Nicholas's On The Move: So far behind and here's what we've been up to....

WoW things have been busy the last few months.....

Is it really nearing the end of May?!?!?! And can you believe I am really still needing my jackets and sweatshirts in my closet hung right along with the shorts and swimsuits??? This weather is CrAzY!!! Thank goodness I think the cold is about to finally start to disappear and then I'll be wishing I was needing those warm clothes because I'm afraid we are going to have one HOT summer!!

Here's a glimpse of what we've been up to lately in case some of you are wondering why you haven't heard from us or why we've not been available. This post has been written, added to and added to some more until we finally just have a summary of the past few months and hopefully I'll get the photos uploaded and can actually get it published on our blog before we run slap dab into June!

The last weekend of February (Feb 27-Mar 1) my mom came up and we managed to get Sandi moved in. Alan and I took the truck and got her stuff moved from Levelland to Wilson and then my mom cleaned out the closet so Sandi would have a place for her stuff. There is still work to be done for Sandi to be able to make the room her own but this will take time and we DEFINITELY got a great start! Sandi living out here has already provided me with some help and I appreciate it.

March 5-7, Alan, Isabella and I headed to Monahans to take care of some law office business, went to see MCT Wizard of Oz, bought board to build my mom some much needed and wanted shelves, put up a new light fixture in her kitchen and had an awesome visit with her. Thank you dad and Sandi for making that possible. While there, Isabella also got a little bit of playtime with Caitlin on Friday and Sunday she rode her tricycle all the way to see Nana Gina and we all headed to the park to play!!

**Since I haven't had a chance to post lately....We would like to wish Susan (Alan's mom) a very Happy VERY Belated Birthday!! We hope that you had a wonderful day on the 6th of March.**

Making cookies w/ Auntie Lecia & Uncle Joe -- Roll it, Pat it...and mark it with an I!!

A little decorations here and a little there....

And beautiful cookies they did make!!

The start of my mom's Spring Break (March 12-21), on Friday - my mom, Isabella and I headed to the DFW area. Unfortunately on our way up we stopped at McD's and got chicken and well....pretty sure my mom and I both ended up with food poisoning. We spent all Saturday sick and ended up with Lecia having to drive us to the Urgent Care. Thank you Lecia for all you did for us including putting up with my kiddo, making cookies with her and taking her to the park to play! Lecia and Joe will make awesome parents...they were so good with Isabella!! We ended up spending Saturday night at the Holiday Inn so we could get some rest and get out of Lecia's hair since we weren't feeling good. Definitely not how we had planned to spend our weekend. My brother and sister-in-law brought us some crackers and Gatorade and offered to take their niece home with them for the night. Being my first child who is a mommy's girl, I was VERY skeptical about this as my kiddo hasn't spent the night with anyone but mommy & daddy or Grammie & Papa. They said she did great and she seemed to have a really good time. Thank you so much for doing that Christopher and Rachel...we were able to get a good nights sleep and felt lots better the following day! Sunday we managed to accomplish all we went to do...Dress Fitting for Isabella and I at Alfred Angelo, Picked up my car and managed to squeeze in some shopping and a trip to McKinney Trade Days!! We enjoyed spending the day with Auntie Lecia and met up later that evening with Uncle Christopher & Aunt Rachel for dinner! After finishing up our visit we headed back to Wilson for the rest of the week. I'm not quite sure what we accomplished while my mom was here Spring Break....well besides me finishing up my taxes and gathering & calculating everything for my grandmother's....but we definitely enjoyed her visit. She got lots of play time with her angel. Isabella had been talking about going to Grammie's house ever since we headed to the DFW area and Grammie had told her that she could go just not yet...kind of in hopes she would forget, well, she never forgot, she asked all week long and every time we got in the car she thought we were going to Grammie's house. So on Saturday Grammie took Isabella home with her. She got to spend the night in Grammie's bed and go to church with her on Sunday.

A cold storm blew in on that Saturday and Sunday it actually warmed up enough for us to get outside. We started work on our garden. I had visions for a small-medium sized garden to supply us with zucchini, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and a few other things for the summer. My dad decided that he wanted to help and has turned this small project into a full time job - plantation. Oh Well, hopefully we will have an abundance of produce. Posted are a few pictures of what the garden looked like from the start. After we finished up building the fence and doing a few other things in the garden we headed to Andrews to meet my mom to pick up the munchkin and enjoy a DELICIOUS dinner at Buddy's!!

**Isabella's Growth--Sunflowers, Tomatoes & Pumpkins...

she's doing so good and must have a green thumb**

**I'm also going to let her have her own flower garden to take care of.**

*Small Garden--Herbs, strawberries, purple onions, tomatoes, snow peas and FLOWERS!!!**

**Large Garden--grapes, corn, radishes, okra, carrots, variety of peppers & tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, cucmbers, cantaloupe & watermelon**

The next week was a hectic one and I really don't know why other than my dad was suppose to have surgery and for the 2nd time we got to the holding room and he was denied surgery and we were at the hospital for close to 12 hours.. I have been assured that IF he decides to go through this again there will not be a hold up when we get to holding. We shall see! Let's just say I am less than happy with the SYSTEM at UMC!! Both of the times he has been denied surgery were on accounts of the hospital and could have been determined BEFORE he was prepared for surgery!! That's enough on that rant because let me tell you I was TICKED and could continue for a few pages worth. Over the weekend we managed to work outside some more. We started planting the seeds in these greenhouse kits that we then transplanted to the ground when they became stable plants and when we were sure that the cold weather had come and gone for good. It's very exciting watching everything grow and how quickly it grows!! Hopefully we will have a plentiful crop of grapes, various onions & peppers, corn, radishes, okra, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, an abundance of tomatoes, snow peas and who knows what else. I'm also really excited for the patch that I set aside for my flower garden of gladiolas, snapdragons, sweet peas & Zinnias!!! I'll post pictures as time progresses and there is more to report...right now it's just a bunch of mud and the weeds and cotton I have to pull here and there.

On March 26th my dad ended up in the ER and then admitted to the hospital in Odessa. He was diagnosed with Advanced Emphysema and had Pneumonia. He is doing much better now and we hope that he continues on this path. He needs our support & encouragement as he battles the not smoking to keep from worsening the emphysema.

**Isabella & Minnie exchanged waves and blew kisses to each other!**

**Isabella was so excited to see all of the characters up close...and even more so when Tinkerbell skated up right in front of us and waved at her...that was the highlight of her night because the whole way there she told us she wanted to see Tinkerbell***

March 30th, my mom, Sandi, Isabella & I headed to Wichita Falls to see Disney on ICE (an early Easter present for Isabella)!! It was a LONG trip but we had such a good time. We all LOVED it!!!

That brings us to Easter weekend...My dad came up and stayed with my grandmother so that I could go be with my family on Easter. Saturday my mom & I enjoyed an evening of laughter together seeing Dixie Swim Club at MCT while Alan had an evening with Isabella. On Sunday my mom had already made arrangements with the pastor's wife for Isabella to be at the Presbyterian Church for an Easter Egg Hunt and children's sermon, pretty much put together just for her. She had a wonderful time and we had a full and glorious Easter Sunday.

April 5th -OPENING DAY!!! Yes, this was opening day for baseball but more importantly NICHOLAS LAW FIRM in Monahans, TX!!! Business has been slow but is starting to gradually pick up! Alan is really excited and enjoying being his own boss and in charge of his office hours.

**Here is where yet another birthday shout out goes---Ricky's birthday was April 9th and we hope he had an awesome day attending the Elton John Concert!!!**

We all got together on Sunday and celebrated his birthday with a fajita cookout and cake. He also shared this day with Brandee. Although her birthday was in February, I never got a chance to make her a cake, so I just made each of them two smaller cakes. It worked out good because Ricky wanted chocolate and since I can't have chocolate it gave me an option. The bad thing was they had me try to replicate a delicious cake I made for Jennifer last year that I didn't write down the recipe for and well...this one was not so good!! :(

**I'm sure you can guess who's cake was who's**

In April we had the chance to have 2 play dates with Kyla and Kaegan. One day it was beautiful out and we headed to the park to play...the kiddos had a blast and I got a great burn/tan on my shoulders and back. The next meeting it was pouring down rain but we pulled out the oars and paddled into the mall and spent the afternoon at Jump N Jungle and the kiddos LOVED IT!!!! Definitely worth the price of admission! We have really missed our play dates with Kyla and Kaegan...can't wait till we can meet them more often again. The kiddos always have such a good time together and visiting with Kyla is always good for me as well.

The weekend of April 16th, I should have been in Dallas for, a very dear friend of mine, Courtney's Bachelorette Party. However, due to finances and the opening of the Law Firm I was unable to go and sad that I missed such a great time with the girls that are special to her. Since I was unable to go, Alan already had plans to walk in the "Walk A Mile In Her Shoes". This is a mile walk fundraiser for Lubbock Rape Crisis Center where anyone can walk but the men are required to walk in heels! We quickly got a team together and instead of Alan walking as an individual, Alan & Ricky walked in heels, Jennifer, Cassie and I wore our comfy tennis shoes and Isabella stayed snuggled in her stroller as we "Walked A Mile In Her Shoes" around the courthouse for a good cause. It was amazing the number of men who turned out for this and the number of men who will never again complain about rubbing a woman's feet after a hard day of work in heels!! Despite the drizzle we had fun and are already making plans to walk again next year. Anyone know of any cute size 13 high heels for the guys??? I'm sure Cassie & Jennifer have already started their practice for the Stiletto Dash for Cash!!

**"REAL" Men Wear Heels!**

Isabella and I have also had a few chances to spend some time in Monahans with Alan. We went down for Caitlin's 3rd Birthday party on the 18th of April--Happy Birthday Caitlin!!! We Love You!! We have spent time jumping on the trampoline at Grammie's house, picking Papa's strawberries, playing in my childhood playhouse, visiting with Grandad, playing at the park, playing hopscotch, bubbles, kickity kick ball and we even had a picnic one day when everyone else already had plans and were busy for lunch.

When home we've also been spending lots of time in our vegetable garden (unfortunately, mainly pulling weeds), planting our flowers and taking care of the lawns!! I love spring/summer and FLOWERS!!! Flowers make me happy and I LOVE sitting outside in the evenings amongst my flowers, it's so relaxing. We have been working on getting things around the outdoors of my grandmother's house to look like they use to....such as sidewalks that we haven't seen in YEARS because they were covered with dirt, grass and weeds. We've planted her some flowers that she can see out her kitchen window and also made a flowerbed for her to see on the days she makes it outside.

This past few months Isabella has had a few firsts....one I'll spare you the pictures but she went poo-poo in her potty and has several times.....SOOOOOO hopefully that is a GIANT step in potty-training. Maybe by her 3rd birthday or close to we will have her completely potty trained. Then we will work on getting rid of the paci and milk cup at bedtime. She saw her first horned toad that I found while mowing the pasture. She also spent her first day EVER in daycare! They said that she did XCELLENT (I do believe is how her teacher wrote on her daily sheet)!!! All I know is she told us that she enjoyed it but she was HELL ON WHEELS when she came home that afternoon. She also forced me to make my first ever call to Poison Control!! She somehow got a small travel bottle of Infant Motrin Drops open and told me that she drank it. I don't think the bottle was full and she had it all over her body and in her hair but to be on the cautious side I called Poison Control. The man figured the most possible amount she could have consumed and told me that it was not at a toxic level and to just watch her for any tummy discomfort, if she got drowsy to make sure I could arouse her, feed her and give her milk. I followed his directions and the kid was fine...she was far from drowsy till way later that afternoon and never complained of tummy discomfort, getting her to drink milk was a cinch and we took her out for pizza!!!

Three weeks ago Wednesday is when Isabella had her first daycare experience and that was because Alan had hand surgery that morning. Why you may ask...I'll leave that story up to him....or you might ask Ricky, he's the one that ended up with a black eye!!! But the result was that Alan broke his 4th metacarpal on his right hand and it wasn't growing back properly so he had to see an orthopedic surgeon on Monday who already had him scheduled for surgery on Wednesday. They went in and put in a titanium plate and 4 screws. He went back to the dr. last week and they recasted him and he will have to wear this cast for 3 weeks and go back for evaluation at that time. He seems to be doing good, despite not following dr's orders about going back to work. Unfortunately but fortunately, work picked up for him while he was in surgery with 4 new client calls that he had to get calls returned and some work taken care of for them before the end of the week. After seeing the dr. last week--he now has him doing some therapy himself with moving his fingers--to get full range of motion back.

May 5th we had the Monahans Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting for the Law Firm. It was a success....my mom and I made lemonade punch and some delicious cookie treats to share with those who came out.

That about sums it up...I'm sure I have left out a few things here and there but for the most part we have been BUSY and it doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon.....Alan has several cases to get closed for clients, I have tons of bookkeeping I need to get taken care of both for the business and for my grandmother, we have a few birthday's coming up, weddings, including one this weekend in Austin that Isabella and I both are in, pool to get patched and filled, Isabella is enrolled in a 2 week dance camp the first two weeks in June, a 5K walk on June 6th, Isabella's birthday party, and the lawn and garden are always calling (It's amazing how quickly the weeds pop up). Hopefully I'll get the chance to keep you updated a little more than 3 months at a time. Hope all is well and you have been enjoying the spring weather as we have!!

**Yes I know---belated as is everything else---We would also like to wish our mother's, grandmother's, aunt's, and all the special mother's and Mommy's-to-be a very Happy Mother's Day! Sorry we didn't get cards out but know that we were thinking about you and hope that you had an awesome, relaxing day.**

These are just a few cute pictures of Isabella that I thought I would share...