Close Drier

This is the way I have dried our clothes for years; at least all of our delicate clothing. This helps to keep our clothes looking new and never worn. When Londyn gets all of Alexis's hand me downs, then they will still look and feel new! I even bought one of these hanging stands for my mom a few years ago; she too, air dries her delicate clothing.


This is my new "Close Drier!" My mom surprised me with it the other day. It's for those days when it's damp & cold and it's taking forever for the clothes to dry. It's for when we need to wash and dry something so we can wear it the next day. It's also for warming up, soft, snugly towels when we take a bath; the real reason why I'm glad I have a new clothes dryer. Thanks mom! (That's really the name of my new dryer, Close Drier)

The Neighborhood Ladies

Alexis and I attended a Pampered Chef's kitchen show today at one of our neighbors house. We had such a good time. Alexis got to play with her new neighborhood friend, also named Alexis, who is 5 years old. She also played with Natalie who is 3. My Alexis did not want to leave when it was time to go. I got to meet a lot of the neighborhood ladies for the first time. We all live on acreage and our homes are all set back from the road, so it's not often that we get to meet our neighbors. It appears they are a close nit group of extremely nice ladies. I exchanged numbers with two of the ladies and we are planning on getting our kids together. Craig and I did not realize how many young children live in our neighborhood. I purchased some really neat stuff and Craig watched Londyn so I wouldn't be chasing her around at the party. We are going back to the Jacob's house on Saturday for their Alexis's 6th B-day party, so Alexis is really excited.

Back In Our House

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We moved back into our house this past weekend.  We are anxiously trying to get everything back in order so that we can start having "play dates" will Alexis's girl friends from MDO.  Camille says it's all her girls are talking about.  Becca says that Molly can come over ANY DAY!  Emily is the sweet girl who gives Alexis hugs when it's time to leave; they have a sweet bond.  Micha's mom Clara is so sweet we both can't wait to get our girls together soon.  P.S.  Clara has seen me without makeup so hopefully this is the beginning of a  life long friendship with our girls.  He He He

Because Of One Man's Special Day.......

All Of THIS HAPPENED! 

I ran around Thursday afternoon, after I picked Alexis up from school, hunting down the perfect pair of shoes.  I was attending a funeral on Friday and I didn't have a pair of shoes to go with my outfit.  I found a pair of slides that are so adorably cute.  They look like Brighton!  So, I bought two pairs, one in black the other in brown.  Bright and early the next morning the girls and I headed out to attend the funeral located on the south side of S.A.  We were attending the funeral of Jerry Stroud.  He was an amazing man who lived less than a mile away from our house and his wife was the "community babysitter".  We entered the South Side Funeral Home which appeared to be a very "old place" with many stories to tell.  It was about to tell another.  It was the perfect setting for what was about to transpire.   As we (my mom & my sisters) were greeting Jerry's family and giving our condolences, we then began to scan the room for  a place to sit.  As we made our way back up the isle to the back of the funeral home all the while scanning the sea of people, I began to see old familiar faces from my childhood.  I saw Justin Espey and his parents.  Justin was my 1st love, (in Kindergarten) he had the most beautiful blonde hair as a child.  We later realized when we got the chance to talk after the service how small this world really is.  Loren Gillespie (Justin Espey's best friend still to this day) who lived a mile down the street (also Kindergarten) and who's grandmother I remembered in THIS POST.  Jennifer Geese, whom I babysat as a little girl and now lives about three miles away from me in New Braunfels (we are planning on getting together).  Laney is Jennifer's younger sister whom I also babysat when she was a baby.  I noticed that Laney's 7 month old was wearing a cranial helmet.  As we conversed about Londyn having the same treatment we began to talk about Amy.  Amy is the PT technician at Cranial Tech in Austin.  We talked about how wonderful she is and how upon meeting this amazing girl, you instantly feel like she is your BEST FRIEND.  Amy and I are planning to get together for lunch in Austin and definitely staying in touch.  My girls and I LOOOOOOVE Amy & Michelle (Amy's assistant).  Bill Schlomchinski, he is my best friend, Shanna Divin's uncle.  His eyes laid upon my mom, sisters and I and he instantly recognized us giving us a nod of his head.  Mind you, we have not seen this man in 16 years.  Bonny, the mother of four boys.  We (my sisters brother and I) were always at her house, or they were at ours)  It's a small world when, Shannon one of my college friends married Bonny's oldest son Steve.   We saw many others who appeared  a bit aged  but it seemed as though time had not passed.  Time had only stood STILL.  It's sad what time does when you think back on the memories from your childhood  of a community of people who were so close nit.  After conversing and catching up with everyone we parted and headed to Luby's to eat lunch.  As my mom was making her way in a girl turned and asked her is she was Mrs. Cooper.  Janet Gonzales was her name.  She and her sisters lived a few miles away from us too, growing up.  My best memories of these girls were of Girl Scouts and being in elementary school.  Janet said they had just recently looked at old pics and came across one of my mom dressed up as a witch for Halloween (Fall Harvest...now) and they were wondering what had ever happened to Mrs. Cooper.  Now they know!  As we were all eating Justin Espey approached me again and informed me that he and his wife were planning on adopting a child from Russia since they had a hard and difficult time sustaining the pregnancy of their 1st daughter.  I mentioned to him that he should talk to my friend, Becca since she too has adopted from Russia.  He said her name seemed very familiar.  He called his wife and she strongly believed that they had indeed already talked to Becca.  Justin's wife is so stressed out about this whole adoption process, so I'm going to call Becca to make sure they connect; if they haven't already.   Next we were off for a day of shopping at The Shops At La Cantera. I was specifically wanting to try the make-up that my new friend, Mrs. Candy wears from Este Lauder.  Mrs. Candy likes the color of my hair and I like her makeup.  I think that a good connection, right?  Anyways finally we ended up at Gymboree where Alexis got to spend her Gymboree Bucks.  She got a lot of really cute bottoms to match all the tops we bought her a month before.  Our last stop was Marble Slab for the infamous cotton candy milkshake.  Thanks to Jerry for the wonderful day we had  in his memory.  Many more memories to come with all of this reconnecting going on......... 

Simon Was Blown Away!

(be sure to mute my jukebox located in the middle on my right sidebar)

AND SO WAS I................................................

Feeling Peachy

Londyn is feeling quite peachy today. She slept well last night and woke up a bit early this morning. I think some pain may of been setting in. I've been giving her rounds of ibuprofen and Tylenol to make sure she is comfortable. She been trying to peel off the "super glue". I hoping it stays on a few more days.

One day she'll get to she what happened to her.

That's why I love blogging.

I'm So Blue, I Don't Know What To Do

Look at those beautiful Blue eyes........

Now go back and look at her chin.

Did you see that? Did you see the blood splattered on her shirt? My poor baby girl fell into the hinges of a door that we have in our garage. All of our doors are currently off of their hinges and vertically stacked, one upon another, since we began a tiny renovation to our home nearly three weeks ago. I kept telling my mom that I didn't think they were safe all stacked up like that. Today, as I was unloading groceries from my car, Alexis and Londyn were entertaining themselves by pretending they were riding on their new go-cart. As Londyn was trying to stand near the side of the cart, she lost her balance and fell into the door hinges. At first, I didn't think she was hurt too badly. As I lifted her head off of my shoulder to see if I could see a red spot surfacing; on her forehead.....

I saw my shoulder covered in blood.

I quickly began to look her over and discovered she had scraped the underneath side of her chin from one end to the other and "hole punched" the very tip of her chin. It looked like the punched skin was hanging by a thread. She busted her upper gums up pretty good too. I headed immediately to the Texas Med Clinic (instead of going to the ER; to be seen quicker) and the doctor fixed her right up. She got some liquid stitches and antibiotic ointment. Her wound looks pretty nasty in person. The pics don't look too, too bad.

I'm the one who is blue you know!

Children are so resilient.

View From The Front Porch

This is why we love where we live.

December 2007

Have You Ever Been Chased?

My mom called me the other night and told me that I would not believe what had happened, AGAIN! She said she was getting ready to leave for work and she heard something that sounded like a necklace had fallen off of her dresser and down onto the floor. Then she said, "guess what it was?" I had no clue! She then began to tell me she had been chased around her house AGAIN. The same thing happended many years before. When I was living at my parents house, right before I got married, my mom, sister and I were all sitting in the living room. All Of A Sudden, we saw a huge centipede in the living room and it started chasing us....................

We began frantically jumping on couches and chairs and scattering about. All the while, we were all screaming for our very lives. We know he wasn't really chasing us; he was probably just trying to get the heck away from all of us crazies. It felt very real and scary all the same. We had ever seen such a large centipede before. I can remember wondering what it was that was so big and aweful looking. We finally managed to chase him out the front door and trap him under a cup until my dad got home. He informed us of how poisonous he is.
Today, Alexis and I were outside and in the very area where I was standing there he was. So, I ran to get my camera so that I could get a pic of him. I'm dedicating this post to my mom for the remembrance of when we were all chased by a centipede at her house. I still tell Craig to this day, that he was really chasing us. He just gets a kick out of "US" really thinking he was.

Fun Comes In Large Boxes

The Girls And I......

are awaiting the first of three special deliveries TODAY! I'll post about the deliveries later as the second and third deliveries are not expected until the middle of the month and the middle of May.
TA, TA

This Made Me Sick

I dropped Chief off at the vet this morning before 8 a.m. While we were registering him for his surgery the girl at the counter went over some paper work with me. She wanted to know, if we wanted to pay an additional $60 for "blood work" before the surgery. She also wanted to know if we wanted his nails trimmed, additional pain medication for pain management and if we wanted to have him implanted with a chip. Each service cost an additional amount, of course. Anyways, I said yes to everything except the implant. I'm still wondering how much the actual surgery is going to cost? I didn't want to ask after being hit with all of the EXTRAS. So, I'll wait until we pick him up to feel sick at my stomach again. Anyways, I asked the lady how invasive the surgery was going to be since I have never experienced getting a male dog fixed. I have always had female dogs growing up and can remember how hard it was for them to recover after surgery. I was hoping she was going to say, "Oh, we make a tiny incision and snip, that's it!" I wished I had never asked........ She explained that he will have an incision (smaller than a females), then we pull them out and cut them off." At that moment, I began to fell sick to my stomach and felt uneasy about what our dog was about to undergo. I kept my calm and left the veterinary office telling myself it's for the best and it can't be as bad as what a female dog undergoes. I was also thinking about taking care of him for the next 2-3 days in our travel trailer with the girls. Yes, we are still in the travel trailer........another week. Sheesh

A Public Matter

As I finished student teaching in the spring of '98, I decided that my future children would not attend public school. Teaching seemed to be so different than I had remembered growing up as a little girl. It seemed to have become way too political! The children were being deprived of the education they so desperately needed. The passion to teach was gone for many; including myself. Deciding where Alexis is going to attend school in the fall has been a tough choice for us. My dream was for her to attend The Christian Academy. The more I researched and talked to friends about this school, we decided Alexis was not going to attend at least for the first couple of years. One huge factor was the fact that we already pay $4000 in taxes, so the elementary school down the street from us was already paid for. Tuition for The Christian Academy is $400 a month, so we would ultimately be paying at least $8000 for her to attend. We even considered the E.N.A.A.C.T. program offered at our church but, decided against it. EVERYONE that I have talked to has urged us to give the new elementary school down the road, Hoffman Lane Elementary a chance. The pros were that they have an outstanding Kinder program and the kids are testing higher than the children at the privates schools and the "home schooled" children. We don't want Alexis to be labeled as a home school-er or attend a school that seems to be isolated. Hoffman Lane Elementary recently held their Kinder Roundup to register upcoming kinder students. We were absolutely amazed at what the school has to offer. Alexis was so excited to see that many of her friends from Kids Kare were going to her new school. I even ran into a friend from high school, who just moved to the area, whom I haven't seen in sixteen years and one of my old neighbors from "The Pinnacle." I think we have made the right decision and NO ONE has given me a reason to think otherwise. We've heard positive and negative things alike about our other choices. We have only heard positive things about the one we chose. I plan to be very involved with Alexis at her new school. I will step in when I see fit to help her excel at her academics. As many of you know, I'm a stay-at-home mom by choice and a teacher by a piece of paper that certifies me as an early childhood educator. So I will be fulfilling two of my loves; both of which include the education of my children.

Living Quarters For The Week.......

A lot of excitement going on here at the Mullin's household. We are amidst a minor renovation to our newly built home. A renovation that seems pretty MAJOR to us since our lives are in chaos at this present moment. We have completely moved out of our house and into our travel trailer. So, life has been lots of fun with with two girls and a dog. As I'm standing in my garage checking my emails and blogging, I'm desperately seeking to get back to a normal life living in our new home with my two girls, loving husband and our dog....who's driving me crazy (He's getting fixed on Monday and we are sending him to obedience school for two weeks.) Not meaning to seem soooooo blah! It hasn't been that bad getting to pick out new ..... (To Be Continued)

Ta, Ta,