Time Flies

I really need to get better about updated more frequently so that I don't have to catch up on weeks at a time.

So basically, last week was pretty busy. I went back to work and my co-peer-advisor and I basically planned out the fall semester. We are still without a boss for another few weeks, so either we had to plan it or our events were going down the drain, and, I fear, our program not too long afterwards. It's a little scary being the one in charge and making all the decisions. I'm used to planning the details and making things happen, not setting the date and time.

Fast-forward to Thursday. I made some hot-pink zebra-striped peanut butter cookies for my friend Kathlyn's bachelorette party on Friday.

This one was named "Boob"

Unfortunately, this one had to be eaten.

My friend Brandy came to help. She didn't believe that the pink die would stain her tongue. Guess who won that bet?

Kathlyn and I have been friends since 2nd or 3rd grade. She is my longest-surviving friend (morbid?) and we have so many good memories together. She was with me through my mom's second and third marriages, so she understands and knows parts of me that only people who were there can understand. I always considered her mom to be my second mom, and I looked up to Kathlyn for her sense of style and worldly knowledge that was largely thanks to her older sisters :). In junior high we were legends. Really. We would write notes to each other every few classes, but these were not just regular notes, no. They were 2-3 page long notes. Written in high-lighters or awesome non-black/blue pens, decorated with doodles only as 13 year old girls can do. People oo-ed and aww-ed over them, amazed at how we could write so much so often. But we just had so much to talk about! We both talk about those notes. Somewhere, we both saved almost all them. It would be fun to go through them someday and see what we thought was so important. We were doubles partners in tennis- her dad coached us from time to time. We had so much fun making fun of the ditzy girls who were just in it because it looked "cool".

In high school, she helped me through my first and only "break-up" with the boy I had been "going out with" for 4 months. I broke up with the poor boy on the phone, but the next day (and for several days after that) he continued to sit at our lunch table. Like, WTF dude? We broke up. You can't sit here. But of course I didn't say anything out of niceness so we spent several super-awkward days in silence at lunch. Until finally when he began to sit down one day Kathlyn said "dude, you can't sit here anymore." So he moved over to the next table :) True friendship, my dears.

After our freshman year she transferred to a private high school nearby, but we managed to keep our friendship alive somehow. So much has changed since those days of note-writing, but she is still the same beautiful, fun-loving girl I grew up with. I was honored to stand by her side on one of the biggest nights of her life, just as she did for me last year.

Friday morning the other bridesmaids and some family members and I met at the church to help set up for Kathlyn's wedding. We worked at the church from about 10 am until 2:45 pm, but it looked great!

Aisle hangers: Mason jars with black ribbon wrapped around the mouth with a white feather sticking out in the back, filled with top soil, rock,and tea lights. 

 

 

Older sister and niece of the bride

After decorating we all went to the salon for manis and pedis. Fun Fact: This was my second pedicure EVER. My first one was for my wedding last summer. I just can't justify spending $$ on something I can do fairly well myself. One day, after college, I will splurge on them more often :)

7 Pedis and 8 Manis

The Beautiful Bride

I ran home afterwards and literally had 5 minutes to throw on a dress for the rehearsal and grab a change of clothes for the bachelorette party afterwards. The rehearsal went pretty well, and then it was time for lingerie and bowling!

 The party was at her sister's house and she did a great job on the decorations. The bra and panty bunting in the living room coordinated with the pom-pom and lingerie hanging above the dessert table.

 I wish we hadn't just eaten at the rehearsal dinner- all the desserts were AWESOME but we were all pretty full from dinner. See my cookies? They turned out more red than pink, but they tasted great! Her sister made cheesecake cupcakes and ordered the zebra cupcakes.

 Time for Bachelorette Bowling!

 Her sister found a "bachelorette bowling" guide on the internet where every round you had to do something different. This one was the "birthing bowl" round lol.

All of us.

After bowling we were all super exhausted so we went home to catch a little sleep before getting up early Saturday to decorate. I brought the bride some Starbucks to help wake her up, and the rest of the day was a blur of steaming, moving, decorating, getting hair done, and waiting.

I wish now that I had taken pictures of the cake and food tables, but oh well. Live and learn, I guess.
Then it was TIME...

The bride got a little hot while waiting. I love this pic!

The bride's mom with her first grandson. How sweet!

And at the reception, look who I found:

Mom and little bro no. 2, Daniel.

Me, a horrible pic, but me, none-the-less.

It was a beautiful candle-lit ceremony that was uniquely their style. The girls walked bare-footed down the aisle (Kathlyn could never keep shoes on and frequently wore flip-flops in the winter while we were growing up). The boys were flip flops and the groom rolled up his sleeves. They cut the cake together, but there were no toasts, speeches, dances, or anything else "formal". When they were ready to leave, they left :)

A few more pictures from the night (don't judge on the awful pics, it was late when I got home but I really wanted to document how awesome my hair looked!)

 They started off by curling my hair with the straightener. I think they underestimated how long and thick my hair actually is; it took over an hour. By the time I was done I could have been the Rodeo Queen with all my poofy curls. Should've asked someone to take a picture. Boo.

 This was after everything was over, so it had fallen out a bit. But this was probably my second favorite hair-do of all times (my wedding hair was my favorite). But this one actually stayed up better than my wedding hair. You can see a few bobby pins sticking out at the top lol. My hair is a beast that does not like to be tamed. Rawr.

Since we were bare-footed for the ceremony they gave us house-shoe slippers for the reception. I believe it's a tradition that both her sister did as well.

The rest of the weekend will have to be for another post. It's time for bed!

Home at Last

I'm home! Oh how I have missed this little town over the summer. Our summers are usually pretty hot, but this one has been a real scorcher. All the fields that are usually covered in wheat, cotton, and corn are empty. Some farmers just didn't plant and those who did couldn't keep the crops alive. I wonder how that will affect food and clothing prices in a few months....

This little beauty was waiting for me in the bedroom

My MIL and I drove home on Sunday. I stayed up until 3 a.m. the morning before with Will and his friend that was visiting for the weekend before going back to school in Florida. I thought I was going to die, but I was able to drive the first 8 hours of the trip without any issues. Unless you count this as an issue:

Almost as hot as hell. So I thought. Yesterday when I got in my car after work it said 113. I didn't know that could actually happen here. We had some rain clouds this evening and were under a thunderstorm watch for a few hours, but I don't think we got a single drop.

After arriving on Sunday around 8:30 p.m. we unloaded the car and I unpacked just enough so that I could shower and get dressed in the morning without stressing too badly. Yesterday I got up and did my Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD, went to work, then came home and watched some E! on tv. I finally got motivated to run into town (that means drive to Amarillo, for those of you not familiar with our West-Texan-Lingo) for a few things for my friend's bachelorette party this Friday. I am SO excited about this weekend: my best friend since like, 2nd grade is gettin married!

I did manage to get home in time to go on a run. I took Boomer with me, which turned out not to be the best idea. He wanted to sprint for the first mile but as soon as we hit the second part of the loop that was uphill I had to practically drag him behind me. You know he had to have been going pretty slow if I felt like I could go faster without him.

Today finally made it to the gym after visiting with another friend for an hour. I packed my bag before work, talked myself up and into actually going to the gym and finally got there only to discover I had forgotten to pack my shoes. Eff. So I went home for a while, visited my friend, and went back to the gym with all needed accessories. I did about 45 min on the elliptical while watching Cupcake Wars (why have I never seen this show before?!) and did some lower body weights for another 20 minutes or so.

After the gym I went to my mom's house to see how everyone is doing. Turns out they're just peachy.

I've made it my goal to be in bed by 10 pm every night. I've been IN bed, but I got suckered into reading July's issue of Cosmo last night and tonight I had to get on my laptop to send a complaint email to Otterbox for their crap-tastic case that disintegrated on me:

Um, yeah. You can't really tell from this picture, but the whole bottom of the hard case is in pieces inside the soft case.

Annnd I miss the babies. I look at their pictures throughout the day just for a smile. Their parents don't know, but I took some pictures of them my last day. Here's a preview, I'm going to send them a jump drive with all the final ones when I'm done editing.

I think it's time to actually go to sleep now...

Blessed

Wednesday evening Will and I went to his cousin's son's birthday party at Chuck-E- Cheese's. Neither of us had been to one in at least 12 years, so it was fun to see how much they have and haven't changed. I had to steal some cheese pizza from the kid's table since all the adult pizza had meat on it :) It was so great to see how many family members came; I don't remember there ever being that many family members at our birthday parties. That's one thing about Will's family that I love- they all make a big effort to support each other and be there for the kids, even when the adults may not be getting along the best.

Afterwards we met Megan for dinner at BJ's since she hadn't eaten all day.

It has been so much fun hanging out with her all summer. I am going to miss her when I go back home on Sunday.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. I took the twins to meet their mom for lunch so I had a few hours to kill around noon. Will met me at the restaurant and we went to get ice cream for lunch since neither of us were too hungry. After Will went back to work I went to a Goodwill in the area to see if I could find any treasures. Alas, there were none. Afterwards I wondered into Hobby Lobby since I haven't been in one for months (O, the horror!) I took a few pictures of awesome things:

Will wasn't too thrilled about the sun-burst mirror, but he liked the other things.

Annnd my MIL flew in Thursday morning so we went over to see her and the rest of the family in the evening. I showed her how to use Pinterest and I hope she gets as addicted as I am, that way I can share all my pins with someone :)

Today was my last day to watch the girls. It's quite bittersweet- I'm ready to get back into the routine of school and work, but I've really grown fond of them over the summer. They were pretty good all day- even let me make some 'smores treats for their mom's party tonight.

Will came home a little before noon, to my surprise. I was taking pictures of the girls (I thought it would be fun to see the comparison to the ones I took the week I got here and the ones the week I leave) so he helped me for a few minutes before explaining that he came home since it was my last day and when I left he wouldn't see me for about three weeks, PLUS he was now an official employee of NASA Johnson Space Center, so he wanted to celebrate.

Wait. What????!!

Yep. He got a call from the Co-Op office this morning with three different offers. He accepted the one he had been hoping for and starts June 4, 2012.

Hip hip, hooray!

My Big Toe

This post is dedicated to my big toe. The one on my right foot, specifically. Probably way TMI, but whatevs.
Last night on the way over to Will's Mimi's house it was bothering me a little, like it was the beginning of an ingrown toenail. It wasn't too bad, so I ignored it until after our run, when it started hurting quite a bit more. We on the car ride home I took off my shoe and tried feeling around the edge to see if the corner of my toe nail was growing into my skin, but I couldn't feel what I would normally feel if it was an ingrown toenail.

By the time we got home and took showers, it was hurting really badly. I got out my clippers and an orange stick to try and dig out whatever was bothering me, but again I realized the pain wasn't coming from my toenail. I put some tea tree oil around the area and got in bed. Not thirty minutes later I got up because it was throbbing and I just knew there was an infection. There was so much pressure I thought that I would see a white-head type thing when I turned on the light, but when I did it was just red. At that point I poured some hydrogen peroxide on it and took an Aleve to help with the pain. I wanted ibuprofen but we were out. I got back in bed and propped my foot up on two pillows, hoping the elevation would help. It did for a little while, but at 12:30 I woke up again and it was throbbing even more. On a pain scale of 1-10, I would say it was an 8.5 and it was making me sick to my stomach. Simply touching the top of my toe made me curse. I needed sleep or else I wouldn't be able to function today, which is not an option with 4-month old twins, so I put more tea tree oil on it (hoping all the anti-bacterial stuff would kill something) and popped one of Will's leftover hydro-codon. In hind sight, I probably shouldn't have done that since it wasn't my prescription and I knew it was really powerful stuff, but at that point I was willing to do anything to make the pain stop so I could sleep. I kept thinking I was going to have to wake Will up to take me to the emergency room so they could cut off my toe, which didn't seem like such a bad idea at the time since it hurt that badly. Which led to an entirely different worry about my medical insurance. If I had to have a procedure done I would have to pay out of pocket for any medications I was prescribed since I got screwed over on my health insurance. Oh the joys of being a student. I went back to bed and once I fell asleep I was out until Will left for work at 6:45, at which point the pain was still at a zero.

I've been careful not to walk on it all day, and the pain has stayed at a 1 or lower. Not sure what's going on but for now I'm just going to keep it clean and try not to aggravate it. A picture of my awesome toe:

Don't make fun of how ugly it is. I inherited my mom's feet, ok?

Definitely more red and swollen on the left side. And maybe I should get a pedicure when all this clears up...
The pain reminds me of the things I used to get on my fingers around my nail beds when I was on Accutane. I looked up the technical name for it: Paronychia. 
It was like getting white-head pimples around your cuticles that hurt like h-e-double hockey sticks. 


And that is the end of the tail of my stupid toenail. More information than anyone ever wanted to know, really. 


Oh, and today looked at lot like this:

Cryings, screaming fits, that is.
Off to a cousin's birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheeses!

It's Almost Over

Summer, that is. I am driving home with my MIL next Sunday and starting back to work on Monday. I'm excited to be back home and get back into a routine that does not involve crying and spit up (not mine, of course), but I'm also going to miss my two little ladies. They have stolen a piece of my heart this summer and it's going to be so hard to leave them. Will and I given them names that we think are oh-so-appropriate: Brooklyn is my Squishy and Brylee is Pickle. Brooklyn has such a round angel face that is perfect for squishy kisses and Brylee is like a pickle, a little sour sometimes but so good you just can't resist her.

Squishy

Pickle

They've started staying awake a lot more during the day, like for 2-2.5 hours for feedings instead of 1 hour. Last week was probably the hardest week of the summer, just because they were so fussy for about three days in a row. As in, inconsolable, I-don't-want-my paci-or-my-bottle-or-you, screaming till they choke fussy. Luckily my friend Brandy was visiting and was able to help me out a little during the day and the one day she went with Will to NASA I took them on a walk to get them to calm down. Yesterday and today have been much better. They've wanted to be awake and with me but haven't been fussy about it (so long as I do what they want). It's kind of weird, because I know they're not my children but I feel so protective of them. For instance, I do not like the new nanny simply because of principle. I met her and she's really nice and I'm sure she'll do great, but she doesn't know that when Brooklyn wakes up and won't go back to sleep it means she wants to be held. Not cradled or cuddled, but held so that she is either standing or sitting, as if she is a part of what's going on. If Squishy wakes up in the morning she needs to go back to sleep, but in the afternoon she can stay awake; it's opposite for Pickle. Why Squishy moves her head in a certain way and acts like she wants either her bottle or paci but she spits them out, it's either because she wants to be held up standing or she wants to breastfeed, which you can't help her with. They like to watch HGTV, specifically House Hunters and Property Virgins, so long as you sit by them so they can see you and you coo at them every once in a while. And they both have a specific cry for when they're tired and want to go to sleep but they want just another ounce or so before falling asleep.
Some more pictures just because they're so precious:

Pickle hardly ever smiles, so I always try to capture it when she does.

Pickin out their future cribs (houses, not crib cribs) via House Hunters.

Don't mess with this.

Her awesomesauce chair. Again, HGTV.

The day Squishy was being particularly difficult. She wouldn't stop crying so Will held her up so the TV would distract her for a few minutes.

Will loves taking naps with Pickle. One time she spit up ALL. OVER. his chest. Yum.

Grandma and Grandpa visited for the weekend and needed a little help.

Best pic of Pickle ever.

A summary of what's gone down over the past few weeks since I'm terrible at blogging:

The Family Reunion went without any major catastrophes. About 40 people showed up and all seemed to have a good time. The caterer showed up and the hotel staff was great. We did game night on Saturday, where Will and I decided to set my cousin up with one of our friends. They're both Aggies, so obviously it's meant to be. Saturday went pretty smoothly, although it wasn't nearly as organized as I had hoped. We ate, had the auction (where my sugar scrubs and jewelry sold for $155 total) and chilled out before going to dinner at Blue Sky and then we saw Texas the musical, which was ok.  I would like to plan the reunion again, but not until I'm out of school and have some actual time to plan better.

My friend Brandy drove back to Houston with us to spend four days with us. I hadn't seen her since the beginning of June so it was great to spend so much time with her. We made some failed no-bake cookies (my fault, we used regular oats instead of quick-cooking ones), ate pizza virtually every day, went to Galveston since she'd never been to the beach, went to Ikea so I could share the awesomeness that is Ikea while also getting into a little mischief, made some homemade Oreos for Will to take to a party at work, and basically just had a blast.

Worry not, the small jelly fish was dead on the beach. No person was harmed in the picture taking of this dead jelly fish.

We were so sad to say goodbye at the bus stop on Thursday night.

Friday evening Will and I went to his Mimi's house to help my SIL paint. She had been planning on doing it all summer but with all the renovations happening around the house we just around to it. New backsplash and  counters had just been installed the day before and new floors a few months ago, so paint was the last thing. Megan had almost finished the kitchen, so we helped finish that out and then decided to tackle the dining room. A quick trip to Lowe's and 2 pizzas later, we started what turned out to be a fantastic transformation. Before, the walls were white(ish) with a chair rail. We painted the top the same as the kitchen (kinda  light beige color) and the bottom a darker color called Clam Shell (I think). The contrast really made the chair rail pop, and Mimi loved it. Now we just need to touch up the trim and a few other places that we couldn't see well without proper light. This is the only picture I have, obviously it looks much better in person:

Saturday we were finally able to sleep in and though we technically we had nothing that was a "must do", we still got a lot done. Please note it was all Will's doing; if it had been up to me, we would have done nothing. We cleaned cars, tried to help his uncle move some stuff, exchanged a gift card at Macy's, I went to the pool for an hour or so, and we went out on a date to BJ's.

Sunday we went to church with Megan and her boyfriend, Brent, at the church where she works. We came home with the intention of making a quick lunch, but it ended up being quite the mish-mash of food. Will wanted sausage and pasta, so he made himself angle hair pasta with spaghetti sauce and chicken sausage and made me shells with just the sauce. I made roasted potatoes and carrots and these Texas Road House imitation rolls. We also had corn on the cob.

Pictures courtesy of Will.

His

Hers

I tried out the fishtail braid... if I can get it down in the time it takes, I think it may be a new favorite.

And the Sunday evening Megan came over for dinner and to go on a run with us. It is so so so nice to be so close to her and be able to see her at least once a week while before we only saw her every two or three months. I can't wait till we move down here permanently.
I wasn't expecting our run to go well since we hadn't run since the week before my reunion, but I was determined to make it to the stoplight. And guess what? We did it. My shins felt pretty good and still do two days later, although my ankles felt a little weak while running (but I guess that will happen when you gain 35 pounds). We ran all the way there with about a 10:30 min/mile and part of the way, for a total time of about 42 minutes. I was really happy with that- I just wish we had such awesome running trails back at home. I used the same technique as last time: counting down the stop signs and mantras.

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Yesterday I spent the entire evening studying and taking a test for my online Intro to MCOMM class. It was awesome. not. Will was asleep by 9:20 so he could get up and run before work but I wasn't finished until 11:30 and of course, I could not sleep.

I was busy thinking about how awesome it's going to be here in a year or so when we finally have our own place again. I know we are so lucky and fortunate to have such amazing in-laws who are willing to let us live with them for a year and a half. They have such a beautiful house and it's nice to have the back part mainly to ourselves. They help out where they can but don't intrude on our lives- it's as perfect a balance as it can get. But there's a part of us that is dying to have our own place with our own stuff. Where we can have the master suite and decorate the way we want. We've been trying to get our ducks in a row to get pre-approved from a mortage in 6 months or so, but in the back of my mind I'm really worried we won't get it just because we're so young and don't have much (though our credit is pretty good and we've worked out a budget so that we should have a pretty substantial down payment. But when we get pre-approved we won't have that total amount in savings yet, though we would by the time we were actually ready to put an offer on a house). However, last night it dawned on me that even if we don't get a house or condo next year when we move down here, we will still have a place that is ours and it will be way nicer than our last apartment. It will a grown up place and it will be fantastic.

There are some other things on my mind that I don't feel are appropriate to share with the World Wide Web, but basically my prayer was this:

"Please don't let my hurt turn into hate."

It can be so hard to find balance between allowing yourself permission to feel hurt and letting that hurt fester into a much bigger beast. I am slowly healing, but every once and a while the emotion and situation will grab hold of my heart and sweep me off my feet all over again. And every time it does I have to talk myself down and remember that there is a time and reason for all things and all people in our lives. 

 

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Tonight we are going back to Mimi's house for dinner with some extended family that is in town for a cousin's wedding. Squishy is laying on the playmat next to me chewing on her hand and talking to herself. Pickle is asleep and Will will be home in a little over an hour. Life is good.

Closing thought for the day:

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