Saturday, January 29, 2011

Well, we are pretty darn certain the B man has an ear infection but today was much better because Jon was home. Whew. On the drive from The Met to Chipotle last night for dinner, I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I was literally resting my forehead on the steering wheel while waiting at a light as Brennan cried/wailed in the background. If he's not doing better by Monday, I'll take him in to the doctor's for round 4/5 of antibiotics.

Anywho, today was a fun day! We went to a birthday party for a little boy who is 1 month older than Brennan. They are pals and his mom is such a blessing to me. We switch off babysitting so we can both go to hair appts and doctor appts and random stuff like that.

Afterwards, we went and looked at a few houses with our realtor. Here's the two we looked at:




*all images taken from har.com

Our lease isn't up until May so we aren't ready to buy just yet, we're just checking out homes we find interesting and researching neighborhoods (and whoo-wee, there are so many neighborhoods to choose from, it's a bit overwhelming). Neither of these were "the one". We made every mistake you could make when buying our first home so we feel almost like we're first time home buyers this time around. During FPU this past fall, Dave Ramsey went through the 10 biggest mistakes you can make when buying a home and Jon and I we're just dying, we had made like 8 of them! If you want tips on what not to do, give me a call. :)

Time for bananagrams, ha!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Rough day with the B man. . . we think we has another ear infection (fourth or fifth since this fall) but we're not sure. Ugh. Catch ya on the upswing.

Chaeli

Thursday, January 27, 2011

A Gentle Answer. . .






"A gentle answers turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." Proverbs 15:1, NIV

I've joined Beth Moore's Siesta Scripture Memory Team on her blog this year and I'm pretty pumped about it. The goal is to memorize 24 verses a year. You log onto her blog the 1st and 15th of every month as accountability, to write who you are and what your verse is for that two weeks. She recommends choosing scripture that pertains to your current life situation. This verse speaks to me in regards to disciplining Brennan, when he's upset or doing something he's not supposed to be doing, instead of yelling at him all day long, I'm trying to respond softly and gently. If we're telling him not to yell at us or others, but we turn around and yell at him, how is that teaching him? It helps calm me down and calm Brennan down, especially when I'm putting him into timeout and telling him gently, "I don't want to do this, but you disobeyed mommy". He seems to understand it better. I also deeply believe that your words can bring life to others or destruction and I desperately want my words to be life-giving. It's something I'm working on and this verse reminds me of that.

If you're interested in joining the scripture verse team, it's not too late to join, just click on her blog and comment on February 1st with your verse.


If you're curious what Jon and I have been doing in the evenings during the media fast. . .

Playing bananagrams!! (thank you to Katie Foster for introducing us!). It's like less complicated Scrabble. I'm in love.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

CASA (no, not the house)


My beautiful and smart sister told me about CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and then two weeks later one of our renters used her CASA supervisor as a reference and I suddenly became really interested it. What's CASA? So glad you asked. :)

When a child is taken by CPS (Child Protective Services) due to abuse or neglect in the home, they are often lost in the system. CPS case workers have on average 50 cases per person. They're overworked and often don't know the details of their cases (how could you?) and dont' know what's truly best for the kid. When you become a CASA, a judge appoints you guardian ad liteum of a child (or several, depending on each case). You, the CASA worker, are representing the child's best interest in court. So the goal is to get to know the child, and his/her therapists, teachers, CPS workers, foster parents, etc. in order to recommend to the court what would be best for the child (i.e stay in the foster home, return home, get special tutoring, medication, healthcare, etc. etc. etc.).

It's kind of a process to become a CASA worker, I am going through a sweeeet organization called Child Advocates in downtown Houston. First there's orientation, then a two week training program, then an interview and finally the swearing in by a judge. I started training yesterday bright and early and it was a good 7 hour day of training. The next week and a half I have training almost every night, but it's so worth it. Yesterday was difficult because of all the horrific information and images they showed us (Basically, be prepared, this is what you're going to be dealing with). A lot of things did not bother me until I had Brennan, now I'm a lot more sensitive to things relating to children. It's pretty saddening and horrific and pisses you off all at oncee. Nauseous, that's the word, I felt nauseous most of the day. (it probably didn't help that I literally started off the day by wiping out in front of the building while daydreaming and walking all at the same time. yep.).

Anywho, I have lots of thought swirling around in this head of mine but I'm going to keep them to myself for now. This week shall be crazy, downtown is definitely a drive away from us. And Jon's got a week of cooking and B watching in front of him, but it'll be good. And now I know there's a slight step to enter the building so really, it can only go up from here.

If your'e interested in becoming a CASA pleeeease email or call, it's hard work, but it's so necessary and rewarding.

Gotta go nurse my hurt knee. ha!

Adios!




Tuesday, January 18, 2011

HomeGoods


Y'all. THIS is the place. For real. I went to HomeGoods for the first time today in The Woodlands and felt like I was walking on air the whole time (Jon says I'm a bit dramatic). I texted him several times in the store warning him about how much I loved that place. He then threatened to call our credit cards and report them stolen. It's basically Marshall's store for home. goods. And it's awesome (did I say that yet?). Luckily, I only ended up buying a few things, some fluffy pillows for our bed, a modern looking bowl for the kitchen and a deocration for our table. I could've done a lot more damage but then I looked at our budget. HA!

Texas peeps, there's one in The Woodlands and one in Copperfield, I'll go anytime you want!!

The.end

Monday, January 17, 2011

PSA


This is a public service announcement to PLEASE turn off your computer and stop whatever else you are doing and READ THIS BOOK!!

Jon and I have done a lot of reading while on our fast and I just finished this book last night. It was awesome. To summarize, it's the true story of an older white man (who is a very successful art dealer) who meets a homeless black man on the streets of Ft. Worth, Texas. Half the book is written by the art dealer (Ron), the other half by the homeless man (Denver). It spoked to me, encouraged me, made me cry, made me laugh, seriously, read it.

Ok, bye now.

Oh, P.S. don't look at the photos in the middle of the book until you finish it, it gives too much away!

Friday, January 14, 2011

Wants to know. . .

What's the best piece of real estate advice anyone has ever given you?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Christmas Trip- Part 2


Our church is going through a 21 day fast that started this past Monday and I've decided to give up desserts and Facebook and Twitter. FB and Twitter are huge distractions for me that I can spend far too much time with and dessert I just plain have no self control with. So that's how I made that decision. Jon is giving up ALL media, including radio, TV, Wii, internet, etc. So when he's home, I'm basically giving all those things up too so I don't tempt him. It's been crazy, we've slept great three nights in a row, when our bodies tell us were tired, we go to bed! Imagine that, ha! Life without media distractions, try it sometime! Anywho, I am still on email and am still updating my blog. Sorry it's taken me so long to get the rest of our Christmas posts up.

Soooo, after spending some time with the O'Neill family, we drove to Bridgman to be with the Zuberts and Ackerman's. We've been blessed that we're all able to come into town at the same time. (Side note, I was watching the Today show and the top 3 places for jobs are Minneapolis, Washington D.C. and Houston, where the Zuberts, my sister, and we all live, crazy!).


We exchanged gifts with the Ackermans (thanks Judy for sending us a box of gifts we could'nt fit in our luggage!!)

The boys got haircuts (Brennan's first "real" haircut)

Hung out with Jon's BFF, Carl.


Lincoln, Westin and Brennan

Walking through a Christmas lights display in St. Joe. It was cold. Really, cold.

After Bridgman, we spent one last day with my parents. We had a blast hanging out, playing with Steve's new Kinect game and my mom and I were able to scrapbook a little. The plane ride home was a little rough because we had to wake Brennan up early to make our flight and he was a crank-ster. But other than that, we can't complain. Thanks to everyone who picked us up and dropped us off at various airports and checked in on our house. It feels good to be back in the normal routine of things.

Be back soon, promise!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Christmas trip- Part 1

A Brief Synopsis:

We flew into Detroit to spend time with the O'Neill's. Our second day there we drove to Lansing to see our Trinity friends (it was sooo good to see everyone), close a bank account, see Mariam and her beautiful baby girl, Heidi and lastly to check on our house. It was such a blessing to us, the house looked GREAT! Our renters seem to be taking really good care of the house and we don't take that for granted. It's decorated wayyy cuter than the way I had it! We needed to check on all the work we had done (new furnace, new fence, new electrical, new trees, yes, we're broke :) and it all looked good! That was a huge relief for us.


Cliff, Jon, Brennan, Chaeli, Katie, Charlotte

The next day was Christmas Eve and the Fosters stopped by for a quick visit. Katie's one of my oldest and dearest friends, I'm so glad we got to see them, even if it was briefly!

Later that day, Meg, Dave, Steve, Jon and I took Brennan and the dogs outside to play in the snow. I'm really glad we did because unbeknownst to us, that was all the snow we were going to see!

The next day was Christmas. We opened presents with some of the O'Neill family while the rest showed up later in the day. We spent the day eating, playing games (ping-pong and Kinect) and hanging out. The house was packed, but it was fun.


Andy was a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan in elementary school. Mom bought him one of the characters as a joke. But Brennan ran up and grabbed it from him before he could enjoy it, ha!


Everyone's here, family photo time!


Aunt Meaghan brought Rice krispie treat kits in the shape of a train to decorate with the kiddos!

I had forgotten we brought this cute Santa outfit with us until Jon brought B downstairs one night. It was hilarious!!

One day we were there, my parents rented out FaHoLo's indoor swimming pool for an hour. It was so much fun! We played volleyball and relaxed in the hot tub. I'm soo not putting photos up of me in a swimsuit but I promise, we went!

Mom and Dad, thanks for hosting all of us and letting us eat all your food and borrow your car! We love you all!

Be back sooooon!

Hey friends!

Long time, no blog, sorry!! I figured we saw most of the people that read this blog in the last two weeks so it wasn't necessary. :)

I'm hoping to download all my photos from our Christmas trip to Michigan sometime today and will hopefully have a post up soon. It was such a great trip. The traveling went as smooth as can be which I am so grateful for. We literally walked through security at both the Houston and the Detroit airport (thank you family security lines!!). Jon didn't have to be "felt up" which was his greatest concern. :) Brennan traveled great, slept great (thank you Jesus) and was in general, a happy camper despite his double ear infection diagnosis the day before we left (ughhh). He doesn't travel well in a car (when does that get better??) but he did great while we were there.

It was so great to see all of you- I'm already planning our trip home this summer! However, we're glad to be home in our own beds. Now, if we could only get Brennan off of Michigan time and onto Texas time so he's not waking up at 6:15, all would be perfect. :)