Thoughtless Thursday!

Today's Thoughtless Thursday is going to be pretty thoughtless (pretty unusual for this Chatty Kathy) ... I thought (wroooops, there's my first thought ...) that since I'm loathing, hating, ABHORING disliking all things summer right now because it's so hot I can't walk to my car without getting pit stains outside and by hot, I mean miserable, that I'd post pictures from LAST summer to remind me (and show y'all) that I DO actually have fun during the summer and sometimes (GASP) even LIKE it!!!  Forgive me if any of these pictures are repeats as I can barely remember my last name, let alone my Mister's first name am a BIT pregnant forgetful these days.

{Me n' my Silly (sister-in-law) all dressed in white for the 4th}

{Me and the Mister on the 4th of July lookin' all patriotic and schtuff ...}

{Anyone that doesn't believe me that I have a bigger eye that makes it's apperance on certain occasions, check out my right eye ...}

{Girl's Night OUT!}

{Random date night with the Mister.  Oh tanning bed, oh tanning bed, oh how I miss your greatness (sung in the tune to "Oh Tannenbaum")}

{Ally and Andrew's 10th birfday party with their big sis in the middle.}

{At a birfday party reunion with the girls I worked with at the gastro doctor's office.  Yes I just gastro.  As in GASTROINTESTINAL.  As in toots and poop.  We laughed a lot like immature 10 year old boys at this job ...}

{At Alysia's FIRST 30th birfday party.  She had two.  She's pretty special like that.}

{My BIL (I know, looks NOTHING like my Mister!) when he stopped in at George's on his way through Waco while we were there for the double "turning 30" party!  Um, if you've never been to George's, and you live in Texas, and you EVER drive through Waco you MUST stop.  This is a Baylor students STAPLE.  Plus, Pat Green sings about it in a lot of his songs.}

{Me in a birfday girl sammich.  Christine and Alysia both turning the dirty 30.}

{Reunion dinner with my girls from Precept.  I LOVE these girls, I wish we all still worked together!!!}

{Birfday girl with her "30" wine glass I gave her!}

{Me and Jeff looking FABULOUS in our headbands.  I'm pretty sure this was his idea.}

{My Mister (looking kinda goofy), John, Mark and me showing off the birfday boy's gift before he saw it, it's a fountain!}

{Gettin' a little wild here kids.  It's Amanda's MIL's fault.  She made VERY strong margaritas ...}

{Lauren, Amanda, me and John}

{And this picture just cracks me up.  Something hilarious was happening when we were trying to get a "normal" picture taken of the two couples.  I WILL tell you, it never ended up happening.}

And that's all for today.  If you want to play along, post your OWN random or notsorandom pictures, grab my button and come back here and link up!  I can't wait to see what pictures y'all picked!!!  Happy Thursday, tomorrow's FRIDAY!!!  I LOVE ya TOMORROW, you're ONLY a day awayyyyy, TOOOOO-MORROW, TOMORROW ... wrooopppps, sowwy about that, sometimes I feel the need to break into song.  Today was one of those days!  Have a great one loverlies!!!

17 Week Bumpdates!

Yes, I know.  You can hardly contain your excitement.  Simmer down kids, simmer down.  Because it's that time again.  Where I tell you all things belly.  And ONE thing I can't beweave I forgot to tell y'all is that our 16 week appointment went great and we heard little love's heartbeat on the ... whatever they call that machine that picks up the heartbeat.  Dopplar?  No, that can't be right.  That's what they use to track thunderstorms.  Well on the "thing that picks up baby's heartbeats" machine.  And it was, as it will always be, music to this momma's ears.  AND, we scheduled our gender sono!!!  July 2nd we will FOR SURE find out if this is the little boy that we (and the genetics doctor from the 12 week sonogram) think it is!!!  That's technically 2 1/2 weeks away.  We SO lucked out.  I actually went in there thinking "I'm totally going to trick the scheduler into letting me "knock off some waiting time", this lady won't know what hit her!" because our appointments have been on Fridays (2 days after my weeks officially start over) and usually they give you an appointment 4 weeks from the day your previous appointment was scheduled.  When she said "Okay, 4 weeks from today is Friday July 9" (yes, I know that, but I'm about to trick you) I responded by saying "Um, do you have earlier in the week, say a Monday or Tuesday" (with the intent to knock some days off of, like I said "waiting time") and she said "Oh, ACTUALLY it looks like Dr. L is going to be on vacation that whole week (to which my heart immediately sunk, awesome, this is so my luck, I'm going to have to wait 5 WEEKS instead of 4) to which she followed her statement with, "Would you like to come in the Friday before?"  She might as well have just asked a dog if he wanted a treat the way I perked up.  "Why yes, yes I WOULD!" (tail wagging, tongue hanging out) and THAT'S how we knocked a full week off of waiting to find out what the sex for sure is.  So COMEMERE July 2nd!!!  I can't wait to be able to say "We are having a boy!" and know for SURE!

Okay, onto the Bumpdates.  I'm going to start these bumpdates with some pictures of the 17 week belly.  Now, bear with me.  These are what you get when you take pictures with your arm outstreached (and over your head mind you, so don't let the tiny-ness of the belly fool you, it's the angle folks, an aerial angle will always make you look tinier)

{this one doesn'tsomuch show the belly but I like my headband today and wanted to show y'all, hee!}

NOW.  Onto the bumpdates.  I'm thinking of using a different survey (copied from Heather's blog) this time, y'all make sure and tell me howya like it.  Mmmmmk?

How far along:  Poor, stupid questionnaires.  Apparently they don't read my blog.  17 weeks silly questionnaire.  17 weeks.  And here comes the vajayjay picture ...

Baby looks a little less alien-ish and a little more baby-ish!

Maternity Clothes:  As it is 142 degrees outside on a daily basis (Oh how I love Texas.  Really I do, but I'll admit, that was said with sarcasm) I'm thinking that wearing my maternity swimsuit all the time might be a great idea.  Even if I do scare everyone I come within a 2 mile radius of.  Mothers of Dallas, be prepared to shield your child's eyes, coworkers, I apologize, Mister ... well you did this to me so you get no sympathy (kidding, those kind words don't come until the birthing part) ... 

Sleep:  Better.  Much better.  I'm a happy camper in my pillow fort.  And I definately just typed "fart" the first time.  Now THAT made me giggle.  I'm officially 5.

Best Moment of the Week:  Knowing that we're officially 2 1/2 weeks from finding out (for sure) what the little booger is. 

Movement:  Not yet.  MY movement, however, is getting a little more complicated.  When you have an obstacle about the size of a nerf football that gets in your way it makes things ... complicated.

Food Craving:  Fat fairy is now building a house and planting her garden (of cupcakes and chocolate bars mind you) on my hips, arms and FACE (apparently), fruit fairy still nowhere to be found ...

Gender:  Again questionnaire, don't you listen?  I've told you the last bajillion times, we're 95% sure it's a BOY, July 2nd will tell us for sure!!!

What I'm looking forward to:  Running STRAIGHT to register and picking our for sure name once we find out for sure what this little turkey is.

Weekly Wisdom:  You know the only people who are always sure about the proper way to raise children? Those who've never had any.  ~Bill Cosby

And that's it for the Bumpdates!  I DID want to take a minute and say thank you for all the great responses I got to yesterday's post.  I always KNEW I liked y'all but knowing that I have a bunch of readers that love and care about the well being of animals as much as I do makes me feel all warm and squishy inside.  So thanks everyone, I LOVES all of you loverlies!!!

A Sad Story With A Happy Ending (I PROMISE) ...

Hewwo fwiends.  How are y'all doing today?  It's H-friggin'-O-stinkin'-T here.  Seriously, I'm ready for summer to be over with.  I know all of you just gasp'ed so loud that I could hear it through my computer screen at the thought of me wishing away pool days, hamburger and hotdog cookouts and sweating like a pink curly tailed farm animal warm days but seriously, since I graduated from school i.e. an excuse to do notadarnthing during the summer, and have to put on work clothes (which = not tank tops, shorts and flip flops) Monday through Friday I absolutely ABHOR summer.  There are things I like, like the 4th of July, my mom, brother and the twins birfdays and Memorial Day, but all in all it's not my favorite.  I love all things holiday, cool weather, Christmas music, coats, layers and boots, craft fairs, getting together with family, fireplaces and holiday decorations.  So for now, I'm just trying to survive.  And I'm assuming my dislike for the summer days will become even STRONGER now that I'm pregnant and sweat just from LOOKING at the sunshine outside.  On top of all that (I'm just a BUNDLE of positivity today ain't I?) I really don't have much to chat about today, so I thought I'd tell y'all about something I've been meaning to blog about since it happened anyway.  If I haven't made it clear in the past, I'm an animal lover.  And by animal lover I mean I rescue doodle bugs out of my office, save earth worms from frying on the concrete, and will serve enough to put me driving on the sidewalk to avoid hitting a squirrel/bunny/bird/anything in the animal kingdom that decides it's a good idea to run out into the road.  I would own every dog/cat/horse/goat in any given animal shelter if my Mister would let me.  He loves animals too, just not as out of control passionately as I do.  As a result of this love for animals, I've somehow been added to this rescue list of emails that goes around involving animals in shelters or that have been rescued that need homes.  I wanted to tell you about two I got last week.  One about an 8 year old male Labrador and another about an 8 year old male Boxer.  Let's start with Brutus the Lab.

Brutus was part of an email I got for a shelter in Carrollton (which is a suburb close to Dallas) from a man who does AMAZING work at the Carrollton shelter.  He goes above and beyond what most shelter workers do, which is just think of the dogs and cats that come there as part of their "job" and nothing more.  Joe is the contact there that sends the email plea's out to save the animals on the "soon to be euthanized" list as well as puts pictures with each dog/cat and a bio to tell a little bit about them.  Joe also is the one that euthanizes them and a local news station did a special report on him where he stated that when he does have to euthanize an animal, he pets them, holds them, and makes sure they are comfortable and at least feels that they were cared about while he administers the injection.  Isn't this the type of person you would want at EVERY kill shelter that had to administer these procedures?  I don't know about y'all but it makes me feel better knowing Joe's the one doing it and not some jerk that thinks of them as disposible.  So, on to Brutus.  It's heartbreaking to see all animals in shelters, especially when you know they don't have much time until they're put down, but the ones that REALLY get me are the ones where their owners just decided they didn't have time/room/energy for them anymore or they have a child and don't pay any attention to them because of the new baby and dump them at a shelter, a kill shelter for that matter.  How scared and confused these poor animals must feel.  How abandoned, alone and terrified.  It absolutely breaks my heart.  And makes me sick at the same time.  People really should have to pass a test, a humane test, before they're allowed to own a pet.  Really.

Back to Brutus, this is what Brutus's bio read along with his picture.

This handsome boy was released to the shelter by his people who had a new in-ground pool installed which left little or no room for him in the yard. He is a sweet, gentle boy who is really hoping that there is another home out there for him. He is 8 years old and neutered already, he likes the other dogs and loves to meet new people. He will sit when you ask him and give you his paw in hopes of winning your heart. Brutus has all of his past medical paperwork with him to pass onto the new owner. According to his records, Brutus suffers from arthritis which can require medication.

ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME!?!?  You get a POOL and decide you have no room for your 8 YEAR OLD Lab and decide to dump him at a shelter?  If only I knew who these people were.  IF ONLY.  I hope you're enjoying your pool.  PLEASE note the severe amount of sarcasm DRIPPING from that statement.  So you can only imagine how distraught I was after seeing this.  I sent the email to the normal list I usually send to (whom I'm sure are getting sick of the forwards, but I JUST can't bring myself to hit delete it only takes a minute) and posted his picture and bio on my facebook page as well.  I went home thinking about sweet Brutus with his face burned in my mind and prayed for him all day.  His "put down" date was Wednesday and this was Monday.  Well (here's the happy part I promised you) the next day when I got to work I received an email saying Brutus had been ADOPTED that NIGHT!!!  I literally teared up and almost started crying at my desk.  I was on cloud 9 all day knowing sweet Brutus was in a home that would NEVER do that to him again.

Until ...

That night I got ANOTHER email.  This one was a plea from a woman who had found a dog on the side of the road that she couldn't keep but couldn't in her right mind leave him there.  Here is the story ...

I found a male boxer on hwy 287 yesterday while on the way to my vet. I had him checked out and he tested heart worm negative. He did not have any intestnal parasites. I had his rabies shot done. The vet thinks that he's about 8 yrs old. He appears to be housetrained and gets along with/ ignores other animals. I am unable to keep him. Please let me know if you would be willing to take him and try to find him a home. He has not been fixed, but the vet said that it would have to wait at least six months due to his weight. I have attached pictures so that you can see the condition that I found him in (be warned, they're disturbing).

But did you catch that?  He's HOUSETRAINED and has NO heartworm problems.  That means he was a pet people.  Now, I'm HOPING that he just got lost and some unfortunate people lost their beloved pet and the other horror that I imagine is not actually the case.  That someone dumped him.  Because they no longer had "time" or "room" or "had a baby and didn't want a pet any more".   That's just too sickening for me to stomach so I'm going to go with the latter.  Which I'm not quite sure what that word means, "the latter" ... does it mean the last thing I just said or the first?  I'm using it in the tense of referring to the first ... ?  Right.  Back to this poor Boxer.  So, as you can imagine, I was again, plagued with a sense of naseau (for once, not caused by my sweet baby) after sending it to my regular list of contacts because I couldn't dream of this little guy going to the pound.  But low and behold, a few hours later I got an update forwarded from the sender of this email.  The update was from a woman who said that Alexander (that is what she had named him) was now in her care and would be as long as he lived.  Here is the actual email she sent ...

Hello, I have adopted him and he is doing great. I was going to adopt Brutus the yellow lab and he had already been adopted. The same morning I received this email about the boxer. I already have him here and I am keeping him. He is way too attached to be moved again. He has been to the vet again for a checkup and he is doing well. Already gained a pound and a half! I named him Alexander for Alexander The Great. If he has withstood these conditions then he is indeed a great dog. I have attached a pic if you would like to circulate and let everyone know he is doing good with his new family. The nice young lady has offered to pay for his neuter so he is sponsered as well. Thanks Again.

I won't post the picture for the sake of this woman's privacy but I will tell you it was a precious picture of her on her couch, with Alexander laying across her chest looking happy as ever.  So just as quickly as I fell off, I jumped right back on cloud 9 knowing there ARE good people in this world.  Now let me say, I am in no way shape or form saying that you are a bad person if you've had to give up a pet for one reason or another.  I am talking about the people that decide they are inconvienences and instead of finding them a loving, caring home to live in, decide to dump them at the nearest shelter (or worse, dump them on the side of the road), confused, scared and alone.  I understand situations arise where you can't take your pet, circumstances change, etc. but most people that have ever truely loved and cared for a pet would NEVER consider leaving them in the above described conditions.

And now, I'll jump off my soap box.  {Jump} 

I hope these happy endings made you as happy as they did me!  See you tomorrow for some 17 Week Bumpdates!!!

 

Weekend PICTURE Re-cap!

YES.  You read that right.  I. took. PICTURES this weekend!!!  Can you beweave it!?!?  I'll give you a quick written update of our weekend o' fun, but mainly I'm going to SHOW you!  Except for yesterday because we went to church and both came home and proceeded to nap for 4 hours.  Neither I nor the Mister took pictures of ourselves napping.  We're still working on teaching Koda to take candid pictures when we're doing things that we can't capture like, sleeping.  He's having a little trouble with it, due to the fact that he's a miniature shadow of what we do so while we were sleeping (shout out, love that movie) he was curled up on the couch under my legs doing the same.  Which I don'tsomuch mind, so I guess I'll forgive him for not capturing the moment.

So, onto the weekend.  Friday night we had a few friends over for a cookout at casa de Fulmer and had a BLAST!  I laughed so much I was sure I was either going to cause myself to go into labor or wet my pants.  Thankfully, I did neither.  Here are a few picky pics of some of our guests.  Of course the boys were not included because they're buttheads about having their picture taken they were outside doing manly things like grilling.

{Ali, my MOH and me}

{My MOH, miss Kelly of Fabulous K (and my blog designer, have I mentioned that?) and me}

{We were trying to show everyone our "good side" for pictures.  If you haven't mastered this yet, email me and I will change your life.}

{And now we're POINTING to our good sides while Ali makes her best gangster face ...}

Let me also take a minute to say that I'm quite enjoying being the only person that doesn't drink on the weekends.  It's a whole OTHER form of entertainment in and of itself.

Saturday I went to a baby shower and then headed to my mom's house for her second birfday celebration.  We had a girl's day by the pool and soaked up some sun while giggling and acting silly.

{My sister and I.  And I promise I'm not naked, just in my strapless preggo suit.}

Speaking of my preggo bathing suit (and I can't believe I'm about to do this) since many of you asked, here is a little peek of my baby bump in a bathing suit ...

{I. look. giant.  And I think I'm getting preggo face.  But that's okay, that little 16 week bump is all I'm concerned about ...}

After the swimming birfday party (and PS there are no pics of the birfday girl posted because I was informed by my momma that if I posted any of the "sweaty-by-the-pool-with-no-makeup-on" pictures I would be killed, which is sewious), the Mister and I went to see Iron Man 2 Saturday night.  Which we both LOVED! 

Then, Sunday afternoon after church we proceeded to eat the biggest lunch ever and do this ...

{And that's about where Koda was in relation to me on the couch.}

Followed by eating Slurpees and Cheeto Puffs for dinner while watching ...

Which was good.  But I think it's time we put some chick flicks or comedies in our Netflix.  Cause I kinda wanted to jump off a ledge after watching this movie.  Sheesh.  Plus, can we please talk about how annoying this man's voice was?  At the beginning I literally said "Oh I don't know if I'll make it through 2 hours of this voice ..." but thankfully I got past it.

And that's all for the wrap up!  Aren't you SO proud of me that I took pictures!?!?!  Well, I am.  I will go ahead and say I'm not a huge fan of myself in pictures these days, I feel like everything is now going east to west including my hips, arse, arms and FACE.  I've heard of the pregnant face situation and I'm afraid I'm going to be struck with this loverly side effect.  But rest assured I've already vowed to run another 1/2 marathon 6 months after I have my little love and WILL (mark my words, you heard me say it here) look like this girl again one day soon ...

{Me with my MOH when SHE was preggers with P at the shower I threw her at my house.}

And speaking of, I'm thinking I need a little somethin' somethin' done to my hair to make me feel cuter with all the body changes goin' on.  Do y'all think I should cut it like I have it in this picture?  Or keep letting it grow out?  MOST pregnant people get this awesome, Pantene commercial type hair when they're pregnant but another select few get this awesome limp, dull hair that is NOTSOMUCH fun.  It does grow like a weed, but other than that notsomuch fun.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  I value your opinions ladies!!!

I hope you all had equally good weekends as well, I'll be over to catch up on you soon!!!

Favorite Fridays and P's Birfday Re-Cap!

HOO-RAY it's FRI-DAY!  And lemmetellya.  I'm 'cited.  Not ONLY because it's Friday, but because we get to hear BB's (that's what my mom's been calling him, BB for baby boy) little heartbeat at our 16 week appointment today and THEN, drumroll please, MAKE THE OFFICIAL GENDER APPOINTMENT!  I'm SO excited for the day I can stop saying "95% boy" and start saying "we're 100%, no doubt about it, having a BOY!" and of course, most IMPORTANTLY, so I can start ahem, SHOPPING!  But shhhhhhh, don't tell the Mister I said that, mmmmmmk?  And sugar, if you're reading this, I should've told you back there EYEMUFFS!  Okay, first things first.  Friday's mean the angels sing Hallelujah because we have two days off work the weekend is here, but they also mean it's time for ...

Which is ALWAYS loads of fun.  What's today's topic you ask?  Well, it's ...

Movie Soundtrack!

Now, I'm telling you miss Jen does NOT make these topics easy peasy tasks.  I almost ALWAYS have more than one!  I mean, any of the following CDs I can PRETTY much sing every word to every song off of, and periodically played on REPEAT when I was age 10 to ... well 29 years old.  But that's neither here nor there.  Moving right along ...

{Um, speaking of this one, Phil Collins AND Disney?  Teamed up?  Why don't you just go ahead and send me straight to Heaven ...}

But I will have to say, the FIRST one that popped in my mind when I saw this topic was ...

"I got CHILLLLLSSS they're multiplyin' and I'm looooooosin' control.  'Cause the power you're supplyin', it's electrifyin'!"

"You better shape up, 'cause I need a man and my heart is set on you.  You better shape up; you better understand to my heart I must be true."

"Nothin' left, nothin' left for me to do."

"You're the one that I want.  (you are the one i want), o,o, oo, honey.  The one that I want.  (you are the one i want want), o,o,oo, honey.  The one that I want (you are the one i want want), o,o, ooooo The one I need.  Oh, yes indeed."

Seriously, I could start dancing and singing right now.  But I think I can control it.  Thankfully I didn't wear my bad girl Sandi one-piece pleather jumpsuit to work.  Phew.

Now, onto P's birfday re-cap.  My MOH (and I should say her daddy who was the one that took most of the pictures) FINALLY put the pictures up, so hold on to your coffee and get ready for the cuteness.

 

{Her mommy made her birfday pancakes.  The funny thing?  She GAGGED on the chocolate chips!  Silly girl, she'll learn one day.  Chocolate, next to diamonds, is a girl's best friend.}

{Happy birfday girl in her birfday onesie}

{Can't forget the picture of the ruffledy birfday hiney!}

{Sweet P with her gorgeous momma (seriously, it's a wonder I don't get a complex having this one as my best friend, she's kind of disgustingly perfect - good thing I've known her since I was 13 otherwise I MIGHT have to hate her ...) telling us she's ONE with her sweet little finger.}

{The "smash cake".  Looks too pretty to smash, huh?}

{The cupcakes my MOH made for everyone else ... complete with homemade icing, which I MAY or MAY NOT have eaten off the top first ...}

{Smart girl, eating the icing first like her auntie Roo.}

{Um, I THINK she likey.}

{Time to try the cupcakes.}

{I think she likey these too ...}

{Just makin' sure we know she's one ...}

{The darling signs my MOH made.  My Soulmatey airbrushed out P's full name for privacy reasons.}

{Two of my favoritest, beautiful girls!}

{P with her birfday sign her momma MADE.  The bows aren't staying on long these days, she's figured out how to yank 'em off.}

And that's it for today lovies!!!  Have FANTASTIC weekends filled with sun, fun, rest and relaxin'!!!

Thoughtless Thursday Vlog Style!

Hello loves! TGIT (that's right, Thank Goodness it's THURSDAY) and we all know what Thursday means don't we? Time for ...

Usually I post tons of random photos, of whatever event or occasion I want, and tell y'all about 'em.  Well, today's a little different.  I decided I wanted to show y'all what I come home to every day.  My big love of a Koda bear.  And what's the FIRST thing he wants to do?  Even after not having pee'ed for over 11 hours?  Eat.  That's right.  He bucks like a bronco when I ask him if he wants dinner.  It's pretty cute.  So here you go, here's a little glimpse of my evenings with Koda bear (and yes his name is JUST Koda, but I add the bear as a term of endearment, amongst many others including Bubbers (I know, jigga what?  I have no idea), Punkies (again, no idea, not to mention most of these are said in baby-speak) and Stinker (and he actually smells pretty good, well, most of the time ...).  So, without further adieu, here you go.  Please ignore my ridiculous baby speak.  I don't know how to talk any different with him.  And sometimes my Mister, but that's neither here nor there.  Shhhhhhhhh let's just pretend I didn't say that.  Shhhhhhhhh ...

And that's IT for today!  I felt y'all needed a break from my long-winded post-a-thons.  So PWEASE feel free to link up and play along.  Grab my button, post random pictures from ANYTHING you want, explain or don't and then come back and tell us about it.  TGIT!!!