Chole is 3

I'm not a big fan of pulling my hair back, my ears stick out a little and my forehead isn't the smallest of things so that makes me uncomfortable, also since I've lost weight I can see a big ole vein down the middle of my forehead, just fabulous : / .  Sometimes I just get sick of all this mess up in my face, so on this particular day since I knew we would be outside a lot I pulled it back, attempted a braid and then put it in a bun.  I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out.  

We were headed to my little niece Chloe's 3rd birthday party.  It was a mermaid theme.  Brielle asked me before we left "should I put on make up mom, cause a mermaid party sounds fancy" haha!  Love that kid!

Oh was it fancy!! Emily did so good with every little detail!  I many have to copy this party in the near future!

Looky there, a bottle of wine perfect for a Chloe party and it was good too!

I wish I got a better picture of her swimsuit, it was to die for!!!

Trying to eat his cookie with the fork ha.

Aren't these boys some lookers!

A few weekends ago we met up in Denton for some water park fun.  Denton is about half way between both of us so it's a good meeting spot.  Hason hated the splash/slide area but loved swimming in the lazy river.  I don't think he's a fan of waters splashing in his face just like his momma.

Brielle and Levi had a good ole time playing together and didn't need us at all.

This one and her posing.  Such a beauty.

Right there!  You can see that damn vein I was talking about!  Oh well ya can't have it all and I'd rather have a flatter tummy than put on weight to cover a vein lol, I'll just cover it with my bangs. (or maybe it's not the weight but my skin getting thinner from old age! This just hit me as I was typing, ugh fabulous!) 

 Emily is my girl for life!  We can talk about anything and she's always there if I need her.

VBS

I didn't like church as a kid and dreaded going actually.  I did however love VBS!  It was the best! Except for the cookies at snack time that were always hard and crunchy and this gal likes soft and chewy :)  

Brielle was so excited to go back.  Last year the church we had been attending had vbs for younger kids but this year they did not.  That's ok though cause the year before that Brielle went to vacation bible school at a Lutheran church by our house and she still remembers it and loved it so that's where she went this summer too. 

This year they had a big focus on the earthquake victims in Napal.  The theme was Mt Everest. They had the kids clean out their piggy banks and each day they would put their money in these little elephant pinatas.  So cute!

I stood back behind the window one day and cried.  There's not many things more beautiful to me than seeing people worship, love and praise our Lord...especially little children.  I said a special prayer for everyone in there that day, that they would never lose there fire and love for Jesus.  How wonderful that we have people willing to volunteer, lead and give their time to help grow these baby's faith.  They will never know how thankful I am to them for that.  

My little beauty, she looks young to me here.  

They had a celebration night for all the family's to come together and see what the kids had been doing.  It was so nice, they even served us dinner and only asked for a small donation.  The when Brielle's group go up there to sing and preform I cried again thinking about how blessed we are to live in this country where we can worship freely and our kids can love Jesus freely without fear of being prosecuted!  We are so lucky so very very lucky. 

The choir teacher came up to us afterwards and tried to convince us to start going to church there.  She said Brielle was so great and has so much potential and she wanted her in her class.  That's the second time a choir teacher has said that to us.  We are looking into drama class in the near future for this kid. 

And then there's this picky little S#*%!  Gave him a cookie but don't think for a second he ate a single raisin outta it and that wasn't a plastic table cover either, it was cloth!  He made a nasty mess, I was so embarrassed.  This kid!

Did I mention how lucky I feel to have this life? As my Daddy would say "That's all ya need right there!"

Be still my heart...

Babies praying, is there anything that tugs at your heart more!! I can't hardly stand it when I hear them pray.  Brielle says the sweetest most innocent genuine prayers and Hason just mumbles and repeats a few of the words she say.  Gosh they're so darn cute!

Teaching him how to fold his hands, you can only keep his attention for a second and he was over praying time ha.

Home Remodel Preparations

We are so excited to have our home remodeled.  Technically it's all done but since I'm behind on blogging (shocker I know)  and for the sake of the time line in this blog I'm going to type like it isn't  :)

As I was saying, We are so excited!  We have done so much to this house on our own and we are tired so the rest will be done by a contractor.  We are having new wood floors put in downstairs,  new thick baseboards, replace light fixtures, paint and antique kitchen cabinets,  new air conditioner, new water heater, a storm door installed in the front door, plantation shutters for the front of the house (cause I don't want anything blocking the view of our beautiful backyard) and we are tearing down a wall that's quite an eye sore that's part of our stairs and adding a wrought iron staircase.  Phew!   As you can see the kiddos had quite a time with the empty house.

Yay! I've wanted custom cabinets for as long as I can remember!

I'm sure I sound nuts but anytime we hire someone to do something for us (which is very very rarely)  I feel so incredibly bad.  I had a house cleaner come once and felt so sorry for her and silly as if I couldn't clean my house on my own.  I felt spoiled and bratty if that makes any sense.  Even though we pay them it still feels wrong having people do things for me I'm fully capable of doing myself.  That's a hard hard job they have bless their hearts.  I saw how tough it was to rip up those floors.  Someday when I go back to work I'll have to get over the house cleaner thing cause I will have one then for sure.  

We lived with my Dad for two weeks while the grunt work was being done and the home was unlivable.  Hason had a spare room all to himself since he is little and can't sleep if someone else is in the room with him.  We tried putting Brielle in there the first night and he kept calling her name and making her stay awake ha!  My mom was in Colombia the whole month of June so it worked out perfectly for us to stay there, one less person makes it less crammed.  Landon slept in my moms bed, I slept on a matters on the floor next to him, cause I don't share a bed unless it's a queen or king size, I refuse to not sleep well cause we are too close together and my mom has a full size, ain't happening!   Landon and I are a lovey dovey touchy feely couple but not at bedtime.  Bedtime means business... sleep!!!  I hate missing sleep.  

Any who it was kinda annoying living outta two homes with two little ones but then again in a strange way I've always kinda enjoyed  inconveniences like that cause it helps keep us grounded and reminds us that most people in the world don't have a home and have way worst sleeping accommodations that we do, Ya know what I'm sayin?   I did enjoy seeing daddy everyday.  We took him to Market Street Terrace one evening and he loved it, I knew he would... they had okra!  

This is the best place ever, the kids get to play and we can enjoy drinks and live music.

Best of all Veggie plates are only $3.99 and on Tuesdays it's buy one get one free, you know the cheap frugal Gann's love that!  I gotta stop saying we are cheap, such a bad description of us, especially when I think investing in a designer handbag ain't no thang.  I like to pick and choose what we spend good money on and what really isn't worth the expense.  I like to have a balance of used things, sale things and high quality items in my life.  My mom was always like this too.  She would alter her own clothes, trim her own hedges, paint her own house but she was known to drop $100 for a nice well made sweater or pair of shoes from time to time :)  Landon works hard for to be successful and as a stay at home mom and wife I want to help save where I can.  I also try to make sure any shopping or eating out I do is paid for by me and my little paycheck.  

We had some fun dressing up in my grandma's old hats while we were staying at mom's. 

Dinner time in bed....

Oh and since daddy never goes anywhere we took advantage of a couple date nights too.

Days spent out and about to keep the kids busy.  Luckily the process is only supposed to take maybe 3 to 4 weeks.  We can survive!

Adults Only and 9 Year Anniversary!

We have had our share of get togethers this summer.  We are still trying to get our Flower Mound Alumi group off the ground and had another casual meet up.  It was really a good time and I loved hearing the stories about how different chapters did their initiations and how big all the pledge classes were and what not.  I couldn't imagine being in a class of 50 to 100.  We had 15 haha.

My sweet new friend Amy, who made all this possible.  She's been working hard to get this group going.

I also thoroughly enjoy my monthly happy hour with my kid less friends :)

My sweet friend Natalie invited us out to meet up with one of Landon's frat brothers we hadn't seen in ages.

Darrell the barrel as I call him, it's been way to long.  The fools are together again.

When I called Natalie to see what she was wearing she said in the most excited voice "Oh my gosh Diana, I look so cute!!!" Then proceeded to tell me about her outfit.  I just died.  It was the cutest thing ever and shouldn't we all feel that good about ourselves and be able to tell others when we feel great!  I just love her! Made my night that she felt so pretty and her outfit was cute, but then again it always is.

I always want a honey butter chicken biscuit at the end of the night.  Landon gives me a hard time but it's half that I'm hungry and half the fact that I just don't want to go home yet.

My sweetheart and I celebrated 9 years of blissful marriage and 15 years together.  I absolutely love being married to this man.  I know everyone says marriage is hard work but so far I just haven't felt like that, I'm sorry I haven't.  I'm not naive enough to think our time will never come but so far so good, it's simple and easy.   Our relationship is harmonious and has always been a joy.  The two most stressful hardest times on our relationship so far have been the first 6 months after each of our babies birth. That was because we didn't get our alone time together and we had to put each other second to take care of a little human.   We really don't fight.  We've probably had 3 real fights in 9 years (I can only think of two but I'm sure there was another one in there somewhere)   He is my rock, my everything and takes such good care of me.   I love him more than anything in this world.  I cherish him and all he does for our family.  I'm so proud to be Mrs. Gann.  He is an amazing man and he's all mine!  We kept it simple this year.  Tried out a new restaurant and then the movies for Jurassic World.  Oh my I cried! It was so good!  I love animals even dinosaurs :)

Next year is the big one O!! So we will more than likely be somewhere tropical!!!