Brandon got home around 12:30 Saturday and we were all so excited. We played and then it was time for naps. He put both kids down, they didn't want anyone but him. (Of course!) It was great b/c we got to watch a movie together, something that very rarely happens. After naps we played some more and then headed to the Donut Hole for supper with the Ramages.

This morning Christopher came and got in the bed with us when he woke up and I didn't realize it. Next thing I know, the kids and Brandon come walking into the room with breakfast in bed for me. It was so sweet! Everybody was carrying something different. We did puzzles and played a game before heading off to church. It's beautiful outside and so when we got home, Christopher didn't even go inside, he just went straight to the backyard. Matt and William came over and everyone is playing and having popcorn. Tonight we are going to the Ramages to help them try out a new chili recipe and I'm going to bring some chocolate chip cookies.

I would say it has been a really, really good weekend!

I've been meaning to write something on here about just how much I love my husband, but wasn't exactly sure how to put it into words. See, I'm not very good with them. Words that is. He on the other hand is very good with them. He has talked, since before we met, about writing a book. His family is full of very good writers. He loves to think really deep and discuss what he's been thinking about. I'm not very good at this unless you want to analyze what someone wore to a red carpet event or the latest episode of Project Runway (which is funny b/c people don't come to ask me about fashion!). But I'm getting side tracked.

I knew after my first date (October 24th) with my husband that I was going to marry him. And that says something b/c I rarely went on multiple dates, or wanted to, with anyone I went out with. But I always knew that I would "just know" and if I dated someone for 6 months that he would have to be "the one". Before Brandon my longest relationships lasted 2-4 months at the most. But there was just something about him that stood out to me. He was funny and charming and handsome and I felt nervous and comfortable with him. He even asked me if I wanted to go to a wedding with him in a few weeks.... in California. I think we were both kind of kidding about it, but part of us thought it would really fun. I didn't go, but he wrote me a letter every day he was gone. This was 2 weeks after our first date.

About a month after we started dating my mom asked me if he'd want to go skiing with our family in December. My brother was bringing his girlfriend, my sister was bringing her boyfriend, I guess my mom didn't want me to feel left out. I think she just knew that Brandon was going to be around for a while. So, less than two months after dating, we were off skiing with my family. It was a great trip and funny b/c my siblings and I all ended up marrying the person we were dating then! (My brother got engaged on the trip!)

Christmas and birthdays came and went. We spent every day together that we could. We changed jobs, he went back to school part time and we had more fun hanging out than I ever thought possible. He was the first guy that I ever said I love you to. I wanted to save those words for the man I married and I was glad I did. You would have thought we had just gotten engaged when we finally said it! But we kind of had. We had agreed to never say that until we knew we meant it and that we would end up together.

13 months after our first date we got engaged. I thought the day would never come. I would have married him months earlier. We were on a cruise with his parents and grandmother (and a bunch of her retired friends) and after dinner one night we went to the back of the boat to talk and wait until a show started. He had a gift for me and this wasn't much of a surprise b/c he was always surprising me with little things. But as soon as I took the paper off the box and turned it over, I knew what it was. See, I had prayed over 10 years ago that God would do a little something for me. I only told a few people what I'd been praying for. That the guy I was to marry would give me a Bible with my married name on it. Part of me thought it was a little wrong to challenge God in this way, but I was more afraid of marrying the wrong guy. As I opened the lid of the box, Brandon slid to his knee. I saw my married name on the Bible and looked up to see him holding a ring and he asked me to marry him. My first words were, "Who told you about this?" He laughed and said nobody. I told him yes, we jumped up and down and kissed and off to the side there were two adorable black children that had been spying on us and they started screaming "congrat-ulations!!!!" over and over. (I tell you they were black b/c it drove Brandon crazy that I would point out every, single little black boy I saw when I was with him and squeal over how cute they are. There's just something about them that makes me want to pick them up and squish them they are so cute!!!! Plus you just have to imagine how this little boy and girl were saying Congratulations-- it was hilarious!!!)

Six months later we were married and had the most perfect wedding the two of us could have ever asked for. Thanks to his parents we had the most fun rehearsal dinner at the new minor league baseball stadium that opened up and we got to throw out the first pitch. The wedding day was fun and relaxing- for me, not my mom, I didn't know why until later. I didn't even have anyone to do my hair until a few hours before the wedding and I didn't care. Thankfully my cousin and aunt are pros and were more than happy to help me out. We danced and ate and visited and on our way to Atlanta our wedding party called to tell us to come back and go out with them. We were 2 seconds away from doing it, but had a very early flight in the morning we didn't wan to miss. Our honeymoon was great! We got more sleep than anyone should ever need and relaxed and ate more. It was great!

Two months after we got married we started medical school. It was hard. He was gone 6 days a week studying and going to class. We saw each other for 2 hours a day for dinner and the longest time we would have together was when we went to church together on Sunday morning. I missed him, but supported him. God blessed me with a job and friends to spend my time with so I wouldn't go crazy with all my alone time. I knew that it would be worth it in the end. I loved him after all and knew what an incredible doctor he would make one day.

Now here we are almost 6 years later and halfway through residency and I could not be more proud of him. He has worked incredibly hard, dealt with more frustrating people than I can count, been at the bottom when he thought he'd be anywhere but there by now and lost a lot of sleep. But he keeps going b/c that's what he does. He doesn't give up. He works at something until it's right.

God has given him a compassion that I wish others had a fraction of. He loves our kids beyond words. He loves me even more. He makes us laugh. He takes us on adventures. He loves to travel and wants us to see the world the way he was able to growing up. He loves to get dirty playing with the kids. He cooks. He's much better at cleaning than I am. He is so patient with me. He loves to serve others. He has a huge passion for missions. He wants our family to be strong and never give up. He challenges me constantly, for the better. He encourages me constantly. He is exactly who God picked just for me. God knew what I would need and He created that in Brandon. Tonight I got an email from Brandon about something he has written. It was about medicine and marriage. It is so incredibly beautiful and made me love him even more than I did the 5 minutes before I got it. He is a gifted man.

I love him so much and look forward to growing old with him. I pray that we have many, many years of fun and laughter together. That we only grow closer over time. I can't wait to see what is in store for us and our family. I pray that I have many more days where I look back on what we have and only see the good times we have shared. I love you, Brandon!!! You mean more to me than you will ever know!

Brandon comes home tomorrow and we can't wait to see him. The week has gone miraculously well and for that I am very thankful. Christopher had one "rude" day, but the rest were filled with lots of "i love you's" and please and thank yous. (YEAH!!) I think it helped that this was one of our busy weeks. Last night I picked up bbq and we had dinner at Wendi's house with her boys and her sweet, sweet friend Joan. It was so fun! Better run b/c we need to get ready for our day and take Christopher to school. Found out last night that Sophie has an ear infection. Thank you Matt for coming to check it out. She's been throwing these awful crying fits at night the last few nights and nothing consoles her. When she would try to fall asleep she would just rock her head back and forth. She'd finally calm down, but I knew something was wrong. Here's to hoping her cold is over soon!

How in the world could I have already lost the instruction manual to my sewing machine? Christopher wanted me to take it out of the box Monday morning and I set everything on the table with it. It's not small. It's basically a large soft cover book! I mailed off the warranty card and then put everything back in the box. Including the foam and plastic bags! So where in the world could it be? I got to the page that tell you how to plug it in and that's as far as I got. I'm starting to panic. I just checked to trash, but I seriously doubt it was thrown away. Maybe this is God's way of telling me that I need to do some serious cleaning up around here. Right now I'm just praying I find it. But until then I'm just going to keep asking... how?????????

Yesterday we got home from MOPS and I let Brick out front while we unloaded the van. I noticed something funny on his face and took over to see Wendi across the street. She told me it was a tick. AAAGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Brandon is gone all week. Pretty much every man I know that lives around here is gone all week and I have no clue how to remove a tick. I know you have to be really careful to get all of it, but since I'd never done it before, I wouldn't know if I had. I was also afraid that if he had one, he probably had more.

I think God knew that I was worried about this, so He took care of it. I found something on the floor a little while later that looked like the tick on his face. It was!!! Nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty!!! I got rid of it. I have no idea how it ended up on the floor, but I was a little bit glad it did b/c it meant that it just fell off. I checked Brick and that same tick was still there. But I was right, there ARE more than one. A little while later I found another one on the floor and there is no tick on his face. I was so grossed out I put Sophie bed, check her blanket for any unusual spots, and then vacuumed. I had no idea if it would even help, but it made me feel better.

Last night as the kids and I were getting ready for bed I found another one on the floor!! Geez! I got rid of it too. Have I mentioned I can't stand bugs? I like to think I'm not high maintenance, but this is one area where I'm the one on the table yelling, "HELP HELP!" But you do what you have to do. Smashing a tick is not on any form of a list of things to do, but if that's what it takes to make sure nobody else gets it, I'll do it. I hope that we don't have any more showing up around here, but at least they are easy to find.

Oh, and my friend Tiffany said that oil can help remove them. It suffocates them and they fall off. Brandon gave Brick a bath before he left on Monday afternoon and the shampoo must have done the trick! Here's to hoping no more ticks!!

This past weekend we went to my parents house at "the lake." I absolutely love it there! It's my most favoritest place on this earth. And it made it even a hundred time better because my husband was able to join the kids and I this time. Usually we head up there without him because his schedule is crazy and it's easier for us to just go somewhere, but not this time.

We got there early evening on Friday and had supper while the kids played. Too busy to eat. Brick was going crazy because he loves being there more than anyone. (He never sleeps that first night b/c he wants to play, play, play!!!) The kids didn't really nap on the way there either so we put them to bed and followed right behind them. Saturday morning I got up with Sophie and passed her off to my mom so I could go back to bed. After a little while I heard Christopher running down the hallway (he adores Grammie with every ounce of his being.) and I just couldn't go back to sleep. I was lying there and then I remembered something, it was my birthday! Have you ever woken up and realized today was your birthday? Yeah, never thought I would forget that either.

I went into the kitchen and found Grammie and two little helpers making yummy biscuits. I had to leave b/c they were going to decorate and I got out of bed too soon. So I went to the other room to read for a while and Christopher came running in with a bag of balloons asking me to help him blow them up. We laughed and played with them. It was great! The day only got better. The weather could not have been more perfect, and it sounded like everyone was experiencing the same thing where they lived. We played outside and the kids got good and muddy, especially Christopher! We went in to clean up and then Brandon and I left to go have a special lunch just the two of us. When we got back, he went to nap. Later the four of us went on an adventure with the dogs and stomped through mud and trees and rocks. It was great! We had homemade chicken pot pie for supper and homemade chocolate cream pie for dessert. It was delicious! We watched more Olympics and then all went to bed.

Sunday morning we woke up, had breakfast and headed to Auburn to go see Aunt Jenny and Uncle Trey dedicate Anne Morgan at their church. It was so special to be there! We haven't been able to do this for all of the nieces/nephews, so we were glad to make it hers. She is the sweetest, most well behaved baby I have ever seen! I honestly can't remember her being fussy or crying about anything. My kids love her, just like they love all babies, and Christopher was upset when he found out that she is growing. He wants her to always stay a baby so he can hold her. I told him he can always find a baby to hold and not to worry. Jennifer made a fabulous lunch and cake for everyone. We finally had to hit the road and didn't get home until about 8:00 that night, but it was a great trip and I could not have asked for a better weekend if I planned it myself! Ok, so I guess I kind of did b/c I invited ourselves to the lake and to Auburn, but still!

Oh, and if you are wondering what I got for my birthday, I put all of my money together and bought this:

I'm very excited about owning it and dying to start learning how to use it. But it will have to wait. I have too much on my plate right now to figure it out. I'm planning on spending with with my mom soon so she can finally teach me (again) how to sew. She tried when I was a kid, but at 8 years old you think you'll always be living with your parents so why learn to do something your mom can do anytime you ask? Oh young people! My plan is to be able to do pillows and curtains and simple crafts like that. Hopefully I'll also learn how to make simple jumpers for Sophie too. But I'm setting the bar very low right now.

I think this post has been long enough. I have a few photos from the weekend, but don't have a way to download them right now. Brandon left for a week long conference out of town and took his computer with him. It'll have to wait until he gets back this weekend. I'm out!

Is it bad if your just turned 2 child starts yelling "moon! moon! moon!" as soon as you start a Dreamworks movie? You know, the one with the blue sky and the balloons float up the sky to where the boy is sitting in the moon? Yup, the very second it came on Sophie knew what was to come. We may be saving money by cutting out cable, but I'm thinking we aren't saving the kids brain cells by doing so.

A few weeks ago I borrowed Julie and Julia from a friend. I loved it! (Even C-dawg got into it.) Today Christopher and I watched Enchanted during nap time while I folded some laundry. It made me realize even more how much I love Amy Adams. Isn't she just adorable? She plays a fairytale princess perfectly! I have loved everything I've seen her in, these are just the most recent viewings. And she has a beautiful singing voice on top of it. (James Marsden isn't too shabby himself!) I just turned it on again for the kids to watch. Sophie missed our little matinee, so I thought I'd let her see it.

You see, Sophie loves to sing. Let me rephrase that, I really mean LOVES to sing! Last night Brandon pulled the guitar out and let the kids take turns strumming a tune. Sophie sang "ba, ba, ba, ba, ba...." the whole time she strummed. It was adorable! I got several videos of it, just need to download it. This afternoon she went and got Christopher's guitar out and started singing along with it as well. It's so cute! (Christopher just asked Sophie if she liked the movie so far. How cute! -- She replied with, "ba ba")

You'd have to be living under a rock to not know who she is or at least recognize her. I just love when someone with great talent does well. On a completely different note, I'm off to load the dishwasher and pretend my voice is as cute as hers. Don't you hate the way you sound on your own voice mail? I do. That's the only reason I'm not famous. Right? That and the absolute shaking fear I have of being on camera or in front of a crowd of 2+ people. My man just called and is on his way home. Yipee!!!