A Letter to My Babies

Dear Madeline and Nolan,

I am writing you this letter because I hope that you will one day read it and know how much you are truly loved.

From the moment I met both of you, I was in love. I never understood the instant, unconditional love parents have for their children, until I had you guys. You were both so precious, and amazed me as you knew exactly who I was. I was Mommy. You felt secure as I held you for the first time. You were comforted by me as I was quickly able to interpret your cries and give you what you wanted.

You are both growing up so fast. Madeline you are a handful of a toddler, and Nolan, you are such a happy little baby. I wish I could hit the "slo-mo" button at times and just savor every single moment that much more.

I have high hopes for you kiddos in the future. I hope that I can teach you about all kinds of things.

Love

I hope that the two of you will understand how much you are loved by everyone around you- daddy and I, your grandparents, aunts and uncles, and each other. I hope, that later on when you find that special someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, you will love them wholeheartedly. Yes, there will be bumps along the road to finding this person, but know that I will always be here if you need some advice or someone to talk to. Madeline, I hope you become a young lady who is self confident, compassionate, and the type of woman who expects nothing less than the characteristics of a gentleman in the man she marries. Nolan, I hope that you will posses the characteristics of a gentleman. That you will be respectful and kind to all women, and will honor and cherish your future wife.

Education

Education is extremely important to your future. I hope you both will value your education, and will learn as much as you can. I hope you enjoy going to school, not only for socializing, but because you enjoy learning new things. I am a firm believer that you learn something new everyday, and you are never too old to learn. I am excited to see the excitement in your faces when you tell me what you learned in school. I will be here to help you with your homework and school projects, and I hope you will come to me just to tell me how your day went.

Success and Failures

I hope that you will celebrate your hard work when you are successful in life. You will work hard for your achievements, and you should be proud of the things you accomplish. I hope you will be humbled by the things you have and not be envious of the things you don't. I hope that you will be able to embrace the challenges that come your way. You may not be successful at everything, and you may fail at some things, and that's OK. I will still be proud of your efforts.

There are so many other things I am both excited and worried about you experiencing in your lives. I hope you will be able to have confidence in your self to stand up for your religious beliefs, to say no to negative peer pressure. I want you to know that Mommy will always be there for you. You can talk to me about anything, no matter how tough the topic is, or embarrassing you think the conversation might be. I hope that we will have the kind of relationship where you feel comfortable coming to me about anything.

I love you guys more than anything in the world!

Love,

Mommy

12 in 12: April Check in

It's April 12, and time to check in on my progress with my 12 in 12 list.

I have made progress this month! I will just mention some of the highlights for the month, and not write "I haven't done anything with this one" on all majority of the items on my list. I think I wrote that last month too though.

1. P90X has been completed!! I didn't get ripped in 90 days, but feel stronger and like I have more energy! I didn't stick to the diet, and that probably has a little something to do with the lack of results. But Daryl and I have ordered P90X2, and are already 3 weeks in. I still can't do an unassisted pull up, but I'm working on it.

2. I attempted to make home made goldfish crackers, but it didn't really work out for me so well. My little goldfish cookie cutter out of an aluminum can kept coming apart, and I ended up using the little gingerbread cookie cutter. My crackers were a little more chewy than crispy, and certainly did not look as tasty as the ones from Tasty Kitchen.  I may have to reattempt this delicious snack to redeem myself in the baking department.

5. I am participating in the April A-to-Z Challenge. O. M. G. This is so much fun! Not only am I accountable to blog every day for the month of April, but am getting a little creative in coming up with topics for each letter of the alphabet. I have a handful of wonderful followers, and have been left some really sweet comments! Thank you to all of you lovelies for stopping by and leaving your kind words. I hope I can keep ya entertained. Also, I have found a lot of great, new to me blogs! I am loving the "I can't wait to see what they posted" feeling.

8. So far, we have been able to have a date night every month. It still ends up being the last minute "hey do you want to catch a movie" kind of date night, but at least it gives us something to look forward to. One of these months, I'm going to have time to plan a different kind of date. The Dating Divas have some really great ideas, and I really want to be able to do at least one of these super fun dates.

11. Although not hosted at my house, we have had a few dinner/ game nights between mine and Daryl's families. At one of our most recent get togethers, I brought over Furt for us to test out before our vacation this summer. It was fun. My sister in law and future brother in law got really into the game, as they are amazingly quick witted, and can easily come up with stuff to say or act out. I think if I may have had a few more adult beverages in my system, I would have enjoyed it more. It definitely makes for a lot of laughing.

See, there is progress. What about you? Are you achieving any of your goals for this year?

Madeline Kisses

K is for KISSES




My little Madeline is the sweetest little girl, when she want to be. She greets me with an excited "Mommy" in the mornings, leans into me after I'm done getting her dressed, gives me the biggest hug and kisses me on each cheek.

I will say "Madeline, can you give Mommy a kiss?" and she is all over it. Most of the time. Sometimes, she will play around and turn her head the other direction, and then look back at me and give me the biggest smile.

Although her kisses are extremely cute, Madeline has not got the whole kissing motion down yet.

She leans in and will give me the biggest, wettest, open mouth kiss on the cheek I have ever received.

In her attempt to make the "muah" sound a kiss makes, she will offer up a very enthusiastic "ahhhhhh wahhhhh" right as she makes contact with my face.

It is one the cutest, most precious, thing she does, and I just eat it up. She makes my heart melt just a little every single time.

One day she will get the concept of closing her mouth, but until that time, I will let her give me as many of these wet toddler kisses as she wants.

Just Found Out

My sister and brother in law are expecting their fist baby in August 2012. They are living a few hours away from the family, and we are not able to see them very often. They went in for the anatomical ultrasound yesterday and were able to determine the sex of the baby! I have been on a need to know basis, and when I got the text to check my email, I was super excited.

I just found out what they are having, and am thrilled for the both of them.

Check out this super cute video they put together for the big gender reveal. The suspense was killing me.

How cute was that??

When Daryl and I found out what we were having, I had great plans for a gender reveal party, but ran out of time. I had everyone come over, dressed in pink or blue depending on what they thought baby H was going to be. Everyone except my mom was dressed in blue! I think Daryl might have given something away though.

If you have babies, did you do anything exciting for a gender reveal? Did you find out or did you let it be a surprise?

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

While visiting other A to Z challengers, I came across My Life in Contradictions. Like Sarah, I too love awesome questions, and so I am reposting these 11 questions as they are too fun not to answer.



(Source)

 First, the rules:

• You must post the rules.
• Answer the questions on your blog. Create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
• Tag eleven people and link to them.
• Let them know you’ve tagged them.

 

The 11 Questions:

 

 

1. What is your favorite historical period and why?

 

There are a lot of historical time periods that rocked for different reasons, but I guess my favorite would be early 1900s. There were a lot of discoveries made, medical and scientific advancements, economy was booming, and for the most part, life seemed to be pretty good.  

 

 

2. List your top five favorite movies.

 

 Oh man this question is tough!!! There are so many good ones, I hope I can narrow it down to just 5!

 

Forrest Gump

Big Fish

Grease 

The Sandlot

Field of Dreams

 

 

3. Your house is on fire. Your loved ones–humans and pets–are already safe outside. They have your driver’s license and a flash drive with all your backups (files and all the media you own). You have time to save one more object. What would you get?

 

I would definitely, hands down, save my bag of scrapbooks.  There are a lot of memories in those books. I would probably try and cheat by grabbing some of my pictures that are not on my computer.

 

4. You can invite any three people in the world for a dinner–anyone alive. Who are your guests?

Not to hurt any body's feelings, I'll just go with celebrity invites. 

Reese Witherspoon

Mark Wahlberg

Will Ferrell

 

 

5. Congress/the gods/smiling extraterrestrials said you can only have one type of food every meal for the rest of your life (they’ll supplement your diet with vitamin pills). Which food would you choose?

 

 Spaghetti and Meatballs (with homemade sauce the way my grandmother and my dad make it)

 

Does this count? I am just saying, I could probably eat this meal, with some garlic bread on the side, every day.

 

 

 

 

6. In an episode of “Friends”, they all reveal their freebie list: 5 celebrities with whom they can hook up without upsetting their partners. Who’s in yours?

 

 

Mark Wahlberg

Bear Grylls

Ryan Gosling

 

 

I had this conversation with one of my coach friends at the beginning of the year last year. He was real quick to come up with his list, and I was only able to come up with these three, even after I thought about for a long while.

 

 

 

7. (Huge spoiler alert.) Some people think the Hunger Games is bloody. In Harry Potter 6, fifteen characters die. In HP7, the body count is over fifty (see here). JK is rewriting the series, and she let you choose one character from any of the seven books to get a reprieve. Who would it be and why?

 

Dumbledore. I'm slacking in the HP knowledge department, and right now this is the only character I can think of. I'm sorry HP fans.

 

 

8. What’s your worst fear?

 

 I'm not really fearful of anything to the point of phobia, but I'm not too fond of heights.
 

 

9. You can choose your own nickname, with an assurance that no one would ever mock you. Tell us your choice.

 

Mitch. Those close to me call me this because there was a boy in my elementary school CCE class who drew my name for secret Santa. Apparently, he thought Michelle was spelled "Mitchell." Anyway, it stuck and later got shortened to Mitch.

 

I also like Ma-chell-a. This one came from Texas State, when the non English speaking guy called out my name to let me know my sandwich was ready.

 

Tough call between the two, but I'd probably go with Mitch.

 

 

10. What’s the best vacation you have ever had?

 

  I have really enjoyed all my vacations- Virginia, Florida,Cozumel, the Frio River. I love being with my family and just relaxing, not doing a whole lot. 

 

Daryl and I planned our first vacation together when we went to Philadelphia for NATA, and it was a disaster. We have a lot to learn about planning a vacation to say the least!  

 

11. Congress/the gods/smiling extraterrestrials said you must move to any fantasy or sci-fi setting (books, movies, video games, rpgs) of your choice—permanently. Where would you go?

 

Maybe Forrest Gump's house in Alabama, but relocated to Texas of course. I wouldn't mind living in a big house on several acres of land, with a lot of big trees my babies could climb and have a tire swing on. A place that would be big enough to have all my family over for "supper. " Sounds pretty amazing to me.


There are my answers, but inquiring minds want to know about YOU!! How would you answer these questions?

I didn't follow the rule by tagging, but consider yourself tagged :)

Leave a comment or post on your own page. I can't wait to see what kind of answers you come up with.

H is for Help!

I hope everyone had a great Easter yesterday, as they celebrated with friends and family. I know I enjoyed my weekend.

Today is Monday, and I certainly have "a case of the Mondays." Let's just say I had and eventful morning in my classes. Anyway, as I was saying, it's Monday, and that means I'm on the letter H for the A to Z challenge. While I could write about all kinds of fun stuff that start with the letter h, today, H is for Help!

I have two issues that I am in need of some help with.



Source



1. When I was a kid, we had this tape we would always listen to in the car, "Car-Tunes Cassettes presents Summertime Kids' Stories." The stories were fun and entertaining.

A few of the stories include

"The King of Togo Togo" by Laura Simms

"There was once a great huntress in Africa. Everywhere she travelled, people honored her. One day she came to the Kingdom of Togo Togo. The King made a feast for her which lasted 12 days and 12 nights. She said, "This is no ordinary feast."

The King said, "You are clever, you are wise. I want you to stay in my kingdom, be my barber, and keep my secret. If you can keep my secret, I will give you gold and riches, servants, anything your heart desires. But if you tell my secret, you'll be dishonored." "

"Mortimer" by Robert Munsch

"The Fire Station" by Robert munsch

I loved this tape when I was a kid, and now that I have my own babies, I would love to be able to share this with them. The problem is that my parents have the cassette tape, and I am unable to find it on CD. There has to be a way to get the "songs" onto a computer to burn onto a CD. I need help figuring out how to convert from cassette to CD or digital file. Any ideas?

2. I am going through some changes at work, and unofficially will be in charge of the sports medicine program next year. At the beginning of the 2-a-day season, I typically have my students meet early so we can go over CPR, injury information, and team building activities.

I have been to lock-ins, I have never actually planned one. Where the heck do I even begin? Do you have any ideas or suggestions that would help ensure the night runs smoothly, my students have a blast, and I keep my sanity?

G: Growing Up

My husband's 10 year high school reunion is this year, and it has really got me thinking about my own high school memories and adventures. I'm sure most stories would be similar to many, "I went to class, took notes, hung out with friends, stayed after school for extra curricular activities, and then came home."

I have certainly learned some life lessons in my journey in growing up, a lot of which I wish I knew then what I know now. If I could go back and give myself a head's up of what's in store, I think I definitely would.



At a church work camp


Dear high school Michelle,

You do not give yourself enough credit. You are cooler than you think you are. Sure you're not real close with the "popular" group, but you do have a lot of friends in a lot of different groups. You're "true" friends will stick with you, and they are completely amazing.

Academically, you do pretty well for yourself. You will struggle a little in your math classes, but you will make up for that with being really successful in your science classes. Challenge yourself to stick with those difficult classes, you can do well in them.

At times, you will be pressured to partake in activities you don't want to participate in (like drinking and smoking, and having sex). You will feel like your "friends" won't think you're cool, or that you may get made fun of, but they won't. You stick up for yourself and are able to say no on so many occasions, and you will look back and be proud of the decisions you made.

You have a lot of guy friends but don't realize the intention behind the attention you get from them. There will be boys in your life that you really like, and really want to date. They will break your heart as they lead you on, making you think they like you back, and then date other girls. You will be crushed, but you will turn out OK. You will learn a lot about relationships from your friendships with these boys. One of your friends will ask you out your senior year, but you probably should go with your gut instinct of thinking it will be a bad idea. And when you're at his house and you get an unexpected phone call from another boy, who says he is in town on leave, you probably should go see that boy.

These four years are tough. You sometimes wonder if you're going to make it through high school, and if people will even remember you. You will have a lot of great memories of high school, with a few not so good ones. People are mean, rumors will be spread, and boys will hurt you, but Michelle, you are one tough chick. Take these bad things in stride and learn from them. These things will teach you how to stick up for what you believe in, and know that it's OK if it's not what everyone else believes in. These challenges and obstacles are bumps in the road, and you will get through them. You are a really strong person.

Love,

26-year-old-Michelle