Weekends are "the shiz"!

The other day in the car, Daniel taught me a couple of "new" words. He also told me I'm not allowed to use them outside of the family, but I had to blog about it!

One word he taught me was "foshizzle". According to him, there can be some more to it that isn't good, but if you stop at that first word, it's ok. It means "for sure" and I think Toby Mac has it in one of his songs. I didn't understand what Daniel said at first, and pronounced it "foshishle". That sent my son into a fit of laughter, and ranked it up there with some of my best "mom trying to be cool" moments.

The other word that I learned that day was "the shiz", which means "awesome". Hence the title of this post and my real reason for writing today. I love weekends! I wake up so calm and my mind isn't racing with things that I need to do at work or at home (ok, sometimes I get uptight about things I need to do at home). Today, I was able to go for a long walk and then picked up Daniel from the spend-the-night party at Sean's (we have another teenager among us). The rest of the weekend is pretty much unplanned, although we will enjoy spending time with friends visiting from out of town and getting to see Baby Erica. Yep, weekends are "the shiz"!

She oughta be in pictures . . .

Oh, she is! Miss Erica Jean Massey has been in the world just a few days and has probably had 1000 pictures taken of her! Between her dad, grandparents and aunts (one from TX and one from TN), this baby girl's picture has been snapped and snapped while she just snoozes and snoozes. I'll quit talking now and let you see just a small sampling of what I'm talking about (and this is just from one side of the family)! We're all crazy about this little sweetie!

Introducing . . .

Erica Jean Massey

Born on 08-22-08 at 2:21 p.m.

Weight: 7 lbs. 9 ozs.

Length: 19 in.



She has a little bit of blonde hair and the sweetest cheeks, definitely rivaling her cousin Daniel's, and soft, pink skin!



Jeanette is doing well and she and Russell, as well as the rest of the family, are so excited and thankful for Erica's safe arrival!



Praise God from Whom ALL blessings flow!

Friday's the day and C-section's the way

Only a little more than 48 hours until my niece will be born! We've known for a while that her birthday would probably be August 22nd, but after Jeanette's last doctor's appointment, it was decided that it would be best for Jeanette if they scheduled a c-section instead of inducing labor and having it be long and arduous and likely end up in a c-section. Jeanette and Russell feel peaceful about the decision and to say that we're all excited about this baby's arrival is a major understatement! Please be in prayer for Jeanette and Russell as the big day approaches and especially at 2:00 p.m. on Friday. We all appreciate your prayers from the time this journey began and I look forward to introducing you all to a sweet baby girl very soon!

Can I please put some time in a bottle?

Monday, August 11, was Daniel's first day of 8th grade, and I insisted on taking the traditional "First Day of School Photo" (and wasn't met with much resistance). I got to thinking how cool it will be someday to put 13 "First Day" pictures in a line and see the transformation. I'm not ready for that day, yet, but here's a little sneak preview comparison of the first day of Kindergarten vs. first day of 8th grade. This is why I love to take pictures and scrapbook! WOW!

Question of the Day

I am loving that the Summer Olympics have started and I have been trying to catch different events on my non-cable TV. My big question of the day is:

Why do the male beach volleyball players wear shirts and longer shorts, but the female players only wear bikini bathing suits?

I'm sure that it has a lot to do with who's watching the events and sponsors, etc., but PUH-LEEZE . . .

I never . . .

When I was in college, I remember playing a game called, "I never," where we sat in a circle and each person went around and said something she had never done (don't worry, it didn't get too personal). If the other people in the group had done the thing she'd never done, they had to put a penny in the middle. The person with the most pennies at the end was the winner.

Well, Daniel did something today that I've never done: He got braces! He got through it fine and doesn't seem to fazed by having all that metal in his mouth. I'm actually a little envious of the coolness factor, but not enough to plunk down thousands of dollars to get some of my own!

Some other things I've never done are:

• watched an entire Star Wars movie
• been snow skiing
• ridden a motorcycle
• toured Graceland
• been kissed (ha! just kidding!)

So, anyone want to play? Post something that you've never done and see if you can stump me or anyone else who might want to play!