We're here!

We're here and our resort is amazing! Our villa has a computer with internet, perfect for my blogging addiction! The drive went really well. We made excellent time other than when we got into Orlando. We were 5 miles from our resort but it took 30 minutes to finally arrive! That was rough when we were SO excited to finally be here. Matt and I got settled then ventured out for some food and walked around our resort.
Our villa has, a laundry room, dining room, kitchen, living room (with a huge plasma screen TV on the wall), our master bedroom, plus another little bedroom with bunk beds and a TV, our bathroom has a huge jacuzzi tub & shower. I don't think we've stayed in this nice of a place before! I'm sad that we can't post pictures, but I will do that when we get back. I wasn't planning on blogging, but we're just laying around this morning. I'm getting ready to go take a swim in our bathtub! ha ha! I feel like Julia Roberts on Pretty Woman, minus the whole prositute thing.
I've called my mom and they said Ethan is doing GREAT! We also got a sweet text message with a picture from my brother-in-law of Ethan playing at the park. That made my heart melt. I was worried about the first few days of us being gone, but he's doing great! Probably doesn't know we're even gone. Ha ha!
Bye for now!

It's here!

I can't believe it's here! Tomorrow morning Matt and I are leaving at the butt crack of dawn for our FLORIDA VACATION. It's off to the sunshine state we go! The last time we were there was when we left for our cruise on our honeymoon, which was almost 4 years ago! The sunshine state is a great state and is my birth place. I was born and raised there until high school when we moved to NC. We are very excited and we are looking forward to the drive just as much as the whole trip. Matt and I have had our best conversations in the car. We had many car drives between dating while being at different colleges and then living 3 hours away from our parents the first year of marriage. Of course the car trip back won't go fast enough, because we'll be excited about picking up our baby after being away from him for a whole week!
Please pray about our safety as well as being away from Ethan. Pray that he does well and that we don't miss him too much, ha ha!
I'll see ya in a week!!!!!!!!!!

Health update

Hello friends! Well my mom was released this afternoon after they got her blood pressure stabilized and she wasn't fainting when she stood. I was with her in the hospital all day while my wonderful husband stayed home with little man. The doctors still didn't have an answer for exactly what my mom had, but they said it was more along the lines of an allergic reaction. Now what she is allergic to, I have no idea. They prescribed her an epi-pen among other things. She is going to follow up with her doctor and some specialists. Although I am glad she is feeling better, I am still not satisfied with their diagnosis or lack thereof. My family and I just need to trust that the Lord will take care of her and that HE knows what is going on in her body.
Matt is almost completely normal (is normal the word I should use ;) ? ha ha.) So I am glad to have positive updates for you. Needless to say i'm exhausted and am looking forward to our vacation!

Taking Turns

It's so very important that we instill good character traits in our son. Our family has chosen the hospital. Currently my mom was just admitted to the hospital! UGH! She went to the ER last night because she was feeling faint and weak. My dad and I sat with her for a few hours and basically the Dr. said, "we're baffled, we are going to admit her". Her blood pressure kept dropping, she passed out when they tried to get an x-ray of her chest. Her face is swollen and she has a rash around her chest. This is the WEIRDEST thing. This has happened 3 times now in the past few years and all after she's flown back from out West. The first 2 times they chalked it up to dehydration but now they just don't know. I saw about 5 nurses that said to me, "weren't you just here the other night!" I said YES, my family and I are VIP at the ER. I'm tired of taking turns, i'm going to teach Ethan some other character trait, ha ha.
On a lighter note, Matt is doing really well! He is in full recovery. Our Florida trip is on a stand still with us not knowing what is going on with mom. They were supposed to watch him for 4 days out of the week we may be gone. Who knows, her health is definitely most important but we would be so bummed if we missed our vacation. Please pray for our family and that we would trust in the Lord in times of trial and uncertainty. It's not real comforting when the Dr.'s say they are baffled.

Quota

I mean, it's been a while since we've been to the hospital, so we thought it was about time. UGHHH! Yesterday was a wonderful day. We went to the park with Ethan, we all took a family nap, Matt and I ate a great dinner and decided to rent a movie. That's when it all went wrong. Matt went to get up off the floor to go to the bathroom and he got real dizzy. So he sat down... a few minutes later he tried again, and barely got to the bathroom because he was so dizzy. The room was spinning real fast and he couldn't walk or sit, he had to lay down. When he returned from the bathroom we started watching our movie. A little bit later he decided to get up again for whatever reason and got SO incredibly dizzy that it made him vomit. After getting that cleaned up, he decided he would try to just go to bed and sleep whatever this was off. He couldn't make it 5 feet without getting so dizzy that he had to lay down. Anyhow, he ended up just laying in our hallway because he couldn't make it into our bedroom. I decided to call a few people, and after a few phone calls, Matt's dad and step-mom thought it was best to come over and help me get Matt to the ER. Matt's brother ended up coming over as well. So Dee stayed with Ethan who was in bed, and the 3 of us left for the hospital. It was a rough ride there because he was so dizzy. We got to the ER, and we thought getting a wheel chair would be good so he didn't have to walk. Wrong. It made it worse and right after we got to the waiting room, he vomited again. We were quickly called back and got him settled and the Dr. saw him and determined it was Vertigo. Which is caused by an inner ear inflammatory or sometimes infection. It messes with your equilibrium which causes extreme dizziness and sometimes fainting. Your body can't handle the dizziness so it responds by throwing up. So after a few bags of IV fluid, anti-nausea medicine and dizzy medicine, he was released at 2:00a.m. so we came home and crashed. He has a few prescriptions I am waiting to go fill because the pharmacy isn't open yet.
What a night! How scary that one minute your fine and the next your body reacts in this way. I am hoping he gets better soon, its hard seeing your husband laying on the floor so dizzy that he can't even move and vomits. Last night I discovered that I can't clean up vomit without feeling like i'm going to hurl as well. Fun times.
Pray for us, we're supposed to leave for Florida this Friday for our vacation. Disneyworld won't be much fun with Vertigo!

Blogger is having some issues, so I can't upload all the photos I want to share. I'll be happy I at least got these on and i'll post the others on another day.
Matt and I have been enjoying Ethan so much lately. He is at a REALLY fun stage in life right now. He's been so happy and just laughing and smiling and really becoming a ham. He walks around clapping and making noises and tries so hard to talk. He is opening up to other people (although he is still having separation anxiety on Sunday mornings) and becoming more active at parks or when we are out places. It is going to be SO hard to leave him when we go on a week vacation coming up, but I know that he needs it and we need it! Matt and I are getting very excited about our trip to Florida. I am SURE we'll have some pictures to post!!!
Anyhow, here are some fun pictures of his recent happenings.

Ethan and Matt sharing a popcorn snack.... he is just like his dad: LOVES popcorn!!

Ethan LOVES bath time. He gets SO excited when we say, "it's time for a bath"! He starts saying, "bath.... bath". Two of his favorite bath activities are trying to catch the water coming out of the faucet as seen in the picture above, and throwing his toys out of the tub... as seen by his huge smile in picture below.
We just THANK GOD so much for our family and friends and ALL his blessings he has given us!

Pictures

I convinced Matt to let me put some photos on his computer so I can share them since my laptop is sick! So here are some recent pictures of our latest happenings.

Matt blew a huge bubble and I happened to snap the picture just as it passed in front of Ethan. How fun!
Family picture outside in this gorgeous weather!
I went shopping with a girlfriend of mine and we changed our babies in the back of her Tahoe, and as we were changing Ethan reached over and grabbed Jude's hand! How precious!
My cutie pie...wondering when he is going to get hair. Matt was at the park the other day with Ethan and apparently a woman told him he needed to put a hat on Ethan. Ha! My hubby is a wonderful father... he tried to put a hat on and Ethan wouldn't leave it. So little did she know Matt had lubed him up with sunscreen. It's not our fault our son has a bald head! A sure sign spring is here... budding trees and nests all around! Look closely and you can see the mama's head sticking out. This is in a tree right in front of where we live.

Grillin'

We've grilled out twice in the past week and I loved it! Thursday night we spontaneously gathered up a few friends to grill out before Matt's softball game. He is the coach of our church league. I ended up messing up the grill: putting too much charcoal on, lighter fluid burned off instead of igniting the coals, and it wasn't hot enough when we put the chicken on so the grease and juice basically put any heat out. SO... we quickly transferred all the chicken breasts and I had to take turns finishing them on the george foreman grill inside, HA! (We were in a hurry to get to the game or else we would have been a little more persistent!)
Anyhow, last night my parents grilled out some burgers and hot dogs and we ate out on their screened in porch. It has been SO beautiful here lately... I love it! Well, Ethan had some corn kernels on his high chair, but he kept pointing to my little cob I was eating off of, so I handed him one and he went to town! It was so cute to see him enjoying his corn so much! He even chowed down on a hot dog. It feels like he has grown up more in the past few weeks than he did in a year. He is loosing some of his baby fat and is running all over the place! I can barely keep up with him now. We had a garage sale today at my parents house and he was running up and down their sloped driveway. It made me SO nervous. I thought for sure he would face plant and loose all his teeth he's been working so hard to get! Thankfully, the only fall he did have barely brushed some skin off his nose. He is definitely a boy at heart and really growing up! Time for another one! ( Don't get too excited, we're not acting on those desires for a while!)
My laptop is still out of service, so i'm not downloading pictures too much on my husbands computer. Thankfully my parents snapped some last night and e-mailed them to me! SO here are some pictures of my cutie pie in action!

Chowing down on some corn-on-the-cob!
YUM-raspberries!
Hot doggin' it!

Not much to say... but a lot to say

I guess I hit my dry spell in blog world. Dry spell meaning it has been a few days since my last blog. For some of you that is a overflow. I just have really enjoyed blogging and sharing what is going on in and around my life. Something I am trying to learn is to not be so consumed with self. It is so easy to have me and my family be the center of my universe and want it to be the center of others as well. However, that is the total OPPOSITE of many people I admire and so opposite of GOD. We are to be consumed with HIM and all He has done in and around our lives. He is the reason that we wake up each day. We were created for Him and by Him. I am trying to learn to be the person that asks the questions in a conversation and one who listens rather than one who speaks and one who wants to tell all the latest things my baby does.
GOD is amazing and He blows me away by how much he loves this world even though this world hates him sometimes. He provided JESUS CHRIST to be our sacrifice, so that we are able to be in a relationship with him. Then, as if that isn't enough, God delights in blessing us and giving us the desires of our hearts. So I just pray that when I write blogs and share stories, that I am giving thanks to GOD for what HE has done. That I am sharing in the joy that we have in our lives. I am just so thankful. AND I hope I continue to give thanks when we go through trial. One of my favorite songs is written below. Just take time to really absorb the words. They are powerful. No matter what happens in life, good or bad, I pray that we all will say, blessed be the name of the Lord!

Blessed Be Your Name

In the land that is plentiful

Where Your streams of abundance flow

Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name

When I'm found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness

Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name

When the sun's shining down on me

When the world's 'all as it should be'

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name

On the road marked with suffering

Though there's pain in the offering

Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in, Lord

Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord

Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away

You give and take away

My heart will choose to sayLord,

blessed be Your name

Broken Laptop

Well good thing the church just bought my husband a laptop because ours is out of comission and this time it looks pretty bad. It won't turn on. This laptop is barely 3 years old and was a graduation gift to me from my parents. I am so sad that it is behaving so badly. We are definitely going to have to seek professional help on it. Sometimes I just laugh because EVERYTHING breaks in our family. I've just come to grips with the fact that we'll always have something sucking money from our pocket to be fixed. But its ok, because we are never without. We truly are blessed beyond measure in so many ways. So bring it on!

Sweet Nothing

I have an urge to blog, but I don't have anything to blog about persay. Yesterday was a fun day because I met a few friends at a nearby mall to socialize with them and their little ones. I ended up just walking and talking with a dear friend, Shana and her newborn son. We were able to talk and share and enjoy one another. I lost track of time and ended up not leaving the mall until 2:00. Ethan was wide awake and so happy. It didn't even phase him that it was nap time. Now of course he was out like a light as soon as we got in the car to come home. What a sweet boy.
Anyhow, I found a deal at the mall. If you need a floor lamp, Kirklands has several cute lamps for $19.99. Believe me, that is a good price. I have been searching for one for our living room because we don't have much light. I looked at Target & Walmart. Even the ones there that looked descent were at least $29.00. So needless to say, I called Matt and asked him about purchasing one from Kirklands, and we did! Now we have more light!! I didn't realize how much we needed one until we had a women's small group meeting at our apartment and we had a hard time seeing our books from the one lamp we have. Let there be light!
We are getting really anxious about our trip to Florida at the end of the month. Ethan has recently been going through a separation stage, so that is interesting timing. I am praying he will do ok. I am sure he won't even notice that we're gone. He's going to have so much fun with his grandparents on both sides of the family. Matt and I have been looking at things to do and planning our trip. YAY! We are very excited about being able to go on a vacation just the two of us.
I broke out the crockpot for the first time ever last week and made a recipe that my sister-in-law had on her blog. It was SO yummy and I was surprised about how easy it was to make. I have been feeling like we are just stuck in the meals that I make. I make the same things like every week and we need more variety. However, i'm not much of a cook. I hate that it takes more time to prepare and clean up the meal than it does to eat it. Ha. If you have any easy yummy recipes that you would like to share, I would LOVE it.
Well TGIF. I am ready for a good weekend. I am ready for the sun to be back out. I praise the Lord for the rain though. I can't complain since we've been in a drought. But I just thrive in 70 degree sunny weather. It will also make training easier. Yes, we are planning on running the race for the cure. I now have a goal in mind and will be running with my running partner in the Susan G Komen race for the cure at Meredith College in Raleigh. We got out of the habit of running, and now we've got to work our way back up. It's only 3.1 miles, so its not a huge race, but i'm excited. Well have a good weekend!!!

3 things...

I've been tagged by my lovely friend Jen! I feel privileged because i'm the only one she tagged. Ha! So here it goes...

3 jobs i've had...
YMCA counselor
Canoeing instructor
3rd grade teacher

3 movies i've watched more than once...
You've Got Mail
National Treasure
Emporers New Groove

3 places i've lived...
Boone, NC
North Port, FL
Raleigh, NC

3 shows I watch...
Survivor
American Idol
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

3 places i'd like to visit...
Hawaii
Australia
Italy

3 places i've been...
China
Mexico
Jamaica

3 favorite foods...
pizza
ice cream
twice baked potatoes

3 things i'm looking forward to in the coming year...
going on all our family vacations
see our church grow and people get closer to God
losing weight

Now I tag.... my mom and E