Gulf Shores in August

Tim McGraw & Faith Hill-Atlanta

whoops!!!

i was checking my blog and i was starting to think nobody loved me because i never had comments. turns out that i forgot to turn on the comment thing. what a jo-jo!!

dana-if you are reading this, when all of our kids get to camp, and when emma hooks up with maddie reed (ellen's little girl--she used to go to college ave but has just moved up here) and then "the wreckers" (which are obviously my boys)...they will just wish a tornado would hit!! i have a feeling the girls will need to start "the little princess" group! poor camp wiregrass. good thing they are slowly updating things because some days, i have a feeling that after all of ours go through, nothing will be standing at the end of the week!!

we have 5 weeks until we go to the beach and we are so excited. luke has been asking for over a month to go to the beach. micah has been counting the days since march! and i need a tan...but i gotta find some time to work on that before i go so i don't fry. work has NOT allowed me to get all toasty brown this year.

i DO have a few cute things that luke has said lately, but that will have to wait for now. it'll give yall...probably all 3 of you...a reason to check back in!

and the next month...

the time is seriously slipping by and i don't even know where it goes. 2 weeks ago, now, was the last of my crazy schedule with work. and i am thanking God for the normalcy. i have about 5 weeks or so left until we go on vacation, and at that time, i will stop working all together. luke will start school 2 days a week after we get back, so that will keep me busy enough. i wish i had some big stories to tell you or a reason why i haven't kept up in the last couple of weeks, at least, but i got nothin. oh well, the saddest thing is that we had a family that we were friends with at our old church who lost their 7 year old last week. that was the most heart wrenching couple of days i've ever had. i think about him and his parents daily. i wonder if i always will. after his funeral, i literally had a migraine so bad i was hovering over the commode praying to throw up if it would make me feel better. thank goodness for aleve and excedrine migraine!! one of my best friends was the little boy's aunt and she is having a hard time. this was an only child and only grandchild on the mom's side of the family. it was a real tragedy for our whole community. i think the parents are starting to come out of shock this week and i am just really praying for them. i could not imagine.

i'm trying to get back into exercising on a regular basis. work really threw a kink in everything since march and i'm just trying to work it back in slowly. the diet portion...i need to just strive for consistency. some days i am sooooo on. others, let's not even talk about it. since my friend ellen moved to town i have kept busy with her and her daughter and pooch, so i guess that is where i have devoted a little extra time and care, these days. we also had VBS which luke loved. now that's it's raining everyday, we are a little cooped up. but i at least took them to the mall to play in the little kiddie area for a little bit. hoping it will clear up and we can cut our jungle grass so we can get back outside. we definitely need some color on us before we go to the beach!! and boys just need fresh air! i also just need to sit down, now that i have more free time, and get a schedule made out. i just get overly busy doing day to day stuff that i don't remember to take time for myself or make special day trips or whatever with the kiddos. sounds like something i could be doing now!! well, that or take advantage of the quiet and get on the treadmill!! hopefully i'll keep up more regularly and start to include the cute day to day stories and pics!!

from may to june

this has been a busy month for the tuckers. luke finished up his first full year of preschool. they had an end of the year program where his class had to sing the ABCs, Jesus Loves Me, Tiny Little Daisy, and If you Plant a Penny. and of course when that happened, Micah had strep throat. Yeah, we were going to sleep on that friday night and he felt warm. we just figured he was getting a sinus infection. so 4 days later he went to the doctor (the same day as luke's program) and found out he had strep. so i took luke and seth by myself to the program and wouldn't you know it? he did great! he went up there and sang every song!! i had to hold my little butter biscuit in one hand and try to take pics with the other! i'll get those posted soon. tonight is just for updating. so anyway, i was on single parent duty for the next 3 days. actually by thursday micah felt good enough to keep the kids at home while i worked. but he was tired when i got back...at 3!!! since when is 7 hours a 1/2 day? that place is always so stinkin' crazy!! anywho, so the strep weekend was mother's day weekend (which sucked because i worked my tail off while micah was sick.) after that we had a few normal weeks, just busy. got to have a short visit with my folks when they came one weekend. that was memorial day weekend. micah got up early that monday and went to town to run the cotton row 10K like he does every year. and we (us and my fam) were all out playing in the sprinklers when seth went up to the porch to sit with "pop". well, no sooner had he gotten up there that he got his first wasp sting on his finger. my poor little man. so pitiful!! but he was fine. i say it was due to mama wiping it good, sucking on his finger a little and then giving him some benedryl and ibuprophen. my daddy will probably tell you it was the snuff. gross!! either way, no reaction. last week i went to work on monday, felt fine. went to my friend ellen's to help her get some unpacking done and we stayed up until like 2 AM i'm sure. when we got up at 530 (sucks to be a nurse) i just felt really tired. but mainly "i've stayed up like a school girl" tired. the day went on and i started feeling run down. then my throat got sore....then i started running fever. yep. i was getting strep. so i waited as long as i could and called micah to come home about 2. i went to our office and did my own strep test. POSITIVE. of course. so i wrote out my own Rx and had the nurse practitioner sign it and home i went. so tuesday night i thought i was gonna cuss micah because my body was cramping from the fever. the next day he stayed home with the kiddos while i was in quarantine. then thursday i was feeling fine, but i still had fever. but he needed to go back to work i guess, so i just had to will myself well. finally around 3 my fever broke and i have been ok. thankfully ellen doesn't have tonsils and she brought us some yummy supper!! having your bff in town rocks!! i looked at micah's throat the next night, and wouldn't you know it...white crud. so i got up early on saturday and went back to the office and brought home the kit. strep tests for everyone. that's right...i even did the boys. micah's was positive, but the rest of us were ok. so we got micah another antibiotic called in. he has 2 days left of it (and i was smart enough to ask for a refill just in case.) oh, and in the mean time, our washer broke. so we had to buy a new one this weekend. so needless to say, if i haven't gotten in touch with people, we have been busy. today we had maddie with us so the boys and her played allllll day. i think it is safe to say we are all pooped! tomorrow i am going to get father's day stuff taken care of. i'll try to download my pics this weekend and get those on here for an update.

little devils

yeah, 3 months later...

well, things are a little crazy in my world these days. i'm so used to the boring "every day is the same", that now it is just a little hard to sit down and figure out what to write. (not to mention the fact that i didn't even get those 2 sentences out without being interrupted by having to referee!!) anyway, i have been working 4 days a week and it adds up to only about 10-12 hours a week, but it has really changed how i get things done during the day. i'm not as good at time management as i used to be!!

the good news is that he is completely intelligent. he can count to 100 and knows the Lord's prayer and the books of the new testament, all his colors, shapes, letters and loves to sing. luke has about 2 weeks left in preschool for the regular year. then they are off for 2 weeks and then he switches from fridays to tuesdays (my only day off of work!) he got his first official time-out last friday. he was kicking over the other kids' blocks and the teacher got on to him several times. the last time, she had no sooner gotten it out of her mouth when he got up, went over there and kicked them over. so he had to sit in the time-out chair and lost his treat for the day. when i got there she said he also wouldn't use the potty all day. (it bothered her, but not me because this is a child that has held it from athens to gulf shores!!) anyway, i marched him to his room, spanked him, made him potty and flush (something else he wouldn't do the week before) and then go hug his teacher and apologize. he lost his video and game priviledges for the weekend. (tough mama!!) he has had an issue with using the potty in public. (it's the industrial flush...woosh!! i think.) he has been potty trained a year now and just hates to do it in public. well, this past february he actually went a couple of places in public without problem. we were super duper pumped. we even made a trip to dothan where he used it at the mall. well, around my birthday we were at red lobster in decatur where he was using the potty and he shifted a little and it was one of those automatic things and the child nearly jumped out of his skin!! so pottying is actually just now getting back to some normalcy. he went a couple of weeks where he was wetting his underwear all the time and peed on my couch 4 times in 1 week. i thought i would kill him!! oh, and let's not even get into the time he peed on the chair...so much so there was a puddle on the floor!! but he is going fine at home again, but the school thing...we may have to work on. he has also developed a fear of bugs. one saturday a bumble bee buzzed by his ear and he went birzerk. i had to lock him out of the house so he wouldn't be inside alone while we were all outside. now, everyone knows if there is even a fly in the room. seriously...i'm surprised i even bathe anymore!! he has also been having allergies for the last week and getting him to take medicine is like water torture. seriously...i must have been the actual devil in my past life to get him!!

sethy...little sethy. well, i had him sleeping in a toddler bed because he no longer fit in a pack n play when we traveled. so it was just getting time. he was doing fine until he realized that he can just get up. so he was getting up at like 5 am or so and just being up for the day, playing in his room. aggrevating. and as soon as we'd lay him down, he was right back up. so back to the crib he went. he is mouthy...and good lord! he can say absolutely anything and can say all the way to "k" in the abcs. he's a smarty for sure. he is all red head. between the 2 of them, i have definitely earned my angel wings.

they are both in their rooms right now crying. the computer room sits right in the middle, so i have it in stereo. and that is a good reason not to post very much!!)

micah is training for the cotton row 10k like he does every year so my sunday afternoons are shot right now because he goes over to run the course. i'm not sure why he cares. he's not in it to win it or anything. so giving up every sunday afternoon has mama a little ill these days. but i just make sure i take the same 3 hours doing something alone on saturdays. (i'm warped like that!)

we are going to the beach at the end of august and that is our only other plans for the rest of the year so far. we're not great travelers so that is probably just fine! hope everyone is doing well and i'm sorry it has taken forever to post. hopefully it won't be another 3 months. i'll work on some new pics later.