I FINALLY GOT MY PICS FROM SAN ANTONIO!!!

Ok so we just back from San Antonio yesterday at about 4:00 pm. We did have a lot of fun. We pre bowled for our bowling league on Friday night at 10:00 pm and then left at 5:00 am on Saturday for San Antonio. We arrived there around 9:15 am and met Katrina and Zak at their hotel and then all rode together to Sea World and made it there by 10 am when it opened. We had a lot of fun and the shows there were great. I have some pics below. The only draw back was that I couldn’t ride any of the rides since I am 6 months pregnant. No one ever assumes I am preg and that is the only reason I wish I was bigger bc it seems that everyone forgets I am preg and cant do the same things that they can do. Anyway I sat for an hour to 2 hours everytime they went on a ride but they had a ton of fun and so it was worth it. It was ok, I bonded w the bees and the ants bc they wouldn’t leave me alone to save their lives. Haha. Anyway then Mandrae went over to the game row and I saw an elmo that was holding a building block that had an A on it and I had to have it for Anissa. So Mandrae played the game where u have to hit the platform and make the ball hit the bell at the top of the machine. He hit it so SO SO hard that he pretty much broke it bc he wanted to make sure and get that elmo for Nissy. It was hilarious. We were like did he hit it? It was so fast you could barely tell. So yeah we got Nissy the lil elmo w her A on it. It is cute. But yeah we did the whole park and by 4:00 pm we were exhausted and ready to leave. Then we all went to Bill Millers BBQ and are BBQ and it was so so good! I wish they had them in Fort Worth. Then we took Katrina and Zak back to their hotel so they could shower and Mandrae and I went to Kid to Kid and bought nissa some lil outfits and I got 2 maternity dresses. Then we went back and talked to Katrina and Zak forever in the parking lot til about midnight. After that we drove 30 min to our hotel in New Braunfels. It was good to see them.
The next day we went to our time share presentation and were there for 6 hours and almost bought the program. O man it was so tempting bc it would be PERFECT for our family! But today Mandrae found the program on Craigslist for free so we might just do that. Man he is good finding deals! Then we went to Olive Garden to eat for free from our gift from the timeshare and then headed off to the Mexican Market (the Mercado). And I tell you what their prices are ridiculous! They are way too high and not worth it at all and they have some nasty stuff in their too! After that we headed to the Riverwalk and walked around, it seems bigger than I remember with a lot of new stuff but still pretty much the same. After a few hours of walking we took a boat ride and that was so fun! The tour guide was awesome and we learned a lot. Then when we got back someone was yelling mandraes name and it was his cousin Jason who he had not seen in like 3 years. And he was with his wife and they got married in the same year and same month as we did. They were so nice and so much fun and so we got to go eat dinner with them on the riverwalk. It was a lot of fun. We wish they lived here by us so we could all hang out all the time. We got back to our hotel around midnight again and I passed out while Mandrae went to the hot tub.
Then on Sunday morning we took off around 10:30 am and while were driving home we saw a theme park called Wonder World. So we went there and they said that they had a wildlife petting zoo tour and I wanted to go so so bad. They also had a cave tour and a funny house but it was too expensive to do it all so I begged him to let me take the petting zoo tour bc I would do anything to pet animals. I have been there before when I was real lil on a school field trip and so it was fun just to be there. Well we get on this train and go under a waterfall and then guess what we get to pet?- DEER! I have seen plenty of deer living in KS and that was nothing too exciting. Yeah they were cute but that is all we got to pet and feed! THAT IS IT! Then we took the train around in a circle to see turkeys, goats and llamas. That is all!! For like 10 minutes. Guess how much that cost us? $15!!!! Yeah what a waste!! We were disappointed and poor mandrae just wanted to see the cave but I was selfish and had to pet the animals. URGH! So yeah we then drove home and got home around 4 pm that day to pick up Bebe. I tell you what Bebe had a blast! She was with 4 male dogs and was busy all the time and Jeanene (the lady that took her) spoiled her w walks everyday. She also spoon fed her every 20 min so that she wouldn’t throw up and tore up her treats til she chewed them and then she let her swallow. She also bathed her and let her sleep with them. She was so good to her. So Bebe was happy.
So all in all we had a great weekend vacation. It was exhausting and I am so so tired. We prolly walked 50 miles total this whole weekend and so I got my workout in that is for sure!


The entrance to sea world on our first day there.

The first show we watched

The only pic I got of Katrina and Zak! That is sad. Sorry guys. I dont know where my head was!

The Shamu show.

One of the rides they rode and I was standing on the outside watching. These waits were forever but were worth it bc they had a blast on the rides.

This was their favorite ride ever!! they rode it 2 times

The penguins. i love penguins. i could watch them all day.

our fav. show! the walrus was doing sit ups! crazy huh?

in the aquarium w the sharks and sting rays and fish

oops it is sideways- o well

in the mercado in downtown san antonio

on the riverwalk, it looks alot nicer

we stopped at wonder world. this is the entrance to the lamo petting zoo

I figured it out!!!

I FIGURED IT OUT
so the other day I was watching tv and I think that I found the answer to all of my questions. So I dont think all of you know what was happening about 6 months ago before I got pregnant but I was passing out and having mini strokes and had been to many doctors who did not know what was going on with me and I was unsafe to drive or do anything. They had done around 6 to 8 MRIs on my brain and my neck to see why I was blacking out and get light headed and just randomly passing out. In my MRIs it showed signs of mini stokes - I think it was like 5 that had recently happened and they could not explain them. The last thing that happened is that they wanted to do heart test because they thought that I had a hole in my heart. The treatment was so expensive that I stopped going to the dr. Well ever since I have been pregnant I have not experienced any of these symptoms really and it just seemed to have gone away. I couldnt figure what it was. Well the other day I was watching tv and there was a commercial on tv that said if you have take yasmin or yaz and have experienced strokes, migraines (another side effect I had) and it listed some more things that I need to call that # to file a lawsuit. I started to think about it and the whole time I was on YAZ and was passing out. The months of Jan and Feb when I went off Yaz is right around when I started to feel better. I am now convinced that these strokes and blacking out spells were all caused from Yaz. So now I know to never to do that again. Which wont happen bc I dont plan on going on birth control ever again anyway but I am relieved that I think I found out the cause. Crazy huh???? Would it be ungodly and unchristian to sue or to call that # and pursue monitary value for my pain and suffering and dr bills??????

Fun Weekend/ Growing Pains

So this last weekend, Mandrae and I had a lot of fun. We went garage sale shopping on Saturday morning ( I promise that is my favorite thing to do). We bought 2 board games- Scrabble and Uno (some crazy uno game where the cards spit out at you). We also bought a lil tv to go in the guest room or in the baby room so Anissa can watch videos because I have a bunch of cartoon videos for her. It was $5. I bought some shirts and a dress. And then we bought Anissa 12 books and they are all pretty much dr. suess books for .25 cents a piece. They are the best books ever! I love them. So we did good for ourselves and spent i believe $15 total. We also got a free massager out of it too. Then we went and got me a belly band for my pants so I can keep wearing my pants and just leave them all unbuttoned. Then we went home and played Scrabble all day and yes he beat me every time! URGH! And I am always winning by a ton to begin with. Then at 3:10 we went to see The Time Travelers Wife because Mandrae kept hearing how good it was. We got to the movie like 10 minutes late and we were so confused! It is a crazy weird movie and super confusing. Then by the middle of the movie it was making more sense. We almost left and went to a different movie too. At the end it was so so sad and I was crying (well I cry pretty much to everything now a days!). And he was like ahhh.... it made u cry and then all of a sudden we hear all these runny noses and all these people blowing their nose and bawling. So we turn around only to see the whole theatre full of glasses! It was packed full of elderly people bawling their eyes off. It was hilarious. So we leave and are standing in line at the snack bar to buy 4 $1 hotdogs and out walk all these ladies w their faces drenched in tears and are still crying and cant control themselves. Never seen anything like it! It was hilarious. It was a sad movie but ended really good.
And I am telling you this baby wants out! This morning I woke up due to a baby trying to pry her way out of my stomach! I promise her whole body was pushed again my belly button with her legs pushing on my insides to try to either get out or make more room in there! It was the craziest thing I have ever seen and felt. I promise my stomach is way more stretched out now- thanks to her! CRAZY GIRL! But yeah i can move my stomach around now and see her moving w it! It is hilarious. She will be one strong one bc she punches, kicks, pushes, and who knows what else she is doing in there to get herself out. She really wants out!

6 months and double digits

ok so I am now at the 6 month mark and yesterday I had my dr. appt. I have now officially gained a total of 11 lbs. I am gaining to be around a lb a week now and so that is not too bad and right about what they suggest. The dr. did say that I am small for 6 months though compared to others but some people just hold it in tighter than others she said. So anyway the newest symptom of my pregnancy is now NIGHTMARES! I have VIVID HORRIBLE AWEFUL nightmares every night and around like 5 of them a night. I wake up crying all the time. They are not good. My family is always dying around me! And for some reason lil Boots (bebe) always get tortured or dies in them. And Mandrae seems to die a lot too. So I find myself waking up a lot not only to pee but to check to make sure my babies are still alive. The other day I had a dream that I was at six flags with my cousin Rachel (not sure why?) and she wanted to ride the rides and so I felt obligated to ride them and I kinda forgot I was preg and that it was a big deal and so I rode them. I would get to the top of the roller coaster and just before the coaster was about to dive down 500 ft I would remember I was preg and start screaming. I could feel my stomach leave my body and just felt like I killed Anissa. It was horrible and the worst part is that it didn’t stop w one ride. I rode prolly 10 rides that day and everytime I forgot I was preg and just kept doing it and screaming and I woke up convinced that I killed Anissa and that this dream was REAL! It 2 days for me to convince myself that I didn’t really go to Six Flags. Then last night I was riding a horse and some girl was chasing me and the horse and bebe and she was beating us. She wanted to kill us and we didn’t know why. The horse was tired and wouldn’t barely move and she would catch us and torture the horse and torture bebe! I would beat her up but was too scared to kill her bc I didn’t want to be mean and so I spent the whole night running from her but it was so real! And I know it sounds dumb but it felt like it was really happening and even when I would wake up 12 times a nite to pee I would still go back to bed w the same dream continuing and I would open my eyes and pray for a new topic to dream about but it was always something aweful. I think the worst one though was when I was stuck in a tornado that kept coming back and everytime it came back in the same nite it would kill someone in my family. My family was all w me and dying left and right. Even lil Parker was there. And it was come and then leave and come right back for someone else til we were all gone and there was no where to hide from it. It had eyes and knew where u were. It was horrible. Right before it killed me I woke up and wanted to throw up. O goodness – help me!!
On top of that the dr told me not to sleep on my back bc it can cut off the blood supply to the baby and that is the ONLY way that I can get comfortable at nite. I cannot sleep on my side to save my life! So I wake up on my back scared the baby isn’t ok. Plus she kicks really hard every time I get on my back. It scares me. Maybe she is struggling or something. Well anyway I am going to prop myself up tonite and sleep on my back at an angle like I am kinda sitting up and that should solve all my probs. I hope!
This preg thing is no joke!!!

I gotta share!

Ok I gotta share these cutie pics my mom sent of her swimming and then at bath time. Lil Parker is so cute. I hope Anissa is just as cute!

HELP ME!

Ok so all of you moms out there that have been pregnant please help me out.
Mandrae thinks that if I walk everyday that I will have less pain when delivering and that exercise will take away the pain. I keep telling him that it wont ever take away the pain bc the baby will stretch ur bones and flesh period and the pain will not change but it will help with labor and making it go smoother and possibly faster. Right??
I think that I am right and he thinks that he is right. What do u think?
Will walking - starting now - make the birthing process less painful?

before and after :)

So here is my lil neice Parker. The cutest baby in the world. This was my favorite pic of her. The first time I ever saw her. She was so tiny and I couldnt get over how cute she was. And then my mom sent me a pic of her in the bathtub last nite and now I really cant get over how funny cute she is!!!! O man that picture should be in ALL kinds of contests!!!

BEFORE

AFTER

POST 100!!! And what a great way to celebrate # 100! :)

Ok so I have to share the sweetest thing that has ever happened to me. Yesterday I felt aweful all day long at work. My stomach and my head were in so much pain and I just wanted to go home and go to bed. My husband doesn’t work on Wednesdays and so he was home and I told him I wasn’t feeling good and that my day at work with reviews was really bad and he said that he would take care of me when I got home. He also texted me all day saying that he was thinking about me and loved me. SO sweet. So when I got home he had made me a salad for dinner and said that he had a surprise for me and I got excited and then said no just kidding. So I then thought that there was no surprise and didn’t think anything of it. So we were watching “More to Love” and he had to go to his new bowling league soon and so he said that he had to give me my surprise before he left and I just wanted to finish the show. So he took me into the bathroom and there were candles all along the side of the bathtub and the bathtub had bubbles in it and looked awesome and was not too hot since I am pregnant. It was PERFECT! It felt so good and was so so sweet. Then on the side of the bathtub was a card. I opened the card and it had a long saying about how he falls in love me more every day and so on and it was the sweetest words ever. All I could think was how sweet it was but I wished that he had wrote them himself. Well then I get to the inside of the card and there was a book written by him to me! It was like he could read my mind! He has NEVER written that much and I am telling you that it was so deep and so sweet that I couldn’t take it!!! I have never heard anything like that in my life! WOW!!! Well then on the card is a bowl of cherries and I love cherries and so in comes my husband again with a big bowl of cherries for me to eat in the bathtub. Man he really went to a lot of work for me and it took a lot of thought. Then on top of that he brings me a coupon (shaped like a ticket) that he made himself that says “1 ticket for 2 to the Dallas Zoo on August 30th after church.” I have been bugging him for a while to take me to the zoo but he is not animal crazy like I am and so he always said no. He was on a ROLE! I am so excited to go to the zoo. Then to finish off the best surprise of my life he gave me a massage (and no I don’t like massages but I have a huge rash on my back from being pregnant that hurts really bad and so he rubbed anti itch medicine on it for me). I am telling you that I have the best husband that anyone could ever ask for and I am so so lucky!!! How did I get so lucky? And did I mention that he also does almost all of the cleaning and so everyday when I come home from work the whole house is always clean! He doesn’t expect me to cook bc I am always tired from work and I don’t really enjoy it anyway. Man I just have the best life ever. Anissa will be so happy to have a dad like Mandrae! We are truly blessed!

Caught in the act :)

So on Monday when I was off work and staying at home, I slept in til 2:00 pm. (I know that is so bad but we didnt go to bed til like 3 am that morning). Then I was searching the house for Bebe bc she was no where to be found. She wasnt in her bed, in my bed, at her food dish, on her spot on the couch, wasnt in the baby room or guest room, wasnt on the stairs or in the pantry waiting on her dog treats, and she wasnt in the laundry room waiting on her papa to get home. I was stumped and then I thought o wait maybe she is outside. I went to the door and I got a glimpse of what she does all day when we are gone. I couldnt take how cute it was!!!! I know these pics do it no justice bc she looks far away in the pics but O MY GOODNESS it was the cutest thing in the whole world. What would I do without her to laugh at? Especially when she lays in the 110 degree sun. Who does that? (.............ok well I used to)

kick kick

Man I tell you what, pregnancy is a crazy thing! It is so funny to me to feel Anissa move and kick me. I love it bc other than that I don’t really feel pregnant. Yeah I sure do look it but I just feel fat and not really pregnant right now. A lot of times I totally forget that I am pregnant all together. I mean I do get outta breath a lot and you would think that would be a huge reminder and the fact that I look and feel like Humpty Dumpty but other than that I keep forgetting that I am pregnant. The other day I was sitting on the couch and I passed out (I sure am ALWAYS tired) and then Anissa kicked me REAL hard and I woke right up and it scared me so bad and it hurt. Haha. Crazy! Guess she didn’t want me to sleep. Right now the worst part of the best month of pregnancy (I am over half way through my 5th month and it is the best bc I am not sick and not overly huge) is my acid reflex. Man I know this will sound gross but I cant sleep bc all I do at nite is throw up in my mouth. And I am so tired that I cant wake up and go throw up so I keep swallowing it all nite and just have crazy dreams that I am eating something disgusting! Yeah it is sick and it is SO uncomfortable. It feels like when I was at Tabor and I used (haha haha haha haha haha haha haha haha- Anissa must know I am talking about her bc she is doing summersaults in my stomach right now…..haha haha haha haha haha haha haha) to overeat after track practice and then try to work out again and I just had all of that food sitting in my throat bc it wouldn’t fit in my stomach. Haha. Man sorry that is gross. But now you know how I feel. So yeah pregnancy is a crazy thing! Boy do I wish our husbands could feel what we feel! If I was the one that made men I would have had them be able to experience all the pains, fatigue, the funny lil kicks (which soon will not be so funny I am sure bc she will be kicking my ribs), the nausea, constipation, being outta breath by walking, labor pains, being poked w all kinds of tests, emotions, swallowing horse pills (even though I refuse to), ect. But if men could experience that then our lives would be upside down bc then there would 2 emotionally unstable and in pain people in the house wining about the pain and no one to do the house work or to lean on for support. So I guess that is why God made men different. Hmmm……….. it all makes sense now. But I still wish every once in a while God would show our husbands a lil fragment of the pain!

Ok here are pics!!! NASTY ONES!

Ok so I had Kris at work take pics of me in my dress that makes me look the MOST pregnant and let me tell you that I had no idea that I looked this big until I saw the pics!!! I AM HUGE! But here u go! :)

Whats happening now.

Good news: Mandrae tested negative for cystic fibrosis and so Anissa has no way of getting it. YAY!

And pregnancy is scary. On Saturday I started bleeding and we had tickets to a circus called Universoul Circus (it’s a black circus where they do stunts to hip hop, rap, r & b and gospel with mostly black performers). We had tickets for 4:00pm and I called my doctor and let her know that was bleeding for 4 hours and she told me to go to labor and delivery to get checked since I am RH-. So we ended up going to the dr instead of the circus and we were so disappointed! The dr. checked Anissa’s heartbeat and Anissa was moving around like crazy and her heartbeat was fine so they let me go with strict orders to not have sex for a week. (sorry I didn’t mean to share that) Anyway then we went to the circus to see if we could get into the 7:30 show since we had paid $50 for the tickets and all the shows were sold out and so they agreed to let us sit on folding chairs at the 12:30 show on Sunday. So we got to go to the show on Sunday after church and we got good seats too and it was the best circus I have ever seen! There were not a lot of animals so I wasn’t sad the whole time thinking that they abuse them and getting upset. There was a lot of performers doing all kinds of things and the host was a lil old lady (well a like 29 year old woman playing an old lady- kinda like madea) and she was hilarious! They had people in the audience come down and do dance offs on the stage and did some magic tricks that made me and Mandrae SPEECHLESS! It was just a lot of fun other than being 150 degrees inside the tent. Haha.

Anyway on Friday mom and dad are coming to our house for our first launch party on Saturday at 2:00 pm with Private Quarters and we have invited like 100 people and I am so excited! I hope it goes good. I have a lot of people interested but the tricky part is getting them to our house bc I know a lot of people that tell me they will be there and never show up.

Then on August 15th we get to go to San Antonio!!! And we get to see Katrina and Zak on the 15th and hopefully get to go to Sea World too. So we have some exciting weekends! Just too bad we don’t get to see Parker BUT then we have a baby shower in Hutchinson on September 13th and then we will get to see lil Parker and it will all be good. So yeah we have a lot of things to look forward to.

Question: Is it weird or rude or tacky to throw your own baby shower?
My sister is throwing me a friends and family shower in Kansas and then my friend Kris from work is throwing me a work shower at her house and my church wants us to have a shower and wants to be invited but no one has volunteered to throw it so would it be tacky for us to throw our own baby shower for church and maybe for people from Mandraes job as well?? I know that sounds sad but it is the way it is.