I'm getting so bad about blogging....

Well it's been awhile again since I'm have blogged. I have been so busy the past few months it's hard to do much at all. So I'll try to fill you in on what's happening around the Bertrand household...I'll put a bunch of pics at the end since there are so many.

In April we enjoyed a much needed visit from Avery, the kids were way too happy that weekend. Sadly he only got to stay for 3 days and go back to Virginia. The good news is that we are almost out!!! Less than 3 months and he's home for good!

I had a horrible month of March & April. As some of you already know I have been in and out of the doctor's office for the past month and half trying to find out what's wrong. Well after having severe stomach pains for over a month the doctor finally did an ultrasound and discovered the problem. My wonderful birth control (meaning it's been great the last 2 1/2 years), my IUD, had decided it didn't like being in the correct location and somehow managed to lodge itself into my scar tissue from my c-sections. It was so painful! They removed it last week and I was immediately pain free. The only sad thing is now I have no birth control! The doctor wants me to stay off for about 3 months to get my body back to normal as he called it. Sadly I know what he means by normal...darn being a female LOL. Anyways, I am now happy and pain-free and who knows maybe this was a sign that we should have one more kid....we will just have to wait and see what the future holds.

Madison has been doing wonderful in school. Sadly there are only 3 more weeks left! At least I already have her summer filled up for her. I am signing her up for little league cheerleading tomorrow and she is super excited. It's so hard to believe that she is finishing Pre-K and heading to Kindergarten! The time sure does fly.

James is still his usual boy self, very hyper, dare devil, and always in time-out at school lol. He's been potty training and doing pretty well lately. After going through the potty thing with Madison, I have learned that I am not pushing him he can learn at his own pace.

Enjoy the pictures - I will try to update more often.

Madison @ the Texas State Fair

James ready to go fishing with Daddy!

Madison & her first fish!

Enjoying some fun time with Daddy

James's Easter party @ his daycare

Madison's Easter party @ school

Easter Eggs!

All the Bertrands..Bryson, James, Melayna, Haylee, Trenton, Madison, & Hayden

Megan & Madison on one of their field trips

It's so cool that he can ride some rides now!

James - Spring 2009 - 2 1/2 years old (Daycare Pic)

Madison - Spring 2009 - 5 years old (School Pic)

Track & Field Day - Tug-a-War

I think she won 3rd on this one.

And the sack race below - I was very surprised she made it to the finish line LOL. Most of you know how clumsy Miss Madison is.

Busy, busy, busy...

Well we finally got moved into our house, it's a great feeling actually having all my stuff. I was so tired of living out of a few things, now we have everything out of storage. So needless to say, this month has been extremely busy. We are currently about 90% unpacked, so not much more to go.

Madison had her spring break this month and is still greatly enjoying school. We got to take a trip to Houston and hang with the Auguns and of course that made Madison's day. She slept the whole hour and half home, completely wore her out LOL.

James started potty training recently and is doing pretty good. Today at school he only had 2 wet pull ups. They grow up way too fast...I always said that James potty training was for Avery to handle but apparently he decided he wanted to potty train way earlier than Madison ever wanted to.

On a much more sad note, I had to take our dog Marble to the vet today. She started acting funny when I got home from Houston on Saturday and hasn't been herself. She refuses to go down or up the one small step into and out of the house and refuses to play or eat. So they did several tests today to rule out bladder infection, etc. Came to the conculsion that she has a "leaking" disc in her back. Great of course it would be back problems, since that is so expensive. He said that it's possible it will heal up on its own as long as she does no jumping or activity for at least 3 weeks. So he listed the options...1 give her pain meds for 10 days and kennel her for 3 weeks, only allowing her to get out to potty and eat.....2 no pain meds and keep her kenneled for a few weeks....3 nothing at all and allow her to injure the back worse and need surgery. Of course I went with option 1 as I don't want her to be in pain, but it is going to be so hard to keep her locked up for 3 solid weeks. I'll keep everyone posted.

Here's some pictures from this month....most are of our day with Lily, Jake, and Wendy at the Houston Aquairum and the first is of us three on St. Patricks Day.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Okay, so I'm trying to get back into the blogging again. Things have just been so crazy around here. We finally had a nice weekend where we were able to go visit some good friends we made in Virginia. Madison was so excited to go see Lily - that's all she talked about for weeks. She went to school today and told her teacher all about it.

Here's a few pictures from Lily's Fancy Nancy birthday party...

Just arriving, Madison can't stop smiling!

Playing dress-up before the party starts

James trying out his pirate stuff - Takes Wendy & Bryan for the boy goodie bag

Madison & Lily getting fancy for the party

He of course wanted to look cool too!



All the girls - man that cake was so pretty!



Time to leave.... :(

Well we had a decent trip home...much better on the way there LOL. We actually got stopped for about an hour for some sort of horse parade. Madison didn't care how long we sat there, she loved seeing about 200 horses...me on the otherhand....I was about sick of horses LOL.

Well it's been a bit since I been able to really sit down and blog or think for that matter. It's been horribly busy this month and very stressful. So I figured I'd finally try to get caught up.

Here's Madison after getting all ready for her Fall school pictures, I think they took them the last week in September. She was so excited to go to school all dressed up and really enjoyed the fact I actually let her wear a tiny bit of lipstick to school. She said "Daddy would be mad" and I told don't worry he'll never know!

All dressed up but can't take her eyes off of the TV LOL.

Well Madison got to attend her first birthday party for someone in her class. I'm sure after this one there will be many more to attend this year. It was actually her first time skating also, so it made for a very interesting day. Of course she couldn't wait to put the skates on however once they were on she decided that she would rather have me do it with her. I tried so hard to explain to her that I will walk with her because mommy hasn't been on skates in about 15 years. However she was not letting up so I just hoped that even though it's been a while, maybe it would be one of those things you never forget how to do. Well, it so happens, it all came right back to me so I took her around the rink a few times. After taking a short break I finally convinced her to take a try on her on and she did great.

Madison and one of her classmates hanging on to the wall before getting a bit brave

Taking a break or as I called it - trying to get enough bravery to try alone

After a slow start - she's off!

I have to say, I was a bit worried as most of you know my children are very clumsy. However she only fell once the entire time we were skating. The next morning I felt like I was about 90 years old....man I forgot how many muscles you work skating that you don't work as hard when you walk. I hurt for the entire next day and agreed that I am getting too old to skate LOL.

Well I was not having another weekend alone with the kids in this house doing nothing. So I did some research and found a festival going on in a nearby town so I decided we'd head to that. Sadly we didn't have anyone that wanted or was available to go with us but we still managed to have a great time with just us three. Here's a few pictures of the kiddos having a blast.

This was James's first time to ever ride a ride so his first go round on the horse carosel was not a good one. Most of the time he just stood by me to watch Madison until he finally got brave to give it another shot. They had a blast and it would have been much better if it would have been a bit cooler as we were sweating like crazy!

In another note - only 54 more days and Avery will be home for a few weeks!!!!!

I think we are finally trying to get back to normal

Well it's been awhile and been an extremely stressful month so far. First Hurricane Gustav which luckily we avoided much damage, just damaged the budget from evacuating. Then comes Hurricane Ike and let me tell you THAT WAS DAMAGE to the budget! We spent a week and a half away because of damage and no power. The poor kids are so exhausted from traveling. Sometimes I wander what was I thinking moving down here before hurricane season was over. Then I remember "yes we will make more money apart" NOT! Seems since we have started making more money more things seem to occur. First Avery lost his wallet in the middle of these dange hurricances - so up went the stress level to cancel cards. Then of course back-to-back evacuations took a toll of the newly earned income. Then it wouldn't be complete without something else going wrong since things come in three....Avery's truck breaks down. Yep more money out of the pocket. So therefore, we have yet to enjoy moving down here so far. Hopefully October will be a brighter month for us all LOL.

On another note, Madison is so sad she hasn't returned to school yet, thankfully that changes on Monday when they open back up. Poor James is not used to the daycare anymore so he cries every morning that I drop him off there. As far as my job, sometimes it feels as if I never left there; it sure was nice to get my first paycheck finally though (even though it disappeared as quickly as I got it LOL).

Well just thought I'd update everyone on our not-so-wonderful month of September. Also hears some pictures from this month too.

My kids playing around and acting so sweet

One of the many hotel nights LOL

Back home but with no power yet so what else to do but go for his first 4-wheeler ride!

The worlds worst driver telling James how to drive LOL

Don't you just love the weather here in Texas - HOT & STICKY

Chillin out in Paw Paw's chair with nothing better to do

Back in the Gulf for sure

Well we are really back home...it's already that time when we have to evacuate from the hurricanes. We watched this one very close and since it kept moving it's path we decided it would be best to evacuate. Well of course we do and it doesn't do anything to us so that was money down the drain. At least my dad brought his laptop for the kids and they played on Noggin.com quite a bit.

Madison playing on Noggin while James watches

Well I had my first day back to work today. It was like I'd never let other than the few new faces everything is the same. I was pretty busy today so it made the day fly by so I was thankful for that. All day I kept thinking about how I miss my kids so much! James started daycare today and it's the first time he's ever been to one. When I dropped him off this morning there were only three kids there and he ran straight over to them. When I went to tell him I was leaving he ran over and kissed me and said "bye mom" and ran back off. He didn't even care that I was leaving. When I went to pick him up he told me bye again. I explained to him that we were going home and he could come back tomorrow. He had so much fun there today. He even went down for a nap without a problem for them. Hopefully tomorrow goes just as smooth!

Well until anything new happens love ya'll!

She made it through a whole week...

So Madison has made it for a full week of school. She's now riding the bus in the morning and afternoon. The third day of waking up early got to her and she was very cranky. Saying everything on her hurt so she couldn't go to school anymore. Once I told her she could ride the bus that morning she was all better of course. She comes home and tells me all about her day and how much fun she's had. Each week a different student gets to be "weather kid" and she got picked first. She gets to look outside and decide what the weather is and hang up the magnet that says if it's sunny, rainy, or snowy (like that one would ever happen lol). Of course everyday this week it's been 100 degrees and sunny but it was still a big thrill for her to be able to go to the board and put the weather up.

Waiting for the bus and still half asleep LOL

Running to get on the bus

Well poor James has been extremely bored during the day without big sister around. He spent a few hours with his cousin yesterday and was so excited about that. He looks forward to waiting for the bus in the afternoon. He starts daycare on Tuesday and seems excited. I've brought him up there everyday this week with some supplies each day to get him used to the staff there. He actually cried today when we left lol.

Waiting on the bus to drop off Madison

Such a BOY!

Well we have hurricane Gustav heading our way, so we're keeping our eyes on it. Hopefully it goes more east and we'll be okay.