6 days later...

Tomorrow marks 1 week since Matt's ankle sprain. I have to tell you, we thought he would be a lot better by now. I snapped some pictures this morning. While it does look better, it is still pretty yucky. He can barely put pressure on it. He will be using those crutches longer than anticipated. I used to think my husband just whined when he was sick or hurt until one day a few years ago. He had been "whining" about his throat hurting for a week. We finally went to the doctor and when the doctor looked in his mouth. (I was sitting in the room with him) He said, "that has to be the worse case of strep i've ever seen!" Ever since then, I do not minimize my husband's pain! So I know his ankle must really be bothering him if he can't even walk to the next room! Deep down I have this awful feeling like something is broke, they just missed it, but he's probably fine and will improve soon. So here are a few pictures. The night he sprained it his ankle looked like it had a baseball attached to it, but now the swelling has spread as the blood is redistributing.

not-so-normal ankle
normal ankle

Gray hair

I think I found one. I was looking over myself in the mirror and noticed a shiny something in my hair. I gasped to myself and fluffed my hair and tried to locate it but couldn't. I am sure it was one though. Which might give me my answer the question that i've been debating. Should I color my hair? My friend Amanda suggested maybe going a darker brown as to enhance my blue eye color. So I am posing a question: What do you think I should do?

1. Leave it, embrace the natural "highlights".
2. Try a darker shade of brown, I agree with Amanda.
3. Put some lighter highlights in, afterall blondes have more fun!

Let me know your thoughts. I am all for going darker or doing highlights. With spring and summer around the corner highlights appeal to me more. But we shall see!

I need a cheer up moment...

Have you ever had one of those days, weeks, months, or years where it feels like everything hits at once? Right now it is bills and UGH, they just make me want to sell all I have and move to a remote island with just me and my family. No one to answer to. So what do I want to do when I am having a pity party? Today it is blogging.
I have wanted to post a picture of Matt's ankle but never got a good one because of the flash whiting out his bruising and various other reasons. So sorry, no picture. Today was the first day where he felt like it is actually getting better. The swelling is going down and it doesn't throb like it has been. He is still on crutches and can't put pressure on it. But like the doctor said, sometimes sprains are worse than breaks and they just stink. Those weren't her exact words, but you know what I mean.
Something that has just made me really happy and smile lately is Ethan. I can't describe the feelings of joy and love that being a mother gives to me. He is just cracking us up lately. He is so funny and really shows off and LOVES laughing and making you laugh. His prayers are what makes my heart smile. Today at nap time it was, "God...thank you mommy, daddy, papa, mammy, papa's truck, pizza, mammy's lawnmower (which sounds like mmmamower), hidaddy (granddaddy), dee, puppies, pass (paci), amen." He is just too cute! I cannot believe the sentences he is putting together for a not quite 2 year old. He blows me away.
Last week while he was at "school" they went to the basketball gym. Well the men's league was setting up to play some pick-up games and the buzzer went off REALLY loudly. It scared all the kids and even made Ethan cry. After that he has talked about that event every single day. "Basketball gym...loud noise...buzzard (instead of buzzer, how cute?!!), Ethan cry!" Then he proceeds to make the loud buzzer noise and then laughs hysterically. What a goober! I didn't even know he knew what the word "noise" was or that it was a "loud noise".
Two days ago we drove by Great Clips where he got his hair cut a few months ago. He pointed to the plaza and said, "Hair cut, lolli-pop". He remembered! Ok, maybe this all isn't that amazing to you, but for a proud mama it just makes my heart smile. Something else I love is that every time we leave his "school" we talk about the morning in the car. I will ask him a question. "Ethan, did you like the music today?" I love looking in the the mirror at him, see his little face as he ponders the question then actually answer, "Yes, music fun." "Ethan did you go to the gym today?" Pondering.... "Gym, ball, fun!" Is he genius or what??!! Ha ha!
I have to tell you regardless of the stress of bills, I cannot wait to add some more babies to my family. I LOVE being a mommy!

Gimp

We can't stay out of the ER. Well actually this time we didn't go to the ER, but the UC (Urgent Care). My husband who plays in 4 different sports leagues has done himself in. He sprained his ankle in his Soccer game this past Sunday night. It's a nasty sprain. (Pictures to come soon) He has an air cast on and is hobbling around on crutches. He is not allowed to put any kind of pressure on it for a couple of days and then he can try to walk with the cast on. It's still pretty swollen and is black and blue. He says this hurts worse than when he broke his nose and had to get stitches. Good thing I wasn't at the game because he said the only thing he did was yell and flop around like a fish the first few minutes after he was injured. I wouldn't have wanted to see that. So anyhow, I am literally his hands and feet for a few days. We are realizing how much we are taking for granted like doing daily activities. Taking a shower now takes 3x's as long because he's having to maneuver around and hobble on crutches. Poor guy. For someone who is active and constantly on the go, this is definitely a lifestyle change. The injured foot is his driving foot so he is confined to the house unless I take him somewhere. So please pray for him to recover quickly and well and pray for me as I take care of an almost 2 year old and a gimpy 27 year old!!

Too cute to pass up...

New Jeans

I just returned from shopping and i'm exhausted! I grabbed a cart at Kohls and hit up their jeans section. I loaded it up with 15 pairs of jeans different sizes and styles and hit the dressing rooms. I am happy to say that I am now the proud owner of some Levi's 505 that are a size SMALLER than what i've been wearing. I own like 8 pairs of jeans. 2 of them fit me but are a tad too big and they have holes in the rear end. The rest are too big! That is a great problem to have! Now that i've gotten back into working out consistently I have noticed some results. I still have some more weight to shed, but it feels good to be more active and have visible results. Someone at church this morning told me my jeans looked too big on me, so that pretty much sealed the deal that I was debating on getting a new pair. While I was feeling happy about my jeans size I decided to try on a few bathing suits. (I cannot believe they are out in stores already!) Well let's just say, I am glad summer is a few months away because yowsers, that was not a pretty sight! I'll be happy with my jeans for a while!!!!

Girls Night

Last night we had about 15 girls go out to dinner and a movie. We ate at Jason's Deli which is yummy and saw the movie Bride Wars. It was a cute movie that definitely made me laugh. I was so excited to be out with women from our church and their friends or neighbors. Originally there was supposed to be around 20 of us going but a few missed it due to sickness or other reasons. It is always fun to be out with the girls. I'm sure looking forward to other events like camping and movie nights, etc.
Some other fun news. My mom and I have been working all afternoon on a quilt we are making for Ethan when he moves to the big boy bed. It is going to be AWESOME. We designed it ourselves. Drawing our ideas, measuring and creating. I am designing it and am taking the "art" credit. Mom is totally taking on the measuring, cutting, and sewing side! I wanted to post some pictures today, but I think i'll wait until the finished product.

Ethan's first snow!

Ethan's reaction to seeing snow out the window, "Snow...pretty...cold...brrrr...outside"! That is exactly what we did. After breakfast we suited up and ventured outside. They kept changing the forecast from 1-3 inches to 4-6 inches. One minute we thought we were getting snow and the next we thought we would get nothing. Well, we are getting between 4-6 inches with some areas getting 8 inches! We haven't seen snow in a few years it feels like, so this was GREAT! I bought a sled at a consignment sale 2 winters ago when Ethan was just an infant, so I was pleased to be able to use it before he got too big. It is a toddler sled and you can buckle them in and pull them with a rope. Not a bad deal for $8.00! We already got our moneys worth this morning. We walked down our street to some friends of ours neighborhood and visited with them and went sledding down their massive hill which makes up their driveway. Ethan got a little wet because he doesn't have proper shoes so he was ready to come in. It is still falling pretty heavy, so we will take a break and may venture back out later. Some of you may not grasp how significant it is to get snow in NC. Just look at Raleigh's news website. www.wral.com There are over 800 closings for this area. Schools were closing last night when the forecast was 1-3 inches. People panic and head to the grocery store and buy up all the bread and milk. It really is quite comical. Being a Florida girl I didn't see snow much, but I don't panic and shut myself indoors!! HA! So anyhow, here are a few pictures for you to see. All my family that lives out West or up North will think we are crazy for going bananas over a few inches, but that is how we roll down here in the South!
Ethan loved the snow and enjoyed playing. I knew it was inevitable that it would end up in his mouth. Luckily I snapped a few shots of him tasting it on his own. What a goober!

Tasting snow

Mommy and Ethan out in the snow

Clapping for snow....YAY SNOW!!!

Daddy taking Ethan on his first sled ride down a hill!

Prayer of a child

This was Ethan's prayer at naptime "God tank you mommy, daddy, hidaddy(granddaddy), dee, pizza, amen"!

Scary moment...

We got to church this morning and I went to take Ethan out of his car seat and realized he was never buckled in!! Matt assumed I was buckling him and I assumed he was buckling him in. My heart sank. Good thing we only live like 3 miles from our church. Praise God we weren't in any kind of accident. Let's just say we won't be doing any more assuming when it comes to that. There was one other time when something like this happened. I went to take his car seat out of the car to switch it to another and realized it was never buckled in with the seat belts! And the bad part was I couldn't even remember the last time we had moved the seat so there was no telling how long his car seat wasn't attached. Wow. Scary moments just make your heart stop and utter a Thanks to a God who is protecting us when we aren't paying attention!

Latest pictures

Here are some pictures of my boy from the past few weeks. He sure has quite the personality. He loves running (literally) and loves playing basketball. Ethan loves being silly and making people laugh and can be such a ham. I just cannot believe he is turning 2 next month! He is growing up too fast!!

Ethan loves playing with his cars and city track. Notice Elmo has a diaper on in the background. See a few posts below for full story. (Hokey Pokey Elmo)
Ethan watching for daddy to come home from work.

Riding in his new wagon with piggy. He had to take piggy with him!

Our boy loves to run around in just a diaper. Here he is racing his trucks all over. Notice his hair getting longer and has a curl to it!

Little talker

"I eat a apple with daddy." Those are the words I heard my cutie say tonight. I just cannot believe how much he is growing, learning, and talking! He definitely still has jibber jabber moments where you can't understand a word he is saying, but he is just amazing us with what is coming out of his mouth! Although he is currently teething his 2 year molars and can be a bear, he is so much fun right now. He cracks himself up and has quite the sense of humor for an almost 2 year old! My parents have been in Canada romping around in the snow the past few days and I told Ethan that his Papa was on an airplane. Well that is all i've been hearing the past few days. "Papa, airplane!" Ethan also loves singing songs. He can sing the alphabet A-G and then he sings like every third letter for the rest of the song. Then he says, "now I know ABC's, sing with me!" It's so cute! He is also amazing us with his memory recall. A few weeks ago my friend watched him for me and her son and Ethan bumped heads pretty good. He cried but gave the boy a hug and was fine. Well to this day he keeps recalling it. "Ty...bump...head...cry...huggie." Blows my mind that he still remembers that. He obviously didn't get his memory capability from me! Anyhow i'm really going to try and post pictures soon!

Time Out!

Ethan has been putting himself in time-out lately. Even after he does something wrong and is put in time out, when it is time to get up he puts himself back in. Well this morning while we were leaving he noticed frost on the car window. He said, "raining" and I said, "no, Ethan that is called frost" He said, "time out, window!" Not sure exactly what he didn't like about that, but apparently the window shouldn't have had frost on it! So cute. He is cracking me up more and more lately!

Hokey Pokey Elmo

One of Ethan's Christmas gifts was a hokey pokey Elmo. He sings the song and actually moves his arms and legs as well as turning around. Well after he sings it a few times he actually speeds up singing and then says, "Whew, that was fast...Elmo's pooped!" Tonight Ethan and I were playing with his Elmo because he loves to hear the line "Elmo's pooped"... little did I know it was because Ethan has a little bit of potty humor already. While we were playing with the doll he kept saying "diaper, diaper" and I asked him if he he needed a diaper change. He kept saying "diaper" and finally got up and took the Elmo doll with him. He walked into his room and put it up on the changing pad and said, "Elmo's pooped." HOW CUTE?!!! Matt and I just laughed and then proceeded to try to explain the difference, that Elmo meant he was sleepy after all that singing. One day he'll get it, but that is a hard concept for a 22 month old to get! For now, i'll just laugh at the fact that Ethan thinks Elmo has pooped.

TARGET

I have blogged about my love for Target before. How I will go in with a list for 4 things and come out with 10! I love the cleanliness, the design and layout of the store as well as the low prices. This morning we ran out to Target to get a universal TV remote because we were just given a TV. As we were pulling into Target the actual song that they made the Target jingle song out of came on the radio. "You say Goodbye, I say hello" by the Beatles. It was so funny! My clever husband pointed it out and we just laughed. Ethan was chanting "Target!" from the backseat proceeded by the word "cookie". He has made the connection that when we go to Target we often pick up a free chocolate chip cookie from their bakery section. So we ventured inside our beloved store. I decided to treat myself to a Starbucks and asked them if they had any of the cart clip-on cup holders. They did!! The last few times i've asked they have been out because people take them or they break. I was SO excited! It makes shopping easier when you can set your oh-so-tasty Starbucks drink down in a cup holder to look at merchandise. I then asked her if she would like us to return the clip-on cup holder to her or the check out counter. Then she told me the best news i've heard so far today..." Why don't you just keep it in your diaper bag or purse and use it whenever you'd like to. Either here at Target or another store!" WOWSERS! So I am now the proud owner of a shopping cart clip-on cup holder! She said they would rather customers take them with them than leave them on the edge of the carts because when the carts get put together they often break. I don't think she thought that something so small would make a woman so happy! HA! HILARIOUS. So we picked up our universal remote along with some other items and left Target. What a FUN morning. As we were leaving Ethan yelled and waved, "Bye bye Target!" It's kinda sad that he is so familiar with the place. Yay for Target.

Rainy Days

Sometimes I just LOVE rainy days. There's no reason to spend time blow drying my hair and fixing it because it's just going to get wet and ruined. So throwing it up in a pony tail feels great! I love wearing socks, sweat pants and a sweat shirt and curling up on the couch or in bed for a nap! Drinking coffee and soup is never more satisfying than on a cold rainy day. It is also perfect for a nap because it's darker in your house and you can hear the rain drops on the roof or window. Rainy days make people slow down. I think sometimes we get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of busy life that we need rainy days to make us stop and stay inside and rest. There is nothing better than after the rain stops and the sun comes out, everything and everyone feels so refreshed again! The birds are chirping and animals and people venture out of their homes. Sometimes rain can "ruin" our plans, but I just wanted to stop and take time and say I am thankful for rainy days! Now where did my blanket run off to...

Our Saturday

My days have all been mixed up since the holidays. This next week will be somewhat of a normal week starting again. This morning Ethan slept in a little which was nice because Matt and I stayed up late last night. I cleaned up some around here and did 5 loads of laundry! Yes, 5 loads! I guess I hadn't done it in a while. I counted Matt's socks when I folded them....20 pair! No wonder I felt like I had nothing to wear lately, it was all in our dirty clothes basket! I put brand new sheets on our bed that we got for Christmas. I can't wait to sleep in those tonight. There is something about that first night that you wash sheets that just makes you sleep so much better. Maybe I should wash them every night. I love the freshness! Matt has been working on his sermon all day and Ethan has been really good today. It was just an enjoyable Saturday. This afternoon Matt needed to run to the church office to pick up a book, so Ethan and I went with him and I got a starbucks coffee and treated Ethan to a cookie. (I love getting giftcards for Christmas!) I enjoyed a great nap and great bible study time during Ethan's nap! Then this evening we went grocery shopping because Harris Teeter is having their triple coupon weekend. Matt was SO bummed because he didn't save as much as he wanted. We tend to buy more off our grocery list when i'm with him. It still was a great shopping trip. Saved $76 and spent $72. I'll take it. Whenever you save more than you spend, it's always fun. We haven't been grocery shopping in almost 3 weeks, so I am thrilled with that. But you know Matt and his competitive side especially now with his new obsession with couponing. Tomorrow after church Matt is leaving for a staff retreat for a few days so Ethan and I are going to stay with my parents. I always enjoy spending time with my parents and Ethan loves his Papa and Grammy!
Anyhow, today I started officially working out again. I appreciate friends and family that are helping me change my lifestyle to be healthier. My reason for this goal is to lose about 15 pounds so that we can attempt having another little one! I had gestational diabetes with Ethan and I required medication, so i'm trying to cut my risk down although i'm like over 90% of having it again. I desire to be healthier and trim down some, but this is a great motivation!!! ;)
I'm hoping to post more pictures soon, i've kinda slacked on that lately. Enjoy your Sundays!

"Break my heart for what breaks Yours"

I am in love with the lyrics to this song called Hosanna. It is my new favorite song.

I see the King of Glory, Coming on the clouds with fire
The whole world shakes, the whole world shakes
I see His love and mercy, washing overall our sin
The people sing, the people sing

CHORUS: Hosanna, Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest (x2)

I see a generation, Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith, with selfless faith
I see a near revival, Stirring as we pray and seek
We're on our knees, we're on our knees

See CHORUS

Heal my heart and make it clean, Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me.
Break my heart for what breaks Yours, Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I go from nothing to eternity

The part in bold is my favorite part of the song. I have been thinking and praying a lot lately about what it means to love others like Christ has loved me. I have been praying that God would open up my eyes and help me to see what breaks His heart. People are hurting and people are lost. It is very easy to become self absorbed and miss out on the hurting world around us. Some of us are going through huge hurts ourselves. For me personally I have realized how ungrateful I have become and how demanding I have become. I WANT a new car. I WANT a house. I WANT, I WANT, I WANT. This afternoon during my personal bible study time, God began to really show me this and started breaking my heart. I looked around my apartment and realized how much stuff we have and how much I have taken for granted. Really made me see how much stuff we could do without. No, toys in themselves are not bad. Furniture is not bad. These things are not "bad"... I have just begun to put a bigger focus on stuff we have and things we "need" rather than looking around and trying to see what needs others have. I have really thought a lot about women and children in orphanages. Mostly orphanages overseas. I pray that I am able to take a trip very soon to love on hurting people. Our church has been raising money for a Christmas offering. Half of it is going to missionaries overseas. One fourth is going to help fund Christian adoption and create an orphan care ministry at our church and the last one-fourth of it is going to support a clean water initiative. These are great causes to give to. But this past month things have been stirring in my heart and I have felt compelled to go serve in an orphanage somewhere. I am not sure of the details like the when, where, and all that. But I know they will come. What I want most out of this time of evaluating my heart in life is that I will start LOVING OTHERS AS CHRIST HAS LOVED ME and that GOD WOULD BREAK MY HEART FOR WHAT BREAKS HIS. That I will stop being so self absorbed and start loving on others and meeting their needs. Please hold me accountable in this and pray for me about this.

Happy New Year!

Time to make resolutions that will inevitably be broken by February! Ha ha! I resolute to keep my resolutions!!!!