Marriage Survey

How long have you been married?
4 years, 5 weeks and 1 day

Is this your first marriage?
Yes.

Is it how you imagined it would be?
Yes, for the most part.

What would you change?
I wished that we had more family time and that we could both work a little less among other things, but nothing too major.

Are you married to your soulmate?
I am not too sure that I believe in soulmates, but I certainly couldn't imagine not being married to David.

What do you argue about the most?
I'm not sure...we don't argue a lot.

What do you see eye to eye on the most?
Probably we see eye to eye the most on our family values and what we would like our future to look like.

Where did you meet your spouse?
We met in high school....the first time I officially met David was at the State Fair, lol!

Where was your first date?
We went to a party together on our first date.....it was great because we had already known each other for SO long and had a lot of the same friends so it was the perfect kind of *first date* for us.

Where were you when you became engaged?
We were at our apartment and it was on Christmas Eve.

Did you live together before marriage?
Yes, we had been living together for 5 years when we got engaged.

What was your wedding song?
Our first dance was "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. It was supposed to be either By My Side by Sade or All I Want is You by U2, but our D.J. had technical difficulties, lol!

Who was in your wedding party?
We had a tiny wedding party.....one of my close friends, Crystal, was my maid of honor and David's brother, Marc, was his best man. My nephew, Nicholas, was the ring bearer and my nieces, Shelby and Cassidy, were the flower girls.

Do you get along with the in-laws?
Yes, for the most part....although there are some relationships that could be much better.

Whats your view on children?
Well, we both always knew we wanted children, but have never exactly agreed on how many! ;) I've always wanted 3 or 4 and David is fairly set on just having 2. We have one son, Hudson, and I am currently expecting so I guess we will see how things go after the new little one is here!

Does your spouse feel the same way?
See above.

Are you a 2 peas in a pod or opposites attract couple?
I think we are a little of both....opposites in the fact that I like to go out and am very sociable, while he is very quiet and refrained in many of his manners. He loves to be lazy and sleep, while I am always on the go.

Do you go out without your spouse?
Yes, but not as often now that we are parents. I usually don't have much time to *go out* per se.

How long are you away from your spouse before you start to miss him/her?
We've never been apart for too long, but there are days I miss him when we've only been apart a few hours. Especially if I have had a really trying day for some reason.

Have you ever compared your spouse to someone you have dated in the past?
I'm sure I have, but we've been together so long it would have had to been a VERY long time ago.

Do you trust your Spouse?
Completely and totally. Trust is vital in any healthy relationship.

Does your Spouse trust you?
Yes.

How well does your spouse know your favorites?
He actually knows me very well.

Do you get along with your spouses friends?
Yes.

Does your spouse get along with your friends?
Yes.

Did you go on a honeymoon?
Yes, we went to Maui and want to go back SO bad!

Do you watch the same TV shows?
For the most part, yes. We have very similar taste in most tv shows, movies, music, stuff like that.

Can you agree on Pizza toppings?
Yes, but we usually always get two different kinds because that's how we roll. ;)

Who takes out the trash?
Definitely him! I don't think that I have EVER taken the trash out.

Who does laundry??
We do our own laundry and then we both do Hudson's and share in laundry such as sheets and towels.

Who cooks dinner?
David - 99.9% of the time

Do you have any traditions?
We do have some holiday traditions and hope to start more over the years that we can pass down to our children.

Do you know your spouses passwords/pins?
Some of them, but he doesn't really have too many.

Does your spouse know your social security number?
No, he usually asks me for it if he needs it.

Do you ever nag your spouse?
I try not to, but of course, I definitely have my moments.

Do you admit wrong doing?
Yes, if I'm in the wrong. We are both fairly good about admitting if we are wrong.

Does your spouse?
Yes, if he's in the wrong.

Thankful....

Thanksgiving day is coming to an end and I hope that everyone had a safe and wonderful day with their family or other loved ones. We certainly had an amazing day relaxing and just spending some great quality time with my family and then at Marcia's house this evening. It was a delightful day filled with lots of yummy treats, a ton of silly chatter as well as meaningful conversation and of course, much laughter throughout the day.

Putting all of this aside, I feel compelled to admit that we are so very blessed and truly have so very much to be thankful for this year....Personally, I feel beyond blessed as I have a wonderful, loving husband that would walk to the ends of the earth for me and for this, I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! He may not always agree with me or do or say what I want or would like for him to and while there will always be disagreements throughout our life together, I would not have it any other way. I cannot imagine not being with David as he truly makes me a better person and makes my life complete. We are both so incredibly blessed to have Hudson as our son. He is such an amazing little boy and I just love him more than I could have ever imagine loving anyone. He makes me smile and laugh EVERY day and brings such amazing joy to my life every single moment of every single day of my life. I look forward to what new things he will do or say every day and am always eager to see what my little boy is going to do next. He is a ray of light in our lives and has taught us how to love in a completely new kind of way. A love like none other....nothing I experienced throughout my life could have prepared me for being a mother and for the amazing way it has changed my life. Becoming a mother has enriched my life in more ways than I could ever imagine and could certainly never ever explain in words and now, we have been blessed yet again with baby B. I can only hope and pray for continued health throughout my pregnancy and that we have a happy, healthy baby come next June. For these blessings, the blessings of our children, we are SO very thankful.......they make our family a family and it absolutely would not be complete without them.

We are extremely thankful for our health and for the continued good health of our family and friends. We are thankful that we both have good jobs that as of now, have been stable sources of income for us and allow us to continue to live within comfortable means. While we are by no means *rich*, we definitely have so much more than so many others who are not as fortunate....we have a roof over our heads, a home that while it is not perfect, it is OUR home and a place of comfort, escape and peace for us...as it should be. We are thankful for our families and for their continued love and support. We value our relationships with all of our families and friends and can only hope that these relationships continue to strengthen over time. We hope to better those relationships that have not been ideal and we are thankful for the opportunity to do so. Family is so very important.....they are a vital part of who we are and who we become....they are our legacy. We are beyond blessed with the most amazing family and friends and we love all of you so very much. We are better because of you.

While we do have many blessings and it is easy to recognize them at a time of the year such as Thanksgiving, it is also very easy to forget at other times throughout the year.....I personally am trying to work on reminding myself of these things whenever I have a down moment, have been challenged, let down or rejected in some area of my life. When I am faced with negativity or with something that has resulted in anger or a non-favorable behavior or response, I am trying to always find a positive in the situation OR find something else positive in my life to focus my energy on. It's not easy, but when you remember all of the things that you have that enrich your life it is much easier not to *sweat the small stuff* so to speak. With that being said, we are even thankful for such challenges in our life as we learn and grow from each new experience. I know that there are countless things that we are so very thankful for that I could probably literally go on and on and on, but instead I will just say it again - we are so very thankful....we are so very blessed and we hope that everyone around us continues to be just as blessed in the days, weeks and years to come.

A Funny Ode to Thanksgiving

This is an oldie, but a goodie! :)

Family Pics Preview....

Here's a shot that sums up Hudson's lack of cooperation during our photo shoot last Saturday, lol! Actually, he wasn't this bad the whole time and Sara did a great job at actually salvaging a lot of pictures for us. Not the ideal session since Hudson was not in the mood, but much better results considering the circumstances. Thanks again, Sara! We love them!

Photo by the fabulous Sara Dane Scott of SDS Photography

We're Thankful That We Have So Much To Share....

Monday Funny

Monster Child!!

Yeah, so our wonderful family photos today didn't quite go as planned.....Hudson decided to pull out all of the stops and was in complete monster mode for virtually the entire session! I was SO embarrassed that he couldn't pull himself together and behave long enough just so that we could have some decent pics of him and of us as a family and I feel so bad that Sara had to put up with him being such a monster. I think that she was super patient with him / us and at least there should be some shots from the session that aren't completely useless because Hudson was acting like such a fool. Oh well, what do you do??? He's in his terrible two's and is definitely making sure that he lives up to it's name and reputation that's for sure! Just for a point of reference, here's a pic of what he might have looked like during many of the shots, lol! Fangs and all, ha! ROARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Know I'm a Slacker :)

I know, I know....I've been bad lately and haven't posted much over the past couple of weeks. I seriously have been overwhelmed between the fact that I have been completely exhausted almost daily and the fact that I also have a lot going on in general. My pregnancy symptoms seem to be magnified this pregnancy and I have been struggling with migraines, nausea, bloating and extreme exhaustion lately. A couple of weekends ago, I literally slept most of the weekend.....I never take naps, I mean, I don't normally have time to anyways, but I've never really been a big *nap* person in general, but lately.....forget about it!! I am all about naps and I've also been really bad about saying that I am going to lay down for a quick nap early in the evening and then sleeping through the entire night. The morning sickness is a whole other story....it's definitely been in full-swing, although I have been incredibly lucky to have only actually gotten sick one time so far. Don't get me wrong though, I wouldn't trade any of it for the world because in the end it will all be more than worth it when our new little baby is safely here in our arms, but it does get a little wearing on you especially when you're also chasing around a two year old! Now I am just eager for my next appointment which isn't until the second week of December. I actually called today and moved my appointment back one day so that David could be there too....it will likely be an eventful appointment as my OB will be giving me my official due date at this appointment as well as we will be getting to listen to the heatbeat for the first time and she said that we *might* do a sonogram as well. :) I.CANNOT.WAIT!

On a related note, I made my first pregnancy related purchase today! I haven't even told David yet, but I found some great deals online for some really cute maternity clothes and just couldn't resist! Get this....I ended up getting 10 shirts, 1 pair of crop jeans and 1 dress and the total cost was a little over $ 130 with shipping included!!!!!! Oh, and I also got two Halloween themed bibs and a My First Halloween onesie too included in that cost as well. I just hope that all of the clothes are just as cute in person as they were online. Almost every item I got was also a fairly nice designer brand such as Japanese Weekend and Michael Stars and almost everything ending up being between 70 - 90% off! I never order clothing online, but seriously I figured that the deals were just too good to pass up and that in the worse case scenario if something doesn't end up fitting or if I just hate it then I can always give it away or sell it on Ebay or something. All of the clothes I got were actually spring / summer items, so they will be perfect for the later months in my pregnancy. I am so excited and just hope that everything ends up working out for me. (edit: David just called me from work and I told him about my fab finds and he just laughed and told me I did good!)

As far as other happenings at the Brodt household.....I am also super excited because we have family pictures scheduled for this weekend, so that should be fun! Well, really these are for Hudson's two year pictures since he hasn't had any professional pics since his one year pictures, but we are going to do family pics too so that we have some updated photos of all of us. We are doing them at the Old Cottonmill in McKinney so it should be really cool! Of course, I will definitely share pics later once I get them from our photographer.

Hudson's two year checkup with his pediatrician is also scheduled for next week. We originally had the appt. scheduled for his birthday week and then ended up needing to change it and unfortunately, his pediatrician is very popular and was booked up until next week, so his two year checkup is going to be a bit late.

We are also very excited for Thanksgiving next week as well. We have many, many things, (well, countless things really) to be thankful for this year and we are truly looking forward to sharing the holiday with our families. I cannot believe how quickly this month has flown by....seriously, I swear it was JUST Halloween like last week! I think that we've just been going, going, going since the week of Hudson's birthday party / our anniversary and we just haven't slowed down since so the time has flown by even quicker. Not to mention that we found out for sure that I was pregnant that same week, so that tossed a whole other element into the mix. Whew! It's been one whirlwind month already!!! :)

Here's looking forward to a LONG nap sometime this weekend to prepare for a busy week (and months) ahead!

Center of the Bible

Q: What is the shortest chapter in the Bible?

A: Psalms 117

Q: What is the longest chapter in the Bible?

A: Psalms 119

Q: Which chapter is in the center of the Bible?

A: Psalms 118

Fact: There are 594 chapters before Psalms 118

Fact: There are 594 chapters after Psalms 118

Add these numbers up and you get 1188

Q: What is the center verse of the Bible?

A: Psalms 118:8

Q: Does this verse say something significant about God's perfect will for our lives?

The next time someone says they would like to find

God’s perfect will for their lives and that they want to

be in the center of His will, just send them to the

center of His Word!

Psalms 118:8

“It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”

Now isn’t that odd how this worked out (or was God in the center of it)?

Before sending this I said a prayer for you. Got a minute? 60 seconds for God?

All you do is say a small prayer for the person who sent you this......

“Father God bless my friend in whatever it is that you know

he/she may be needing this day!

And may his/her life be full of your peace,

prosperity and power as he/she seeks to have a

closer relationship with You.

Amen.”

Then send it on to 10 other people. Within hours, 10 people have prayed

for you, and you caused a multitude of people to pray to God for other people.

Then sit back and watch the power of God work in your life….

When things get tough, always remember….

Faith doesn’t get you around trouble, it gets you through it!!

God Bless You!

And Baby Makes.....

......Hudson a big brother! Yes, for those of you that don't know, we are incredibly blessed and excited to announce that we are in fact expecting Brodt baby #2. While I do not have my super *official * due date until my next appointment, as of now I am approximately 8 weeks far along and the unofficial date is June 28th. We are very, very excited about this new addition to our family and want to thank everyone that has already sent us all of the wonderful thoughts, prayers and kind words thus far. We have a long 8 months ahead of us, so all of your kind thoughts and support will definitely be greatly appreciated over the coming months. Of course, we will definitely keep everyone posted with Baby B updates as soon as they become available in the coming weeks!

Elf Yourself :)

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Crazy 8's!

Stolen from April :)

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch:

1. Lost
2. ER
3. CSI
4. How I Met Your Mother
5. The Big Bang Theory
6. Sex & The City --- reruns of course :(
7. Till Death
8. The Hills (but I am WAY behind on this one sadly)

8 Favorite Restaraunts:

1. Mi Cocina
2. Taverna
3. Gloria's
4. PF Chang's / Pei Wei
5. Luna de Noche
6. Snuffer's
7. Grand Lux / Cheesecake Factory
8. El Fenix (cheap, fast and yummy imo)

8 Things that Happened Today:

1. I woke up late...well, just a few minutes late
2. I got ready for work.
3. I got to spend a few minutes cuddling with my two favorite men before leaving for work.
4. I went to the VP store to do invoicing, etc.
5. I picked up Whataburger for breakfast, yum!
6. Worked at the studio for the rest of my lovely day.
7. Went to the bank and Wal-Mart on the way home.
8. Went to Marcia's to meet the new doggie!

8 Things I Look Forward To:

1. This weekend
2. Family pictures next weekend
3. Thanksgiving
4. Decorating for the holidays
5. Spending lots of time with family and friends
6. Christmas Eve
7. Christmas Day
8. Getting this house organized and completing the never ending updates....

8 Things on My Wishlist:

1. Blackberry
2. New blow dryer
3. Letterpress training
4. Tabletop Press
5. New carpet (possibly tile in the kitchen and adjacent breakfast area too!)
6. New / updated kitchen countertops
7. New cooktop and oven
8. Completed kitchen cabinets

Consider yourself tagged!

I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged by Tara over at Tara in the ATL to come up with 7 random things about myself. Here it goes...

1. I've only flown twice in my life and had never been on an airplane until I was 28 years old! Both flights were in a one year span - the first was to New York and the second to Maui for my honeymoon. :)
2. I can't swallow pills or rather I've never been able to and now have a phobia to where no matter how hard I try I just cannot do it.
3. I am one of 5 children, but I have 3 half-sisters and 1 brother.....in addition I now have 3 brothers-in-law, 1 sister-in-law, 8 nieces and nephews and another on the way....our family is hella big in case you didn't know. :)
4. I can't sleep if there is no noise in the room....seriously, I currently sleep with a ceiling fan on, a floor fan, an air purifier and the background noise from Hudson's baby monitor. If there isn't at least some time of background noise I will toss and turn forever before ever falling asleep.
5. On the same note of sleeping, I have to sleep on my side/stomach and cannot sleep on my back under ANY circumstance. Beyond that, I have to be completely under the covers in order to be comfortable and be able to fall asleep. :)
6. I love to eat jalepenos as a snack....I'm weird, I know!
7. I'm oddly more excited for the holiday season this year more than others and I've been having a mad craving for pumpkin pie lately!

I'm tagging......what the heck, anyone who reads this can join in the fun as well! :) Enjoy!

Autumn at the Arboretum Recap

We made our annual trip to Autumn at the Arboretum on Saturday and had a great time! Hudson even behaved very well for the most part and seemed to really have fun too which made the day much more pleasant of course! We decided to go earlier in the day thinking that the crowds would be lighter, which it wasn't very crowded at all and because we also wanted to go out to lunch afterwards before heading back to the house. I had a ton of orders to catch up on (or at least make an attempt to put a dent into) so we wanted to get back home by the early afternoon so I'd have the remainder of the evening to work. In any case, we had a wonderful time at the Arboretum and Hudson LOVED playing in all of the pumpkins and just running around being a total hyper little boy! He attempted to crash other people's picnics numerous times, which was hilarious and in fact, everytime he did it the poor target of his party crashing was so nice and thought it was SO cute that he wanted to come and interact with their kiddos too! I think Hudson has gotten to the age that he truly gets excited when he sees other toddlers or small children and wants to interact and play with them. He's not around many other children, so he's starting to really act interested in spending more time around the other kiddos! (Guess I need to book some play dates, huh?!?!) We probably only stayed at the Arboretum for about an hour and a half and then headed over to Snuffer's in Preston Center to have some yummy cheeseburgers and fried mushrooms for lunch, did I mention how YUMMY it was!?!?! All in all it was a great little Saturday family time and I just loved seeing Hudson have so much fun running around and just being happy....one of my favorite things was that he kept picking out REALLY big pumpkins and decided to roll them around on the ground...it was too cute watching him be really strong and push those big ole' pumpkins around....he even grunted some of the times when he was moving them, lol! What a little cutie!!!

Our handsome little man.

One of the lovely families he picnic crashed, ha! Their kiddos were across the way, but Hudson definitely tracked them down, lol!

Walking with his daddy...

Hudson LOVES to ride on David's shoulders!

More fun with dad!!

Mommy getting in on the silly action! Time to swing in circles...weeeeeeee!!!!!!

Hudson was intrigued with this little structure....

we think that he thought that the fish were real, ha!

Okay, so this isn't a pic of him pushing one of the pumpkins, but even better...he was totally trying to stand on top of it!! He's a little daredevil!!!

Hudson and mommy

In a pile of pumpkins....

Urban Cowboy??? Hmmm....Not so much, ha!

So, yesterday morning I go to our store downtown to do my weekly "stuff" and I happen to call Kenny to see if he was there yet and to let him know I would be there in a few minutes as I was driving through the Cliff at the time. Well, he told me that once I got there that there was something that I needed to go do. I asked what that might be and he said that I would need to go ride the mechanical bull set up in Victory Plaza so that I could win tickets to Friday night's Mavs game....of course, I was like there is no way in hell I'm riding a mechanical bull Kenny! Are you crazy?!?! Then he's like, oh yeah, OOPS...it's to win rodeo tickets NOT Mavs tickets, lol!!! So of course I responded with a "Well, I am DEFINITELY....NOT doing it for rodeo tickets... hello!!" In any case, it was one of those you had to be there moments, but I laughed about it all day....I mean do I really need to go into a long explanation as to why I was not interested in riding a mechanical bull at 9 o'clock in the morning in the middle of a public area, Victory Plaza no less!!!!! I mean, Urban Cowboy IS one of my all-time guilty pleasures type movie, BUT I so do NOT see myself up on a mechanical bull anytime soon!! David and I are NO Bud and Sissy, ha! Here's what I *might* have looked like had I been brave enough to ride that big ole mechanical bull though......ha! Pretty damn funny...although I don't know that there would have been quite so much smiling going on!! lol!!!

Autumn at the Arboretum....

One of my favorite things to do every fall is go to the Dallas Arboretum for Autumn at the Arboretum. I just love walking the gorgeous space looking at all of the beautiful flowers, the changing foliage and all of the fun pumpkin displays and of course, we love to take lots of pics of Mr. Hudson amongst all of the vibrant pumpkin patches! We've been so busy this year that we have not been able to go yet OR go to any of the pumpkin patches around the metroplex either, but I am so excited that we are planning on heading out to the Arboretum this weekend so that we can enjoy the fall floral, foliage and hopefully, there will still be a plethora of festive pumpkins to keep us in the fall harvest spirit! Here are just a few pictures from our trip to the Arboretum last October.....

In Honor Of Election Day...

I thought that this was just too dang hilarious not to share!!! Happy voting everyone!!!

Halloween Fun!

Although it didn't turn out quite as expected, we had a wonderful Halloween and Hudson looked SO freakin' adorable in his fluffy green dinosaur costume! He HATED wearing it though and we were only lucky enough to keep it on him long enough for my parents to see him in it for a few minutes and then again for David's mom for a few minutes as well and then he was struggling to get out of it. Seeing that Hudson was not even remotely into the idea of wearing the costume and he was starting to act rather cranky, plus it was already somewhat late by the time we headed out for the evening, we decided not to take him for his first real round of trick-or-treating....instead just we spent some time hanging out at both my parents house and Marcia' house visiting and of course, Hudson got spoiled with lots of treats from all of his grandparents! Here are a few pics from throughout the evening including some interesting pics of David and myself as well.

All ready with his goodie bag..no costume, but ready to go!

Goofing off at my mom and dad's house

Hudson and his daddy playing



Hudson and his Grandma Charlotte (my mama :))


The infamous dino costume!

Get me OUTTA HERE!!

Help! I can't find my hands mom!

Please don't make me wear this, wah!!!

Daddy to the rescue!

I don't think I like Halloween mommy!

Hudson and his daddy at Nana Marcia's

He STILL doesn't want to wear the costume

Investigating the huge bowl of treats from his Nana

Mmmm... a Tootsie Pop! (with the wrapper still on none-the-less!!)

David modeling the wax lips Marcia got for Hudson, ha!

This is a serious serial killer Silence of the Lambs type pose!!

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop??

Just one of the many pictures of me modeling the lovely serial killer wax lips, lol!

Even better right??? Hudson's dino headgear makes it even more scare-iffic!

Can you believe he wasn't scared of those horrendous lips!?!?!