One of my favorite pictures!

Yesterday I posted the new Spring picture (which I love!) of little Miss Libby and Debs posted a comment referencing the first time I took a picture of her like this in flowers. Oh how I love that original picture of my little girl! Even though she was three years old in the picture and she is now eight years I still keep that picture on my desk at work. I get a dreamy smile on my face every time I look at it. So, because that picture is so great I'm going to post it - even though the picture is five years old! :-)

Happy Spring!

Ok, so I'm a few days late with my wish...oh well. :-) On the first day of Spring (Saturday) I met up with my girls and we had breakfast at a place where we'd never been to but that I'd heard lots about. I had french toast and it was delicious!! Brianna had waffles and Debs and Karen both had omelets and they said that their food was very good, too. I would most definitely return to Mad Hatters again! After breakfast we went to a scrapbook store for me to find some new scrapbook paper and embellishments (I'm telling you...I'm addicted to that stuff since I got my cricut!!). After the scrapbook store we headed about 15 minutes north from where we were in High Springs and we went to a big antique mall. Debs found a moon to match the sun that she has hanging in her living room and I bought a tea cup and saucer as Brianna's birthday present. It was a fun day...I always looking forward to spending time with my friends. We get together once a month and even that seems like not enough. We have so much fun together I wish we could get together every weekend!! :-)

Tonight on our way to play our nightly game of soccer I stopped at a patch of wildflowers that I noticed the other day and thought would be a great place to take a picture of my beautiful daughter...and I was right! :-) What a pretty picture to celebrate Spring! :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Last night the Magical Leprachaun visited Libby while she slept. She knows when she wakes up on St. Patrick's Day morning she needs to look for the shamrocks that he leaves to show where he has been and to find what small thing he has left for her. Last night when he visited he hopped around her bathroom counter and left her some shamrock stickers. He also gave her a leprachaun kiss (shamrock sticker) on her cheek and he went on his way.

For breakfast I dug through the bag of Apple Jack's and took out the green ones so that Libby had a bowl of green cereal. For lunch everything in her lunch bag was green! She had green apple slices, sliced kiwi, green (pear) applesauce, green (key lime pie) yogurt, green Goldfish crackers, apple juice in a green juice box, and green napkins. The only thing that wasn't green was her sandwich...green bread just isn't appetizing! :-) So, she had her regular turkey and cheese wrap but I put a shamrock on the sandwich baggie. To finish it off she had green Twizzlers and green Skittles for dessert!

:-)

The Magical Leprachaun's shamrock footsteps

The shamrock stickers the Magical Leprachaun left

Libby's leprachaun kiss

This picture doesn't really have much to do with St. Patrick's Day (except that it was taken during the Magical Leprachaun's visit) but I went into Libby's room and thought that she and Pancho all covered up in her bed were just too cute not to take a picture!

Precious

Denali is saying hi to everyone. :-)

"Precious" is my new nickname for Denali...and when I call him that my voice is absolutely dripping with sarcasm. He is very lucky that he is so stinking cute because I've been furious with him lately...his new favorite hobby is snacking on our carpet. He has done it on three separate occasions so far and I'm so mad but how can you stay mad at this face?

Today

I took this picture of Libby yesterday...she said the sun was too bright to have her eyes open so this is the pose that she gave me. :-) At least it sort of ties in with today's blog since we went to church. :-)

Today we got up (desperately missing my hour of sleep that was lost with "springing forward") and headed to church to meet up with Ryan's parents and his niece Deandra. After church we all went out for lunch and then we came home and took Denali for a walk down the street and back. We hung out at home for a few hours and then took Denali to the track to kick around the soccer ball for a while and then we picked up a pizza and headed home. It was a nice relaxing day...I just can't believe that the weekend's already over and tomorrow I'm back to work!

Our day

(Again I have a post that has nothing to do with the picture...I just think my girl is adorable!) :-)

This morning we went to a birthday party of one of Libby's friends. Oh what fun being around 13 children who were constantly screaming. Ugh. After the party we went out to visit with my uncle for a while. Since his wife died four years ago (in a fire that killed my aunt and completely destroyed thier home) :-( I try to go out and visit him because I know it must be lonely for him. However, I realized the other day that I hadn't been out to visit in him nearly three months. Dang, did I feel guilty once I realized that so I called him up and said that we'd be out to visit him this afternoon. He was very happy for the visit.

After coming home we took the dog out to the track and kicked the soccer ball around while Denlai ran to his heart's content. He's been a bad, bad, bad, bad boy lately so he's quite lucky he's so freaking cute!

In the morning we plan on joining Ryan's parents at church...it just stinks that we are losing a precious hour tonight. I don't sleep enough as it is and tonight I'm losing an hour?? Ahhh!

Ah-mazing!

This morning as I was on my way to work I was sitting at a red light. A school bus passed me going in the opposite direction and just beyond where I was sitting the bus stopped to pick up a ton of children. Just as the children start to load the bus I hear the sirens and the horn of an ambulance. The ambulance turned and headed in the direction of the stopped bus.

I thought to myself, 'This is interesting. I've never seen a bus and ambulance both have their lights on at the same time...surely the ambulance takes precendence." I watch in my rear view mirror as the ambulance drives towards the bus (while the rest of the traffic pulls off of the road for the ambulance). Then my mouth drops as the ambulance comes to a complete stop in the lane next to the bus...and just sits there. It tooked from where I was sitting like the children stopped loading onto the bus and just stood there watching the ambulance. I sat there for about 30 more seconds and then (dang it!) my light turned green and I had to go. I texted my dear friend Kristina who is a paramedic/fire fighter here. I asked if it was true that a school bus takes precedence over an ambulance and she said yes! Ambulances/firetrucks/cops also have to turn off thier sirens and drive the speed limit in school zones...and if they don't the fine for them is doubled. Whoa. I understand the safety of our children...trust me, I do. I'm a mom and I'm always concerned about children's safety. Heck, I still make my 8 year old who is 4 feet 7 and 3/4 inches tall ride in a booster seat in the car because the law says they have to be 4' 9" to get out of a booster seat. She hates me for it...but to me saftey comes first. BUT COME ON! There is an emergency and the ambulance has to sit and wait for the school bus? Wow. Kristina said that hopefully when that situation happens the bus driver will be polite and turn off the lights and stop sign to let the ambulance pass but I told her that didn't happen this morning. The ambulance just sat and waited.

Then to blow my mind a little bit more I found this out. If a school bus, police car, ambulance/firetruck, and a mail truck all come to a four way stop at the exact same time do you know who gets precendence? THE MAIL TRUCK!!!!

Because they are federal and federal takes precedence always. You've got to be freaking kidding me. I texted her back that I was glad the mail would be delivered to someone while that same person could die waiting in an ambulance for the freaking mail truck (and school bus!) to pass! What in the heck is this world coming to?

I thought my fact last week that a turkey vulture can eat antrax and survive was an amazing fact...I think today's fact of the week topped that!

P.S. today is my daddy's birthday...I hope he's having a great birthday celebration in heaven. :-) Miss you Daddy!

Muscles

(This picture has nothing to do with this post...I just took it of Libby yesterday and thought it was cute.) :-)

Around 10:45am Sunday morning I was online and decided to check the Michael's online ad. Since I got my Cricut at Christmas I'm absolutely addicted to Michael's. I've never been so obessesed with cardstock and embellishments. :-) Well, I'm scrolling through the ad and I see that they have Cricut cartridges that are normally $49.99 and they are on sale this week for $14.99. Holy...freaking...cow!!!! I started screaming, "Libby get your shoes, Libby get your shoes!!!" She comes running out of her room a little confused and I tell her to get her shoes quickly because we have to go. She says, "But mommy, I'm wearing sweat pants!" and I respond with, "I don't care! Get your shoes! Cartridges are $14.99!" Somehow that makes sense to her and she grabs her shoes and runs to the garage. :-) We get to Michael's and (as expected) they were all sold out...except for one cartridge that I wanted so I got the card to take up front so that they could get the cartridge for me. After that was taken care of we browsed the store and loaded up our basket. We checked out and the guy told me that they were actually sold out of the cartridge that I wanted but he could give me a raincheck. Heck yeah! So, I'm filling out the form for the rain check while he rings up our stuff and bags it. I was still finishing the form and putting my card back in my wallet when he had the bag ready to hand to me but since I was busy he looked at Libby and said, "Here you go muscles." Libby gave him a strange look and took the bag from him. We walked out of the store and took a few steps and Libby asked, "Why did he call me muscles?" I told her he was trying to be cute. She asked, "As in funny?" and I told her yes. We took about five more steps and she murmured, "Well that wasn't funny." It was quite cute. :-)

P.S. Happy birthday to my mommy...I hope you are having a wonderful birthday in heaven...I miss you!

Field trip

Today we took the 2nd grade classes from Libby's school to the zoo. It was a nice field trip...the children always love to get to spend a day away from school! :-) The only problem with today was that the weather was in the 40's while we were at the zoo!! I couldn't help but think about the field trip in October when took them to Camp Crystal and we took them all on an hour long hike in 90 degree weather and by the end of the hour the 2nd graders were all melting and whining and absolutely miserable...but so were the chaperones! :-) Then today we took them out to the zoo to walk around outside for two hours in 40 degree weather! What the heck?? But the children all made it through and enjoyed the field trip...they were just little frozen kid-cicles by the end! :-) Oh and I have an interesting fact that I learned today: Turkey vultures have immune system that are so great that they can eat anthrax and survive. That's amazing! But I asked the zookeeper leading our group exactly how that was tested to know that they could eat anthrax and still live...and if they were fed other things (like arsenic?) and found that they couldn't survive after being fed something else so that we found where to draw the line on what a turkey vulture can eat and still survive. She couldn't answer me.
:-) At the end of the field trip I checked Libby out of school before they loaded back on to the bus to head back to school and we came home to check on Denali and play with him for a bit and then we headed out to meet Ryan for a late lunch. After that we came home and enjoyed a lazy afternoon at home. Before dinner we went to the track near our house and played some soccer and Libby rode her bike around the track. She was very proud of herself for riding her bike for over a mile. :-)