Day 58

HOLY BATMAN!!!!! Tell me I'm dreaming! We will not be leaving the house for a while! ;)

Day 57

You guessed it! Gabriella has stye # 3!!! Poor thing! I feel so bad for her. We went to urgent care again for it. She ended up having a fever, a viral infection, the stye, and blood in her urine. :( She was put on antibiotics and we have to call Duke on Monday to see what they want to do about the blood in her urine. She also has been sick to her stomach...which is not a good sign. I pray that her kidney is not blocked again! She has been laying around the house, not eating much, and sleeping a lot.

Close up of her eye.

Day 56

I got these beautiful roses today for my birthday. Thank you Shanie!

Day 55

Today we took a road trip to Duke with Jennifer. It was interesting to say the least. Long story short, the lady on her GPS is VERY confused. We went all over the place to get to Duke and back. Here we were in this po'dunk town and got stuck there because of this train. We ended up being late for Jhet's appt.

Jennifer, stay on 40!!!!!!! ;)

Day 54

I believe that I have the sweetest daughter EVER!!!! A few days ago she asked me what I wanted for my birthday. Jokingly, I said a spa day. We have a super busy day tomorrow so she wanted to celebrate my birthday tonight. She set up her very own spa here at the house for me! Here, she is digging in her goodie bag to get everything ready.

She provided me with some magazines while I wait for my next "service".

My spa day was complete with music for entertainment, a back massage with lotion, a new hair style, a pedicure, and a menu to chose a snack from. I chose Diet Mountian Dew and some sweet tarts. For my actual gift she made me a beautiful pot holder and a card that said "thank you for taking care of me". I <3 her! ;)

Day 53

Today, I cleaned out the hermit crab cage. Fun, fun! Needless to say I never thought I'd be cleaning put crab poop! ;) I picked up Crabby to move him. He is the most social of all the crabs and likes to come out visit. Usually that's not a problem at all. Well, today I must have woken him up or something, because he came out of his shell and pinched me! Bad Crabby!

Day 52

It has been quite a busy week! I was rewarded with homemade biscuits and gravy, bacon, and eggs today after church. ;) Then we helped "Sisa" pack up her house while watching the first race of the year.

Day 51

Today "Sisa" took us out to lunch. We went to this new little restaurant in Hope Mills. It was so nice! It was rustic, yet elegant. The wooden chairs were awesome. The food was great! Everything including the salad dressings is made right there. I had a HUGE sweet potato and it was sooo yummy!!!!

Day 50

Today we went to the library and got all kinds of new books. I am so excited and cant wait to get started reading them. The first one we will start is "Anne of Green Gables".

Day 49

I WON! I WON! I WON! ;)

Tonight was game night at Jennifer's. Gloria was in town and we all know how she plays cards. I was slightly intimidated and was uneasy about playing against her. First we played hand and foot (and mouth disease). I have NEVER won at this game, but tonight I won!!!! Twice!!!! YAY! I was so excited!

"I'm a good loser" Jennifer Parsons ;)

Day 48

Today we started a craft, but never got to finish it. There are these little tiny bead thingys that you put inside the metal piece with tweezers and then bake it. It turns into a suncatcher. I am really please how my first butterfly turned out and cant wait to start on the other one.

Um, yeah....I'm not sure what Gabriella was trying to accomplish here. LOL But it's supposed to be 3 kittens. It'll be interesting to see how it looks after we bake it.

All the tiny little beads.

Day 47

I SEE YOU!!!!!!

Haha. Actually this morning Gabriella woke up with another stye in her eye! This time it was the other eye and under her eye lid! It was really gross and had blistered. When she woke up her eye was matted shut with blood and blood was all around her eye.

Poor baby girl! I don't know how she keeps getting these things, but she is so miserable! Everytime she blinks the stye scratches against her eye.

Her eyelid even turned purple like it was bruised. Lets hope this is the last one for a while!

Day 46

Today was a busy day for us. First I had my Bible study with some wonderful women. Then Gabriella had her homeschool Valentine party and CiCis Pizza. Gabriella loves to eat here!!! We had a good time here and I was so thankful for the friends I had there! I pulled a muscle in my back and could not move! It was crazy. But everyone helped me out, gave me meeds, and even fixed my plate for me! Here's Gabriella and Trinity getting excited about seeing what's in their bag!

The girls are loading up on candy! Fun times.

Still eating candy! Thank you Jennifer for taking a few pictures for me and helping me out with Rayne!!!!

Day 45

Yesturday Shane put the training wheels on Gabriella's bike. She could not wait to get on it and try it out. This is a major improvement for her. For some reason she has been scared to get on a bike, and has never learned how to ride one. Thank you Shane for helping us out! We really appreciate it! Today we took advantage of the nice weather. Gabriella "rode" her bike and I walked Patty. It was nice to have some family time outside.

Poor Gabriella could not figure out how to pedal the bike. She has no coordination what-so-ever! But that's just her and I love her even more for that. Please enjoy the video as she tries to figure it out.

Heh heh, she's getting there! Bless her heart! By the end of the day she was able to get the pedaling down pat. Now we just need to work on her using the brakes. We had a few close calls! Ha ha!

Day 44

Lorraine, Jennifer, and I went to Joanns today to look for fabric for our napkin swap! I'm so excited to be doing this and cant wait to see everyones napkins! ;) After Joanns we went to Golden Coral to eat. Lorraine, being the observant person that she is, noticed something on the wall way up high near the ceiling. If you look closely you will see a red gummy bear hanging on for dear life! HAHA! It was too funny!!!! I did learn a valuable lesson today....NEVER let Jennifer leave the house without a cup of coffee first! She was so disoriented and everything seemed to go wrong for her. I found her day quite humorous, but did feel a little sympathy for her.

Day 43

Today we had sweet baby Rayne.

We really enjoyed having her here. Gabriella loved playing with her.

Gabriella is going to be such a great big sister or mommy one day! I was worn out by the end of the day! Whew! I forgot what it was like to have an infant in the home again. But it sure was fun.

Day 42

Ok, I have been thinking about my bad sleeping habit and have come up with a solution to try out. For now on I will be drinking caffeine free diet mountain dew after 6:00pm. Hopefully this works out. I tell ya I have come a long ways with drinking mountain dew! I started out drinking a 2 liter of regular mountain dew a day. Then I switched to diet mountain dew, which was very hard for me! Since I didn't like the taste as much, I started drinking less. Now I'm going to caffeine free diet mountain dew!!!! What is this world coming to???? Heh heh. Maybe one day I will be able to kick the habit all together! ;)

Day 41

So last night I stayed up until 2:00 am, which is a very bad habit of mine! I can never get to bed before 1230. I'm thinking it may be the Mason jar of mountain dew I drink at night. Hee hee. But anyway, I was awoken at 5:00 am y Gabriella. She lost her loose tooth. Why she felt the need to wake me up at 5 to tell me, I will never know! I see a nap in my future!

Day 40

Gabriella has had $3 that has been burning a hole in her pocket for a while now. She finally convinced me to take her to the Dollar Store. Out of everything in the sotre, this is what she decided to buy. I still haven't figured out why she picked these. And of course, she had to give me one as a gift. I got the humming bird and it is now displayed in the living room. ;)

Day 39

Things are always what they seem. Don't judge a book by it's cover. There are so many cliche's I could say about this picture. Today we had our monthly ladies ministry game night at church. As always, the table was decorated beautifully with some very yummy treats! I scanned the table and carefully chose what I wanted. MMMMMMM, I got a chocolate covered pretzel and a chocolate covered peanut butter ball.....or so I thought!!!!! I took a bite of what I thought was a crunchy pretzel and boy was I surprised! It was a soft, mushy gingerbread cookie like thing! UGH! So not what I had expected and I was not a fan. But it was ok, because I still had my peanut butter ball left. mmmm, I love peanut butter. Again, I was very surprised by what I had eaten! It turns out that it wasn't peanut butter at all! It was a cream puff dipped in chocolate. EWE! It was kind of funny how every time I tried something, it wasn't what it seemed. Anyway, game night was fun. We had some great fellowship!

Day 38

SUPER BOWL SUNDAY!

Here's a little hint for you: No cable, no super bowl! :( Gabriella and I went out to eat dinner and she was hiding from my picture!!!!

I finally got her!

After dinner we thought we were going to go home and catch some of the super bowl game. We do not have cable and use an antennae. Well to our dismay, we realized that we do not get the channel that the super bowl is on. Oh well, we missed it!

Day 37...again, in leu of day 34

Jennifer so kindly pointed out that I skipped day 34. Well, I actually just numbered them wrong, so here is day 37 again, in leu of day 34. This should be getting me back on track. Soooo,  finally got my Otterbox case for my phone!!!! YAY!!!!  Maybe  now my poor phone will survive the many times I drop it on the ground! I'm so excited!

Patty even likes it. Hee hee

Day 37

Road trip day!

I just love the country!

I found my future house! Notice there are No neighbors any where close! AHHHHH ;)

So my road trip was to Jacksonville, NC to meet my biological mother and half sister. I have wondered what this day would be like for over 25 years. The day went fairly well. Filled with many emotions....some good and some bad. This is my beautiful sister Melissa. She is 5 years younger than I am. We have a lot in common and I really enjoyed meeting with her. I also have another half sister that is 10 years younger than I am. She decided she was not ready to meet me yet. I pray that as she gets older she has a change of heart.

The main thought I got out of this trip was "Thank God for the life I lived"! My biological family had a hard life. Yes, I did miss out on knowing them, but I am so blessed to have lived the life I lived. I am so thankful for the parents that raised me!!!!! I am not sure where I would be right now if it weren't for them. They took me in, loved me, and gave me the best life they could. I think I turned out pretty good. heh heh. It saddens me to hear the stories of my biological family's life. My sisters grew up in an environment that no child should ever have to be faced with. My mother lived a very hard life filled with addiction. All those years took a toll on her. Right now she is clean and sober. I pray that she stays that way and enjoys what little bit of life she has left. This is biological mother below.

Again, I would like to say how thankful I am for the parents that raised me. I know we have had our differences and we haven't always agreed on things, but I could not have asked for better parents!!!!!! I have so much respect and love for them. I grew up thinking they were so strict and I wasn't allowed to do anything. But looking back, I am so thankful that they were strict. They saved me from a lot of pain and grief. My life could have been so different. I was blessed with so much love and just about anything I wanted. My siblings didn't even have a bed to sleep on. Thank you God for sparing me that life!

Day 36

Gabriella stayed with my friends the Kreiling's/Nystrom's so that I could make a small road trip the next day. She was loving on Patty before she left. They both were watching tv.

My Patty boy is such a sweet dog! While Gabriella was gone he walked all over the house looking for Gabriella. He was going from room to room looking for her and then finally laid down on her comforter in her room. I felt bad for him so I slept in Gabriella's room for the night.

Day 35

Today we went to our friend's house Sisa to take care of her dogs before dance. Gabriella loves Reba and enjoyed hanging out with her.

Reba finally took over Gabriella's coat.

Sugar is my favorite! She is wide open and a lot of fun! I just love her! One day she will go home with me. heh heh

She is such a sweet girl! She loves to run and play until it's time for bed.