Double Birthday!!

Today was two of my favorite people's birthday!!

My best friend, Stephanie!!!

And my hubby, Gene!!

Happy Birthday Steph and Gene!! I love you both very much and thank God everyday that he blessed my life with you both!!! Hope you both had a wonderful day!

Girl Trip!

I had planned on doing a whole post about the girls' trip I went on last weekend with Mom and Steph to Little Rock for the George Strait concert, but Mom just did a great re-cap of the weekend and it has some pictures so I'm just going to share the link to hers here and you can check it out!!

Tumble Bug!!!

This morning Grace attended her first gymnastics class!!!

We have both been so excited about her starting and today was finally the day! She's in a Tiny Tots class that is all 3 year olds! She was still trying to take it all in while everyone else was stretching and warming up. She stayed on her knees pretty much the whole time watching!

I think she was trying to figure what exactly they were doing.

It didn't take long for her to come out of her shell though! After they broke them up into their groups and headed to separate stations she got really excited and jumped right in, doing what her teacher told her to do.

When I watched her do this for the first time I could not stop smiling!! I was so excited and so proud of her! Dad came to watch her and he brought Mom's flip video camera and I'm pretty sure he recorded just about the whole hour!!

She had to slide her hands across to move her feet from the red mat to the orange mat without letting go and she did it the first time!

Little trampoline!!

Then she had to kick over this big round thing as she jumped off the red mat. There's a viewing area upstairs from the floor and all the parents were sitting up there watching. It was pretty obvious today was Grace's first class because I kept snapping pictures and Dad was videoing it all while the other parents were just watching and talking amongst themselves!

I felt a little bit silly, but not enough to stop snapping!!

I think this is my favorite shot from today! I want to have it printed and hang it up in her room. She just looks like she's been doing it for forever!

The trampoline was one of her favorites and her teacher had to reel her back in a few times because she just wanted to take off!! She was all red faced and sweaty by the time the hour was over and she said she loved it! It's all she's been talking about now and it's so hard for me to believe she's already old enough to be taking gymnastics. I was very pleased with the teachers and they way things are set up so I officially signed her up today and she'll go every Thursday morning now!

Quarter of a Century & Prayer Requests

As of last Friday, February 26th, I am now 25 years old. I know that's really not old, but I'm only 5 years away from being 30. That seems crazy to me, but then again my baby girl just turned 3, and that seems even crazier! It was a fairly low key birthday. Grace and I hung out at home all morning, and after I worked out we got around and picked Corey up from school and met Mom up at the mall so I could get Grace's Easter dress! I found the perfect one at Gymboree and Mom had a coupon so I was waiting for a time that we could go together. Of course, when we go in that store Mom always finds other stuff that Grace needs!! She ended up with a few precious new things!

After the mall Grace went with Mom and Corey and I came home. Gene had made it home from work just before we got here, and after we were all ready we headed up to Rogers to Mad Pizza to meet some friends for dinner! Mom and Dad came and brought Grace to eat with us.

After dinner Mom and Dad headed home and took Grace with them because we were headed to Fast Lane with a group of friends to bowl and play for a while. I knew it would be a late night so we opted to let Grace stay with Nana and Papa. We had an absolute blast at Fast Lane. They have bowling, laser tag, go carts and tons of other video games. In case any of you don't know, this is my best friend Stephanie! We've been best friends since 8th grade!

Tanner was able to come because he didn't have to work. Hmmmm....you can't tell we're related, huh?! Right! By the way, I'm the oldest. I'm actually 4 years older than him, but his beard makes him look old!

Me and the wonderful husband!! He had to be up at 5:30 the next morning to go to work, but he still stayed out with us (almost the whole time) to celebrate with me!!

And here's a group shot. Well, minus Gene. He had left about an hour prior to this picture being taken! From the left there's Hank (that I work with) and his sweet girlfriend Katie, Teresa (also from work), Steph, Tanner, me, Corey, James (used to work with him, but he recently resigned from the pd and is, as we speak, on his way to Indonesia to work as a K9 handler for 6 months). From the left on the next row is Crystal (work with), Allie (also work with) and Jill (and also work with...she's also James's girlfriend!). And then in the very front is Miss Katie (she's James's daughter)! I love all of these people dearly and they are some of my absolute best friends! Everytime we go out this is the group that goes!

Ok, now I have a couple of prayer requests for my wonderful blog readers! As I just mentioned, James is headed to Indonesia (he left yesterday) and Jill is struggling a little bit (ok, alot) with him being gone. She has a great group of friends here to support and distract her while he is gone, but I ask that you pray for strength and comfort for her while he's away. And also prayers for James for safety while he is over there and also comfort and strength while he's away from his family and friends in a completely different world. However, his cousin, is also there working right now and they will be living together so that will help!!

My other prayer request is for one of my best friends, Brittni. She and I have been very very good friends since junior high, although, neither one of us has been that great in keeping in constant touch over the last couple of years. However, I talked to her one day last week and we played catch up. Long story short, last year she and her husband were on the brink of divorce. Then she got very sick and he completely took care of her. They were able to work through their problems and are now back together and doing great! Once their marriage was back on track they decided to try and get pregnant again. They have a little boy, Jace, that is almost exactly one month younger than Grace. She found out she was pregnant the first of December, and then at her first appointment she had an ultrasound because they weren't sure how far along she was and they were informed that they are having twins!! The bad news is that she has been horribly sick the whole pregnancy. So sick that she was unable to eat or drink anything and they had to insert a permanent feeding tube directly into her intestines. What she's experiencing has a name, but I don't remember what it is and even if I could remember there is no way I could spell it out! But, it's the way that her body is reacting to the progesterone (sp?), the pregnancy hormone. She was sick with Jace, but nothing like this and it's just because there are two babies so it is that much more taxing on her body. A week ago this last Saturday she was finally able to eat actual food for the first time in 4 weeks! She had lost 35 pounds since she first got pregnant, but has put some back on and is now about 25 pounds under where she needs to be. She has another appointment this Thursday to check her nutrition levels and they will hopefully be able to take the feeding tube out if her numbers are up where they need to be. She is not due until August 17th, but her doctor has already told her that he knows she won't carry that long. He told her that she needs to make it to at least 32 weeks. He has also been in touch with a twins specialist in Little Rock to ensure that he is doing everything he needs to be doing. So.....please please pray for my sweet friend Brittni and her unborn babies!!