Cruisin'

I know that till I graduate this semester you will see little to no blogs from me. It's just how it's going to be. Sorry.

So school is going good. I am on track to graduate on December 18. I will be sending out e-invites instead of card ones, just in case my grades don't go through. I am making a high A right now in Accounting but you never know what can happen. So probably a couple weeks before the graduation, I will send out the e-invite :) I am sooooo ready to graduate.

A couple of weeks ago, Vincent and I went on a cruse to celebrate our 4 years of marriage. It was a blast! It was just super nice to be without kids for a week- we didn't know what to do with ourselves! :) We went to Progreso and Cozumel, Mexico. We actually were at sea the same time as Hurricane Rina. It made our land days switched so that we could avoid the storm. It also made me incredibly sea sick. I was up in the middle of the night for a few hours puking and unable to sleep. It was pretty awful. But other than that, we had a great time. It was amazing how nice it felt to just do nothing.

We got back from our cruise just in time for Halloween. Since we were getting back that day, I hadn't really planned on taking the kids trick-or-treating but at the last minute my brother David and sis-in-law, Becky asked if we wanted to go to a trunk-or-treating at a church near them with my nephew Gideon. So I went through the attic and grabbed Tristan's old costumes. Tristan was a monkey again (the costume lasted all of 30 seconds last year) and Caleb was a snowman. It was adorable. I will post pictures.

We also had family portraits done. The first time was in downtown Dallas in the Arts District. To say Tristan was terrible is an understatement. Tristan was possessed by a demon. So we took a lot of pictures with just the kids, just us, or us and Caleb as Tristan just started refusing to stand still. Our photographer- the very best!- Heather allowed us to do it again- which was awesome and definitely needed! So we waited until after our cruise and this time we did it at the Mandalay Canal in Las Colinas. Those pictures were all family portraits and those turned out amazing too! Seriously both sets of portraits turned out great and we got a great assortment of family and "action" photos! Great job, Heather! Seriously, if you live in the DFW area and need pictures done, I would recommend Heather. She is a great price and she takes tons and tons of pictures and actually gives you back a majority (takes out the crappy ones- eyes closed, weird face, etc). I remember when Vincent and I got our engagement pictures done and the lady took like 500 pictures of us and all we got back was 12 pictures. It was ridiculous. But not Heather. She's great! E-mail me and I can give you her contact information, if you want it. I will post the pictures from the portraits at the end of this blog as well.

Also we found a super cheap contractor and have decided to stain the concrete on our floors instead of wood flooring. It's cheaper and looks just as classy. I researched it because I had to convince Vincent it wasn't trashy. Here is a link to a woman and her husband that did it themselves but it had some great before and after photos. It really does look great. I'll have you believing, if you're judging me too  :)
http://athriftymom.com/2011/01/update-on-diy-concrete-stained-flooring/

Nothing much else is going on except the chaos that is our life. I feel like I'm constantly going and these kids aren't even involved in any activities yet! Geez.....I can't wait to graduate and life will slow down at least a little bit!

Pictures:

 Cruise  

Halloween

Family Portraits

 

 

Craziness

Craziness is what sums up the last month or so since I last blogged. There was a lot of family drama that I won't get into but it got rough there for a little bit. I know every family has their drama but it seems like our family has more than a normal share. We do tend to get through it but it's not fun while it happens. Hopefully, it ends up good.

School is great. I got into that Accounting class that I needed to get into. It's taught by my adviser and also the Dean of the MBA school, so she knows that I absolutely have to pass to graduate school. Actually, I have to make a B, not just pass. This is the part that's hard. I have to make a B. Yikes. She sets up the class to make 13 quizzes, weekly. Then a final exam.  She drops 2 quiz grades. I have to drop 1 because Vincent and I have an anniversary cruise and I will miss class. I have had 3 quizzes- first 58, second 75, and last week I don't have the grade but I know I at least made an A, if not a 100. I bought 3 extra books to help study. Seriously, I have more than enough help to get me to pass. I just pray that I can pass and make a B. It's going to be really hard, folks. Really, really hard.

So, the wood flooring hasn't happened yet. Vincent is dragging his feet and we probably won't get it for awhile because now his car is broke and he has to have that fixed and who knows how much that will cost. But I have a feeling that we won't be able to sell our house without it. I can't stand the floors. Vincent refuses to take the dogs outside on a regular basis when he's watching football so they piss on the carpet. Grrrr. Makes me so frustrated. They're house broken UNLESS someone keeps them from going outside. Obviously. Don't get me started. Our carpets are disgusting. I will only allow certain people over because I'm so disgusted by it.

Speaking of dogs, we need someone to watch the dogs while we go on our cruise. Any takers? We go from 10/24-10/29. My friend Lauren always watches them because she's awesome but she has 3 big dogs and a cat and I can't ask her to watch them again. If anyone can do it, we would really appreciate it. They are good dogs, once they calm down. They get excited about new people but after they get used to them, they're fine. They are house broken and easy to take care of. Bailey will even go up to the door when she needs to go outside. Lilly won't do that but she holds her bladder better than Bailey so if she goes out with Bailey, she's good. Think about it  :)

So the latest around here was Tristan's surgery. He had surgery this last Tuesday on his eyes. He has really weak eye muscles and 1 eye was starting to wander. Since Vincent had this surgery at the same age, the doctor said that both eyes were weak and more than likely would need the surgery. If he didn't get the surgery then 1 eye would be lazy and lose all vision on it altogether. We decided to go ahead and get the surgery. It was nerve wrecking but passed by fast. It lasted about 1 hour from start to finish. We got breakfast, ate it, and went back into the waiting room as they were calling our names. His eyes were super swollen and that made me cry. But the swelling went down in a few hours and now his eyes are just red. That in itself is kinda freaky. Where the eyes should be white are red with blood. Every now and then he has a little bit of blood in his tears. The red eyes should only last 2 weeks at most. The pain from the eyes only lasted a day so he's good now. But the chance of infection is high so we have to make sure his hands are always clean and that he puts in special eye drops daily. Other than that, everything's good.

This last weekend we watched David and Becky's kid- Gideon. It was their anniversary- Happy Anniversary, David and Becky!! But we watched Gideon Friday and Saturday night. The kids loved it- all of them! Playing together wore them all out. Gideon was such a great influence because he can walk a lot better than Caleb so Caleb was totally trying to imitate him- I loved it! We had so much fun with him! I can't wait till we watch him again. I took a lot of pictures but they were moving so much that it was hard  :) Here are the good ones

Super cute bum pic, but I had to cut out the bums for obvious reasons

 Gideon tired of taking pictures, ready to take a bath  :)

 Playing together

 

Loving the bath!

 Playing on my leg

 Gideon, showing off his super cute onsie

 Dinner time!