Tornado Season Already?????

Tornado season has begun. Personally I think it is WAY to early to have tornados, but I don’t control the weather.

Yesterday it was a little scary. I had left work a little early to go and get the kids. We watch the weather at work and saw that there was going to be some bad storms coming. After I had gotten them and was about 5 minutes away from daycare I heard the tornado sirens go off. I immediately tuned into about 5 different radio stations to try to find out exactly where the tornado was. At first there was nothing on the radio, then the national weather service broke in and issued the tornado warning. All the radio stations usually then turn their programming over to the TV stations. Mainly to one weatherman, Gary England. He began saying that the tornado was at Morgan Road and Memorial. Which means that the tornado is in Piedmont. Not a good thing considering that it is about 3:40, my mom is either still at school (Piedmont Elem) or she has headed home, and my dad is doing his afternoon bus run, which means that he is more than likely not at that spot, but not very far away.

So since you all know me you know I have a tendancy to freak out whenever there are tornados, much less when I think that there is a chance that both of my parents may be in danger. So I began calling my mom. Half of the time the network was busy the other half of the time she isn’t answering her phone. So then over the radio they said that the tornado was at Council and 206^th. Which means that the tornado path had gone right over what I thought was my dads bus route. I finally got a hold of my mom, she was ok, she was on her way home. I asked to call me when they were both home.

At 4:17 my mom called and said that both her and my dad were home safe and sound. I could finally take a deep breath. My dad said that the tornado was in this area, but that he never saw anything.

My mom said that on her way home there were several trees, and power line poles down. Last night they closed the road that my mom had driven through going home due to the fact that they need to clean up the debris.

When I talked to my dad he said that he would get to see the all of the damage when he went to pick up his kids on his morning route.

All of s are safe and sound.

So the weather for today…..more storms….uggghhhhh

So last weekend as a reward for all of his LONG weeks of work Jay took a day off. He had bought a smoker a few weeks before and had not gotten to use it. So this Sunday he got it out, set it up and we spent all day cooking. Jay had found reciepies in his Big BBQ book (the same one my dad has) and we set out for a day of BBQ. We had Matt and Courtney and their daughter Payton over, we had called my parents, but they must not have been home because they did not answer their phone.

At the end I ended up making from scratch mind you baked bean, BBQ sauce, a mop sauce, a slaw to put on top of your BBQ. Jay was busy outside with Matt smoking the Boston Butt, and enjoying a few adult beverages.

Now about 7pm Jay got a call from work. He would be leaving in the morning to go to Texas for work, and he would not be home till Thurs. so that left me and Breanna with 10 lbs of pulled pork, and about 5lbs of baked beans. So that is what w3e have been eating all week. We could really use Jay’s help eating all of this food. Here are some pictures of the things we cooked.

The slaw

The Boston Butt

BBQ Baked Beans

BBQ sauce from scratch

The kiddos had a good time. Breanna is starting to speak sentences that I can actually understand. She is getting more and more vocal, if you can believe that. She is going to be a talker……wonder where she gets that from?? =)

JJ is rolling over, he is tucking his legs underneath himself getting ready crawl. He is getting his first teeth. They are on the bottom, right now they are just white spots, but they are defiantly there.

Since the weather is nicer I started taking the kiddos for walks around the neighborhood. They LOVE it. Breanna and JJ just look around at everything. We have been going in the evenings too.

The babies in the stroller

Breanna taking charge of JJ's toy

Some pictures

Her first "bike" it even has training wheels. The only problem...she can't reach the peddles so we have to push her.

Breanna riding "Brownie" her horse....look at the concentration on her face, and her tongue sticking out. She was on a mission to get that horse to go.

JJ eating cereal for the first time....

Doesn't it look appetizing? That face he made is making more sense now isn't it.

What do you think?????

Except for the fact that Breanna had a TON more hair that JJ has do you think they are starting to look like each other. Here is a picture of JJ at 4 mon and Breanna when she was 5 mon old.

4 Mon check Up and Easter/ St. Pats Pictures

So this weekend we went and took our Easter Pictures and since it was St. Pats day we took some of St. Pat's pictures too. The kiddos did pretty well. Breanna got pretty upset and done taking pictures at the end. It was 5pm and she was ready to go home and eat some dinner and relax. After going by myself (Jay got called into work) I was ready to go home and eat dinner and relax too.

JJ had his 4 mon old check up this morning. He is now:

13 lbs 8 ozs - 23% for babies his age
25.25 inches long - 53% for babies his age

He is all smiles these days. He can roll over both ways. I put him to bed on his back (as all parenting literature will tell you to do) and he has begun to flip onto his stomach during the night. He sleeps better that way anyway. The doctor said not to worry about it.

Jay is on his way to Texas, he is working in Wheeler today. So it will be a long day for him. On his paystub he got last Friday, mind you this is only for ONE week, he had 87 hours. Hope that gives you an idea of how long he is actually working. Now that doesn't include his lunch hour, or if they take a dinner hour.

A short 5 weeks (well hopefully short)

Well we are getting closer, and closer to the vacation that we have been waiting a year to take. Last May if you don't remember I won a vacation to Cozumel on the radio. We were going to take the vacation last summer, but then being pregnant I decided that we had better wait until after JJ was born to go.

****Note to my grandparents, in this blog there are links to the websites for some of the places. If something is white and underlined it if you click on the underlined names it will take you to the website for the different places. Thought you might like to see the website for our hotel.****

We are leaving on Sunday April 15. I can't wait to go. I was looking at the restaurants and attractions. There is a Shrimp Bucket in Cozumel. This reminded me of the last vacation that I was on. We were in Cabo, it was 8am and my parents, my sister, and I were sitting in Cabo Wabo. For those of you who don't know Cabo Wabo is a bar that is owned by Sammy Hagar. We were having Waborita's (the Cabo Wabo margarita made with Cabo Wabo Tequila), and yes it was 8am. Shortly after that we walked down the road a bit and ended up at the Shrimp Bucket. We decided to have some breakfast, so we had tequila sunrises, hey if we were drinking at 8am we might as well at 10am. We also ordered our food, mostly made up of shrimp. To this day my mom says that whole experience made her a little less fond of shrimp. To me it is a memory that I will for as long as I live never forget. I have decided that Jay and I will go one morning into town and have tequila sunrises and shrimp for breakfast, just to keep tradition alive.

We will be staying at the Melia, it is an all inclusive resort, so we won't have to worry about paying for our food or alcohol as long as we are at the resort. And Yes like a good McClain girl would I check out the alcohol portion and the all inclusive does include premium liquors, not just domestics.

The resort

Now that is a sunset

The rooms

The beach

The pool

I plan on relaxing

Night time at the restaurant

I plan on going into town and doing a little shopping, we are going to go and have dinner at Prima's one night, we were told about this place by Louise Capshaw, so I know it will be great!! I sneaked a peak of the menu online and it looks fabulous. Had to remind myself that the prices were in pesos. I thought at first there was noooo way the food was going to be good enough to charge what they were charging. Maybe go scuba diving one day, our resort does complementary snorkeling trips everyday at 11am, so we will do that one day. Jay isn't certified to dive, so I would have to go by myself, unless he takes a resort class and goes. The thing with Jay is that he doesn't like big fish, so before we go and pay to have him certified as a diver I want to make sure he can handle snorkeling with the fishies!!

Jay is just as excited. He says he has never been on a vacation. He has never been out of the US, Mexico will be quite and adventure for him I think the fact that people aren't going to speak English hasn't sunk into him yet, I think he'll have a little bit of culture shock at first......

Can you tell I am a little excited about our new adventure that awaits us?

The kiddos

JJ playing in his bouncer. He is getting to be such a big boy.

Lots of play makes JJ a tired boy. =)

Breanna got her "big girl" chair to eat out of, so now she can sit at the table with us.

I think she is ready for summer, she walked around all day with those sun glasses on.

Playing in her room.

A lotta time alone

Well since Jay has started his new job I have been spending a lot of time alone with the babies and then after they go to sleep by myself.
By the time Jay headed to work on Wed morning he already had 40 hours. Tuesday alone he worked a 21 hour work day. He had left at 4am and got home at 2am. He worked all 7 days last week. The kiddos are both in bed by 8pm, so after that I get ready do laundry, clean up, get things ready for the next morning, make lunches, and then get myself ready for bed and then watch a little TV till I go to sleep. One of the things that I miss (and I am sure Nichole is going through the same thing) is the fact that you can't turn and saw did you see that, or comment about something. There is just no one there to comment to. Hopefully he will get some days towards the end of the week where he gets home before 10pm. The kids just get to see him in the morning when he takes them to daycare. I let Breanna call and talk to him on the phone at night though. She seems to like it.
There are two small videos of the kiddos playing together below. I really thought that JJ was going ot be a quiet kid, but in the last few days he has started to "talk" a TON!! He is especially fond of his sister and when he sees her anywhere around he makes sure to make enough noise to get her attention and then Breanna will come and sit my him and talk to him and laugh. JJ's whole face lights up he talks back and laughs. It is really nice to see that they already are bonding as siblings. =)