The Good, Bad, and Ugly

Our world has been a little crazy.  No, no.  It's been very crazy.

Jared had back-to-back trips with just about 36 hours home in between.  In the nearly two weeks that he was gone, we had more activities/commitments/responsibilities/to-do's/extras than we have in a typical full month.

I wish I could have had time to tell you all about what we've been doing.  Today I spent the day making cupcakes for my mother-in-law's annual Valentine's Day cupcake competition, which will take place tomorrow.  I have tons of pictures to edit and hopefully post so I can at least tell you about that.

I also did a bunch of work for the kids' valentines and Nolan's Valentine's Day box (the other two kids made their box/bag in class).  I hosted a bridal shower for a dear friend's daughter.  For that shower I made two different flavors of cupcakes, cookies with color-coordinated sprinkles, and custom cupcake toppers.

We've had basketball games and practices, church meetings and gatherings, spent time with some new friends from school, and kept up with all of the regular daily life stuff.

I thought rather than tell you all about everything, I could just tell you "the good, the bad, and the ugly."

Only let's go in reverse order so we end on a positive note.

The Ugly
Someone fraudulently used my credit card number, full name, home address, and home phone number to order a $400 camera from an online sporting goods store.  Fortunately for me, that company checks any order in which the billing address and shipping address don't match.  I was alerted to the fact that someone had my personal and financial information, cancelled the fraudulent order, closed my credit card, and started monitoring my credit.

I felt violated that someone has my information.  The worst part is that no one cares about who did it.  There's no repercussion for this criminal, and no one is going to track him/her down.  I just close out my credit card account and monitor all other accounts for suspicious activity.  That person gets to move on to the next credit card number they have.

For those of you who are Friends fans, I'd like to become "Mononna" and track down the "Monica" using my card so I can spend time with her and see who she is.

The Bad
Like many of you, I got hit pretty hard with the flu bug or whatever this thing is.  I was so sick while Jared was gone.  Because of God's perfect timing, the very worst two days of my sickness happened to overlap with the day and a half that Jared was home.  The day before he got home, I was super weak and just couldn't go on.  I laid down on the couch while the kids finished up homework.  Nolan came and laid directly on top of me and rubbed my hair while I drifted in and out of sleep.  We now refer to that as "The greatest snuggle of my life."  It really was.

While Nolan and I were snuggling, Nora took a picture of us:

I love this picture because it reminds me of Nolan's sweet tender care that he showed me when I couldn't even take care of my own kids.  And I love that my four-year-old took the picture.

The Good
The fact that Jared is home is absolutely in the "Good" category.  Another of my favorite "good" things lately is seeing Griffin while he's missing his two top front teeth.  Kids missing these two teeth is literally one of my favorite things in life.  Every single time Griffin talks to me, my heart melts and I have a hard time focusing on what he's saying because I find him just so darn cute.

This is a blurry cell phone picture I took to send to Jared after Griffin lost his second tooth.

One of his adult teeth on top is moving in so quickly that I can see more of it every single day.  I got a quick picture of him today while I was taking pictures of my cupcakes.  I wish I had gotten some more pictures of him with nothing there before the adult tooth started coming in.  Still so cute.

Have a great Valentine's Day tomorrow!

Jessica