Saying Goodbye to Good Friends

Almost 3 years ago, Matt started working on his Ph.D.  On his first day, in his first class, he met a guy that was also starting his Ph.D that year. And as the semester passed Matt and Ryan became fast friends. It was almost a year later that I met Ryan's wife, Sarah, when we had them over for dinner. By the end of the night, I knew that I'd made a great friend as well.

Over the next 2 years our familes became such good friends; I've often called them our "Fayetteville Family". It has helped me more than I can say to have someone that completely understands the stress and work and time it requires of your husband to get a Ph.D. -- and how hard it is to be the wife/mom in that situation....and how different that makes your life from everyone around you. I have been so blessed by her friendship. :) 

Sarah and I have spent countless hours at the park and mall for playdates. Charlotte and Mary Mack have been each others first little playmates and girlfriends. :)  

We got to keep Mary Mack a few weeks back while Sarah went to hear Ryan defend his dissertation. It was such a fun afternoon! Mary Mack just jumped right in with the other kiddos and had herself quite a time! 

This past week, we said goodbye to this sweet family as they moved out of state for Ryan's new job. They have been such a part of our lives the past few years and we are going to miss them so much!

More House Pics

One of the most fun projects we did was the 1/2 bath. It was so dark and boring before, but I love how it turned out! These are the before pics...

 And, the after. We painted it my new favorite shade of blue and it really lightened it up. I went with blue and brown accents, with a hint of orange.

 I added some new pictures...

 I put some potpourri in this gravy boat that was part of my great-grandmother's china.

 And finally I made this wreath. I'm pretty proud of it -- it looks so good! And, it was quick, fun and cheap to make. I think I spent about $4 on it. Love!

July Wrap Up

I'm way behind again in blogging and I think some of these pictures actually happened in June, but oh well. I keep telling myself that I'm only behind in recording what we've been doing because we've been too busy having fun and making memories this summer for me to sit down and blog about all of that -- I'm sure I'll have more time when Madeleine & Harrison both are in school all day and maybe I'll get caught up then!

We met up with the other W family for a library/park morning. The library storytime was awesome that day, but sadly, we've never made it back. I've thought about it several times, but it just never worked out. We had a great day that day though. The kids enjoyed the library and had such a fun time at the park afterwards. We started by feeding the ducks and then everyone but Charlotte played in the sandbox. That sweet girl just doesn't like the sand, but I'm really hoping that will change! I'm itching for a beach vacation in the near future! 

 Our class had a swim party one evening at the Wilson's pool. It was such a fun time! They have a wonderful pool/park/pavillion and we had such a great time with our class there!

 Since it's been too hot most afternoons to play outside while Charlotte naps, the Wii has become our favorite pasttime. We've has some seriously competitive bowling touneys in this house!

 And, we've also filled that time with some crafts too. This afternoon we were doing some watercolors.

 Matt has started teaching a night class at JBU for a few weeks. One evening the kids and I played and had dinner there for a change of pace. We also discovered their new mini-sundae's -- yummy!!

HOT! HOT! HOT!

We got home from our Tulsa trip to discover that our air had gone out. Ugggg! It was so stinkin' hot in our house! The irony is that we'd decided to make the trip to Tulsa in one day and save the money on a hotel, only to come home and spend the night in a hotel just minutes from our house!

After coming home and walking into a nice steamy house, we immediately called the air-guy and he nicely came out and made an after hours call. However, he had to go get the part up in Springdale so it would be the next morning before it would be fixed. So, we quickly packed up and headed to a hotel close by -- stopping to grab the kids a quick dinner on the way. We had a great little room with a little kitchenette in it's own room which the kids thought was awesome. It was a loooong night with Charlotte -- we had 2 king beds and thought she'd sleep with one of us since she had not napped on our trip to Tulsa that day. We were wrong! She squirmed and turned before asking over and over for her crib. Poor baby, just wanted to be home in her own bed. She finally settled down around 11 and was up at 4am.

We were thrilled when the air-guy called and told us before 9am that the air was working again! Woohoo! 

This made me so thankful that we have a nice cool house to live in this summer! Sometimes we take the little things forgranted and this reminded us all that we have so much to be thankful for!

A Day at the Aquarium

After spending a long week working on the house and finishing up that big ol' project we were all ready for some fun! The kids had been such troopers that week and we decided to surprise them with a trip to the Oklahoma Aquarium on Monday.

We got up early and drove over for the day. It was a great and easy trip both way, for which I am so so thankful! The kids were pretty excited after seeing the website and hearing us talk about it. 

 Our first stop inside was the turtles. All three of them got a chance to feed the them. Sweet potato stips were the food of the day and I think those turtle loved them some sweet taters! They gobbled them up!

 We explored the fish exhibit and held shrimp, crabs, and starfish. Then we headed toward the back to get near the shark exhibit. The aquarium feeds the sharks on Mondays and we wanted to get a good spot for this -- we were perfectly located in the middle of the shark tunnel. While we waited for this the kids got to pet stinkrays and baby sharks. This was their favorite thing by far, and mine too! We spent a good 20 minutes there with them taking turns touching the stingrays and sharks. We headed over to the other side of the exhibit and they fed the stingrays too -- very cool!

 The aquarium was very hands-on with sea life around every corner for the kids to touch.

 Our crazy kiddos. Oh how I love them! It's so fun to see things like this through their eyes and watch the wonder of it all.

After several hours in the aquarium we headed home via Fuddruckers for a burger. :) Great end to a great trip.

A week of Firsts

This has certainly been a full week!

We started with our trip to Tulsa on Monday and came home from that to discover that our air had gone out! Yuck! We spent Monday night in a hotel until the air was fixed Tuesday morning.

Wednesday I decided to take a last minute trip to Little Rock. I'd planned to meet my mom on Thursday to drop off Madeleine so she could stay with them for a couple of days. But, then I decided to go on Wednesday and take her the whole way -- Harrison and Charlotte tagged along for the night and then the 3 of us came back on Thursday morning.

The reason for the trip was for me to get to shop with my sister for her first baby! This was our first time to shop and we had such fun looking a baby thing for my soon to arrive nephew!! I'm so thankful that my mom and dad watched my kids for the evening and that Stewart was happy to give us some girl time while I was there. :) I loved every moment!

We left Thursday morning and Madeleine stayed behind. This was her first time to spend a couple of days down there by herself and I know she had such a great time. But, I sure did miss her! I was ready for her to come back on Saturday, but Harrison was so SO ready for her to come back. He watched the door all day and kept asking when she'd be home. Mimi and Grandad brought her back -- they were coming this way for him to preach up here on Sunday morning.

The reason we had to come back Thursday morning was so Harrison could go on his first sleepover -- at his best friend Drew's house! He'd been looking forward to this so much! He's not usually ready to leave Mimi and Grandad's house, but this was an exception. It worked out great because he was not in the least bit jealous of Madeleine getting to stay behind-- all he wanted was to get home and go to Drew's. :) We made it home, packed his bags and off he went. And, what a time he had! He talked nonstop Friday about what the did and what Drew said and on and on. It made my heart so happy to know that he'd had such a wonderful time on his first sleepover!

Poison Ivy Stinks!

We've had quite a week at our house! It started last sunday morning when Madeleine & Harrison both woke up with a rash. While most rashes aren't a big deal, I decided to keep everyone home just to be on the safe side. They both got worse over the next couple of days, but putting benadryl on them seemed to help, so we decided to wait it out and see before going to the doctor. Madeleine's rash was only on her arm and Harrison had a spot on his left shoulder and the middle of his chest. By Tuesday night, Madeleine seemed to be getting better, but Harrison was about the same. It stayed like that until Friday morning. When Harrison took his jammies off that morning he was covered in the rash. So we headed to the doctor that afternoon.

As a side note, Harrison was supposed to be spending that night at his first sleepover with his best friend Drew -- and Adam that he loves as well. :) They had woken up with Titus sick, and as luck would have it had a doctor's appt at the same time as us! I think we caused quite a bit of confusion in there with both of us being Wilsons and both accounts having the same name on them. Ha! And to top that off -- Jim Bob Duggar and 2 of the little girls came in behind them. Our first NWA Duggar sighting! I was a bit giddy.

We got back into the waiting room and the doctor took one look at Harrison and said it was poison ivy. Yikes! She said he was having a really bad reaction to it which isn't surprising since Harrison is so allergic to basically everything outdoors. So, she gave us a prescription for an oral steroid that he gets 2x per day. And, she gave me a prescription for cream for Madeleine's arm too. This turned out to be good because Matt has just in the past 48 hours broken out with it too. Thankfully we found the culprit and he's taken care of it!

I took some pictures of Harrison on Sunday morning. He was still breaking out Saturday night and Madeleine's arm looked so bad that we sayed in again -- not to mention that Matt was breaking out too! I have to admit that I'm starting to go stir crazy from a week of being in, but I didn't want to risk spreading it to anyone. Thankfully, we've had the blow up pool/slide to keep us busy! And, it really didn't bother them too much until this weekend. Poor Harrison has been so itchy and the steroids have made him a very restless sleeper.



At least we now know all about poison ivy and hopefully this is the last time we'll have it!