Guarantee

I was so excited to see this word in June 30! Today is Trinity and my 5th anniversary, and I guarantee that we will make this marriage work!

Trinity, it has been a fun ride so far, and I love you so much! Thanks for being an amazing husband and father! I can't imagine my life without you, and I look forward to the rest of our life together!

Work

Why work when you can play?

Song

In a few days, Trinity and I will celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary! We are actually on our annual anniversary trip right now!Last weekend, we went to Midland for a friend's bridal shower, and while we were there, my mom gave us our wedding present. She doesn't normally get us anything, but she saw this picture frame at a craft show and had to buy it for us because it displays some of the lyrics from the song we danced to at our wedding!Such a sweet and thoughtful gift! I cannot wait to print a picture of us dancing at our wedding so that we can hang it up in our house!

Hair

With just 30 days left in my twenties, I've been pondering what the thirties will bring. I'm sure there will be lots of unexpected twists and turns, but there are a few certainties on my list.

One of those certainties is gray hair! My hair dresser found one near the back of my head, and I instructed him to pluck it out! A few weeks later, I found one hidden on the side of my head, which was also quickly taken care of! Since then, my hair has been gray-free.

Although I was so eager to get rid of these hairs, I don't think I'll be one to dye my hair when it really starts to take hold of my roots. First of all, I am not sure I can justify the expense. I hate to even imagine forking over $100+ for a haircut. And I think gray hair can help some people age gracefully, as long as it grows in evenly.

I guess only time will tell... For now, it's all still dark brown!

Sweet

I was going to blog about how sweet Sugars from our girl are...

But then Trinity decided to give me my birthday present early (so I could enjoy it on our trip).

SWEET!!!

Almost

This month, I almost got a promotion. It was the manager position I was told I'd get within 2 years when I started my current position, so it was a bit of a shock when they gave it to my coworker instead. But harder than being told that I didn't get the job was hearing that there was nothing I needed to improve in my work performance and that at the end of the day, it just came down to the simple fact that she "sold herself better in her interview." I've been trying to find a way to blog about it, but each time I started, I would get so frustrated and delete it. Today's word seemed like as good a time as ever, so I'm going to try again.
I can't say that I've ever failed at anything before. I might not always have earned first place or received an A on every assignment, but when I look back on my life nothing pops up as an utter failure. And maybe this isn't a failure either, but it sure feels like one. I've been assured by everyone that my hard work is noticed and appreciated, and that the decision, in no way, means that I haven't exceeded expectations... because I have.

It's very hard to believe this feedback, and it's even harder to continue to perform above expectations. But I'm trying...

I didn't expect to find myself in this position jut 1.5 years after leaving public accounting. I can't say I regret leaving or accepting the position that I did. If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably take the job all over again. I've learned a lot in the last two years, and my work/life balance has been worth the loss of my previous manager title.

It's been a long, hard month for me. I've been trying to keep a good attitude and work hard, while also seeing what opportunities are out in the marketplace. My attitude was at an all-time low this week, and then this quote showed up on my daily calendar.

It was just what I needed. It reminded me that this one set-back should not keep me down. And I have so many things to be thankful for... wonderful family and friends; a home; food in the pantry; a car; and, although not the one I hoped for, a job.

Space

Isn't it funny how everyone needs their own space sometimes?

I worked from home today, and Trinity was annoyed that I was in his space. He didn't even want to share his "office" tea with me.

Then tonight, Grace threw a fit throughout dinner and hardly ate any of her dinner. She didn't want us to help her eat or touch her. Trinity and I finally just ignored her and ate our dinners. Once we'd cleared the table and moved into the living room, she was content to eat all of her green beans (and then some) at her own little table. She's getting to be such an independent girl.

Dirty: UPDATE

My earring has been found! It was in the pocket of the jeans I was wearing. Yay!

Cold

Here is Grace giving her dad the cold shoulder. He bumped her head on the car door this morning, so she wouldn't say bye or wave to him as I pulled out of the garage this morning.

Poor guy! It wasn't on purpose.

Jump

... Gracie's new favorite word and action! She very recently learned how to jump with her feet actually leaving the ground, so she's busy "jumpin" everywhere. Here she is getting some air with Trinity and giggling through it all.

Grace is getting better about jumping on her own, but she still prefers to hold our hands for some real height. It used to be the only time she actually landed on her feet, but she's getting better about landing all on her own with each day.

Dad

Gracie is so blessed to have such a fun dad! I love how quickly he makes her belly laugh with that adorable grin on her face. She loves pouncing on him and doing flips with his assitance. I can't wait to see how their relationship grows in the coming years. I can already tell she'll have him wrapped around her little finger, but that's a-okay with me. There is nothing sweeter than this girl with her dad.

Happy Father's Day, Trinity! I am so grateful to share my journey through parenthood with you!

Dirty

Thursday night, I lost one of mu pearl earrings while changing out of my work clothes. I looked for the earring a good 30 minutes before giving up to get Grace fed and to bed. I figured I could have Trinity help me look for it when he got home from LA.

He didn't get home until midnight, so I didn't even mention it to him. We didn't get around to searching for it Friday either, so this morning we (and by we, I really mean he) spent a good 15-30 minutes combing through our closet trying to find the darn thing. He even encouraged Grace to help in the search. She had no clue what she was looking for, but she sure had fun destroying the closet!

It's so dirty now, we'll never find it. :(. At least she had a good time on the hunt with her Daddy!

Looking Down

Grace has a bad habit of looking down when she's walking, instead of looking ahead to where she is going. So obviously she's taken some tumbles over obstacles in her path. But nothing like the fall she took Thursday night when she tripped over my brother's dog Carmen, right into one of our end tables. I was sure there would be gushing blood when I picked her up screaming, but there didn't seem to be any obvious damage. whew. Then Friday afternoon, I was sitting on the couch and looked down at her while she was playing on the ground and saw this.

Ouch.

Splash

Handwriting

It seems that handwritten notes are such a thing of the past. With email, text messaging, and Facebook, information is so readily available that no one even to think about sending a good, old-fashioned, handwritten note. That is why I am so glad that I saved these two notes from my parents, in their own handwriting.

I received these notes in the mail during my first few weeks of college at Texas Tech. I still remember, to this day, receiving both of them and crying as I read them. They were tears of joy and sadness at the same time because the letters meant so much to me, but I missed my family terribly.

As I was preparing to write this post, I re-read each of the notes. My mom's letter reminded me of an amazing tradition that I want to pass along to Gracie. I distinctly remember sitting on the porch looking up at the stars with my parents on more than one occasion. I loved gazing up into the starry sky and watching for shooting stars.

Although Grace is in bed before the world goes darks and the stars appear, we do our own star-gazing with the help of her Twilight Turtle. I wish I had thought to take a picture of it, but it's now too late and too dark to go into her bedroom for a picture. I did find a great illustration of what the Twilight Turtle does to her bedroom walls and ceiling online:

Every night before we put Grace in bed, we let her turn on her turtle, and we point to the stars and find the moon projected on the ceiling before singing Twinkle, Twinkle together. I absolutely love the excitement she gets every night, just from turning on the stars. I think this is a great way to begin the star-gazing tradition!

Past

Trinity and I are members of the Texas Tech Alumni Association that, among other things, provides us with a subscription to the bi-monthly Texas Techsan magazine. Once we've read the magazine, we usually toss it in the recycling bin, but last month we left it sitting on the coffee table. One day Grace was tearing pages out of it and flipping through the magazine to see if there was anything interesting. She left it open on the page with the Honors College advertisement, and I saw this picture (in a much smaller size):

My jaw dropped as I realized that I was in the picture. Definitely a blast from the past!

Junk

I think it's time for a spring cleaning. Funny how I hated that term when I was young... the dreaded spring cleaning, which meant we had to go through every room and closet in the house to rid ourselves of all the junk we'd accumulated over the last year. The only part I liked was organizing once the cleaning part was finished.
Years later, I find myself wanting to go through all our stuff to find the junk. But when I find it, it is still so hard to get rid of. I tell myself, "I'll wear that again" or "well, I do use that when I (insert action here)". But I really don't. And so it sits in  my closet or the kitchen cabinet or the garage for yet another year... and another... and another.
 
So this year, I really am going to clean out my closet, our bathroom cabinets, and the guest bedroom. And some of the stuff is going to have to go! And just to hold myself to this, I went ahead and cleaned out my lower bathroom cabinet. There was more junk than stuff I actually use.

I already feel better...

Secret

Listen! (do wah do) Do you want to know a secret? (do wah do)

I don't know if it's much of a secret, but the City of Lewisville holds a free summer concert series on Tuesday nights, so we decided to check it out. This week's "headliner" was Mojo Filter, a Beatles cover band.

The concerts are normally held outside in Old Town Lewisville, but due to inclement weather, they moved the concert indoors this week. Because it was in an auditorium and would require us to remain in our seats, I was a little nervous about how Grace would do. It was her first live concert, after all! I shouldn't have been concerned. Grace just bounced on our laps and shook her head to the impressive sound of Mojo Filter.

I wish I'd taken a picture or video of her feeling the beat... this girl loves her music! She was too cute to watch, and Trinity and I could't help but smile and laugh as she be-bopped to the music. Gracie even caught the attention of the elderly women sitting next to us and the cute family in the row in front of us.

I'm definitely looking forward to next week's concert and hoping we can enjoy the outdoors, to give Grace more room to dance!

Money

This year, Trinity and I made a committment to become debt-free (with the exception of our mortgage) by 2013.  We created a strict budget with about half the spending money we'd previously been using, and to date we've paid off over 50% of our outstanding debt. Next month is the last payment on my car, and then it will just be some pesky credit card debt and student loans!
It hasn't been easy or fun, and we've both learned to live without some things that we'd gotten accustomed to purchasing whenever we wanted. But I know that a huge weight will be lifted once all the debt is gone. More importantly, we'll be able to put more cash in savings, retirement accounts and Grace's college savings fund. And that girl needs a fund... she's ready to go to her parents' alma mater!

We both agree that it's our duty to teach Grace the importance of saving and spending money wisely. And how could we teach her this lesson if we didn't abide by it ourselves? I'm so proud of our progress so far, and I'm looking forward to that last payment!

Bad Habit

According to Trinity, I have many bad habits.
-Leave my dinner plate sitting on the table after dinner.
-Leave unfinished drinks around the house.
-I say, "This is the longest light ever!" when I am being impatient at a red light.
-I use the word "ridiculous" too much.

These may or may not be true. But I am not the one who left this cup on the desk for a week.

Back

One of Grace's favorite places is out back! She loves to sit in the lawn chairs, watch the dogs run around, and play at her water table!

History

Today is the 68th anniversary of D-Day, the day Allied troups turned the tide of WWII. I saw this picture on CNN's website this morning and couldn't imagine the thoughts that were running through the soldiers minds as they prepared to storm the beaches of France that day.

 

  



The picture also reminded me of my trip to France in 2003. While studying abroad, I was able to visit some of the D-Day beachs and visit an extraordinary museum dedicated to WWII. Just outside Caen, the museum has an amazing silent video with footage from D-Day, as well as a beautiful memorial. It is one of the few museums I've visited that touched me to the core.

How men and women have the courage to be sent into battle, I will never know. But I am so grateful to all of them, past and present, for risking their lives to save others. They say history repeats itself; I hope they are wrong.

Appreciation

When I began to prepare for this post, I wanted to pick one person to focus my appreciation on, but I quickly realized that there is no way I could just show appreciation for a single person. So instead, I've narrowed it down to four:

-My Husband
First and foremost, I appreciate that Trinity accepts me for who I am! No matter how annoyed or frustrated he might get with me, he's never walked out the door. I know that I can rely on him for anything, and he is an amazing partner to share my life! He is also an amazing dad and has been so helpful in sharing the load of parenthood. I know that as Grace gets older, she'll realize that he is the cool parent, so I'm trying to accept that earlier rather than later.

Grace and Daddy - May 2012

-My Mom
She's the only one who's known me completely for my entire life. She set a tremendous example of how to be a good mother, and she also taught me to be a hard worker and to follow my dreams. My mom also introduced me to books, so my love of reading is attributable to her insistence that I read, read, read. I find her in myself quite often these days, and I am so blessed to have her as a strong role model.

Grace and Mimi - October 2011

-My brother and SIL

I have been very blessed to have a close relationship with Steven throughout our life. I'll never forget how hard it was to say goodbye to him the day I left for college. I wasn't sure if we'd ever live in the same city again, and although we don't live in the same city now, I am very grateful that we live in the same metroplex and make it a point to see each other as often as possible. And of course I can't appreciate my brother without including my sister-in-law, Megan. They have been such a blessing! I mean, they gave me an excuse to go to Europe in 2009, and they have done so much for us since Grace's arrival in 2010. They have showered us with gifts to cloth and entertain her, contributed to her college savings fund, and babysat and watched her overnight so that Trinity and I could have some alone time.

Grace, Uncle Steven and Aunt Megan - January 2011

-My daughter's teachers

Leaving Grace at daycare is one of the hardest tasks for me to do during the day. Even though I know the social interation is good for her, it is still hard for me on certain days. Thankfully, her school has made it so much easier because I can put complete trust in her teachers. I can tell that each and every one of the teachers loves Gracie, and several of them have admitted that she is spoiled by all their attention!

Grace and Miss Sylvia - July 2011

Summer

Nothing says summer to me more than tank tops, flowing dresses and family vacations! Over Memorial Day weekend, we ventured to Fredericksburg with five other couples for our second annual Fredericksburg weekend! Last year, we went with the Reynolds', Keffers and Pendarvis', so this year we decided to invite two other couples: the Horsleys and Cook-O'Briens. We had so much fun! So much fun, in fact, that I was too busy to take pictures (I took a whopping five). Thankfully the other couples were snap happy, so I'm going to have to steal some of their pictures!

Over the weekend, we visited three wineries (Messina Hof, Grape Creek, and Becker), shopped Main Street, ate tons of good food, had plenty of pie from Fredericksburg Pie Company, and generally enjoyed everyone's company. Some of us even made a stop by the LBJ Ranch for a historic tour of the Texas White House.

We rented two beautiful houses and spent evenings on the porch.  After the kids were in bed, we sat on the porch to talk and drink beer and wine. One night we even made s'mores. No better way to spend a summer night!

 Erin is missing because she is busy shopping in her favorite kitchen store!

Grace loved riding the horse on Main Street



We were sad to say goodbye to everyone on Monday and are already looking forward to next Memorial Day! There is nothing better than a long weekend with dear friends to ring in the summer!

Ingredients

32 pounds of love, a handful of stubbornness, and a pinch of sass. A little bit of me and a lot of Trinity. Mix it all together, and what have you got?

GRACIE!

It's hard to believe that she'll be two in four months, but then I look at how much she has grown in the last year and it doesn't seem so unbelievable! Saying her ABCs, counting to ten and singing several nursery rhythms are Grace's newest accomplishments.

At daycare, they have begun to transition her to the preschool class because they can tell she is getting restless in her toddler class. I'm not sure if that is where her interest in the potty began, but she is asking to sit on the potty almost every day. So far she hasn't figured out what she's supposed to do on the potty, but we keep encouraging her and letting her sit on it whenever she wants.

We can tell the toddler years are upon on us when she doesn't get her way. Thankfully her tantrums are short lived, as we walk away and ignore them.

Gracie still loves to eat, and her humming during mealtime has returned. We usually ask her if she likes dinner, and she usually responds with a resounding, "Yeah!" The other night, we made something for the first time, and she looked at me and said, "Momma, I like it!" before we could even ask her! Trinity and I just giggled.

We are constantly impressed by her ability to speak in sentences. I lost track of her words list months ago, and she continually surprises me with her pronunciation and memory of words. There are still times that we have no idea what she is saying, but those situations are becoming less frequent.

It has definitely been a joy to see Grace grow these last few months! She is at a fun age, but I dread the day I realize she is a big girl!

Project

Sad that I almost failed the photo a day project for June on the second day! I had a totally different idea for a blog today but never got around to writing it. Oh well, there is always tomorrow.

Discovery

A few mornings ago, I walked into Grace's room expecting her to be up and waiting for someone to rescue her from her crib. Instead I discovered this!

How exciting that our sweet girl is learning to sleep in!

Photo a Day

A friend of mine has been participating in a photo a day blog for several months now, so in an effort to blog more often, I'm going to try to keep up for the month of June! Below are the categories. Wish me luck!