One Frazzled Mom!

2010 Cayman Trip

2010-06-09T19:34:00.000-05:00

Well, we've been back for a little over a week now and have been busy ever since. I just posted the pictures to my Facebook account. If you have a FB, then click here. If you don't or aren't 'FB Friends' with me, then click here for part 1 and here for part 2.

We had a great time this year. It was just the 5 of us this time. We stayed at the resort most of the time this year and took advantage of the kids activities that were offered. Our resort has the BEST concierges on the island. I'm not a drinker AT ALL. I hate the stuff actually. But I had to sit next to Lucy on the way there and she talked non-stop the entire 2.5 hour flight. Then when we got there, Danny had left his cell phone on the plane and there were ants EVERYWHERE in our rental van. I was not pleased. I was tired and cranky and when we pulled up to the resort, Laura (one of the concierges) brought me a Rum Punch and said that my husband insisted that I needed it! He was right and it was really good.

We hung around the resort on Sunday, went snorkeling and played in the pool we went for a walk on the beach too. EmmaLee and Lucy made bracelets with Lyndsey (the Activities Coordinator).

On Monday, the kids went to the Pirates Caves with Lyndsey and Danny and I got to relax! We went snorkeling by ourselves. When the kids got back we went to the grocery store and saw some very interesting items. Then we headed into town for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, The Brick House.

On Tuesday, my birthday, we went on a sailboat snorkeling adventure. Lyndsey's husband, Alan, and his friend, Dave own White Sands Water Sports and it's located right at the resort. Alan and Apollo (Dave had to stay behind) took us on this really cool sailboat to a sandbar where EmmaLee and Lucy could play in knee deep water while Alan took Danny, myself and Daniel on a snorkel tour. We saw so many fish, it was really amazing. Danny got pictures of a Lion Fish and a French Angel and a ton of others.

Tuesday night was also Kid's movie night with Lyndsey. So Danny and I got to go on a date. Lyndsey took them back to our room for us and stayed with them til we got back.

Wednesday, we were so sunburned from the sailboat that we stay in as much as possible. We leisurely drove into town stopping so I could take pictures, etc... and eventually went to see a movie at Caymana Bay. The kids were dying to see Furry Vengence. They loved it, but Danny and I didn't. Then we found this huge water fountain that shoots the water out of the ground. The kids played in that for a long time. I took a ton of pictures too. The bay had jelly fish in it that were really weird looking. I forgot to take pictures with my regular camera, but caught some with my cell phone camera.

Thursday we took Lucy 'snerkeling' for the first time. Danny taught her in the baby pool and then we headed out to the ocean. She did great and loved every minute of it until I announced that I saw a nurse shark. That freaked her out and she wanted to go in.

Friday we headed into town to go shopping. There were no cruise boats that day so it wasn't crowded, but it was HOT! We made our annual trip to the Island Glass Blowing. I love that place. We ate lunch at Hard Rock Cafe and went to the local Dairy Queen for dessert.

Saturday we hung around the resort for the last day and snorkeled and relaxed.

Overall it was great trip. I spent a lot of time reading on the beach and the kids played in the pool a lot. I have no idea what Danny was doing while I was reading, he was probably inside reading too.

Don't forget to check out the pictures! And let me know if you can't view them for some reason.

Lucy is at it again....but this time, she had help

2010-06-02T23:42:00.000-05:00

I'm still working on the Cayman vacation photos, there are 'several' :)

But I thought I'd post the latest on Lucy.

Today she spent the day at Aunt De's house with her cousin, Blake, who is 3 months younger than her and had recently broken his finger. When I returned to pick her up, she and Blake were in the backyard on the patio. EmmaLee went outside to see what they were doing and promptly came back in the house to tell us that they had been playing with sidewalk chalk and had gotten it wet and now it was all over them and their clothes. De and I just looked at each other and rolled our eyes. When we got to the door to survey the damage, it was worse than we thought. I told EmmaLee to run get my camera out of the van. When she returned I started snapping pictures.

As I was looking through the lens, I noticed that Lucy had black smudges all over her face and little dots on her nose that looked like soot. But that didn't add up so I just assumed that it was black chalk and the sweat on her nose made it bead up. Makes sense right? She does have a guilty look on her face, don't ya think?

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

She was guilty! Very Guilty!

Lucy and Blake had decided to play in the charcoal filled fire pit that was hidden from view through the windows! IT REALLY WAS SOOT!

Of course Lucy and Blake blamed each other and lied about having anything to do with it. But Lucy finally confessed and all was forgiven.

It's been awhile since she's done anything like this and actually De and I had been talking a few weeks ago that we were surprise that nothing like this had happened yet and we were just waiting for it.... :)

Cousins!

I've been busy.....

2010-06-02T15:05:00.000-05:00

The end of the school year is always hectic, but when you're trying to cram school work, packing for a major vacation and doing real work for a friend who decides she needs it all done before you leave.... life can get overwhelming.

I have lots to update, but not now. I'll give you hint at my next couple of blogs....

1. We took another incredible vacation to Grand Cayman and I have awesome pictures.

2. Lucy is up to her old tricks again, but this time she wasn't alone.

That's all for now. I'll post those blogs tonight or tomorrow.

365 Photos again and other stuff

2010-05-04T22:20:00.000-05:00

Okay,
So I've been bad about posting photos on my blog, I'm trying. If you want to see them, click here.

I've had a lot of fun taking photos. I can't do it everyday, but most days I do get too. Of course today, my memory card and computer decided to erase the last few days of photos an so I don't have any! I'm really not happy about it. But I've lost more photos than that before, so I'll recover.

I'm really ready for school to be over with. I want to spend my summer reading books and laying out by the pool watching my kids play.

My sweet baby girl, EmmaLee, turn 10 next week! Where did the time go? Last Sunday, May 2nd, was the day my grandmother, Mary Lee (aka Mamo), passed away. It's hard to grieve when you are 9 months pregnant. I wish she could have known EmmaLee. They would have had a lot of fun together. Mamo was a wonderful grandmother, who spoiled me rotten as a child and somewhat as an adult. I miss her terribly.

Here is a recent photo of EmmaLee. This was taken right before she got really sick. She had a terrible case of tonsillitis last week. She was very sick and didn't really eat for over a week. She's much better now.

365 Photos

2010-03-28T17:13:00.000-05:00

Here are the first 4 photos that I uploaded to the 365 Project website:

I'm really excited about this project. I've been wanting to improve my photography skills for a long time. I actually carry my camera with me all the time now since I finally got a camera bag that I love (and it's purple) and this project forces me to take a picture everyday. I have no real theme right now, but I'm thinking of some that I might want to try. We'll see what happens. If you want to follow my 365 Project, you can click here and follow it there or here which ever you prefer. I'm going to try and post both places, but I'm not promising that they will end up here. I'll add a link to it on the blog though.

Gonna try something new...

2010-03-26T17:43:00.000-05:00

So I've been wanting to do this for awhile and have finally decided to give in and try it. it's called Project 365 and it's taking a picture everyday for a year. The picture can be anything you want. I've been wanting to do something similar but never got around to it. If you want to check out the photos I post, click here. I will also probably try and post them on the blog too.

Lucy's antics....

2010-02-24T17:24:00.001-06:00

Lucy has had some fun days at her preschool the last few days. She got to dress western last Friday.

And then today right before we left for school, I remembered that it was show-n-tell day and I checked the calendar. To my surprise, she's supposed to dress like she's in a circus today! GREAT! Here's what we came up with. She apparently decided she was a sad clown.

So typical of her.....

On Sunday, she was being silly and I found her like this...

I still have no idea what she was doing.

Daniel and EmmaLee did great the last TKD tournament. I'm sure you've seen these pictures already, but you have to see them again.

The students are bracketed according to age, weight and belt rank.

EmmaLee won the gold medal in patterns for her bracket, and Daniel won the silver in patterns. That's his friend Robbie with him in the picture. He won bronze in patterns.

Homeschooling addition

2009-11-25T22:20:00.000-06:00

Well, I haven't updated in awhile, but I wanted to let everyone know that we have officially told EmmaLee that she will be homeschooling starting in January. We thought she'd completely freak out and by hysterical and need all of Thanksgiving break to get used to the idea. But she surprised us and said, "okay". She said that she knew she'd be homeschooled eventually she just didn't think it'd be so soon.

We went on a really cool field trip a couple of weeks ago, so I'll post pictures soon. I've been busy updating my mom's blog instead of my own.

Halloween and Other Stuff

2009-11-10T19:52:00.000-06:00

On Friday, October 30th Lucy class baked bread. It was a ton of fun and the kids really enjoyed it. The bread was pretty good too.

Well, better late than never on the Halloween post! EmmaLee and Lucy both dressed up as a Texans Cheerleader. EmmaLee went to my mom and stepdad's house to Trick or Treat with a friend. Lucy and I went to the Go Fish concert. It was a ton of fun and we went Trick or Treating after the concert. Danny and Daniel went to Grant and Collin's house.

My blog is having trouble uploading pictures, so I'll do the rest in a separate post.

Renaissance Festival

2009-10-30T20:45:00.001-05:00

Daniel has done hardly any work this week because we've been goofing off. On Wednesday we went to the Texas Renaissance Festival. I pulled EmmaLee out of school and we went to the Renaissance Festival with Cari, Brandon, DeAnna, Grant, Collin and our friends Valerie, Robbie and Morgan.

We had a really great time. The kids watched a jousting match, rode an elephant, went through a giant maze and spent tons of $$. Oh, and EmmaLee had her hair braided. It looked so beautiful. Even the next day it looked good.

Here are the pictures.

Busy Weekend

2009-10-26T15:12:00.000-05:00

Well, this has been quite a busy weekend for us. Saturday we got up early and went to the kids TaeKwon-Do Tournament that started at 9:30. Daniel has to judge or keep time or score for the first half. He has to wait til the end to compete. EmmaLee competed after about an hour and a half. Oh and did i mention we took Lucy with us???? She was actually very well behaved, but started hitting the wall at lunch time. Luckily Granddaddy (a.k.a. Kim) showed up and took her back to their house for a nap. EmmaLee got a silver medal in patterns, she messed up on her last try and lost the gold because of it. Then she competed in a team pattern and won the silver in that as well. Daniel didn't place in any of his events, but he tried hard and that's what matters to us.

On Sunday, Danny went to the Texans game, but left early and came home so we could take Daniel and his cousins, Grant and Collin, to the Star Wars In Concert. It was a symphony playing the Star Wars music with a narrator telling a story and they showed clips from the movies in the background. It was worth the overpriced tickets and we had a lot of fun. The performance was amazing.

Here are pictures below of all our fun!

There are more pictures on Facebook if you want to see them.

I need your help!

2009-10-21T16:32:00.000-05:00

As most of you know, my mom has been hurting for about 6 months now. It all started with an injury to her neck that never got better only worse. So, she had a cervical steroid shot to help it heal, but it didn't. It actually made her vitamin D levels plummet to about 0 (normal is between 50-80). After several stays in the hospital, we finally figure out that that was the problem, only it wasn't. After getting off of the steroids, and having vitamin D pumped into her body, she should be feeling better, but she isn't. She worse. Which brings us back to her neck. One doctor wants to replace 4 vertebra and one doesn't think she needs any surgery.

After 6 months of this, you can imagine that she's discouraged. This is where you come in. If you have been praying or are willing to start praying for my mom, I would like you to send her a card and tell her so. I would love for you to get your church or sunday school to be praying for her and have everyone that is praying for her to send her a card. I will post her address at the end of this blog.

My mom's mental state is great. She's not depressed or anything like that, she just wants a doctor to find out what's wrong and fix it.

Here is what we would like for you to pray about:

1. that God would open the doors to the right doctor
2. give us the right diagnosis
3. that the doctor would prescribe the right treatment
4. that God would give my mom her health back
5. and that God wouldn't make her wait too much longer. She's very weary.

So, here is my mom's address:

Kim & Anne Quinn
19615 Crossbranch
Houston, TX 77094

(Kim is my step-dad, he's Australian for those of you who don't know him, that's why he has a girls name! LOL)

Here are some pictures of them. If you click on the photos, they will enlarge.

Mom in October 2008

Mom and Kim in the Cayman Islands this summer. She got the cervical injection the week before we left and a few days later the problems really started happening. She didn't feel well on this trip.

Another Cayman Islands photo

October 2009 with EmmaLee and Lucy for her birthday.

(in this photo you can see how tired she is by looking at her eyes)

Please post a comment and let me know if you will be sending her a card and PLEASE, if you know my parents don't tell them I'm doing this. I would just like for them to be bombarded with cards and notes of encouragement and prayer.

Thanks for your help!

Pumpkins, TKD and the Gameroom

2009-10-17T21:40:00.006-05:00

We got up this morning and went to the Pumpkin Patch. Lucy has been DYING to for about 2 weeks. Poor thing, now she has to wait even longer to carve the pumpkin! She'll live. Here are the photos I managed to take.
Lucy wouldn't sit still very long.

In case you didn't recognize him...This is my 12 year old stud.
I love both of these pictures.
He NEVER lets me take his picture so I was really happy to get two good ones.
Which one do you like?

This child is getting to big for her britches!

My little petite child now wears a size bigger than her age.

This is a first in her short lifetime.

This one is just plain crazy! Ya gotta love her though.

After the pumpkin patch we came home and got ready for EmmaLee's belt testing. She was testing for Blue Belt. The belt before this was half way to Black Belt. She will test for Black Tab in August 2010 and Black Belt in March 2011.

She did really good on her break. Mr. Howard did the board breaking a little different this time. He had them spar someone and try and break the board while sparring. It was a really good way to teach them how to use sparring and why it's important to be able to do both at virtually the same time. She did great as you can see.

I love the look on Mr. Coleman's face...I also would probably look like that too!

Miss Flores giving her her new belt!

EmmaLee and Mr. Webre!

EmmaLee with her new belt on!

Mom and Kim came to EmmaLee's belt testing and took Lucy home with them. We seized the opportunity to clean up the game room. We threw away one bag of trash and had one-two bags of stuff to give away. The kids did a great job of helping us and we even rearranged the furniture.

The girls stuff. They have a bigger area because they now share toys and play together.

Still the girls stuff!

Daniel and EmmaLee attempting to hide from being in the picture.
Remind me how old they are again? Do you even see Daniel? Hello!!!!!!!!!!

So this is how we spent our day today. We did pause and eat dinner and catch up on the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons. Then headed back up stairs to finish off the game room. The kids didn't go to bed till 9:30pm. We had fun with them today!

Hope y'all had a great Saturday!

Long Time No Blog

2009-10-14T22:38:00.002-05:00

Well, it's been several months since I last blogged. A lot has happened. School ended, summer came and went and school started again. Not that you don't already know all that, it's October already! Where did 2009 go anyway?

We had a great summer vacation and I did not want school to start, but it did and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it unfortunately. We drove to my dad's in Virginia and had a really good visit with them and we stopped some place new this year on the way home. We visited Ruby Falls and oh, I can't think of the name of it now. But Ruby Falls was awesome. I'm not uploading pictures cause they are all on Facebook, so go look at them there.

EmmaLee is in 4th grade and Daniel is in 6th. Both are doing really well too.

Lucy has calmed down a lot. She doesn't get into things as much as she used too. She attends preschool 3 days a week and loves it. She is also in gymnastics and takes swimming lessons. She continues to amaze us with the things she says. She sounds like an adult most of the time. She is a very interesting child. I wonder what she'll grow up to be? Any thoughts?

EmmaLee is testing for her blue belt in TaeKwon-Do this coming Saturday. She's only 4 more belt ranks before getting her black belt. Possibly in the spring of 2011, maybe sooner. I'm not sure. She really likes it and we like that she can defend herself against someone trying to hurt her.

Well, that's all for now. I'll try and be more diligent about blogging.

Medalists!

2009-04-27T12:40:00.006-05:00

Daniel and EmmaLee competed in a TKD tournament over the weekend. It was EmmaLee's first competition and they both did great. It was a LONG day for us. Check in was at 8:30 and it started at 9am. The blackbelts went first with patterns. The adult men and women went first so that they could judge the younger ones. So Daniel went fairly early. Then he got to judge the colored belts for their patterns and sparring. He LOVED it. It was a learning experience for him, but he really did great. Then they started with white belts (beginners) and moved up to red belts (advanced, right before black belts). EmmaLee is a green belt, so she was smack dab in the middle of all of them. She won a bronze in patterns. Then she got to spar and got punched in the face 3 times. She didn't cry though til it was all over. She got a good uppercut to the jaw, which she says is still hurting. She won the bronze in sparring too. Then we waited for a LONG time til all the colored belts were finished and then they started black belt sparring. Of course, the adult men/women went first again. Daniel didn't finish until 4pm! Most tournaments are like that so I guess we'll have get used to it. My mom and Kim had Lucy so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Daniel got a bronze in patterns and sparring. They both had to do a break off in board breaking and EmmaLee won hers to get the silver and Daniel lost his to get the silver.

We are so proud of both of them. Pictures below.

Robbie Webre, Alex Dillion and Daniel -
they all train together and were the only boys in their age group.

Daniel doing his pattern. He blanked out on his pattern and forgot part of it,
otherwise I think he would have gotten the silver. Oh well, there's always next time.

Patterns Medalists - Alex got the gold, Robbie got the silver, Daniel got the bronze.

Now the fun part, getting to be a judge. Several people were upset because children were
judging adults, but to be fair, these kids have earned the right to be judges. They know the patterns and where the mistakes are and can tell which one did a better job.

EmmaLee doing her pattern.

EmmaLee getting her bronze medal in patterns. I don't know the other girls.

Mr. Howard instructing the boys on how to judge fairly.

EmmaLee sparring.

Daniel judging the sparring.

Sharing the bronze in sparring.

Breaking with a knife hand. We were impressed that he did that!

Breaking two yellow boards on the first try (you only get one try).

Someone stood in front of me when EmmaLee did her knife hand, which she did break. But this is the break off, this is one yellow board. She and the other girl, broke the knife hand, but not the kick, so they had to do it again and neither of them broke it. So they did it one more time, and EmmaLee broke it. I think I was more excited than she was!

Getting her silver medal in breaking.

Daniel and Robbie sparring. Robbie won.

Bronze in sparring. Yes that's a girl that got the gold! She was tough and
Robbie and Daniel didn't want to hurt her!

Robbie and Daniel had to do a break off and Daniel tried to break 4 yellow boards, but didn't. Robbie then only had to break 1 to win and he did easily.

Mishaps

2009-04-13T14:21:00.002-05:00

Today has been an exhausting day.

This past Saturday, Lucy poured fingernail polish remover on my new cocktail table and now we have to get it refinished! Today, it was screaming and yelling and hitting me in the grocery store because she didn't get her way, then in the van, she threw something at EmmaLee and it hit her in the head. She spent about 20 minutes in her room so that I could calm down and put the groceries away.

She's very busy. I realize that God is trying to teach me something through all this and it's something I struggle with daily. I can't do it alone. I can't. I need Him to help me. I have always been an independent person, and relying on God to help me is against my fleshly nature and I struggle with it everyday, every hour, every minute, every second.

I'm starting to wonder if God brought her into our lives to teach me this very hard lesson.

7 Days In A Week

2009-04-09T20:55:00.003-05:00

On the way home from picking up EmmaLee from her TKD class, Lucy started singing a new song she'd learned. I knew the song so I helped her. When we got home I asked her if she would sing it for the camera. Yeah! She did, finally. Hopefully this will be the beginning. She hasn't wanted to do it before now.

Green Belt

2009-04-06T15:36:00.006-05:00

EmmaLee tested on Saturday for her Green Belt in Taekwon-Do. She did great. She didn't break her board, so she's on probation. She also gets to attend the later class which Mommy and Daddy are most excited about since on the days they go, we are up there every hour dropping off or picking up!

Bluebonnets

2009-04-05T21:37:00.006-05:00

Last Sunday we went out to Chappell Hill to take bluebonnet pictures. The Bluebonnet is the Texas state flower. We had a great time and I only got a few shots that actually came out because EmmaLee is the only person in the family that likes having her picture taken!
Here are the results.

They had such a good time running through the field. And Danny even said that it wasn't as torturous as he thought it would be.

Strawberries Pickin'

2009-04-05T21:25:00.006-05:00

A couple of weeks ago Daniel and I went strawberry picking with Cari and Brandon (my sis in law and nephew). We had a ton of fun and the strawberries were amazing. I bit into one that actually was so sweet it tasted like candy. If you have a chance to go to King's Orchard you should. They have all sorts of fruits and veggies. Some are ready now, some in the next few weeks and some in a few months. They have fresh flowers for picking too.

Gettin' ready to go pickin'

We had to be very selective because it had been raining and some of the strawberries were rotten from sitting in water.

Hmmm... I think I'll eat this one.

Daniel picked just over 5 lbs of strawberries!

Lucy insisted on pulling the wagon without my help!
It was heavy and the terrain wasn't smooth either.

Whew! This is heavy Mommy!

Deodorant

2009-04-02T15:56:00.002-05:00

So, yesterday while Daniel was in the bathroom, Lucy went in to the area where the sink is (it's separate from the toilet) and grabbed Daniel's deodorant. Yes, my sweet son is starting to wear deodorant. She took off her clothes and rubbed it all over her body. I don't have pictures cause you couldn't see it anyway, but I wanted to tell you about it.

We went strawberry picking last week, but I don't have the pictures uploaded yet. Will post them later.

A Tired Toddler

2009-03-25T14:24:00.003-05:00

So, I put Lucy down for a nap today and I knew she would climb out of her bed. What I didn't expect was where I'd find her when I went to check on her......

Yes, she is UNDER her crib. She and Daniel had been playing under there right before naptime.

It's Not As Funny the 2nd Time

2009-03-23T19:23:00.004-05:00

There really isn't much to say. I'm not laughing this time.

This lovely nail polish stain is on the floor in my closet. The smudge is where I tried to get it out. Our carpet is made where you can pour bleach on it and it won't lose color. If I kept at it, it would probably come out, but with every blot and rub, the carpet unravels. Not sure what to do now.

I spanked her bare bottom and she did not like it one bit. She even started telling me that it hurt cause she didn't have a diaper on! Yea! I know. That was the point! She did come and tell me she was sorry while I was trying to clean it up.

Bunk Beds

2009-03-17T12:07:00.005-05:00

So this morning I was coming out of Lucy's room from changing her clothes and she had run ahead of me into Daniel's room where he and Brandon (my nephew) were playing. Lucy proceeded to climb up the side of the bunk bed. I was shocked! I had NO idea she could do that, but it doesn't surprise me now that I think about it. Then I saw her climb down! I had Daniel grab my camera to show you.

A couple of days ago, Danny and I watched as she got a cup out of the cupboard and set it on the ground next to the fridge, open the fridge, take out the half gallon of orange juice, pour it into her cup w/out spilling it, put the OJ back and then show us how proud she was of herself. She wants to be big soooo badly!

Children's Museum

2009-03-14T08:41:00.002-05:00

Daniel was invited to preview the new exhibits at the Children's Museum here in Houston for a video shoot with NBC Local 2. It was a lot of fun and the show aired Friday, March 13 at 7 pm. He was seen 3 times and I was shown twice in the background. I can't put up the whole show yet, but here is behind the scenes video of Daniel at the Children's Museum. Daniel is wearing a red Cypress TKD shirt.