Friday, July 27, 2007

Strangers

Last Friday the church Jennifer works at went to watch the Texas Rangers play in Arlington. When I first heard about the game and that anyone could go I was really excited. When we were kids living in El Paso we used to go to watch the Diablos play all the time. I loved it! I don't really like watching baseball on T.V., but I love it in person. I think it's the whole guy going up and down the aisles yelling "hot dog, get your hot dog!" and soda, cotton candy, ice cream just everything. The noise, the wave, singing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game", the billboard, you get it just everything about it! So anyways when Jennifer told me the price (only $15 a ticket) I was pumped. I thought I could afford $45 for us to go to the game. But then I started thinking about how much it would cost for food and drinks and stuff. So I was like never mind I don't really want to go. I gave Jennifer my usually excuse "Anoe will be to hard to control". I mean really, it's a baseball game, you're suppose to be acting wild. I just knew I couldn't afford it and if I told Jennifer that she would try to convince me otherwise. But that was my excuse. Then the Wednesday before the game Jennifer called me and said that a lady that attends the Methodist church was paying for my tickets to go to the game. I told Jennifer I really didn't want to go then she gave me this guilt trip so I finally said yes I'd go. I prayed about it and God told me that I shouldn't be acting this way. I'm being blessed with free tickets so I should go and enjoy myself. So I started getting totally excited about it. The whole way up there I kept saying how excited I was. (I think I was getting of Jennifer's nerves with my excitement but she should really be used to it by now) So anyways, the game was awesome. I had a hot dog and the girls had popcorn, a pretzel with cheese, and cotton candy. Jennifer got some garlic fries that were amazing! Even if I had a boyfriend/husband I don't think I would of been kissed all night! They were good though. So the other team was winning 3-0 but in the 9th inning the Rangers made to homeruns! It was so exciting. We were all jumping up and down screaming. I bought the girls foam fingers and they were waving them around. Oh my goodness it was so amazing! The Rangers lost by one point, but it was so much fun!

The girls and I sometimes do this little thing where we put our hands together and say "2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate! ___________" We do Anoe first, the Alexis, then me or whatever we're excited about. Well Anoe kept wanting to do it for the Rangers. Except she kept calling them Strangers instead. It was so cute. She can't wait to go watch the "Strangers" again.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Pictures

The first four are of Alexis getting baptized this past Sunday!




These are from our vacation. I still don't have all of them but here's a couple. Isn't the ocean just beautiful? (In case you didn't know, I loved it!)

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Attacks

So lately I've been feeling really attacked. For the past week and a half I have been super upset about some stuff that I usually don't care about. I mean I care, but not enough to get upset and cry about it. I've always felt that God will take care of it when the time is right. But lately I've been really feeling discouraged about a lot of different stuff. I know I'm kind of being evasive about what I'm upset about, but I'm not really sure I'm ready to admit this hurt out in the open yet. Well yesterday on my way to work I was thinking about how yucky I had been feeling about this and then all of a sudden I just realized it was an attack! It's not as bad as I was making out to be. God has a perfect plan for me that will happen at the most perfect time!

On another note- Update on Alexis:
She stayed with my Mom on Thursday and Friday. Thursday was pretty rough but she started feeling a lot better on Friday. My Mom and Symantha brought her to Abilene to do some shopping and go out to lunch and she did fine. Then Friday evening when I got there after work she was doing good. She was even "examining" me. I asked her where she had learned all the stuff she was doing and she said "Grey's Anatomy". Just as matter of fact as she could. It was really cute. She went outside for a little while to play with her sister and cousins. But then about an hour later she started feeling bad again. Her fever came back and she started coughing more. My Mom thought maybe she had done to much. So for the rest of the evening she rested. Saturday morning her fever was still there, so I called the doctor's office and they were able to get her in at 10:15. He took a urine sample but still couldn't figure out why her fever and cough were still present. (With 5th disease the fever should have subsided after 72 hours) He said to just keep giving her Motrin and Tylenol and he gave me something for the cough but said he didn't really want to suppress the cough unless he knew what was causing it. I was so frustrated it was crazy! I was able to get her fever to stay pretty low all day Saturday but she really wasn't doing much except laying in bed and sleeping. We didn't go to church on Sunday because I didn't think she would be able to make it through the whole sermon without getting cranky. And since she still did have a fever, I didn't want her infecting anyone else. Sunday evening she started feeling better though. She even got up and ate a little bit and played with Anoe for a little bit. Monday morning she didn't have a fever so I took her to daycare. The daycare called me at 11:30 to tell me she had a low grade fever. I went and got her and she slept all afternoon at my work. She was only awake for about an hour. I've talked to two different people that know quite a bit about 5th's disease and they both said that the fever should be gone. The only symptom at this point should be the rash that can last for up to 6 weeks. But there is no rash! Her cheeks get a little pink every once in awhile but nothing major. I'm so frustrated about the whole thing. It's been 5 days and she still has a fever and the doctor can't tell me anything. He said if she still has the fever on Wednesday then bring her back in. This way falls under being attacked! Nothing makes me feel worse than my kids not feeling well.

Monday night was pretty tough on Alexis. She had a really hard time sleeping because of all the coughing she was doing. But as of right now, no fever! Yay! She's had to come to work with me today because she can't go back to daycare until she has been fever free for 24hrs! Hopefully tomorrow she'll be able to go back to daycare. I know her sister will be very excited about that! Today makes one week since she's been there for a full day.

OK one more topic and I'll be done. Totally off the topic of being attacked though. At my work there is a small room in the back that is used for storing cleaning supplies, has some old filing cabinets that have stuff from back in 1991-1998, and a treadmill that the Judge uses. I'm going to clear it out and reorganize everything so we can have a break room! This way sometimes during lunch I can just sit back there and read a book or whatever. I'm really pumped about this!

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Thursday, July 12, 2007

My sick baby

Tuesday morning Alexis had a pretty high fever and a little bit of a cough. So I gave her some Children's Motrin and let her go with me to work. I called her doctor when they opened at 9:00 a.m. They were able to see her at 10:30! So we went to the doctor and they tested her for strep but it came back negative. The doctor said that he couldn't find anything wrong with her. He said if she still had a fever on Friday to call and make an appointment for Saturday morning. But he didn't have a diagnosis for her. She was OK until around 4:00. Her fever started coming back and her cheeks were getting a little red. I went and bought a thermometer so I could see exactly how high her fever was. When we got home it was 100.6. I gave her some more Motrin and she took a cool bath. After awhile she started feeling better again. We watched a little Grey's Anatomy and went to sleep.

Then this morning at 3:30 Alexis woke me up again and told me she didn't feel good. She was coughing A LOT! I took her temp and it was 102.4. I gave her some more motrin and something for her cough. I checked her temp again about 20 minutes later and it was up to 103.2 so I called my Mom (who is a nurse in Sweetwater and works the night shift) and asked her if she thought I should go ahead and take Alexis to the ER. She said I should take her out to Sweetwater to go to their ER and then Symantha would keep her today for me. I got Anoe up and dressed and we left for Sweetwater. They drew blood since she had already had a strep test the day before. The doctor said there was a little fluid in her left ear but it wasn't infected. He diagnosed her with Fifth Disease. So there's really nothing that I can do for her except keep her fever down with Motrin.

Please pray that Alexis begins feeling better soon! And pray for me too, I'm pretty tired right now and I get really cranky when I'm tired. Maybe I'll try to take a nap during lunch.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Gold Digger

I didn't really want to post this with my previous post because this is way to awesome to be put with any other post!

Yesterday at church during our service our pastor had us do an excercise called digging for gold. You look into someones eyes for a certain amount of time and look for the "gold" in them! Everyone has some gold they don't know about. I thought it was a little wierd but it wasn't that bad. The first excercise we had to get a partner and look into their eyes for 30 seconds. It wasn't that bad for me. I was with Dana Bell. I don't really know her that well but I have talked to her a couple of times. So anyways, we had to look into each others eyes, and be open to hear God. Then at the end of the 30 seconds, we told the other person what we saw or what God told us. It was good! Dana said that she saw me singing and that I was very compassionate with my singing. I've really struggled with the whole singing and dancing thing. I so do not have a pretty singing voice and have absolutely no rhythm at all! Something I learned at the BFW this year is that no one is paying attention or going to make fun of me if I'm off beat or sing like a dieing cow. It's beautiful to God and that's what matters!

Then the second time we had to find a partner that we did not know. That was pretty for me. I was partners with this lady that was totally awesome! I forgot her name already though. But she had an awesome word for me! The first thing she asked me was if I had children. (My kids were not at church with me, they had stayed with their Aunt Lisa and Uncle Chad.) I of course said yes. Well she said that she saw that I was a really good mom and a hard worker! That was so awesome for me! I'm constantly struggling with wether or not I'm a good mom or if I'm doing things right. And for her to say that, it was just amazing! I left church feeling really good!

And to think I almost didn't go to church yesterday because I was thinking that I really needed to save all the gas I could! This was way worth it! And I know everything will work out! I love my God!

Praise You In This Storm

Saturday afternoon I started really thinking about this song Praise You In This Storm by Casting Crowns. It's one of my favorites! I have it on my phone for whenever Scott calls. Everytime I hear this song it makes me realize how much I have to be thankful for. I'm so glad God gives me storms to go through! See how much he trusts me! I've heard that saying "God doesn't give you more than you can handle" like a thousand times. It's so true! I know right now I'm struggling and not having very much fun with this whole thing, but I know God has a plan for me and He is going to make a way for us! But let me tell you, sometimes I wish God would let me in on His plans! It would cut back on the amount of tears and stress in my life! I'll just keep listening to this song though!

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Life

For the last couple of weeks I've been in a really good. Everything was going great, I was getting a handle on my finances. I was in a good place in my life. Better than ever before. I had to buy new tires for my car unexpectedly, and I was still OK financially. I knew I needed to buy at least one tire which I expected to be about $50.00, but I really needed to replace all four tires. That ended up being $265.14. Way more than I anticipated spending, but I was able to do it and take care of my bills. It made it a little tight, but hey I was OK and I didn't have to ask my Mom for help! I was super pumped about this. I knew God would provide for us. I totally didn't have any extra money to do anything. Well that same weekend, my Mom gave me $50.00. God was so at work there! That gave us some extra money in case we wanted to go watch a movie or get an ice cream or just whatever. I had forgotten about a bill, so that made things even tighter. But we were still OK.

Then on Wednesday when we were at Nelson Park waiting to watch the fireworks, Anoe had to go to the bathroom. So I took her over there. And who did I see? Jason! Alexis' dad. They haven't seen or called Alexis since her birthday! And that was almost two months ago. I know he saw me because I could see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I didn't talk to him because I'm a little irritated with the situation. It's been two months and they haven't even called to make sure she's doing OK. I know they're having a hard time, but really they've never had 50 cents to call in the last two months? Yeah I seriously doubt it. I know I'm totally not acting very christian with this, but darn it she is worth a little effort on their part! I've gone way above and beyond what I should to help them. After seeing him I kind of got in a little funk.

On Thursday Jennifer came over for a little while to visit. We talked about my attitude towards the situation some. She's probably right, I should take a more Christian approach to it. Needless to say I was not in a very good mood Thursday. Then on Friday when I was leaving for work I noticed that the "battery" light was on in my car. Everything was working fine though. The battery just got replace late last year too. So I thought maybe the light was just messing up or maybe a fuse or something. Of course the only thing I know about cars is where to put gas. So my diagnoses of course is not very accurate. Well, Friday evening I was taking the girls to the drive in to see Ratatouille, well when after my headlights were on for awhile the lights on the dashboard stopped working. The gauges weren't working either. So I pulled over to see maybe if it was just a fuse. (By the way, Anoe's dad was with us because he was supposed to be taking the girls to the movie. And he can't take them without me being there. I totally don't trust him alone with my kids. Not that he would do anything to harm them. But his idea of what is OK for my children to hear and see and my idea of what is OK for them to hear and see are totally different.) So he replaced a fuse and we thought everything would be OK. I was just going to take him home since I was having problems with my car and I was going to go home then take my car to Auto Zone in the morning so they could test the battery. That didn't happen though. We didn't even get out of the parking lot before the car died. I called my brother and he said he would come and get me. We got it started again, but only went about a block. My brother said he didn't know whether it was the battery or the alternator. I praying it's just the battery. So I had to park my car at Harbor Freight for the night. My brother gave Scott a ride home, then took the girls and me home. He let me use his car today so I could do whatever I needed to do while he's at work. When he gets off at noon we're gonna try to get it to start and take it down to Pep Boys.

I was talking to Jennifer earlier and I told her that I haven't felt the way I'm feeling right now in a really long time. I'm having all these feelings of hopelessness and just yuckyness. I do not like feeling this way!!! All I want to do is lay in my bed and cry. I really need prayers!



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Oh I almost forgot this part! We found out yesterday that my brother and his wife are expecting a baby!!! That was one good thing to happen. And I get to paint and decorate the babies room! I'm really happy about this!!! So I guess not everything is going bad right now!

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

The 4th of July!!!


I love the entire 4th of July holiday. I love everything about it. What it stands for, what we're celebrating, time off of work, paid time off of work! I really try to make a point of telling the girls why exactly we're celebrating. Not just because it's a Wednesday and we get to sleep in. But the real reason. How lucky we are to have the freedom we do. And how many people have died and will die to give us this freedom. I want my girls to grow up loving and appreciating what they have. All to often we take for granted all the freedoms we have. I think in part that is why I'm so interested in the war and other countries that don't have our freedom. It makes me even more thankful for what I have.

Now, onto another note. I so want to know what everyone is doing for the holiday. My girls and I are going over to my friend Cherry's house for an all day swim/BBQ party. Then in the evening we might go to Nelson Park to watch the fireworks. Not really sure about the evening yet. Oh and we plan on sleeping in and doing a little happy dance! We get to sleep in, hang out with friends all day, and I'll be getting paid for it! This is so the life for me!!!