Thankful Thursday

Since its 11pm here and I'm just sitting down to this, I'm keeping this simple.

I often complain about the stupid things in life, but I am thankful I have things to complain about.

I'm thankful for laundry, it means I have clothes to wear
I'm thankful for a dirty house, it means I have a home to live in
I'm thankful for the dirty dishes in the sink, cause we have enjoyed a good meal
I'm thankful for all those kids toys overflowing from my house, cause It means I have children who've had a wonderful day playing with them.

There's so many things I can keep mentioning, but I think you get the idea=)

Wordless Wednesday!

Hot Mama Tuesday Topic!

Today's topic is:

What is your favorite vacation ever and why?

We've had a lot of different vacations. It seems like everytime we move its like a vacation when we get there in the sense we get to explore everything about the area, and tend to do the touristy things. We've done week long camping trips, trips to waterparks, living in Corpus Christi felt like we were on vacation the whole time.

But I think my favorite vacation is a combination of Disney in August of 2009 and our recent trip to Florida.

Back in August I was so excited to share the Disney experience with the rest of my family, Jas had never been there and neither had the girls. I had such awesome experiences and memories of Disney from when I was younger, the anticipation up to the trip was awesome. We did all 4 parks and saw everything we could. Not only did the girls get to meet all their favorite characters but they were in heaven with the whole atmosphere. Their first site of the castle is a look I'll never forget on the faces of my children (and my husband). Pictures never really do it justice, and until you see it in person you never really know how cool it is. That trip we also visited Cocoa Beach, which of course is a favorite thing for us to do. Not only that but it was a first time for Jas and the girls too, we had spent numerous days and weekends at the beach on the Gulf of Mexico but none of them had ever been to or in the Atlantic Ocean. We talked about the differences between them, what the water looked like, the sand felt like, the shells we found that were different, etc... Just a very awesome trip full of learning and experience. And another wonderful part was meeting the Bass Family. We had supper at Downtown Disney during our stay and made friends right away. We came home with lots of memories and new friends.

That brings me to our trip in January this year. We went and visited the Bass Family again. This trip was especially awesome cause for once on a vacation we RELAXED! It actually felt like a vacation. We got to experience Disney with some awesome friends, see gators and just spend some fun times with Eric, Kat and Whit.

I hope every year I can say whatever vacation we go on that year is my new favorite. Wonder what's in store this year?

5 question Friday

I pulled these from a random questions website:



When was the last time you went to the mall?
I haven't been inside a mall since about a week before Christmas, malls really don't impress me anymore, if I do go, I may run into a couple stores then right back out again. I am a bigger fan on online shopping or shopping centers I can pull right up to, shop where I want and don't have to deal with lugging a stroller (yes I have 2 children that are big babies and complain about walking). I'm sure we'll be at the mall this weekend though, I have a Victoria Secret coupon I need to use and Mr. Jas Michael needs a haircut.


What do you wanna know about the future?
There are so many things I wanna know, Will I have anymore children?? Where will I live in the next year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years? Will I ever have a career of my own? There are so many other questions I'd love answered, however, if we knew the future how would the present feel? If you knew in 3 years something bad was going to happen, would you want to know now? I don't know. The only reason I'd want to know is if I could possibly change something today that would effect the outcome of those questions.


Do you have a tan?
I do yes. I am a frequent tanning bed user, not only for the "tan" but it actually makes me feel better, especially this time of year when its gloomy and we haven't had one peak of the sun in 2 weeks. Its relaxing to me and makes me feel better about myself. And yes I do know the risks.


Are you wearing socks right now?
I am. I was NEVER a sock person growing up, through high school or at all. I could wear flip flops till there was snow on the ground. However since moving back to the north, I even sleep in them. I can't ever get warm here, I've even invested in fuzzy socks, slippers. Oh and footed jammies=) Okay I won't go that far.


Where were you 3 hours ago?
I was sitting in my car driving back from the wonderful town of Sullivan, IN. We went down and had lunch with Jas, we may just make this part of our Friday routine.


I'll be taking a blogging break over the weekend, its too hard to do this everyday, but I wanted to know that I could do it!! So there ya go, 5 days straight!!! Muuuahhh!

Thankful Thursday

Since I tend to be a pessimist who is not always an enthusiastic person, today is a good post for me to look at what I am thankful for. Since this is my first Thankful Thursday post it should be easy!

First of all Thankful for this guy who has taught me so much about life

And gave me these two! My beautiful girls who make me smile when I'm sad

And this place: Thankful for my house, cause without this, living in Indiana would be much worse, but at least I have a beautiful home to live in

Today I am also thankful for colors, stickers and coloring books because they occupied my children for 3 hours while I sat next to them at the dining room table and did homework.

I am thankful for all the experiences I've been able to give my children, from Texas to Florida, to Indiana and every where in between. They've seen and lived in places so many people have never even been! Our life is crazy much of the time and always up in the air regarding relocations that could arise any day, but I am thankful for Jas's job and giving us new adventures!

Wordless Wednesday!

These are pics taken today, as you can see Addison was having one of her weirdo days!

I have been looking at new cameras and I can't wait since I feel like the quality of these aren't that great!

Hot Mama Tuesday Topic!

A group of message board friends and I have decided to dedicate Tuesdays to a specific topic.

Today's topic is: What would you do with $50,000?

I guess there's a lot of things I'd like to do with it.

Responsible Brittani:

Put $15,000 onto my increasing student loans or onto the house.
Put $10,000 in each of the girls' savings accounts for college.
Put the remaining $15,000 into our own personal savings account.


Not so Responsible but OH SO FUN Brittani:

I would probably take the money and plan an awesome trip, first for Jas and I since we've never really done a vacation just the two of us. It would probably be somewhere tropical, one of those ultra expensive spa places on a deserted island or something. Then I would plan to take the girls on a trip, probably to somewhere like Austraila or Africa where they could see animals they've only seen in zoos (my girls love animals).

If we didn't take a trip, I'd use that money to purchase a winter condo down south (and in this market I probably could get pretty far with that). This way I could escape the nasty dreary depressing cold of the midwest during the worst months, (even though my dream would be to live there all the time).


Some people may want to buy "stuff", whether that's new cars, clothes, electronics (which is probably what Jas would spend his on), but I'd rather buy experiences, if that makes sense. So I guess when it comes down to it, I 'd have to make the decision whether to be boring and responsible=) or fun and full of experience! Hmmm... guess there's a thought to ponder.

Lazy Monday

Well its MLK JR. Day which meant no school for the girls, and Jas was luckily enough to have no work today either!! Even though we had somewhat of a relaxing weekend, we decided to extend it a day. After breakfast we laid in bed and watched cartoons with the girls till almost 11 am!

I am happy to say we have finally gotten the hallway upstairs painted!!! It has been driving me crazy since this summer, but didn't want to spend all our time working inside the house when we could be enjoying other things outside. So since it was a 3 day weekend we decided we had had enough and got it whipped out. Now onto finding something for the big wall as you walk up the stairs. I also got a couple 8x10 collages made so i'd like a couple floating frames to put in those.

I do need to share something that may not seem like a big deal to most but to me it is:

I bought a small palm tree in Texas that I had in a pot on our back patio, during a move with a moving company they do not move house plants. I was so heartbroken to leave Texas when we did that this palm tree sort of help me keep a link to South Texas and my love of the beach and place. So we loaded up the palm tree in the car and brought it with us to Indiana. All summer long it did wonderful, I had it on the front porch and it looked awesome. Now this winter it seems like its lacking something, its not water but I don't know what it is. I've moved it several times in attempts to get more sunlight on it. It doesn't look healthy at this point,I've given it some plant food in a last ditch effort for it to turn around. I will honestly be heartbroken if this palm dies, and I know that may sound extremely dumb, but I really can't explain it. Just like I can't explain the hole in my heart I fell everyday because I miss it so much, and its really not even just missing it, its yearning to be there again permanently. To smell the smell of the ocean, to feel the breeze, to see the landscape and enjoy so many days of sun, with the girls playing at the beach, where everything in the world seemed okay. AHHHHH!!!

Anyway, look for more updates this week, I am making a big effort to find 10 minutes at least to blog everyday!

Ya Like??

The new background and banner on the blog??
I wanna thank Mandy for the awesomeness she created, she's such a busy mama and somehow had time to deal with little ole' me!! Maybe cause we have this weird connection to the Hawkeye state=)

This week has been crazy getting back into the swing of things. Sorta bummed we really have no trips planned to be looking forward to for the next few months=) Girls went back to preschool on Monday which was totally awesome, they needed that structure back! I've spent all week doing school work, cleaning and laundry catchup, which seems to be neverending.

We all have a 3 day weekend this weekend (pending no train shows up for jas on monday) so I have some big plans=) We are organizing the house. It seems like over the last 8 months, things have randomly ended up in places they don't need to be. Paperwork that needs to be filed, clothes need to be gone through, garage needs to be straightened, etc... I think we are also gonna take the christmas lights down too outside. I may even grab some more paint to finish painting the upstairs hallway. Add all that with family nap time in the afternoons it should be a nice weekend!

I've been feeling a little down lately about life in general, but I think dreary weather does that to a person, especially one that hates the cold weather. I feel like I could be being a better mom, better wife, better student, and better to myself. Somedays are better than others, and I really should shake these feelings cause I am trying to do my best at the moment, and everyday is a new day right. I am vowing to take better care of myself. Seems like I am never sleeping anymore, not eating the best (which would explain the 8 lb weight gain), and just putting myself last on everything. We all try our best I really think and I am gonna strive to do that every single day, cause life is short and we can't relive yesterday!

Have a good weekend!

My puppies are HOME!

I know you all are SOOO worried about my puppies=) But just wanted to share they are home!!! Oscar struggled with eating this week while we were gone, I made them weigh him before we left and today, he had gained 6 lbs when I dropped him off and lost 4 of it while we were gone=( I knew that was probably going to be the case, so we are gonna work on fattening him up this week. I am also convinced the prozac is NOT working, so after this script is gone I am not gonna continue it. There are too many heart risks to continue it if its not working. From now on I'll take him with me or one of us need to stay home with him.

I took them to pick up the girls at school and the girls were so excited!!

I spent the day cleaning the house and doing laundry. The girls didn't think it was neccessary to help me by keeping their stuff picked up so I gave them free range of one of their bedrooms and that was it.

I have schoolwork tonight, SO FUN!!! Just keeping in mind I have about 9 months left till I'm done!

Back from An AMAZING TRIP!!!

After a rather comical experience at the Owensboro, KY airport including filing out an envelope to pay for parking, the ticket counter dude WRITING down our credit card number to pay for our checked baggage and it being the size of a McDonalds, (no exaggeration), we were off to Florida!!!! I "met" Kathleen online about 4 1/2 years ago on a mommy message board, before Addison was born. Over the years we knew we'd be good friends since we are both very opinionated, tell it like it is people. I read about, chatted about and waited through their infertility issues and the adoption of miss Whitney! I cried the night I watched the video of them bringing Whitney home from the hospital and the whole story of the miracle on her blog. When we went to Orlando in August we decided to have dinner!! We all hit it off so well, we promised then that we'd be back!!! They were so gracious to invite us to stay at their house and invade their lives for 5 wonderful days!

Here is me and Kathleen and Bailey dog too=) (does this look like Oscar a little? A human like dog)
Jas and Eric were able to steal the laptops (and Bailey) from us for a bit! SOOOO glad they got along as well as Kat and I do!!

Addison was SOOO in love with Whitney, calls Whit her best friend and all wants us to move in together=)

Here's the three girls in their tutu's (whit so graciously shared a couple of her 20 with the girls)

We were so very lucky to be able to visit Disney AGAIN!!!! Kathleen and Eric have a great friend who works at Disney that was able to score us some tickets for one day park hopper! So we did Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios!! It was also the nicest day of the week, highs in the mid 60's and sun!!!

We happened to call another one of our message board mommies Alison and her little boy Charlie (who live near Tampa) to meet us at the parks for the day!! Here's the kiddos all waiting for the "dream" parade to start

Here is me and my girls, Kathleen and Whitney, Alison and Charlie!! So glad to have met Alison and Charlie!

Girls loving Disney again!!

Of course we had to stop by and say hi to the MICK while we were there!

Charlie, Addison, and Alivia on the Mickey Bus heading to Magic Kingdom!

Whit's first AWAKE Playhouse Disney show, she LOVED it!!! And daddy Eric seemed pretty proud too!

The whole group minus Jas who took the pic

I was so glad they still had some of the Christmas stuff up, this is one memory of Disney at Christmas that I had from my childhood!

And Minnie of course, you can see how excited Addie was!!

At night we enjoyed some drinks and chilled out!!! Eric says we look like we need some cheetos=)

Addie's photography!

This looks like Addie just pushed Whitney over, but I promise that wasn't the case!

NEW SMYRNA BEACH

It was a balmy 42degrees at the beach that day, but we HAD to visit the beach!

Searching for seashells, one of the girls favorite things to do! We are diehard beach people if we were out in those temps!

Us four on the beach, some local took this for us when he said "I knew you were tourists, cause none of us would be out here today" =)

There is truely nothing better than a day at the beach, even when its cold!

This beach reminded us of Cocoa Beach, FL where we visited in August!

This is Lake Jesup, the highest alligator populated lake in all of Florida. They do airboat rides, but you wouldnt catch me dead on one of those things in a lake that's only about 5 foot deep and full of gators!!

Miss Whitney and Kathleen, Whit was dressed like a rockstar all week long with coordinating shoes and bows=)

The Girls at Lake Jesup standing next to a palm tree!

The only Alligator I'd let him take their picture with. Behind a cage is close enough for me.

Random Gator Facts:

Longest Recorded length: 19ft 2 in.

Lifespan: 70-100 years (longer in captivity)

Running speed: 35mph (so don't think you're gonna outrun one of those suckers)

So since I'm all about trying new things and having new experiences, I had to order the "Monterrey Gator" sandwich, breaded gator with bacon and cheddar cheese. This sandwich was JINORMOUS!

The girls had to try it too, ate the whole darn appetizer basket!
Not sure that Liv could taste it since she was bathing it in ketchup!
Sitting on the "Gator"
Ms.Whit tells me, she's gonna try Gator next time we visit, once mommy stops feeding her that boring baby food=)
We had an early flight from Orlando- Sanford leaving at 7:35 am. We left eric and Kathleen's house about 5:45 am, got to the airport about six. Now flying with allegiant may have brought us cheap deals, but their service SUCKS!! They only allow online check in if you want to prepay for your seats, since there is NO way i will pay for seat assignments I didn't do that. We check the rental car in and lug 2 carseats, stroller, kids, and luggage only to see the line of 40 people checking in, (evidently everyone else thought the prepay seat assignments were B.S. too) so after 40 minutes of standing in line (they only had ONE lady at the desk) we were headed up to security, a super fun task with 2 children who are half asleep and still in jammies. ONE line of security is all that is open, ONE! By the time we got through security, it was 7:10, the plane had already started boarding, we knew we were okay since half of the people behind us were boarding our plane also. Finally up up and away, we were bummed to be leaving! Back on the ground in the huge airport of Owensboro, we were a little nervous as we got closer to the ground and noticed the runway looking like this, I said to Jas, there is no way this is gonna turn out well.

As you can see we are getting off the plane, and walking down a ramp to go into the airport, ground covered in snow and ice, rather comical and a wonderful 8 degrees.

So after getting inside there is the flood of 150 people trying to pick up their luggage from a 10 foot long conveyor belt(geesh), I decided i'll take the girls out to the car and get it warmed up. Got the door unlocked and as I tried to start the car realized the damn battery was dead!! Freaking wonderful right!?! So I call jas quick and say guess what????? I then found the closest person and asked them for a jump, now mind you its 8 degrees, my gloves are in the trunk (which can't be opened since the battery is dead), its snowing a bit and the girls are cold. Finally got it jumped after about 15 miunutes and we were ready for the 3 hour drive home. We made it back to the wonderful town of Terre Haute about 2:30 and immeadiately needed a nap! We are really missing our puppies, can't pick them up till tomorrow morning so I'll be dropping the girls off, going to tan, then picking them up. I'm hoping Oscar will be okay!

So after a wonderful week, with some amazing friends we are feeling pretty lucky today!! We have friends all over the country, but not many that would put up with us for a whole week straight!! We can't wait to plan the next trip, hopefully once its warmer they'll come visit us (wink, wink) Thanks to the BASS FAM!!!!