Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Pigtails and Crewcuts

After the boys went to mother's day out today and I was finished working, Cody and I took Jace for his first haircut! I'm pretty sure that when your little boy's hair goes halfway down his back when it's wet in the bathtub that it's time! Jace turned 13 months old today, just had that revelation as I was typing! Anyways, so we took him to a new Kid's Salon in West Little Rock called Pigtails and Crewcuts. It's the cutest little salon. They sit the kids in cars that are barber seats to cut their hair. We paid for the first haircut package and therefore got a photo of him after his cut in a really cute card that also included his first lock! We took pics and again....wish you could see them!

Sales and Slaughters!

Cody is taking off of work all this week and he began his vacation early by hunting all this past weekend. So, that means that I have the boys by myself all weekend. Normally, it would have been fine.... not ideal.... but fine. But, this weekend was the Inviting Company semi-annual clearance sale!! I can't AFFORD to miss a sale! So, Natalie and I decided to hit the sale at the last minute. It opened at 9 am Saturday morning and by the time we got all four kids (yes we took all four kids to the warehouse sale) ready we made it to North Little Rock by 10:00 am. When we drove up there was no place to park in the parking lot or in front of the warehouse or up and down the street! We circled and hovered and found a front row spot! Good thing because I didn't want to haul the kids in a mile or two!

We piled out of the car and put the kids in two double strollers and headed inside. The aisles were packed with vultures! There was no room to maneuver the strollers because of the LINE of women waiting to check out! Natalie is a fierce shopper and I was not about to lose that challenge so off I went! First stop: Christmas cards to put pics of the boys in and send to friends and family this Christmas. Check! I found them within the first 10 minutes!

Second stop: Invitations for the boys' birthday parties for the next four years! Check! They had the cutest invitations that I actually planned out a few years worth of parties in my head and found corresponding themed invites! And, just so you know you don't have time to count out exactly how many you need, you just grab a stack and keep going! I could continue on with everything I got, but lets just list them instead: Valentine's for the boys to hand out for a couple of years, "We've Moved" cards for just in case, "J" stickers for envelopes of the boys' thank you notes, Christmas "to" and "from" labels, a t-shirt that actually has jace's name on it, a tu-tu for my niece for Christmas, 3 cases of Christmas paper plates and 2 cases of matching napkins, and I think that's it! And, the kicker is that I left without even handing over $25!

Oh, and I skipped over the part where we realized that the line was a 2 hour wait so Natalie took her kids and Jack to McDonald's playland for an hour while I stood in line with Jace! Wow, what an experience! Then we went to the park and let the kids play before heading home for naptime!
Saturday evening I hit Kohl's and got the boys' Christmas p.j.'s a fall shirt for Jack and three shirts for myself all under $60! 2 sales in one weekend!
On to the Slaughter portion... Cody came home late Saturday night and was upset because he had seen 3 deer on Saturday morning but did not have a necessary part of his gun (he assumes he lost it walking out to the stand). So, he WATCHED the deer on Saturday. Sunday morning we all got up and went to church, as usual. Most of the men were in the deer woods, but Cody made the decision to go to church and then go hunting that evening! I think that it paid off for him because he shot a buck Sunday evening! He called to say that he was going to be a while because he had shot one and was going to have to do whatever you do to the deer to get it ready. I decided to take the boys out to him and take some pics of them with Cody and the deer. The pics turned out great, wish you could see them! haha I'll get some up later, we're having camera difficulties right now!

Friday, October 10, 2008

Time for change... just something I want to share

Ok, so I went to a ladies retreat tonight at my church. I got in at the last minute, but I really was excited to go. During Praise and Worship I was singing but also praying, "Lord change me.". It's a theme I've had on my mind a lot lately. I really am hungry for God's word and longing to do His work and just become deeper in my Christianity. I have been complacent for many years. I grew up in church, was "saved" at an early age, and faith comes easily for me. I don't blame God when bad things happen, I don't doubt God's plan when things happen. But, for that reason it's hard for me to be passionate in my Christianity and my walk with Christ. It's not that I don't think that dying for ME is awesome, I just have a hard time getting really pumped about it like so many others seem to do easily.
So..... anyways back to the retreat..... after Praise and Worship the speaker (whom I have heard before and really loved) began and I pulled out my outline to follow. I am one of those who is anal about filling in blanks which she spoke and laughed about! The title for our study, I noticed, was "Change...nothing catches God by surprise". It sure caught me by surprise. I thought, "thank you Lord for providing exactly what I need". I was amazed to find out that the woman in our church who orchestrated this retreat had asked our speaker to talk about Change way back in the summer! I guess I can look at it one of two ways, either it's taken me a long time to hear God telling me I need to change or He's just been planning to let me know I need to change for a long time!
I'm not great with words and I know this is a seemingly small thing, but I was moved. I'm learning that I can become passionate for Him (and therefore change) but only if I want to and also if I pay attention to the avenues He puts in my life for me to learn.
Just something I wanted to share.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

I'm new at this..... as you can tell

Ok, so the blogging desire has finally overcome me and here I am. I can't continue to just read my friends blogs and wish I had one.
Guess I should start out with a little bit of background info. My husband, Cody, and I met in college. We married before my senior year and have now been married for 7 years! We waited a while to have children, but now have a 2 year old and a 1 year old, both boys!! Jack was born June 23, 2006 and Jace came along 15 months later on September 21, 2007. Jack is the compliant and mostly laid back easy child. Jace, on the other hand, started out in this world as quite the tornado! Now that he is mobile (and may I add learning to walk this week!) he is playing better on his own and becoming as easier child.

We made the decision for me to stay at home with the boys when Jace was born. So, I have now been "at home" for a year now. They just started going to Mother's Day Out at our church on Tuesdays and Thursdays for a few hours while I earn a little money! But, no matter how much money I earn we continue to stay broke! My biggest struggle is to be content and not worry about keeping up with the Jones'. Cody is in Construction and has a degree in Construction Management. I'm not giving you a job title because I'm not quite sure what it is to be honest! He does a little Project Managing, a little Estimating, and a little bit over probably pretty much everything else. He is good at what he does and I am proud of how hard he works for our family.

I imagine that I will figure out how to make my blog look pretty and actually add pics and those sorts of things at a later date. For now this will have to do! I hope to reconnect with old friends and learn about their families and meet some interesting new people as well!