The Blah-est Day EVER

It's strange the different ways I feel comfort when I miss my sister Shauna. The best is when I have dreams about her, which I did last night. This might not make sense to me later, or to anyone or maybe at all... but I dreamt she came back to life. Almost like God had given her a second chance of sorts. She looked good, like herself, I hugged her which was awesome. It felt very real... when she walked through the door I burst in to tears when I saw her alive. She was very serious, kind of solemn almost. I didn't understand why or HOW she was back... I was super confused and astonished. I asked her if she remembered where she went when she died and she said yes. I asked her if she saw Heavenly Father and what heaven was like and she said she didn't see Him, but that he spoke to her by way of a rock (? I don't know, this is a dream remember) and that she was given a mission for our family. We never got to what that mission was... but the part that stood out to me the most was the part where she said she didn't see God but that she was in a place where He could still speak to her. Then this morning, Randi (her partner before she died) had posted a video she made of photos of Shauna. So... guess what's on my mind today? I feel her with me... not to sound all weird and stuff, but I feel like she's around me today. And I'm grateful for that. I sure do miss her. I sent an email to my mom today telling her about this dream, and she too had an experience of feeling Shauna (and her dad) around her yesterday. I feel like she's reaching out to us to let us know she loves and misses us just as much as we do her.

It's been one of those days.... It was SO beautiful this whole weekend. The weather was perfect. Then this morning and all day it's been foggy and rainy and with all of that gloominess a lot of bad news. News of old friends whose marriages are ending, news of a loss of a friend's father, a friend's baby who was born prematurely and is a mere 1lb... I'm just so grateful for the power of prayer and how if we ask fervently the Lord will bless those who stand in need of comfort, even if it's ourselves we're praying for. I can't imagine what it must be like to go through each one of those trials, but I DO know that the Lord will bless each of His children.
There is some good in the world, not to make light of these other things- but a few months ago I bit down (pretty hard) on a rock/small pebble in my black beans at a Mexican restaurant here called Willy's. I called the manager up and told him what happened, saved the pebble and took it in as a "formal" complaint, which they logged (not sure if they kept the rock though!). But I love Willy's so much I still eat there often. Plus they gave me a free meal for the trouble. SO... fast forward a few months later, I go to the dentist for a check up and cleaning. There's a crack in my top and bottom molars in the filling... from the rock. It's going to cost around $1500 to get these fixed. Fast forward to last week... I got on to Willy's site after eating a delicious burrito and thought "meh... why not see if they'll help cover the cost of my dental work since their stupid ROCK messed my teeth up?" So I went to the comments section, typed in my email address and name and my complaint. I was nice, said I still liked their food and still visited often, etc... but that my teeth were messed up and I didn't think it was completely fair to foot the bill. I told Ryan about it... didn't think anything would come of it- but I got THIS email today:
Heather

Having to go to the dentist sure is not fun! I have had the broken tooth myself several years ago. Please send a copy of the dentist bill to (email address here) and we will start the process to get this wrapped up for you.

We will be glad to see what we can do to help.

Regards

WMG Inc.

(Some names have been changed to protect the innocent) I am pleasantly surprised by this! It doesn't hurt to try right? And thanks Willy's! You've kept my patronage! I'm not sure if they'll foot the whole bill- but any is better than none!
Anyway... I've got a nasty cough with a side of a stuffy nose and headache, so I'd better get to bed. Hopefully the weather is better soon. My poor sister is going to get PELTED in Chicago this week. First about a foot and a half of snow, then possible flash floods from Lake Michigan. I don't think she'll be particularly effected by the flood part because she's far enough away from the lake but it's not going to be pretty. I wonder what Sir Groundhog will predict tomorrow... hopefully Spring will be on its' way soon!

Can Winter Be Done Yet? Please????

It's almost over. January is almost over. Which means, we're one month closer to March. Which means we're one month closer to SPRING. I've mentioned this before, January is NOT my favorite month. I pretty much feel like we should all be like bears and hibernate for the month of January... maybe even February, and wake up and be able to pick up where we left off... nothing skipped, no overdue bills, etc. The sleep would be nice to catch up on, and well- two of the cruddiest months would have passed us by! I know... not going to happen. But how nice would it be to wake up to the earth turning green and flowers blooming and the warm sun on your face? See? Sounds good huh?! To remedy this distaste for these two month, I like to try and plan something to look forward. A little weekend trip or even something for the spring or whatever. Things weren't looking good until we all decided we were having "cabin cravings" and are heading there next month! Yay! And then we're looking at going to Florida in May which I am also very excited about, because we haven't been to the beach in a long while. And I need me some beeee-ach.

What's been going on in our world? Ben went to his first birthday party (outside of daycare) for little Aubrey two weekends ago. He was the only [big] boy there, but he still had lots of fun. He sure does love seeing Aubrey. He also loves his cool sunglasses and orange necklace and other little fun things he got in his grab bag. They had pizza, and cupcakes and Ben got Aubrey a My Little Pony. He did very good at giving her a present. He found the ONE boy toy there, a tractor, and held on to it for dear life while he pushed a baby doll in a stroller a little too!This past weekend Ryan and I went on a date and went to dinner and then watched a movie in the theater. The BEST part of it all (besides my incredibly hunky husband's company) was that it only cost us about $8! We had a $50 gift card for dinner, but ended up only tipping the waitress because we got our meal free. The manager felt like we had waited too long for our food, and we had to send Ryan's burger back for being undercooked. We hadn't even complained or made a stink, and the waitress did nothing wrong- so we were happy to tip her still and get to go back and use our card for reals. The movie tickets were given to us by Jennifer, who also got to hang out with Ben when we were out. We love and appreciate all of our friends who are so good to Benny. AND he LOVES them too. Especially Jennifer, I think... if I dare say, that she is his first crush. :) It's pretty cute. Saturday was a bunch of errand running. Most of our time being spent at IKEA which, I have a love/hate relationship with. I love that store. I love how cheap things are. And inventive too. We found some stuff for Ben's room that we needed but I tell you what.. That kid... made us SO angry while we there. He acted AWFUL, like the worst he's ever been in a store. Granted, he was SUPER tired and hungry... but man... people were staring and watching as if it was their business, he carried on... it was NOT fun. After calming down some, we ate at the cafeteria there, which I love to do. It's SO inexpensive and I LOVE their meatballs. I even had their Lignonberry juice and it was delish! Anyway, Sunday we spent the day with the Terry's. Literally just about the entire day was filled was Terry babyness and friends! It was awesome! Little Savannah was blessed and given a name at Church, and then we all scooted back to their house to get set up, cook and clean for the open house they had for friends/family that couldn't be at church for her blessing. Little Miss Savannah has A LOT of fans, she's already the popular girl in town. The blessing was super sweet and Jacob did a wonderful job. I even got misty-eyed. We already love her so much I could burst in to a heart cloud! Uncle Ryan got her to smile so big and cute in that picture above. I think SHE already loves us too! Yay! It was a special, fun and busy day. Both Sat & Sun, Ben didn't sleep so he was asleep in his car seat with in 10 mins of getting in the car after leaving their house around 6:30. He still hadn't eaten dinner so we had to wake him up so he could eat something before he went back to bed. He ate about half of his food before he started falling asleep in his highchair (is it bad that he still sits in one?) so I got him out and put him to bed. He was definitely a sleepy guy... which sparks tantrums and such. Oh well.
Let's see... what else. We're hopefully expecting a visit from my brother John for a day at some point soon. That's one thing I'm looking forward to! I am super homesick for family right now. And we just love John and don't get to see him often enough!
Next weekend we are going on a double date with the Kranendonk's to see Guster in concert downtown. Benny is going to hang out with Nana & Poppy at a Cross Keys (where they attended high school) basketball game they're going to. I think he'll have lots of fun! And I think we will too!
Well... we're kind of all feeling under the weather. Didn't sleep good, and this week has drug (dragged, drugged... whatever) on and on it seems. It's only Friday tomorrow? Darn. I've got some back posting to do, so don't be surprised if you see entries for the beginning of January that weren't there at the beginning of January!

Eau De Potty

So... I'm not trying to jinx us or anything, but just about a month and a half shy of the *gulp* 3RD birthday of my first born... we're about 98% potty trained!!! Yay! Go us! We have DEFINITELY learned some things we WILL try differently next time around. Like...
-a nothing but undi's weekend (plus clothing of course, especially if it's cold out!)
-not to be lazy, because if we are- the kid will be too
-do NOT get frustrated or give up
Things we seem to have done right:
-pee pee/poopy pills (otherwise known as M&M's)
-cool undi's
-being excited and happy and allowing all the bragging about "peening" in the potty he wants, which included calls to Nana & Poppy and Grandma & Grandpa
-incentives or... bribery, whatever you decide to call it!
-PATIENCE, PERSISTENCE, LOVE, frequent trips to the potty...even out at the store. Which may include crouching in uncomfortable positions while holding your pooping child because they're scared they're going to fall in!
-bringing a few changes of clothing/undi's (or Pull-ups) at all times
-acknowledging there WILL be accidents and that's it's OK. It's a learning experience.

It's quite a trip this Potty Training business. At least it has been for us. We started this when? Oh yah...August! Ugh... It's really mostly our fault I realize, but we're new at this whole parenthood thing and toddler-hood big boy thing. We have a boatload of excuses; work, laziness, work, laziness.... you know. But two weekends ago I just decided it was time. Time to stop fooling around and getting frustrated with Ben because he didn't tell us that he needed to potty and did AFTER he went or not at all. Time to stop paying for Pull-ups. Time to get this big boy of ours in undi's. So... that's what we did. Put him in undi's pretty much the whole weekend. He did pretty good. Had a couple accidents, but soon realized he didn't like how he felt. And even though taking a kid to the potty A MILLION times at Old Navy or Chipotle isn't the funnest thing in the world, it's okay... because he can now tell us, or any adult around him that he needs to pee. He likes to pull down his own pants and undi's down and find a way on the potty, he screams with joy EVERY.TIME.HE.PEES "mommy! I peening!" He loves his pee pee pills, which are NOT M&M's even though we told him they are. He says "no... they not N&M's, they pee pee pills."
Tonight we went to eat at the Zaxby's by our house, which is in the same shopping center as a Home Depot. We were driving around a little and Ben said "I need to go pee!" so he and I quickly got out of the car and went in to Home Depot. I put the toilet seat cover down, he pulled his pants down, I sat him on the toilet... he waited... and then said to me with a cute little look on his face "no pee!!" ugh... all I could do was laugh at that silly face. I said "give it a try... maybe it's still there." and he looked down, then back up and with another silly "O" face said "no, no, no! No pee!" So instead... I went! haha
We've been putting Pull-ups on him for bed, but for the last week he's woken up dry every morning! I want to make sure we've got the daytime stuff down before we go to night time, but we're going to get a mattress cover soon.

*sigh*... wiping my brow... *phew*

Ryan said... "You know, we're going to have to do this ALL OVER AGAIN when we have to teach how to stand and pee" I told him that was HIS job and to let him just go out in the backyard during the Summer to learn!

For all the grief we've been through... I have a little blackmail.My little Pooping Rockstar

2011 Snowpocalypse

Well, this has been a very interesting week for us here in Georgia. For those of you living out west you might think it's no big deal... but we got quite a bit of snow starting Sunday night. I think there was a total of 5-8 inches in our area and then Monday afternoon was the ICE-ing on the cake... or snow... whatever. Freezing rain on top of the snow which has made the driving conditions not so favorable. That and GA is just not equipped for this kind of weather and this much snow so there is an extreme lack of plows and such vehicles to clear or sand the roads. The GDOT did the best they could with what they had, and the even pretreated the roads- but the ground temps were low and so EVERYTHING stuck, and fast. We got about 3 inches in an hour starting Sunday night before I went to sleep and we woke up to about two or 3 more. (this was Sunday night, when it was really coming down!)
Both mine and Ryan's work closed the office, which is pretty much unheard of on Monday, I didn't want to attempt the roads Tuesday because Ryan did and he had to turn around and come home- all the while driving in 4WD. Wednesday Ryan went to work and I stayed home again- there was a sheet of ice on our street in front of our house and Ryan still had to use 4WD to get out of the neighborhood so we were pretty sure that my 2WD wouldn't make it out. PLUS the daycare was still closed, and our good friend Hillary was our backup- but they live in an apt complex that's straight up hill at the entrance and that hadn't been treated. Ben and I played cars between working and napping and keeping warm. I bundled him up in jammies, jeans, two shirts, jacket, gloves, hat and socks and shoes to go out and play in the snow! (Lack of snow gear around these parts...) We made a smiley face snow man with crazy arms (pictured in above collage)!Tues and Wed I did what work I could from home and then today- we left late, but the daycare opened at 8:30 and we ventured out after 9. The neighborhood was still AWFUL, I almost didn't make it out after not being able to get up a hill. I had to back down it and go another way. Ben could tell I was stressed and in a very concerned and comforting way said "it's okay mommy." long pause.... "it's swippery." He's so sweet that kid of mine, and oh so sensitive. I hope he's always like that, he will make his wife so happy! Anyway- we made it out of the neighborhood, barely and to the daycare and me to work slowly but surely. I left work early so that I could avoid night and refreezing and to make sure I made it to the daycare on time for their closing at 5:30. It was better but not better if you know what I mean. Ryan's on his way now hopefully he will be okay and it wont take him nearly as long as it did yesterday to get home!!! Other than that- the snow has been fun, pretty, COLD, crispy, SHINY, glazed, did I mention COLD?

Family Love

I love my siblings. I love these special photos we have of us as kids. I'm so grateful my dad took so many!

(Shauna, Me on her leg, Greg, Delinda and John at our brother Brian's gravesite)

Our Kid Says the Darndest Things...

Welcome to January of a new year! Yikes! Where does the time go!? Ben's been cracking us up lately, especially with the things he's been saying. Yesterday Ryan called for him to help bring the trash and recycle bins back to the house while I was getting him out of the car. Ben yelled out to him "Just a minute! I gotta get out of the car first!"
We've been trying really hard to get him to go to the bathroom when he's gotta go, and to help him acknowledge what it feels like and all. He's been letting himself out of his room lately, which he usually always waits for us to come get him... and this morning he emerged in to the bright light and came in our room. Ryan said "do you need to go potty? Let's go to the potty..." Ben said "I gotta wake up first..." hahaha!If he's eating something he likes; he'll raise his eyebrows, nod his head and smile saying "mmm, that's really good!"
On Christmas we were driving around trying to find SOMEWHERE that was open so we could eat. I said "Hey Ben, what do you want to eat?" to which he replied "Um....... (long pause).... I don't know!" like he really just didn't know!
The other day I said "you're such a big boy" and he said "I'm Ben Smith". (Kind of like "duh Mom, my name isn't big boy it's Ben Smith). He even knows he lives in Georgia! He's super smart even if I do say so myself... not biased or anything.