First time at Firehouse Subs!

Today was our first time at Firehouse Subs! Let me start off by saying yummy!! I ordered the hook & ladder and Shawn ordered the Hero...both delicious! And the drink machine...in heaven!! :) There are 100+ drink choices. I got Coke with vanilla...all time fav. Plus an added bonus of kids eat free on Sunday! We will definitely be coming back!

Karaoke with Jase

Having a great time in Livingston this weekend. Tonight Jase did a little karaoke for us. Here is a short clip of some of it! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5iuws5SzPs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

You can learn in the country too!

The very next day I arrived home from Chicago, we packed the kids up and headed out to the country (Livingston) to spend some time with family and a little relaxation.

Shawn was outside moving split wood to the wood pile and Jase and Allyson were helping him. Jase picked up a branch and said "this one looks like the letter Y." The first picture of him below is him pretending to be the Statue of Liberty! Allyson saw the letter Y branch and said "yo-yo"!

Allyson is enjoying playing in the gravel/dirt. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up being Daddy's little outdoor buddy...she loves to be outside. Jase does too, but after sweating for a while he makes his way back into the AC...I can't blame him!

Chicago: Planes, Trains & Automobiles

In Chicago for a few days!! Last night I was taking to Jase and told him that Mommy has been on all types transportation! I started off in a car, then went on an airplane, then took a train to the city of Chicago, then we had to catch a taxi to go to the hotel. Later yesterday afternoon we went on an Architure Cruise Tour on a boat.

For lunch we has stuffed pizza...yummy...so good!! The first picture below is the view from our hotel...not too shabby. The last building is the Sears Tower (the tallest one) where you can stand on a glass balcony and look down!

Having fun in Chicago!

Pedicure time!!

This afternoon I was sitting on the bathroom floor giving myself a little pedicure before my trip to Chicago in the morning. Next thing you know here comes Ally and she has to join the fun as well. I painted her little toes and then she started giving pedicures to Jase and then to Daddy! It turned out to be a family affair!! Lol!

Then Ally decides to give herself one and opens up a bottle of nail polish and she did quite a number on herself and Daddy...last photo!

Dessert Gallery

After dinner this evening we went to the Dessert Gallery in Houston! Their cakes are so yummy!! My all time fav is their Old Fashioned Diner Cake...yellow cake with chocolate fudge icing!! Love it!! Shawn and I split a piece and the kiddos each got a cupcake of their own!

Early Birthday Celebration

Laying in bed and feel like singing The Fresh Beat Band's hit song "We had a great day, it was a super way to spend some time together!" I've seen one too many episodes and could probably even do some of the dance moves...sad I know! ;)

This evening close friends and family came over to celebrate my upcoming birthday. I will be the big 3-1 on Monday! So excited about this week coming up. I leave early, and I mean early, Sunday morning for a girls trip to Chicago!!! I've never been before, so I am pumped!! I will miss my honey and the kiddos, but am looking forward to a getting away for a few days.

One of the gifts I received was a surprise photo shoot Shawn and my dear friend Rachel put together of Jase and Allyson. The proofs I've seen are just adorable of them two together..so sweet. I also got some Kim Kardashian perfume...don't hate...it smells good!! LOL! Also got some super cute clothes, a little cash flow, a pier one gift card and last but certainly not least...Shamwow!!! :) Love it!

Tonight before everyone came over I was in the kitchen cleaning the counters before prepping the food and Jase walks in. He says "Oh Mom what's that smell? Smells good!!!" I reply "that is cleaner, I'm cleaning up." SAD!! I guess he does not smell Windex Multi-Surface enough in this house to realize it is a cleaning product!! You could say that I do not keep the tidiest home in the neighborhood. ;) But I do enjoy being at home with my precious kiddos!

Say Cheese Allyson!

Let me preface this post by saying that I am not a professional photographer!! lol!

Allyson's 2nd birthday is coming up and I have been searching for invitations and realized that I do not have ANY good pics of her in last several months...poor child.  I do have a few on my iPhone, but those are not the best for printing.  So, last night Shawn and I were looking at pictures and he didn't believe when I said I didn't have one, and then he saw for himself.  He suggested that I take some pictures of her tomorrow out in the backyard.  Let me stop right here and say that we have tried this with both kids numerous times, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't...most of the time it doesn't.  I agreed to it and "let the fun begin!"

This morning after breakfast I picked out two different outfits to put her in (thinking I might be lucky to do a wardrobe change...haha).  I think saw her ALLY letters sitting on her dresser (sorry Ally I have not hung them up since moving you to your room) along with a "Daughters are a gift from the Lord" sign decor.  Upon leaving her room I saw her fun pink rug in the hallway and picked it up as well.  As I am carrying all of this downstairs I am thinking "oh yeah, this might be good!"

I picked up Elmo and Abby Cadabby from Sesame Street (since that is the theme of her party!) and we headed outside.  Laid the rug on the grass and immediately Ally went for the letters.  Bad idea #1 - the letters have ribbon on them, so I would have had to nail them to the fence...no time for that!! Getting her to actually sit on the rug and getting a picture without her diaper showing in everyone is hard enough, not mentioning getting her to look at the camera, with a smile and no drool on her shirt.  Are we having fun yet??


So sweet and innocent!

Well, she was basically finished at this point and wanted to play inside the fort.  No biggie, I just threw the pink rug up there and kept shooting!


Time for a wardrobe change.  She did great at changing clothes, but she is one tough cookie when it comes to getting a smile out of her!!


Maybe Oscar the Grouch should be the theme! :)

After a few shots up in the fort, we went back to the ground and got some cute ones...YAY!!! Singing "Elmo's World" did the trick!  I'm happy that I got one of her looking at the camera smiling! :)  Not too bad for 30 minutes in the backyard with my rinky-dink camera! (Oh and in the middle of all of this poor Jase gets a nose bleed!)


A few of my faves!

Let the party planning continue! :)

Fishing on the Dock of the Bay

Last night Shawn and Jase, along with Grandpa and Shawn's 3 nephews (Christopher, Alexander & Benjamin) went down to Morgan's Point and did a little fishing.  A lady that Shawn's parents go to church with lives on the water there and have a pier.  Their house is currently for sale and Shawn says I would love it...built in 1938, original wood floors, character...right up my alley!!

Jase loves spending time with his Daddy, especially when fishing is involved!!  Shawn said that he was so excited!! Jase ended up catching 3 fish!  Here are some pics from their manly excursion!

Astros Game - July 17

Shawn and I took Jase to the Astros game after church on Sunday.  PawPaw signed Jase up for the Astros Buddies Club, so this was the game we chose to come to for free!! While we were in section 417, the view was actually not that bad.  We had a clear view of the entire field and could see the scoreboard just fine too.  No complaints here.

We decided not to take Ally along on this trip and just to make it about Jase.  She does ok at the games, but she'd rather not be confined to a seat for 3 hours! Jase cheers on the players and team and yells out his chants...I love it! Can I also say that it was nice not carrying around a bag? I just had my little purse and that was it! Missed you Ally, but glad you had fun swimming with Nanny! :)

So, this was the BIG GAME where Jase had an opportunity to run the bases...oh man, he was PUMPED!! We went down to to Section 132 during the 7th inning and got in line.  We could stand with Jase in line, but once they opened up the gate, all parents had to leave and the kids walked down themselves...yikes...he's 4!!!!

So we get down to Section 132 and stand in line, and he is probably about the 10th kid in line...yippee! LONG story short, and I'm talking a 1 hour long story, Astros went into extra innings and they ended up losing in the 11th.  It wouldn't have been that bad, but we stood up the whole time from the middle of the 7th to the end of the 11th, and Jase was really good, but kept asking after every half inning "is it time to run the bases yet?" Poor thing.

When they opened the gates I headed for the stands and Shawn waited up top and watched Jase walk down to the field to make sure he was A-ok.  What a big boy he was!!!

He absolutely LOVED it!!! I'm so glad that we stayed and waited in line, so awesome! And he kept saying  he looked like Hunter Pence. I guess Hunter Pence wears a necklace, so Jase wanted to wear his memory verse dog tag from Church to look like him; it was cute!
  

Jase showing off his necklace: Proverbs 3:5



Jessica, Jase & Shawn...Making Memories!

It's a JUNGLE out there!!

This week the kids learned about the Jungle and our vocabulary word was Vine.  We looked up interesting facts about jungle animals and read jungle books we checked out from our local library.  Jase also has a set of books he had in his room that we really haven't read, but he loves them...The Jungle Book and The Jungle Book 2!! We will be renting that movie soon to watch, as Jase LOVED the books.  I played "Bare Necessities" with Baloo and Mowgli from The Jungle Book and Jase got a tickle out of it every time.

We finished up the letter "A" and the number "1" this week, along with the nursery rhyme we introduced last Friday: Hey Diddle Diddle.  This week we took on the color green, letter "B", number "2" and lastly we added our nursery rhyme "I Had a Little Nut Tree" (which is new to me too! lol).

Today we did a craft where they picked out their favorite jungle animal.  To no surprise Jase picked a Tiger and Allyson picked out a Monkey.  I printed them out and taped them onto a piece of construction paper.  Next I gave them green strips of paper I had cut and they glued it over the animal.  I explained to them that the animals in the jungle hide in the grass, and then threw in "well, monkeys are mainly in the trees, but they might hide behind vines." LOL! We only glued the bottom of the grass, so you can bend the grass down and you can still see the animals.  They turned out cute. Oh and today I remembered the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" so I YouTube'd it (a great, free resource) and played it over and over...it will not hurt my feelings if I do not hear that song for a while! haha!

Next week is kittens. I'm more of a dog person, but hope to make it purrrfect for the kiddos!! :)

Everyone needs dinner...and Jesus

Tonight the college/singles class met up at Church and instead of having a normal Wednesday evening service, we all brought sandwich meat, cheese, bread, chips, water and candy and made little sack lunches.  We then loaded them all up in the back of a truck and and took them to Downtown Houston to deliver.

Jase joined us on this trip and it was great to be able to talk to him about what was going on.  That these people we were taking food to did not have any food, a house, a room, a bed...nothing.  I told him that they were people just like us and just need a little help right now.  He handed several bags of food and bottles of water out to the men and women on the streets.  He told them you're welcome and God Bless.  :)  He even shook some of their hands and gave one guy knuckles. 

We stopped and had conversations with a few of them and to hear their stories...just breaks your heart.  One man is a Vietnam Veteran and now he lives on the streets with a brain tumor.  Another man was telling us about his 6 grandchildren (oldest is 13-14 years) and he hasn't seen them in years because they live in Florida.  Makes me want to go buy a plane ticket and send him home.  I know how much my mom loves Jase and Allyson and she would probably follow them to the end of the earth to see them and it just breaks my heart knowing this man (and many more) cannot physically or financially go home.  We were able to pray with this man, Dave.

On the car ride back home we were talking about these men and women and their stories and when you get right down to it, their sin is no bigger than our sin.  Shawn mentioned that is the beauty of the gospel...it is for everyone! Thank you Jesus.  In God's eyes we are not above these people, although looking through man's eyes one might say so.  I'm sure it takes a lot of faith to live on the street and not know where your next meal is coming from, but praying that the good Lord will provide.

I had a great time preparing and delivering the food.  I hope we do it again soon.  And as for Dave, if he never sees his grandchildren on this earth again, but if he and his grandchildren put their trust and faith in Jesus Christ, they will be reunited in Heaven...what a glorious day!

Easter in July

So for 2 days Jase has been asking me to get out the Resurrection Eggs for him to play with.  They are a set of 12 Easter Eggs that tell the death, burial and resurrection story of Jesus.  Each egg has little figurine inside, starting with the Donkey, which represents Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a Donkey. And ending with an empty egg to signify that Jesus is alive and well and no longer in the tomb!!  Praise God!

So, after I laid Allyson down for her nap I found the Eggs and we walked through every egg and read the resurrection story to Jase. On one hand it completely blessed my heart that my 4 year old son wanted to play with these and hear the story.  Then on the other hand...shame on me for thinking "it is not Easter right now." Jesus please forgive me...everyday should be "easter" as I celebrate the resurrection of your life.  You are the reason I have hope and are able to find peace in tough situations and I know that all our blessings come from you.

What a great time with Jase this afternoon, as we read Your resurrection story.  We are looking forward to meeting you one day.  "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not persish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

School is in Session!!

So this past week I started doing a lesson a day with the kids for about 15-30 minutes, depending upon how attentive they were. Each day we add one thing to our board. On Monday we started off with a Theme and a Vocabulary word, then Tuesday we added a shape or color, Wednesday we added a letter, Thursday we added a number and Friday we finished up with a nursery rhyme. 


Completed Board (Learning Poster) at the end of the week

Tomorrow we will have a new theme, but everything else stays on our board.  So you are basically incorporating something new everyday to learn while continuing to reteach what is already on the board.  I have really been wanting do this for a while.  I mean, this is one of the reasons I wanted to stay home: to teach my children.  With the exception of Jase wanting to be the teacher Mon-Wed everything went great.

Here is what we learned this week: Cows/Calf/Square/A/1/Hey Diddle Diddle.  We also learned interesting facts about cows.  For example, did you know that cows can smell up to 5 miles away?  They also have 4 digestive parts in their stomach and we even got detailed where they chew their food, swallow it, spit it back up and chew on it some more (aka cud).  Jase was very intrigued by these facts.  And Allyson can now tell you that a baby cow is a calf!!

A couple of the days we had a snack while I was reading or they were working.  Some of the fun snacks we had: square wheat thins with greek yogurt dill dip (cow), mozzarella string cheese (cow) and ice cream (cow).

By the end of the week both of the kids loved it and enjoyed the activities we did and of course stickers!! Allyson now thinks it is sticker time all the time!! I am hoping to keep this in our M-F daily routine.

5 Generations!

So today was...perfect!! Went to Church this morning and Pastor Todd Dunn preached and it was awesome.  The Lord is definitely blessing him, his family and his ministry in Irving.  Thankful to have heard him this morning.

After Church we came home, ate lunch and headed down the road to Livingston to visit Nana.  She has been out of the nursing home for a few weeks now so it was time we visited with her.  My mom and Alisha were driving up as well and they were bringing my Great Grandma Smith.  She is my Nana's mother-in-law, my Poppa's mother.  My Poppa passed away in March 1985 when he was 47, and I was 4 years old.  He had a brain tumor and lung cancer.  I still remember him...a great, loving man.  My mom and I lived with Poppa and Nana for a few years after my parents divorced when I was 1. I still am very close with my Nana today.

It was awesome to have 5 generations in the same room, so I did not pass up the opportunity to take pictures!! Now here is the part I wish I could go back and change...my lovely camera decided not to work while taking some of the pictures.  So some of them look grainy, others have white spots.  I didn't take any of the group pics, so I had no idea that they did this.  :(  Oh well, nothing I can do about it now...but I can buy a new camera! ;)

Nanny brought a slip-n-slide so the kids got a little water time, which they loved and I'm sure felt so good!!

Before we left we all gathered around and Jase opened us up in prayer...there is nothing quite like a child's prayer...so innocent and pure and very thoughtful.  Just when you think they are not paying attention and then they go to God asking for Him to watch over Nana and Grandma Smith...just blesses your heart.  Daddy closed us in prayer and we said our goodbyes and headed home. 

Daddy ran into Subway for dinner and the kiddos and I stayed in the car.  I couldn't pass this up!


Kids had a great day!



Fun in the Sun!

Today we had to cool off a bit, so we went down to the pool for a little summertime fun! Both kids absolutely LOVE the water and enjoy being outside in general. I enjoy being outdoors too, but in this heat I need to be by the pool if I am sweating! :)

So, at the pool there are two slides and my kids just love them.  Jase can go down them himself...no problem.  Allyson...she can go down them, but it's probably not the safest thing for her to do alone.  So, guess who went down with her everytime...Mommy...what a trooper I was!! It was like a tidal wave everytime I went down...definitely made for 40 lb kids! LOL! Aunt Alisha joined us at the pool and she got a laugh everytime we slid down. Wedgie and all, I did it for Ally! :)

Alisha was the only one who brought sun glasses...smart of her.  I briefly looked for mine before we left, but no luck (I later found them in a bag!). Of course Jase wanted to borrow them and it wasn't long before he started putting on a little show...he is such a ham!

Before we left Allyson was playing peek-a-boo with the towel.  To be honest she was probably just trying to hide from the sun!

We had a great time and love having a pool so close to home and so cheap for us to visit. 

Btw...I am loving Picasa right now! I am slightly addicted to making collages, as if you can't tell.

Downtown Aquarium - July 3, 2011

Sunday after Church we (Us 4 + PawPaw, Nanny and Alisha) drove into Houston to check out the Downtown Aquarium.  Although it was smokin' hot, we still had a fun time!! Oh and this was my first time to EVER go on a ferris wheel...I'm about to be 31!! I guess I've always been scared of them and never really gave them a chance...lol! No fear no more! :)

Since we went in the afternoon Ally was tired and she had her nap while we were riding rides and playing games.  I'm glad she was able to rest while it was 100 degrees!!

The train ride was probably the most fun...I really enjoyed it and the shark aquarium on the ride was a BIG surprise! And someone woke up just in time to enjoy it!

After the train ride we let the kids play in the water for a little bit.  The floor was pretty slippery, but thankfully no one was hurt.  I'm sure they enjoyed cooling off in the water.



Had to get some family pics before we left

After the Aquarium we headed over to Hard Rock Cafe for some dinner...YUMMO!!

How fitting...kids are rockin' out at the Hard Rock Cafe!!

What a great day!!

Happy 4th of July!!

We wore our festive colors on Sunday to Church! :) Supporting Red, White and Blue...aka America!! Jase told us a day or two ago while driving that we needed to get our America colors in our yard and proceeded to point out everyone else had one in their yard!  We laughed and agreed that we needed to get an American flag!!

What a huge blessing to be born in the USA!! Something I think we all take for granted too often.  After seeing Haiti, Dominican Republic and Mexico first-hand it was a real eye opener on how blessed we are to live here.  It really burns me up when people burn the flag or talk trash about our country, while on our soil.  If you're not happy here...then leave.  It's that plain and simple.  Ok...off my soap box! :)

Had a great Sunday and Monday with family and friends!! So thankful for God and our service men/women protecting our Country and giving us freedom!!

Cleaning up & Memories

Ok...today I got a wild hair and decided to clean up my craft/spare/junk room upstairs. This room usually intimidates me because there is SSSOOOO much stuff in here and I never know where to begin.

Most of the time I get so side-tracked that I stop and look at every little thing and end up getting nothing accomplished. I did stop and look at a few things today, but I was able to keep on track. Here are some rememberable items from the clean up:

1. A box that Jeanie and I made at a Stampin' Up Christmas Party probably 4+ years ago. It took us like an hour to make it! And to this day I have yet to use it for anything. I had to stop and text her and nope...she hasn't used it either.

2. A picture of Emily and Madeline from Oct 2004. Crazy to think that Emily was 3 in this picture and Madeline was 6 months!! It made me realize how time flies and that I need to get my kids pictures taken again! Haha!!

3. Pregnancy Journal from Jase. I had two journals with Jase and the one I looked at today I had only wrote in it once: finding out we were pregnant on 8/25/2007. It was neat...I wrote down the people we called and their reaction...it was just like reliving it. Then I flipped over a page where I wrote about how I felt. This is what it said:

Shawn and I are SO excited - we can't believe it!

We prayed & thanked God for this miracle - whether we have the baby for one day or 80 years. We are so thankful for this day!

Man...can I tell you that I completely teared up and started crying. Sometimes All the time I get so caught up with everything that I do not take enough time to be thankful and realize how blessed we are. My kids are a true miracle from God and He has entrusted us with them for an unknown amount of time. Could be a week or could be until I leave this earth...only God knows. I stopped and prayed and asked for forgiveness on taking them for granted too often.
What a great day of cleaning. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also...if you ever need a post-it, please come and take some of mine...ridiculous!

Half Bath Project Underway!

So after reading several blogs of DIY'er's I decided to FINALLY take the plunge and start a little project of my own.  I love our home and it is nice, but I just do not feel like it is my style and have not made it my own.  We've lived here for 3 1/2 years and really haven't done anything to the house since we've moved in...other than small repairs.  Well our half bath (powder room if you may) has always been an eye sore for me.  Wall paper with a border and horrendous wall texture.  I'm not sure who in the world textured those walls and thought "man this looks good!"  Crazy!! 

Here are some before pictures.  The last pictures shows a valance and white curtain rod that I will be using in the room since I recently bought them.

Anyway Shawn and I were talking yesterday afternoon and I told him I wanted to take down the wall paper, paint, get a new fixture (because the one we have now is leaking...fun), and put up some new decor.  This is not the first time we have spoke about this, so he was game.  I immediately went in and started tearing down the wallpaper...let's do this!!

Phase 1: pull down all the wallpaper...at this point in time I had a Tommy Boy moment where Tommy knocks the door off the car and slams it back in place, then David Spade walks out and opens the door and Tommy Boy says "What'd you do??"  That's exactly what I was asking myself "what in the world did I just start??"

Phase 1 Complete...So this is my first dealing with wallpaper...need I say more? I had no idea that the wallpaper would separate and there would be left a glue paper attached to the walls.  Time to get out the iPhone and google how to get this stuff off without using heaving chemicals and trying to find something in my house to use.  Queue phase 2.

Phase 2: Mix water and vinegar and apply to the wall to remove glue paper.  Wowsers...I could not have picked a more potent peeling agent!!  Shawn even walked in and plugged in my scentsy in the laundry room.  This was actually not that bad at all.  I would apply the mixture with a rag and wait a few minutes and peel it off.  I was pretty pleased with how well this went.  Phase 2 complete!

All of the wallpaper is off!!

Phase 3: Sand, Sand, Sand!! Ok, so we went to Lowe's to pick up a few things, then to Shawn's dad's for a sander.  The texture is just absolutely terrible.  I'm surprised we have waited this long to work on this room, especially since most people that visit use this room.  Anyway...I'm glad that I'm finally working on it.


Texture Issues...



Continuing on with Phase 3.  We get home and put the kids to bed and Shawn breaks out the sander and shows me how to use it...wait, wait, wait!!!! The lovely sander is WAY too loud to do while the kids are asleep.  Especially because we have wood floors and EVERY noise is amplified in this house, plus Allyson's room is right above this bathroom.  So...I grab a sheet of sand paper and go to town.  I have my mask in place and even end up getting some glasses on because the dust is flying every where!!

All smiles before I started!! LOL!

I sanded and sweated for about an house in the bathroom before calling it a night.  It's coming along and I cannot wait to use the electrical sander tomorrow!!! Yippee!!!  Oh and also add texturing to our list to do in this bathroom.  Shawn looked at me and said "I thought we were going to be at the pool this weekend?!?" I guess I have just put this project off way too long that I finally had to start on it.  I know we will not finish this weekend by no means, but it feels good to work on it.

Stay turned on my progress! :)