Happy Birthday Jackson!

On Wednesday, August 29, 2001 at 9:35 p.m., Jackson Grant Perry entered our lives. Chris and I had been married for one year and ten days when he was born. He came out looking like half Hispanic/half Chinese because of his Bilirbuin being so high, but you wouldn't know that today by looking at him, he is as white as I am and we all know how white that is. (My nicknames in high school were Powder, from the movie, and Clorox) Anywho, he weighed 8 lbs. 7.4 oz. and was 21 inches long. I did not have the luxury of having pain medication with him and I thought my body would never feel the same again after having him. I knew the full reason why they called it Labor. When we came home, my mom stayed with us for a week and the first day that she was gone and Chris had to go somewhere, I freaked because I was at home alone with this tiny baby. I got over that and the years have flown by. Now he is 7 years old and in the First Grade, loves The Transformers, The Hulk, Batman and any other superhero you can think of. He may be fair complected and have blonde hair like me, but he looks just like his Daddy. He gets his temper honest, but he has the most loving personality and is a Mama's Boy. We love him with all our heart and are proud that he is ours.

Happy Birthday J!! We Love You!

P.S. I know some people have been freaking because of my Christmas countdown to the side! I start early on my Christmas shopping. The earlier, the better for me because aside from our two kiddos, we have 6 nephews, 3 nieces and 1 great nephew, not to mention the parents and others that we buy for. The day after Thanksgiving is my big day to purchase though! :)

Thank You

I want to say Thank You to everyone for the well wishes and prayers for our family. Yesterday was the funeral and it still just feels unreal. I worry about my nieces and my brother. What is my brother going to do with two teenage daughters?! He will learn and he will have help from all of us. My sister in law was an organ donor and they took her arm bones. I did not know that they took your bones when you were a donor. It is great because she will hopefully be saving someone's life with her bone marrow.

Jackson's 7th birthday is Friday. We have already given him his birthday present and he has been enjoying it since this past Saturday! ha We opted not to have a party this year since we are staying with the in laws. It is too hot to have it at the park and I didn't want to bombarde their home with people. We are taking him to Chuck E Cheese. He and Lauren are both bringing a friend and we may go to a movie too. I am getting him a spiderman cake for Friday and we bought him a couple more games for the Nintendo DS we have already given him. Chris and I play the DS as much as Jackson does! haha

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week!

Sally Jean Chapman

In February of 1990, my brother married a sweet girl named Sally. They went on to have two adorable daughters, my brother became a preacher and they were on their way to living a beautiful life. On Saturday, my sister in law passed away of a heart attack. She was 43. She had had heart trouble for several years now. She had a stent put in around three or four years ago. She had went to the doctor a week or so ago with trouble and the doctor just upped her dosage of medication. On Friday, she started having pain in her arm and jaw. She thought that it might be her medication change. On Saturday, she was still hurting but went to the church to get ready for Sunday service. The pain became unbearable and my brother called 911. She made it to the hospital and while my brother was filling out papers, she coded, but was brought back. The doctor came and told him what had happened and that he could see her as she was stable for the moment. I don't know how long he was able to talk to her before she just looked at him and told him that she was starting to hurt really bad like she had earlier. The nurses asked him to leave the room and that was it. She was such an amazing woman. So easy to talk to. She was like a second or third mom to me as I was only 10 when she married my brother. She will always be an angel watching over us and I am comforted in that thought. The selfish part of me wants her here on Earth with me, but the Lord has another plan for her. Please pray for my nieces, Holly and Robin. They are almost 17 and 13 and will forever miss their mom. One of my biggest fears has been that something would happen to me and that I would have to leave my children and not be able to see them grow up and see my grandchildren. I guess all mothers worry about that, but this has been my wake up call to lose weight. We are not invincible, no matter what our age.

She was a wonderful woman and she will be missed.

Funny

Some of you may have seen this, but it is just the funniest commercial to me! haha Enjoy!

8 years

Today as of 10:35 a.m. I have been married to the most wonderful man for 8 years. We have had our ups and downs in our marriage but have indured them all. He has grown to be the most hard working, supportive individual. I am truly blessed to have him in my life and to be the father of our beautiful children. I wanted to post all sorts of pictures of us through the years, but due to having no scanner at this time, all I have are these few. We have been together for 12 years including dating.

My Senior Prom ~ 1998

June 2007 ~ Stevens Photography

We met in June of 1996 through our then foreign exchange student, Alex Marx. Alex and I had started dating after flirting with each other for a whole semester. Chris was Alex's best friend here in the States. Chris also had a vehicle and a driver's license! So, on our first date, Alex, Chris, Caleb Forrest, Jerry Nutt, and I all headed to Pine Bluff to watch a movie. This went on several times until Chris jokingly started flirting with me to make Alex jealous. Of course, sparks flew and it was like Chris and I had known each other forever. There was never an awkward moment. Eventually, I told Alex he was leaving in a month or so to go back to Germany and that I liked Chris. As I look back, that was really mean, but it's ok. ha Ever since then we have been inseperable. Chris' proposal wasn't anything romantic at all, but I knew the day he was going to buy my ring and as we were sitting on the couch together, he pulled it out and just said, "So, will ya?" HaHa! We were engaged on May 5, 2000 and purchased our first home in July of that year. After some minor remodeling and painting, we decided to get married on August 19th. The wedding was simple. It was at our church, with only Heather Anders as my witness and Kevin Lasiter as his and the preacher. We opted not to have a big wedding due to my father having so many wives and I felt it would be awkward for me to have everyone there and the fear that he would make a scene. After the "ceremony", we went to Hot Springs and stayed at The Arlington. It was nice. I wouldn't change it for the world. We saved so much money on not having a big wedding and honeymoon and were able to put that money down on the house. We just recently sold that house and it will forever be "my" house no matter who lives there. We later added two beautiful kiddos to the fam and the rest, as they say, is history!

Happy Anniversary, Chris! I Love You!

Movie Swap

Erica is having an AWESOME movie swap. Please see below for details!

The only thing that MUST be included in the swap package is a movie and your favorite movie candy. You can include more than one movie, candy or anything else your creative little mind can come up with that goes along with this theme.

Come sign up: email over your details or leave a comment here with your email address (I will let you know that I got your sign up request either way)

erica{dot}grover{at}gmail{dot}com

• your name

• mailing address

• email address

• website / blog / flickr (if you have one - YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE A BLOG TO PARTICIPATE!)

• tidbit about yourself / your style / your life/if you don't want to recieve an R rated movie

• please indicate if you are willing to ship internationally.

the sign up deadline is September 26, 2008 Swap partner information will be emailed to you shortly after the sign-up deadline. The package will need to be sent by October 2, 2008.

1st Day of School 2008

Today was the first day of school. Jackson was glad to be returning and Lauren was excited to be starting Kindergarten. Her teacher, Mrs. Felecia Bennett, was teaching when I was in Kindergarten. She knows her stuff, so I hope Lauren learns a lot this year and has a good experience. Her best friend from Preschool is in her class and I think that helped a lot. I was a little teary eyed, I have to say, because this is my baby going to school and there will be no others to follow. I hope they like school for the rest of the years. Jackson says he is already burned out and I have to explain to him that he has SEVERAL years to go!

Lauren is ready to go!

Jackson thinks he has to pose like this every time!

I don't know why Jackson's face is like that. HaHa!

Hope everyone had a great 1st day of school!

Update

We got our blueprints yesterday and they are great! I can't believe all the work that Mr. Hunter had to do. I feel so bad for being impatient, especially after seeing these. There are so many details. He was also patient enough with me in that I changed my mind a lot on things in the house. He was very helpful and gave some great suggestions to other parts of the house. I hope he doesn't mind, but I have posted a picture of what our house will look like (according to a computer simulation) when looking toward the front of the house in the living room from the back part. The french doors that go to the back yard are behind this picture. Of course, the floor will be hardwood and the walls will be a khaki brown, but you get the idea. The door to the left will go to the kid's rooms and the guest bathroom. The big opening on the right will go to the breakfast area, kitchen, laundry room and garage. The other door you see a part of goes to our bedroom and the stairs go to the bonus room. If anyone has any blueprint needs, please call Mr. Lamar Hunter at 870-469-5617!!

Now, on to the contractor...he says two weeks to get a formal estimate. Keep your fingers crossed!

P.S. Can anyone tell me where to go to publish your blog into a book? Erica, Debbi?

UPDATE: Our contractor, Mr. Jackie Wagnon, came by yesterday (Thursday) and picked up our blueprints and said he would have the formal estimate ready for us in about a week! Yay! We are finally getting somewhere!

The Weekend

Congratulations to Justin and Corie! Their wedding was great..perfect weather and they looked so cute!

Here are some pics from the wedding:

We didn't do much else this weekend. It has been raining almost nonstop since late Saturday night. I wish it would quit! I finished Breaking Dawn Saturday afternoon. I was pretty disappointed. The first part of the book was great until you got to the Jacob chapters and so on. I didn't like how it ended and I just felt that she crammed (sp?) too much into one book and so many things could go on and for this to be the last book of there series is just weird. Your thoughts on it?

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

08~08~08

Our nephew, Justin and his girlfriend, Corie, are getting married tonight! Such a great day to do so, don't ya think? 8-8-08 at 8 p.m. He will never be able to forget their anniversary this way! They are a big part of our family and we were lucky to have lived next door to them for over a year. I'm so excited for them!

Congratulations you guys!!!

Lost Tooth!

Something exciting finally happened lastnight at the Perry Household. Jackson lost his third tooth. It has been loose for a while, but he would not let me pull it. Lauren, poor thing, wants to lose a tooth so bad. She has been saying for two months that she has a loose tooth. Of course, she doesn't and I have explained to her several times that she will and that she is trying to grow up too fast! Lastnight when Jackson put his tooth under his pillow, Lauren had found a broken piece of peppermint that was shaped like a tooth and put it under her pillow too because she wanted the tooth fairy to visit her too. Broke my heart! I hugged and kissed her and told her that her time was coming soon. I love the first picture of Jackson, he looks like a cartoon or something!

Anyway, after all the tooth drama, I was laying on my bed reading Breaking Dawn and Ringo comes in. There was an US Weekly magazine laying there and I guess he thought it was trying to attack him. It was HILARIOUS! To me anyway! I have posted the video below, it takes a minute to get to the funny part. The video is appropriately titled Ringo vs. US Weekly! haha

P.S. Sorry it is so dark, I only had a lamp on and didn't want to scare him by turning the overhead light on!

Enjoy!

Nothing Happening

I know I haven't been posting, but it has been very uneventful at our house at the moment. Living with the in laws has been ok so far. I hope it stays this way. I have read 6 books in 4 weeks. I am glad that I finally am getting to read Breaking Dawn. I hope it does not disappoint.

As far as our house goes, we are still waiting on the blueprint man. He had another project going with mine. It was a church. He is completely done with it and is on mine. I just wish he could hurry. I'm growing impatient. After we get those back, we will get with the contractor and get him to come up with a formal estimate for us to take to the bank. I am hoping that we can maybe see a house starting to built about the middle of September or first of October. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hopefully when school starts, I will have more to blog about. Hope everyone is having a great summer!