first halloween. part 1

I would love to say that I'm going to sit down and knock out the recap of BG's First Halloween in one sitting.

But I know myself. And I know that will never happen.

So I'll break them up. Because honestly, first and foremost this blog is for her. So I want every detail as monotonous as that may be.

That, and there are so many pictures that I think are too cute not to post, so I'm posting them all.

It's my blog and I'll do what I want to. ;)

I guess our fun Halloween activities started with the pumpkin patch which was a total blast. Unfortunately, since we are trying to move and pack and are kind of living in different states right now, a lot of our Halloween activities got pushed into one weekend. Which was fine. They still happened.

Mr. Perfect was at home with us this past weekend so we could pack. But we both knew that this weekend was also BG's time, so we packed when she napped and slept. When she was awake, it was her time to do her activities. I love my husband. He trucked right along with us and gave me no problems cramming a ridiculous amount into one weekend.

Our town did our trick-or-treating on Saturday. That morning we got BG up for a little photo shoot in her "My First Halloween" pajamas.

Yes. I'm that Mom.

But first we had some hardcore "Dad's been out of town so let's get him up early and play" playtime. And it was awesome. We've missed that man.
-
Then it was photo shoot time!


Each year, we've tried to get a picture of the pups with the pumpkin:
2006

2007

2008
...oops
2009


So of course we had to try this year right?? (Ignore my backyard. My yard guy moved to Greenville ;) )


Not happening.

I'd rather take pictures of this girl anyway.

She makes my heart smile.

And you like that rattle? Yea. Good luck taking that from her at the moment. They're like peas and carrots those two. Love having it in EVERY picture.

After her afternoon nap, it was time to costume it on up!

But that will have to be tomorrow. Because my eyes are crossing!

still here...

Cash wanted to pop in and say hey. He seems to think that the Imperfect dogs are pretty neglected on this here blog lately.

So true.

Sorry pups.

But they're still here just hanging around.

Or flying high as it seems the case may be..

snow day in coastal town

Holy cow it snowed in Coastal Town this weekend.

Peeps, that is huge. It hasn't snowed here since 1989. That's 21 years.

It didn't stick at my house (boo) and was gone the next morning, but Friday night we had snow. It was enough that it coated my car and the back deck. It wouldn't stick in the yard which the pups were highly upset about, but hey, it was snow.





Those are some impressive flakes y'all!

Mr. Perfect was not impressed that I made him come out in the snow...

He was miserable, but this had to be documented!!

This is how I spent my Friday night, watching the snow fall. I was in shock that it snowed, I totally did not believe our weather guy when he said it would happen.

Yep.. that's it.

The next morning, Face*book was overloaded with friends' pictures of their "snow day". It's quite obvious we don't get to see this.. oh ever.

It was really cold and wet though and my ear has hurt since I went out and played in it. So I'm good on snow for another couple of years. I know most of y'all are being pelted with much more snow than this, so keep warm!

incredible weekend.

When you practically need a vacation to recover from your weekend, I think it's pretty safe to say you had a GREAT weekend...

We started our weekend early with Mexican food with the Marine and Lora (his girlfriend). The Marine has been in Virginia for the last couple of months getting his training to be a bomb dog handler in Afghanistan on his upcoming deployment, so this was the first time we got to see him in a while.

The Marine and Lora



Mr. Perfect and I. Please excuse my rat's nest hair. Summertime in Coastal Town does not play nice with my hair.


Lora & I


I had to work on Friday which I was super happy about (right..), but I managed to dip out of there pretty early. Mr. Perfect had planned a surprise date night for us and I wanted to do some shopping first. I scored big time at the Victoria's Secret sale and managed to find a cute pair of shoes to wear with my new BCBG dress.

I had no idea what the Mister had planned for us, but I'm all for any reason to dress up so I was game. We got all gussied up and headed downtown. He surprised me with dinner at Ruth's Chris, which was out of this world. Plus our waiter rocked and gave us free champagne. Score! It was absolutely delicious. After dinner we drove over to the street that had the little bed and breakfast that we stayed at on our wedding night. I wanted to get a picture of us in front of it, you know, four years later and all. Well Mr. Perfect strolled right on in the front door. He had booked us a room to stay in for the night! He'd even packed a bag for each of us, gotten the dogs a "sitter", and even remembered my bedtime medication! What a sweetie! He tried to get us the same room we stayed in on our wedding night, but it was booked. How did I get so lucky?!?

My heart and soul...


us.




Saturday morning we headed back to the house to pick up the Marine and Lora, and then head to the grandparents for the day. I got in a quick 2 miles and then we hit the water. We skied, tubed, laid out, ate, and pretty much were completely unproductive the whole day. It was perfection.

Lora & Mr. Perfect loading up the boat.


on the boat.


Waiting to ski.


Mr. Perfect tubing.


The Marine and I. We are NEVER serious.




Going back out to the dock for fireworks. Look at that view!



All of us.


Mr. Perfect and I were trying to get a good picture and my little brother just had to be in it. This picture absolutely cracks me up!


better =)


The Marine and I with our Granddad.


The guy in the middle of this picture is basically the Marine and my older brother. His parents (who have both passed) lived right next to our grandparents when they were alive. My dad and aunts babysat him, D, growing up. Then D watched the Marine and I growing up and basically was our older brother. Those two girls are D's children that I used to babysit for. D's family is our closest family friends and spend all holidays with us. D's grandmother actually died on the 3rd so it was kind of a somber fourth for the family. Aren't his girls just precious?!


By the time we made it home Saturday night, I was one exhausted, burnt lady. But it was so worth it. We headed right back out on the water Sunday too. We actually took the pups out there for the day and could not keep them out of the water.


The Marine teaching Miss Lacy how to swim.


Getting ready to cast for shrimp.


My babies..


Our little family. Well minus Cash. And the cat, but I don't really count him.


Hope ya'll had a great weekend as well! It's going to take me days to get back in the swing of things. I've got my lovely little glucose/insulin resistance test tomorrow, so I'm sure that will bring me back to reality. Hopefully this week will go by pretty quickly. I've got the summer bug. I need my sunshine fix!

No Competition

The Mr. loves his cat.

His cat loves him.

His cat HATES me.

This is what I walked in on today.



I mean come on cat! You've tried to kill me before!!

Whatevs. I've got this sweet, sweet baby...

overwhelmed.

My thoughts are all over the place this morning so please bear with me....

Lately I have been feeling so overwhelmed I can barely breathe. The stress at work is at an all time high, we've got misbehaving dogs, the Mr. had some possible job changes coming up, and in less than two months we're supposed to go through this baby process again.

I am freaking out.

Let me let you in on a little secret about me. I never relax. I never chill out. I'm super envious of people that can and do, but I don't. My morning starts off insane as I barely give myself 30 minutes to get out the door. Yea, so I love my sleep. I start my rushing around first thing in the morning and it doesn't stop til I come home. I'm constantly on the go at work and then when I get off at five I'm still going. I usually hit the gym or hit the pavement for a run, then come home and do the shred if I went running. If I go to the gym, I'm there for easily almost 2 hours. When I get home, I do my "chores". I constantly feel like I'm trying to combat 3 dogs messes, my mess, and the Mister's mess. I've made a chore list with different things to get done every day. Somewhere in there I have to eat dinner. If I do sit down to watch tv or something, I constantly think about what needs to be done and usually get up to do it. It's a sickness really!! I try to do some reading of blogs, catching up on emails at nite before I shower and get ready for bed and I fall into bed exhausted about 11 just to wake up at 6 the next morning. Gah.

Now I realize I'm fixing to *ahem get a little visitor so I'm prone to be more cranky right now, but at this very moment I feel like I'm about to lose it.

I'm not kidding. I almost killed my dog this morning. I almost killed the Mr. because he let Duke (the dog that was supposed to stay locked up last nite) out at some point. There was a mess again and I almost bawled cleaning it up. I feel like I'm doing so much to keep our little house clean and I'm not getting anywhere. It is really, really bothering me..

Then I opened my e-mail this morning. I signed up for the Proverbs 31 ministry emails a while ago and every now and then one touches me. Here's a snippet from this mornings:

"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." Luke 19:10 (NIV)

I recall the first time my youngest son, Parker, water-skied. He was having a great time while he was being pulled along by the boat. When he fell and let go of the rope, the connection to the boat was broken. Panic gripped his face as he watched the boat leave him behind. Dangling in unknown waters filled Parker with a sense of uncertainty. Anxious thoughts plagued his mind as he wondered whether or not his lifejacket was trustworthy.

It was only when the boat turned around and headed back in his direction that peace took hold again. When we pulled Parker back into the boat, he said with relief, "I didn't think anyone saw me fall. I thought you were gone for good ." This is the kind of fright and worry we live with when we are not connected to God. We know that we can only tread water for so long on our own without the security of a boat.

The cross of Christ is our lifeboat that saves us from drowning in a sea of sin and selfishness. Christ's work on the cross has mended the partnership between God and us. However, some people don't realize that life is a partnership with God. Because sin separates us from God, the anxieties and burdens in life weigh heavy on our souls. Until we learn to trust Christ's provision, we'll never find peace. In fact, anyone living apart from God can expect to be plagued by phobias, fears, and anxieties. Until a person is reconciled to God, they are unpredictable and anxious creatures. Like Parker, their greatest need is a lifeboat.

Fearless living is achieved by making the choice to partner with God. Only then will our faith become stronger than all our fears. If you and I want to be rid of worry, we must first stop trusting in the things of this world. Instead, we must learn to put the weight of our burdens and cares on Christ who died for us.

Secondly, we need to refocus. Self-centeredness breeds anxiety. In truth, worry and stress are really symptoms of self-sufficiency and a lack of trust in God. When we take the focus off of ourselves and place it on God, it makes all the difference. Our troubles look small in comparison to our great God.

Finally, we must commit ourselves wholly to God. The Bible says "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23, NIV). That means that you and I have missed the mark. We can't get to God any other way except through His Son, Jesus. Whoever wants Christ, and believes He is the Son of God, has been given the full benefit of being God's child.

The truly happy person is the one who has placed her trust in Christ alone for salvation. She has discovered that Christ's saving grace is the solution to sin, egotism, waywardness, and fears. You can see a profound difference in the person who chooses Christ as her lifeboat. Anxiety dissolves away and peace rules the heart and mind.

Uh thanks. Could this have been more directed at me?!

I've been slacking on my quiet times, I've been slacking on my prayers, and I missed church last week when we were in Charleston. I don't think it's a coincidence that I feel this overwhelmed and this alone when I've been spending no time with my Father. All this stuff down here truly does not matter. The dust can wait, the e-mails can wait, even the blogs can wait (gasp!), but what can't is my time with my God and my time with my husband. I feel disconnected from Mr. P as well when I let my mind on these dangerous bouts of anger and resentment that I'm feeling right now. When I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off, my relationship with him suffers.

So I need to re-evaluate some stuff. I need to spend a bit more time with my very important relationships. Now don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. My blog has become my sanity and my way to get my feelings out, so I'm afraid you're stuck with me. But I've got to re-organize my priorities and get my heart back where it needs to be. The ways of the world are doing their best to drown me and it's time to fight back. I've got to work on not bringing home my stress from work and directing it at the ones at home and to let the stress at home be shared with Mr. Perfect because I can't do it all alone....

But seriously. My dog might need some prayers until I can get calmed down!!

i'm playing detective

I'd like to have something interesting to talk about but right now I'm obsessed with other things.

Well, one other thing.

The past 4 mornings, the Mr. and I have woken up to find a big puddle 'o pee at the back door. Fortunately we have hard wood or I'd have tanned a dog hide by now. We can't figure out who's doing it and it's making me crazy.

Naturally the Mr. blamed Cash, our oh so special pup. I disagreed because Cash puts up a huge stink when he needs to go out and I truly think he would wake us.

This past weekend when Ash was here, she brought her female pup down. So maybe she peed there and now the boys are peeing over it. That's option one. But we've sprayed so many cleaning supplies down there that I'm not buying that one. Option two is someone's pissed off about something. I truly don't think my two male dogs have it in them to be spiteful.*

*We've ruled out Lacy because of the smell of the urine..*

Option three is something's wrong with someone and is compromising his ability to hold it. That better be the case because only if something is medically wrong will I forgive them!!

We locked up Cash in his kennel last nite to try and catch our culprit.

There was urine on the floor this morning.

I'm convinced it's Duke. The Mr. is still saying it's Lacy. Or that Lacy is letting Cash out at nite so he can still do it.

Insane.

But he totally rigged up a hidden camera tonite to catch our culprit. Oh, and Duke gets locked up tonite. We WILL get to the bottom of this!!!

I can't believe I just spent a whole post talking about my dogs' bathroom habits. Oh boy.

Weekend Wrap-Up

We had a pretty relaxing weekend this week. Thank goodness because I have been feeling ridiculously overwhelmed this week. We've got a new girl at work and, let's see... How can I put this nicely? She's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. She's killing me. Slowly. I don't do well in high stress environments and work has become one lately. Boo...

Friday nite while Mr. Perfect worked late, I curled up with a good movie. I can't tell you what it even was now because the dogs ruined it for me. Friday was an insane day at work that had me convinced the moon had to be full and bringing out all the crazies.. Guess that goes for the pups too. For some reason Lacy decided to be a complete b*%$# to Cash and kept attacking him. Now she's my baby, and she tends to get away with murder, but Cash is our "special" child, and you can't pick on him!! So I locked her up in time-out outside. =(


She went nuts. Crying, whining, hollering... I was watching her from the bedroom window and it broke my heart! I had to keep telling myself "Just 5 minutes, you just have to leave her in there 5 minutes..". I think she lasted three. I'm a big 'ol sucker for a sad face.

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous here in town. Hot, but duh. It always is. The mister and I decided to make the most of a great day and cleaned out both our cars. Mine got done first, so it may have gotten the better treatment! We went out to eat at one of our favorite local restaurants that nite, the Dawghouse Grille. Lora (the Marine's gf) works there and had let us know that they were closing down this weekend. Boo. So we sent it out with style and ate ourselves into a minor food coma!! We came home and conked out and watched a bit of TV in bed.

Sunday we managed to drag our behinds out of bed in time for Sunday School. We had decided to stick around town this Mother's Day instead of hitting the road at all. We had a good service as usual, and I finally feel like maybe the people in the class are starting to warm up to us. My only trepidation about this class is that the people seem a bit standoffish. But I will break them down!! We didn't stick around for church. I just wasn't feeling quite emotionally stable enough to stick around for that... The mister was completely supportive and we dipped out early.

The Mister and I after church...



I had a soccer game that afternoon in the 98 degree heat. Yes, 98 degrees in May. Freakin' ridiculous. It must have been the heat that made me think I needed to head to Target and buy the Shred. And then do it that nite. I almost died. My muscles were on FIRE. It's actually 2 days later and they are still on fire. I literally am so sore I have to basically fall on the toilet seat. Sorry if that was TMI but.. Oh Jillian.. You will not beat me!!

This week is going to be insane. We've got soccer playoffs, mine and the mister's 4th anniversary, and some big birthday's coming up. I'm getting tired of thinking about all I have to get done... Hope you all have a great week!

And I made my first RueLala purchase! Yay! While I am in love with it, my bank account is hating 'ol Kate! I, however, am forever thankful to her for bringing my new BCBG dress into my life. It was simply meant to be mine..

I still have an update on all things family coming soon. Let me get my juices flowing again once things chill out at work!