Cute Conversations with Quinn

If you are my friend on Facebook, then you have probably already seen these conversations posted as my "status" of the day.  But these are so sweet and child-like, that I wanted to record them here, to have that memory written down.

#1 (A fall day driving home from school)
Quinn: Mommy, yook!! Da trees gots colors on dem!
Me: Really? What do you see?
Quinn: I see red and orange and lellow!

#2 (after a long stretch of rainy days)
Quinn: Mommy, somefing happened!
Me: What?
Quinn: All da clouds are gone. It's a sunny day!
Me: Yes it is!

#3 (on a pretty, cloudless morning on the way to school)
Quinn: Mommy, its so purty today.
Me: Yes it is. Do you know who made the day?
Quinn: Uh huh....Mrs. James!

#4 (while asking the blessing over his supper)
God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for my chicken nuggets. Amen.

I know one day, before I know it, he will be big and grown and gone.

But for now, I'm going to hold on as tight as I can to these sweet moments and store them in my heart. I am so blessed to be his mommy!

Bringing Home Dixie

I mentioned in a previous post that Quinn prays for a dog named Dixie.  I also mentioned it was a story for another day.

That day is here.

Dixie is the newest member of our family, thanks to my husband!  The story surrounding Dixie's arrival has a story all its own, and quite frankly, is not one I care to get into.  Let's just say Dixie was an unexpected surprise!

Dixie was born somewhere at the end of August / first of September, and we were able to pick her up on October 8th. The guy who raised her was one of the guys Buddy worked with in Virginia, and this guy owned both the father and the mother dogs. So we knew they were well taken care of during the pregnancy, birth, and first weeks of life. Dixie is an American Bulldog.

When we arrived at Buddy's co-worker's house, this is what greeted us....11 puppies! (Not all 11 made it into the picture. And Dixie is the 2nd puppy past the metal pole in the fence.)

These are the parents. Mom Dog is Bella, and has the dish in her mouth. Dad Dog is on the right, named Bennett.



Here is Buddy, holding his new puppy for the first time.  I love her brindle patch over her eye!



You can see from the angle of her face here, that she only has the patch on one eye. It is really cute, because her eyelashes and whiskers on the brindle side are brown...and on the other side they are white.  (PS...I'm not frustrated here, but the sun was in my eyes!)

As you can see, she has adapted well to our family....doesn't take long to fit in with us!

Even Tillman, our 9 year old miniature pinscher, has learned to tolerate Dixie. He still puts her in her place every once and a while though. She is all puppy and he's our "old man", so he's not into playing and things like that. Quinn loves for Dixie to chase him through the house and outside.

Even I have to admit, she's a cutie pie. And she certainly has some funny sleeping positions!

I'll like her even more, just as soon as she learns her "potty breaks" should happen OUTside!

A Big Boy Room for a Big Brother!

Last Saturday, Quinn moved out of the nursery and into his big boy room!  We cleaned out the guest room and painted the walls. His furniture came on Saturday while he was napping....his last time sleeping in the crib.

And let me just insert a disclaimer here.  Our three-and-a-half year old has not been sleeping in a full crib all this time. We had taken the front off, so it looked more like a "daybed" with the protective guard so he wouldn't roll out.  (Back to the story!)

We got him a bunk-bed style loft. The bottom bunk is separate, so we didn't even set it up for now. Instead of having a ladder, it has 6 little stairs. The other end holding up the bed is the dresser. We liked this feature of having the dresser attached to the bed, since it wouldn't take up valuable play space, as this room isn't all that big.  Since the room already had green curtains, I picked out a "camo" bedding set!

My favorite part is the play space under the bed, perfect for his tool bench and toy box!  You can just see the corner of a rug that looks like a road, so he can play with his cars.  His first words when he saw his new room was "Oh wow Mommy. It's purty!"  (That's my little country boy!)

I took these pictures right before we had "lights out". We would always say a prayer before kissing him, but lately Quinn has been really interested in saying his own prayer.  It goes something like this:

"Dear Jesus. Tank you for da day. Hep (help) me sweep (sleep) good. Bwess Mommy, Bwess Daddy, Bwess Quinn, Bwess Tillman (our dog), Bwess Dixie (our new puppy...that's another story), Bwess Gwandma and Gwandpa, Bwess Nana and Papa. Hep me sweep good. Amen"

And this was the last little grin I got right before Quinn laid down for his first sleep in his new bed! 

He has really done well with this bed. I was afraid of him trying to get down in the night or something, but he goes right to sleep.  And the bed is sturdy enough that either Buddy or I can get up there with him and lay down, should he ever need us.  He actually likes it when we get up there with him! 

And yes, I did have a couple of tears over the idea of my sweet boy no longer needing the baby room!

Now we just need to know what new baby is so we can get the room ready. March will be here before we know it!

My Sweet Husband

A couple of weekends ago, my parents came up for the day to see us. I asked Mom how my Aunt Linda was doing. Linda is Mom's sister, and over the summer, she was diagnosed with cancer. She was telling me that after a few rounds of chemo, she was beginning to lose her hair and had been for appointments to get a wig and other head covers.

After my parents left, Buddy and I were talking about this.  He said, "You know what, I'm due for a haircut too." And he went to the bathroom to cut his hair.

When he came back, he looked like this....

He said, "Well, if Aunt Linda has to lose her hair this weekend, then I will too!"

He shaved his head in her honor!  I called and told her about it and seemed really tickled about it.

And he's still as handsome as ever!  I love you Buddy!

What we've been up to lately

I mentioned before that life got busy and I didn't blog as much as normal, especially with keeping up-to-date with different events going on.  Well, here's why.

I don't like to advertise on the blog or Facebook when my husband is not at home.  But I can happily say he is at home with us again! You see, for the past year, Buddy has been working out of town. His company is a local one, but his project assignments have not been. Last August we found out that him going out of town for a job would be imminent.  And mid-September, he left for Atlanta. At first he came home every week, but 6 hours home on Friday and 6 hours back on Sunday made for a tired man! Plus the job got busy, so it turned into every other week. That lasted until right before Thanksgiving.

He was home during the holidays and we got to take a nice, leisurely, snowy Christmas with both sets of parents.

In January, the out of town talk started again. Mid-January, he left for the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia....closer, but still 4 hours away. And once again, his weekly weekends home turned into 2-week stretches. And our weekends consisted of tons of laundry and precious moments together.

And then one glorious day in July, I discovered that our family was about to get a little bit bigger! 

Yes, I am pregnant with baby #2!!

But that scared me because I didn't want to be pregnant and my husband out of town. And we found out that a local projet Buddy had been involved with in the past was about to begin building again. So we started praying about it. And the Lord knows best when to answer our prayers, because in mid-August, we found out Buddy had be reassigned....to the LOCAL project!!!

So we have been adjusting to "living together" again....and he got home just in time for my morning sickness to kick in! Praise the Lord he was home because some days I just felt awful all day long.

I can't even begin to tell you how hard it was to be without him for so long. And you can imagine how much it broke my heart to hear Quinn say, "Mommy, I want Daddy."  So many people prayed for us during this time, and those prayers lifted me up daily. Because I never thought I could do this. At times, I felt so alone. But my God is a good God, and my God is an On-Time God. And He knew the best time to answer my prayers. Almost a year to the day, Buddy came home.

And Baby #2 should be here at the end of March. Happy Spring Break for me!

Official First Day of School

Ok, so I'm only about a month and a half behind on posting this.  Oh well.  Life has gotten extremely busy in several ways over the past few weeks. Here it is though, finally!

The post before this was Quinn's first day at the daycare at our church. One week later, he had his first "official" day of school. His K-3 class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays and he is in the daycare the other days. So on Tuesday, August 23rd, I took him to school for the very first time. Luckily for me, it was the day of my school's Open House, so I didn't have to be at school as early as usual. I was so happy that I was able to walk him to class that first time.

Here he is in front of our house, wearing his new "Pack Pack" and a great first day smile.

As soon as we walked into the room, he saw all the toys his teacher had laid out for the kids to play with. He had never been in this room before so everything was new and exciting. He got right down to exploring.

While Quinn was checking everything out, I took a few shots of the room.

This is his teacher, Mrs.James. 

His hook for his book bag.

His name on the door. Oh, if only it had been an orange paw!



I said my final goodbye and got a hug and kiss, so I could slip out of the room before the tears began to fall. Just before I walked out, I looked back for one last look....and this is what he was doing.



He was playing. 

Not crying.

Not begging me to stay.

He was happy. He was having fun.  And he felt comfortable there.

How could I cry when my boy wasn't? And was ready to be at school?

And so far, everyday has been a fun day for him. Mrs. James says he does well in her group and that makes me happy!  I hope he will always love school!

Testing, Testing....1, 2, 3?

Um, hello out there?

Is anyone out there? Have you given up on me?

I have a slew of new posts I want to share with you all, and I hope to post them very soon.

• Quinn's first Official day of school
• Exciting News
• Quinn's Big Boy Room
• Something sweet my husband did

 Here's hoping some of you are still out there....my sweet readers!