Ramblings....

I am really getting bad at updating this blog! I still check everyone else’s journals every day – not commenting often, but reading daily. But I just don’t seem to get the time to get around and update! Oh well. I am here now, right? That is what matters…LOL

Well, little miss Gracie turned one since I last posted! Isn’t that hard to believe?!? The year has really flown by. She is doing better with sleeping (some nights) and she is finally holding her own bottle – well, sometimes! Seriously, the first time she held her own bottle for me was on the day of her first birthday party. We got home from church and I was rushing around doing stuff to get ready for the party and trying to get her to take a nap. Well, she needed a bottle but I didn’t have time to sit and feed her a bottle. So, I laid her in her crib and gave her the bottle and walked out of the room. When I came back, she was asleep and the bottle was empty! So, she either drank it or spilled it all over the bed. LOL So, since then…that is pretty much how we have been putting her down for naps and bed. Not the right thing to do, but it is working…so whatever! She isn’t walking yet, but I don’t think it will be long before she is! She is starting to get braver and letting go. The other day, she let go of the table and stood by herself for a few seconds. And when I went to pick her up from the nursery on Sunday Night, Chelsea told me that she took 3 steps by herself! Of course she did! Not sure that I am really ready for her to be walking….but ready or not, she is gonna do it soon! Her first birthday party was fun. I made the mistake (lol) of sending Scott to get the little cake for her and he came home with a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. So, she was a mess! I will have to download the pictures and post one on here. It was very fun! We also celebrated my Grandma’s birthday on the same day because Gracie was born on my Grandma’s birthday! That was nice….I know my Grandma loved it because she always calls Gracie her “Birthday Baby”. Anyways…there were some “argh” moments at the party, but it went well and she got a lot of nice gifts. Of course her Aunt YaYa bought her her very first Vera Bradley purse. Gotta start them young!

Faith Anne seems to be having fun at Preschool. Every day when I ask her what she learned she always says the same thing….how to cut. I hope they are learning more than that, but it is cute to hear her tell me the same thing over and over. We went to the Open House at her school this past weekend and her teacher actually said she is well-behaved and follows instructions. WOW! I was amazed at that! Funny thing….she said that we need to work on cutting with her at home! Faith Anne goes back and forth between her left and her right hand, so neither of them are very strong. I guess we need to pick a hand and try to make her stick with it. Poor girl….she has just grown so fast that we didn’t have any clothes that fit her! So, we went out last week and bought her quite a few things at Kohls (thanks for the tip on their good sale, Dawn!). We got her some good stuff.. Anyways, she is doing good. Just as ornery as ever! Her new thing lately has been to tell Daddy how handsome he is and me how pretty I am….so sweet. Then she says that Isaac and all of his friends at school are handsome and that Gracie is pretty and on and on and on. She is a trip. I seriously do not know what we are going to do with her on Halloween because she is just so scared of everything. We were at one of Isaac’s football games and there were kids (like 5th/6th graders) dressed up as a Firebird (eagle) and a Wildcat and she totally freaked out. I mean, they even took their heads off so she could see it was a kid with a costume on and she absolutely flipped out. There was no consoling her and she was tearing at me to get up on my lap and hide. So….I may end up at home with her on Halloween if she doesn’t get any better! She is going to be Little Red Riding Hood….we have this cape that my mom made for us when we were little. She is going to wear that and just a red dress under it. Pretty cheap costume! Good thing, she might be in the van or at home that night anyways! LOL

Isaac is going to be a “Bengal’s Clown” for Halloween. My mom made us a clown costume when we were younger and our school colors were orange and black, so that is what color the costume is. So, Isaac decided that it is a Bengal’s clown outfit! It is a bit long on him, but looks very cute. So, he is going to wear that and we are going to paint his face orange and black and then I bought him a big black afro wig that I am going to paint half orange and he will wear that. He will be very cute. So, another cheap costume. And Gracie is going to be a pumpkin – what Faith Anne wore last year. We were cheap this year!

Football is almost over for Isaac. His last regular season game was this past Saturday. Tournaments start this weekend, but they are single elimination, so I think we will only have one game – which is fine by me! Actually, the team they are playing hasn’t won a game this year, so we might win! I am ready for the break! We were going to get him in basketball or wrestling for the winter, but I am just ready for a break! So, I think we are going to do that instead! He has really had fun with football – and so have we! Two Fridays ago, we went with some of the families from his team to Tom’s Corn Maze. That was a blast! I have never done anything like that….basically go into a cornfield maze and find clues to find your way back out. We left the girls with my parents and just Scott and I went with Isaac. We had so much fun. It was a little freaky at times….but very fun. Then we had a bonfire in the woods afterwards and roasted marshmallows and had fun with the kids. I really spent a lot of time talking to one of the single moms on the team and it was very eye-opening to me. I respect her so much. I mean, we all have to sacrifice for our kids, but this woman has sacrificed so much. It was a great time and I just wish we had done stuff like that earlier in the season because I got to know some of the moms so much better!

School is going great for Isaac! I went to the parent/teacher conference two weeks ago and I was pretty nervous. If you remember, last year at his conference the teacher basically told me that he was struggling and we should start thinking about holding him back. So, I was nervous, but based on the stuff he brings home, it looked like he was doing well. Mrs. Codispoti (his teacher), just spoke so highly of him! She said that he is doing great! He does tend to sound out every word when he should just read some of them (lightening words), but she said that he is amazing at sounding words out and it really helps some of the other kids in the class. I think he gets that from Mrs. Stuve at church…she works so well with them in Sunday School. But anyways, we have to work on just reading the words he knows instead of sounding them all out – and part of that, I think, is boosting his confidence. When we started talking about his writing, she got really excited and told me that she was so excited to share with me his journal because he has the best handwriting in the class! She said that he does such a great job of keeping his writing neat and even when he is writing words that he doesn’t know how to spell correctly, he does such a good job of spelling them phonetically that you know what he is saying – more so than the others in the class! Get this….here was his journal entry that she shared with me (tell me who it sounds like)…”I like the Bengals, but they are not going to win a game. I wish they would. I like their Quarterback Carson Palmer and I like Chad Johnson.” Now, the words weren’t all spelled correctly, but you could absolutely understand what he was trying to say. Too cute. So, anyways…she said he is doing great and he is right where he should be. I hope that continues! I don’t want him to struggle in school!

Umm…everything else is just plugging right along. I have started my Christmas Shopping – actually have three people DONE. I probably have more than that done when I pull out all the Vera stuff I bought at the Trunk Show. But I actually have 3 people’s presents bought and wrapped already (the Vera store wrapped them for me)! And I was in Lane Bryant last night and they were playing Christmas music. Now, that is a bit extreme. I think I would DIE if I had to listen to it at work all the time already. I do listen to our Christmas cantata at work occasionally, but that is a bit different. Anyways, so hard to believe that it is almost that time of the year again. Scott said he was at a customer’s house last week and she already had her tree up and presents underneath it. What? Now, even I am not ready to do that yet!!! At least wait until after Halloween, if not Thanksgiving. Wait, I usually don’t wait until after Thanksgiving! LOL I am going to try really hard to this year, though.

We had a great time at our Women’s Retreat this past weekend. I had to leave early on Saturday – just when the speaker was really getting started, but we had so much fun goofing off on Friday night! We sat around the campfire and sang for about 2 hours! It was just fun and very up-lifting! I have another Girl’s Weekend coming up soon! My 3 close friends at work and I are going to go to Louisville for a short trip. We go away every year for a weekend in the fall – for like the past 3 or 4 years. I am looking forward to that fun time away. Hopefully my parents will be able to help watch the kids – I haven’t asked them yet because they are on a cruise this week! They called from Puerto Rico the other night….they are really enjoying retirement! I am so happy for them!!!

Well, I guess that you are probably bored now and I should really get to work! Speaking of work, it has been crazy the past few weeks and this week is boring – go figure. It is really either feast or famine. I have never heard about the Audit position that I interviewed for. Crazy! They were supposed to let me know last week and I haven’t heard the first thing. I am sick of calling them. At this point, I am sure that I didn’t get it…and even if I did, I would probably not accept it because of the way they have handled it. But it would still be nice to have some closure to it. Oh well….must not have been meant to be!

Take care!!!! Love you all!