25 Secrets of Happy Moms~ Secret # 21:)

I love reading parenting magazines for a lot of reasons. To get new ideas and insight, to find out the latest info, to read about things that relate to my life right now, and to feel connected with other moms like me. When editors ask questions that inspire me, I usually respond. I have been lucky enough to have two responses I've written published in American Baby magazine within the last year and a half. I thought that was kinda neat, but I was really suprised when I saw something I'd written in this article by Parents magazine! Check out "secret" #21 at this link written by yours truly;)

25 Secrets of Happy Moms

Hope everyone is enjoying this lovely spring weekend and soaking up lots of family time!:)

Beachy Post:)

I am one lucky girl:) To celebrate Mother's Day this year we made the short 1 1/2 hour trip to Emerald Isle for the weekend. ( I so appreciate how convenient it is to live so close to the beach!) Our Saturday was spent with our sweet friends the Braxton's on the beach soaking up the sun. Unfortunately we didn't get too many pics that day because we were so busy chasing kids:) But my girl's sure did love their 10 month old Knox and I loved getting to have his momma Jordan to hang out with:)

Day 2 ~ Aka~ Mother's Day was awesome. We spent it playing with the kids on the beach near fort macon and relaxing just the 5 of us. It truly was a perfect Mother's Day. Of course Hailey, who has been studying the pirate Blackbeard, was filling us in on all kinds of fun trivia. Like that Blackbeard's house, the Hammock house, is a few miles away in Beaufort and that his ship is, according to Hailey, underwater 12 miles off the coast at fort macon. I love that she is really into history like her momma:) We saw lots of fins in the water which were, of course, dolphins. Though you never know on the NC coast!. Tons were out Mother's day, jumping all around near shore. It was so much fun for the girls to watch! And the subject of fins brings us to our all time favorite week of summer~~~~ SHark week~~~. Yes, we know we have a couple of months to wait, but we are shark fanatics here and we anxiously await it every summer. And we are getting so close to summer! Just a few short weeks of school left for the girls and then off to Myrtle beach for our summer vacation! Can you tell I'm getting just a little bit excited for summer.... until then here are our pics from our beach Mother's Day!

Happy late Mother's Day to all of my fellow blogging mommies!! ( Okay, I'm a few days late but, hey, I'm a mother of three and part time worker bee. But I do try:)

Happy Nurse's Week!!

Yes, I have a stomach of steel (except when I'm pregnant) and absolutely nothing embarrasses me:) Happy Nurse's Week to all of my fellow nurses:)

~A Happy Birthday Weekend~

Happy Friday!! Work tonite and then on to the weekend!! We are celebrating Mary Kathryn's birthday Saturday, complete with a sleepover, movie night, and trip to the yogurt shoppe. Below is a picture of her after school on Wednesday (her actual bday). She wore her "birthday girl" pin and took lots of cupcakes for her classmates at snack time. Yes, the ones I stayed up all night to bake:)

Happy 7th Birthday to my precious Mary Kathryn!!

Part II of photo catch up

Well, It's midnight and I have just gotten home from a very busy night at work with some very sick people. And it's a good thing that I am way too wound up to sleep, because I am baking 3 dozen cupcakes for Mary Kathryn to take to school for her birthday tomorrow. And what do I notice on the kitchen counter when I get home?? Krispie kreme donuts, that's what! How in the world am I supposed to ignore those when the smell of cupcakes is making me want something sweet??!:) I"ll let you guess whether I ate one or not....:)
So before I ramble on anymore in my sleep deprived state, I am going to go on and post the pictures we took Easter Sunday:) Unfortunately, Michael had to work that weekend, but the girls and I went to church and then to my sister and brother-in-law's house for dinner and an Easter egg hunt. It was a gorgeous day and Crystal and Chris are excellent cooks, so we all had a blast and brought lots of food home for Michael to eat when he got off work.
I could not, for the life of me, get all three girls to look at the camera, but this one is the best of all three that I could get.

The girls and I

So now I am off to bed to get a few hours of sleep before the girls wake up. Luckily no work tomorrow yay!:)

~Part I of our photo catch up~

We are having a fantabulous day around here! The girls are at school and Bella and I have cleaned up, done laundry, made a trip to Target and now we are getting some rest time before picking the girls up. These are my kind of days!! And luckily they are more and more common around here:) I am ignoring the fact that I have to work from 7-11 tonite but maybe I can get a little nap in later;). Now on to a few of the many pictures I have stored on my camera, just waiting to be documented permanently on this blog. I'm seeing a blog book in the future and I want to make sure we are all caught up from the last few months of a crummy work schedule. These pictures were from a really warm day we were having and I was chasing Bella around the yard snapping away. The girls were at school but I have plenty of them coming up on a later post.

I think Bella was completely over our impromtu photo shoot by the time we took this last picture.

I would think she would be used to it by now:)

My husband is.....

I've been wanting to do this post for a while now. I get so busy posting about those sweet little girls who fill my every waking hour, that my intentions get pushed to the side for another time. But, I think it is well past time that I took a few moments to devote to the person that was my everything before my everythings were born. You know, the reason why those precious little ones are here in the first place;)

So let me just lay it all out there...

My husband is
Hilarious.
Yes, I mean laugh out loud
Funny,
without even trying,
and that in itself is why he can just crack me up.
Most people,
think he's reserved.
They have no idea.
Those of us that are lucky enough,
to really know him,
get treated to his sense of humor a lot:)

My husband is super sweet.
Like almost too good to be true, sweet.
Like coffee when I wake up, sweet.
Foot rubs every night he's not working, sweet.
Brings my favorite candy bar home, sweet.
Stays up after working night shift to watch the girls,
so that I can sleep in, sweet.
First one to tease me out of an argument,
and make me laugh when I'm trying to be angry, sweet:)

My husband is
an awesome father.
I can see so much love in his eyes,
when he looks at our girls,
that it's unbelievable.
You can just see it in his eyes.
He spends time with them.
Doing things they like to do.
Girly things, like dolls, and making beaded necklaces.
Watching Angelina Ballerina and Shake it up.
When he has so little time to do things he likes to do.
And they love him to pieces,
because they can feel how much he loves them.

My husband is
my best friend.
The Best.
Really.
We put up with each other,
and think things are cute,
that I'm sure others would find annoying:)
Like how I always forget the words to well known sayings,
and then say them anyway. The wrong way:) 
Like how he will absolutely not ask for directions.
To anywhere.
I don't care how lost we get.
Or how he always rents action movies (uhg!),
and then trys to convince me that its probably got some romance in it too.
And of course it doesn't.
Or how I fall asleep before the ending
of every. single. movie. we rent.
even if I picked it out.
Always.
But best of all,
I can always count on him.
To save the day.
To say or do whatever it takes.
To make everything alright.

Do I think the stars lined up just right so that we ended up together?
Absolutely not.
I think God chose him for me and me for him.
Because He knew that even though we are not perfect.
We would be perfect for each other.