Picture #11 and Pancackes

We are gradually getting back on track! 

Just two days late this week!!

Miss Phoebe is quickly growing, you can tell by that belly. 

Katie is feeling good, just tired.

Really tired. 

I think if she could. she would sleep 24/7.

But I guess she needs to rest now while she can, because as we all know, once Phoebe arrives mommy will be begging for rest.

Had a great day today at the Kiwanis Pancake day. 

Mattie B used to love to go eat pancakes and Mattie May does to. 

Ready to eat!!!

Ran into her friend Tat that she hasn't seen in a year.

She loved the funny names on the bag of the milk cartons. 

Until next time 

God Bless. 

Taking Note of the "What Ifs'

A year ago today at 6:01 PM, while on our way to church, Mattie May, Katie and I were hit by a drunk driver. You can read about it here. In this post, I talked about the what ifs that I had then. I still have them, lots of them. And when I see a report about a wreck caused by drunk driving, I get them all over again. This scripture will always remind me how blessed we are to have had only bruising and soreness. There are so many others that had so much worse. It is almost always so much worse.

We still can't drive through that intersection that Mattie May doesn't remind us that it's where the crazy lady hit us. We asked her this morning if she knew today it had been a year that we had been in that wreck and she reminded us that we were going to church to eat lasagna and cake. She still remembers.

I am too lazy to go back and check if I ever posted the girls blood alcohol level. In Texas, the limit is .08. She registered a .38! If you don't know, .40 is alcohol poisoning! From the time I saw her car, I knew she never tried to stop. I thought maybe she had reached for her cell phone, but I will always believe now that she was completely passed out. Her blood was almost 50% liqueur!

So just a reminder to everyone, please don't drink and drive. Don't let anyone drink and drive. It really isn't worth it.

God Bless

The Excitement Continues

Well Christmas has come and gone and we had a great time. I hope to get some pictures up this week but I'm not sure that is going to happen. The excitement continues around our house as we get ready for Mattie May's birthday trip. I can't believe how close it is! Look at our countdown calendar in the right side bar. It has gone from over a year to just days! Mattie May reminds us daily how many more days we have so I really don't need that calendar! LOL

We have already started packing and getting things together for the trip. Last night Mattie May packed her backpack. Such a smart girl, she asked her mom for a spare set of clothes in case hers get dirty! I promise, no prompting from any of the adults in the house. She did that all on her own!

I have been looking back at my little blog post from this past year. There have been not nearly enough. Call it a resolution if you want, but I am going to try hard this coming year to post each day. Even if it is just a short one to remind me that life is great and everyone is happy. 2010 started out great, but before the first month was over, things went downhill. It has been a difficult year, with so much of it being focused on that wreck. We never thought it would be that time consuming, but it was a major focus through about mid year. We then started trying to focus on our trip, but Mattie May started school, soccer and karate and our focus was changed again.

Frank had knee surgery in August, and much of my time went to that. Not that he couldn't do things for himself (he walked out of the clinic by himself!), it was that I just kept worrying about his recovery. That's just the way I am.

So now with the holidays mostly behind us, we can get ready to go. 2011 is going to be a great year and we plan on starting it off with a bang. There will be many firsts to report on this trip, for all four of us. Starting with Mattie May's first ride on an airplane! That should be fun.

This is the first time that any of us have been to Disney! Frank said he plans on being a big kid! I don't know why he thinks that is any different than what he usually is, but we are definitely going to have a great time.

Just in case I don't get back here until we get back, I wish you all safe and blessed new year! 2011 is going to be great!

Katie Can't Cook!

If you know my daughter, you know she is not the most domestic person around. She doesn't clean, failed apparel, and in no shape form or fashion can that girl cook!! Thank goodness for frozen foods or she would starve if we weren't around!

I must admit, she comes by the cleaning part naturally, I don't either! But I do sew and Frank hasn't starved since we have been married. And since we are going on a quarter of a century, I must do something right in the kitchen.

I got to thinking about poor little Mattie May. If they ever move out, who will teach her to cook? I feel part of this responsibility falls to me. I did, after all, have two grandmothers that were both great cooks and I think I did pick up a few things from them. Don't believe me? Just ask anyone on either side of my family about MeMaw's chowchow and Mattie B's strawberry cake, just to name a couple of things. My mom is a good cook too! Can you say broccoli cheese casserole? And when it comes to biscuits & gravy and all things on the grill, my dad is the best!

So, anyway, I have been trying to find things Mattie May can do as we prepare supper in the evenings. She really is a big help. I think when she learns to read, she will be ready to really put something together on her own. And this got me to thinking, I love to take pictures and document all the things she does. I was putting together a scapblog of her making peanut butter cookies for the first time and the light bulb when off over my head. I am going to make her a scrapblog cookbook for her when she is older! What a great keepsake. I get to cook and scrap, she gets knowledge and recipes from her childhood!

Here is the beginning. Please let me know what you think!



There will be some reorginization as I add to it, and the instructions will grow as she does. I just know that some of MeMaw's recipes are gone forever and I want Mattie May to have as many things to pass along as she can.

More Vacation 2008

I have had lots of comments on my pictures from our vacation. The most common was "Brandi, didn't you go? Why are you not in any pictures?" Well I am in pictures. See this is me on the left;

And here I am on the right;

Proof I was there. I just like being behind more than I like being in front of the camera.

I get so busy taking pictures that I forget my camera can also take videos. So I tried to remind myself to take some on our trip. I have put them all together for you in this small scrapbook. Be sure you have sound on so you can hear our precious Mattie May.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Please leave me a comment. I would love to hear what you think. It helps me improve!

I Promised You Pictures...

I know you have had to wait, but here they are, pictures from our trip to Corpus Christi and Sea World. Hope you enjoy. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.



This is kind of small, but if you will click here, it will take you to my scrapblog and you can view it in a full screen and adjust the timing so some of the longer journaling can be easily read.

Epstein-Barr Virus

Well, they figured it out in less than a week. I have Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV). Rest and steroids are what will make me feel better. It last several weeks, but the doctor has assured me I will be ready for vacation! What, you say you have never heard of EBV? Well click here and you will learn more than you ever wanted to know. It is not life threatening and once you go to the link you will see you have heard of it before by a different name. So maybe, once the chiropractor gets my back fixed up, I will be back to posting in my wonderful boring way.

This is What I Thought

Last week I posted this picture -

and asked you to tell me the first thing that came to your mind.

Well I must say, Anne commented first and had the same thought I had. This is what I think my two cousins, Trina and Traci, and I will look like in the future (the very distant future!).

Even though Anne said it first, the others got it right too. But there is some confusion as to which woman is which cousin. Well I will just say, Trina has always worn blue, Traci has always been the middle and I love bright colors. But you could also say Trina has the thinest face, mine is the roundest and Traci is not the tallest of the three. It is so hard to tell because, dadgumit, we are all three just so darn cute! See this picture from our past and you be the judge.

This picture also proves Trina's point in her last comment, I did used to be a blonde!