Love Thy Neighbor

We have all heard the phrase "Love Thy Neighbor" and we all know we should but sometimes it's hard to do. When we first moved here the house next door was empty. Shortly after, we got new neighbors. We thought they were kind of strange and the daughters drove us a little nuts! They always had their friends over and since there was no side fence on our front yard, they were always in our yard and climbing up our tree. It was annoying. The guy who lived next door was strange too. We couldn't figure him out. One time he was out washing his car with the radio so loud I could hear every word of it INSIDE my house. The first couple of songs were rap songs and I just kept thinking, "Um, your 40, not 14!" Then the rap music turned into a country song which made me laugh. What a strange guy! Then one day Cody had the hood popped on our car and after about a year of them living next door and us never even saying hello, he came over!

"Do you need help with your car?" He asked. Cody had already called triple A. The battery had died and we just needed a jump. They ended up talking for 30 minutes or so and that's how it started. It wasn't constant at first but after another year or so of coming over and saying hi every once in a while ( and his daughters still driving me nuts ) they moved. We were glad to have the daughters off of our grass and out of our tree. We were also glad he only moved one house away! haha That way he was still around to help out. THEN his niece moved in next door and the real trouble began, but also our friendship really began to bloom. Cody always needed help with things around the house and Dale was always willing to help. If he himself didn't know how to do it, then he knew someone who did and would call and get them to come over for us. When Cody was leaving to go to Iraq for 6 months and Tyler and I were going to stay in Utah, he offered to keep the grass mowed for us. Then about 3 days before I was leaving for Utah, our roof started to leak. Dale called over a couple different people he knows who do roofs and then offered to help out and make sure it got done and got done right AFTER I left. He even drove an hour away and picked up all the supplies to save us some money. What a guy.

When we got back from Utah we decided to re-do our back porch. He called over some guys who gave us a bid and then they started. They knocked out our entire back wall, left and never came back. So Dale called MORE people and got a crew of guys to come over and take over, including himself. After it was built, he came over and painted the inside of the porch and helped Cody put in the lights. He was over a LOT and his wife came over a couple of times too. Dale became like one of our family in a way.

While we were in Utah and Cody was in Kentucky this past month, Dale was riding his motorcycle without a helmet and got hit. He fell back and smacked the back of his head on the pavement. At first it seemed like he had a couple of broken bones and some head trauma. Then a day or two later they noticed he had some internal bleeding in his head and lungs. Last we heard was that he was brain dead. We are very sadden by this. We are going to miss him very much.

There have been a couple of times we were talking about something that we needed help with and I think Cody and I were both thinking the same thing, "Dale would help if he were here." I keep thinking about his wife and kids. His girls are both in high school. I can't imagine what it's like for them or his wife. We are going to miss our neighbor so much. I hope he knows how much he was appreciated and how we thought of him as part of them family. I hope we were as good of a neighbor to him and he was to us! We love you and will miss you greatly Dale! To everyone else who knows someone who rides a motorcycle make sure they wear their helmet! There is NO REASON to NOT wear one. If he had he would probably still be here.

It's ALIVE!

We are back from Utah but were home only for 12 hours or so when Cody's parents came to visit. That made it so there was still no time to blog. Not to mention I still have a bunch of pictures to go through and edit. I did do about half of them but just so you know I had over 800 pictures when I got home and I had already gone through and erased some of the blurry ones at my moms house! Here are a couple of pictures just for fun...

Swine Flu BOOOOOOOOOOOO

Cody called me yesterday from work informing me that he thought he had the swine flu! GREAT! I was upset because I was worried about missing our Utah trip. Obviously we couldn't get on a plane and fly to Utah Saturday if we were sick. SO I was upset but whatever. THEN I had a million things I needed to do and Cody being sick and needing me to go get him medicine and what not, just added to it. I ran and got us all lunch and then took the kids to Walmart to pick up a few things. I go to the pharmacy to drop off the prescription and it is closed until 2 for lunch. PERFECT! I wanted to be back by two to get the kids down for naps. Kayla was already fussy and tired. She has FIVE teeth coming in all at once and her mouth hurts. When I found out we might all be sick I decided not to give her any medicine for her teeth just to make sure she wasn't getting a fever. It was NOT fun. I got home and remembered I forgot to get Cody something to eat. I put the kids down for naps went to the store to drop off his prescription ( at another store ) and then got him Mcdonald's and came home. Tyler had pooped...Fantastic! I change him leave again to go get me something to drink because my throat was bothering me a little and then go pick up his medicine. I am informed that his drugs cost 40 dollars! OUCH! And that is just for 10 pills. THEN I hear that Fort Hood is on lock down because some crazy person is running around shooting people! WHAT? What is wrong with people. You don't want to live any more then kill yourself but do the world a favor and don't go around killing innocent people. So on my way BACK into the house from getting Cody's drugs I hear Kayla start to scream. NO BREAK AT ALL FOR ME TODAY! In fact, it was more work then usual. The crazy thing about it, I was thankful Cody had gotten the swine flu and was at home safe in our bed and not on Fort Hood where he had been right before the shooting and should have been when the shooting occurred. Would he have been killed, not likely. Would he have been injured or shot at?....not likely. But I didn't have to worry about it and he didn't have to be stuck there until 8 that night while the police sorted everything out. You count your blessing where ever they come and for me yesterday, I was thankful for the swine flu for keeping Cody "Safe"

Daddy Daughter

We went to the playground the day after daddy got home last week. Mommy didn't realize how cold it was outside but we still had fun. What is it about kids wrapped up in beanies and sweater that is just so adorable?! I brought the camera and got some super cute and super sweet photos of Kayla and daddy.










and I love this one of her doing her monkey crawl!



"This is how we roll..."

And it wouldn't be complete without Tyler all bundled up and cute too!



Just so everyone knows, I TRY and take pictures of Tyler still. He is just too busy these days to stop and give me a smile but poor Kayla can't go any where yet so I end up with 5 pictures of Tyler and 500 of Kayla.

Boozar

No clue why on earth our town calls it that ( To me it sounds like a drinking game! ) But Gatesville calls their city Halloween get together the Boozar! I mean, I get it, but why nto call it something else. ANYWAYS. We went and had fun. I feel bad because it was freezing earlier that day and so I decided not to put Kayla's full costume on because I was worried she would get cold. Then we step outside to leave and it was like 70 degrees. It was the perfect weather. Go figure. We were late so I didn't have time to run back in and change her. Oh well because she stayed in the baby sling on my chest the whole time any ways.






I took lots more pictures but this is what is edited and shrunk right now. Maybe one of these days I will get more posted. I took some pretty ones of our Court House which is really pretty and was light up with Christmas lights. My problem right now is I am trying to get us ready to go to Utah in two days so I wanted to get this stuff posted before I didn't have my lap top for two weeks. So for those who stalk me, you won't be able to for a couple of weeks. But when I get home I am SURE I will have a thousand pictures to post. As soon as I finish the dresses I will post those as well so everyone can see what I did. I still haven't decided myself. I have narrowed it down to three choices, one of which I didn't even post because I forgot to take a picture of it. oh well. I think whatever I decided will be cute regardless. I also go to some really cute owl fabric and I am making Kayla a blanket to take to Utah with us. I will post pictures once I get it done. I have one other post I was going to do later today of some pictures from the play ground I took the other day. Then I will be "caught up" for now.

PS

I LOVE that it was a Halloween party with candy every where and my boy sat down to eat an apple! haha Maybe you didn't notice that but there is a picture below of that. Just thought I'd mention that. Of course he doesn't like anything else so....

Trunk or Treat

We had a trunk or treat at our church on Wednesday. There were tons of people there which was totally surprising! It's sad when more people show up to an activity then to church on Sunday! Regardless, I have pictures. My camera was not liking the fact that it was not dark but not light out side so a lot of my pictures didn't turn out great which really saddened me. It was GORGEOUS out side! It even sprinkled off and on a couple of times but the sky was beautiful! It was my kind of night. It was funny because I ran to the car and got a blanket for Kayla so she wouldn't get wet and ended up using it to shield my CAMERA instead of my BABY! How sad is that! haha





I wanted to get a picture of Kayla and Tyler. When I called for Tyler all his friends followed and wanted to be in the picture too! haha So we got this




I of course couldn't get all of them looking at the camera and smiling all at once but these two shots were the closes I got! haha

Did I end up getting one of Kayla and Tyler you ask? Why yes...



Unfortunately, this is what I got! haha And this WAS the best one. I did get a couple of Tyler by himself. That took some serious convincing. There was just too much going on for him to stand still for 2 minutes.





And here is Kayla by herself





And here is Madison by herself





ANd lastly, they had games and things for the kids. One of the games they had was where they had to eat a doughnut on a string without using their hands. We thought it approperiate to have my sunbeams do it together. HAHA And of COURSE they used chocolate doughnuts! It was hysterical because Tyler kept pointing at Madison and laughing saying, "Madison has chocolate on her face! That's silly!" And it was ALLLLLL over his face. We kept telling him he had it on his face too but he didn't believe us until we showed him a picture I had taken! haha Silly kids. Here are pictures of that


















Happy day! After this we got to pick up daddy from the air port. We got home late and the kids crashed. So did mommy and daddy. It's always nice to bring daddy home!

NEED HELP PLEASE

I know I said I was NOT going to post craft stuff here any more BUT I need a little advice on a project of mine and let's face it, more people read this blog then my personal one. I made matching dresses for Kayla and her cousins Bradlie. They are a little plain so I wanted to do something to them to dress them up a little bit. Here is where the advice comes in. I have 5 options. PLEASE let me know which one you think is the cutest! THANKS IN ADVANCE











So I really like this one BUT you have to picture the flower in coordinating colors. I didn't want to spend the time making one if it was not what I ended up using.



The same goes for this flower. I think I might like this one the best but again you have to use your imagination and picture it in a matching color. This one just happened to be what I had on hand.


So what you guys think?

Oh yeah and did I mention that I need to finish these up as soon as possible because we leave on Saturday? Yeah...