goin to the chapel...

We went to Texarkana this past weekend for my cousin Eric's wedding.

We had to take some sweet pictures (of course!)

And of course we had to get sassy with it.

The groom's brother, Brent, and grandmother.

Abi and Poppa

The cake masterpiece that Brent created.

Nan & Pop

Our Cakes

Brent and his nephew, Connor

A family photo! except for Papaw

Seth & Rachel

Livi and her Poppa

We had a great time. We got to meet up with Seth and I's childhood friend, John Robert, and his wife, Katie. Nan and Pop took the kids to their house and we got to hang out with our friends.

Congrats to Eric and Allison! The wedding was beautiful.

the best things in life are free

I got some new patio furniture.

And it came with the neatest thing ever!

This big, giant, cardboard BOX!

Look at how happy that face is!

You would never know that they have a big ol' nice wooden play house right around the corner from this

big ol' cardboard box.

Then they thought it would be funny to race inside the box as quickly as they could and hide from me.

There goes captain obvious, closing the door.

And I spotted her in the crack of the door!

Bugs are also a free yet entertaining thing around our house.

Olivia loves murdering them.

Gonna have to keep our eye on that one.

dr jellybean

See all three of my girls layed out for their 6 month dental check ups??

I told you about Makayla's front tooth needing repairs. Other than that, this trip was smooth sailing!

The girls call their dentist "Dr. Jellybean" because he playfully calls them "jellybean" when he's talking to them. I'm sure it's a clever cover up for not knowing their names. But they like it.

This post is a little random,but here is Olivia and Nana at Maggie Moos getting a treat last Saturday. I wanted to get out of the house after my surgery on Friday. I had the bright idea that it might help me not be so stiff and get around easier if I didn't just lay around. I lasted a couple of hours and was ready to hit the bed. We had fun while it lasted though!

And this is just because she's sweet.

hey soul sister

We love our Arkadoo family!

I have had this picture for a while now. We went to watch one of Leslie's softball games and hope to see Khennedy play too. The weather has gotten in the way of games for the last few weeks.

We had a great time with them and wish we could get together more often.

Love you ladies!

the great gallbladder escape

As the title indicates, I no longer have a gallbladder. I had surgery a week ago today to have it removed due to gall stones. I have found out about a lot of people lately that have also had the surgery done and, from what I hear, I have recovered rather well from it so far.

My doctor had me go in for an ultrasound prior to scheduling the surgery to see what was going on with my stomach and the ultrasound showed a 2cm gall stone in the neck of my gallbladder. The gastro doctor recommended that I have it removed within the month due to pancreatitis or other more severe problems that it could cause. I scheduled the surgery for May 6th because our schedules were busy and I needed my mom to have time to plan to be with us as well.

Just a side note: the following is a picture of the gastro doctors exam room. I took a photo while I was waiting (I'm sure he won't mind). My next question was, "Am I here for an oil change or a check up?"

Following the surgery, the nurses had a little bit of a difficult time getting me to breath like I needed to. I think I probably was just a little bit too relaxed. Eventually I moved from recovery to a room and slept off and on throughout the afternoon. The doctor came in that evening and said that, once he got into the surgery, he saw that the gallstone had grown to be between 4-5 cm since the initial ultrasound. He said that it was about the size of an egg and he had to shatter it in order to get it out. All of the events following the surgery, not waking up quickly and that he had to shatter the stone, were unfortunate for me because I wanted to see the gallbladder and stone before they were taken away. Oh well, at least they aren't causing me harm any longer.

And my mom and dad came up to babysit me while Alex had the kids. I am SO glad that I had my family here to be with me. It sure made me wish they would move on up  to the Bauxite area.

I had a follow up appointment today and he said I'm healing well. He also had paperwork from where the gallbladder was sent off for testing to make sure there wasn't anything cancerous involved and it all looked good.

On another topic, I wanted to share this picture of Alex's grandma, Lovena aka "Big Granny", and the girls from around Easter time.

I don't know why blogger is uploading the picture sideways, but turn your head and imagine how sweet it is.
We love our Big Granny.

the girls

I have been attempting to get this post up all week!

Uploading pictures has proven to be a slow slow process.

I just had to fit a few recent pictures of the girls in on here.

They are still growing up so fast. We have had crazy busy weeks. They all had dental appointments Tuesday morning. Their teeth all looked great. Makayla has a follow up visit because she broke a front tooth in January and it appears to have stopped growing. It's quiet a bit shorter than her other front tooth and the dentist is going to reconstruct it so that they are closer in size. I got them all breakfast at ChicFilA and then got them all to school/daycare. I then had to get to the hospital here for a pre-op appointment. I am having gall bladder surgery Friday morning and had to complete some testing and paperwork. I then had to go to the Health Dept for a TB skin test for my job. And then to work. It was a crazy day!

Most of our days are still filled with practices and games of all sorts. The rain gave us a break for a few weeks. Now a lot of the softball fields are flooded so we continue to have cancellations.

On a parting note, please pray for our KayKay. Her behaviors at school seem to deteriorate almost daily. We are having a lot of issues with her and no method of correction seems to be working. We are working on getting her in to see someone that can hopefully point us in the right direction.

Don't forget to add patience for Alex and I to that prayer as well!

one fine day

And that's the truth. We have had only about one fine day in the last two weeks. It has been full of rain, hail, tornados, and severe weather.

But! There was  a day last week that was amazing. I was at home with Olivia when she was sick and we snuck outside later in the day.

And of course the #1 thing on the agenda was to check on Marshy the marshmellow tree.

He appears to be doing great.

I'm dreaming of more days like this soon hopefully.

Not only is it gorgeous, but it means Alex and I are getting to sleep at night without Olivia crawling in bed with us and kicking us like punching bags all night. ;)  Gotta love her.