Caden drew a picture of her family tonight and I loved it so I took a picture of it to share with you. That is me on the left, Caden is in the middle & she is holding Jace and Brent is on the right. I LOVE it!

Baby Brady is already a week old today! Kristen delivered Brady Clyde Billingsley on July 22, 2008 at 8:36 pm. He weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 19 in long. I will post pictures of this sweet baby boy after my next trip to San Angelo. I can't wait!

Wow! I am so excited that I have been nominated for a blog award! Thank you so much Janet. It is good to know that someone out there enjoys reading about our crazy family!

Now I get to nominate 3 blogs for this award. I have chosen the following three blogs because I love that I get to keep in touch with these girls through the blog world even though we are living in different cities.

1. Janna - A Day in the Life of The Morgans
2. Sherry - Our Life Out Here
3. Jana - Mommy's Little Chunkey Monkey

Okay, here all the rules, since I have to pass it along!

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. You must nominate fellow bloggers for this award.
4. Add links to the recipients.
5. Leave a comment so the recipients know they have received an award.

Today is my parents wedding anniversary. They have been happily married for over 30 years and are still so happy together. They have taught me how a marriage should be and I am very thankful for that. I am also thankful for a wonderful childhood with lots of great memories that they have given to me. I am excited about the many more memories ahead!
Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad! I hope you have a great day.

This past weekend we celebrated my mom and Carrie's birthdays (Carrie is our 'adopted' sister/friend/nail tech and her birthday was on the 4th). My little sister and crew came to town and my mom made some yummy lasagna for the birthday dinner. We also spent some time on Saturday over at our house. I think that Kelton really enjoyed playing at Caden's house. When they come to town most of the time is spent at my parents house since that is where they stay. This time Kelton actually stayed with us though! We had a great time but we also missed my big sister. She was not able to make the trip =(
I did not remember to take my camera to my parents, but I did get pics of the kids playing in the backyard on Saturday. Here they are:

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Hope everyone had a great weekend, too!

I have been home from work for maybe an hour and I think that I have already said "No Sir!" to Jace about 30 times. What is worse is that he looks at me and smiles really big or laughs and continues to do what he is doing. Such a little toot! I need to try someting different.

Today is a very special day. It is my mom's birthday! I have the best mom ever. She is my best friend. I am so lucky to have her in my life. Her grandkids are also so lucky to have her as their Grammy. Once Grammy is around they all want her attention and for her to do everything with them. I love it and so does Grammy!

Once again this morning did not go as expected, but it was fun. We did go to the 4th on Broadway celebration downtown but it was a dud. I think that if we had older kids it might have been better. We stood in line to get the kids faces painted but after not moving in the line and seeing the artwork on the kids faces that did leave the booth, we moved on. Caden jumped in the bouncy house for a couple of minutes and had a blast. It just didn't last very long. Next we decided to hit the ice cream truck to get a sweet treat. Probably the highlight of the whole trip. Jace loved his red popsicle. What was I thinking. At least I had a bib to put on him. My snow cone was not great but I guess you can't expect anything different from an ice cream truck. That is pretty much all that we did downtown besides walk in the humidity. We parked so far away and as we got closer and closer we found much better parking. Oh well, we got a little exercise in too. Here are a few pictures from this morning:


Brent with Jace who was refusing to smile for the camera.
Caden trying to smile with the sun in her eyes and Jace running from the camera.
While we were waiting in line at the bouncy house Caden and Jace played peek-a-boo with daddy's legs.
My pretty girl.
The red popsicle.
Once the popsicle was almost gone it got way to messy and we took it away. Jace was not a happy boy.

Caden's messy face.
Oops I almost forgot. Brent bought Caden and I a new pair of sunglasses! We are now stylin'.

We plan to watch the fireworks tonight. Hope everyone has a Happy 4th!

Yesterday evening we packed up the truck and headed to San Angelo for a long 4th of July weekend. We made it to Slaton (just outside of Lubbock) where we decided to stop at the Sonic because we were already hungry. As we were waiting for the food, I looked in the back seat to find Jace throwing up EVERYWHERE. It was horrible. I felt so bad for him. The look on his face was so pitiful. I tried to get him cleaned up a little but the baby wipes did not do much for that mess. So once we got the food we turned around and headed back to Lubbock - with the windows down. The smell was really bad. Caden thought it was great to ride with the windows down and some how Jace slept most of the ride home.
When we got home I gave Jace a bath and put him to bed. For a couple hours he was in and out of sleep but never cried out for me. I checked on him a few times to make sure that he had not thrown up again but thankfully he did not throw up after the first incident.
This morning he was weak but doing much better. He was still grumpy for most of the day. It seemed like Jace felt much better after dinner tonight. He was laughing and playing with Caden. I think him being happy put Caden in a better mood too.
Honestly, it helped my mood as well. I was definitely disappointed about not going to San Angelo. This morning Harlee had surgery to get tubes in her ears and I wanted to be there for the surgery. Amber said everthing went great and Harlee is doing well. Still I wish I was there.
I also wanted to see all of the kids dressed up in their 4th of July outfits and for everyone to see my kids in their outfits too. I guess we will all just have to take good pictures to share.
Grandma was also disappointed. She did so many great things for us in preparation for our visit including buying milk for Jace, chocolate donuts for Caden and the awesome Sams brownies for all of us. She was really looking forward to seeing the kids.
I am praying that I have a better attitude in the morning. We plan to take the kids downtown to all of the 4th of July festivities. I am sure that it will be lots of fun.
I feel like this situation is similar to a child's 1st birthday party. The mom has all of these ideas of how the party should go and what the child will love. None of these things are important to the child. They want to play with the wrapping paper and boxes, not the new toys. The cake was not what the mom thought she was going to get but the child thought it was the best thing ever. Basically, the mom thought that everything had to be perfect and even though it was not perfect, the child had the best time! Hopefully, that is how this situation will end up. Not how I originally wanted it to be, but the best time for the kids.