Soaking up the Sun 128.365

My little guy loves the sun. He finds every little nook and cranny that he can fit into where sun may be shining. I wish I had this much time to enjoy the warm rays!

Mom, Mami, Mama, Madre, Mommy, Ma . . . . . . (127)

Now that I am soon-to-be married, Mother's Day is something I will begin to appreciate more and more in the upcoming years as our family eventually grows, but for today, I am focused on the wonderful ladies in my life that are teaching me what path to walk down in life.

I am very, very blessed to say that I have a wonderful mother. Not only is she such a beautiful lady on the outside, but she radiates with inner beauty, love and virtue. No one is perfect. No mother is perfect. I won't be, neither is my mom. But, I have learned a lot about the road to perfection from her. Some ways are very small and some are quite large. Some are learned and picked up quite easily and some, unfortunately, the hard way. I have learned so much from her and am so thankful that I have her around to continue to learn from. Her beauty and style, her talents, her joy, her Faith and virtues, her kinds and thoughtfulness. There is so much to my Mom that I pray I can become even half of. Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I love you!

Comes October, I will officially have another mom. Though it is not official (on paper or whatever) yet, in my heart, she has always been like a mother to me. Mono's mom (my future mother-in-law) is just like my Mom. A beautiful woman on the outside, but so much more on the inside. Like my Mom, I can learn from her Faith and virtues, her talents, her kindness… I have so much to be grateful for that the man I am marrying has such a special Mom. In the few years that we have known each other, we have always been very close. You hear horror stories of mother-in-laws, but I am so, so blessed to have such a wonderful woman as mine. I hate the term "mother-in-law." It sounds so impersonal. So to me, she is Mami. I have a Mom and a Mami. What a lucky girl I am!! I love you, Mami. Happy Mother's Day!

To all the other special women in my life, aunts, friends, etc, that have helped me grow to be the person I am today, I thank you too and wish you a Happy Mother's Day as well. I have been very blessed growing up not only with a family full of wonderful ladies, but surrounded by friends of my parents' that have helped me reach where I am at. They may not all realize what they have done and how they have touched my life, but I wish I could tell each and every one of them personally. Maybe one day I should sit down and do that.

And to all you soon-to-be mamas out there… Enjoy each and every moment with your little ones! What a special and enjoyable time in your life!!

Like I said in the beginning, Mother's Day will become more and more special to me now that I will be married. I pray that God blesses us with many, beautiful and healthy children. I know I won't be the best mom right away, or maybe ever. I will make plenty of mistakes and I have more faults than I wish I had, but I do hope that even with the mistakes I will make and the faults that I have, that I can raise virtuous, happy, beautiful children. Some people seem to just be born natural mothers. I'm not really sure if I am one of them, but I do hope that something kicks in right away when I have my first child. I don't want to mess them up too much! Time will pass and I am sure I will learn and I have many wonderful people to turn to for advice. I am kinda an only child (by birth I am, but in my heart I've adopted 4 beautiful girls to be my little sisters) so I didn't grow up in a large family.  Some people assume that being an only child, I want to have tiny family, but that is far from the case. I absolutely adore children. I may not be perfect with them, but they are my comfort zone. I will never forget years ago someone asked a bunch of young women what they wanted to be when they grew up. Teacher, actress, nurse, fashion designer, doctor, lawyer… the list went on. I though, just said a mom. Maybe it comes from having such a wonderful mom myself that I have such a desire to be one myself. I don't know, but I do know that is all I want. I want to be a wonderful wife and a wonderful mom. I know it will be an incredibly hard, never-ending job, but an amazing one. I'll be employed for life! Now that is cool. ;)

So, with all these thoughts, I do hope all my lady friends that read my blog have had a joyful day today. And to any guys that may read, make sure you take a moment and really appreciate the mothers in your life. Even if they may not be your actual mom and it is a dear lady friend, an aunt, a grandmother, your wife or sister… whoever it may be. Take a moment and thank them for their hard work. I thank all you Moms out there who have touched my life. I am always grateful for you.

We had a simple celebration today. The four of us went to Church, then with my parents friends to a nice brunch afterward and came home for the remainder of the day. I put together my Mom's little gift and set up her cake and filled strawberries and woke her up from a much needed and deserved nap to give it to her. I think she was surprised. :) We all spent some time together and I made dinner (just a light meal - that involved a new favorite friend - lime juice) and then she relaxed and I went out for a run. I really, really wish we could have spent the day celebrating with both moms, but I can at least look forward to a nice long visit with Mami this coming week. I am so excited. We will take a little road-trip to one of my favorite cities ever - Nashville, Tennessee and then we will bring her back home with us and kidnap her for a week! That will be fun! I am sure I will have lots to blog about then! :)

Happy Mother's Day!
I'll close with some pictures of our day and of my Mom and Mami. I have a bunch more, but if I want to remain alive to continue writing this blog, I better not post them. In fact, any of you who read my blog and know my Mom… words of advice. Do not tell her that her picture is on here… or on Facebook. ;) haha- Enjoy the pictures!


~The Ladies in Pink ~ Mom and I Today~


~ Mami and I during her last visit here ~


~ My Mom in Miami with one of her favorite flowers ~

~ Mami and I in Miami in 2009 ~

~ I love these beautiful ladies with me! Mom and Mami in Miami 2010 ~

~ Mom and I enjoying Miami ~

~ Mom and I today ~

~ Pale Pink Buddies ~ Mom and Mono today ~

~ Setting up Mom's Mother's Day Treats ~

~ Yummy ~

~ My Mom loves Oreos! What better than an Oreo cake? ~

~ Inspiration behind my dinner ~

Tidbits About the Day (126)

I had such a great day today! It's quite late so I don't have much time to blog tonight, but I wanted to keep up with my pictures and brief note for the day. I still haven't loaded up the past 2 weeks or so. Today my Mom, Mono and I went to a designers' show house and I was in my glory... so was my Mom! Mono did good too. ;) After we left there, we grabbed a bite to eat (soooo yummy!) and then did a little shopping and errand running! What a wonderful day!

Home Sweet Home (125)

 When I am away from home, there a few things I miss most. I must admit, to me they are pretty strange and random. 

This past week I was up north visiting with family and friends and making more decisions for our wedding... which is less than five months away! Will I get everything done?! That's a whole different post though. 

Our visit up north was great. It usually is. Any time spent with family and friends that we don't see often is always special. This trip though was a big stressful and emotionally draining. As I am sure all of you have heard, home to us was greatly damaged. Thank God our home itself was not hit much at all, but the property surrounding our home has over 100 trees down. Before we left, we had heard the weathermen on all the stations predicting bad storms for that coming Wednesday. They say that frequently so we didn't think much of it. Maybe some severe thunder and lightening and heavy winds and hail, but we never thought what happened, would actually hit home for us. 

On Wednesday morning I was woken up by a call from Mono. I thought, hmm... it's pretty early for him to be calling, but how sweet that he is thinking to call me before he headed to work..... wishful thinking. Instead of a sweet morning call, it was a call with fear in his voice. He told me about the terrible weather that just ripped through our property and he told me of all the damage done. After it had settled down, he went outside to evaluate the extent of the damage and he took some pictures and sent them to me later on (I'll get to that in a minute). When we looked at what he sent, we were in total shock. From the moment of his early morning call, I watched our local weather streaming on my lap top. Mono ended up driving to work (it took him a very long time and round about way due to the damage in our area), loading pictures and charging up his phone. We had no power back at home and the cell phone towers were pretty much down and we had horrible connection. That call in the morning took multiple tries to get out what was going on. We kept losing the calls. Actually, the first things I could make out was bad weather and tornado. I was pretty frightened. Everyone heard me up with the weather on and was sitting with me watching the news. 

As the day progressed, Mono had been at work for less than an hour I think and he was sent home due to the threat of worse weather coming later that afternoon. I didn't even want him leaving for work knowing more was coming, but he did go, and thankfully he made it home safely. Later that afternoon, much worse did happen. He went to our house instead of his since ours has a little storm room and his does not. Being that Mono did not have electricity, I was constantly in contact with him to let him know why the weather sirens were going off. He had no way of checking what was going on. We told him where he could find a phone that didn't need electricity and thankfully we were able to keep in touch via phone. Around 3 pm, we were making a quick visit to a friend and he called telling me the sirens were going off again and asked me to please check the live feed online. Like the rest of the day, I went on the same website that showed live radar, videos, etc... All the coverage I'd need. When the site loaded and came up, I saw something I never expected to see, nor wanted to see. A very large sized tornado in the town right next to our little town that we live in. It is the same town I go to to do my grocery shopping, banking, cleaners... you name it... all my weekly errands are done there. As soon as I saw that, I just started to cry. I was afraid for Mono's safety, to know what was happening to the path that the tornado was taking, to wonder what my home would look like when it was finished.... so much was going through my mind. I called Mono and told him to get downstairs and I would call him when he could come up. I was so scared. I don't know what was worse... being there and not knowing or sitting hundreds of miles away, watching every single second and being helpless and fearful for my Mono and my home. Throughout the night, more terrible weather made its way through our area, including a huge tornado wiping out much area in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham (Mono works in Birmingham and I am there weekly). It was so unsettling. I didn't sleep well at all that night. I had wanted to go home and take Mono and bring him somewhere safe. That night, before bed, tornado warnings were popping up in the town I was in up north. How crazy is that? They weren't expecting anything bad, but a warning is a good possibility for bad weather to come. Between that and the constant thoughts of back home sleep was not something that would happen that night. At some time a little after 3 am, the tornado sirens were going off in town. I got up to check the radar and it was heading right for the town we were in. We got the kids up, took a pillow and blanket, grabbed our purses and I stayed glued to the weather coverage. Thankfully the storm passed us, but did not hit. We didn't go back to sleep at all that morning. Warning after warning just came popping up. Boy, I was so glad when I saw the sun shining the following day and I heard from Mono that all was okay. A lot of damage, but all was safe. Here are a few pictures from the destruction. I have not been out to just take pictures, so these are blurred from driving in the car. 

These pictures look real good compared to what it really looks like around here. I can't get anywhere near the bad stuff. This is just the outskirts. Eventually, maybe I'll get some decent pictures and put them together nicely. We shall see. It's not something I even want to take pictures of. It's just too sad to see. Entire buildings are completely gone. It's all just so sad. 

While I was gone, before the storm hit, I was already missing home. Not to take away from how much I love being with everyone though! Like I said in the beginning, there are just some things from home that I really miss when I am gone. This time, even though there was so much tragedy at home, I was still kinda wishing I was home, even with no power or anything. 

The random things I miss while I am gone... 

My shower... Oh, my shower is so wonderful. The pressure, the shower head... It's lovely!! Real lovely, in fact. :) Add to the shower/water issue... I am allergic to the water in Maryland. My face breaks out instantly. It's awful. 

My bed and my covers. While I am in a hotel, I miss them even more. I get so grossed out sleeping in hotel beds. It doesn't matter how nice, expensive or clean it may be. Thankfully we rarely have to do that. We have family and friends that like having us stay with that so it is very enjoyable to be able to sleep in houses I know. :) 

I miss the speed limit in the South. I don't drive real fast, but I get used to going a faster speed down here (we have a 70 mph limit on the highway) and when I go back up north and have to drive 55, I feel like I could run faster. 

These are just a few and real random, but I think about them most. 

And of course, whenever I go away, I miss my Mon. Thankfully, in between the time of the storms and the time I went back home, he was able to come up for a quick visit over the weekend. He was able to visit with my sisters, his family and my extended family. We had a special occasion in our family that his parents came to so we had a great time and they were able to meet more of my family! It was wonderful. 

I miss everyone back up north, very much, but it is always nice to be home... sleeping under my covers, showering in a high-pressure shower, while not breaking out, driving at my normal pace. ;)

So... Did you think this post was finally over? It's actually just beginning. ;) Just kidding. I do have one more thing to write about, but I promise not to prolong it. I'll save the details for another post.

This is our new home!!! 

I haven't written anything about it until today. We closed today and I wanted to wait until it was ours... for sure. :) Today is my Popa's birthday so I will never forget the date we closed on our very first home.

We won't be moving anything in until closer to our wedding and we won't be moving in until after our honeymoon. I am sooooooo excited! It's amazing how things worked finding this home and it has all been absolutely wonderful. I look forward to many happy and healthy memories to be made in this special little house! I will post again soon to tell you a bit more about it! But for now, I just wanted to share the exciting news! Finally!!

Up And At 'Em!

I am back home after a long, busy, but wonderful trip up north. It is always so nice to visit family and friends. There's nothing like it! This trip was full of visits from a quick stop to see my best friend... just to chat and catch up, to seeing family that I haven't seen in months and months and won't see again for months and months. We saw extended family, some of whom I hadn't seen since I was a little girl. And of course, we saw the regulars. ;) I love our regulars. :)

Besides wonderful visits with friends and family, I was quite busy with the wedding plans. I had what felt like a thousand phone calls to make, meetings to go to and decisions to make. I still did not get it all done. There is never enough time. I am really struggling to find hair and makeup for the amount of girls we have, in the budget we have. I thought I had one person set and I was going to send a check out to hold the date today and I found out last night that they booked that date for someone else. I just can't keep up. Plus, while we were gone we had the devastating tornadoes rip through our local town, and possibly smaller ones through our own yard. Coming home last night to a property that does not look the same is a strange feeling. It's discomforting to know what happened here at home, but even though nothing looks the same, it's nice to be back here. 

Tomorrow is a fun, but very busy day and I have a lot leading up to it. Today I have some important banking to get done, bills to pay since we were away, thank you's to write to people, a luggage to unpack, 2 refrigerators to clean out and wash (plus the floor under it since stuff leaked out onto the floor), plus a whole lot more! There is so much to do... all before about 3 o'clock. Plus, I have to catch up on posting my blogs on here. I wasn't able to write every day, but I have pictures from the trip. Nothing great; they were more like just quick captures of fun moments. 

So, it's nearly 8 o'clock and the list is still rather long so I better be going. I'll catch up here after I cross everything off on my list today. If not tomorrow, then over the weekend.

Have a beautiful, sunshiny day!

Girls Day Out 122.365

Today, we picked the girlies up from school and did what girls do best... we went shopping!

We ate... (we do that pretty well too!)

We bought matching wristlets...

 I got two thumbs up from Meemsy! That's always a good sign!

We tried on some clothes and snazzy sunglasses....

 We recharged with some ice-cold drinks. The frozen lemonade was soooooooo good!

And we ended our day with some cuddle time... We wanted to take these guys home with us soooo badly!

Oh, and we must not forget to mention... it is Take Your Tractor to School Day! Yes, this does happen... it's not a joke.

My Competition 121.365

It was love at first sight. From the moment she laid her eyes on him, she was smitten. I think it was mutual. When he saw that pretty little lady, with the big eyes and bright smile come his way, I think I am safe to say, a little piece of his heart melted. 

Just in case you were thinking I was talking about Mono and I, I'm not. Silly you. How could you think that?! ;)

This beauty is the girl I'm talking about...

There is a definite love and bond between these two...

 

If it wasn't for the age difference, I would think I had some serious competition on my hands. ;) Meemsy adores her Gussy. Yes, he is hers... and I am okay with that. ;)

We were all in town for a few days and Gussy spent the night there. Meemsy went to be earlier than the rest of us and she fell asleep holding his hand!

And if she wasn't sleeping holding his hand, she was awake, with her hand wrapped behind his back. She adores him, and he has a real soft spot for her... and I love to sit and watch. When Gussy walks in the room, nothing else matters to Meemsy. Mickey Mouse could be in the room, but Gussy would still come out on top. I'm so thankful that my sisters love him so much, and he loves them. 

But no matter what, she loves him the most! :)