Happy birthday sis!!

I hope you have a great day. I'm looking forward to next weekend when we can go to Red Lobster and eat lots and lots of good food and have several much needed drinks!

Tons of love and hugs on your special day...

Your loving sister

We are going to noon mass today and then spending the rest of the day shopping. I love shopping!! We are going to go to Dunhams first to get Evan a new pair of baseball cleats, then off to the mall where I have a list of stores we need to go: Childrens Place to get clothes for both Evan and Gabrielle, Buckle for my new pair of jeans (since my size 6 jeans will NOT fit yet), PacSun to get Jeremy new jeans, New York & Co so I can get new clothes for work, and we'll probably stop at Best Buy just for the heck of it.

I don't post many pictures of my husband. It's probably because I can't usually get a good picture of him. Well, I finally got one. Here he is sitting on the couch with our dog, Kayla.

I checked our bank account today and noticed that half of our tax refund was deposited this morning (the rest will follow in 3 to 4 weeks because of an error that needed to be corrected) so I paid ALL of our bills in full. We really want to buy my mother-in-laws house so I also called the finance woman to get the ball rolling on that. I am SO excited about all of this. Please keep us in your prayers.

My mother-in-law sent me a link to this. I thought it was pretty cool. Not that I am in any way a fan of Celine, but I'll put up with just about anyone to see Elvis.

My mother sat down to watch the news yesterday evening and saw something about a daycare center. She had me call and it turns out that they are less than a mile and a half from where I will be working. They were extremely nice on the phone and I liked everything they had to say. The cost is a bit more, but because of where I will be working there is a 10% discount. It must be the work of God.

We are going to take a tour of the place today and if it's as great as it sounds on the phone, I will be putting down the registration fee which will hold Gabrielle's place. I won't even have the other woman watch her because I don't want to bounce Gabrielle around from one place to another. I want her to get comfortable with the people that will be caring for her.

I swear.. everytime we can see the light at the end of the tunnel someone turns it off!

I've been made an offer by a company that was my 2nd choice. I'm taking it, of course. But then Jeremy lost his job. He's working temporarily for his step-dad's company until he finds something permanent. Ok, fine and dandy. I had budgeted for part time day care and latchkey for both kids based on the fact that Jeremy got two days off during the week with his previous job, but now we are going to have to pay for full time. So, instead of paying about $450 per month it is going to be between around $900. Fine. Whatever. Well, I just called the woman who was going to be watching Gabrielle (at a very fair price) and she and her husband are most likely moving to North Carolina at the end of June or beginning of July. What does that mean? It means that prior to her moving we will have to get Gabrielle into a day care center which will cost twice as much as we would be paying her.

Can we get a freaking break?

Here are some pictures I took yesterday of Evan and Gabrielle.

--- more on flickr

To my sister:

I have updated my flickr page as you requested. *grin*

Love,

me

Here are the phones that me and Jeremy are getting in June. You definitely want to check this out:

"Cute as can be" is right. We were over Nana's house and I was taking her sweater off and she just looked so cute with it on her head. I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Evan left his Furby out in the living room and I thought that Gabrielle might like to play with it. I set it down next to her and starting talking to it so it would sing for her. She got a panicked look on her face and started crying. She must know that it isn't normal for stuffed animals to talk and sing.

Woohoo! The parents are gone to Cabo for a week. I just dropped them at the airport. The house is ours once again. I am so looking forward to moving into our own house this summer. It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that they have let us stay here, but it's just not always comfortable having two families living under one roof. Sure, it's a huge roof and there is plenty of room, but it will be so much nicer once we have our own.

I meant to get on here yesterday to say Happy Easter and post these pictures, but we were so busy that I never got the chance. Oh, well. I hope everyone had a Happy Easter and here are the pictures...

My husband is taking me out tonight. His dad and step-mom will be here at five to see the baby for a little bit, then we are going out to dinner, then heading to a bar to see his brother play in his band. I'm looking forward to getting out of the house with my husband for the night. We won't be out too late since tomorrow is Easter Sunday and I also don't know how late I can keep my eyes open anyway.

Here are some pictures I took of Gabrielle playing with her cousin Grace. They had a lot of fun playing together this afternoon.

Gabrielle is five month old today. Where does the time go? Before we know it, she'll be a year old. We started her on rice cereal a couple of weeks ago. Since then we added sweet potatoes, then applesauce, and today she had her first taste of peaches. So far she likes them all. The next veggie I am going to introduce will be peas. We'll see how that goes. Anyway.. when I get a moment, I wil post some pictures of her since it's her 5 month "birthday."

Today is Holy Thursday so we will be going to church this evening. I love Holy Thursday mass. This is the mass where the priest does the washing of the feet. It's a beautiful celebration of the Lord's supper.

"Do you understand what I have done? You call me your teacher and Lord, and you should, because that is who I am. And if your Lord and teacher has washed your feet, you should do the same for each other. I have set the example, and you should do for each other exactly what I have done for you.."

John 13:12-15

We got Gabrielle a Rainforest Jumperoo yesterday. She absolutely loves it.