Good and bad news

When I was a kid my Mom would always ask if I wanted to hear the bad news or good news first. I always chose the bad news first so that the good news would make things seem better. So in continuing that tradition, let me tell you the bad news first. About a month ago Joel told me that he was going to be doing a large party on February 23 and wanted to know if I would be interested in working. I said yes right away. After I said yes I realized that Katie's (my sister-in-law) baby shower was on the 23rd. Jennifer and I are the hostess's so I of course wanted to be there. Well we moved the shower to the 24th and Katie and Joey said they would watch my girls for me on the 23rd so I could work. Well, something happened and they won't be able to watch my girls after all. (I'll tell you more about that later!) Jennifer said that she wasn't planning on going to San Angelo this weekend so she would be able to watch the kids for me after all. On Wednesday I started feeling run down and achy all over. Thursday morning I woke up with a really bad ear ache and my throat was really hurting. I seriously thought of calling in to work, but we had a court hearing scheduled so I really couldn't call in. I took some Advil and started feeling better. After lunch I started feeling all achy again and my cheeks were really flushed. I just felt horrible! So after work I went to a walk in clinic in Abilene. They tested me for strep throat and it came back positive. I called Trish to see if I would be OK to work on Saturday since I would have already been on antibiotics for 3 days. She said that it would be cutting it really close so I should just sit this one out.

When I talked to Trish she said next time I'm sick and can't come in until after 5:00 just call her and tell the nurse or whoever makes the appointment that I'm friends with Trish and she'll see me after 5! That is so sweet of her! The people at the walk in clinic were not very friendly and it really wasn't that clean. I'm totally spoiled with Trish and her nurse. They're both so nice to me. I'm sure they're nice to all their patients, but it makes me feel good when they're nice to me and actually talk to me instead of just saying "So what's wrong?".

So that's my bad news, I don't get to work for TruBlu Catering after all this Saturday. :(

So now my good news. My sister-in-law gave birth to a beautiful baby boy Monday morning at 7:27! She wasn't due until March 17th, but her water broke Sunday morning about 8:00. She ended up having to have a C-Section because he was stuck. They're both doing awesome and they both went home Wednesday. His name is Mason Price Daniel Chavez and he weighted 5 lbs. 8 oz. He's so tiny! And just as cute as can be!! Hopefully I (Jennifer) will be able to figure out how to get his pictures off my phone and post them on here. (My phone and I have a love/hate relationship right now.)

And for my last bit of good news. On Monday I went to the doctor (Trish my awesome friend), well last month she prescribed some medicine to help suppress my appetite and she also gave me a B12 shot to give me more energy. I lost 15 lbs.!!! I'm so excited about this. I can tell a little bit when I get dressed because my pants aren't as snug. I of course have a long way to go but I'm excited. I had only been taking the medicine for 3 weeks. So that's 5 pounds a week. Hopefully next month I'll be able to report 20 pounds or more have been lost!!!

Until I can get Mason's picture on here, I'll share one of my babies that makes me smile.



My kids are some serious snuggle bugs!

A week in review

Last weekend I went out to Sweetwater again to help my Mom with the mini-golf stuff. I'm actually getting a pretty good tan! And I'm getting better and better with the brick work. My brother came out and helped, which was awesome! A lot more gets accomplished when he's there. My Mom has a really bad habit of getting side tracked. My Mom's friend, Thersea, came out to help clean up. Her boyfriend came with her as well as her 3 daughters. Daughter "N" and I used to be friends but about 5 or 6 years ago we got in a huge fight because she said something and I got really mad and cussed at her. It was really bad, and stupid. This was way before I changed my life and started living for Christ! Anyways, when they first got there I was a little nervous because "N" and I hadn't spoke since then. She was attending TSTC at the same time as me, but I was still rude and ignored her. "N" and her sisters, "C" & "P" had no idea that I am a totally different person now. So anyways, like I said I was really nervous about the whole thing. Oh and I guess I should have said this first, these girls are pretty rough! "P" just got out of prison within the last year or so for trying to kill her mom and sisters! OK so back to me being nervous. "C" was the first to talk to me. She was really nice and everything was fine. After awhile "N" and I started talking about little things, like where do these bricks need to go and stuff like that. My Mom came up to me and asked if I was OK with them all being there. I told her of course I was, they're her friends and they all came to help. My Mom said that she would ask them to leave if I wanted her to because she knows they don't exactly live the the life I do. I told my Mom it was really OK, and besides I'm supposed to bring the kingdom of God to everyone I meet. This made my Mom really proud of me. It was a little awkward, but whatever. They only stayed for about 2 hours. The rest of the day was spent with me and Joey figuring stuff out. OK so it was more like me going and getting stuff while Joey figured out how much wood was needed or at what angle to cut whatever. But still, I was helping. Then around 7:30 I left my kids with my Mom so I could go get a tattoo! I got Alexis' name tattooed on me when she was just a year or so. So of course Anoe asks all the time about why I don't have her name. So I had finally decided to do it. It's really cute! I love it!

Sunday morning I woke up before everyone else and thought it would be a great time for me to take shower before Anoe gets up and starts messing with stuff. Well when I walked out of the bathroom my Mom, Symantha, and Anoe were sitting right there and started singing Happy Birthday to me. It was really funny. For my birthday they gave me 3 baskets full of bath stuff. I really like to decorate my bathroom with the cut soaps and stuff, but 3 baskets? I was like WOW! Do I smell or something? Anyways, we all got up and went out to the lot. About 10:00 Theresea showed up with her boyfriend again. Her kids weren't with her this time. A couple of hours later "N" came too. We ended up talking a lot on Sunday. It was really good. She just got out of prison a month ago. But she had a baby 8 months ago when she was still in prison. So she's really struggling to get used to life with a baby and not going back to using drugs and stuff. I'm really glad we got to talk so much Sunday. I told her I would go to church with her on the weekends I'm out in Sweetwater. When it was lunch time we had a roast with vegetables. Roast is one of my favorite things to eat, so that worked out really well for me. I had already talked to my Mom and Symantha about not making a big deal about my birthday because I've been having a really hard time with it this year. Well, the did a really good job considering they ususally make a huge deal of everything. Theresea and Mark (the boyfriend) had brought an ice cream cake with them when they came. (Which was a secret to me.) And they all sang Happy Birthday to me again. It was really nice. I've more or less come to terms with being 30 and still not having a husband or even a prospective boyfriend. It's not so bad really. I've been super blessed with two amazing kids! Sunday afternoon I noticed that I had a tan line on my wrist where the my gloves stopped! So I was trying to work without them but I kept cutting myself so I decided that it was better to have a tan line than ugly hands.

Monday was pretty darn boring. Alexis started runnig a fever so she could go to shcool. I found out Monday afternoon that another little girl at HHC had tested positive for the flu, so I figured that's what was wrong with Alexis. I was really not wanting to spend a lot of money on medicine and doctors visit though. I told Alexis that if she was still sick and running a fever on Tuesday we would go ahead and go to the doctor though. We prayed that God would just take care of it and she would start feeling better! When we went to bed she still wasn't feeling to good though. In the morning when she got up she felt better though! She wanted to go to school, I told her she couldn't because it hadn't been 24 hours since her fever had been gone. (I'm a stickler about that rule.)

Tuesday was a lot of fun. The Judge married a couple at 9:00 then we had small claims hearing at 10:00 and one at 10:30. The defendants for both cases actually showed up. Usually the only people that show up are the plaintiffs. So it was exciting to have so many people in my office.

Then on Wednesday Alexis had an ARD meeting. I got the letter on Monday telling me she had the ARD meeting, so I asked if I could take time off to go to it. Well when I got to the Intermediate school, they had no idea what I was talking about. They called the Abilene office to see what had happened, but couldn't figure out what was going on. They did have a paper they wanted me to sign, they were going to mail it to me but since I was already there I just went ahead and signed it. While I was there I received a call but didn't answer it because I was trying to figure out what was going on. When I left I went ahead and checked my voicemail, which I usually only do once every two weeks. As it turns out the ARD meeting was for Anoe! I felt so silly! I hurried and rushed over to the Elementary. Sometimes I can be such a dork!

And now Thursday. It's Valentines day and I'm so glad it's over! I'm really not into the whole Valentines day thing. I don't think I would be even if I did have a boyfriend though. It just kind of seems pointless. We're having our Girl Scout Cookie Booth sale tomorrow night from 5:30 to 7:00. It's supposed to be super cold! Hopefully they'll let us set up inside instead of having to sit out in the freezing cold.

New phone!!

Last March Jennifer and I got new phones. I had to pay full price for mine because of some reason that I can't remember. I so don't understand the point in paying a lot of money for a phone! But I did it. It was somewhere around $350.00! Way to much for a phone in my opinion. But it was pink and I really needed a new one. Anyways, this year Jennifer wanted to get new phones again. I was totally against it because I didn't think I would get any kind of discount again. Jennifer finally talked me into. She said that I would be able to get a $75.00 discount. So I was pretty happy about that. I finally picked out a phone that would only be $94.99 with my discount. It was a S1 by Sanyo. (Pictured below)



Now the phone I really wanted is called Rumor! The only reason I really want it is because McDreamy (Grey's Anatomy) has a Sidekick and the Rumor is the closest that Sprint comes to having a Sidekick. Everytime I watch Grey's Anatomy I want a Sidekick! For no reason other than McDreamy has one! OK I know that is a crazy reason to want something, but that's my reason. So lets move on, shall we? (Pictured below is a Rumor)



After I had finally made my decision to get the S1 by Sanyo Jennifer told me that I was actually getting a $300.00 discount! We were both so happy! Jennifer knows how much I hate spending a lot of money on phones. So the phone I am actually getting is a Centro by Palm. And it's pink!!! The best part of course. It does all kinds of cool stuff, but that doesn't matter to me. All I care about is the fact that it is pink and I didn't have to pay full price for it! After tax and everything, my phone came to $107.20! I think I'm definatly God's favorite these days!!! And just so everyone can see what my new beautiful phone will look like, there's a picture below.

Student of the Month

My Anoe made Student of the Month! Kalista and Xander got it a couple of months ago and she really wanted to be the student of the month too. So now she is! Her picture is going to be in the Abilene Reporter in the "Say Cheese" section sometime soon and she'll be in the Clyde Journal soon. Actually she'll be in the Clyde Journal twice, once for Student of the Month and once for Girl Scouts. Wow, my baby is like almost famous!

I have a new skill!

This past Friday my girls and I went to Red Robin to have dinner with my Mom, Step-Mom, brother and his wife. It was so much fun! My Mom and I shared a burger. And we asked the waiter if they would sing happy birthday to Anoe. I know her birthday was last week but we were kind of celebrating her birthday Friday with my parents. So anyways, Anoe loved it! She got a ice cream sundae with chocolate and had the biggest smile ever. At the table right behind us were some people from Clyde that Alexis knew. Well the boy she knew was Trenton Cauthen. I kind of sort of recognized his parents from church but not really. When school first started Alexis and Trenton became friends. She said they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but I quickly informed her she had no business having a boyfriend at her age. She could be friends with him but none of this boyfriend nonsense! Well a couple of weeks later he decided he didn't want to be "friends" with Alexis anymore because he liked some other girl. Well of course Alexis went into total 10 year old melt down and cried because she had a broken heart. I'm so not a nice sympathetic Mom when it comes to this kind of stuff. I wanted to tell her that's why she's not supposed to be worried about boys right now. But I tried really hard and told her what I thought Jennifer would say to her. It was really hard for me. I can't even remember what I said exactly. Of course with her only being 10 and having no idea what-so-ever about such things like boys and all she moved on quickly. I asked her if she still talked to Trenton awhile back when they were both on the same duty for Children's Church one day and she no. In fact her exact words were (and imagine them with a 10 year old attitude) "Ugh Mom! No!!! Gosh, don't you ever listen to me!?!?!" So I was like oh yeah I remember now. OK, so all of this to tell you the next part. We saw Trenton at the restaurant, but my back was to him and Alexis was facing him and my sister-in-law was sitting right next to Alexis so she was able to see the whole thing, and Trenton and two other little boys that were with him kept calling out Alexis' name to get her attention. Of course Alexis was putting on her perfect little smile and messing with her hair which I'm sure she thought was cute. I was like, seriously? I mean come on ya'll are in 4th freaking grade! So after that Alexis started acting right. Well when they got up to leave, Trenton made a little phone symbol with with his hand and said "Call me" to Alexis. I just looked at her and she said "No Mom I'm not going to call him, I don't have time for boys." I was glad she said that but, why in the world would she act so weird? I mean I'm trying super hard to raise her to be a good Christian little girl. Sometimes I wonder what I need to do so she'll understand that she is just way to young for all this stuff. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

But now on to my new skill! After dinner the girls and I went to Sweetwater to stay the night at my Mom's house so we could help them with the miniature golf course they're building. I made breakfast for us Saturday morning, and we were out at the lot by 9:00. I learned how to set bricks! Now of course I can't build a house or anything, but I can lay bricks around the edge of the putting green. It was such hard work! Moving all the bricks were we needed them, pulling out the weeds so the ground would be smooth so we could lay the runs down, making the mortar so the bricks would stick and not move, kneeling for hours on end on asphalt and of course there were still some pebbles. I have helped design a total of three runs, and designed design two all by myself. Like I said before it was super hard work, but it was so much fun! Sunday morning was no so fun though. I was hurting so bad! My hands are really weak and they hurt if I use them a lot. So of course they were hurting me pretty bad. I even have bruises on my knees from all the kneeling I did. I think we were all (except my freak of a brother who does manual labor all the time so it's no big deal to him) sore Sunday morning. My brother even said he was disappointed in the moral of everyone. After taking some ibuprofen we started feeling a little better but not much.We started the day by pouring concrete into two big holes that had big poles in them. It was kind of cool, I got to help use the level. And then the brick work started up again. At first I just couldn't do it. I wanted to cry I was so upset. My hand and wrist were hurting and me knees were hurting. I just went off by myself and sat down and Alexis came over to sit with me. She said she would pray for me if I wanted her to. Of course I wanted her to pray for me. She did and a little bit later I started feeling better. I was only able to brick 3 runs before I left to come home because of the slow start I had in the morning, but I'm really proud of myself for the work I did.

I almost forgot! My brother taught me how to use a skill saw too. He even let/made me cut a board for one of the runs he was making. And I did a good job. Or at least he said I did, and he didn't fix it after I was busy doing something else. On my way home I got to talk to my sister-in-law for almost 30 minutes which was really nice. She's eight months pregnant and having some problems so she could really use some prayers.

Girl Scout Cookies

A couple of months I advertised Girl Scout Nuts that Alexis was selling. Well now it's time for us to sell Girl Scout Cookies! I'm super excited about this! I love Girl Scout cookies. (Who doesn't right?) Anyways, they're $3.00 a box and if you tell me your order by this Friday, January 25th, I should have them and be able to deliver them to you by February 14th! What a great Valentines present! I've listed the cookies that we are selling below. Just let me know if you want something!

Lemon Chalet Cremes - Luscious lemon sandwich cookies with a hint of cinnamon-ginger spice. Approximate count: 14 Net wt. 8 oz

Trefoils - Tender, delicate-tasting shortbread that melts in your mouth. Approximate count: 45 Net wt. 10 oz

Do-Si-Dos - Crisp, crunchy oatmeal cookies with creamy peanut butter filling. No artificial color or flavor. Approximate count: 22 Net wt. 9 oz

Samoas - Tender vanilla cookies covered with caramel on top and bottom, and then rolled in toasted coconut and striped with a rich, chocolaty coating. Approximate count: 15 Net wt. 8 oz

All Abouts - These beautifully=designed shortbread cookies have a series of Girl Scout messages embossed on top and a rich fudge coating on the bottom! No approximate count or weight given. Sorry.

Sugar Free Chocolate Chips - An explosion of chocolate flavor in a bite sized package! You won't believe this luscious, chewy treat is sugar-free. Diabetic friendly. Again no approximate count or weight given. It does sound good though even if it is sugar free!

Tagalongs - Tasty cookies topped with creamy peanut butter and covered with a luscious chocolaty coating. Approximate count: 15 Net wt. 7 oz

Thin Mints - (If you listen very closely you can almost hear the angels sing when you read about this cookie!) A thin wafer covered with a smooth chocolaty coating. EXTRA THIN! EXTRA CRISP! Made with natural peppermint. Approximate count: 40 Net wt. 10 oz

The girls are planning on making a trip to Primetime with the money they earn from selling. We're supposed to tell anyone that buys a box what we plan on doing with the money we earn. But seriously, after you see the words Thin Mint, who cares why you're selling them. All I can think of is the fact that in a few short weeks I'll be able to enjoy a nice beautiful cookie that is nowhere on my diet. Maybe I can skip lunch and dinner a couple of days so I can eat a couple of cookies everyday! Oh and you can freeze them and take them out later so you can enjoy wonderful cookies all year long.

OK, so I'm done pushing Girl Scout cookies now. Hopefully I'll be able to post all about our trip to the metroplex this past weekend!

Anoe

My sweet baby girl is 6!!!!! Alexis and I woke her up singing Happy Birthday to you this morning. She had such a big smile on her face! She jumped up so we could see how much she had grown over night. We're having a little party tonight at my house for her. I'm going to make spaghetti and we'll have cake and ice cream afterwards. Then tomorrow the girls and I will leave to go to Dallas! We're going to go to The Dallas World Aquarium, then on Sunday we'll go to the Ft. Worth Zoo! I'm not sure if we're going to stay the night Sunday or not yet. We probably will though. I think it'll be so much fun! I'm sure we'll do other stuff too, I'm just not sure what exactly yet.

Anyways, I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of my sweet baby. These are all from a couple of years ago when she was 2 going on 3.

Love this picture! She's such a pretty girl.




Just look at that smile! How can you not fall in love her?




This is one of my favorite pictures of her. She looks so sweet and innocent. It just melts my heart every time I see it!


This last picture is of all three girls. Aren't they so cute?