1) My friend Wendy and her son, Owen, flew in for the weekend. We worked hard and played a little. We took them to the Fort Worth Stockyards in between "design on a dime" projects.
2) The Weather - Crazy! We had a really bad ice storm (the picture was taken at midnight in our front lawn) at the end of January and in the middle of February we had a tornado warning. It was my first tornado warning that included a siren. At the time I was on the phone with Sione trying to figure out where our battery operated radio was. I moved our 72 hour kits, pillows, blankets and water all into the bathroom while the siren went off. Just as the siren quit, we were ready to camp out in the bathroom. Oh well, practice makes perfect.
3) A B (as LaRee calls here) came to stay for the week of LaRee's birthday. We had a mini mission reunion planned, which turned into 4 of us girls (Sisters) going to dinner at Chili's. None the less, we laughed, ate, laughed some more and, sadly, ate some more!
4) Grandma Jackie (Becky's mom) and happily LaRee's pseudo Grandma joined us on that Wednesday as well as Jessica, a dear friend and sister from my mission. Paula, also a dear friend from my mission, lives just 30 minutes south of us. She joined us as her schedule, and the crazy weather, would permit. See #2 Ice Storms.
Here Grandma Jackie is reading "Go dog, go!" to LaRee at breakfast and here they are conversing over their lunches.
5) Wendy and Owen returned to finish up the mini home makeovers that we had started 2 weeks prior. We painted walls, shelves and other odds and ends found around the house. We altered curtains and rearranged my furniture (or lack off) and we came up with what we agreed was an amazing couple of rooms.
6) LaRee took a black jumbo sized permanent marker (who even needs a jumbo permanent marker?) to our freshly painted wall. By the time I was done giving a time out and being very angry with our little artist, Wendy had already painted over the mess but I did get a picture of the wet paint.
7)Elmo has started wearing shoes and taking baths. Both are very big deals at our house.
8)Sione busted out his tools and did some home improvements of his own, which ended up being an even bigger deal than Elmo's shoes and baths.
9)We went up to Little Elm to spend some time with Uncle Todd and Lexie, his roommate's dog. All three partys were pooped by the time we left to go home.
10) Last but not least, our little Rock Star turned 2 which I will blog about real soon!!
P.S. Becky Jean and anyone else that is still reading, my word for the year is going to be Better. It was "change," but Sione kept teasing me about stealing Obama's word for the year, so I switched to the word "Better". I am going to strive to be a better Wife and Mother, a better friend, a more patient and kinder daughter, neighbor and citizen. I want my relationship with my Father in Heaven to be better and I want to serve Him in better ways. I am going to be a better listener, a better cook, and a better person. I am going to strive for better health and a better quality of life through all kinds of learning. I will have a better follow through of things I start or have wanted to start. I want to be better at putting things away and everything having a space. I want each day to be better than the last! I often think about a lesson once given in church on the subject of striving for the best. There will always be good, then better, then best! I figure if I thrive for better this year, then my feet are heading in the right direction and I just might be ready to have my word for 2010 be "best!!"
