I believe that a fairy has been hanging around me lately and sprinkling fairy dust on me. Since the coast trip, my week just got better with each passing day.

First, on Sunday, Lesley came over and we scrapbooked from 2-11. She and I used to scrap all the time together in college, so it was nice to get back into it again with her!

Second, tomorrow is the first official day of scrap convention!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Third, Erica is flying into town for two weeks on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And last, but definitely the biggest and most exciting…..I’M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I took two tests last night, and one this morning and sure enough there were two lines!! So excited, I was rubbing bellies with my favorite momma in crime, Abbie yesterday, and I guess the prego bug rubbed off on me!! Thanks Abbie!!

Today was the perfect day for a road trip to the coast!!

When Max got home from work this morning at 8:30 he greeted me with a “HI!! I took the night off; we are going to the coast!!

I was so excited to get to spend the day with him, since we never seem to see each other any more. We took off for the beach and spent the day walking on the beach, feeding the seals at the aquarium, and enjoying the sun!! Pure heaven!!

For those of you who know me, know that I’m a scrapbooking junky!!! I love every bit of it, the smell of new stickers, creating a one of a kind piece of art, and the fact that it is my “escape” from being a mom and wife.

What you may not know is that a few months ago my husband put me on a scrapn’ allowance. He glanced at my checkbook one day and realized that I was spending hundreds of dollars a months on supplies. OOPS!! It is like and addiction, I would go shopping and sneak things into the house so he would not see my new stuff, I would get cash back at the grocery store so it looked like I was buying groceries…I was in bad shape, I’m surprised my family didn’t do an intervention and send me to scrap rehab!!

Hi, I’m Megan and I’ve been clean now for three months!! I have suck to my allowance and not bought any extra supplies to sneak into the house.

All of my hard work and time being “rehabilitated” is going to fly right out the window next weekend. Scrapbook convention is coming to town and I’m going to go crazy shopping!!!! I have been saving up my allowance for a few months, but I have a feeling that I will not be able to stop once that money is gone. Please pray for me to have strength!!

I’m not sure what happened to my sweet baby boy, but he has gone missing lately. He has been replaced with a two year old with attitude, and a very specific taste in clothes.

He has pretty much decided that if his clothes do not have a cartoon character on them then he is not and will not, wear them or have any part of them. And if you try to tell him that pajamas are not ok to wear to the park in the middle of the day, he will throw a fit until you decide, like him, that pajamas are a perfectly great outfit choice.

All my life I have seen children in stores with batman capes paired with a cowboy hat and to top it off with swim trunks. I looked at these children with disgust and glared at their parents thinking to my self, “do you have any good parenting skills? Who lets their child out of the house in that?”
I have now come to the realization that I will be that parent who gets funny looks because my son is in a Halloween costume in the middle of July. I’m ok with this now and I realize that holding hands while crossing the street is worth fighting over, while making him the most fashionable one the playground is not.

Boring stuff going on around here~ So, here are a few words for Maxie!

First:
"Pray for the Men in Blue"

It takes a very special person to wear the blue.
Most people do not understand what we do
We made a commitment to protect and serve.
We work hard to provide the safety you deserve.

No normal shifts, not nine to five.
We work 24/7 to keep you alive.
Holidays and weekends don't mean a thing.
We work night and day, just give us a ring.

Our loved ones and children pray every night.
That we will return at the break of daylight.
We carry guns and wear vests to help us get through.
You couldn't imagine some of the things we must do.

We see accidents and blood and small children crying.
We also see death and it's not just old people dying.
Abusive spouses and parents that don't seem to care.
These are just a few of the things, to make you aware.

Drug dealers and drunks are a regular sight.
We go to the bars for fight after fight.
Responding to calls day after day.
Not allowing our personal lives to get in the way.

You complain all the time when you see us on a break.
We just drive around in cars and oh, the money we make.
Stop for a second and try to assess
Who's always there to clean up the mess.

We do all we can to help and provide.
To make you feel safe and secure inside.
Please remember all of the things that we must do.
And next time you pray, include the men in blue.


Second:

The Police Sacrifice

While you sleep, we're there.

When you're sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, or celebrating Christmas, we're there.

When its raining and cold, and you're glad to be in your home with your family, we're out there.

When it's your children's birthday, we're out there.

When it's our children's birthday, we're still out there.

You put on a suit and dress to go to work, we strap on a ballistic vest and a gun.

There's little room for error in your job, in ours there is none.

An error by you means a demotion, an error by us means a funeral.

When you tell your families "see you tonight" as you leave for work, you mean it.

When we tell our family that, we pray we will.

At your job you strive to succeed, at our job we strive to survive.

In your job, one bad person is the talk of the office, in our job, one bad officer makes the news and suddenly were all bad.

In these headlines it's not what good we've done, but how much better it could have been done.

When you're scared you call us, when we're scared, we must carry on.

While you're eating a home cooked meal, we're having another hamburger.

While you're asleep with your spouse, ours sleep alone.

So the next time you're out with your family or friends, and you see a patrol car go by,

remember the incredible sacrifice made by these officers every day.

Inside that car is a person that sacrifices his/her life, both professionally and personally, every day.

I LOVE WOODY!!!!

Get your mind out of the gutter, Woody from “A Toy Story”. Conner likes movies, like most kids, but this is the first movie that he actually sits still and watches for the entire hour and a half. Needles to say, I have been popping it in every morning plopping both of us on the couch and enjoy some glorious sleep!! LOVE IT!!! I hope this continues, especially since he has decided that, since it is getting light out earlier, he also needs to wake up earlier.

I did some scrapn’ last night to prove that I’m really over the “Funk”. It is amazing what a little tanning can do for the soul! I'm almost done with my college albums...thank God! I can't wait to start on Conner and Max pages! For the first time last night Max made a comment about me scraping all of my ex-boyfriends, and have yet to make a page with him in it...Don't worry babe, I'm working on it!!

Valentines day is quickly approaching, this is the first year that I’m actually looking forward to it. Max and I have a couples massage planned!!! Oh, yeah!! Momma needs this!!

Since it is somewhat of a nice day, Conner, Max, and I are off to the zoo!!

Thank the Lord the “funk” has left the building!!!

This morning as I was laying on my couch watching Happy feet, Conner was spilling his cereal onto the carpet only to crush them into the freshly vacuumed carped (with his dance moves that he must get from his father) because, well, Happy feet gives that boy happy feet!

I looked up at the clock and decided NO MORE – I’m not going to let this weather get the best of me. I’m going to take a shower and go do something today.

So, Conner and I had not none but, two showers, went to the gym to lift some weights, got those tans that I was in such desperate need of, went for a bike ride, got gourmet cupcakes, and went to a kids play gym. Needles to say Conner is fast asleep and I will be following him soon! We will probably spend tomorrow in the couch in our PJs trying to recover from today!

So, the flowers were nice and they lifted me out of my “funk” for about 5 seconds…I think it is all of this crappy weather that has me in such a down mood. I’m going first thing in the morning to buy some tans. Hope that will lift my spirits a little!

Once a week at our house is “try a new recipe” night. In the past the recipe is something that I have found on line, or gotten from a friend. I started this mini tradition because I know how much Max loves food and he quickly gets bored with the same food. But about a month before Christmas I went on a cooking strike, for reason to deep to go into….Lets just call it POW…(pissed of wife). So, while POW was in full action there was no meals cooked in my house. NOT ONE. The hubby noticed quickly that there was a POW in action and blah, blah, blah…..long story short matters were resolved. For Christmas Max got me a cookbook and I promised to make every meal in the book in 2008. The book is by Paula Deen, if you don’t know her she is amazing, and Max vows that if I ever die he will hunt her down and marry her even though she is old enough to be his grandma. She is on the food network, and she doesn’t screw around with low fat stuff like that Rachel Ray, or Galendla or what ever her name is. Nope Paula really knows the way to a mans heart…through butter!!! A few weeks ago I made a three-layer cake that called for eight Milky Way bars and FOUR, yes FOUR sticks of butter!!! I guess my other resolution for 2008, lose weight, is not going to pan out!!!

Well tonight I made Baked cheese spread for an appetizer; shrimp and rice croquettes with aioli for the main dish, Mashed potato bake for the side, and cherry cream cheese pie for dessert. YUM!!! I only allowed my self a bite of each though, there is something about seeing what goes into these, while so very tasty, unbelievably fattening dishes you tend to not want to eat them any longer. They just don’t have the appeal they did, now that you know there is three cups of mayo and a stick of butter and a brick of cheese in that cheese spread!! Um, yeah, my butt doesn’t need all that!
Here is a picture of the shrimp and rice croquettes! Bon appetite!

I have been having what I like to call and “un” week, and I’m not talking about a happy “un” like in Alice and wonderland; you know “we wish you a happy un-birthday to you, to you!” la la la lalalalllaaa….

No. This is the opposite of that happy childhood fairy tail. Example: “un” – attractive, “un” – creative, “un” – motivated, “un” – appreciated, “un” – happy…you get the idea.

Well, my dear sweet husband knew that I was in a “un” – funk, so, he had these delivered to my doorstep!!! Yeah, he rocks!!!!!

It is a rare occasion that I see Max in his uniform, he usually leaves the house in jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. He keeps his uniform in his locker at work and only brings it home on the weekends when it needs to be washed. There is something about the look of him in a uniform that makes me not recognize him. I just don't see him as a cop. All I see is the fun loving guy who puts me and Conner ahead of himself, plays trains with his son, loves watching star wars movies, reading Nicholas Sparks books and gets tears in his eyes. I just can't imagine him as the guy handing out tickets, holding people at gun point, or even raising his voice at anyone. Today was one of those rare occasions when I saw my fun loving guy in that uniform that somehow demands respect just by having it on. Max came home at 8:00am from being at work all night, he was in his jeans and t-shirt. I made us breakfast as Conner ran around making us laugh and we joked with each other as we always do. Then around 9:30 he began to get ready for the hard 3 1/2 hours ahead. He was faced with a fellow Police Officers funeral in the coming hours. As I watched him get ready I saw the transformation take place right before my eyes. It happened so slowly that if you only knew him as a husband, father, and friend you would not recognize him as "Officer". It started with the blue polyester pants, then the bulletpoof vest, then the blue button down shirt, then the jacket, then the gun belt, and the final touch The Badge. Each article put on with such care and purpose. Once everything was in place he became stiff, stood-up a little straighter, walked with more athority, and was less talkative. On the way to the funeral the car was silent, not the usual random and silly conversations that goes on in our car. As we got closer to the huge curch there were more and more cop cars, flags, and people with "demanding respect" uniforms on. We pulled into the curch parking lot and Max got out of the car and gave me a quick kiss good-bye (I don't do funerals) and said he would call me when it was through. As I was leaving the parkinglot, passing so many men in blue and flags flying overhead something hit me inside, and I began to cry uncontrollably, this could very easily be flags for my husband. I try not to think about what my husband does all night while he is at work, it is just too hard to sleep if I realy think about it. But, at that moment it hit me hard, then I looked in the backseat and saw our beautiful son and suddenly was at peace. Seeing Conner smiling back at me made me realize why he puts his life on the line, for us, to keep us safe. And although the uniform is shocking, underneath "the man in blue" is my sweet, compassionate, and caring husband who puts on that uniform everyday so that he can come home eat breakfast with his wife, play trains with his son, read his books, and watch his geeky movies with the joy and comfort of knowing that he feels safe because of the work that he and his fellow officers do.