The Ultimate Coupon Experience

If you've followed my blog for any period of time, I'm sure you've discovered my love for a bargain.  But 2 nights ago was the absolute, most unbelievable experience.  There are items that I buy that I'm happy if I find on sale or clearance, but I never ever thought I would have coupons for these things (plus find them on sale at the same time!); but this scenario played out and it still blows my mind.  My shopping buddy came across this CRAZY deal and we were super pumped =)

In the paper, there were manufacturer's coupons for an assortment of games (never came across these type of coupons before.)   THEN, Target had matching store coupons for the same games, AND some of the games were ON SALE!!!  So, we were able to use both coupons on the games that were on sale (and some weren't on sale, but were a great bargain with just the coupons.)

Here is the break-down:

Chutes/Ladders Game  Reg. Price  $7.79                     Paid $1.79                 
Simon Flash  Reg Price $24.99 On Sale $15.00 (+ free card game) Paid $5.00
Play-Doh Swirl Shake Reg Price $17.49  On Sale $9.99    Paid $3.99
Star Wars Figurines   Reg Price $5.99                        Paid $1.99
Sorry Revenge Game Cards   Reg Price $6.49         FREE
Neutrogena Face Wash Reg Price $5.99 On Sale $4.76   Paid $3.26
                                                                                                TOTAL: $16.03
Saved: $68.74

This will be amazing gifts for birthdays/Christmas/whatever!!!  Yay for bargains!

Meet "My Honey"

Late last week Samara wanted to have a tea party.  She invited a puppy dog my sister gave me when James and I were first married.  I desperately wanted a dog, but we weren't allowed to have pets at our apartment so Sara gave me this dog.  Recently, Samara discovered this puppy in my closet and has been playing with it. 

For the tea party, she wanted the puppy to dress up.  So she put her "Tangled" dress on it and thus started a darling ritual of Samara dressing the dog for the day and also in jammies at night.  Samara has named it "My Honey."  My Honey has traveled with us in the car (I had to buckle her up in the passenger seat).  Samara has "fed", "bathed", and "disciplined" My Honey as well.  She has also said that the dog is her sister. It is incredibly adorable to see her attachment with the puppy grow.  Welcome to the fam!

My Honey and Samara in their Jammies

Both are dressed for the day

Final Four

Holla!  KU just beat North Carolina to advance to the Final Four in New Orleans next weekend.  Of course, if I was made out of money, I would book my tickets right now and join the team there.  But, alas, I will be content watching it at home.  It feels great to be a Jayhawk...oh snap, where are the other Big 12 teams?!?  Oh, they didn't make it; my bad ;-)

Enjoy the sidelines, Roy!  Bill is a keeper.

Sweet Home Alabama (and Nashville and Everywhere in Between)

Thursday morning at 6:00am I started out on my over 2000 mile round trip to Nashville and Gulf Shores, Alabama.  The night before James printed out directions to J.M.'s condo in Nashville.  I was bummed because the directions were to go through St. Louis and down through Illinois.  A route I've driven before.  So he found a "back way" that took the same amount of time, but the scenery would be new.  I was nervous that it would end up being a lot of country 2-lane roads, but I was up for the adventure.  And so I started out.  There were 36 different steps I needed to do to get from my house to her house.  I decided that I would mark off each completed step so I wouldn't get confused on which one I was on.

I was doing ok (missed one turn because the road wasn't marked how the other roads were).  At 1pm, though, I encountered a problem.  I was in Mountain View, MO (yeah, you may need to Google it because I'm sure it's not a well known epicenter of activity.)  I tried to find the road for my next turn.  For 20 minutes I tried.  I finally pulled over and put the needed highway into my GPS.  The highway's name was not recognized.  I decided that I would travel back into the little town and ask for directions (and get a Subway sandwich while I was there.)  I asked the Subway workers and a customer if they recognized this particular highway.  They didn't and the other customer tried to locate it on his phone and wasn't successful.  I decided that I needed to scrap trying to find this road and recalculate a new set of directions (Thanks Google Maps for making up an imaginary road!!!)

In a few minutes, I was back on my way with a different set of directions and hoped that I could make up some of the lost time. Everything was going great until I was forced to drive over a type of bridge I am absolutely scared to drive over.  It was incredibly narrow (I could have touched the semi coming straight at me.)  I went s-l-o-w-l-y which probably irritated the drivers behind me, but I couldn't help it.  I'm not sure I breathed while crossing it...probably not the wisest idea.

About an hour left of the trip, the skies darkened and I had to drive through a huge thunderstorm.  Fortunately, I didn't have to endure a traffic jam, but I did drive by a red Viper that had flipped over.  Right before 7pm, I made it to J.M.'s condo.  What sweet relief and I was so excited to see my dear friend.  I quickly changed and freshened up.  We then went to downtown Nashville for dinner and entertainment.  We ate at Margaritaville;  I had their Jambalaya which was fabulous.  We then walked up the street to a "Honky Tonk", but the live band wasn't very impressive so we went to Tootsie's and enjoyed a really good band.  When they were finished, we headed home so we could get up early to head to the beach.

Friday morning we were greeted with torrential rain and couldn't wait to get out of it!  It was an 8 hour trip and we arrived in Gulf Shores right before 5pm.  After unloading the car, we walked on the beach for about an hour.  It was dinner time so we chose to eat at Jimmy Buffet's sister's restaurant, Lulu's.  They were packed, but we found 2 spots at the bar so we ate there.  We struck up a random conversation with an older man sitting next to me.  He wanted us to be on the look-out for any women close to his age who didn't weigh over 200 pounds and didn't have huge hair.  (He also asked for our mothers' phone numbers, but we didn't oblige him.)  Lulu's had a live musician who was the most horrendous songwriter/singer you could imagine.  He sang a song that had the following lyrics: "I own a bank.  Its name is Piggy."  And then he sang about mirrors and a vampire.  Not exactly impressive!

I jokingly asked the bartender how much money it would take to get the singer to stop.  The bartender said that the singer was married to "one of the sisters (we think to one of Jimmy Buffet's sisters) and he was a really good guy.  I told him that I was sure he was a nice guy, but not a great entertainer.  I left it at that.  We were planning on staying there to watch the KU/Detroit basketball game, but the bartender said they closed at 10pm.  He suggested a great sports bar down the road.  J.M. and I thought it would be fun to watch the game with others so we made our way to the other place.

We were NOT prepared for what we encountered.  It was a mixed crowd of 60-80 year old men and 40 year old women (with 2 random 20-something women).  There was no good place to fix your eyes upon because there were couples making out or 4-5 women dancing with one old guy.  And to top it off, they didn't have the KU game on any of their TV's.  It was so unbearable that I didn't even finish my drink and we got the heck out of there.  We joked that we hoped we didn't catch any disease by sitting on their chairs.  It also crossed our minds that maybe the bartender at Lulu's referred us there because of my negative comment about the singer.

The next morning we got up early, ate breakfast and made our way to the beach.  We only had 4 hours before we had to get ready for the wedding so we wanted to enjoy every possible second.  We were under a Dense Fog Advisory and so we didn't think that we would get a tan.  It was a nice cool morning and we laid on our chairs, talked, laughed, and enjoyed the morning.  We were bummed to leave the beach, but were excited about our evening.  It wasn't until we were inside our room that we discovered we both got burned.  J.M. had put some sun tan lotion on, but missed some spots.  I, on the other hand, was burned from head to toe only on my front side because I never rotated sides because I didn't think I was getting any sun.  To top it off, I had a sunglasses burn line on my face.  I was mortified, horrified and in pain!

The wedding was about 30 minutes away.  It was a beautiful ceremony and then we made our way to the reception.  It was a beach theme and fortunately, we sat at the back of the room.  I was getting redder and redder as the night wore on.  I was stopped by many people telling me in their sweet Southern accents, "Oh honey, you need some Aloe Vera."  Or, "You should try some lavender Epsom Salt dear."  The groomsmen we met jokingly asked what SPF sunblock I used.  But it was worth every joke because I got to witness C.R. get married!

J.M. and I danced to the Cupid Shuffle and the Cha-Cha Slide.  We were in our element.  Back in college, we were constantly wanting to dance.  The groomsmen recommended a great place to go dancing and they had a live band, too.  We went back to our hotel room to change and headed to "Live Bait" which was right down from our hotel.  We stayed for a few hours and got our groove on just like old times.

Early Sunday morning we made our way back to Nashville.  We were tired and J.M. wasn't feeling super great from a cough that had started a few days before.When we got to her condo, we had enough time to shower and get ready to eat at a local sports bar where we could also watch the KU/Purdue game.  I was quite surprised and elated to find that the place was loaded with other KU fans.  The ending to the game was amazing and we all chanted the "Rock Chalk Jayhawk, KU" song that follows every win.

I left Nashville at 6:30am on Monday.  I was exhausted, but still had a long way to drive.  Since the route I initially took was full of country roads (and made up highways), I took the St. Louis route.  It was only 14 steps as opposed to the 36 steps.  I was doing ok until I got into St. Louis (which makes me very nervous to drive through).  It was during noon-time rush hour traffic and a motorcycle beside me did a pop-wheelie and then zig-zagged all over the lanes.  He then exited and stood on his motorcycle with his hands in the air as he was going down the ramp (without a helmet, protective gear, etc.)  I was so disturbed and frightened by this that I couldn't wait to get out of this city but the city seemed to go on and on and on.

About an hour and a half later, I drove into torrential rain that lasted all the way through Kansas City (during evening rush hour traffic) and I didn't get a break from the rain until I got home.  I was so thankful to have survived =)

This was such a rare opportunity to spend some quality time with my BFF J.M. (and see C.R. even if it was for a brief amount of time.)  I love my friendship with her.  We reminisce about the past, but make a bunch of new memories, too.  There were so many moments where our stomachs hurt and we were crying from laughing so hard.  These may not seem funny to you, but we cracked up.

  *J.M. was talking about being easy to please (not being high maintenance).  She then said, "I'm easy, spread the word!" I told her I would do no such thing. Before we left, she got a spray tan and had brown on her hands that made her hands look dirty. Then, we both left our razors in Nashville so we got a cheap razor from the hotel that butchered up our legs.  We both had a horrible cough that sounded like pneumonia and we were popping cough drops throughout the trip. Finally, she was concerned that her dress for the wedding was too short and looked "skanky".  We put all of these things together and came up with: "Easy, dirty, hacking up a lung, butchered up skank."  Even though that was the furtherest from the truth!  We laughed so hard that our make-up started to run before the wedding.  We repeated this the rest of the trip.

  *On the way down to Gulf Shores, we drove through Florida.  We saw a sign there that said, "We accept out of town cash."  Uh, because our cash is different from theirs?

  *Also in Florida, there were huge lilac bushes.  I was thinking it would be nice to dig up a bush to bring home.  J.M.'s initial thought was she wanted to roll around in the bushes. That created a lot of laughs!    

Since I had to travel through Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida and Alabama, I thought I would share some observations:
*Missouri has plenty of drivers who don't think that when there is torrential rain it would be a good idea to use their head-lights, slow down and not tail-gate.  
(and they have crazy motorcyclists as mentioned earlier!)
 
*Kentucky needs to clean up their road-kill on the side of the road.  I can't count
the number of decaying creatures I drove past

*Alabama...oh Alabama.  To begin with, the speed limit signs are the starting off
point for speed negotiations.  We were probably the only ones that followed the signs.

If they had signs for upcoming road construction, it's a good bet that they wouldn't really have road construction. There were only 2 spots that actually did have road work going on.

I think they should pass out "I Survived Alabama Drivers" T-shirts once you cross the state line.  They are a crazy group of drivers if ever I saw some.

*Florida posts signs once you come across the border from Alabama warning you they mean business about enforcing the speed limit.  Hmm...I wonder why?!? 

I am ever so thankful to have shared these memories with J.M. I will treasure them always.  Enjoy the photos!

Downtown Nashville

Margaritaville!

Honky Tonk

At Tootsie's listening to music

Random Space Rocket to greet you in Alabama

Toes in the Sand

Pretty Lady

Silly Girl

Beach Babes!

View from our hotel room

Fried Green Tomatoes

Yum!

Had random bar guy take our picture. He asked if it looked ok, we said "sure"

Waiting for food

Morning on the beach

See, it was really foggy!!!

Chill-axin

Ahh...this is the life

Ready for the wedding

Oooh-la-la

Me and the Groom

KU fans in Nashville

New Shoes, Outside Play and a New Recipe

'Tis the season to get the kiddos new shoes for spring/summer.  The boys requested Spiderman flip-flops (yes, I'm pretty sure I have passed on my, um, "love" for these type of shoes).  As previously mentioned, Samara picked out a pair of light pink flip-flops on Saturday.  Last week I ordered her first ever pair of "Jelly" shoes.  It definitely felt like a flasback to the '80's, but it's all good.  The shoes came in today and Samara exclaimed, "Aren't they the prettiest Princess shoes ever?!?"  I'm guessing she likes them; she wore them until bedtime.  Aren't they adorable?

After we picked Malachi up from school, we played outside for nearly 2 hours.  The boys took turns riding a bike and a Big Wheel while pretending to be pizza delivery boys.  They were charging $50 for their pizzas.  A little steep on the price, huh?  Samara found a stroller in the garage and initially I thought she would want to push a dolly in it.  Instead, she wanted me to push her.  So for about 45 minutes I pushed her up and down our sidewalk. (it's a good thing we live on the corner so it took a little bit before we turned around to go the other way!).  She must not quite understand that the purpose of playing outside is to RUN off their energy not just sit!

It's always interesting to see what new things they discover.  This afternoon was about how a rock from our patio can make "chalk" on the cement.  They were all fascinated by this and tried multiple rocks to see what color "chalk" it made.  Right before it was time to go inside I was sitting on the back steps.  Malachi came up to me and out of the blue asked, "Do you know what I'm thankful for?"  Intrigued, I replied that I didn't know, but would love to find out.  He said (and in this order), "I'm thankful my DS, family, George, Bob, and our house."  I couldn't help but smile and give him a hug...even if he is getting to the age that he thinks he's too cool for a "mommy hug".

All 3 kiddos climbed up on the ledge and I couldn't help but take a picture.  Then they just HAD to have a silly-face pic!

On Sunday afternoon, I tried a new crock pot recipe.  It's delish and will certainly grace our table in the future.  I found it on the website:  www.crockingirls.com  I served it over rice.

Italian Cream Cheese Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons butter

1 package dry Italian salad dressing mix

1 can cream of chicken soup

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

Directions:

1. Melt butter in microwave.
2. Add water and packet of Italian dressing to butter and mix well.
3. Place chicken in slow cooker.
4. Pour butter mixture over chicken.
5. Turn pieces over to coat both sides well.
6. Cook on High for 3 hours.
7. In separate bowl, mix cream of chicken soup and cream cheese together.
8. Remove the chicken from the slow cooker and cut into bite size pieces.
9. Return chicken to slow cooker and add the cream cheese mixture.
10. Whisk together to blend well.
11. Cover and cook an additional 1/2 hour.

Serve over pasta or hot cooked rice.

T Minus 4 Days!

This Thursday morning I set off on a new adventure.  I am driving 12 hours to Nashville and staying the night with my bestie from my days at Baker University.  We'll call her JM.  She has planned dinner for us and then we'll walk around some of the sights. Friday morning she will accompany me to Gulf Shores, Alabama. I have another friend from Baker who is getting married there Saturday night....we'll call him CR. CR was one of our ushers at our wedding and we have stayed in contact over the many years.  I'm so blessed to be able to witness this new era in his life while hanging out with JM.

But 4 days is not a long time to get everything checked off on my to-do list.  This is a busy week as it is and to prepare for a 5 day trip will add to the intensity.  Alas, the thought of waking up to this view will keep me going..       

Shopping with Samara

I needed to exchange a shirt in Wichita today.  It was Isaiah's turn to go shopping with me, but he decided to stay home and watch James play a computer game and ride bikes in the park.  So Samara eagerly accompanied me.  On the way, she kept talking about the color pink and how "we like pink, but blue is 'dee-gusting'."  Our first stop was at the mall.  She obediently held my hand as we combed through the store to find a shirt that would fit better.  She was constantly pointing out "beautiful" shirts and asking me if we should get it.  I finally found a few to try on and she was more than happy to give me her opinion.  I settled on a blue shirt <gasp>; while at the register, I had to try to explain the concept of an exchange.  She got the jest of it.

Next, we went to Old Navy to look at their flip-flops.  She immediately noticed the chid-size mannequins and begged to give them a hug and shake their hands.  It felt a little weird to pick her up so she could hug them, but it was super sweet, too.  She found a pair of pink flip-flops (no surprise) and I found a pair of gray ones. 

We then stopped at Target.  I needed to grab some beverages/snacks and sunglasses for my impending road-trip (will blog about that soon).  Samara also needed a new swimsuit and sunglasses.  She chose a pink Princess suit that has a tutu attached and a pair of Hello Kitty pink sunglasses.  In the car, she was struggling to stay awake and she just looked darling looking out of her pink shades.

It's so much fun to have a little girl to share the joy of shopping with.  May we have many years of shopping trips =) 

That Didn't Last Long

The boys' careers in karate is over.  After a few sessions, Isaiah said he wanted a break and he would go back when he was a daddy.  We don't want to push them into activities they aren't interested in, but also want them to really think about quitting before they actually quit for good. We said he could take some time off and then see if he wanted to go back. So for the past month he didn't attend and it truly didn't phase him when Malachi left for class.  Then a few weeks ago Malachi mentioned that he would like to try gymnastics.  James took him to look in on a class and Malachi was super excited about it.  Isaiah said he wanted to try it, too.

So tonight was the boys' first class of gymnastics.  I was at a doctor's appointment and had to miss it so I asked them all about it.
               
                  Me:  How was class?
                  Isaiah:  It was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!!
                  Me:  What was your favorite part?
                  Isaiah:  E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!!!!
   
And Malachi had identical answers.  I guess for now we have 2 gymnasts; hoping this will last more than a month or two =)

We Are Called...

For the past few weeks, my Monday night Bible study girls have been studying Beth Moore's Mercy Triumphs study on the book of James.  If you have never delved into that book of the Bible, hold onto your hearts because it has been one of the most convicting yet strangely hopeful books I've read and studied.  I could write many posts on it, but instead I would encourage you to dig in and study it for yourself.

Anyway, last night Beth Moore talked about how we, as Christians, need to mindful that we are not "of" the world (something I've heard time and time again).  But, she was also talking about being mindful of where we get our "high" in life...is it in clothes, food, etc?  She then said a phrase that will stay with me for quite some time.  "There is no high like the Most High."  Hmm...thought provoking. She also discussed how we, as Christians, can not become cynical

After Bible study was over, my shopping buddy and I stayed late and chatted with some of the other girls.  We then left to grab a few needed items at Walmart.  But my buddy passed by Walmart and headed to Dillon's.  I just thought that maybe she forgot she needed something at the grocery store before they closed at 11pm.  (at this time, it was 10:50pm). We got out of our cars and she said she thought we should either get a little tub of ice cream or a piece of cheesecake.  How could I say "no"?  We headed straight to the cheesecake and grabbed the package that had 2 pieces.  Then we checked out the ice cream aisle to see what they had (and compared calories between the desserts.)  After keeping our initial choice of cheesecake, we went to the register.  There was a man with two elementary school kids checking out (we would later find out he was their grandpa.)  I had my back to them, talking to my friend.  Suddenly, my friend was going up to the register to check out the man's total.  I hadn't noticed, but she had.  The man didn't have enough money to cover his grocery bill so he was putting things back. He paid the cashier and was gathering everything up to leave.  The cashier scanned our cheesecake and then my friend felt God prompting her to get outside of her comfort zone and reach out to this grandpa.

She ever so kindly asked if she could pay for the items he had to discard.  He looked bewildered and asked, "Why would you want to do that?"  She replied because God wants her to.  He then said, "Ok."  There were 3 Dillon's employees present and they looked as stunned as the grandpa.  The cashier rang up the additional items and she paid for them.  The grandpa said how much he appreciated her doing that and then left with his grandkids.  We walked away with our cheesecake and the manager was locking the front door when we walked past and she thanked my friend for doing that.  

We went to my car and ate our yummy cheesecake and discussed what had just happened.  Did it matter that the food he discarded wasn't the most nutritious food?  No.  Who were we to judge what he was buying; when God prompts you to obey, who are we to rationalize why we shouldn't obey?   The week before at Bible study, Beth Moore talked about an experience at the gas station where there was a dad with his kiddos who had to push their car up to the pump because they were completely out.  Beth felt God nudging her so she asked him if she could pay for his gas and was able to show God's love to them through that situation.  But what if we can't afford to financially help someone out?  She suggested that we at least acknowledge their situation; tell them that we would love to help them out if we could.  Do not ignore their circumstances.

I have been wrestling with how God wants to use me in my current stage of life.  Being a stay at home mom has quite a bit of flexibility.  How can I be used to minister to those outside of my family and friends?  We are called to be God's hands and feet.  We don't have to be thousands of miles away to serve.  It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, either.  It could be paying for the $0.59 soda belonging to the person behind you at QT. Shoveling your elderly neighbors sidewalk after it snows, etc.  I want to show my kiddos how we, no matter how big or small we are, can serve God.    

New Decade, New Me

As mentioned before, my 20-something status is ending very soon.  In less than a year, I'll be embarking on my journey as a 30 year old.  For awhile, I have felt that I wanted to project a new image as a woman in my 30's (whether I felt like I was truly that old or not!) I want to wear clothing that is a little more sophisticated, a little more classy.  But, I wanted to be mindful, though, of obtaining this look on a budget.  I've watched enough "What Not to Wear" episodes to know that I need to get some basic items in order to obtain my "look".  These items need to be very versatile so that I can dress them up or down depending on the need.  While I will still enjoy some days of "lounging" around in sweats, I want to be more put together on a daily basis.

Before I started shopping, I took inventory of what I already had and purged my closet of clothing that I no longer wear or doesn't go with my new look.  I wanted to simplify my closet so that it wouldn't be difficult to pair items together. After doing that, I discovered that I had the basic pairs of jeans (minus a pair of skinny jeans...still trying to be brave enough to try a pair of those on!).  Recently, I found a pair of trouser jeans at the Goodwill; it only took a few months of looking for a pair, but I'm so thankful to not spend a lot on them!  Also, I have a few cardigans that will be great for layering.  There were some shirts that would also be good under cardigans.  But I was missing dresses, a jean skirt, shorts/capris and some shirts that could have multiple purposes.  I also needed some updated shoe choices since my basic flip-flops aren't exactly the most fashionable footwear (oh, I will still wear them, but not as often!!!)

So for the past week and a half, I've been browsing the Internet for deals on what I need.  If I didn't absolutely LOVE the item or if it wasn't versatile, I refused to purchase it.  One store had a 25% off everything sale plus free shipping.  I found needed items that were already on sale and then paired it with the 25% off, too.  I'm was pumped =)

It's been a big mind-change, though, because I used to flock to the "Junior" section of a store.  But I am now gravitating towards the "Women" section.  Now, I will still shop the Junior section from time to time, but I don't want to project a "Junior" image anymore. I also noticed that I was attracted to more "womanly" stores i.e. Ann Taylor, Gap, etc. instead of Forever21 or Maurices (I did however find some basics at Maurices that were more womanly and for a good deal so I ordered them.)  

Since I wasn't successful at finding a jean skirt that could be both causal or dressy at a reasonable price, I scoured eBay for one.  I found a brand new Ann Taylor skirt that is right above the knees.  It was under $10.  Couldn't beat that, eh?

Saturday afternoon my shopping buddy and I went to the Goodwill and I found a few more basic items.  I bought a pair of casual Bermuda shorts that will be great to go to the park in the summer; a pair of dark denim Bermuda shorts that can be worn with a wedge shoe or a simple sandal depending on the occasion.  I also found a few more shirts.  But I was super excited about a pair of Ann Taylor black wedge shoes.  I've never worn wedge, but I was really attracted to these shoes (and the price!). 

While a girl can't help but be excited about a new wardrobe, I'm also excited about how I am mentally trying to change my perception of the next decade.  Yes, I still can't believe I'm not going to be in my 20's anymore, but I'm beginning to think about how this new era is a time to focus on what I do well and the things I want to change about myself.  And that's exciting to me.

So watch out...I may not always be wearing a T-shirt, jeans, and a pony tail every time you see me.  And that's a good thing!

As Sweet As They Come and Ex-Girlfriends

I've had a horrible cough for about a month and a few days ago I spiked a low-grade fever (which I still have).  Because mommies don't get sick days, I've pressed onward even though I don't feel great. After we had a pizza party with root beer and a movie in the living room last night, I just needed to crash on the sofa.  Malachi really showed his sweet, nurturing side to me.  He tucked me in with a blanket and pillow and he came over about every 5-10 minutes to ask if I needed more water or if he could do anything for me.  When it was his bedtime, he brought over my laptop in case I felt like working on it.  He refilled my water because he wouldn't be around to do it anymore; he also said if I needed anything that I just needed to come get him and he would do whatever I needed.  I felt so proud that he would take such good care of his mama. 

While eating breakfast this morning, Isaiah decided to talk about James' ex-girlfriends (which we've never really talked about that with them so I have no idea WHERE it came from).  Anyway, Isaiah has the notion that James "lost" these girls by playing Hide and Seek, but when James met me, he didn't lose me and loved me so we got married.  LOL...oh Isaiah, I love how you think!