Happy Mother's Day

I must say how incredibly grateful I am to all of the amazing women out there in the world. I truly believe that in a lot of ways it takes a village to raise a child and I am so thankful to all of the women villagers that have helped shape and mold me into the woman that I am today.

I am incredibly grateful for my very own mother. I hope to one day be a tenth of the woman she is and I will be just fine in life. I am so grateful that she taught me to love the arts the way that I do and that I have a permanent travel buddy/Broadway musical partner. I have loved all of our adventures and then just the quiet moments at home. I am so grateful that she loves me so much and is always willing to be around at a moment's notice. I love that she is one of my best friends and that I can call and talk her ear off whenever I need. Thanks Mom and I hope you have a wonderful day!

I am also incredibly grateful for the wonderful Aunt Gerry. What a woman to admire! The last few months that we spent living with her were so healing and allowed our marriage to grow and develop in ways that were exactly what we needed. I am so grateful for the love and support that was shown to us, not only in those few months but over the years. I am grateful that she spent the hours trying to help me learn the piano, watching my performances, coming to basketball games, etc. I hope that I can love and support my own children in a way similar to the way that she has supported me and my siblings. I hope that one day I can have my nieces and nephews look up to me in the same way that my cousins and I look up to her. Thank you for being such a wonderful woman in my life and loving my new family so much! It really does mean to the world to us.

I am also grateful for my Mother-in-law. I am so grateful for the job she did in raising her son. I am so grateful that I have been included in this wonderful family that loves and supports each other. I am grateful that Camille is such a part of our lives. I am in awe at all of things that she has done in her lifetime. One day I hope to be as organized as her as far as spending my time. She is so service oriented and what an admirable trait that is. Thank you Camille for all of the love and support and I look forward to that continuing on to the next generation.

So in honor of Mother's Day, I have made each of you an edible bouquet of flowers.



I must say that they looked better yesterday, before they sat out on the counter. Camille yours wouldn't have traveled very well or been very good to eat by the time it got to you, so the next time we come to visit I will definitely at least have to bring you the "greens" of the bouquet.



The "greens" of the bouquet was originally parsley but after about 10 minutes it looked like a dying weed. So instead I added my own "greens" to the bouquet and I don't think anyone will mind one bit.

Our First Week

This last week was the first week in our new home. I don't know if either Marc or I have ever been so exhausted before in our life! It was filled to the brim of cleaning, unpacking, repacking, and still trying to live a normal life. The house made sure that he were going to work for our new position and kept throwing all sorts of obstacles in our way. Marc is becoming quite the handyman for the first time in our marriage has a "honey-do" list. We spent Sunday morning taking apart the dryer as our dryer decided it was done working. Both Marc and I were covered in lint but it was good to have to work together to solve the problem. We learned all about garbage disposals as we replaced that in the house as well. And we are getting really good at washing our dishes by hand because our dishwasher suddenly stopped draining. Silly appliances!! I am so grateful for all of the time spent this week as our house now feels like our new home.

Marc and I have spent time walking around the yard and deciding what we want done or not done. It has been fun to plan a backyard for little kids with flowers and grass and possibly a swing set. I have come home a couple of times this week with Marc chopping something down or out water the few beautiful flowers that we have. The outside will definitely be Marc's project but it has been so fun to watch him out there working and being so excited with the progress he has made.

This week has been a week of firsts for us. The first being that our first dinner in our new home was fabulous. I made a garlic shrimp pizza that was super easy and delicious. Marc and I will make tweaks to it next time but it was such a fun meal and we celebrated it to the fullest. The next first was that I made my first dinner that was absolutely disgusting. Needless to say it ended up in the trash and we ate bean dip for dinner. Marc was such a sweetheart and kept saying that the bean dip was phenomenal and I had really outdone myself and things along that line. He knew that messing up dinner really bothered me. I kept insisting the bean dip couldn't be that amazing because all I did was open cans and mix but Marc kept insisting what an amazing job I did on. I am so grateful that he loves and supports me enough to continually insist that my bean dip was amazing.

Kiara is finally starting to settle into the house. Everything things get packed or unpacked or moved the poor thing thinks we are leaving her or moving again. She hates both of the options equally and we try to let her know that we are here for her and aren't going anywhere. It probably doesn't help that the poor thing is in heat, which I am sure just complicates the problem. Now Marc and I are faced with the next issues of do we get her another cat? Do we want her to have kittens? And all of those pet questions. Sometimes I really wish she could talk just so I could ask her her opinion.

I have figured out though that we have a bilingual cat, too bad the other language isn't English. She is fluent in cat (meowing) and in bird, this sounds like she is chattering like a monkey actually. I first noticed the chattering when we stayed one weekend at my parents house. But last night Marc and I enjoyed a good laugh as she tried to talk a fly into coming down from the ceiling and play with her. She tried chattering at him for a long time and when that didn't work then she tried meowing at him. Finally I knocked him off of the ceiling and Kiara enjoyed playing with her friend until she sat on him and he didn't survive that impact on his little body so well.

We still have a long way to go until we are done moving but every step forward is so greatly appreciated and we are looking forward to being here for a long time. Marc can start the process for being a correctional officer soon and prayers and good thoughts are always appreciated!

Goodbye Fleas

Well our family has had an interesting little bit. It was discovered that our very inside cat had met some very outside fleas. Now we tried to be good guardians and teach them to share and play nice but neither side would have it. The fleas apparently were in that "teenage-boy" stage where they were just super hungry all the time and Kiara didn't like being the main course on their menu. Though I am sure the fleas didn't like all of Kiara's scratching to try and get rid of them either.

The whole flea situation was discovered when we noticed Kiara was acting like she was in pain and was moaning and dragging herself across the carpet, etc. We called my Dad to see what was wrong and what we could do for her. He said that it sounded like fleas. Marc rushed to the store to buy Kiara a flea collar and rushed back. Wanting her to be out of pain as soon as possible, he hurried and put the collar on. Looking back, it might have been better to make sure we had read the instructions first.

But Kiara had only had one bad day like the first one and we were excited at the progress we were making. Kiara might not have been so excited. She HATED the collar and would try to run away from it at first or try to hide from it. It was a long few days of her being so mad at us and it was our first real exposure to what we can expect in parenting. I have decided that I don't know if I am up for parenting if it is anything like that, but I was proud that the collar stayed on no matter how mad she got.

We knew that we would be moving into our new house soon and didn't want to move these darling little fleas with us. So Marc and I again went to the store and spent a LONG time looking at flea killing supplies. By the time we left we had stuff for the carpets, the furniture, a shampoo, and another collar. We thoroughly read the directions for everything and off we went. While Marc gave poor little Kiara a flea bath I went about doing the carpets and furniture. We discovered during this time that when we put the collar on we hadn't activated the killing solution. So the fleas were definitely attracted to the collar, the many, many, MANY bites on Kiara's neck can attest to that but they weren't being killed. No wonder she didn't like the collar. Maybe I shouldn't be so proud that I left it on her after all....oops! After the flea bath she was dried and a new collar was put on correctly this time, we hope.

The next step was making sure we weren't carrying any fleas either. Both Marc and I got flea baths and every article of clothing, bedding, towels, etc. is being washed so as to not move any of those little buggers with us. But through this whole process we have learned some valuable lessons:

* Read the instructions before continuing on
* Find the humor in ANY situation
* Having loved ones who love and support you, is what this life is all about

So if you have any other questions about defleaing an animal, make sure not to call Marc or myself....we aren't really experts on the subject :)