon!  They are a treasure to listen to and I look forward to hearing "mommy I've got a story for you"  I LOVE IT!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Cha Cha Cha Changes

I am not a huge fan of change.  I am an anxious person.  That being said, there are changes going on right now in my life.  My best friend who I have worked with for the past 4 years left for another job last week.  I am sooo sad.  It is so quiet at work now.  The benefit to this is that I am getting a lot more done...hahaha!  It is so hard though because Susie and I just clicked.  We laughed all the time and work was honestly fun when we were together.  We have found a replacement and so far we are getting along GREAT.  I'm just having to work on not talking too much.  Ha!  I don't want to scare her yet. 
Another big change getting ready to happen is that I am selling my car!  I have had my Honda since December of 2000.  A lot has happened in those 11 years.  I graduated college, started my "big girl job",  got married, moved to Greenville and we brought Garrett home in the Honda.  It is amazing thinking of all those amazing times.  I was going to keep my car for another couple of years, but was approached by a family wanting it for their daughter.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity up so the search began for a new car.  Well new for me anyway.  I am having to wait an additional week though and if you know me I'm not very patient.  Ha!  So I am excited about this opportunity and ready to see what I will be driving!  Hopefully I will find something amazing!!
My running has not been going so great these past two weeks.  I've not felt 100% and didn't do a long run this past week.  I have to do one this weekend because my half marathon is in TWO WEEKS!  YIKES!  Ready or not I'm doing it.
Well hopefully I will have a post soon about my "new" car :-)