Happy Birthday to Me!

Dear Blog,
I'm so sorry I haven't been very consistent in my writing lately. I promise I haven't forgotten about you, but I seem to be going through a phase where I feel like I just don't have much of anything to blog about. And the few times recently that I have wanted to write about something, I haven't been able to get the words out they way I wanted, so I just haven't worried about it. It's been rather frustrating, but nevertheless, I just haven't had much motivation to blog lately. Hopefully I'll get over it soon. In the meantime, I at least wanted to take a minute to blog about yesterday/today.
Today is my 21st birthday. (I'll give you a minute to sing "Happy Birthday" to me before I continue... Done? Aww, thanks! Okay, back to the blog.) The "celebration" actually started back on Friday night when two of my best friends, April and KD, showed up at my house unannounced to visit for a little while. We ended up just sitting around talking until about 11:30 that night. I don't get to see either one of them much at all anymore, so it felt so good to just hang out with them until late at night like the "old days" back when we were the "Three Musketeers" in high school. Anyway, while they were here, they presented me with my birthday present from them: a $30 Publix gift card. They know me so well. April told me I should look at it as a $30-off COUPON - even better. I love my coupons. Needless to say, I can't wait until Wednesday to do my grocery shopping with my birthday gift card.
Saturday was/is a major blur to me now, so if we did anything birthday-related, I honestly can't remember it at all now. I think it was a pretty laid-back day, so I'll just leave it at that. On Sunday, Jordan, Rylee, and I went to church as usual, and afterward, we went to the Dollar Tree to buy a newspaper and then to the Food Outlet to buy some hamburger meat. I had been bugging Jordan all morning about our plans for lunch. I had asked him a few days ago if he had gotten with my mom to make any plans for us to spend some time  together with my family for my birthday. I didn't care if we did anything major or not - I just wanted to see my family on my "special" day. He told me that he had talked to my mom, and that we would go over to my parents' house to visit after church. I asked him if we were eating lunch with them; his response: "I don't know. I don't remember. We talked about it like... two days ago. I can't remember. I think we are." Yeah. Was he serious?! To be honest, it was really starting to upset me, because every time I asked him about it, it seemed as if he almost didn't care that he hadn't made the effort to at least put together some semi-solid plans for my birthday. Again, I wasn't expecting anything major. I just at least would've liked to have known if I needed to eat some lunch at home before we went to my parents' house, or if we were supposed to be eating with them. Anyway, after we had grabbed a few things from the Food Outlet, we headed home. When we were about a minute away from home, Jordan randomly asked me if I wanted to go look at a house that was for sale down a nearby road. Considering the fact that we just moved into our current home four months ago, and we are in no need to buy a new house, I told him that I really just wanted to get home so I could grab a bite to eat if need-be before we went to my parents' house. I thought it was really weird that he asked me that question, but I still didn't suspect anything out of the ordinary. As he pulled into our driveway, I realized that someone else was pulling in right in front of us - my brother's girlfriend, Brittany. Someone was also pulling in right behind us - my friend, April. Then I looked at our front porch and realized that it was full of some of my family and friends waiting on us. (They had all parked their vehicles in our fenced-in backyard so I couldn't see them.) Among them was my daddy, who traveled about eight and a half hours all the way from central Florida. Needless to say, I cried. I was definitely surprised, and Jordan couldn't help but laugh. He was rather proud of himself that he'd been able to pull it off. Shortly after we got home, my parents and brother and sister showed up with a big, beautiful chocolate cake. We ate pizza and cake and ice cream, and I felt very loved (not that I ever don't feel loved, but you know what I mean). It was a good day.
Today, I took the day off work (I usually work 6-12 every Monday and 8-12 every Saturday now at Coffee & Co. in Millbrook) so I could relax and spend time with my family. Jordan and I had plans to go to lunch at Red Lobster while my mom watched Rylee for us, but late in the morning, I got a bit of a headache, and my stomach started feeling yucky. Unfortunately we had to postpone our lunch plans and stay home since I wasn't feeling well, but it was still nice to spend time with my family. I'm so thankful for the twenty-one years that God has blessed me with so far, and I pray He allows me many more with the wonderful people He has placed in my life here on earth.
Below are a few pictures I wanted to share from yesterday and today. I hope to blog again in the next day or two to update on Rylee, Valentine's Day, and anything else I can think of that's been going on lately, and to share some pictures of those things as well.

my beautiful birthday cake

my sweet girl and me on my birthday

Rylee getting kisses from the birthday Mommy

our little family (sweet Rylee is giving me a kiss)

I Love My Little Sister

Today when I checked the mail, there was an envelope addressed to Jordan and me from my nine-year-old little sister Amanda. (She only lives five minutes away from us, but every now and then, she likes to send us mail.) When I opened the envelope, there were two sheets of notebook paper inside. The first sheet read as follows:

READ FIRST

In school we wrote about someone we admire or look up to. Well, I wrote sort of about a family, and guess what family I picked. It was...

The second sheet read (with a few grammatical/punctuation/spelling adjustments made by me):

My sister is a person I really look up to. I want to be like her when I'm older because she is so lucky to have a husband which is my brother-in-law that does so much for them. He works for UPS and Home Depot. He only gets so much sleep in a day. I know some day I will grow up and be like my sister, and have a good husband. My sister also has a daughter which is my niece that brings so much joy to me! Not only do I make her laugh, but she makes me laugh. My sister teaches me some things too. Some of them my mom has already taught me, and some day when I grow up I will be like my sister and look up to her till the end.

I love my little sister.

I've Arrived in the World!

I love the blogging world. There are a few blogs I follow on a daily basis (and by "daily basis", I mean I check them SEVERAL times a day), and it literally brightens my day when I see a new post to read on one of these blogs. These blogs hold the thoughts and daily experiences of some incredible, Godly women who I am blessed to know. Reading their blogs always encourages and uplifts my spirit, usually giving me some good laughs, and always leaving a smile on my face.
One of these blogs (my FAVORITE of all the blogs I follow) is called "Whimsy and Wonder". This blog belongs to a sweet, compassionate, silly, full of life girl named Katrina. Katrina is a friend of my husband Jordan's (they graduated high school together), and therefore, I have had the privilege of getting to know her over the past almost-three years. Because I'm so awesome (just kidding... but really, I am at least a LITTLE bit awesome, right?...), Katrina fell in love with me right away and claimed me as her new best friend (a true honor for me... I'm telling you, you've got to get to know this girl if you don't already). Anyway, we FINALLY had our first real hang-out together at my house on Thursday - a hang-out that was WAY overdue (like I said, we've known each other for almost three years now).
Katrina came over for a few hours on Thursday afternoon to have lunch with us and visit and play with Rylee (which I'm sure was her favorite part of the visit. Can't blame her, though. I mean, Rylee is one cute kid. She must get it from her mother...). We had a nice visit, and the whole time, in the back of my mind, I was wondering if she might blog about it when she got home. Would she? Could she? Was her visit with little ol' me even blog-worthy? As I have told her before, she could blog about watching paint dry, and it would still be one of the best things I've ever read. Seriously.
Anyway, later that evening after she had been gone for a few hours, I checked my Facebook, and there was a comment from Katrina that read as follows: "You've arrived in the world... check the blog. Oooooh yeah, baby!" Could it be?! Did I really make an appearance in THE blog?! I typed in the URL to her blog as quickly as my fingers could fly across the keyboard, and sure enough, when the page loaded, there it was in all its glory: "And the award for big debut in a blog goes to...Rylee!" Oh yes. It was beautiful. Katrina had written a WHOLE blog post all about me (okay, so the title has Rylee's name... but she does write about me in it too)! I attempted to read the post out loud to Jordan, but failed rather miserably as I was laughing too hard (the "p.s." part pretty much had me rolling on the floor). It definitely made my night. Thank you, Katrina! I am honored!
(Yes, I did just blog about being blogged about.)

Captain Awesomepants

Well, it's been a few days since my last post, which kinda bums me out in a silly way. I know there's no rule that says I have to blog every day, but I enjoy it, so I've almost felt frustrated that I haven't really had much to write about the past week or so. I guess you could say I've had "blogger's block".
I still don't have any major updates from my everyday life, but I do have some exciting news that I wanted to share real quick, as it is an answer to one of the prayer requests I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. This past Thursday (January 27), Hollis FINALLY got to come home from the hospital, just one day shy of his two-month birthday. Last night, I made dinner for his family and got to meet him for the first time. I cannot adequately express in words how excited I was to finally meet him and, even better, hold him in my arms. I have been praying for him since before he was born, and although he still has a long road ahead of him (including open-heart surgery sometime before the end of May), he has been such a fighter and has come such a long way! I am so thankful to see how God has answered prayers for Hollis and his family.

Below are a few pictures of me with Hollis, aka: Captain Awesomepants (I look rough, but hopefully you won't notice since you'll be so distracted by his adorableness).