Can you believe she is ready for this?!

At 20 months (as of today, coincidentally), she is officially starting to use this!
We had a feeling she was ready because she has been patting her diaper when she needs to be changed and acting very curious when I use the potty. During the evacuation, I walked into the bathroom at the hotel to find this:
I think she wants to try, what do you think? I had planned on starting the whole potty training business when she turns 2, but then...we are expecting another baby 3 months later. So, would there be regression issues? Should I wait until after the baby is born to even try? With all these questions on my mind, I consulted my family's parenting expert...my sister, mom of 5. :) She suggested I go ahead and get a potty chair and put her on it at least before bath time at night. So, we did! And the very first night I put her on it, she teteed on the potty! (Is there a proper way to spell tetee?) I was so proud! I'm not sure she gets it, but will if we keep it up, right? :) So, we are starting the potty training game...but at a very relaxed, non-hurried pace! (And the potty is so cool! She LOVES Elmo, so we got one where he tells her exciting things like "Way to go!," "Congratulations!," and "You're growing up just like Elmo!" She loves it!!!!!!)

Here is her cheesy, excited expression when she discovered the potty, and then noticed mommy trying to take her picture!

You know you’re from the Gulf Coast when….

A friend on an online forum shared this today, and I laughed out loud a number of times. I just had to share it on my blog! Any of these sound familiar, my friends in the Gulf Coast?

1. You have FEMA’s number on your speed dialer.
2. You have more than 300 ‘C’ and ‘D’ batteries in your kitchen drawer.
3. Your pantry contains more than 20 cans of Spaghetti O’s.
4. You are thinking of repainting your house to match the plywood covering your windows.
5. When describing your gutted house to a prospective buyer, you say it has three bedrooms, two baths and an open air feel to it.
6. Your SSN isn’t a secret, it’s written in Sharpie on your arms.
7. You are on a first-name basis with the cashier at Home Depot.
8. You are delighted to pay $3.50 for a gallon of regular unleaded.
9. The road leading to your house has been declared a No-Wake Zone.
10. You decide that your patio furniture looks better on the bottom of the pool.
11. You own more than three large coolers.
12. You can wish that other people get hit by a hurricane and not feel the least bit guilty about it.
13. You rationalize helping a friend board up by thinking It’ll only take a gallon of gas to get there and back.
14. You have 2-liter coke bottles and milk jugs filled with water in your freezer.
15. Three months ago you couldn’t hang a shower curtain; today you can assemble a portable generator by candlelight.
16. You catch a 13-pound red fish - in your house.
17. You can recite from memory whole portions of your homeowner’s insurance policy.
18. You consider a vacation to stunning Tupelo , Mississippi .
19. At cocktail parties, women are attracted to the guy with the biggest chainsaw.
20. You have had tuna fish more than 5 days in a row.
21. There is a roll of tar paper in your garage.
22. You can rattle off the names of three or more meteorologists who work at the Weather Channel.
23. Someone comes to your door to tell you they found your roof.
24. Ice is a valid topic of conversation.
25. Your drive-thru meal consists of MRE’s and bottled water.
26. Relocating to South Dakota does not seem like such a crazy idea.
27. You spend more time on your roof then in your living room.
28. You’ve been laughed at over the phone by a roofer, fence builder or a tree worker.
29. A battery powered TV is considered a home entertainment center.
30. You don’t worry about relatives wanting to visit during the summer.
31. Your child’s first words are hunker down!
32. Having a tree in your living room does not necessarily mean it’s Christmas.
33. Toilet Paper is elevated to coin of the realm at the shelters.
34. You know the diff erence between the good side of a storm and the bad side.
35. Your kids start school in August and finish in July.
36. You go to work early and stay late just to enjoy the air conditioning.
37. Your garage smells like gasoline.
38. Your more concerned about someone stealing your generator then your car.
39. You get excited when you see an Entergy truck in your neighborhood.
40. You get really excited when you see the cable guy.
41. You can create memorable meals with a can of SPAM and one gas burner.
42. You are prepared to wait in line at Starbucks for 2 hours to get a cup of coffee.

There's No Place Like Home

Well, we got home Saturday, but this has been my first opportunity to post. We are SO very glad to be home! Emmalyn has been in a better mood since the moment we got home. I think we have a home-body on our hands! We are so very grateful that we got to spend time with family, and were not in a shelter without privacy or paying hundreds of dollars for a hotel to keep a roof over our heads. But there's just nothing like your own bed, your own surroundings, and the comfort the baby obviously feels here at home. :) Thank you Kim and Dad for letting us stay with you! It was wonderful to see you!

So, when we got home, we found practically no damage to our home! Praise the LORD!!! Our fence will need to be stood back up in a few spots and the greenhouse that came crumbling down will need to be cleared (we wanted the greenhouse torn down anyway), but other than that...nothing! :) :) :) In fact, when we drove into our driveway, we found that Kris's parents and sister had mowed and edged and pulled weeds, pulled all the plywood off the windows, AND moved a play scape into the yard for Emmalyn! She was so excited! It was a friend's that had been given to us a while back, but we kept forgetting to just go get it. We were so very grateful and excited upon return home!

We are also simply amazed that we are home so soon! Entergy rocks!!! They have been working VERY hard to restore power to the area, and we are very grateful! Our original estimates were 3 to 6 weeks, and we were home, with power in 9 days! :) :) :) This is faster than Rita! Latest news says they have already restored power to 88% of Southeast Texans! WOW!

Kris and I feel like we barely experienced the storm. We simply stayed with family for a week, having quite a bit of fun, and returned home to a house that already had power, cable, and a mowed yard! We are praising God for His protection, but I can't help but feel a little guilty. There are people in our own church and in our neighboring towns that got 4 feet of water in their house, and they are completely ruined. We, as a church family, can help repair homes and try to replace essential items, but we can't do anything to replace photo albums and family heirloom items that are lost forever. It breaks my heart to see all the devastation. As you drive down Hwy 365 or any street in Bridge City, you see home after home with ALL of their belongings out on the street to be carried away with the trash. I just wish there was something I could do.
Some people say it is just stuff, but this is the stuff that made their house a home! Your home is supposed to be a safe, comfortable place, and these families have lost that sense of security and retreat. Please pray with me for these families. Specifically... our friends Bryan & Kathryn and John & Amber. I am also praying that God will give me the words to say, and ideas of what I might be able to do to help.

Please also pray for my friend that hasn't made it home yet. Jana is having a pretty rough time, and is in NC with her 2 and 5 year old boys, and without her husband, and 37 weeks pregnant! Please pray for safe return travels for her on Thursday! Be safe, Jana!

God is Good...All The Time!

So, most of my readers are fully aware, but if you are not... Hurricane IKE hit our little corner of Texas late Friday night! The devastation right in our back yards is pretty scary. But, the LORD for some reason decided to protect our little city. Cities in our backyards have feet and feet of flooding, and structure loss. We have heard from friends that stayed behind that our house fared very well. We have some fence damage and it knocked down the greenhouse structure...but Kris has been wanting that gone for a while anyways. :) That is all that is visible from the street. (I am still hoping the inside of the house is fine...that no water seeped in.) We have heard that most of our town was saved, and most of our friends and family have been spared. Praise GOD!

BUT...some of our friends have not been so lucky. Our dear friends (one of the ministers of our church), Bryan and Kathryn most likely have many feet of water standing in their home AND their precious little 3 year old girl fell and broke her collar bone and arm the day of evacuation! Please pray for the Alvis family!!! They say their daughter is on the mend, but still in pain.

One of Kris's closest friends over in Bridge City also has between 2 and 7 feet of water in his house, and no flood insurance! Please pray for John and his family.

As for an update from us...we are currently in Central Texas with my family. We originally evacuated with Kris's family to the Arlington area, and came here on Sunday when we realized that our home will not be livable for quite some time. We were with my dad last night and Sunday night, and will be headed to my sister's tonight(Tuesday). We will stay with my sister until this weekend. We are waiting and watching the updates from home. We have been told that we will be without power for 3 to 6 weeks! So, we need to stay here. We don't want to be in our home without air conditioning or refrigeration with a toddler! We have heard rumors of power being restored faster than expected though... we are hopeful!

If it does look like it will be a long time (by this weekend), we will be moving into my brother's empty apartment. This is where I am again amazed at how God works! My brother moved out of his apartment last week to move to Portland, OR. But, his rent is paid through September and his lease is not up until the end of October! So, we have a place to go to have our own space, and not intrude on my family and their routines for such a long time! Plus...Kris will not be getting paid while we are not home, so we have been worried about finances. Well...my brother's apartment is 3 miles from one of the biggest hospitals in Texas. A place where Kris can work PRN hours and sustain us during this time! GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME... AND ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD!!!

I am so very thankful for the way God is providing for us, but so very burdened by those less fortunate right now. Please praise Him with me and pray with us for those in all of Southeast Texas who desperately need help...and need Him!

I will try to update where we are and how we and our family and friends are as often as I can. I would love to hear from my blogging friends that have also evacuated, if you haven't already updated. :) I love and miss you all...and pray for quick, safe return to all of you!

We're Outta Here!!!

Yep, we are evacuating again. I just wanted to write a brief update to ask for prayer as we travel northwards. We have yet to decide on a final time, but it will either be tonight at about 11:00p.m. or tomorrow (Friday) morning at about 6:00 a.m. Either way, we are headed to the DFW area, a town called Mansfield. We will be traveling with DH's parents, sister, and a friend of ours from church with her daughter and aunt. Hopefully Ike will leave us as unaffected as Gustav did, and we will be home by Sunday or Monday! :)

Emmalyn is not feeling good...I think it is just teething, but she is running a fever and in a very foul mood! And my pregnancy exhaustion and nausea are pretty miserable right now. Traveling is not what I would chose to do this weekend! Would you pray for us? :) (And for Kris...this doesn't sound fun for him to have to deal with!)

Seriously?

Again? Are we seriously talking about evacuating again? Where are these storms coming from? and why to these meteorologists keep tracking them to us? This is Ike's 5-day forecast as of Monday at noon, according to www.wunderground.com. Don't think it could get any closer than this!
I think THIS bears repeating:
Thanks, Jana, for sending me this particular piece of flair!

Let's pray that this moves away, soon!

Where Do I Begin?

Well, we have had a VERY crazy couple of weeks around here, and I have had a lot to write about, but very little time and energy to blog. On top of a hurricane evacuation and 30th birthday celebrations, the pregnancy fatigue has kicked in FULL FORCE, and I am miserable. Even blogging seems like a daunting task these days. I don't remember it being this bad when I was pregnant with Emmalyn. But, I guess I will start in the beginning....hurricane evacuation plans!!! Yep, we had to evacuate again for a hurricane. You might remember that 3 years ago this month, we headed to Temple (usually a 5 hour drive) with our 3 mutts in the Trail Blazer...and 23 HOURS later, arrived at my dad's house to live with him for 2½ weeks! With Kris not working, and 3 dogs causing problems, this was not fun, financially or physically! BUT, we live in the armpit of Texas, otherwise also known as Hurricane Ally...so this is apparently not UNcommon! (Read...I want to move back to central Texas!!) So, as Hurricane Gustav threatened to hit our little town, we got the heck out of Dodge! We left at 4am (No, you read that right...4 AM!) on Sunday morning (Aug.31st) with a 19 month old who apparently thought this was hysterical. We thought she would stay asleep as we transferred her from her bed to car seat...but no, she thought it was funny that the dog was in the car with her and giggled for 30 minutes! Cute, but not so great for the rest of the day. She was a very tired, grumpy baby for the rest of the day.

We ended up in a hotel in Temple, about a 3 minute drive from my brother's apartment and 15 minutes from my dad, so that was a blessing. We got to spend quite a bit of time with them while we were there. All in all, we were there 3 days, leaving early Wednesday morning to come home. Emmalyn was not in a very good mood most of the time there because she had been taken out of her element and out of her routine, so we were ready to get home and have our happy-go-lucky baby back! :) But, we did sort of get a mini-vacation, and got to spend time with my family....not to mention, Gustav didn't even hit!!! :) :) :) So, we came home to NO damage! WooHoo!!!!! Not the homecoming we received after Rita in 2005. So we are praising God for his protection over the family and home, and for the blessing of family time!
OH, AND DID I MENTION I AM 30?!?!?!?! How did THAT happen? When did I "grow up?" Well apparently, it happened, and I received a very sweet celebration of my birth with my family and friends. My awesome hubby, Kris, surprised me last Saturday night (the night before evacuation) with a surprise birthday party at his parents house with most of my closest friends! :) I was so happy that people actually came when they probably should have been at home packing and boarding up their homes! Thank you to the LeBlancs, Starks, Paines, Mike, Cheryl, and Kelli for being there!!! It was an honor to spend my birthday with all of you! And thank you to my precious husband, mother in law, father in law, and sister in law for all the time, preparation, and love that you put into that party! (And we missed those that couldn't be there terribly!) It was really fun, but we headed home at 10 pm and got up at 2:30am to finish packing, and left at 4am. Sunday was a very looooooong day!

The second part of my birthday celebration was equally special! We went to a quaint little Stagecoach Inn and had dinner with my WHOLE family! Kris, me, Emmalyn, Kris's parents, sister, grandparents, my dad, brother, sister, and 5 nieces and nephews, and my best friend from Austin. It was really fun to have everyone together, and get to celebrate with all of them! I don't think we had everyone together since the wedding! :)

Here is a picture of the whole family! :

A couple other favorite photos of that evening....my sister and I, followed by Emmalyn looking pretty cute as she proudly gets up in a rocker by herself! :)

Oh, and did I mention I got an iPod from my hubby!? :):):):) As well as a number of other lovely gifts from other friends and family! And Daddy gave me the serenity prayer charm in August when we were last in Temple...how timely! :) Thank you to everyone!!!

I think my 30's are going to be the best decade yet!!!!!!!