Friday's Letters & Favorite Things

Since Ashley is away today, there isn't a Friday's Letters link up but I decided to do one anyway! I'm an overachiever like that!

Dear Weekend...you are so greatly needed after this week I've had. Dear Jordan...I'd like to think that you've turned over a new leaf as of Thursday at 2pm. I'm sure that the lack of toys, books, TV, blanket, and nighttime music helped in your decision to straighten yourself up. Dear Ashish...there are no words. You amaze me more and more each day. That's all. Dear August...-9lbs in a month, I'll take it! Here's to hoping that September is just as successful! Dear Labor Day...I hope that the outlet have some good sales going on this weekend. Don't let me down! Dear RL Friends...you girls are the best friends that anyone could ask for. I was overwhelmed by the kind words that were e-mailed and texted to me yesterday. "This to shall pass." That's right, Ashely Yates! Dear Jen...Happy Birthday to ya, Happy Birthday to ya, Happy Biiiiirthday! Dear God...thank you for continuing to be the leader of our family. Dear New Job...you are getting the hardest working pharmacist as your new employee! I'm not saying it because he's my husband, I'm saying it because it's true. Dear Cancun...this time next week I am will be on a flight to come visit you. I.CAN'T.WAIT!

Alright, now it's time for my favorite things! I'm linking up with Ashley over at Dancing With Ashley to tell you all about my favorite August things.

 

Jordan and my dad!

 

My girlfriends!

 

Mom's Night Out!

 

Indoor Fun

 

Little Rockstars

 

Random fun with Cooper in Crazy 8s

 

My newest obsession

 

New Hair

 

Head on over to Ashley's and tell us your favorite things!

 

This Week...

This week has been rough. It's only Thursday (I'm writing this on Wednesday night) and I am already done. This week I am hating my husband's job. I hate that he works 14 hr days. I hate that on Tuesday he had to go to a meeting that took up most of the day. I hate that most weeks, 3 out of the 7 days, Jordan and I eat dinner without him.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am grateful and so blessed that Ashish still has a job. We are blessed that we live a very comfortable life. We are blessed to be able to share some of the blessings that God has so graciously given to us with others. I am lucky that he doesn't travel or that he isn't in the military. But this week, I am hating Ashish's job.

Jordan has hit the terrible 3's...again! The spanking spoon had to make yet another appearance in our house. He isn't listening. His mouth is so smart that I swear he has a PhD. This week has left me asking myself "what am I doing wrong?" Am I not giving him enough attention? Am I giving him too much attention? Am I not investing enough one on one time with him?

When I get down on myself and my parenting skills I have to remember, parenting isn't easy. Every mom thinks that they aren't doing enough for their kids. Every mom, at some point or another, has looked in the mirror, at the end of a LONG day, and cried over their child. Every mother has cried for their child. And every mother, at some point or another, has to stop allowing the self doubt to creep in.

As a mother, the best thing you can do for your child is to do what you do best. Love them. Tell them that you love them. Show them that you love them. I do all of these things, everyday, several times a day. I remind Jordan that despite how big the tantrum is or how smart his mouth gets, that will never stop me from loving him unconditionally.

I'm not doing anything wrong. This phase will pass. I will be remain confident in my parenting.

And that is what is going on...this week!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Happy Wednesday! I'm linking up with Jaime to tell you what I'm LOVING on the last Wednesday of August!

I'm LOVING...that in a little over a week I will be in Cancun! Are y'all tired of hearing about it? Sorry, I know it's annoying but I am super excited. This will be our first big trip away since we had Jordan.

I'm LOVING...the weather. Fall is definitely in the air and I can't wait!

I'm LOVING...John Legend and the fact that he is coming to Atlanta on October 20th. Most of all, I am loving that I am going to the concert! I saw John Legend in concert about 6 years ago and MAN, he puts on a great show!

I'm LOVING...my sweet husband for paying for said John Legend tickets even though I know he was thinking "that much for concert tickets, we could buy each CD 10x over and it would still be cheaper than buying concert tickets."

I'm LOVING...that next Tuesday I will be celebrating another wonderful year of marriage to my husband!

And as always, I'm LOVING these two...

 

Show and Tell Monday...Wedding Bells

 

Today I'm linking up with Becky over at From Mrs. to Mama to Show and Tell some of my wedding details!

 

 

 

1. Are you married? If so when did you get married, and tell us about your special day. If not? How would you describe your dream wedding?

 

Yes! Happily! Our marriage(s) have a funny story surrounding them. Ashish and I got engaged in August of 2008 and planned to get married in September 2009. That November his parents planned a great Indian ceremony for us with a guest list of 150+ people. Fast forward to February 2009...we were sitting in a Hibachi restaurant and I leaned over and said " you wanna go get married?" Ashish's eyes got bright and he said "let's do it." My dad met us at the JOP and witnessed us get legally married. Now, fast forward to September 4th, we had my dream wedding, white dress and all! We officially celebrate the September anniversary but we will do something special on the other two anniversary dates!

 

2. Show us some wedding pictures. Either yours or of some that you love.

 

 

3. How about the engagement? Tell us your story. If not engaged, what's your dream proposal?

 

Our engagement story is kinda long so I'll just give you the important details. We went on a weekend getaway to Chattanooga to see Rock City and Ruby Falls. The whole time we were at Rock City Ashish was acting weird. I couldn't put my finger on it but something was different. When we drove up to Ruby Falls he was fidgeting with something in his pocket. I didn't pay too much attention to it and just brushed it off. At the entrance of Ruby Falls is a stone structure for people to take pictures. Ashish wanted to stop and get someone to take a picture of us (which he NEVER suggests) so I went looking for someone to take the picture. When I turned back around he was down on one knee.

 

The proposal was very sweet and well planned. When I called t tell my dad that we were engagement he acted as if he had no clue.

 

Me: Hey Dad, guess what?

Dad: What?

Me: I got engaged!!! Ashish proposed!!!

Dad: Really?!? With a ring and everything?!?

Me: Yes, with a ring and everything!

Dad:<laughing> I already knew, Ashish asked for my blessing last weekend when I was at the house helping install the ceiling fans!

 

My parents drove from Atlanta to Chattanooga that day to help us celebrate our engagement!

 

 

 

4. Show us your wedding rings or an engagement photo! If not engaged/married ... show us your "dream" ring.

 

I'm not at home so I can't share a pic of my wedding rings on my wedding day, but I do have a picture of my rings!

 

 

 

5. Tell us why you think marriage doesn't work out for so many? What can we do to make things last?

 

Oh goodness, I may be the wrong person to ask. I know what makes MY marriage work and my marriage only.

 

I think having GOD as the center of your marriage is probably the most important key to a successful marriage. This has been especially helpful in our marriage. We joined a small group at church and have loved it. We have our own little cheerleaders that are rooting for our marriage and the success of our marriage.

 

Communication is so important. I can't tell you how many people are so eager to throw in the towel because "he doesn't listen," or "he won't change." If you go into marriage thinking that the other person will change than you are fighting a losing battle. Accept your husband/wife for who they are. Something about who they are is what attracted you to them in the first place.

 

Model your marriage after a marriage that you admire. Ashish and I have fantastic examples, Ashish's parents have been married for 54 years and my parents have been married for 39 yrs. Surround yourself with like minded people. That doesn't mean that you have to drop your single friends. Make new married friends, they will do wonders for your marriage.

 

Marriage isn't easy, you're going to get pissed off, suck it up and deal with it. It wasn't designed to be easy. When it gets hard, pray together, communicate, and surround yourself with people that are going to lift your marriage up instead of assist in tearing it down.

 

Every marriage is different, you have to do what's best for your marriage, even if it means stepping outside of your boundaries!

 

That's What Friends Are For!

I've been wanting to do something different with my hair for nearly a year. A friend told me that I always look the same in all of my pictures. She meant it as a compliment and I definitely didn't take any offense to it but it got me thinking...do I always look the same?

Truth is, I do! The only thing that really changes about me is the part in my hair. Sometimes I'll part it to the left, other times I'll part it to the right. That's about it. I smile the same, I can't change that. I even stand the same, I can't change that either, really.

When Jennifer so sweetly offered to help me transform my "look," I jumped at the chance! After spending near 25 minutes in the beauty supply store I came home with some great hair. After church on Sunday, Jennifer and Jonathan came over and she went to work on my hair. This is what I look like now...






Jennifer has some serious magic in her fingers! I will definitely get it done again!

 

Friday's Letters



 

Dear Kendall...welcome to the world! You will love your big brother and sister, they are awesome kids! Dear Friday...I have another busy weekend, how does this keep happening?!? Dear Cancun...2 weeks! Dear Scale...that 1lb weight GAIN was not cool. I blame it on Jillian Michaels and all the muscle that I'm gaining from letting her kick my butt everyday. Dear Weather...it's so nice of you to cool down earlier than late September this year! I am enjoying my runs at 64 degrees. Dear Friend...the fact that you continue to make plans with me, only to cancel, is starting to get annoying. Stop it. Dear God...thank you for every day but especially days like yesterday. Dear Oreo...your double dipped candy bars that are only 100 calories have made my week. My waist line approves! Dear God...I had to give you two shout outs this week. Some big decisions are going to be made for the Patels. I know you hear our prayers, both silent and spoken.


Have a great weekend ladies!

What I'm Loving Wednesday

Happy Wednesday Ladies, here's...

I'm LOVING...that we got to meet baby Kendall yesterday! Keisha and Chris are proud parents of another baby girl and she is PRECIOUS! We also got to see our goddaughter, Kennedy, while we were at the hospital! I wish I could show you a picture but Keisha hasn't made the "offical" baby announcement yet.


I'm LOVING...that I have such supportive in-laws. They gladly offered to come and watch Jordan so that Ashish and I could be there for Keisha and Chris. Also, my MIL subscribed to one of my favorite magazines so that I have stuff to read when I go to her house!

I'm LOVING...that in two weeks we will be gearing up to go to Cancun! The weeks will drag by but it's giving me time to prepare myself for leaving Jordan for 5 days.

I'm LOVING...the thought of Fall. Fall is my favorite season and The Patels have some good stuff in store.

One of the many Fall Festivals we attened last year.

I'm LOVING...having supportive friends. It's nice to have someone just "get" you, which you having to explain your feelings.

And as always, I'm LOVING these two!

Fall 2011

Pigeon Forge-Day 2

Yay, we're on to Day 2 of our vacation! If you missed Day 1, you can read about it here!

Day 2 started bright and early! Jennifer is the best at researching all things travel. Her motto is "we need to experience restaurants and places that we can't experience at home" which means " no chain restaurants Danielle Patel." I'm a creature of habit, I typically go with what I know but I jumped out of my comfort zone and we went to The Mill for a homestyle country breakfast.


I have to say, I wasn't impressed. Maybe it's because I'm not a breakfast food eater? Maybe it's because the majority of the items on the menu involved biscuits and gravy? I don't know what it was but it was just mediocre to me. Whomp whomp whomp!

After breakfast we darted over to a tiny trailer to listen in on a timeshare presentation. Oh, I forgot to mention that from Day 1. As we were leaving the buffet we spotted a guy selling discount tickets for most Pigeon Forge attractions. The deal was: if we sat in on a 60-90 minute presentation they would sell us tickets to Splash Country for $17pp (we were prepared to spend $35pp and $25 for Jordan).Ok, we can do that! Save a some money, waste some time. Done!

The timeshares were beautiful, as they always are, the presentation was nice but it was THREE HOURS long. Yes, you read that right, 3 hours. We were done, the kids were done, and we high tailed it out of there.

One thing that I really liked about Pigeon Forge was that everything was close by. Someone at Wal-Mart described the water park as being "all the way on the other end of Pigeon Forge." Turns out that the "other end" is only 3miles away. Silly Pigeon Forge-ians, you've obviously never been to Atlanta or any of it's surrounding suburbs.

When we got "all the way" to the Water Park we were able to really relax. Splash Country is a great water park with so much to do for little kids. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera or my phone into the park out of fear of dropping it in the water so we don't have any water park pictures. Take my word for it, we had a great time. Jennifer, being the best traveling partner that she is, rented a cabana for us to relax in. It had a TV with Nick Jr. (Score!), a fan, lounge chairs, and best of all "cabana service!" We ordered our lunch and it was delivered to us nice and hot! The water park was a success!

After loading up the cars and heading back to the condo, it was time for a little bit of rest and relaxation before dinner. YEAH RIGHT...who was I kidding? Our kids were bouncing off the walls so that thought went out the window. After a nice shower we were all ready to head to dinner, but not before having a mini photo shoot!

And of course we had to take pics of our little cupcakes! Pure boy shenanigans!

Until next time...

Weekend Wrap Up

Happy Monday Ladies! Who's excited about Monday?!? Anyone? Ok, maybe I'm the only one excited about today being Monday. Monday means that I eat better, can typically avoid all bad foods, and most of all, it's one day closer to another Friday!

Anyway, here's what I was up to this weekend...

Friday: Ashish was off work so he and J went to play golf. I love that they have their own "things" to share. Mama couldn't care less about golf, cars, trains, planes, football, or basketball, I leave all that stuff to Ashish. After I got home from Ashley's we ran some errands and had sushi for dinner. It was a pretty uneventful Friday night but I liked it like that!

Saturday: Lovey (my mom) called and requested that Jordan come and spend the night, the night before, so I woke up to an extremely quiet house. What is it about wishing that you could wake up to a quiet house and when you do, you wish that madness would start? I felt like I was coming down with a cold so I laid on my couch and caught up on Y&R. When I was done watching tv, and Ashish was still sleeping, I decided to go for a run and then go get a mani/pedi. Ahhh...freedom!

We ran more errands throughout the day then went to Catch Air with some friends to let the kids play!



Ashton loves Ashish and the feeling is mututal

 

We finished our day with a trip to Mellow Mushroom, frozen yogurt from Yogli Mogli, and running around the park.

Sunday: Church as usual! Our small group will be starting back in about 2 weeks and I can't WAIT! The summer away from small group always feels like such a long time!

After church I ran and grabbed a baby shower gift, ate lunch, and then headed to a shower for my friend Melissa. The shower was really cute and very sweet. The ladys that planned it did a fantastic job.

We have a couple DIY projects going on at the Patel house so we took a quick, and by quick I mean 1.5hrs, trip to Home Depot to map out our plan of action. Sidenote: my dad works for Home Depot so my loyalties have always been to them. I purposely go to "his" Home Depot because I know a good amount of ppl that work there. Yesterday when we went, I didn't know any of the men that were working in the lumber dept, they had no clue who I was either. Two men spent nearly 1.5 hrs helping Ashish and I map out the best way to build some new shelves in our house (I have a very "why buy it if you can build it" mentality. One of the many traits that I inherited from my dad!). These two guys were so helpful and never seemed annoyed with me when I changed my mind. I will continue to give HD my money! Anyway, after that trip it was time for dinner. After dinner I went for a long walk with MeMe to do some "catching up."

Please say a prayer for Keisha, she still hasn't had the baby yet. Also, send up a special prayer for Ashish's mom, she lost one of her close friends to cancer on Saturday.

That about sums up my weekend! I hope you guys had a great weekend too!

Friday's Letters



Dear Followers...sorry I've been MIA, I needed a small blog break. I'm back now! Dear Diet Lifestyle Change...you and I are tighter than two flat tires and it's starting to show. Thank You! Dear Weekend...so nice to see you again, I have been looking forward to you since Sunday. Dear Guy That Was Chasing Walking Behind Me On My Run Wednesday Night...don't you know it's not nice to make women think that you want to kidnap them. Apparently your mama didn't have that conversation with you. I will say that thanks to you, I ran my fastest mile EVER! Dear MeMe...you apparently don't read my blog or hear my rants about my crazy neighbors that leave their garage door open. Not all people are trustworthy, close your garage door. Dear Honey Boo Boo...I feel sorry for you. Your mom is keeping the trend of "redneckinizing" going. I hope you grow up to be something better and greater than just a foul mouthed, gas passing, neck swaying, fingering snapping woman (and that you keep all of your teeth). Dear Jennifer..."If it ain't hurtin, it ain't workin" (in my best Honey Boo Boo voice). You are kicking butt and taking names girl! So proud of you! Dear Blog Friends...please say a special prayer for my friend Keisha, we are hoping she will deliver her 2nd baby girl today!!! Dear God...I've said it before, and I'll say it again, thank you thank you thank you, with sugar on top and hot fudge!

Have a great weekend Ladies!

Friday's Letters

Dear Blog...this is your 100th post. Happy 100th Post Day! Dear Rain...we get the point! My poor flowers are drowning outside right now. Dear Hubby...you are the most unhealthy fit person that I know. The fact that you can run incredibly long distances without breaking a sweat is unnerving. Sometimes life just isn't fair. Let's hope that Jordan takes after his daddy! Dear God...thank you for putting us in a position to help others. Dear Dad...I'm so glad that you love your new pick-up truck but can we please talk about something else now?!? Dear Faith...I hope you get to feeling better soon. No posts, no cute pictures on Instagram, this is unacceptable. Tell those germs to leave you the heck alone! Dear Jordan...you are offically 3.5! I've been telling people that you're 3.5 for at least 4 months now. Oops! I guess it doesn't help that they think you're 5 (what the heck). You can thank your G-Pa for your height cause you sure didn't get it from your "mama!"

Have a great weekend ladies! Don't forget to link up with Ashley!

Pigeon Forge (LOTS OF PICS)-Day 1

I think that I've said at least 20 times how much I enjoyed Pigeon Forge. The condo was great, the weather was nice, but best of all, the company was great!

The drive from Atlanta to Pigeon Forge is GORGEOUS! The roads are bit dangerous because you're winding up and down the mountains but it was such a beautiful drive.

We stayed at the Cherokee Lodge Condominiums. Pictures can be deceiving; we all know that right? Right? So, when Jennifer e-mailed the pics of the condo that she thought would be a good place to stay, I was a little skeptical. The pics were AMAZING. This place looked like it could truly be my home away from home.

The top pic from their website. The bottom picture is one that I took. I was very pleased. Everything looked exactly like it did in the pics when we arrived. The Charles' know how to travel in style, this was a vacation match made in heaven!

The kids and hubbys didn't waste any time getting into the pool. Within 30 minutes they were ready to get the vacation started.

While the boys were enjoying their dip in the pool, Jennifer and I were cursing enjoying a nice trip to Wal-Mart. One thing I don't like about Pigeon Forge is the traffic. It took us nearly 35 minutes to drive 3.7 miles. It was ridiculous. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade, right? Right! We used that time to have some good laughs and serious girl talk.

Because our drive to Wal-Mart took so long, by the time we got back to the condo the guys were done at the pool. YES! Just in time for dinner! After much debate and we decided to head to Tony Roma's. Unfortunately, when we got there, their AC was broken and it was 87 degrees inside. Instead of staying we decided on a buffet that was just across the street called, Wood Grill Buffet. The food was mediocre, Golden Coral tastes 10x better but we were starving by that point. Of course we had to take some family pictures!

After dinner Jen, Chris, and Jonathan went back to the condo. Chris hurt his back and needed to rest. Since Jordan is addicted to all things cars, we decided to take him go-kart racing!

After the go-kart racing it was time to put the kids to bed and have some adult shenanigans-complete with a wine bottle with the cork inside the bottle, buffalo chicken dip, and Chris' outlandish answers to Scattergories!

How many college degrees does it take to get one bottle of wine open?!? The answer is 4.5!

Jen was our wine hero! Does she look refreshed? That's because she is covered in wine. LOL! Please notice the wine cork in the bottle.

Day 1 was a complete success!