Branson with (only) the hubs!

Poor Haven... gone from Mommy two weekends in a row!  It just happened to work out that way with our schedules.  Russell had a free weekend and my in-laws had some points at a resort, so we made our way to Branson!  Haven stayed with Grandma and Poppy which meant traveling to Stillwater for the OU/OSU basketball game!  She had quite a weekend too! 

This was our first weekend away, just the two of us, since our babymoon before Haven was born.  It was much needed and much appreciated!  We stayed up late, slept in, watched TV in bed, ate low-stress meals at restaurants, went shopping without a stroller... just to name a few of the exciting things you can do without a child!  Ha!  We also went ziplining!  And oh yeah, Russell got a tattoo!  We are crazy!

So our first meal in Branson was breakfast on Saturday morning.  Apparently in Branson's off-season, no one likes to serve breakfast.  Except for Sadie's... where you get some crappy buffet breakfast and crappy live music at 10am.  (Sorry Sadie's!).  However, we were happy to be together and had a great time laughing at this guy (the silly one in front of me and the guy at the microphone)...

My favorite was when he changed the words to Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee" from "we fogged up the windows in my old chevy, I was willin' but she wasn't ready" to the fabulous "we fogged up the windows in my old pick-up, I was willin' but she had the hiccups."  I almost died.

Next, it was time to zipline!  I surprised Russell with a groupon for it for Valentine's Day.  He was skeptical that I could even go through with it, but geez I'm not that big of a scaredy-cat!  It was cold, but oh so worth it.  We went from tower to tower to tower, totaling over 2.5 miles of zipline.  Sometimes we got up to 40mph!  We had another OK couple in our group as well as grandparents with 2 grandkids that were pretty awesome.  Grandma bailed after the first couple times when she was spinning in circles when you're supposed to stay straight.  I am terrible and couldn't help but laugh at her.  She was laughing too though!  A great sport!  On the last line, they take lots of pics of you!  They also instructed us on how to go upside down if you want to (heck no!).  Well of course my husband was all about that!

  I, on the other hand, was not about to dangle upside down... I opted for some poses instead!  (This is when you say, "she would do that.")

 

It was such a blast!  Definitely something different and a highlight of our trip!

At dinner afterwards, Russell informed me that he lost his 4th (count 'em...1, 2, 3, 4) wedding band recently.  Are you kidding me?!  I thought we were on the 3rd!  There was a 4th and now it's gone too?!  The last two were cheap Walmart rings, but still that's a pretty penny!  So in an effort to make a smart financial decision (ha! and he's been wanting to do it a long time), I agreed to letting him get a wedding band tattooed on.

While I was sitting there, I texted my mom "you will never guess where I am right now?"  Her response: "Dixie Stampede?"  Bwahahahaha "no, the farthest place from it... a tattoo parlor!"  We went in just wanting a black band, but they were very persuasive (with good reasons) that we should get more than just a black band.  So here's his new (and permanent!) wedding band!  May as well make it a traditional wedding shot right?

The next day we had lunch and did some shopping before getting on the road to get back to our sweet girl!  Russell picked out the cutest outfit for her, complete with hat and shoes!  We enjoyed our time away SO much, but we missed our sweet girl SO much too!  We gave her the hat and shoes when we got home and she accepted us back with open arms. :)

HUGE thanks to Grandma and Poppy for the free stay and watching our favorite girl that weekend!  We love you guys!!

I happen to think she's the cutest thing ever...

Happy Love Day!

We celebrated Valentine's Day a couple days early this year thanks to my sweet hubby.  Haven and I were hanging out at a basketball game for the pom squad, having lots of fun.

Daddy came and got her when he got off work so she wouldn't have to stay the whole time... you know, confined spaces and almost 2 year olds.  Without my knowledge, he took her to Build-a-Bear in the mall when they left!  How sweet is that!  So when I got home I hear Russell say, "Haven go show Mommy what you got."  And she comes around the corner with this precious pink bear and a big smile on her face.  Then he tells her to bring Mommy her present.  So she struggles to carry the big box over and I got a bear too!  Russell said he let her pick one out for herself, then let her pick one out for me.  Happy Valentine's Day to and from Haven!  What a sweet hubby and daddy we have!!

I went ahead and gave him what I had picked up to be from Haven to him.  Check it out.

Does that not have Haven all over it or what?!  If you don't think so, please check out this post.

Then on actual Valentine's Day, Haven had to go with me to pom practice just like she did last year!  So I couldn't help but take her picture in the same spot and do a little comparison!

My baby girl is growing up!  We love you Haven!  Here's to many more Valentine's Days!  But they can take their sweet time getting here. :)

UJVP Regionals 2013

Earlier this month I traveled with our pom squad to our regional competition in Fort Worth!  The whole time I couldn't believe I did this last year with baby Haven on the bus!  This time, though, Gran and Granpa traveled here to keep Haven in her normal environment. :) (THANKS AGAIN!!) That weekend was the first time I've spent more than a night away from my sweet girl!  It sure was a blast though.  I love these girls so much!  I was bad with the camera yet again, so thankfully technology is awesome and some of the girls sent me pics. On that note, girls...if you didn't send me a pic of us and you have one, please do! :)

My bus partner and mini-me, Alyssa! ;)

We got all dressed up and went out to dinner at a fun mexican restaurant.  Last year the girls pranked Amber by telling the waiter it was her birthday.  Well this year I was prepared that they would do that to me so we talked about it and how they shouldn't do me b/c I already expected it.  So I go in with them on another plan, only to find out that they still told the waiter it was MY birthday anyway!!!  So all of the sudden here comes these 4 mariachi guys singing Happy Birthday and I'm pointing them in the wrong direction b/c they came for me!  I was so surprised.  They then proceed to sing "Pretty Woman" to me (which, by the way, I am doubtful that very many of my pom girls had ever heard before!) and one guy kept inserting my name... "Pretty Brittany."  Hahaha!  They got me and it was awesome!  Love you girls!  Some pics from dinner...

My partner in crime!  Love you Amber!

The one and only Victoria, love her!

The genius and clever Madeline, so pretty!

Hotel time with teenagers can be interesting and it was.  We had girls in our room the whole trip and I wouldn't want it any other way!  I have made so many great relationships with this team and love them so much!  Check out their fun pjs...

The girls performed SO well on both Saturday and Sunday and I could not be more proud of them!  We competed up in the Varsity category against one other team and took home the title!  All their early morning hard work paid off!!  Go Skins!

the blurry excitement!

#1!

Sweet, funny Hope... or hop hop hop as Haven likes to say!

Jacket time!  Love this bunch so much!

Our sweet captains, love you both so much and so proud of you!

So after a shopping spree at an outlet mall and a sleepy bus ride home, I was reunited with Russell and Haven!  Haven actually wouldn't even look at me at first. Ha!  Then she came around and was happy to see me.  Until... our bus driver who looks like Santa (literally he plays Santa in a local parade) came over to say hi to her.  She FLIPPED OUT.  Like uncontrollable screaming and sobbing... kinda like this actually.  Poor child is scarred.  Oh well, she eventually sucked it up and I got some good snuggles before bedtime.  Overall, a fabulous trip with our undefeated team and memories I'll have forever!  I've now completed a full year with one team and I don't know that any other will ever top it.  There's just something about the first.  Love you girls!  Blessed to be your coach!



 

Visitors!

I'm baaaa-aaaaccckkk!  I can't believe the last time I posted was almost a month ago!  Who am I?!  A super-busy business owner, pom coach, and mom... that's who! ;)  Let's try and get caught up...

Three weekends in a row, we have had visitors at our house!  The most recent 2 weekends were planned, but the first one was a last-minute surprise!  My friend had a plane ticket that was about to expire so she cut us a deal and my Dad flew here for the weekend!!!  Haven was so surprised and excited when we picked Bozzy (sounding more like Bayah lately) up from the airport!  She let him hold her and they talked and giggled the whole way home from the airport.  That weekend happened to be my Mom's birthday so we joked about how Dad was having so much fun while Mom was at home on her birthday (but don't worry, she's the next visitor).  Aunt Rissa came in town too and we all had so much fun!  Out of all the visitors, this was the trip I got the most pics of!  Sorry to the rest of you! :(  It was warm enough to play outside one day, Dad spoiled us with a grocery trip, and there was lots of lounging around.

  My sister's birthday was the following Monday so we went ahead and celebrated with cupcakes!  We skyped with Gammie so it could be part of her birthday celebration too.  Haven was of course thrilled about the "cu-cay".  :)  So I call this the cu-cay photo shoot...

After that was probably the most adorable massage train you have EVER seen.  If you never need your back scratched, Haven is pretty darn good at it. :) 

We were sad to see Bozzy go, but knew that meant less than a week til Gammie was here!  Her visit was a wedding planning extravaganza.  I'm so glad they got SO much done!  The most exciting day that I got to be in on was wedding dress shopping in OKC.  I wanted it to be a perfect experience for my sweet sister and it was!  She found the most gorgeous dress and we were all a big mess of tears.  I obviously can't show you any pics, but I think this one is allowed... please read her hilarious shirt.  Haha!

  I didn't take many pictures the rest of the weekend, but Gammie and Haven got lots of quality snuggle time in!  And Haven wouldn't let me do anything for her with Gammie here, so Gammie took lots of my Mommy responsibilities for the weekend! Thanks! :)  The only pic I managed to snap was of book time!  There was lots of that that weekend.  We love you Gammie!!  Can't wait to see you again soon!

The next weekend's visitors were Gran and Granpa!  They came in town to watch Haven while Russell worked and I traveled to Fort Worth with our pom squad (more on that later).  Haven hasn't always been the most welcoming to G&G, but we were hopeful that she was passed that stage and thankfully she was!  She was happy to see them, played and played, and didn't give them any trouble!  Gran said "I have 3 words:  piece of cake."  Wahoo!!!  They have tried to come twice in the past couple months and it never worked out, so we were thrilled to finally have them!  And Haven was thrilled to open some belated Christmas presents!!  Unfortunately I didn't get much of a visit with them since I was gone the whole time, but I did snap this pic of Haven with her new chair from them!  So cute!

We had SO much fun with all our visitors!  Thank you all for coming, helping with Haven, and being the amazing family that you are!  We are so blessed! 

Still to come... pom regionals, Valentine's Day, and our first weekend vacation without Haven since our Babymoon in 2011.  Good stuff!  Hopefully I'll get caught up soon...