Baby Boy Arrives

Little man is here!! Alec Michael was born June 8th at 11:51pm. He weighed 9lbs 8oz and was 22 1/2in long! He was bigger than I expected, that is for sure.

At the Birth Center the night he was born.

 

Car ride home the next morning.

 

Cuddling with Aunt Lys

 

Grumpy face - so cute!

 

 

Just Being (le happy)

Mornings sleeping in with my dear husband

Afternoons sipping water, reading and cleaning

Evenings listening to soft music while I do yoga

Drinking tea

Watching Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother and Downton Abbey re-runs

Wishing for spring

Jotting down baby names

Staying warm

Cuddling

Kisses that taste like sweet tea or peppermint

 

I just love being married to this man!



Time goes fast!

So, as you saw in Riah's "Thank You" post, we are very close friends. She mentioned that first phone call when we were 14 and now I'm going to go into a little more detail. :)

From my side of the story:
My family and I had been going to this church for 10 years. My parents felt like God was saying it was time to move on. So we did. The whole thing blew up in our faces. People creating rumors about Bee and me - accusations and finger pointing's. It was a mess. Needless to say that almost every single one of my friends from there walked away. Only one really tried to keep up communication (which was great). So, it had been a couple of weeks since we had left and I was feeling pretty blue. I had no one to call, or hang out with. Bee was busy doing school and I just wanted to talk to someone!
"Hey Mama?" I called.
"Yeah?"
"What is Ri's phone number?"
"I don't know off the top of my head. Why?"
"I want to call her. There's no one else to talk to" (I didn't mean it in a mean way - just was feeling down. Sad. Bummed.)
Mom gave me her address book and I flipped through the book until I found the number I was looking for. I dialed the number and listened to the slow ringing. Ri's mom answered.
"May I speak to Riah please?" I asked nicely.
"Who is calling?"
"Lys."
"Oh hi! I'll get her." There was some rustling sounds and then I heard Ri.
"Hello?" She sounded perplexed.
"Hi - How are you?"
And so the conversation went. It was awkward. We hadn't talked in so long. Yeah, there was the letter writing, and then the emails, but those were rare. After all, we did have the friends that were near by up until this point...
We had some moments where we didn't say a thing. It was just dead silence over the phone. I was wondering if Ri was thinking I was dumb for calling. when we got off the phone I thought that maybe we wouldn't talk again for a while, but she called me the next day. We talked more than we did before and opened up. She told me about how she left her church and was "shunned" just like I was. That was the bonding point. The same trouble and hurt was really what made us because BFF's again!
Now you see that we talk everyday. We actually had a rule put in place by Ri's mom at one point, that we could only talk between 3-4:30 in the afternoon everyday because we talked in every spare second of the day. Now we just talk when we can.
Riah is the best friend anyone can ask for, and when she and Superman are married I'm going to force him to bring her to visit me all the time. hehee.
Thank YOU, Riah for being there and letting me vent, and cry, and laugh with you no matter what time it is.
Much Love,

Thank you!

“A friend is the one who comes in when the whole world has gone out.” ~ Grace Pulpit

I can’t think of a more appropriate quote for me and Lys. Our new-ish, closer relationship is based off of circumstances that mirror this quote exactly. All of our friends had deserted us and that’s when we became so much closer. It’s a long and involved story so I’m not going to bother telling you all about it right now, but you have to hear this part to understand what we are to each other.
We both grew apart due to circumstances, many (not all) beyond our control. We didn’t talk much at all, nor did we see each other often. In fact, I think sometimes we forgot the other existed. Sure, if you asked we could tell you we were friends, but we didn’t really know all that much about each other. We both had some church problems when we were 14 and we both left our churches in June/July of that year (or somewhere around that time). The problems were of such a nature that we were “shunned” from the friends we had and were not allowed to talk to them (not our parents decision, that was their parents).
One day I was feeling kind of lonely. I had tried to call a friend, but her mother wouldn’t let me talk to her and informed Mom that they could have nothing more to do with us. I went outside to read, but couldn’t focus (I can hear some of you gasping in utter disbelief now). Out of the blue, Mom poked her head out the back door and said I had a phone call. I bet you can imagine how thrilled I was. I thought that my friend’s mother had a change of heart. Guess how shocked I was to find out it was Lys? It was so weird. But I was just happy to have someone to talk to. We didn’t talk all that much during that call, but then she called back the next day and I called her the day after that. Eventually we ended up telling each other what had gone down at our churches, just to find that nearly the same thing had happened to both of us. We ended up crying together, comforting each other and laughing over how silly we were being; crying over people who had left us when things came to a head.

Needless to say, my thank you letter is to you Lys. Thanks for making that first call! Even though it meant that we talked so much it drove my parents crazy. Thanks for letting me call you at nearly midnight so I could tell you that Superman wanted to court me!
   (Lys looks better than this believe me!)






Thank you for letting me call you crying! For helping me when Grandpa died. Thank you for letting me vent when I’m angry! Thank you for yelling at computers with me…
  (we have the exact same kind of laptop)







Thank you for being the only person who’ll IM me, talk on the phone with me AND email me all at the same time.

And that’s a lot!








And thank you for being the bestest friend ever!



















(I get to be Tigger in this picture… oh quit giving me that sad face Lys… ok fine, you can be Tigger!)

Proud to be Lyssa’s best friend!
Riah Friah Me Oh Miah

Recap.

Thanksgiving was wonderful! My family usually doesn't leave the house at all on this holiday, but this year we broke the "tradition." It was harder than it sounds... breaking a tradition, that is. In all of my 17 years I cannot remember ever being away from home, even if only for a few hours, on Thanksgiving. I am sure you can see how odd this was for me.

This year we were invited to go to the "greenway" to ride horses with our friends from the barn. I think we were invited to go last year also, but bowed out gracefully.

I woke up at 7:30 am yesterday morning, and was at the barn an hour later getting horses loaded into the horse trailer. Roughly another hour later we were on our horses ready to go! I purposefully didn't go into details of the preparation. It is very detailed and could possibly cause boredom. Consult doctor before reading details.

Wait. Haha. Just kidding... about the doctor part.

I love this shot for some reason. It's like seeing things from a horses perspective...

I was already mounted up even though it doesn't look like it. I held the camera down for this shot! Oh! This horse is Lady! She is amazing!

It was crazy foggy yesterday morning. It had been raining all week, but yesterday it was just misty fog. The horses look really cool in the fog. :)

THIS is my all time favorite picture! Okay, maybe just from this bunch of photos. But I still love it! It looks very rustic... old... serene... beautiful... foggy... muddy... wet... fallish... ya get it.We rode for five, yes five, straight hours. That was the longest I have EVER been in a saddle before.

This beautiful girl in the front is Sassy (she's mine... or so I like to think... I adopted her in a non-official way). The handsome boy in the back is Rascal. He's a cute lil' thing. So sweet!

Here's Rascal again. We were taking a break. Mr. B. was riding this cute thing right here, and got off because he dropped something. I snuck in this photo! YAY! hehehe. Ain't he just the cutest lil' thing you ever saw?! His expression is just adorable. "Uh, hi. My name ith Rathcal. I like to wun and pway and go on wides. Happy Thankthgiving fwiendth."
Hhehehe hohoho hahahah! Are you laughing yet?
No?
Maybe?
Well get ready to laugh hysterically.
Ready?

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No comment.

After the ride my mom and Bee went home to throw the turkey (which Bee and I named Albuquerque) into the oven.

We ate around five or six, and then lounged in front of the fire watching TV. Ah... the wonderfulness of it all! I then slept. Like a rock. Except alive.

Speaking of sleep... excuse me while I do just that. I feel like I haven't slept in a month.

G'night!

Much love and knee-slappin' laughs,

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
I hope your day has been as memorable as mine has. (Trust me... you can't ever forget a 5 hour long horse back ride! It was AMAZING!)
More on that tomorrow. For now, it's off to sit in front of a fire in the fireplace, and enjoy the remainder of Thanksgiving '09 with my family!

G'night and happy Thanksgiving,

Photo / Give Thanks - part 2

Isn't that cool?! I didn't expect the picture to turn out like that, but I'm glad it did!

Give thanks part 2: Scripture!

Psalm 100
A Psalm of Thanksgiving.

1 Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!
2 Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.
3 Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.
4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
5 For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.

Giving HIM all the praise and thanks,

Give Thanks - part one.

1 Chronicles 16:34
34. Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; His love endures forever.

Seeing as how it is coming close to Thanksgiving, I thought it would be nice to post about giving thanks. I might just post a scripture, or I might do more than that.
God is good; His love endures forever!

Giving HIM all the praise, honor, and thanks,