P31 Woman

I want to be the woman who's husband trusts her,

who does him good and not harm all the days of her life,

who works with willing hands,

who rises before everyone else to take care of needs like clothing and food,

a woman who dresses herself with strength physically and spiritually,

one who works until the work is done,

the one who keeps things steady,

who helps the needy,

who makes herself appealing for her husband,

one who is proud of her husband and lets people know it,

who has much dignity,

one who overflows with wisdom and has a kind tongue,

one who is not lazy,

a woman who's children call her blessed and her husband praises her,

one who remembers that charm is deceitful and beauty is vain,

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised!

(Proverbs 31:10-31)

We love weekends!

I honestly love what I do, auditing. I know it sounds like I just sit and crunch numbers, but theres a lot more to auditing. Basically, I get to look at other people's work and make sure they did it right and if not I get to tell them they did it incorrectly. I get to work a lots of different companies and meet new people and learn new things everyday. I work a flexible schedule, meaning I get 75% of my pay and work 75% of the time. I can also work from home when I need to. Many times I get so involved in work that I end up working on my time off and Philip has to remind me that I'm on a flexible work arrangement. However, I also really enjoy spending time with my family and our weekends.

Friday night we took our "cutest catch" to Red Lobster, since Discover graciously sent us a $10 giftcard in the mail ; ) Raegan enjoyed looking at the live lobster in the tank and coloring on the kids menu. Philip got some kind of trio of shrimp meal (that's a lot of shrimp) and I of course got one of the only non-seafood meals on the menu, maple glazed chicken. I'm just not a big seafood fan. I know fish is really good for you, so I'd love to find some that I like, but I'm too scared to order a whole plate of it, if I don't know if I'll like it or not.

We had some friends, Jake & Kelly, over for dinner Saturday night. Kelly used to be Philip's night manager and Jake is a security guard at the mall, they got married this past November. Saturday night they came over to play with Raegan (aka get their baby fix). Then my aunt Heather, her friend Claudia and my cousins Kierra & Katelyn stopped in on their way home for a couple of hours to play with Raegan. So we had a late night and slept in ('till 7ish) Sunday morning.

We also decided we are going host a block party. The church provided 20 plastic cups, name tags, 30 doorhanger invites, and thank you cards. We passed out invites today and we are going to have the party this Friday! ahhhhh! ok just breathe all I have to do is make sure the backyard gets mowed on Thursday, the porch gets cleaned, borrow tables and chairs from the HOA, find shade, find activities to entertain guests, keep track of RSVPs, get hamburgers, hotdogs, buns, ketchup, mustard, mayo, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, chips, drinks, ice, a cooler, paper plates, plastic silverware, fans, music, ant killer, cookies, and a trash can. Gosh I hope I'm not forgetting something!?!

We found out today that the President and his wife, the Secretary, of our HOA go to our church, cool! They volunteered to help us with the party, yea, and guess what they have tents to put over the tables and a blow-up jumpy thing for the kids! woohoo! I'm pumped!

I'll definitely be sure to share pictures!

PS - Did I mentioned that Philip bravely killed the mouse this weekend! yea, hopefully that's the end of that problem!

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Just 5 things...

While waiting in the Dr's office the other day I read an article in a health magazine about 10 things you should do everyday and I liked the idea; however, 10 seems like a lot to me so I made up my own list of 5 things to try and do everyday.

1. pray

2. help someone else

3. stretch

4. learn something new

5. floss

What are 5 things you do everyday that make you happy!?!

Raegan loves to sit and draw/write... in this picture she is using her left hand, but she uses both. This is probably one of her favorite things to do everyday.

Wednesday - White Water Bay Play Day

So I guess the title kinda explains it all... today is Wednesday and we went with our friends, The Laatschs, to White Water Bay to play. White Water Bay is a water park smaller than Hurricane Harbor, kinda more like a Water Wonderland for any of our Midlander readers out there to relate to. : ) The water park allows you to take your own floats and bring in food/drinks. Raegan floated in the wave pool and lazy river in her floaty and we ate lunchables.

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/mortgages/mortgage-rates-tie-record-low.aspx
Philip is my news and weather man, he pays attention to what's going on in the world and gives me updates as need be. So he decided we should refinance, got all the paper work together, met with our bank contact and got it all ready, all I had to do was go with him today and sign like 50 papers. We refinanced our house mortgage and locked in a 4.62% rate, which was much better than we had before when we bought our home in the fall of 2008. Hopefully it will pay off.

We had lasagna for dinner tonight and Raegan got SO messy, I should've taken a picture but instead we took her straight to the tub. Her eyebrows may still be stained lasagna color today at school, it was that bad, lol!

Mid Summer weekend

Its the weekend!



Philip took this video of Raegan Friday evening, because he was impressed with how well she was eating mashed potatoes with her spoon. After Raegan went to bed we watched Rendition, it was a pretty good movie, gotta love Netflix!

Saturday, Raegan and I got out and did some shopping and then visited PetsMart... she would squeal everytime she saw a dog. There were a couple of rescued dogs there for adoption and I thought the little white one would be a good addition to our family, so when Philip got off work I took him up there to see what he thought... we didn't get it : ( I'm not really sad though. I'm not sure if I could handle the responsibility of a dog right now... Saturday morning when Raegan and I got home a man from the yard company was mowing our yard and I noticed three little heads bobbing up and down in the back seat of his truck. It was probably over 100 degrees outside so my first thought was these kids need popcicles! lol! We went out to give them popcicles and I was glad to see that at least the air conditioner was running in the truck so they were ok and happy about the popcicles. We went back in and I made lunch for Raegan and I and watched her grin and giggle. Made me think about how fortunate we are and how much I want the best for Raegan.

This weekend we also took a walk around the neighborhood I saw a tree in one of our neighbor's front yards that looked something like this one.

Anyways I told Philip that I thought that the purple blooms were very pretty and said, "I wonder what kind of tree that is?" We continued on our walk and on our way back around, that neighbor was standing in his front yard, so I asked Philip if he would ask him what kind of tree it was, he wanted me to ask and then eventually agreed to do it. So this is what he asks, "Is that a crepe myrtle there?"

me thinking:WHAT, did he know what kind of tree it was the whole time! Crepe Myrtle does he have like igoogle in his brain or something, where'd he come up with that?'

Neighbor: "Why yes and its not even in full bloom yet, you see...."

Moral of the story: My husband is even smarter than I thought ; )

Sunday Philip hooked us up with suite tickets to a Redhawks baseball game. We invited his leadership team and their families for the game. We had popcorn, peanuts, and hamburgers and the Redhawks won 17 - 6. Although you can't tell in this picture, Raegan wasn't scared of Rowdy the Redhawk; she liked him. Thanks Philip for taking us!

Monday

I heard this song in the car today.. its called Mr. Mom


Philip does a great job at helping take care of and playing with Raegan as well as helping out around the house, but I still find myself very busy! So my Monday started out with waking up before Philip and Raegan to start cinnamon rolls baking (yes that would be the Pillsbury Cinnabon ones out of a can), I threw on an outift for the day, then Raegan woke up and I changed her diaper, took her pajamas off, and set her in her highchair for breakfast. After breakfast I ironed Raegan's yellow polka dot dress and got her dressed. Philip left for work, I put a little makeup on and a clip in my hair and then tried to comb Raegan's wild hair. After misplacing my keys a couple of times we finally made it out the door and I dropped her off at daycare. Today was my flex day but I worked from home on some things for work this morning, then unloaded the dishwasher, made myself lunch, picked up some of Philip's clothes off the floor, cleaned a toilet, put away some of Raegan's toys, and then headed to Norman for a nice coffee date with a good friend. I had a couple of errands to run after getting coffee, so Philip picked up Raegan for me and when I got home she ran and gave me a big hug! She gives the best hugs!

We went on a walk as a family around our neighborhood before dinner and then at dinner Raegan showed us that she knows the sign language sign for 'please' when she signed 'please' then 'more' then said chips. She amazes us with how smart she is. Its obvious that she is thinking in sentences now. She also recognizes pictures in her books and points to things she knows (blueberries), shows us the sign for them (hat) or makes their sound (zzzzzzz). Today we watched Wheel of Fortune and at the end when the crowd was cheering because the contestant won, she started clapping and then put her hand up for me and Philip to give her high fives, without us initiating any of it. She's known the song "if you're happy and you know it" for a long time now, but now she even recognizes it if Philip whistles the tune and she will clap and point to her cheeks at the right times : ) ok maybe I should stop bragging...lol... but I just want to remember all these things that seem like a big deal right now that one day will just be "normal."
Before I stop, here's a video of little miss, I had just asked her to put her diapers away and then Philip started this video...


Speaking of smart Philip and I decided to take an online IQ quiz each individually last night, he scored 12 points higher than I did, which on an IQ test is a lot. I'm glad I have such a smart husband, but my competitive nature was a lil jealous he did better than me!

Hope you had a great Monday!

15 Month Checkup

Thursday morning I dressed Raegan in her swimsuit with a ponytail on top of her head and I think she thought we were headed to the splash park. The look of surprise on her face when we pulled up to the daycare was priceless! It was summer picture day at school and we were just stopping by to get her picture made before her 15 month old checkup. She did great for her pictures, so I hope they turn out good!

We got to the doctor's office early and spent nearly an hour in the waiting room; thankfully there were other children that kept Raegan entertained. Raegan weighed 19 lbs 6 oz (increase of 1 lb 2 oz from 3 months ago), measured 29 3/4 inches long (increase of 1 1/4 inches), and her head is 19 inches around (increase of 2 inches). I was glad to see she had gained some weight even though she is now only in the 5th percentile for her weight. The doctor said that she's not worried because she is getting enough calories to grow taller, just not enough to gain much weight. (I think that sounds like a problem most of us would like to have ;) Here is a picture of her after she took her tylenol and before her shots.

Then the nurse came in and gave Raegan 2 shots, one in each leg, but Raegan was a champ she cried for less than a minute and then was back to being her happy little self and when we got in the car she tore the bandaid off her leg. Then we ran by the grocery store or Wally World (as my dad calls it) to pick up some things we needed and some apple dippers from Mc Donalds like we always do. By the time we got home it was nearly noon and Raegan was sleeping in her car seat and stayed asleep when I layed her down, so that I could unload the groceries. After unloading groceries I made lunch for myself and even took a little time to start a new book that a collegue of mine recommended and then decided I'd take a nap with Raegan. We slept until 2:30, wish I could do that everyday! Thursday evening we went to met with our friends for small group and started a new series called iMarriage by Andy Stanley. We talked about the desires people have for their marriage before they get married and how those often turn into expectations once we get married.

Saturday I took Raegan to the mall to see her daddy and play. Here's a picture of her playing just like one of the bigs kids.

She's the little climber with the striped shirt and white leggings on.

That evening we took a water

taxi ride down on the bricktown canal. Raegan really enjoyed seeing the ducks; we had a hard time keeping her out of the water!

I'm sad to say, but one of the highlights to our weekend was visiting the new Crest Fresh Market. Since moving from Texas we've been deprived when it comes to grocery store options. The new Crest had much better fresh meat choices so we decided to get some steaks, which Philip cooked out tonight when we got back from playing at the splash park.

This week Raegan started playing peek-a-boo using her own hands.

Where's Raegan?

Peek-a-boo!

She also learned two new hand language signs: help and all done. So now she knows these signs: more, milk, eat, water, hat, help, and all done. She also says these words that we can understand: momma, dad, daddy, dog, duck, more, moo, uh oh, mine, no, yes, shoes, bow, and fish.

This next week is going to be a long one, but I'm sure I'll find time next weekend to post again.

Until then...

4th of July

People blog for many different reasons; some to give instructions, some to share ideas or opinions, I know some people who blog as letters to their children and some who blog and then print it out or put it in a book like these http://www.blurb.com/

I’m not really sure why we started blogging, I think we read a friend’s blog http://www.gerlthouse.blogspot.com/ and liked the idea so started our own. Now I keep it going mainly to share our stories with family and friends and so that I can look back to remember things that have happened.

This past Thursday we flew out of OKC at 6 in the morning to start a relaxing vacation at Lake Bruin. We really wanted to fly Southwest (free bags, shorter layovers, cheaper fares etc...), but they don't fly into Monroe, which is where we normally fly into on Delta. We found a Southwest flight into Jackson, MS and talked Philip's mom into coming to pick us up from the airport, even though it was out of the way. Thanks again Cindy!

When we got to the lake, Philip's cousins Sam (12) and Madeline (8 1/2) were already there and immediately wanted us to go swimming with them. Raegan enjoyed the water and watching the kids play. Philip's great aunt, Peggy, has 3 large dogs, which Raegan was excited to see, but on Thursday she was scared if they got too close to her, as they pretty much saw eye to eye with her I can't say I blame her. Thursday night we had spaghetti with meatballs for dinner and then played Apples to Apples; Philip won the game.

Friday Madeline taught Raegan that "the secret to magnificent art is using oodles of colors" and Raegan used that advice for the rest of the weekend as she scribbled away. On Friday Madeline and Sam tried water skiing and did some tubing. Raegan rode on the boat with us, but had to wear a lifejacket, which she wasn't so fond of, but as long as the boat was moving or she was riding next to her daddy she was happy. Philip cooked out burgers for dinner and we taught the kids how to play dominoes and Sam won. Philip's great uncle Philip likes to hunt and fish and has many animals that are stuffed hanging in the lake house, so Raegan learned a new word, "deer."

Saturday Philip's sister and her boyfriend, Jeff, along with Madeline and Sam's parents, and Nanny joined us at the lake. Raegan spent a lot of the day playing in her kiddie pool and loved chasing the dogs while riding in the golf cart. Saturday we took a boat ride, played in the pool, ate homemade ice cream, visited the lake neighbors, ate Chicken Spaghetti, played scrabble, watched the fireworks show on the lake and played dominoes.

Sunday we took a couple boat rides and brought one of the dogs along for the last ride, which Raegan was happy about as by this point she was no longer scared of the dogs which she calls "dauugh, dauugh."
Overall it was a great relaxing trip, which really seemed to go by too fast (I know that sounds corny, but its true).