Early Valentine's Day

<3<3<3<3>My hubby loves me. =)

Today, while at the mall, hubs suggested we stop by one of the Jewelry stores to "look". My suspicion was cued immediately, but HEY! Who am I to say NO to admiring sparklies??? The sales woman approaches us and askes what we would like to see. Well, I was sitting in front of a pair of opal earrings, so, I asked to see them. Next thing I know I've got three different earrings and necklaces sitting in front of me, and I can feel the pressure from not JUST the sales lady, but Michael as well, to just pick one already! I made doubley sure it wasn't a trap, and that he actually wanted me to pick something, so, I did.

Say hello to my new beauties. (With a necklace to match!) Pink sapphire and a small diamond right above. (Hey, it's hard to take a picture of your ear!) When the lady handed me my bag after our purchase he said "You deserve it." Thanks babe. MuAh!

I LOVE laundry!

I am FINALLY getting a new laundry room and carport... yippee!! I have lived in this house for two and a half years with a carport that could fall on our heads at any second, and a small laundry closet in the back of rotten carport. Yes, I have to go outside to do my laundry. Therefore, when it rains, no laundry gets done. So sad.
BUT NOW I will have a real laundry room attached to my kitchen, with a roof, four walls, and a floor... a REAL room! =) and a spankin' new garage to boot! I will post pictures soon of my current arrangements so that we can all marvel at my new additions.
Now to decorating! I know it's only a laundry room, but that walls will need to be painted of course, and I am debating on tile color. I will have plenty of wall space, so cupboards? shelves? pictures? Any ideas??
Construction starts February 13th.

4 pounds 6 ounces

Literally, a small miracle occurred last week. My aunt gave birth to her second daughter roughly seven weeks early at 12:04 Tuesday morning. She was 4 pounds 6 ounces, 16 inches long. Surprisingly, she was healthy. Perfect more like it. My aunt was in great shape, and up and walking around just hours after birth, and was even released the next day. Jessica, the newest member of my family was sent home on Thursday. She was that healthy. It was just amazing.

Here is a picture of this small miracle next to my daughter's baby doll, Abby (the doll's name of course).

Thank you, Lord, for a healthy delivery of this baby girl. =)

Long awaited....

I'm sure all of my dedicated blog followers have been anxiously awaiting my return after what has been a looooooong spell of quietness. Yes, I'm sure that is a word.
Let's see what I can think of to capture my reader's attention. Believe it or not I'm always reading everyone else's blog, but rarely leave a comment or obviously ever post because I'm always trying to keep up on my iPhone, and it's too hard to do anything more elaborate than read from my handy-dandy hand-held device.
Let's see... all of the holidays have passed. Another semester has come and gone. Currently I'm beginning another. My last to be exact. I will finally be graduating in May, and I have put in about 12,000 graduate school applications. So, we'll see!
My latest drama involves kitchen appliances. On Wednesday a week ago I woke up to a nasty smell, and a nice warm refrigerator. Yay for me. Luckily I was able to save most of our food, but I still ended up throwing away a trashbag full. So disappointing since I had just went grocery shopping 3 days prior. So off I went to our local Home Depot (I absolutely LOVE home improvement stores!), and with my hubby's permission to pick out WHATEVER refridgerator I wanted. oops! His mistake. I found the biggest one they had in stainless steel, and called it a day. We just got it delivered yesterday. I was SO excited. I'll add a picture of it later. We decided last night that if we ever move we're going to have to base our house decision on whether or not the kitchen has a place big enough to fit our new fridge. :-)
Well, I hope this is enough of an update for now. I hope to stay a little more intuned now that I'm not quite so busy with school.

There we go... my new love!

Does it look like he REALLY cares?

"BABE! We can't keep letting Taylor crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night!"

That would be the conversation my hubby and I had before bedtime last night. Is he right? Absolutely! But I really don't think he minds all that much. =)

Picture taken... courtesy of Mom, this morning, without hubs' knowledge.

Mr. Mom

I knew I was a lucky gal when I snagged my hubby, but last Sunday it really sealed the deal. I've been working nonstop trying to make ends meet, and really trying to finish up these classes before the Fall semester starts on top of everything else a wife and mom need to handle in their day-to-day lives. Needless to say I was losing my mind... and my patience. I broke down all the time, and for no reason. Commercials, the trash bag being full, the cat meowing too much... everything! LOL SO! Michael woke Taylor up Sunday morning, and let me stay in bed (which was probably better for him that way so I wasn't crying or snapping about something), and took her to church. When I finally crawled out of bed I had the house to myself for about 3 hours! It was amazing, but then when they came home it was time for me to head back in to town to go to work.
Ladies... you're never going to believe what he did for me while I was gone. When I came home it smelled amazing! He had all the candles lit, the entire house had been picked up, he had swept and mopped the whole house, vacuumed the area rug, did the dishes, cleaned the TOILET and the tub, and even did the laundry (I didn't tell him that the two baskets he had just washed were the clean clothes I had yet to fold)! I was so excited because now I didn't have to spend the rest of my evening doing all of those things myself, even though I probably wouldn't have done them anyway. I was so proud of him! Since then he's been especially helpful with Taylor, and a lot more patient with my impatience. Thank the lord for small miracles!! =)

Brooker family update!

Well, I'm not sure how long it's been, but I know it's been at least a month since I've posted a blog, and I'm just absolutely sure all eleven of my loyal blog followers have been anxiously awaiting an update. Here it is!My baby girl turned two on July 2nd. I can't believe it. Here is one of the pictures we had taken of her on her birthday. I think that's going to be one of our traditions, at least until she gets older. We had her pictures done on her birthday last year too. On her birthday she started saying "NO!" It was too funny... let's welcome the terrible twos! But really she hasn't been too bad. A little more bull-headed maybe, but honestly, that's nothing new :-). Last month, in June, I took two summer courses: One through Tarleton State and the other through our community college. This month I'm taking two more classes, both through the community college. I HATE summer classes, but this is the last time I'll have to overload myself in the summer semesters. The last week in August my Fall classes will start, and I can't wait. I can finally apply for graduation. YAY!
I'm working three part time jobs right now. I'm a teller at a local bank, retail at the Children's Place (bring on the discounts!), and childcare at our local YMCA. You might be (or you might not be) wondering "how is she going to school, raising a 2 year old, cleaning her house, AND working 3 jobs". The answer is easy, I'm not. My life is crazy chaotic right now, and I don't have time for anything. My summer classes will be over in a couple weeks, and I'll have about two weeks before the next one's start up. When they do at least one of the jobs will go, possibly two. Right now, financially, we have no choice but to work as much possible. We're still falling short, but we'd be even farther behind if I wasn't working so many hourse. Hubby works 10 or 11 hour days, on Saturdays when he can, and with his dad doing side jobs as much as possible. If you pray, please pray for the financial well-being of my family. It might sound hokey to some, but we desperately need to catch a break soon.
Here is a picture of myself and Mr. Brooker watching the fireworks on the 4th of July. We had so much fun that day! We even took Taylor to the parade, and Michael and Taylor were even interviewed by our local news station about how much they liked the show! It was so neat seeing them on TV!Well, I suppose that's it for now. I'll try to find more time to keep my blog updated! I miss my outlet!!