Why is Santa so frightening?

I am loving all the Santa pictures surfacing all over the world wide web. I really don't like to see kids cry, I promise, but it cracks me up that ALL children are deathly afraid of Santa Clause. What is it? The bright red outfit? The glasses? The long white beard? I honestly don't know.

I don't remember if I was afraid of Santa. I remember in kindergarten my Dad dressed up as Santa and came to my class. I don't think my parents told me that he was doing that, but I just knew it was him. I could tell by the way he sounded, I guess. I don't remember any more occurrences with Santa than that.

Sallie Rose did pretty well with Santa. Maybe it is because my house is full of Santa figures that were my Grandma Rosa's. She loves to come down in the morning and say "ho ho ho", because that is what Santa says. She definitely was not thrilled with him, but she didn't scream. Or maybe she is like her Mom, ya know, into older men. Don't tell Kevin I said that. :)

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone is as excited about spending time with their families and friends as I am. I can't wait. I know this year has been very rough for a lot of people and I pray that we all remember what Christmas is really about and pray for hope, joy, and love for next year.

Thanksgiving and the beginning of Christmas

Censored by Kevin

Well, I had just come up with a new, great blog that featured an endearing picture of Kevin, which he thought was embarrassing, so I had to remove it. Ugh, now what? I have no other wonderful stories to tell, so I will still tell the story behind the censored picture and you will just have to imagine it in your head.

Last week was my birthday and I came home, hugged and kissed on Sallie Rose and she had a new trick. So, Susan said, "Sallie Rose, what does a turkey say?" And Sallie Rose replied, "Gobble, gobble." Well, while all of this was going on, Kevin was upstairs changing clothes and told me to come up there. Sallie and I went upstairs and as I walked in, I noticed Kevin was sitting on the bed and on my side of the bed there was a gigantic box under the covers. It was my new vacuum. So, the picture was of Kevin lying in bed with my new vacuum cleaner. What is embarrassing about that?

Well, it would have been better with the picture. On another note, Sallie Rose saying gobble gobble is really adorable and I have video, but can't upload it on here, so I will do it on Facebook later this week. She also can make the cow "moo" noise.

Here are some pictures of Sallie Rose in her too small Santa hat.

"What Santa is coming soon??"

First Real Cold

Sallie Rose has her first real cold. We have been very lucky and up until this point she has not had any type of sickness, except a runny nose this time last year.

She has not bee sleeping well at all for the last week and we thought it was probably teething. So, we sort of went with it and hoped she would sleep again soon. Thursday Susan called and told me that Sallie woke up from her nap with a fever. I went home early and found a really sad, red-faced baby waiting for me. She had a fever all night and slept horribly that night. We put her in bed with us, laid in her room with her, sat in the rocker with her, but nothing worked. She just didn't feel good. Friday, she was better. No other symptoms. We wrote it off as a 24 hour bug or teething, again.

Sunday night she started having a runny nose and it just went downhill from there. She woke up Monday with that nasty cough and really stinky breathe. Oh my soul, it was stinky. I felt so bad for her. We went to the doctor and the doctor said, "no more monkeys jumping on the bed". Not really, sorry my mind wondered. Anyways, the doc said it was a virus and gave us a prescription. She slept a little better last night, but still not great. I finally decided at midnight that Vic's Vapor Rub might help, but I didn't want to put in on her, so I put it on a washcloth and hung it on the crib next to her face. I think it helped.

So, needless to say, we are all real tired and waiting for this to pass. I turn 29 tomorrow and feel 60 today. Maybe for my birthday, Roro will sleep through the night tonight. I can dream, right? I am just glad that she is making her way to feeling better again. I miss her giggle.

thankful for...

My bestie, Natalie, went to a conference this weekend and two of the speakers were a couple who came up with a twitter application. It is thankful for.com. Check it out: www.thankfulfor.com.

Anyways, these types of people make me so happy. They are people who are brilliant, educated, and able to make millions. This particular couple decided to jump into the twitter application market and come up with an app that does something good for people, while making millions. They could have come up with an app that makes fart sounds (there already is one, I've been told), or one that makes snoring sounds, or so on or so forth. Instead this couple decided to make one that makes people smile and really think about what they have that is good in their life. Sure the ifart might make you smile and might make you think about how grateful you are for not having the real farts, but thanfulfor is a little deeper than that.

I feel like I am usually an optimistic, bubbly person, but lately I have been concentrating on more of the negatives in my life than the positives. So, in tune with thankfulfor and Thanksgiving coming up, here is my list of things/people I am thankful for. It might get long, but that is better than short!

Sallie Rose and her smiling face
Kevin and his romantic, generous heart
My Mom
My Dad
Patty
Jim
My sisters (including real, halfs, and steps). I have 4 sisters total
My brother (shout out Mat, he's my only brother)
My nieces and nephew
Dysfunctional families: if it weren't for the dysfunction of families, I wouldn't have most of my family members

baby giggles
Susan, my friend and the greatest caregiver to my baby
a job, and a pretty decent job: I won an award for a house I designed (Woot Woot)
a home and a family to put in it. What is a home without a family?
Red hair, that I got from my Grandma Rosa Lee Butt
HEALTH
In-laws of all kinds
New friends, old friends, and reconnected friends
Flowers, I love flowers
sunshine
rain
my toosh, I have grown very fond of it, I didn't have one for a long time
chocolate
blogs, love to read them all!

Ok, so that is enough for now. Making this list makes me happy and you should make one too!

One year check up

We went for Sallie's one year check up last Friday. Wow, what a day. First of all the doctor was running late, for whatever reason, so we played in the germ infested waiting room for 30 minutes. We got into the room and we go through the usual: take off clothes, keep distracted while we wait, and then the nurse comes in. I am always surprised that Sallie Rose is nice to them, because I figure by this age she would begin to relate the nurses back to the horrible pain of shots and so forth. She didn't.

The nurse weighed her and she is a whopping 17 lbs 10 oz. She is still in the same percentiles that she has been since she was born. Tall and thin percentiles. So that means a couple of things: 1-she still is not supposed to face forward in her car seat, and 2- all that pasta, mac and cheese, chicken, fruit, and waffles that she scarfs down is not sticking to her bones. Just coming straight out her back end.

That's ok. We will just keep doing what we do and she will grow the way she is supposed to. Next, they needed some blood to run lab tests. This was the really hard part. The lady poked her finger and Sallie Rose fought so hard that the lady couldn't hold her tiny little finger long enough to get any blood. It was really hard. They came back and did it again later. Of course she had to get her immunizations too. Poor babies, I know they all need to do it, but it so hard to watch them cry so hard. It makes me really thankful that I have a healthy child and it also makes me pray for those children and parents who have to do this sort of thing often, because they have a terminal illness or disease. What a painful situation to have to go through.

So, she is up on all her shots and is ready to go back to licking the play mats at the mall. I wouldn't let her do it until she got all her shots, especially the flu shot. :)

She is definitely growing into her own little personality. I am afraid that the personality might be a little terror. She throws fits a lot lately. She threw a fit in the nursery yesterday, because I didn't bring her a bottle and she wouldn't drink from a sippy cup. So, she insisted on crying and trying to take the bottles away from the babies. Ouch, that made me feel really bad. BAD PARENT ALERT! All this weening from this and crying out process for that, is getting old. When does it end??

She talks, she dances, she walks everywhere, she giggles, she reads a lot still, and she makes me laugh every single day. That is one thing that will never change. I actually laugh a little when she throws fits too. It is funny, but I don't let her see me laugh.

Oh and the dog's water bowl. What is so intriguing about that? She is so determined to play in that nasty water every time she walks by it. I guess I should just put a "Sallie's water bowl" on the floor for her to play in.

Here we are, the Butt-Beckwith family. Kevin still doesn't know that I hyphenated all of our last names, including his.

Kevin and Sallie looking at the stars

Sallie being sassy in her short shorts. This is from a long time ago, but I just came across it.

Sneak Peek

We had our family pictures taken this past weekend. These are the sneak peek photos Sarah Buck, the photographer, sent us to tease me.

It's Party Time

We had a such a great time with Sallie's birthday party. We made sheep and chick cake pops, rhinestone cowgirl cupcakes, and cupcake "hamburgers". It was all so delicious and so cute! I had plenty of help from Tara and Susan. Of course Mayme and Grumps helped by watching Rosie so I could get all my errands done. Then Honey came to town and helped too! Wow, if it weren't for my family I wouldn't have been able to pull this off.

Sallie got lots of great gifts and she has a lot of great toys to donate to Toys for Tots that a lot of people brought or sent to us. Thanks everyone for helping us celebrate our little girl's first birthday.

October 12th, 2008

Sallie Rose's due date was October 12th, 2008. October 12th came and went without me having a baby. October 12th was a Sunday and I skipped church, mainly because I was uncomfortable and couldn't wear shoes, but also because I was secretly hoping that I would go into labor. After all, I was born on my due date so I expected Sallie Rose to do the same.

Well, she didn't. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday came and went and it was finally Wednesday night and the next day I knew I would have my baby. I had my bags packed, including Kevin's 14 bags and 12 pillows, and I had went to bed and suprisingly had no problem sleeping. I figured it would be like Christmas Eve and I would be too excited to sleep, but I think I was so exhausted from carrying around my extra 45 lbs that I passed out. We woke up the next morning and Kevin was running late as usual and I was waiting in the car fuming, wondering "why the hell can't he be on time for anything, not even this? Really?". Then we were off to the hospital for the beginning of our new life as a family.

I was nervous, I had no idea what to REALLY expect. Everyone tells you things, but experiencing it is something else. Everything was going fine until my blood pressure started getting really high. They weren't real concerned about it at first, but as time progressed and the contractions were not progressing like they should, my dr. began to worry. I don't remember everything, but I know she tried to break my water and I cussed. She tried to put a monitor somewhere and I cussed again. Then I asked for my epidural. The contractions were not bad, but the other stuff was. So, I get the epidural and all was good. Except my blood pressure. I finally began to dialate quickly and before I knew it I was feeling the real pains of contractions. Sallie Rose was finlly ready around 10:30. I felt like it was easy, but Kevin said it was longer than I remember. She was born at 11:03 pm. What an amazing time. What an experience for a husband and wife and their new baby.

My Dad, Patty, and Nancy were there waiting. I will never forget them coming and me being so proud of my new little girl. Then my Dad and Patty came over and gave me a necklace that was from my Grandma Rosa Lee that was for Sallie Rose. I cried and Dad or Patty, I can't remember which one, said that Grandma was here with us. I knew that, I felt her in the room watching. It was one long day that I will never forget.

We went to our room at about 3am and finally got to sleep. We sent Sallie Rose to the nursery and I felt bad about it, but I knew she was in good hands. I needed some rest, I had been up for almost 24 hours and not to mention had given birth. The next morning around 7am, the nurse busted through the door with our little girl in her rolling crib and Kevin and I sat up so fast and I think we both wondered where in the hell we were. We joke that it was like the twilight zone.

So, that was the beginning of the real adventure. I'll spare all of you the details about the following week, because we made it through despite the ER trip, me being put back in the hospital for 4 days, and Kevin taking care of a newborn baby on his own, not having ever even held a baby before.

Now, a year later, our baby is a little girl. She is beautiful, happy, and the biggest joy in our lives. She is loved by so many people and makes me smile every single day. I am a lot more emotional about her birthday than I thought I would be. I think I am just so grateful to have a healthy baby and people who love us.

What's up ya'll

Well, I don't have anything really important to say, but I just wanted to say what's up? We are gearing up for our big birthday celebration and Sallie Rose has definitely been practicing her diva behavior. I think she knows that she is fixing to get really spoiled with love and presents. :)

She has really had a tough couple of weeks and it is not because she is a diva. She received her 4, 1st year molars, and for a week she didn't eat or sleep well. Now, she is getting 2 more bottom teeth and didn't sleep well again last night. Needless to say we are all tired.

I have to admit, I don't like Sallie Rose feeling badly, but she lets me snuggle her so much more when she is icky. I have gotten to rock her almost every night for the last 2 weeks at midnight and that makes me feel so good (and tired of course the next morning).

I have been pretty busy trying to get all the birthday arrangements together and I have taken on a few architectural side jobs to make a little extra earnings. Kevin is in the process of switching from working for Banc of America Investments to Merrill Lynch. He has to learn a new computer system as well as move offices. So, he has been pretty overwhelmed with that transition. We are looking forward to family coming in next week and then on to Thanksgiving and then Christmas! Before we know it, it will be Sallie Rose's 2nd birthday. They really do grow up too fast.

I hopefully will have all kinds of fun pictures from the party, as well as our professional photo shoot that we are doing on the 25th. Woo hoo. I am excited about both.

I hope everyone else is enjoying this beautiful fall weather and doing well!

Wow, Thursday

I haven't had a lot of free time to blog, especially this week. Wow, it is Thursday and Sallie Rose has had 2 sleepless nights in a row, a man was shot next door to our house and sadly died, we are still trying to figure out how to work, be parents, friends, spouses and run the properties, and we are painting the den for Sallie's playroom. Oh and I went out of town this past weekend and had a lot of fun, but I was super tired. Our laundry is piled up, our house is slowly filling with clutter, and the yard is slowly filling with leaves. There is a bright side to this blog people!

Look at this face, any bad week is so worth coming home to this amazing child. Oh Sallie Rose, you are a gift from God in every way!

P.s. Last week Sallie Rose was walking, this week she decided she does not want to walk anymore. Funny girl.

11 months

Well, our little girl is 11 months old. Here are the highlights:
She's walking
She's loves food!
She has a lot more accidents now that she is walking. She has hit her lip 4 or 5 times
She makes her Momma cry more, now that she has accidents
She looks at you when you talk to her or when you read to her
She hugs you, in her own way of course
She does not cry as much when we take her to the nursery at church
She really does not cry that much at all anymore, Except when she is hungry
She say "Hey" when you come into the house. Super southern like
She loves to stand up at the toilet and play on it, yuck
She screams with joy a lot. It is so funny and so loud
She love, love, loves to look at the "pretty girl" in the mirror
She sort of says: bird, book, dog
Susan told me the other day that she took Grandma Rosa's picture and said Mi-Ma
(We show her the 2 great grandmas all the time)
She loves to climb around her highchair and wishes she could climb into the dishwasher
And last, she loves her Daddy. Oh my goodness it has just begun for those two. I am going out of town this weekend and they are going to be all alone. I hope they don't decide that they don't need me and change the locks.

All in all, life has slowed down for us a little bit in the last week or two and we are gearing up for a great first birthday for Sallie Rose. She is sweeter and cuter everyday and we just love her so much.

Sallie is Walking Video

I just posted a video of Sallie Rose walking on my Facebook, so go check it out if you haven't seen it. She was really excited! As was I!!

I never can get videos to download on here, sorry.

Walking Update

Three weeks ago tomorrow, I said that Sallie Rose would be walking in 3 weeks. Well, last night she walked across the kitchen from me to Susan. She did it so well and for so long, so I am considering that walking. She still won't do it on her own, but when we help her to start, she does it. Yeah Sallie Rose!!!! You big girl.

Guess how much I love you

Dear Sallie Rose,
You will be turning one year old in a little over a month. Time has really flown by. I pray each day that I am giving you the love and attention that you need to bloom into a lovely young lady. You have such a great personality and you do something new everyday that makes me smile. We have been so blessed to have you in our lives and I love everything about you. These are some things I love about you:
I love when....
you scream with joy at the top of your lungs, like when you see your toys in the tub
you smile and flash those big teeth
you let me rock you before bed and you caress my arm with your hand
you smile at me when I come in to get you from your naps
you dance to the music by just moving one leg ever so slightly
you try and clap your hands to "if you are happy and you know it", but you can't quite yet
you throw your head down on the ground in an attempt to throw a fit
you play peek a boo with your blankie
you try and feed me some of your food, you sweet girl
you race to the stairs and try to climb up them
you climb up the stairs as fast as you can, and you are great stair climber
you find your stuffed animals and you bury your face in them and scream

Oh, Sallie Rosie, I could go on for days, but I won't. I know you will continue to charm us and make us smile. I know you will be sweet and you will be sour, but no matter what, we will love you and you will always be our sunshine in the rain.

Love,
Momma

This is how we are training Sallie Rose to be a landlord

The Landlord

Shared via AddThis

Our friend Willie

I just found out that one of our tenants, Willie, has passed away. He was an older, simple man, who was always so nice. I just ask for our friends and family to pray for Willie and his sweet soul, as well as his friends and family. Kevin is really having a hard time with this, so please pray for him too. Willie always called Kevin Mr. Kelvin and Kevin really loved Willie. He was a hard man not to love. God Bless your soul Willie. We will miss you and your kind heart.

10 Months Old

Sallie Rose is now 10 months old. She is really changing. She has started really trying to walk and talk. She can hold one of our hands and walk beside us. It is so cute. She is really timid about it, but she is trying. I guess she will be walking within 3 weeks. Mark my word.

She eats everything we put in front of her, just not avocados or beans. She does not like avocados. We have tried 2 times now and she still spits it right out. Other than that, she eats waffles, toast, pasta, quesadillas, chicken, and Susan's cupcakes (MMMMmmmmm). Susan and I have been brainstorming for Sallie's birthday treats. Susan is a great baker and she has been experimenting with some fun, yummy cupcakes that we get to taste test. Love it all!!! Anyhoo, Sallie is a great eater.

I really feel like she is doing great on her talking. She sits in bed with me in the mornings while I get ready and she listens for the birds tweeting (not twittering). She listens very intentively and when she hears one, she will say "burh". Ya know, something like that. I really truly believe she is saying bird. She says Momma, but only when she is crying. She babbles a lot. She loves to sit in her room and just talks and talks, to herself I suppose. Well, I guess she is really talking to her animals.

What else? Did I mention she is adorable? Well she is. Ok really, what else? She had her first accident the other night from crawling. Kevin was with her and she was crawling and I guess she fell on her face and her tooth hit her lip. According to Kevin, there was blood everywhere and Sallie Rose was crying very hard. He managed to get her cleaned up and calmed down. She went to bed that night with a fat lip. It was really sad. I guess we should be grateful that this time was our first accident. Not fun.

The other big controversary right now is her hair. To cut or not to cut? I really want to let it grow out, but it is in her face unless we clip it back. She loves to pull the clips out so that has been a little bit of a struggle. I love her hair and want it long, but I am open to opinions. I might not take the opinions, but I am open to hearing them. :)

Here she is the morning of her 10 month birthday

In the kitchen walking with her walker

Being sweet before going to Church

Our other daughter, Casey, being very serious. Sweet Dog

Puppet Show

Susan told me that Sallie Rose loves the puppets at the library when they go to story time. So, I decided to make some good old fashioned puppets like we used to have when we were kids. She really liked them, for about a minute. They come in quite handy when she is getting her diaper changed. Their names are Wanda and Guiseppe. Guiseppe is what I wanted to name a boy, if we had one, and Kevin said no. So, now Sallie Rose has a puppet with that name.



Here is Sallie Rose in the car reading her book, as usual. She loves to read.

Flashback Friday

Flashback 9 months ago. Here is Sallie Rose looking so cute at 2 weeks old. It is amazing how much she has changed. Still cute though!

Bring on the Rain, the other side to Poor Me

I really like this song, it helps to get through tough days if you think like this and hearing her sing it is even better.
by Jo Dee Messina


Another day has almost come and gone
Cant imagine what else could wrong
Sometimes Id like to hide away somewhere and lock the door
A single battle lost but not the war (cause)
Tomorrows another day
And I'm thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain
Its almost like the hard times circle round
A couple drops and they all start coming down
Yeah, I might feel defeated,I might hang my head
I might be barely breathing - but I'm not dead
Tomorrows another day
And I'm thirsty anyway
So bring on the rain
I'm not gonna let it get me down
I'm not gonna cry
And I'm not gonna lose any sleep tonight

Poor Me!

Just when I start feeling sorry for myself, because I have too much going on, I don't see my husband enough, we are working so much but still don't have any money and I live so far away from my family, this is what I think:

I have a husband who is so great and works hard to support his family

I have a healthy baby and all my family is healthy

I have a great family that when I do see them, I cherish it so much and we have so much fun

I have a great house, hell I have a house

We have food in our refrigerator and clothes in our closets

Hell we have closets, seems like a small thing to be grateful for, but that means we have shelter over our heads

Kevin and I both have a job, ok 2 each, but we have jobs!!!

We might not have money to do extracurricular activities, but we can buy our baby food and diapers and splurge on ice cream every once in a while :)

I don't have a lot of friends here in Savannah, but the ones I do have are pretty spectacular

I have the freedom to go to Church on Sunday and the freedom to not go to Church on Sunday when I just want to relax.

This list could go on for miles, but you get my point. I have been feeling sorry for myself a lot lately and I suppose it is just because I am a little tired from helping with the properties, but I still have such a great life. This will all slow down soon and I just have to keep going through my list to remind myself that I got it going on! Thank you Lord for all you have given me.

Jekyl Island

Saturday we were invited by one of my BFFs, Natalie, to Jekyl Island with her family. Her Mom and Dad rented a house on the beach for all their family. She has 3 older sisters, which two of them are twins. The twins both have 2 boys each, one has twin boys. They range in age from 6 to 10. They are sweet, well behaved boys, but still boys. They use the bathroom with the door open, they talk about "nuts", they yell, run everywhere, and love sports. They were all a lot of fun to watch.

Sallie of course loved watching them. She played a little with them too. They referred to her as "Super Baby". I would hold her up and sneak up behind them and she would "scare" them. They found it quite amusing, as did Sallie and I. We didn't get to stay very long, because of Kevin and my second jobs, the properties. Kevin had to show an apartment today and of course we both have to work tomorrow. Being away for one night was enough to lift all of our spirits. I am so grateful for Natalie as my friend and I really enjoy being around her family. They always make us feel like we are at home.

I don't know what it is, but in the picture above, I think Sallie Rose looks so much like my sister, Tara. Beautiful, of course.

Kevin was so excited to give her a watermelon. He thought she would just dive face first into it. She did a little, but by this time she was already a little tired.

Sallie Rose is 9 Months

Sallie Rose is 9 months old. She crawls, she says "Momma", "Dadda", "Dah" (which is dog we think), she loves to sing and dance. I just realized just this morning that she has 4 teeth on the top and of course her other 2 bottom teeth. Now, I really know why she has been so grouchy. That has to hurt.

Sallie Roro has been on a plane to Texas, which she did very well. She is adorable and funny. She loves to make her best friend, Susan, laugh all the time. They have such a good time together. Sallie waves bye bye to any and everyone. She sings along with me when I sing to her at night. She loves so many new foods: cantaloupe, yogurt, watermelon and cheese.

I can't believe she will be one year old in just 3 months!!! Best 9 months of my life!

Here she is on the morning of her 9 month birthday!

For Real?

Just because your wheelchair has four wheels, does not mean you can "drive" on the road with the cars. Does that wheelchair have insurance for when you rear end me?

Crawling

Sallie Rose is crawling. I wouldn't quite call it crawling, but for lack of another word, we will say crawling. She crawls with one leg and tries to walk with the other. She is moving, I guess that is all that matters. Yeah Sallie Rose!!!!

Ok, people, I tried. I tried to be patient and wait for the video to upload, but darn it how long must I wait??? I will try to upload it somewhere else and see if that works. For now, just picture little Sallie Roro scootin along on her knees, just as happy as can be.

Flashback Friday (2 days late)

This is my cousin and one of my lifelong best friends, Grace Davis Calvert. I love this picture, because I think it looks so much like her daughter Betty Beatrice. Grace thought her baby was a chunky baby, but Grace was too. Chunky babies obviously turn into beautiful adults, because Grace is tall, thin, and gorgeous. Miss you G!

This is from 1983 and this is my Mom, me and our playdate group. Grace and her Mom are on the left. The boy on the right was my pageant partner and he threw me down on the stage. Darn you Chester Hutchinson, you lost me my crown.

Here are the three of us playing. Christmas time evidently.

P.S. Sallie Rose is crawling as of Monday. Hopefully, I can download a video.

We are Back!!

Well, we are back. I am always sad to leave my family and Texas, but we were ready to get home to our own beds and Kevin of course. We had a wonderful time and I actually did some relaxing and got a little bit of sun.

Texas is so great for a number of reasons, but one of my favorite parts about "hill country" is the river access. My Mom and Jim live in Kerrville and the Guadalupe runs right through town. You drive your car, unload the cooler and some towels and walk right into the warm river. Dad and Patty live in Llano and it is the same thing there. Easy access. So, any day that we didn't have plans, we just put on our suits and went to the river. Two days we spent on a boat and jet skis on Lake LBJ. Nice.

Sallie Rose rode her first horse, Bearclaw. She also started waving her tiny little fingers when people would walk in and out the door and she can now pull herself up to a sitting position when she is lying down. A lot happened in one week. I think so much happened that on our last day, Sallie Rose just cried anytime someone would look at her. She needed some alone time.

We made it home safely and when we got home Kevin had bought us flowers and nice cards. AND THEN, when I got in bed, I pulled back the covers and there were a ton of Reese's cup under my sheets. That definitely makes me happy to be home.

Open Letter

Dear Grandma,
I still think about you everyday. I still wonder what you are doing and what funny things you have said today. I look at your picture that hangs in Sallie Rose's room and pray that my baby girl will be as much of a woman as you were and be a generous, kind hearted person.

What an exciting year for your family. You have 3 new great grand babies, Dad and Patty got a great house in Llano, where Dad can play with all his cowboy friends, Tara got a great job and is running a nursing home (she got all the practice when you were at the Hansford Manor, remember how she bossed those people around?), everyone is healthy and happy. Your children, grandchildren, and great grand children still talk about how wonderful you were and we love to tell funny stories about you. I know your friends miss you so much too! They don't have anyone as good as you to get advice from.

Boy do I miss our naps. I dream everyday of being in Spearman laying on your couch snoozing, while you blasted the volume of the tv. I am now not sure why you had hearing aids, I am not sure that they worked. I assume that the good ones were too expensive for your budget (wink, wink).

I am trying everyday to remember all the wisdom you gave me and live my life as a Christian. It is hard Grandma. There are some real doozies! I admit, I cuss too much, I judge, I smoke in secret every once in awhile (not a secret now), but at the end of the day I read my Upper Room and hope that I can try harder to be a better person tomorrow.

Your presence will never end, you live in us, you speak to us, you have babies born every year that have the privilege to carry your heart with them as they live their life. Sallie Rose, Colton Mac, and Michael Blake might not have had the chance to meet you, but you are one of the reasons they are here.

I have been thinking about you a lot lately and miss you so much!
I love you Grandma,
Cassie

8 months

Oh Sallie Rose, my 8 month old baby girl. Let's see what is different about Sallie Rose this month?

She definitely has more of an attitude and tries to voice her opinion and needs by yelling at her parents. She wants to be held by her hands so she can walk all around the house. She does not want to crawl, yet. She does sit on her bottom and try to get a toy and will go to her knees to reach for it. She smiles in the morning, loves her sister, Casey, and is so stinking adorable I could eat her up. She has lots and lots of hair still. It gets thicker and longer every day. She knows how to turn the page of some of her books, she loves to growl, and has begun eating cheerios with her tiny little fingers.

That is about all for this month. I expect that next month she will be crawling and have 2 more teeth.

And just FYI for all of our blogosphere friends, I will most likely not be making any more posts for a few weeks. I have taken on a new part time job as my husband's property manager (YIKES!!!) and Sallie Rose and I will be going to Texas for a week. We CANNOT WAIT!! I am so excited and can't wait to see my family.

Here she is in her boots and jeans getting ready to go to Texas



More boots and jeans

The morning of her 8 month birthday

Sallie Rose at the birthday party

Sallie Rose got invited to her first birthday party. It was a friend of hers from Kindermusik class. His name is Sebastian and he is really adorable. His parents are from Venezuela and there were a lot of their Spanish speaking friends there. Sallie Rose got to mingle and hear a little Spanish. She had a lot of fun and we did too. It is so nice to see her with other kids. She is so intrigued and loves to grab for them as you will see in the second picture.

Lots of new toys to play with!!

Just like her Mom, going for the older men.

And by the way, Kevin dressed her that morning and did a really good job of picking out a cute outfit.