11 Months Old!

My baby girl is now 11 months old! She will be ONE in less than a month! Wow.. just cant get over that. She is now crawling so fast.. i really have to watch her! She loves to go for the cords in the living room or someone's drink... so yeah, thats fun! haha. She is waving, and "talking".. although she still doesnt say MAMA that much :( Oh but she loves to say Dadadadada! all the time! :-P I included a few recent pics. The first one... i had to have that outfit b/c it said DEAL (our last name) Dont you love it?? :)

Got my Hair Chopped Off!!

I decided my hair had gotten too long-- i hate it when it gets too long and it goes so flat and looks horrible. I dont have much volume! But anyway-- mom paid for me to have my haircut and some blonde highlights put in. You cant even see them in the pic, but they are there! Anyway, im loving the short hair, much easier to manage :)

Mothers Day 2010!!

Mothers Day 2010 was pretty awesome!! :)

Saturday i spent the day with Arnold and the kids. Arnold and the 2 big kids had to go to walmart to pick up dogfood and when they came home they had brought me the latest issue of my favorite magazine, and some cupcakes with hotpink icing, lol.. i thought it was a sweet gesture. Then later on that afternoon we took the kids to the library to get some new books and i got a few new ones to read, also. That night we went to visit my parents for a little while, and when we got back home and put the kids to bed Arnold went out to get us food from Red Lobster, brought it home and we had a nice dinner alone! Even though it was almost 10:00 at night before we got to eat, LOL. I had crablegs, garlic shrimp, and some mashed potatoes. There was also a salad and stuff but i was SO stuffed, i couldnt finish it all!

Sunday morning Arnold brought me scrambled eggs in bed, my favorite ;) Then we all got ready and went to church. I had baby nursery duty this week, so i stayed in there w/ Rachel and the other baby thats usually in there. The kids all made their moms handprint things, which was really sweet! There was this poem on it that almost made me cry!


Anyway, after church we went out to lunch @ Ocharleys w/ MIL, FIL and SIL. We had to wait almost an hour for a table, but thats to be expected on Mothers Day. The kids actually did pretty good waiting for so long. We finally got a table and ordered. Then we gave MIL her present..she seemed to like it. My FIL totally surprised me and gave me a GC to Target! Everyone knows how much i love Target ;-) For lunch i had breakfast foods-- pancakes, bacon, and potatoes, and it was yummy! After lunch we came home and Arnold cleaned up the kitchen for me, while i got online :-P We also got a real good pic of me and the kids outside yesterday afternoon.. i was pleased :) Usually its hard to get everyone to look at the camera at once! I opened my gift from the kids.. and it was a Giftcard to OldNavy to get me some new clothes! Ive been telling Arnold forever that i wanted to get some, but i always feel guilty spending money on myself! But now i can go shopping and im excited :) The kids also got me the cutest card, and Arnold got me a sweet card. I asked him not to spend a lot of money on me, so our seafood dinner the night before was my gift-- and i loved it of course! ;-)



Yesterday evening we went ovcr to Mom & Dad's for a cookout. Dad made steaks for everyone, but made a chicken for me, since thats my favorite ;-) We also had baked potatoes, bread sticks, salad, watermelon... then cheesecake for dessert! I was SO stuffed! I couldnt even finish my cake! We let Rachel try some and she LOVED it :) Dad had gotten me flowers, and they were beautiful! I have them at home in my kitchen now. Mom is paying for me to get my hair cut and highlighted this coming Friday-- i am looking so forward to that, because my hair has gotten so long and unruly! I just am ready to chop it all off! :) Then when we got home and put the kids to bed Arnold and i got online and watched last night's SNL.. Betty White hosted and it was an awesome episode! I love her!!!! :)



It was a GREAT weekend and GREAT Mothers Day and I feel so blessed!!! :)

My pretty flowers from dad :)

Rachel playing in nursery w/ her friend, Logan

arnold got all dressed up for me! :)



My mom and I-- Love her! :)

Friday, May 7th

Well i was expecting Friday to be a bad day, because I woke up reallllly sick on my stomach. I thought i had caught another stomach bug, and was really bummed out. But im pretty sure it was just something i ate, because i started feeling almost 100% better by lunchtime. Since we thought it was the stomachbug, Arnold called into work. I told him he could go back to work since i was feeling better, but he said he just wanted to stay home and spend the day with us, so that was nice :)

Anyway, last night we dropped the big kids off at their grandparents' house, and Arnold, Rachel and I went out. We went down to Conover and i went to this place i always used to go to and I got my eyebrows waxed. It ad been awhile and i forgot how bad it hurt... i was ready to yell out some expletives, believe me! ;-) But it was worth it, because my eyebrows look much better now, they were getting unruly ;-) After that we went to Kmart to look around for awhile. Im glad i did because their kids' shorts were on sale, so i got some for Brooke and Caleb. I also found the cutest outfit for Rachel that said "Im kindof a Big Deal"-- had to have that since our last name is Deal ;-) And lastly we went down the road to visit a good friend of mine, Jess, who had moved into a new apartment. She lives right next door to a friend of mine that ive known since elementary school... and we happened to see him and his wife last night, too. So it was nice getting to see some friends :) Then we went to pick up the kids and my MIL gave me some flowers for Mothers Day, so that was sweet :) they are really pretty, i have a pic on the phone Ill have to post later if i remember!

Rachel is Mobile!!!

Thats right, the other day Rachel started crawling!!!!!!!!!!!

Well shes been "scooting" for the longest time now... she can move across a room, just in her own way... but she finally figured out how to get up on her knees, so now shes REALLY crawling. She can move alot quicker now! I really have to watch her now-- she can just be sitting there one moment and the next shes trying to go after my drink, or the laptop cords, or who knows what else. You spend all this time wishing your kids would finally hit a new milestone then wanting to take it back because it keeps you busier after that! haha. Plus, its sad shes growing up so fast :( She crawled just a little earlier than Brooke did... I know most babies are standing or even walking by now but my kids were always late walkers, and i was too when i was a baby, so im not worried about it!

100th Post!

This is my 100th blog entry! Can you believe it?! Haha :0)

Cinco De Mayo!

Wed was Cinco De Mayo! We were planning on going out to eat that night, mexican food of course. Arnold wanted to go to Rancho Viejo because thats his favorite. But everywhere was packed! So we just ended up going to Taco Bell (haha) and even that was busy! Anyway, we got lots of mexican food and it was yummmy! I tried one of their new tostadas. Rachel got a taste of her first taco (SOFT taco of course ;) She seemed to like it.

Before we went out that night we decided to take a few silly pics, that i added on here. The sombrero was from my trip to Cancun back in 2003... we went right after I graduated highschool. I cant believe i still have that thing. We have it hanging on the wall in one of our bathrooms, haha. Anyway, dont laugh too much. :0)

*Lauryn's Baby Shower*

Sunday afternoon i threw my friend Lauryn a babyshower. Her son, Grayson is already here, but that was great because we all got to hold him at the shower!

We had the shower at Glenn Hilton Park. BOY was it HOT... i think it was almost 90 degrees! Im so glad it didnt rain... all morning the sky was full of dark clouds and i just knew it was going to storm.

Arnold was sweet enough to drive me up there and help me get all the stuff out of the van-- we decided itd be good b/c the kids could play on the playground during the shower. They had a great time. They got very hot though, and kept asking me for drinks... and of course all we had were sodas so Caleb kept drinking Sierra Mist, haha-- oh well, it could have been worse.

Anyway, i think the shower went well. Lauryns cake was really yummy! and she got a lot of cute gifts. and i LOVED getting to hold baby Grayson! i just love little babies :) Rachel seemed SO big compared to him! He basically slept thru the whole thing :-P


All in all it was a good day and im glad i was able to throw the shower for my friend! i added some pics below....

Baby Grayson and I!

Guest of Honor:)

My Family :)

The cute and YUMMY cake!



Lauryn and Grayson

Opening Gifts

Me and Lauryn :)

**Ultra Busy Saturday!**

Saturday was a BUSY day for me, but i love days like that!


I got up early, around 630 am, and went w/ my friend Jackie to the 7-mile yardsale. Its this yardsale they have every year, just an exit up from my house. Theres this road thats really long and tons of people on that road have yardsales on a certain day. I try to go every year if i can... some years are better than others.


Jackie came and picked me up and we got out there pretty early.. around 7am or so. We started out not having much luck-- there were lots of crappy sales that had nothing at all, i hate when people do that. And a lot without kids' stuff, which is mostly what we were looking for. But after awhile we found some good ones. I found a lot of cute Gymbo tops for Brooke. I also found Caleb a little acoustic guitar-- even came with a stand and carrying case, so cute :) I found Brooke a toy shopping cart.. and a few other odds and ends. I also found myself a really pretty glass canister set that i added on display in the kitchen w/ all my cookie jars. I was hoping to find a stroller for Rachel, but no luck-- oh well!



After Jackie dropped me off at home, i drove to hickory and met my dad at Olive Garden for lunch. We get together every once in awhile for lunch-- and call it our "date" haha. I really miss my dad.... I always thought of myself as a Daddys Girl. So its fun when we're able to get together and talk. We ate lots of yummy food-- we tried this appetizer of fried lasanga, which was pretty good. I got cheese ravioli for lunch, which was a bad idea b/c with all the salad and breadsticks and everything, i was stuffed before i got it! So i took most of it home for the kids that night.



That afternoon we took the kids to a friend's birthday party. Morgan was turning 4, and had a party at her house. We got lost several times trying to find Sarah's house-- i hate all the numbered roads in hickory, so confusing! But im bad at directions to begin with ;-) Anyway, the party was a lot of fun, the kids played outside for awhile.... then they had hotdogs and cake. And Morgan opened her presents. I even found out that their Cat's name is Rachel! haha ;-)




We finally got the kids to bed that night... and Arnold and I ordered out from Redlobster. I got this platter with LOBSTER and CRABLEGS and SHRIMP and it was sooooo good! I am such a seafood lover. We had quite the bill, but boy was it worth it. We figured we could treat ourselves to a nice dinner since we had just gotten Arnold's bonus check ;-) Rachel was still up when we ate and i swear that child was GRUNTING at me and you could tell she wanted some of that food! haha.. we did end up giving her a cheesy biscuit and she loved it :)




So that was our ultra-busy, but fun, Saturday! :)

*Gotta Have Faith*

Well as many of you know I started experiencing panic attacks last summer after i was hospitalized with the bloodclots. Last summer was BAD... i wouldnt wish any of that on my worst enemy. Anyway, I went on Ativan, a med to help with my anxiety. I have been on it for about 9 months now.


Lately ive been doing better with my anxiety. Ive also been having dizzy spells and just feeling so out of it when i take the Ativan, so i figured it probably was making me feel bad b/c i dont REALLY need it that much anymore. SO i decided to talk to the DR about starting to wean off it. I heard that the longer youre on the meds the worse it is, so i wanted to get started quickly.



I went in for my DR appt last Thurs and he told me a schedule to get started on..for the 1st week i am to cut my afternoon pill in half, for the 2nd week both pills will be cut in half, 3rd week i drop the afternoon pill altogether, and the 4th week ill drop the morning pill altogether and that will be the first time being off it totally! That is, if everything is going well. The dr said if i needed to slow down the process any, or if i needed to actually stay on a small dose, it would be ok.



Ive been really worried about withdrawals and feeling weird... the first day wasnt so great... i could tell i was taking less and i started feeling bad anxiety that evening. The next few days were ok i guess... ive been feeling things off and on, like headaches, stomachaches, being really tired, moody, etc. But its not as bad as I had imagined. But its only the first week! I am really hoping the rest of the process goes smoothly because id LOVE to be off this stuff by my birthday, and on the road to being the 'normal me' again! :)




I am on Day #5 so far. Please pray for me!!!!! Im doing a lot of praying and trying to have faith that everything will work out ok!