Worst Blogger Ever?

Answer: Yes! I am having the worst time finding a spare minute to get on the computer and actually blog. I have been more than awful at taking pictures too. It truly is sad; that's my life currently. My life consists of spending two hours in the car, enriching young lives, preparing dinner, doing house work, playing with Parker, talking with Jeff, and attempting to absorb every second of rest possible. Being pregnant and teaching has been a work out all on its own! As of today, I am 15 weeks and will find out if it is going to be pink or blue December 22. I am excited and anxious to find out. Kind of tired of the neutralness, is that even a word? The only pictures that seem to be on the laptop at this moment are Halloween pictures, gasp! Yes, Halloween pictures. Like I said, I have been beyond HORRIBLE! Here are a few of my precious little Strawberry Shortcake:

Showing off her "ware".

Thanksgiving was kind of hectic this year. Travelling to two different places can get kind of tiring but it is all well worth it. Due to us living extremely close to Jeff's family, we had lunch with them Thanksgiving day. It was nice to see his family ,but hated that we could only spend a limited amount of time due to trying to make a 6 pm dinner in De Queen with my family. I def. could not handle having two Thanksgiving meals in one day. Needless to say, I lost a good amount of it. Dang "Wally". We were able to spend the rest of the weekend with my family. We even were able to partake in an alumni football game against the Scrappers. It was great to see so "old" players out there again. Saturday night I was actually able to get dolled up and going out with my brothers and Jeff. We just went to the Country Club to "hang out" but it was nice to sit back chow down on a cheeseburger    visit with everyone and being the trusty DD. :)

Now its time for the Christmas Countdown which is in 13 days for me! I am literally dreaming about this 12 day break I am about to have. Kids are super duper restless and I am getting that way too. Hopefully I will at least have a Christmas post when the time comes! Until next time!

Wow! What a break!

After hearing several friends tell me that I needed to update my blog, I thought it was time to oblige. There have been quite a few changes going on with the Stearns family and I am proud to share them. Our summer was pretty uneventful to say the least; it was filled with job interview after job interview. Finally, about a week before school started, I was offered another job back in Pine Bluff. Not exactly what I had been working so hard for, but I will graciously take it. We also had another nice little surprise a few weeks ago that I am excited to share. We are going to have another baby. Parker was very excited to hear that she would be a big sister. Obviously there have been some adjustments around the house, but we are all extremely excited. Looks like the due date will be June 6, so unfortunately, I'll have to go the whole school year. :/ Very soon I will post some updated pictures of our little brood.

Down this aisle!

I don't know how many of you parents out there are dealing with an overly honest child... I guess this is the stage when a child observes everything and decides she wants to tell you about it. There is absolutely zero filter with this kid, and I have found myself to be embarrassed, mortified and just in shock. I am pretty sure that this is a daily occurrence for us now. A day or two ago she and I were in Target, minding our business, doing a little shopping; we see a man in a motorized scooter in front of us. I guess I didn't clearly hear what Parker said to me but I just heard "walk". I automatically assume that she doesn't want to walk. Perfectly normal for her. Not even close. She repeats and tells me "that man needs to get up and walk!" "what's he doing in that chair?" I was hoping and praying that he hadn't heard us; but he did.He stopped the cart, turned and stared at us. I froze. What the hell was I supposed to do or so? I did what any grown up would do. I grabbed Parker by the arm and darted down another aisle; sprinting walking briskly. As we are briskly walking down the aisle, we see an employee putting things on the shelves, he has corn rows in his hair, no big deal, right? Wrong! "What's wrong with his hair?" "I hate it!" By this time, I'm completely speechless. Who's kid is this? While walking very quickly to get out of Target, I tried to talk to Parker about not always saying what you think or what you see about someone else. I tried to let her know that it hurt people's feelings.I was pretty sure I got through to her and we were going to make an improvement.

Move a few days ahead. Scene: Moe's Southwest Grill, eating our nice dinner, enjoying a 4 year old conversation. It's kids eat free night, so there are quite a bit of people strolling in. Parker notices a couple of girls waiting in line with their family, one of the girls is about 14 years old and is suffering from some severe acne. When I say severe,I mean  it was really bad. Anyone could see it. Leave it to Parker to notice it, observe it, digest it, and then come down with a case of verbal diarrhea. "Mom! Look at the girl's face!" She curls up her mouth and noise, puckers her lips, fans her face as if she has eaten something disgusting and says, "EWW". I guess our "talk" didn't have much of an effect. When does empathy set in???

Few Family Pics

For once while we were in Florida, we had some pretty decent pictures taken of everyone. Usually we are all spread out or no one is really interested in taking them. Our little family DESPERATELY needed some family pictures, so I was game. Some of the pictures turned out really good and some are eh so-so. I lifted these from my aunt's facebook page, so I didn't get all of the pictures. Hope you can digest these little beauties.

How cool is that!?

The last morning we were there my dad had noticed that there were a few dolphins swimming really close to the shore. No one else had really been able to see it until the middle of the morning. He came back up to the house and told us to come and look at the 8, yes 8 dolphins that were swimming a few feet from shore. I grabbed my aunt's camera and took tons of great shots. I tried to get some with my camera but all the jerks curious tourists had scared the poor things off. I was able to get a video of the dolphins swimming. Disregard any of the talking that you may hear. Grant is trying to tell Parker where they are and some of us are probably engaging in useless chatter.

But I don't wanna go...

We spent our final day on the beach getting our last bit of sea, sand, and sun. Parker had finally had her fill of the beach and was done about half way through the day. We had been meaning to take her to the pier at least once while we were there, and decided that today was the day. We loaded up in the church van and headed to the pier. It was nice to look out into the ocean and watch everyone attempt to fish off the pier. A few people were fishing with bait that was the size of a small fish, so Parker thought they had actually caught a fish each time the reeled in their line. We had to explain over and over again that their bait was the fish and not what they caught. We were able to see someone's pretty big catch and Parker really wanted to touch it but I thought that wasn't such a great idea. (It had large teeth!)

Once we got back to the house, Jeff and I went back down to the beach with Uncle Brian and gimp wing to enjoy the last of our beach trip. It was nice having a little adult conversation while relaxing in my chair. We noticed that everyone was getting ready for our family pictures and we decided to head back and get the show on the road. Everyone was in their white and khaki and ready to take some awesome shots. We got some good group pictures, family pictures, and random pictures. Those were taken on my aunt's awesome SLR camera, so I am still waiting on those, but for the most part they turned out okay. Hopefully I can post those very soon. To hold you over until then; I'll post our pictures from our last day at the beach.

Day 5: Should we stay or should we go?

Our initial day of departure was going to be Friday, July 1; but we had the option of staying one more night due to no one being in the house the following day. After deliberating with everyone, the choice was easy; we were staying one more night! Thursday turned out being about the same as all of the other days that we have been in Florida; laying on the beach, taking in the sun, playing in the sand and water, reading a good book*, and enjoying some drinks. At this point, I had decided that I was no longer going to live in Arkansas and our family was going to permanently live on the beach. Unfortunately, we couldn't escape reality for forever and would be heading back home Saturday morning. At least we were getting ONE more day on the beach. We had been talking about renting one of the little cars and driving it around town and today was the day we had our special little ride to cruise in. Parker really enjoyed the car and I actually was able to drive this one. It took the older girls and Parker out for a spin and enjoyed pointing "dudes" out to them.

Dinner that night consisted of us trying to choose a seafood place to hit up that could also accompany the massive amount of people in our group. The big time places would of course have hours and hours a small amount of waiting and we ended up finding this nice little hole in the wall place, Dee's Hang Out. The food was pretty good and the jalapeno oysters were delicious! Watching my younger brother try oysters was by far the highlight of the evening. His faces while consuming were priceless. (Sorry no pictures :( )

* Side note: I had started reading Chelsea Handler's "Hello Vodka, It's Me Chelsea" and if you are looking for a book to read, have dry and raunchy humor, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU! I was literally laughing and giggling out loud the entire time reading the book. I had actually started her next book, "My Horizontal Life": also too much for words. I had never really been a big fan of hers or been a big fan of watching Chelsea Lately, but my opinion has drastically changed after reading her first book. :)

Day 4: A Little Shopping

By day 4, we were wanting a little break from the beach and decided to hit up some of the shops around Panama City Beach. We of course had to get some t-shirts and what nots while we were there. Parker really wanted a tattoo (fake of course) and a grass skirt with a coconut bra; what kid doesn't want that? The boys rented three scooters and spent most of the day on those. Parker even had a turn on the scooter, which she was very excited about. Jeff tripped out over the fact that she was riding with "Gant", but all was well and she came back in one piece. After spending a little money, it was time to go to do the beach and get some more salt and sun. Guess what? That's right! More pictures!