Happy Birthday to ME! :)

I have totally been awful at blogging lately!  My life is just so boring and mundane that I haven't had a whole lot to blog about, but since today is MY birthday I thought I'd update y'all on a few things that have been going on (this post WILL be all over the place so please excuse me).

Justin and I closed on our land yesterday! PTL!!  We are truly blessed!  The Lord certainly knows what he's doing and I'm so thankful that we have been patient in our waiting for the Lord to guide us in the right direction to build our new home.  Now the planning truly beings.  We have now narrowed down our list of house plans to about 5.  All the ones we have flagged are very similar to one another on the outside, just a few differences here and there on the inside.  I'm not in a big hurry though, I want to make sure it's EXACTLY what we want.

My little Tuck-man has been a bit under the weather lately.  This past weekend he ran a low grade fever all weekend.  This morning he woke up coughing, but no fever.  I guess it's just the drastic change in the weather we've been having, 80's one day and 40's the next will do that to you!  Since he was sick I had to miss my besties lingerie shower :(.  I was totally bummed out about this!  Hopefully I'll be able to make it to the bachelorette party!

Last week we were able to go watch my nephew Zack play baseball.  Zack is a Junior in High School and will turn 17 in a few weeks.  My babies are growing up :*(!  Here is a picture of Tucker and I in our matching "Cardinal Baseball" T-shirts.  

Tucker wasn't quite ready...

Here's the smile!

You've heard of The Pioneer Woman, right?  I figured so!  I ordered her cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks and her book The Pioneer Woman: Black Heels to Tractor Wheels -- A Love Story before Spring Break so that I'd have some new reading material during my time off.  I absolutely loved her book and cook book.  If you haven't already purchased these two books, I'd highly recommend it.  Since discovering The Pioneer Woman Cooks blog (only a few weeks ago... I know, where have I been?!) I have cooked two dishes featured on her blog.  The first one I cooked was the Chicken Parmigiana and let me tell you, it was fabulous!  Last night I cooked the Sour Cream Noodle Bake and it was fabulous as well.  I can't wait to try a few recipes from her cookbook.  I absolutely love that she uses step by step PICTURES.  I'm not the greatest cook so this is a big help to me.  I like to know what my dish is supposed to look like throughout the cooking process and not just the end result.

Did I mention that today is MY birthday?  Oh, I did... sorry!  Today is my 28th birthday and I have to tell you that I have had one blessed life!  I am the youngest of four and the only girl, so to say that I'm spoiled would be a huge understatement.  Not only am I a daddy's girl, but all of my brothers have spoiled me as well.  

My oldest brother, Casey, is 12 years older than me.  When I was in Kindergarten he was a  Senior in High School.  When Valentine's Day would roll around he wanted to make sure I had the biggest Teddy Bear or biggest bouquet of roses sent to me at school.  I'm pretty sure I was the only one in Kindergarten that received a dozen or so roses on Valentine's!  

My middle brother, Keith, spoiled me rotten too.  I will never forget that when I was younger I'd beg my mom to let me go spend the night with a friend only to have me call during the night begging to come home because I was too scared to stay all night.  She would tell me no that I'd have to stay, but it never failed that Keith would always come and get me.  He would also let me come stay at his college apartment in the summer time so I could hang out at the pool.  He really put up with me a lot.

Then there is Chad, my youngest brother, who always let me know how "stupid" I was.  Little did I know that he really did love me!!!  I'll never forget when I was in Junior High and had my first real boyfriend.  One day he just up and broke up with me and broke my little heart.  Years later I found out that Chad had threatened to beat him up if he didn't break up with me.  Chad really was looking out for me, and has ever since. 

I have always been a daddy's girl!  My dad was an only child and lost his mother when he was only 6 weeks old.  My Pop never remarried and he and my dad lived with his sister, Emma, (in the house where my husband and I live today) and she helped raise my dad.  My dad always wanted a big family and my mom came from a big family, she is also the youngest of four and the only girl.  My parents wanted a girl really bad, but was told when she was pregnant with me that it was another little boy.  Back then, they didn't do ultra-sounds they relied on the rate of the baby's heart beat to determine the gender of the baby.  Boy, were my parents surprised when I was born!  

My Daddy sent me these flowers today...

and my sweet momma took me out to lunch!  I have had a very blessed 28 years and I pray that the good Lord will bless me with many many more years!

Sorry that this post was all over the place and I hope I didn't bore you to badly!  I'll try to do a little better with blogging.  Maybe something exciting will happen that I can blog about! 

Hope you all have a wonderful week!