A Mommy's Weekend Away

About two weeks ago, a couple of friends of mine and I went to Tampa for the weekend. We had been looking forward to it for quite awhile, and when the time finally came, we were like a bunch kids excited for Christmas Day! Our husbands were awesome for letting us have our weekend away. We started out on Friday morning, by stopping at the new Ikea in Orlando. We spent a good couple of hours there browsing the store and then eating lunch. Of course I had to try the Swedish Meatballs. They weren’t bad, for cafeteria food! I was able to find Mattie an inexpensive table and chairs, and this totally awesome wall night-light. I love Ikea!

We made our way over to Tampa from Orlando. Rebekah had printed out the talk given by Elder Ballard from this past conference. She read it to us while I drove. We thought that it was a great reminder as to why we were taking this trip! We got to Tampa late in the afternoon, and headed over to Rebekah’s Aunt Shannon’s house. She was letting us stay with her for the weekend. Our plan for Saturday was to go to an all day scrapbook crop, so we made our way over to the biggest scrapbook store ever, to get a couple of last minute things for the next day. It is the coolest store, and has everything you can imagine. We left the Scrapbook Shoppe and headed to a mall for dinner. We went to a Pacific dining place (I don’t remember the name of it). Rebekah and I split some yummy lettuce wraps and an orange chicken dish. It came with this amazing crunchy spinach side. I honestly don’t know how they do it, but the spinach is cooked and crunchy! It was so good. Then we headed over to The Cheesecake Factory and Valerie and I split a Raspberry Chocolate Truffle Cheesecake. That also was way yummy! After our full day, we were all tired and headed off to bed, so we would be rested for our day of scrapbooking.

We awoke early on Saturday morning, and headed over to the scrapbook crop. It was held in the auditorium of a church. They were hosting it to raise money for the church’s school. We each paid $45 and that covered the space, 3 meals, unlimited drinks, snacks and door prizes. We were all at a table cluster together. Our group included Rebekah, Valerie, Erin, Shannon and me. One of the hosts welcomed everyone to the crop, and let us know that the packet of paper that was on everyone’s place setting was the same for a reason. The reason was that they would be having a contest for page layout with that paper. The winner would get a gift certificate to the Scrapbook Shoppe. I looked through the paper and looked through my pictures to see if I had any that would go with the paper. I found some pictures that our friend Katie had taken of our family, so I decided to take a stab at the contest for fun. The contestants had until 6pm to turn in the pages they made. I got mine done in the morning and just moved on to my other stuff. After dinner that evening, they announced that they would be giving everyone there a ticket to vote on their favorite layout. There were 13 people that entered, including me. They said that there would be 5 places, so I thought that maybe I would at least place. Everyone voted, and they decided to announce the winners of the contest first, before moving on to the raffle prizes. A lady held up the two pages and said, “Whose are these?” I couldn’t believe it, I won first place (although it was the pictures of Mattie that I think people really liked)! I won a $25 gift certificate to the Scrapbook Shoppe. I was pretty excited.

They moved on to drawing the raffle winners. We had each bought a some raffle tickets. Rebekah really wanted to win a $250 gift certificate from a professional photographer. There were some hot stone massages, a photo printer, a gift basket full of scrapbook supplies, and a beautiful leather scrapbook tote full of supplies. I put most of my tickets in the bowl for the tote. I thought that it would be nice to win it, but I wasn’t dying to win it, because I already had a nice tote that Matt got me for Christmas a couple of years ago. Well, Rebekah won the photo prize, and she was so happy. The very last raffle they drew was for the tote, and low and behold my name was drawn as the winner! I couldn't believe that I won something again. The tote plus the supplies in it were worth over $200! I’m sure many of the other women were disliking me at that moment.The next day we were able to go to sacrament meeting with Shannon at her ward. It was a missionary farewell for their Bishop’s son. He was going on his mission to Salta, Argentina. (That’s the same mission Matt went to!) So, there we sat a couple of mothers without our children, bawling like a bunch of babies! Its amazing how much you can feel the Spirit without trying to keep a 2 year old quiet. The future elder’s talk was on overcoming trial, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. It was a really great sacrament meeting.

My weekend away was super rejuvenating and refreshing. I was excited to come home to Matthew and my little Mattie, but it was nice to have a Mommy weekend away!

Swim Lessons and a Cold Front!

Today was Mattie's first day of swim lessons this year. She took them last year for 4 months, and she was excited to start them back up. Her first lesson was suppose to be on Tuesday, but we had a crazy cold front come through and they were cancelled. I was a little nervous last night, since it was still chilly, and I have to get in the water with her. She is still in the Mom and Tot age group until September. Luckily this morning when we got to the pool, they had the water heated to a comfortable degree. The wind was a little cold when getting out of the water, but all in all, it wasn't too bad. Mattie was excited once more to be our little fish and to be swimming right along her best buds!

Disney Once More

A week ago last Monday, we decided to go to Disney World for the day and let Mattie bring her friend Eden along, (since they're still free and all)! We got into the Magic Kingdom at around noon. There was a very large group of people standing near the entrance and swarming Main Street. We thought this was strange, because there are not usually parades at this time of day, in this area of the park. It only took us a couple of minutes to figure out why everyone was standing around. All of a sudden there was a really loud noise and we saw jets flying in formation over Disney! It was the Thunderbirds. They are the Air Demonstration Squadron of the US Air Force. We had no idea that they were going to be there that day. Walt Disney World is celebrating its "Year of a Million Dreams", and the Thunderbirds were there to help them on April 7th. Matt quickly got the camera out to video one of the fly-overs. It was so awesome to see these beautiful jets fly down Main Street USA.

We spent a fun-filled day with the 2 year old girls, going on rides and playing and having a grand 'ole time. Blah, blah, blah... I can continue and tell you all about the rides we went on with both 2 year olds, or I can just skip to the best part, which happened at the very end of our day. So, that's what I am going to do! At around 6:30pm, we took the girls on a ride called the People Mover, so that they would fall asleep for a quick nap. After a little nap, they woke up and were ready to go on the Buzz Lightyear ride. It was a little difficult getting Mattie to wake up after only sleeping for about 20 minutes, but she finally came around right as she was getting on the ride with Matthew. When we finished the ride, we took the girls over to the photo op area, to get a picture of them behind bars with the Evil Emperor Zurg. The girls went behind the bars, and Matt was getting ready to take the picture, when I noticed that Mattie had stood up on her tip-toes. I was wondering what she was doing, when all of a sudden I see pee coming out! As she's peeing she says, "I gotta go pee pee." I grabbed her and said, "Stop." I picked her up and ran her to the bathroom. She finished doing her business, while Matt and Eden let the workers know about the puddle by Zurg. Now mind you Mattie has been potty trained for months, and she never has accidents, so I did not have a change of clothes for her. Luckily Eden's mom had packed a change of clothes for Eden. When we finally got the girls settled down in the stroller and having a snack, Matt and I starting discussing what had just happened. I was way bummed, because I really thought that the picture would have been a cute one of them together smiling as best buds. Matt took the camera out, and said that maybe he was able to snap one before the chaos. What we saw brought us to tears of laughter. There in the photo was Eden smiling beautifully and Mattie standing on her tip-toes with pee coming down! We couldn't believe it. You can actually see the pee! Needless to say all was forgiven when we saw the photo.

Make sure you Click to Enlarge

The day was a fun one. It started out phenomenal and ended hilarious. We had a great time with Mattie and Eden, and can't wait for our next big adventure at Disney World.

April Fools... Get Well Soon!

I have been so sick lately. About a month or so ago I had a sinus infection with tonsillitis, and it seriously took me about a month to get over. Then I awoke in the middle of Friday night with a sore throat. I thought that I was just coming down with a little cold or something, but it continued to get worse. After a Sunday nap, I woke up with a fever and my lungs were hurting extremely bad. It hurt to breathe. My life saver was an inhaler that I had left over from previous illness. My awesome mom took care of Mattie for me so I could get some rest. On Monday morning I was running an even higher fever, and really having a hard time breathing, so I decided that I had better go to the doctor. Turns out it was some nasty bronchial infection going around, and I had to get a breathing treatment and a cortisone injection, along with another round of antibiotics and cough syrup with Lortab in it. That definitely helped a lot! My poor little niece Viviana has to go through this kind of stuff and worse all of the time.

By Tuesday I was still feeling pretty crappy, but Matt was suppose to get into Orlando at about 9am, which made me a very happy girl. Well, 10:30 came and Matt called me to tell me that there had been some maintenance problems and that he was in Atlanta. He said that it could be hours before he would be home. I was feeling so sick and so sorry for not being able to take care of Mattie, that I just started crying. Matt then says to me, "Don't cry. April Fool's! I'm on my way home right now. "Maybe it would have been funnier if I hadn't been on my DEATHBED! He redeemed himself though. He walked through the door with beautiful "Get Well Soon" flowers. I'm feeling better with each passing day and hoping to not be sick again for a while!














PS. Another Mattie moment... when I was crying, my little angel saw me and asked me if I was sad? She then climbed up into my bed and laid her head down on my chest and wrapped her arms around my neck. She said, "Don't cry Mommy. It's alright. It's alright Mommy. I love you!"