Eat 'em UP!

We had lots of rain and ice here in East Texas last night.  I never realized how many bridges I cross going to and from work until this morning.  After today, please Lord bring us the sunshine.  It's so gloomy around here and it puts everyone in a weird mood.  I'm ready to see green trees and green grass! 

Pistachios are by far my favorite kind of nut.  I also love just plain ole salted peanuts as well, but these babies right here make me smile! The bad thing about being pregnant is you don't think twice about buying something.  When I see something that sounds good, I grab it off the shelf and keep on moving.  If I weren't pregnant, I would literally just stand there debating whether or not I REALLY need it.  Sometimes I will even go the distance to putting it in my basket and then return it! I drive myself crazy sometimes while shopping.  And this goes for clothes AND food. 

Every year the Girl Scout Cookies kill me.  And yes, you see 8 boxes in this picture.  I don't eat them all at once before you start freaking out with your jaw dropping.  I put them in my freezer and eat them throughout the year.  Plus it's for a good cause, right?

Buddy didn't last long at my cousin's house.  I'm glad she gave it a try though.  Her cat and little dog scared Buddy to death.  She said he stayed hidden behind the couch and at night he would sit in the window and cry and cry and cry.  I know who he was crying for....LEVEN! I'm sure it's that same awful cry he does as soon as Leven walks out of the house.  My cousin said it drove her crazy.  I don't blame her. 

 

So a lady that works for my parents offerened to keep him.  She has NO pets and it's just her and her two little girls.  She said that he sniffed around their house for a little while and then seemed ok.  He was sniffing for other animals. ha! She sent me this picture this morning and said that Buddy was making himself right at home.  I'm so happy to hear this.  I don't care much for this cat, but Taydem and Leven LOVE him!

 

We've raised him since he was a baby and all he knows is us.

Big ole fat black cat!!!

 

~DB~

Seeing red.......

I'm thinking it's time for Trever to get a haircut....and do a little shaving on that face of his.  I like his beard, but he just needs to clean it up! ha

He is seriously starting to look to OLD!

Not only are my feet and legs starting to swell, but the fingers are getting there too.  I can't wear my wedding ring anymore. 

 

Do you go all out for Valentine's Day?

 

I've never been the type of woman that got my feelings hurt if Leven didn't go all out for me on Valentine's Day.  I honestly could care less if he even gets me a card.  I think every year we just try and make it a date night.  And we are both perfectly fine with that.  This year we are going over to Shreveport with some other couples to eat and then I'm sure we will head home.  We usually head over to the boats for a little bit, but I'm not even sure if we will do that this time.  So that's our plans for now at least....

 

During my lunch break today, I headed to Walgreens to buy Taydem's class Valentine's cards.  We also have to decorate a shoebox so she can put her Valentine's cards in it.  It's always something.  I'm glad Taydem enjoys arts and crafts.  I usually just let her do her own thing.  I was so proud of her last night.  While I was washing dishes (the apartment doesn't have a dishwasher!) she sat on a stool and read her library book to me.  So BIG!

 

So ready for some warmer weather...

DB

 

 

Saying goodbye

Well, we did it.  We finally moved to Tatum.

These past few days have been exhausting to say the least.

  But, we did it.

 And it does feel good. 

 

We slept last night, our first night, in the apartment.  And it was a really awesome, deep sleep.  Our bodies were so worn out from all the packing, unpacking, moving, driving, loading, unloading, etc.  I'm sure my parents slept like a champ last night too.  They were the biggest help this weekend, especially my Mom.  Thank the Lord for her! She's a worker and a lover and will do anything for us kiddos! I also want to thank my preggo sister and her hubby and both my brothers.  They also did some help with our move and made everything a little less stressful.  We still have boxes to be unpacked, but I'm seriously going to just take my time.  We are in the apartment and right now that's all that matters. 

Taydem LOVES the new place and tells us she likes it better than our old house.  I bought her new bedding and her room is bigger.  My mom is still painting the baby crib and finishing up the rocking chair.  Once she's finished, we will put them in the room with Taydem.  This morning Directv hooked up our TV's-YIPPEE! And I got to take Taydem to school for the second time this YEAR!

Last night I missed having my big bathtub, but the shower felt wonderful.  The drive to Kilgore from Tatum wasn't bad at all.  I tried to time it so I would know exactly when we needed to leave every morning and it took me 23 minutes.  I know Leven had a smile on his face the whole way to Carthage (the big 12 minute drive)! Things are falling in place for us Barker's and now we just wait to sign all the paperwork at the closing. 

After that, we WAIT for the arrival of Tenlee Rose. 

 

 Check out this leg and foot! That pedicure was amazing that day.  But OMG....

(I will say that's kind of a bad angle, hehe)

 

 

This was a picture of me laying down on the couch taking about break #4 from last Friday night.  It's the little things that drive you crazy when you move.  This was stuff all needing to be loaded up in my car to take to the apartment.

 

 

We had put our name in the cement the day it was poured back in 2009.  I figured it was only fitting to take a picture of it when we left.  These past 5 years in Pine Tree really were good to us.  We met some great people and have tons of memories to leave with. 

 Leven added quite a few more W's to his resume and more girls signing scholarships to play at the next level.  Trever made lasting friendships, played in some memorable games and Pine Tree prepared him for college!  And best of all we had the best neighbors in the world...we will sure miss the Duke's and ole' Greg!

 

 

But now it's time to write the next chapter in our lives.............. 

 

DB

Swollen

This morning was def a "hot chocolate" kind of morning.  Since I don't like coffee, I drank a Dr. Pepper first to wake my butt up and then since it's so chilly outside I made myself this cup of tasty wonder!

My brother and Chrissy have been living it up in Las Vegas these past few days. 

Check them out!

My parents have been keeping their three kids while they have been gone.  My Mom said last night she felt like she was raising kids again.  Doing homework, taking Truitt to basketball practice, cooking breakfast AND supper, bath time, Tyler's "time out chair, etc.  We didn't have NO kind of time out chair growing up....we had spankin time.  Guess it's a little different with grandkids, ha!

I have the sweetest Mom's that take pictures of Taydem when they do fun things at school.  Since I'm working I don't get to do and see all this fun stuff! Her teacher is really good also about taking pictures of the kids! Yesterday was a huge success for their 100th Day of School!

I was pleased with how hard my volleyball team worked for me last night.  I'm sure it's not real easy taking a huge pregnant woman serious, but they were awesome.  By the time I got home my feet and legs were HUGE! Swollen all up...ha! So today during my lunch break...guess what's on the agenda? A pedicure! I'm going to tell them to give me an extra rub down!

 

DB

Size them up

Here's a little side by side comparison of my two girls.  Taydem is on the left at 28 weeks and Tenlee is on the right at 27 weeks.  They favor a little I guess.

Today was college signing day at Carthage High School. Leven's top volleyball player is headed to the University of Tennessee!! Go Vols! Can't wait to follow her these next few years. He also found out today that another one of his seniors has decided to play at the next level.  That means right now at this moment, he has 10 girls playing college volleyball.  Now that's pretty impressive!

Leven is one proud Papa!

The other night I was taking a really HOT bath and in walks Leven with this yummy HOT Fudge Sunday! How did I ever get so lucky with him.  Best surprise of that day...haha! I can honestly say that was my first time eating something while taking a bath.  It was pretty wonderful.

I can't get this picture to turn how I want it.  But these are the burp cloths my cousin Peyton made for Tenlee. Super cute.  Danin and I spent a couple of hours last night sorting through all of the baby stuff.  I feel like it doesn't even look like we did much.  Between Taydem and Tenlee, that room is going to be a little cramped.  I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to store everything. This may be the first time in my life that I don't have a lot of storage space.  I will find a way and make it all work out though.

Tonight we have volleyball practice and the head coach can't be there.  So that means I get to run practice.  It sucks though because I can't do a whole lot with the girls.  Tossing the ball is about as far as I get to go.  So my practice is going to have to work around what I can and can't do. 

It's Wednesday!!!!

DB

Let's get organized

It is nasty, cold and wet here in East Texas.  This kind of weather makes it hard to roll out of bed (I'm not kidding about the "rolling" out of bed!). But I'm up and ready to tackle another day. 

 

Last night Leven and I loaded up our cars and headed back to the storage unit.  I feel like we are making some pretty good progress.  Once we got back home, we loaded up my car with apartment stuff.  Tonight Danin and I are going to go through all my baby shower gifts and separate all the duplicates and things I have too many of. So my car is loaded down with more baby stuff.  Until we get all the bedroom furniture in the rooms, there will be tons of little piles scattered across the apartment.  Speaking of baby shower gifts, I am blessed to have some talented family and friends.  My cousin Peyton and my friends Lacey and Samantha made us some awesome burp clothes and a few more handmade items......LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. The burpclothes below are the ones Samantha made.  Tonight I will have to take a few more pictures of the others to share with you. 

Tomorrow is the 100th day of school.  If you have a young one, then you know all about this special day and how most schools make it a pretty big deal.  So this year Taydem's class each had to make a poster board and make sure "100" items were on the board.  You could do whatever you wanted.  So I took it to Pinterest and found this little idea.  Of course Taydem's picture doesn't look quite like the one on Pinterest, but you get the idea.  I also added the little pharse to it.  So she has buttons and gem stones on her poster board (100 of these little things to be exact!).  The pinterest picture used all buttons, but I couldn't find just all buttons.  So we managed.

I had another visit yesterday with my OB/GYN.  Everything is still going smoothly. 

Blood pressure-check. 

Heart beat-check.

And I'm measuring right at 31 weeks-check.

I see her again in a couple of weeks and then my next visit I will have one last sonogram. 

 

Make today a good one.

DB

Showered with LOVE

This weekend came and went like all the rest here lately.  But this weekend was a good un'!

Saturday morning Leven loaded up another load and took it to storage.  Mom and Dad stopped by the house after my nephew's basketball game and helped us finish a few more things on the inspectors list to get fixed.  Then Mom, Taydem and I headed over to my parents house to begin a day filled with painting.  Danin and Brittyn met us there and Danin helped us with all the painting.  It took us like 5 hours to paint just a few things.  The weather wasn't in our favor so the paint was having a harder time to dry.  But we did finish the shelf thingy for the apartment kitchen, the three stools for the kitchen and we started the rocking chair.  Now the rocking chair was the one thing giving us a hard time.  There were too many wood parts to be painted and such a tight space around them all.  I painted the ottaman while Mom and Danin painted the chair. It will def need another coat of paint.  We didn't even start on the baby crib yet.  Mom said she was going to try and start on it sometime this week.  Speaking of my MOM----today is her burfday! The big 6-1!!! So happy birthday to her.

And on her birthday she told me she was going to finish the rocking chair and touch up anything else! The bestest Momma out there. Love you Momma!

 

Here are a few before and after photos of our hard work!!

 

We thought the kitchen could use a little color! I didn't get an "after picture" of the stools, but they are the same colors as the shelfy thingy. But I did get a picture of Danin working hard!

 I want to wait until the rocking chair is completely finished before I show you the before and after photos of it. 

 

Leven and I have decided that we want to try and get everything moved out by this Sunday.  So we better get our workin britches on for this week!

Because here we go!

 

Yesterday our baby shower was the best.  Even with all the rain, we had a wonderful turnout and was showered with all kinds of goodies.  Tenlee and Baylee are pretty much ready now! Well Baylee more than Tenlee, but we are getting there.  I haven't even gone through all the good stuff yet.  After the shower we took everything to the apartment and just dropped it off.  We had a Super Bowl Party to go to and Leven was ready (oh and BTW-the Super Bowl was boring this year!). So this weekend I plan on going through everything and trying to get this apartment organized.  Here are a few photos from the shower. 

 I love my sister in laws and friends dearly.

 

 

Have a Happy Monday and wonderful week!

DB