Krystal, 30, Southern IL

 Hi Friends!  I know I haven't blogged in FOREVER but there's a special link up going on at Kelly's Korner that got me to finally do it today!  She is hosting a Singles Friday where people will link up with a post about themselves or a single friend.  Sounds a little silly I know, but she has had FIVE people get married from doing this.  FIVE people!  This is serious business!  And there is nobody I'd like to see more end up with the man of her dreams than my friend Krystal!  Here she is looking beautiful at her suprise 30th birthday party! (She's the one in the green dress).

So let me tell you a little about my friend :)  We met and became friends in a little bit of an awkward way.  She was engaged to my brother-in-law who I love dearly but he did not treat her right.  Regardless of that, we stayed friends after their break up and I am so thankful God brought her into my life.   

This girl is awesome!  She has a love for life and her family and friends that is undeniable.  She is a labor and delivery nurse which is her dream job and I know she loves it.  My favorite times with Krystal are when we sit around and do nothing but eating candy and junk food and watching mindless TV.  We seriously can waste an entire day doing this and have many times!  Don't mistake this for laziness....She is a hardworker - not only is she a nurse who works full time on night shift but she also works a second job as a waitress - she is always busy working - but I'm sure she'd rather be busy getting married and making babies!  That's just not been in God's plan for her yet but I know the day is coming for her! 

When's she not working or being lazy watching TV, she loves to get dressed up and go out.  She is so outgoing and always up for anything (especially if it involves sushi).  She is the girl I call when I want somebody to tag along with me to something because as long as she's free she will always go.  And I love having her company!  Even if it's just getting groceries with me, she's up for it and let me tell you, she makes it fun! 

I remember when she was first dating my brother-in-law and I was scoping her out on MySpace (does anybody remember that still?), the number one thing that stood out to me about her was her love for 90210!  Haha...No seriously it was her love for her family and friends.  I could tell she had a ton of poeple in her life that loved her.  She has 2 sisters and they are all very close.  Her family is number one to her and I love that.  Her family is super sweet by the way and would make anyone feel comfortable around them.   I'm pretty sure Krystal talks to her mom and/or sisters on the phone most days even though she doesn't live by them anymore.  You see she's kind of stuck in Southern IL fulfilling a contract with our local hospital because they paid for her school.  She's originally from Evansville, IN and I'm sure would move back if she had the chance.  I'm working hard to keep her here though :)  She also has a HUGE group of friends from high school and college that still get together any chance they have and I think that says a lot about her character and the kind of friend she is. 

Speaking of being a good friend - She helped throw me an awesome baby shower - which happened to fall right in the middle of the ugly break up with my brother-in-law but Krystal kept right on with the planning and still came to the shower with all of her ex's family being there.  I'm sure that was not easy for her but it meant so much to me. 

She has such a great personality and is so easy to be around.  I'm pretty sure she could carry on a conversation with a wall :)  She is great with children.  My daughter absolutely loves her and any little kid I've ever seen with her does too!  Here they are together at her party. 

I have been trying to fix Krystal up for years with no luck yet so maybe, just maybe this will be the time I'll succeed.  This girl deserves somebody who will treat her with respect and I know without a doubt that she will do everything she can to give him respect back and I promise that you will have fun with her no matter what!  Oh and she doesn't know I'm doing this although I threatened it earlier in the week! 

Love you Krystal!

Shopping Trip

Last weekend I had the pleasure of getting to hang out with my BFF Lindsay for a little bit!  This is a rare event for us anymore so it was exciting!  She brought Fisher and I brought Elly and by the end of the day we were reminded why we don't get to do this very often these days!  Our main goal was to do a little shopping and I think it was a pretty successful trip.  I've learned to shop and eat faster since having a baby that's for sure!  No more walking all around the stores looking at everything and taking forever to eat my food!  I wanted to finish up our Easter outfits and Lindsay had a good coupon so it worked out well!

  I snapped a few pics of Elly before we left because I just thought she looked extra cute that day!

On the way there, Elly and Fisher kept holding hands.  So sweet!  I'm pretty sure these two will be married someday if his brother doesn't beat him to it!

It made sense for Lindsay to drive since she already had 2 carseats in her car so Elly got to ride in Carter's seat.  This was a big deal for her as it was her first time riding forward facing!  She thought it was pretty cool that she could watch movies while riding in the car!  When we would get back in the car, she'd say, "TV on" !  I was afraid she may not want to go back into her rear facing car seat, but she hasn't seemed to mind.  Every once in a while though she'll talk about riding in Carter's seat and watching TV!  A few more months baby girl and you can do that all the time!  Blame your crazy momma!  Here she is very focused on the movie!

After shopping, we ate lunch at Chili's.  Elly wasn't the best behaved and I was worn out by the time we were done!  Apparently the kiddos were too! They both slept the whole way home!

Aren't they just so precious!  I am so blessed to have such a good friend who's in the same season of life as me!  I hope our kids grow up to be as good of friends as we are...you know that is if they don't get married!

While we were out that day we made the mistake of talking about ER visits and how Lindsay hadn't had to take Carter to the ER yet.  As soon as we said it, we both said, "we shouldn't of said that."  So guess what?...Just a few days later, Carter fell and hit his head on a TV stand and had to go to the ER to get stitches.  After he did it, Lindsay stopped by my house to have me look at it to see if I thought he needed stitches.  I took one look and knew he did.  Lindsay was by herself and I was afraid Carter would freak out at the ER so I insisted on going with them.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that they didn't need me at all!  Carter did wonderful despite having to wait what seemed like FOREVER!  He barely even flinched when he got the lidocaine shots and then held perfectly still for the stitches!  He is just so grown up and brave! Here's a silly picture of him waiting for the doctor to come in.

Lesson learned - don't ever talk about how you haven't had to take your kid to the ER yet!  Regardless, I'm thankful for all the time I got to spend with my BFF and her boys!!

Gymnastics!

It's Wednesday so that means gymnastics day!  I started taking Elly to a class for toddlers a couple months ago and she loves it!  Today she was a little wild, but we had been out all morning running errands so I'm hoping she was just getting tired and this isn't the start of the terrible two's! 

I took some pictures of her showing off her new skills a couple weeks ago but haven't gotten around to posting them.  These are mostly of her doing her stretches!  I think it's her favorite part.  She sits so still and follows directions so well.........for this part of the class, but once it's time to get up, she's on the move constantly and doesn't listen so well!  But she makes me so proud! 

Here she is showing off her pike!

And smelling her feet as she stretches

And her "table top"

Big straddle!  Look at that serious face...like why are you taking pictures mom?!!

And being my little cheerleader!

And just one more of her sweet face!

Weekend

We had a great weekend filled with lots of friends and family.  Friday was just a laid back night at home.  Saturday we got up early and went to KB's for breakfast.  I love when we do that!  It just starts our day off good.  We used to do it all the time, but it had been a while since we'd gone.  We rushed home from breakfast because my friend, Chrisy was coming over with her adorable twin girls, Ella and Sophia.  They are 19 months old so they have a lot in common with Elly.  It had been way too long since we got together and the girls had so much fun playing together.  I think the last time we saw them, they weren't even crawling.  It was a lot easier that time!  They just sat and played with whatever we put in front of them.  This time they were running all over the place and dumping out all sorts of toys!  But that means they had fun, so it's all good with me!  They stayed for lunch and then headed home because it was naptime for everyone!  Here's some pics of them playing...it is not easy to get pictures of 3 toddlers!

I can't really tell them apart so I'm not sure which one this is, but isn't she just so cute!  I was so jealous of their pigtails!

Elly riding her horse

For some reason they wanted to climb in this shelf thing...it normally holds containers of toys but they dumped all that out and climbed inside!

Combing Elly's hair!  Most of our friend's kids are boys so it was fun to watch Elly do girly things!

Elly giving kisses!  Please excuse her crazy hair...she kept pulling her pony tail out!

Look at all those toys!

We tried to pose them for a picture and this is the best we got!  Still pretty cute, huh?!!



At the same time as the girls were destroying my house playing, Casey's friend Brad came over to help him smoke some ribs!  We came up with this great idea last weekend when the weather was so pretty.  I tried to tell them it was going to be nasty this weekend, but they didn't care and wanted to do it anyway.  So they spent the day smoking ribs in the new smoker Casey's dad had gotten for Christmas. We also smoked a boston butt and let me tell you, it was all SO GOOD!  I think I could become addicted to smoking meats!  I made some sides and we had a great meal!  Brad's wife and Casey's parents came over too and Krystal ended up coming too because she got off work early.  It was a great time!  I meant to take some pictures, but completely forgot!

Today, we went to church...where Elly went to her little class again with no problems!  It took us so long to get to this point so I'm proud of her!  We went to the nursing home to see Grandma Tanner for a little bit and then came home for lunch.  Casey's parents came by to have leftovers with us.  We made chocolate chip cookies (not sure why since we have leftover coconut cream pie) and hung out for a little bit and finally got Elly down for a nap.  I think she has another cold coming on, but I'm hoping it's just allergies.  Getting her to take a nap and go to bed tonight was harder than usual and I'm betting that's why.  We shall see. Spent the rest of the day watching basketball, doing laundry and picking up everything to get ready for the week.  

Hope you all had a good weekend!

March 2011

Yay!  I'm posting about March and it's actually March!  This month started with spending another weekend in St. Louis for the MVC tournament.  SIU had a tough loss and didn't make it past Friday, but we still had a good time.  My mom went up with us to watch Elly during the games and dinners.  We are so fortunate to have grandparents close by that are willing to help as much as they do!  The last night we were there, Elly woke up with a horrible cough. I didn't think much of it until 2 days later when she started running a 103 fever.  Still didn't think much of it, just figured she caught a virus.  A few days later she developed a double ear infection, and then the next day her cough just kept getting worse, she was breathing so fast and it ended up turning into pneumonia!.  It was the sickest Elly's ever been!  I hated to see her like that.  She was so pale, had those glassy eyes, and didn't want to do anything but lay around which is so not like her.  Finally after about 3 days on antibiotics, the fever broke and her lungs started sounding better.  I never did take her to the doctor for any of that.  It is nice that I can diagnose her myself but I sure don't like it.  I think if she ever gets sick that bad again, I'm just going to play mommy and leave the doctoring up to someone else!  But all is well and we are so thankful to have her up and running around and have her full appetite back! 

So since basketball is over, we have been enjoying having the last few weekends free!  The first ones since probably last August!  I love going to all the games, but I am always so ready for this time of year to roll around!  It is nice to have Casey home more..I know Elly likes having him around!  The weather has been so nice here so we've been playing outside a lot and going on lots of walks!  I was excited to see dirt in the bottom of the bathtub after Elly's bath the other night!  I love when she has the chance to play hard and get dirty!

Here's a few pictures from this past weekend.  Casey had poker night again at our house and a couple of the wives were able to come hang out too!  Here's Elly and Jackson enjoying a cookie!

And a close up of Elly's chocolate covered face!

These are from Joe and Debbie's house this past Sunday.  We went out there for lunch and Elly had a blast riding her tractor and playing outside!

Alright, so now I'm all caught up!  I am really going to try to keep this updated more regularly from here on out!  We shall see how that works out for me! 

St. Louis trip

Earlier in February, I had a continuing ed. conference to go to in St. Louis.  My friend, Shalini, who is also a Nurse Practitioner decided to come up and go with me!  It was more of an excuse to get together for a weekend in St. Louis since she lives in South Carolina and is getting ready to move to Hawaii!  So Elly and I went up on Wednesday afternoon to pick Shalini up at the airport and then we did a little shopping.  My mom came along too to hang out with Elly while we were at the conference and the fact that she gets free rooms at Harrah's is pretty nice too!  She came up later that night and after shopping, we met up with her and had a nice dinner at the hotel. 

We didn't have to be at the conference until the afternoon on Thursday so we used the morning to go to the zoo!  The weather was unusually warm so it worked out great!  Elly loved the zoo last summer, but I think this summer will be so much better!  She had a great time!  Here's some pics from our day...

Elly in the petting zoo



 Checking out the hippos!

Grammy and Elly posing by the snake

I always take a picture of the elephants...probably because my dad always did since elephants are his favorite!

 Check out all the spit on the camel!  Gross!

Shalini got a group picture on her camera that I am going to have to get a copy of.  I wish I had taken more pics this weekend.  I wasn't feeling great and was super tired because the night before I left, I stayed up most of the night with a friend in labor.  It was worth it though, she had a precious baby girl and I was beyond honored to get to be a part of it!  But because of being tired and getting sick, I was a little off all weekend. 

After the conference that afternoon, we had another great dinner at the hotel.  Elly did not sleep good in the hotel and getting her to bed both nights was awful...I'm thinking maybe she had a touch of what I had?  Who knows!  We went to the cofererence all day on Friday and my mom and Elly did a little shopping and then headed home.  I dropped Shalini off after the conference and came on home.  It was a great couple days, but it went by way too fast!  I can't wait for Shalini to move to Hawaii so we can visit her there and have lots of time to hang out!

Superbowl

Superbowl wasn't too exciting for us, we just stayed home and relaxed.  It was nice to be able to watch the game and the commercials without distractions.  We cheered on our packers and were so excited they won!  I figured I had to post this picture of Elly.  Grandpa Tom got her this shirt, of course!