Dawn to a "T"

The other day, I was lurking around Lynilu's blog and came across this fun little challenge.

Here's how it works...

Rules: If you want to play, leave a comment on this post, and I’ll assign you a letter. You write about 10 things you love that begin with your assigned letter, and post it at your place. When people comment on your list, you give them a letter, and the chain continues on and on. I was assigned the letter "T". So lets see what I can come up with.

TYPING: Ok, yes, I admit it...I LOVE to type. I knew I'd found my calling when I passed typing in high school, lol. Most of the (corporate) jobs I've had, typing was a huge part of it. And being that I no longer have a corporate job, I still have to keep up with my skill...which is why you will find me on my computer most of the day.

TALENT: That sounds kinda weird, but I love to see how talented people (and myself) are. I've never really considered myself talented. But then I noticed that I do know my way around the hobby of scrapbooking and now, jewelry making.

TEA: Yep, I'm a Southern girl...I love me some sweet tea (as if there's any other kind)

TAHOES: HAHAHA, yeah baby...I LOVE me a Chevy Tahoe. As most of you know, I use to have one. But I'd rather not talk about that right now :-). Jayla was counting the money in her bank the other day and she said, "Mom, I almost have enough to buy you that Tahoe!" I love that kid.

TENDERNESS: I love a man who has a tender heart. And fortunately, MY man does. Well, I guess it's safe to say that anyone can have a tender heart, huh?

TRIPS: I LOVE going on trips/vacation! As a matter of fact, I need one right about now.

TOILETRIES: Smelling good, having sparkling teeth, and having nicely groomed hair are all MUSTS for me. And none of this can be accomplished with out the appropriate toiletries. (That was a stretch, wasn't it?)

TIME with family & friends: I really,really enjoy spending time with my family and friends. Nothing like having a good time with those you love.

TANK TOPS: Tank tops are a staple for me in the summer. I have them in all colors...fun, fun, fun!

TEN: FINALLY, I made it to #10 :-). This was difficult!

(Added @ 8:10pm on 1/31 - Oh my goodness, it has been brought to my attention that I forgot one VERY important "T". My sweet boy, Tramore, aka TRAE. I am SUCH a bad mommy! I sure hope he forgives me. Tell ya what, as soon as he finishes sniffing and licking himself, I'm gonna beg him for forgiveness, LOL. Thanks Lyn!!)


.....So there, you have it And it wasn't even painful! (those are Lynilu's words, not mine!) It was a little painful for me. The letter "T"...C'mon!!! lol. Anyway, if you want to play, let me know and I'll give you a letter. Have fun!!

Weekend randomness

Hello everyone! (you may wanna grab a snack, this may be a long one)

Hope you all have had a nice weekend.

My weekend was quite interesting.

On Saturday, a family friend was in town on a lay-over from Florida. So being that she was going to be in Ga for 4 hours, Jayla and I went to visit with her for a while. We got to the airport around noon, just in time for lunch. So Gwen (our friend), asked what we wanted to eat. Jayla immediately spotted the Wendy's and blurted out that that's what she wanted. I'm sure I've mentioned in this blog, one time or more, that Jayla isn't much of an eater. The girl has NEVER had a hamburger, or a hotdog or a sandwich in her 7 years on earth. And she wasn't gonna change up on us because we "had company" :-).

We get to the counter and I'm checking with Jayla to see how many chicken nuggets she wants and the lady behind the counter informs me that they don't sell chicken nuggets. HUH? The other Wendy's locations do! Man, if ya'll could've seen Jayla's face! She was NOT happy with this news. Gwen and I convinced Jayla that if she got a "nekked" chicken sandwich, we would cut it up into "nuggets" for her. The girl decided she'd rather starve :-). However, after a little more coaxing, and the promise of a chocolate Frosty, she gave in. Then when we were asked if we needed any comdiments, Jayla's little world was again crushed. This location doesn't have BBQ sauce either!

What kind of outfit are you people running here? Don't you see this picky little girl here? The 2 main foods that she consumes, YOU don't have! lol My poor baby was almost in tears. But once I offered to walk ALL THE WAY back to the car to get her some BBQ sauce from our secret condiment stash, she was good (insert rolling eyes).

Fortunately, I didn't have to make the trek back to the car. The restaurant next door to Wendy's sold southern style food and was able to help us out with the BBQ sauce request. Whew!! That was close!

After consuming chicken sandwiches and "almost" chicken nuggets, Jayla wanted to take some pictures. Here are a few shots that she took:

Seeing this really freaked Jayla out! She just couldn't understand what this Dinosaur was doing in the airport :-). She said, "Well, that's what he gets for being in the airport food court!" LOL

Jayla simply loves to see people in uniform. So when she spotted the Army Soldiers lining up, she couldn't help herself.

On our way home from the airport, I noticed that the weather had turned beautiful. It was wet and foggy earlier that morning. But it had cleared up really nicely. So I decided to take a detour and go by this park that I'd been wanting to visit. You may have read in a couple of my previous posts that I've got a special event coming up. Well, this is where that event will take place. But we'll talk about that more at a later time.

ANYWAY, Jayla begged to walk closer by the lake. So I parked, grabbed the camera and took this cute picture of her (and Anna).

It was simply beautiful out. We drove around and took a few more pix of the lake and of some local wildlife :-). (see my other blog).

As we were about to leave, Jayla asked if we could park and look at the lake for just a little longer. So, once I gave in and was about to park, she lets out the horrible scream! I slam on the breaks (seems I slam on breaks a lot with this kid lately, lol). Fortunately, no one was behind me. Anyway, I look back and blood is literally pouring out of Jayla's mouth. "My GOODNESS, what did you DO!" I asked...rather loudly. She says, almost inaudibly, "Anna hit me in the mouth!" "DO WHAT??" So I pull into a parking spot, get out of the car, run around to Jayla's side, open the door and now she's SCREAMING at the top of her lungs.

GREAT...here we are, in a strange park, and my daughter is screaming bloody murder! I just knew, that in about 3.5 seconds, we were gonna be surrounded by park rangers on golf carts, cops in fishing boats and be on the local news that evening if this child didn't stop SCREAMING!!! lol

Anyway, I get Jayla calmed down enough to start wiping the blood out of her mouth...only to knock out the tooth that's hanging on, literally, by a string of spit! (Sorry for the graphicness of this story...I'm almost done, lol) Jayla immediately stops crying and yells out, "Oh COOL!!!"

I didn't have anything to drink in the car. But I'd remembered there was a bottled water vending machine back at the part of the park we'd just come from. So I buy a bottle of water so Miss Snaggletooth could rinse her mouth out. ARGH!!

Note: Once we got on the road home, I asked Jayla again, how exactly, "ANNA" sucker punched her in the mouth. She tells me that SHE was dancing Anna around on her lap and Anna's (hard plastic) forehead hit her in the mouth. Fortunately, this tooth, along with it's neighbor, has been threatening to come out anyway. So all was well...bloody, but well. As we continued to drive, Jayla then asks me if her "grown up" tooth would be in before daddy got to see that the "baby" tooth had finally come out, lol. Well, Daddy had soccer practice with the boys on Saturday. So we just went by the fields to show him what had happened...you know, before the "grown up" tooth came in :-).

Lastly, I have one more thing to share with you. We went to church today and as always, Jayla decided she wanted to write. So she takes her pen out of her "Big Church" bag and grabs the nearest piece of paper. After a few minutes, she taps me on the shoulder and says, in a not so quiet whisper, "Mom, look!" I look down and this is what I saw:

I thought this was the SWEETEST thing! Normally, she continues to ask us to help her spell things. But not this time. She wrote all of this all by herself. Well, you know what happens next, right? YEP...I started to cry! :-D I just thought, of all the things she could write, THIS is what she wrote. I know, I know...we were at church. But still, I was proud of my baby girl. (by the way, Daddy cried too!)

Have a good week!

History has been made...

...Enjoy the rest of your day!

It's Friday...AGAIN??

....so ANYWAY...I go see the oral surgeon on Tuesday, JUST for him to tell me that he made a mistake-2 years ago. Really?? I wasn't upset with him or anything. I actually thought it was kinda funny. I mean, stuff happens. However, I'm not looking forward to having any type of surgery. Do you know he asked me if I wanted him to do it that day?

WHAT?

Are you serious?

Uh, NO!!

He also asked me if I wanted to just have a local and some laughing gas. Well, my question is, what's gonna be so funny? I want the heavy duty drugs, pal!...just like last time! :-) Gotta love Valum :-).

So, I've scheduled my wisdom tooth removal Part deux for Feb. 5th. Gonna be fun!

Anyway, I have a cute story to tell you. Allow me to set the scene (I've always wanted to say that)

On Wednesday morning, a little after 7am, Jayla and I were headed out to school. And as I'm pulling out of the driveway and about to put the car in "drive", the conversation went something like this:

Jayla - (yells) "STOP!!"
I thought she'd forgotten something for school or had hurt herself or something. So I slammed on the brakes.
Jayla -"MOM, look at THAT!"
Mom - "Look at WHAT? It's dark out here!"
Jayla - "NO!, look right there!" (pointing at my neighbors trash that's out by the curb) "Do you see it?"
Mom - "What, baby?!? See what?"
I now see what she sees. Look at what she spotted...


Our neighbor was throwing this cute little doll crib out.
Jayla - "Oh MOM! Can I have it?"
Mom - "Really? You want that? It is kinda cute, isn't it?"
Jayla - "Yes, mommy! I LOVE it! Anna (my life like granddoll) will LOVE sleeping in there! Mom, can I have it, PLEEEZE?!?"
Mom - "Well, I guess so. They're throwing it away!"

So, I put the van in park and get out...looking as lovely as ever in my fuzzy purple socks, striped capri pajama pants, a nightgown, and my black winter coat (Ya'll are so jealous!) lol. I grab the little crib and put it in the back seat. I get back in the van and pull off. As we get to the entrance of our neighborhood, the conversation continues...

Jayla - "Mom, oh NO!"
Mom - (sarcastically rolling my eyes) "What is it?"
Jayla - "Mom, are we gonna go to jail? Are Mr. J & Mrs. L gonna call the police on us for stealing their bed?
Mom - (laughing) "No, sweetie, they were throwing it away. So I don't think they will mind that we got it."
Jayla - "Well, I hope not. Cuz I don't have time to go to jail, I've gotta finish school!" :-)

(side note: To ease my daughters concerns of a possible "theft by taking" criminal record, I assured her that I'd call our neighbors that day and let them know that we got their "trash" and we're gonna turn it into a "treasure".)

Anyway, I've been doing a little scrapbooking too. I kinda took 2008 off and only worked on a couple special projects. So I'm gonna try and get back at it this year. Here's a shot of both pages.
Below is a close-up of each page. I'm kinda pleased with how the turned out.




Alrighty then, I think that's about all I've got for today. Oh, how bout a Flower Fix?

Pretty, huh?

Well, ya'll have a great weekend and I'll talk to you soon. Toodles!!

Wii went bowling...

Ok, have ya'll tried this thing yet? It's amazing!

On Christmas Eve, my friend Stacey invited us over to visit with her family who was in town from Omaha. So while we were down there, they started up a game of bowling on their new Wii station. It was so much fun!

Jayla had a blast playing it. Check her out...



I love the last picture of her. You'd think she was on the PBA Tour! lol

Once we all got going good, Stacey told us it was time for us to go home, LOL. Something about the kids needing to go to bed so Santa could come. lol

However, they invited us back down on Christmas day for a "tournament". Mister M. and I started to take our bowling balls and shoes with us...but we decided against that idea :-).

Here's a shot of Mister M getting his turn. Then one of me.


(note: that's my buddy Stacey, with the black sweater on. "Hi Stacey!")

Anyway, if ya'll haven't had a chance to play a game on the Wii, please try and do so. It is so much fun and something really cool that you can do with your family. And just think, you won't have to worry about leaving the lanes smelling like smoke!

Back into the swing of things

Happy Friday everyone!!

Well, this was the first week back to school for Jayla. And also the first week back to some form of "normalcy" for me. It was actually kinda nice to get back into our routine. Jayla was SUPER excited about going back to school on Tuesday and even asked if she could just spend the night there. Again, I ask you...WHOSE KID IS THIS??? lol She absolutely LOVES school and wants to be there all the freakin time. My gosh, I hope she keeps this attitude about learning and just the school experience.

I hope that I can follow in Jayla's footsteps, so to speak, and start learning a little something myself. I have decided to jump on the photo taking bandwagon and do the 365 challenge. I wanted to do it last year. But believe it or not, I was, and still am a little, affraid of my camera. And it's not even like it's a super spectacular photo taking machine. It's your basic Kodak EasyShare. However, it can do things that I'm just not use to or comfortable doing. So, what better way to try some things out than to take a picture...EVERY...SINGLE...DAY...of the year? Something tells me, this is yet another journey I'm gonna cut a little short. But so far, I'm doing alright. I know we're only 9 days into the year! DUH!!! I'm just sayin...

ANYWAY, here are my first 9 shots of the year. I think I'm just going to (try) and share the photos once a week as opposed to everyday. We all know how my blogging record has been as of late...














1/1 - "The Start"

1/2 - "In the clouds" (these "silky" pj's were one of Jayla's favorite Christmas gifts. How could I resist this happy shot?)

1/3 "The road MOST traveled" (this is the road I must take to get ANYwhere. Our neighborhood is on this street)

1/4- "Scrapbook room with a view" (this is the view from my scrapbook room. What a gloomy day)

1/5 - "Do you MIND?" (Ok, I was...ahem, using the facilities and I took the camera with me, [it was a short visit] to take a look at the pictures I'd taken thus far for this challenge. And Mr. Trae "nosed" his way in when he heard me turn the camera on) LOL

1/6 - "CFA Lunch"

1/7 - "Wasn't me!" (notice the torn up paper towel on the floor? Trae has this...THING about locating and tearing up used papertowels, then leaving them at the top of the stairs. As soon as he saw me come out of my room, he stood up and turned away from me, as if to say, "It wasn't me!"...love it!)

1/8 - "Purple stuff" (need I say more? I just love me some purple, lol)

1/9 - "Nothing to watch"

That's about it for this week; as far as the pictures go. I SURE hope I get better at this...cuz these are SOOO "beginner" at best. My camera has so much more potential than these photos show. Problem is, my eyes and mind see something totally different than what I end up with. I'll keep working on it. And if anyone has any tips or wants to suggest that I just quit this while the gettin out is good...let me know :-).

ADDED 1/10 @ 9:40pm. Please let it be known, that I DO in fact, sometimes have an original thought, lol. However, I have taken the lead from my friend and fellow blogger, Adrienne, and have created a new blog just for my 365 photo project. So for those of you who are interested, feel free to check my new blog. (there's also a permanent link here, to the right.)

Oh guess what? A couple of years ago, I had oral surgery done, where they removed all 4 wisdom teeth (no wonder I can't take good pictures) and 1 molar. Well, just before Christmas, I went in for a cleaning. The hygenist asked me if I had given any thought to having "this wisdom tooth" removed. HUH??? First of all, have I given it any thought? Why would I think about something like that? Then I quickly remembered the surgery I'd had. I said, "Now wait a minute, how many wisdom teeth does a person have?" It was actually a rhetorical question because I knew that it was only 4. So I reminded her of my surgery and she says, "Well, there it is, right there, as plain as day on the x-ray!" She was right! OBVIOUSLY the oral surgeon missed one. Anyway, long story short, she informs the dentist, who is just as surprised as we were. They then find a letter in my file from the surgeon listing the FIVE teeth he'd removed. Oh well, I heard from the surgeons office yesterday and they want me to come in and let them see, if in fact, he'd missed something (it's obvious he did, the tooth is still in my head!) And they advised me that he would remove it (again) at no charge to me. Well I guess SO...I already paid for it once! LOL Big fun I tell ya...BIG FUN!!

Alrighty, that's about all I can think of to share with you for now. So how bout I leave you with a Flower Fix? Remember those? lol

Ya'll have a great weekend and I'll be chatting with you later. SAY CHEESE!!!

All work and no play, makes Dawn a bad blogger...

(Yes, I just recently watched The Shining!) lol

SO...how have all of you been since I wrote to you last year? Ya know, I have absolutely NO excuse for not blogging lately. Ok, wait, ABSOLUTELY is a little bit of a stretch. Everytime I log onto my computer, I honestly have good intentions on blogging. But it just hasn't been happening.

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Somewhat in my own defense, Mister M. has been on vacation since the 15th of December. And I must say, it has been really nice having him at home all day. He goes back to work on Monday :-(. And then Jayla has been home since the 22nd of December. She goes back to school on Tuesday. So we've all been trying to spend some much needed time together.
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Anyway, I'm just behind in everything that I normally do. And since Mister M. has been home for the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to make it look like I actually do housework when he's at work, LOL. Believe me, I'm no actress, so that's been a little difficult :-). Along with all the "acting" I've been doing, I didn't even get around to sending out Christmas Cards. So for those of you who usually receive cards from us...it's nothing personal...NOBODY received one! However, I may try and do an "after the thought" letter here pretty soon.
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Oh, guess what I did? As I mentioned, I've been a little less than crazy lately. And in my craziness, I actually forgot to give Jayla some of her Christmas gifts :-). I did so well wrapping up everything and hiding it so she wouldn't find it. Little did I know that I was really hiding stuff from myself :-). This past Tuesday, I was looking for something in my craft closet and there it was...big as day...a(nother) bag from Best Buy! I'd totally forgotten that we'd bought the girl some learning software for her computer and a Dora The Explorer digital camera. All I could do was laugh. But Jayla was excited...it was like an extended version of Christmas for her.
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Once again, we received the cutest Christmas list from Jayla. I forgot to scan it, (it's still around here somewhere...in my wallet, I think) otherwise, I'd just let you see it. But she had stuff on there like, (another) toy kitchen, kitchen "supplies", a camera, a blender, a microwave, a couch to sit and watch TV on, garden tools, a baby diaper bag, a bathtub to bathe her dolls in, a doctors kit and a washing machine. Seriously? Whose kid IS this? lol. She's STILL so domesticated. Too funny! We had the hardest time finding a "kitchen" for her. The ones they have are obviously for kids younger than Jayla. I guess they figure that kids over the age of 6 have grown out of the "pretend play" stage. Well, not MY daughter! We're still looking for a suitable kitchen. Hmmm, maybe we should just rent her an apartment, LOL.
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Speaking of Christmas, here are a couple of pix of Jayla opening some of the gifts that made it under the tree :-).



I don't think we've ever gotten through a Christmas morning faster than this one. Boy, things change when you only have one child at home :-). Jayla knocked on our bedroom door at 7:30am on Christmas morning. And by the time we made it downstairs, found a seat and gave Jayla her "go for it" orders, we were done in about 15 minutes :-). So, back to bed we went, lol.
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Oh well, I think that's about it for me for now. We're going to some friends house tomorrow to watch football and celebrate a birthday. So that should be fun. Then, next week, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled lives.
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Thanks for your time! And I'll talk to you soon.
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Oh wait, before I let you guys go, I'd like to make a special request...can you all keep my nephew, Markell in your thoughts and prayers? He and my sister are experiencing some tough times right now. He's not sick or anything. Just being EXTREMELY rebellious and making life hard on himself and my sister. So any encourgement would be greatly appreciated.
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Toodles!!