Things You Should Know About My Weekend

1. I knew ahead of time that it was going to be awesome because Grant's parents were coming to town! We hadn't seen them since Christmas so this was a long overdue visit. They arrived late Thursday night (they drove from New Orleans) and we pretty much went straight to bed as soon as they got here safely.

2. Friday I had to work so Grant's mom visited a friend that lives in town while Grant and his dad played golf.

3. I worked till 6:30 and met them for dinner at Yardhouse. If you live in the Houston area, YOU NEED TO GO TO YARDHOUSE. It's probably one of our top 5 favorite restaurants. There is a creamy tomato bisque that makes me all emotional.

4. Saturday we went to a baby shower for my cousin Katie and I got to see Grace, Scarlett, and Juliet. They were in matching purple twirly dresses and it was a bit too much for me to handle. (If you're new to Jen the Newlywed, you can see photos of Grace, Scarlett, and Juliet in the sidebar to your right). There was strawberry cake there and I was just thrilled about that.

5. After the shower, Grant's mom and I went to the outlet mall in Cypress. This was her first time there and we had an excellent time. We shopped while the boys played golf for the second time.

6. Something happened while we were there that I will now refer to as "The Shoe Incident of 2011". I'm slightly embarassed and also slightly proud to say that I came home with FIVE pairs of shoes yesterday. FIVE. Please pray for me. I couldn't stop myself.

7. Grant's mom got a jacket in Chico's that was normally $60.00 for FIVE DOLLARS AND NINETY-NINE EVER-LOVING CENTS.

8. I LOVE THE OUTLET MALL.

9. We were so exhausted from all the successful shopping that we just came home, ordered pizza, and watched a movie with the boys. We watched "Life As We Know It" with Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel. Super cute movie.

10. Yesterday morning when I woke up I realized that I was losing my voice. Not sure why...I wasn't shouting/singing/sick/congested or anything but my voice was going. This normally wouldn't bother me too much except for the fact that I knew I was singing a MAJOR song on Sunday morning at church that requires me to have my voice "full-throttle" if you will. I went on vocal rest for Saturday night and prayed that when I woke up Sunday morning it would all be alright.

11. When I woke up this morning, it wasn't alright.

12. I prayed in the shower that God would give me just enough voice to make it through my song.

13. The first run-through of the song did not go so well.

14. Something happened around 9:00 (30 minutes before the service) and, although still quite raspy, I could hit all my notes and with just enough power!

15. Jesus is worthy of all glory, honor and praise.

16. I love to sing.

17. After church, we took Grant's parents to the Cadillac Bar for brunch and JEN PUT DOWN SOME FOOD. The amount of food at their brunch is overwhelming and wonderful and I can refuse nothing. I want it all, thank you very much.

18. I love Diet Coke.

19. After that, we had to give hugs and kisses and say goodbye :( We know that Mom & Dad have to get home safe and get on the road early, but we sure love having them here. They are such a blessing!

20. I drove to the hospital to hold my new little friends, twin boys Marco and Massimo. My friend Laura just had her baby boys on Friday afternoon. She now has THREE little boys!! They are so so precious and they look just alike. I loved snuggling with them and visiting with Laura and Sergio. Such beautiful baby boys... what a gift!

21. After that I took my friend Liz her birthday present and some coffee from Starbucks. We sat in her living room and chatted about our weekends while sipping coffee and playing with her baby girl, Lily. It was such a nice afternoon :)

22. Then I came home and began my Sunday evening date with the couch, a blanket, and the remote. ME LOVE IT.

23. Had a long, fun talk with my BFF Lindsee this evening. She is all kinds of wonderful.

24. I'm laying in bed, blogging to you people and I am ever so comfy.

25. THAT IS MORE THAN ANY OF YOU PLANNED ON READING AND I APOLOGIZE. I'm gonna go stare at my FIVE new pairs of shoes now.

Mercy.

Gifts from My Dad

A few days ago, I started getting an onslaught of emails from facebook notifying me that my dad had tagged me in a photo. I got about 50 emails and they just kept coming. I logged in and found a treasure trove of old photos that my dad had uploaded. I have had SO MUCH fun (and embarassment!!) going through these.

One of my favorite things is the pictures of my mom and dad from their childhood and dating years.

This is an ADORABLE photo of my mom. How cute is she with her hat, purse, and gloves?! Happy Easter to little girl Cheryl :)

Um, how cool is this picture?! My mom is adorable!

I don't know the whole story but my mom's family had a horse/pony named Geronimo, and this was him. For you Houstonians, my mom grew up in the Spring Branch area, which is where this photo was taken.



This is 1974, the year my parents got married. They met in their youth group at Clay Road Baptist Church. My mom was best friends with my dad's sister. Little known fact: my parents got married when my mom was only 16 years old!! They were madly in love :)



Isn't she just beautiful!?

This is my mom's prom. She took her husband to her prom. Because she was married. Craziness!!

LOVE this picture :)

Oh, here we are. Shannon, Jaclyn and myself.

It only gets more embarassing :)

I remember this red dress.

This is especially wonderful. Oh, the 80's.

I remember this dress too!

This is Chuck E. Cheese who is very scary with his wonky eye.

This was obviously a super cool period of my life. The wicker, the collar, the hair. At a waterpark in Nebraska.
Hi, my name is Jen, and I just willingly posted embarassing pictures of myself all over the world wide web.

This Is Gonna Be a Long One, Folks

Buckle up people.

I haven't blogged in a really really REALLY long time. It's the longest I've ever gone. But I don't want to drag this puppy out into 2011 so I'm just gonna do one really big blog to explain myself and my absenteeism.

Continue reading if you dare. We may be here awhile.

The first reason that I haven't blogged is this: The day after my last post, I got sicky sicky sicky sick. I had an upper respiratory infection and a sinus infection and 48 hours of a very high fever. I went to the doctor and got antibiotics but I was drugged up and in bed for days and missed alot of work. The fevers were not very fun. I lost my voice and I was oh-so-attractive.

But I had to press on because I had to get ready for the trip of the century. Grant and I were gone for ten days. We flew to New Orleans, drove to Alabama so Grant could be a groomsman in a wedding, drove to Orlando to spend FIVE DAYS in Disney, drove back to New Orleans (10 HOURS) for Christmas Eve and Christmas, and then flew back to Houston. I AM OVER THE TRAVELING.

Seriously though, we had a GREAT trip!!

See, look at my pictures :)

The twins, Evan and Emily, will be 2 in February. THEY ARE A DELIGHT!!

And this is Miss Olivia Claire. She and I did alot of bonding on this trip. And snuggling. And I kissed her cheeks alot. She almost came home with me because I almost stole her.


Hooray for the Magic Kingdom!! This is Grant's mom and dad in front of the beautiful castle. Thanks for the great trip!!


Grant's cousins were with us as well. This is Grant and 3 year old Sofia. This picture was making my heart ache.

Look at that smile!!


Okay and one more of Evan just cause he's such a punkin.

And here's our Emily. Or Emmy. Or Ema-lily. She is FULL of personality and spunk!

This castle just mesmerized me. I love when Tinkerbell flies!

It was a great trip, but after ten days of traveling we were ready to be home in our comfy bed and get our dog from the kennel. Poor Moxie, he didn't do so well at the kennel. They had to give him valium because they said he was in such a panic.

So when we finally got home, we came home to a little home maintenance issue called WE HAD NO WATER IN OUR HOUSE. Unfortunately, while we were gone a pipe broke in the front yard. Thankfully, one of our awesome awesome neighbors called the water company who came out and turned off our water. And then to make things even better, anothing AMAZING neighbor came over and helped Grant fix the broken pipe. We have a large hole in our front yard now but we can use the shower! Poor Grant came home from a big trip and then had to spend hours in the front yard digging a hole! But we could've come home to a much bigger problem if we weren't surrounded by such great neighbors!

Then we spent Sunday and Monday over at my mom's house having quality Christmas time with my family. I have some girly girly little girl nieces and a spunky little nephew too. They warm my heart.

I LOVE quality family time. Good food, good presents, good kids.

And then I came home and went to bed and had to go back to work today :( I have SO MUCH catching up to do at the office after missing almost two weeks but I made a large dent today!

I feel like there is so much more to tell but I can't think straight. I hope you and your family had a very Merry Christmas!

Here are a few photos that my sweet friend Sarah Shalley from Sarah Shalley Photography took for us in November.

I'm glad to be back!

I Made It

I could write a month's worth of blog posts about the last 4 days.

But I won't do that.

I'll just say the following things:

Not a whole lot of sleep. At all. But it was a whole lot of fun. I held a 4 month old chubby baby girl in my arms while eating a tortilla from Taco C dipped in queso and drinking a Diet Coke. IT WAS BLISS. Also, after having 3 babies under the age of 2 in my home all weekend I've learned that our humble abode is not what you would call "baby proof". It is more along the lines of "dangerous". When another little friend named Nate came over, he found some keys and then promptly headed over to plug the new-found keys into an electrical outlet. We stopped him but I about had a heart attack. Good times.

We had great food, great visit with Grant's family, snuggly babies walking around in pj's and big smiles, and lots of hugs and snuggles. We were so glad to have everyone here and we had a blast. Thanks to Chase, Ronda, Evan, Emily, Olivia, Mom and Dad for making the journey to Houston!


After church this morning, we had Five Guys with some friends and then Jen the Newlywed came on home and got in a comfy t-shirt and comfy pants that are not flattering which makes them more comfy and positioned herself on the couch and stayed there for a solid 3.5 hours.

My chill out nap time was disrupted by a call from Chase Fraud Alert which alerted us to the fact that a fellow Houstonian was having him or herself a fine little Sunday afternoon on our dime. I'm thinking it was a girl since she bought a WHOLE LOT OF SHOES at Memorial City Mall and then journeyed to a cosmetics store and then ate some yummy food at Cheddar's and then picked some things up at Walgreen's and then filled up 3 tanks of gas at a Chevron station. HEY, THANKS FOR THAT. IT'S NOT LIKE WE'RE TRYING TO SAVE MONEY OR ANYTHING. YOU CAN JUST GO SHOPPING WITH MY MONEY. FINE BY ME.


Thankfully, Chase Fraud is great and will take care of all of this but it just bugs me that someone could do that. Urgh.

I've done a load of laundry. It is folded. It is folded in piles on my living room floor. At some point tonight i plan on putting it away but I can't promise that it is going to be anytime soon.

Okay, before I go, I have to ask...

How do we feel about this jacket?




It is from the Loft and it is plaid. I don't think I've ever had a plaid jacket. Aside from cute jeans, what else could i wear it with? Is it one of those pieces that I could only wear once every blue moon? Or could I wear it like every other week? THIS PROBABLY DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE HOUSTON WILL NEVER EVER COOL DOWN EVER.

Jacket opinions, please.

Who Do You Think You Are?

I've developed a curiousity over the last few years about where I come from. I really don't know much about my ancestry or my family lineage beyond my great-grandparents. And even then, I don't know much. I have one living great grandmother and 3 of my remaining grandparents. I've sent everyone emails trying to learn as much as I can about where everyone comes from.

My mom's grandmother, whom we called Nanny, died when I was a little girl. Yesterday I learned that her maiden name was Holditch. I spent a little bit of time on Google, and within 30 minutes, I came across the mother load.

It seems that a very very very distant cousin of mine not only made a family lineage chart that brought me all the way to my Nanny's name, but she even had photographs!! I was overwhelmed to think that these are my great, great, great, great grandparents. I emailed them to my Mamaw (Nanny's daughter) who was equally as overwhelmed.

This is George Washington Holditch. He is my great, great, great, great, great Grandfather.

This is the home of his son, Sidney Franklin Holditch. Sidney Franklin Holditch is my great, great, great, great Grandfather. This is in Mississippi.

And this is Sidney's wife, my great, great, great, great Grandmother Frances Smith.

And this is her grandson, John Davis Holditch. John Davis Holditch is my great, great, Grandfather. My Mamaw remembers him well. She called him "Pop".

This is John Davis and his wife, Mattie, my great, great grandmother.



And this is my favorite. This is Mattie. My great, great grandmother. Mamaw says she called her "Mom". Apparently she sold Avon. It makes sense, she was such a beautiful lady.

Something remarkable about Mattie is that she had 2 sets of twins! Both were boy girl. She named the first set Clarence Dell and Clara Bell. The second set of twins she names Leroy and Leona Ruth. Leona Ruth was my Nanny.

This is Clarence Dell and Clara Bell, Mattie's first set of twins, and my Nanny's brother and sister. Which means this is my Mamaw's Aunt and Uncle.

I am just amazed at all I was able to find!

I think I'm gonna frame some of these. How amazing!!