Our 14th Wedding Anniversary

Today is our Anniversary. Labronn & I were married on Saturday, February 19, 1995. That was two years to the date that we had been dating each other. I was already pregnant. Boy, does God have a plan, even if it seems unconventional! See our early years were rough - as in R-U-F-F! God gave us a little baby boy on August 7, 1995 named Evan Levi, he would be the glue that would bind us together. We often say that without Evan we would have been just another divorced couple. So we endured for another 2 years and they were so rocky, we lost jobs, homes, cars, we partied too much, didn't go to church enough, everything that we should have not been doing. So God saw we needed something to make us grow up and mature and so Tuesday October 21, 1998 we had Ethan Lane. We moved back to Georgia in the meantime, we both found stable jobs, reliable (somewhat) cars, a church we loved & eventually we got the house we have now. Four years later Labronn & I stepped out on faith & started our own business. I thought the years before were rocky & unstable? Man, I had no idea! We have been on the ride of our life - sometimes wanting to jump off & other times gripping the handlebars tighter ready for the next thrill. Luckily God's plan IS better than ours & he knew we were going to have it tough so he sent one of his precious angels down to grace our everyday life and the sun would always shine on us no matter how strong the storm was. On June 20, 2006 our little 6 pound baby girl Sofie Alexis was born. What a blessing, 3 beautiful, well-behaved, God-fearing children to 2 high school sweethearts that didn't have a clue in the world!
God is Good.
John 1:16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.

Phases

If you have a child you will know what I am talking about when I say "Sofie is going through a phase." We have been through many a phase when you consider that Evan is 13. Although I don't remember the boys phases at Sofie's age. I recall they went through toy phases - match box cars, baseball, bouncy balls. Then there were also Movie phases - Toy Story, Batman, Barney, Cars. I will always remember the toys phases that matched their movies, especially Batman & Toy Story, I don't think there was a Batman or Toy Story (1 or 2) toys we DID NOT have! Lets just say I racked up on EBay not too long ago. Sofie has not had many phases of that sort, well I say that & I begin to think there have been a few.....a "Bapes" phase this one continues but she says it right now, Tape, good ole clear wrapping paper tape. Loves it will put it on EVERYTHING, her clothes, the floor, her fingers & toes, the chairs, her baby dolls, ANYTHING! She tells me "I NEED TAPE!" Not I want, I need! She now has a sticker phase which resembles the bape phase. She cant get enough stickers, mind you they only last a few minutes, but they are cheap so I wont complain. I hope she never gets out of the baby doll phase. She loves her some babies. Plays with them all day long, the more the merrier. She has now just began watching Disney channel & a few movies so maybe that phase is on its way, not sure.
Sofie has went thru the phase where she cried if we left her in the nursery @ church or when she went to daycare a few times. She completed the phase where she wanted to go home with everyone. Never had the biting phase - Thanking God for that! We had a potty training phase that lasted a month then a total regress & NO potty ever phase. (Which gladly only lasted a few weeks, she has been potty trained for a year.) We go back & forth in the phase of "I want you to hold me all day" to "Don't ever hold me" . Yet now I am talking about the phase I realized she must be in right now, Yesterday, today but hopefully not tomorrow - the "very, extremely, overly whiny" phase. Maybe this has to do with she is just getting over having the flu. But right now I cant stand to hear her whine! I am on Whine overload! This is not a good whine, not a tolerable whine. it is one where if she is whining you just hope she will forget about whining or fall asleep SOON! Then this whine turns into a crying fit which can lead to a feet-stomping, leg-kicking tantrum. (thanks to the flu there can be lots of boogers involved) Lord help us all. I put on Facebook awhile ago that I just want my sweet Sofie back. I know this is just one phase of sooooo many I will have to endure. Needless to say though I love that little girl regardless. Whining, bapes & all.

Our Weekend & Valentines Day

Wow! What a weekend! Let's start with Thursday: Both Evan & Ethan had a dentist appointment. We know they were more than likely both have a tooth pulled. Well to sum it up Ethan did have 1 pulled, 1 cap & 1 filling, that was pretty bad to Ethan. But Evan, my-o-my Evan, he had 3 1/2 teeth pulled!!!!! 1st of all Evan has always lost teeth later than what he should have, so they were pulling some of his baby teeth (@ 13 yo) to make way for the permanent ones that were trying to come in. 1 of them had really long roots they said = Lots of pain! The 1/2 was a tooth that Evan had pulled out himself but he left the root so it had to be DUG out! Since Friday was a 1/2 day @ school if they were still uncomfortable Friday I was letting them stay home. Then one of our dear friends called us & invited us to Atlanta Friday morning to see the Ringley Bros & Barnum & Bailey Circus. We had an executive suite, excellent parking & almost floor seats, It was Awesome! The whole family had a blast, esp. Sofie she was a little scared at times, but for the most part very excited. Friday night Evan had baseball practice, then around 1:00 am Sofie awoke with a fever. Sofie has never really been sick other than a cold 1ce or 2ce & the stomach bug. She seemed to feel a little run down all day Saturday but not too sick. I kept her full of Motrin & Tylenol cold. Since it was Valentines Day me & Labronn decided to go out to eat. The kids went w/their Gramma to eat & we ventured to Gadsden Alabama to eat Top Of The River, or so we thought. Our plan was to arrive early-6:00- to beat the crowd. Little did we know that EVERYONE in Alabama must eat @ 5:30. The line was literally around the building to get in. So our quest began with a traffic jam in every parking lot! The wait @ Logan's Steakhouse was 1 1/2 hours. The wait @ Red Lobster was 2 1/2 hours!!! So we gave up & ate @ Ryan's, good 'ole buffet. No waiting there. We were in & out within 30 minutes! Never mind that we had drove for an hour to eat somewhere that was 20 minutes away. @@ Sofie Had sneezed at least 6 times an hour all day & had a hacking cough. Her fever started going back up regardless at eh medicine I gave her that night. Around 7 am I checked her fever & it was up to 104.8 so off to the ER we went. The Flu. She has the flu and she feels TERRIBLE! Sleeping, whining & crying all day and the snot - I have never seen so much congestion! All she wants you to do is hold her. I hope she feels better today, there is a ton of stuff I need to do. So that sums our weekend, there were a few minor details I left out. This blog is long enough!

Winter Blues

Well I have to face the facts, I HATE WINTER. Labronn & I often ponder moving to the unknown place of our dreams, there would always be snow on the ground in the winter, a beautiful, warm spring and fall & then we can drive for under an hour & be at the beach. (I LOVE THE OCEAN!) Unfortunately I don't know where that place is! I guess I should be glad that here in Georgia our winters don't seem to last too long. We always get so excited when there is even a mention of snow around here! We usually don't go out & buy bread & milk because we are looking forward to the challenge of having to leave the house in it! We have had some cold weather lately, with NO snow, NO ice, NOTHING. Disappointing. I don't care for really cold weather-ya know, high of 23 with a wind chill of 5- if it is not going to snow. I could probably skip winter all together if there is no winter weather. Weird. I remember as a kid growing up in KY, it snowed at least 2ce a season. Global warming maybe? Sad for my kids because they have NEVER played in the snow, never made a snowball, and my favorite-they have NEVER BEEN SLEDDING! That is almost as fun as a roller coaster! Darn, they don't know what their missing! Maybe someday we can take them to some place where the snow is sooooo deep, no-no, never mind. Take them somewhere where they can sled down a huge hill! So the winter blues are here to stay for a few more months I guess. With baseball season starting NEXT WEEK, I am dreading setting out in the frigid night air, bundled up head-to-toe, shivering for 2 hours. But a mom has to do what a mom has to do.

Virgin At This

So I decide to bite the bullet, This is our Blog! I hope I can keep it up, maybe Labronn will not notice that I am on the computer more! So go ahead, come on in, & get ready for this ride called life!