Blaire is ONE!!!

This past week was absolutely crazy at work and I'm afraid that I didn't get much else accomplished!! So, I apologize for the lack of blog posts! :)

I had to blog about our little Miss Blaire-Bear, though. Last week, she turned ONE!! It's hard to believe how time has flown by and it's hard to believe how much Blaire has grown!! I've already commented to her mama that even since her birthday last week, Blaire seems to have learned new facial expressions and has just seemed to grow up a little bit more.

Anyway, it was fun to celebrate her big day with her and her family and here are a few pictures of the day.

Little Miss Blaire...what you can bearly see in this picture is the cat (to the left of Blaire's face). Blaire pulled herself up to go after the cat and the cat moved as far into the couch as it could. :)

The cute little family! Left to Right, Amelia, Aaron, Candy and Blaire. Notice how Candy is holding Blaire's hands back from the cake? She was READY to party!!! :)

We peeled off Blaire's birthday dress and prepped her for the "attack the cake" moment that's so traditional for first birthdays. :) In this picture, we were singing happy birthday to her and she was just a little curious about the cake. :)

Birthday singing is over and Blaire has started to dig in. Big sister wanted to help a little and Blaire sure didn't seem to mind! :)

I forget what was happening here, but Amelia was excited about something...obviously. :) This might have been the point, too, when Blaire started to get tired of the cake. :)

After the cake, Blaire's momma cleaned her up, put her birthday dress back on and then it was time to open presents. Here she is holding her new little doll. Blaire's Grandpa is sitting next to her to make sure that she didn't fall backward off the table because we had Blaire sitting on the table to open all her presents. Great work, Ed!!

Amelia was engrossed with one of the books that Blaire received. Their grandma had taken pictures of them and placed them in these books and all of a sudden...the girls are part of the story with grandma!!! BOTH girls received their own book and they were just the cutest things! Amelia's checking out her book in this picture.

Whitney is helping Blaire walk across the room. Right now, Blaire does this crawl/slide type thing and hasn't started walking yet. She will be pretty soon, though! She has a big sister to keep up with, you know!!! :)

I hope you had as much fun looking at these as I did! It was a great day and lots of good memories were made! Happy Birthday, Blaire!!! :o)

Green Grass

For the last couple of weeks, I've been thinking a lot about the old saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." We all know that the saying is referring to the fact that it appears that what someone has is better than what you have and you think it'd be better than your own current situation. In contrast to that, I remember hearing that if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, then it's likely you need to start spending time watering the grass on your side. The person just meant that the grass on the other side of the fence is never as lush and beautiful as you think it seems and too often when we get to the other side, we start to realize that where we were at really wasn't so bad after all.

Kind of a deep topic, no? :) It's rather interesting how I started thinking about this entire subject several weeks ago. You see, it started with thinking about our daily interactions with people and then that line of thinking led me to think more about the kind of person that I want to be in life. In all of this "thinking," I realized again that it's so easy to be influenced by people. I know that is an obvious statement, but it's just been very real to me how my thoughts and actions can so quickly turn into something that's not my "norm" just because of the personalities that are around me! Several times over the last few weeks, I've felt rather corrected about some of my actions and reactions toward people and situations and it's never a very good feeling to experience.

Anyway, all of that eventually evolved into a serious appreciation for some of my Bible studies over the last few weeks. It just seems like it's easy for me to get caught up in life and in the rat race of things that I forget about the important things. Then, when I forget about the important things in life, I find myself changing and I find that I start to battle with envy, greed, selfishness, and so many other things that truly change the person that I am and the person that I want to be. After that, it just seems like it's so easy to feel discontented and to think that the grass truly is more green on the other side of the fence.

I guess that what I'm trying to say is what I started this with...if I'm starting to feel like the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, then it's about time that I start spending time watering the ground on my side of the fence. No one lives perfect, beautiful lives! We all face experiences and situations that change us, both in good and bad ways. We all stumble and give in to the pressures and personalities around us, but that doesn't mean that it's over. It just means that maybe we got a little confused and found ourselves peeking over the fence too much.

So, as we start this new week, let's resolve to be thankful for the ground on our side of the fence. Let's resolve to take care of that ground by watering it and feeding it exactly what it needs so that it, in turn, can help us to stay content and on track with what is important in life.

Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.

Drama on a Wednesday

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I was going to be all festive and wear something green today and I found that I have nothing in my closet that is the color green!!! Can you imagine?!? I guess that I'll be forced to go shopping for something green so that I'm ready for next year! ha! :)

This week is spring break week at the University where I work. I love it because it's quiet and I can get LOTS done!! The only bummer to it all is that a Corrections group of police officers is using our building this week for training. They've been here before and we managed to avoid having them here again until this year and I remembered very quickly why I was glad that they haven't been here for the last couple of years. Don't get me wrong! I'm glad for police officers because they take care of "issues" that I wouldn't want to take care of and I'm thankful for the ways that they help to keep me safe. But let me tell you...they're a rough bunch of people. Their trainings are loud and quite often obnoxious. They run skits to practice safety and control in violent situations and sometimes it's down-right disturbing. Don't get me wrong...I know that these situations really DO exist in life and more often than we'd wish to know, I'm sure. However, that doesn't mean that I like to hear all the drama involved, even if it is only a skit. I'm thankful that these practice situations are not real life but it does break my heart to know that things like this really are going on. It's no wonder that most police officers I meet are rough and hardened. It would be a tough job to have. I'm thankful for them, but glad I'm not one of them.

As I already said, they run these trainings in order to practice how to handle real-life situations. This year we told them that they could come back but that they'd have to work on the language. Last time they were here there was some seriously filthy language. Yes, it may really be out there in real-life, but it's not necessary to have it in practice runs, especially in a building where people are still working even though it's spring break. They've been MUCH better about that this year, so I can be thankful for that. I do find myself cringing once in awhile, though. It's only practice and it's fake, but it's still more drama than I want to be around or hear, thank you very much!!! :) Only two more days of it, though, and if memory serves me correctly, they bail out early on Friday and that is FINE by me!! :)

Enjoy the rest of your day and I hope it's drama-free for you (fake or real!!)!! :o)

Weekend fun

I got to visit the CUTEST boy this weekend!! Take a look for yourself...
Isn't he just precious? He was so much fun and I'm glad that I was able to spend time with him & his family. And thanks to Kristi, too, because I stole this picture off of her picture site. :) I was a ding-dong and completely forgot to take my camera out this weekend! *sigh*

Monique & I both went to visit this family because Mo wanted to finalize her wedding invitation. Why does that matter? Well, our friend, Kristi, is a rep for Stampin' Up (let me know if you'd like to order something from her!) and so she has LOTS of fun stamps and stamping gadgets to play around with. Needless to say, she and Mo came up with a beautiful invitation (I was too busy playing with Corbin, so I wasn't much help... :) and now I think that the plan is to head back there in a month for a day of wedding invitation assembly! I'm looking forward to it! It should be fun, not only to stamp, but to see everyone again. :o)

Hope you had a nice weekend, too! Oh, and how many of you forgot to turn your clocks forward one hour Saturday night? I didn't forget, but I do know that I'm definitely still feeling the effects of the change. Ugh! :)

For Monique

So, now Monique thinks that I'm not updating my blog in a timely fashion, so this post is due to her prompt. :) It makes me kind of sad, though...apparently not everyone has appreciated the pet hippo as much as I have. *sigh* ;o)

Well, there's not much to say about this week. Okay, there is a lot to say, but it's not stuff that I really want to say. You see, it's been a "crabby week." For some reason, most of the days this week have started off badly. Nothing has changed, though, so that's what's odd. I wake up in the morning, get dressed for work and as I'm on my way to work, I start feeling crabby. Hmmm...should I be concerned about this connection? :) Anyway, by lunch time, I'm usually back to my old self and life is good. I feel tired, but other than that, good.

But I have been reminded of a little something this week even though I've been crabby. I've learned that I can never learn too much about love. Our Bible study last night was the subject of "Relationships with our Brethren (aka, our fellow man) -- New Testament verses" and it just seemed like it spoke over and over about forgiveness, mercy, love, and kindness, amongst a few other good reminders. I just left there feeling like I can never learn to much about being more Christ-like.

That kind of stems in to what I've been experiencing this week, too. As I've said before, I love my job and I truly enjoy the work I do. This week, though, I've found myself feeling quite impatient toward some of the students and bothered by the fact that they're bothering me with something. The thing is, when I act or feel that way, I'm never okay with it after the fact. I always wish that I had behaved differently. I never leave with a good feeling.

To top it all off, guess what special thing happened to me this week? I received a card in the mail at work that says, "If you are receiving this card, you have had a positive influence on a student's life, and they would like to honor you! Please come and be recognized at a reception held in your honor. Mortar Board tips their cap to you and thanks you for making a difference to our members." After investigating this card a little more, I found that two different students nominated me for this. I was shocked! And then I felt quite sheepish. We all have bad days, but I want to learn better how to control my attitude and temper on those "off" days. Yes, I want to learn how to show more love and kindness to those that I cross paths with. You just never know how it might affect someone.

Pet Hippo?

Have you ever seen anything like this? After receiving this video in an e-mail, I did a google search on her and it seems that there's even a TV show after this "little" hippo! How fascinating, huh? Of course, with recent events clearly in mind, it makes you wonder if one day she'll turn on someone (the recent event I mention is the trainer who was killed by the "pet" killer whale). Let's hope not!

Enjoy! Hopefully some little kids out there will enjoy this video, too! :o)