Target Exclusive Chicco Travel System in Vega Giveaway

3 Kids and Us has partnered with Target Baby to offer one lucky mom or dad the chance to give their baby gear a Spring upgrade. New and exclusive to Target, the Chicco Vega Collection (features 3 popular products including the Chicco Cortina KeyFit Travel System, Lullaby Playard and Polly High Chair. Each piece covered in a woven jacquard fabric in gray with pops of bright orange, perfect for boys and girls.



Grand Prize
Chicco Cortina KeyFit Travel System in Vega, valued at $299.99

How to Enter
Visit 3 Kids and Us Mommy Review Blog before February 25, 2011 11:59am CST and leave a comment sharing your favorite feature of the travel system.

Welcome Home...

Hello Blog! Long time, no write!


I think I have quite a blogworthy post finally. :-)


sooo... It's been a while, and a lot has changed since my last post. I'll try and keep it as simple and non-boring as I can.


On July 21, John quit his job with Knight Office Solutions, because he and the company just weren't compatible. He wasn't really sure what he wanted to do once he quit, but we knew that we couldn't afford for him to not work at all.


On July 26, I sent out an email to the staff at Oak Hills that basically said "Hey! John's not working, but if you'd like to help us out - John can detail your car for cheap!" Oh. My. Goodness. Within 20 minutes the rest of that week was totally booked! He extended a great price to the OHC staff, and word has just continued to spread. Here it is - now the middle of September, and he has been booked solid since! There have literally been 2 days (not counting sundays) that he hasn't scheduled a car. It's been unbelievable! At first we joked about him just continuing to do cars (it was making almost double the money he was making at Knight Office), and not looking for a job. He had a few dead-end interviews, so he just kept detailing cars....


Fast Forward to late August... John and I were having a random conversation and something came up about my grandfather's shop that he had in Buna. He used to do some car remodeling, and carpentry inside. I have lots of memories in there from when I was younger! Fun times...

Anyways - that interested John, so I told him I would just throw the idea out to my dad. My grandfather is now in the nursing home, so there's a pretty good chance he would never operate out of the shop again. :-(

I sent my dad a text message: "Do you have the keys to gpapa's shop?" , "Yes, why?"


I called him - told him our idea. He said that it was so strange - he had been thinking about that shop for the past month, and wondered what he could do with it - he didn't want to see it get run down and fall to pieces.


Soooo.... *insert a bunch of boring details here*. John and I visited the shop and Gpapa's little house right next to it on Labor Day weekend. Both buildings need a lot of work, and clean up - thanks to Hurricanes Rita and Ike, but when John walked in - he saw a blank canvas. Both places have such potential, and could really be fixed up nice.


When I moved to San Antonio on August 13 2005, i wanted out immediately. My main goal in life became "How am I gonna get out of this place?" Several times I've asked God to let me move home, and several times, God has said "NO!" There have been times I was angry, because there was so much going on, and I was so far away. I've missed weddings, funerals & significant events in the lives of many of my family, but God has kept me in San Antonio. I do find it a bit ironic that once I finally settled in, and accepted that I was going to be in San Antonio, and got all comfy cozy with my feet up, God was like "Welp, time to go, Melissa!" I questioned it and questioned it, and prayed for clarity, and God has given us that through several different events - both big and small.



San Antonio has brought me some of the most wonderful things in my life as well. I met and married the most wonderful husband! I got to feel what it was like to be pregnant, even if it was for a short time. I've grown some wonderful friendships. I've had some incredible singing opportunities... I mean, I've sang with Kim Hill, Melissa Lawson (Winner of Nashville Star), Michael Boggs (Of FFH), and Michael W. Smith!!! I mean - for a small town country girl - these things are HUGE! Not to mention I've worked with Max Lucado for 5 years.


There are things, however, that are in our lives for just a season, and over the past few weeks, God has revealed to us - San Antonio is one of those.


After much prayer and consideration - John and I will be leaving San Antonio, and heading to Buna to pursue building his business, Perfections Detail. We have no idea what we're doing - how to run a small business, remodel a house, and a shop... I have LOTS of researching to do between now and then. I know one thing for sure - QuickBooks!!



Our projected "leave San Antonio" date is - November 26-27. We will spend Thanksgiving with John's family, and then hopefully roll out a couple of days after that.


This has been a very tough decision, as I'm having a very hard time leaving Oak Hills. This is my family. They have seen me through some of my worst times, but they have also gotten to rejoice with me in celebrations as well!


I ask that you pray. Pray for John and I as we embark on this new journey. We really don't have any financial resources to take this project on, but i know that if God is telling us to do this - then He will provide those resources.


I will do my best to keep the blog updated with pictures and progress for my friends who will be far away!


until next post...

The future Perfections Detail & Parker House!

Under Construction

ok - so today, i was for some reason inspired to redo my blog. Thanks, Sarah. :-)

Since mine has been very umm... bland lately, why don't you hop on over, and make a new friend like I did! Check out BioGirl's blog. She has an adorable little boy, and is just fun to read! :-)

Just be patient as I work on this. I'm really not experienced at all in redesigning, but we'll see how it goes! You'll see things come and go over the next few days, I'm sure.

He Gives and Takes Away

God gives. God takes away.

I think as Christians, we become pretty familiar with how God gives and takes away in our lives. I can think of many times when He's done just that. My latest example? Our little baby. He gave us that baby. and He took it away. I'm ok with that, really, because He is God. Was I angry at God? yes. Was I completely devastated? yes. Did I question God? at first, yes. But no longer do I question Him.

There has been no news on the fertility front lately, because my body still hasn't "reset" yet.

John has been working as a cable technician with Time Warner Cable for a little over 2 years now. While it had its good times sprinkled in, it was so inundated with negative things, and the longer John was with them, the unhappier I saw him get. Never seemed to fail - he would be having a good day, and at his very last job, something would happen, and he would be two hours past when he should have been off. Or, he would actually get off on time, but would have to take teammates jobs, because they were running behind.. (Don't get me wrong, they had to do that for him, too..) The late nights were becoming more and more common, and yet when his paychecks would come, there would be 1-2 hours of overtime on them... HUH? you've GOT to be kidding me. They give these techs soooo many jobs a day, and expect them to get everything done within a short amount of time; they aren't able to eat lunch half the time, but you know what? Time Warner still docked an hour from their paychecks every day for lunch, whether they went or not. This year - came tax time. We were so excited! and then I sat down to file them, and realized something was horribly wrong. We owe $800!!!! Again - what the heck? John started doing research and realized they were not pulling the right amount of taxes out. One check - they had only pulled $5 in federal withholdings!! Before you ask - yes, we checked, and he was filing Married and Zero. I didn't make much more than him, but I had double the taxes withheld from my checks he did. He called corporate, and the lady was so ready to get him off the phone - she was like "Yep. Everything looks good over here!." She made up something along the lines of "Texas must have changed something, because we didn't." bleh. Texas, first of all, doesn't pay taxes, and second of all - BS!

Anyways - I could go on and on and on, but I won't.

John had a job. He had an income. We were ok financially, but could have been a lot better. John wasn't getting paid what he deserved for all the work he did, and it didn't look like things were going to get any better, despite all the promises made to him by different people...

Time Warner had excellent benefits, though. Remember this post? In case you don't, or you dont' have time to read - this is the post where I celebrated the fact that we found out John's insurance would completely cover our fertility treatments.

Let me tell you - there has been a lot of praying in the Parker house about this. We knew that if John left Time Warner, the wonderful benefits would go away, and the fact is - we cannot afford fertility treatments on our own. Those benefits are really the main reason John didn't look for another job sooner. We want more than anything to have a baby.

Yesterday, John resigned his position with Time Warner. He accepted a new position with a company called Knight Office Solutions. He is moving into sales, and if you know John personally - you know this will be perfect for him. His personality just says it all! He will be making more money, and for the first time since we've met (and for the first time since he can last remember) he will be working Monday - Friday! Normal Business Hours! No more working holidays!

So God is giving John this great opportunity, but He is taking away the means for us to get the fertility treatments we have been so excited about.

I'm ok with this, though. John is who I have right now, and nothing broke my heart more than to hear of his bad days every single day. I couldn't stand to see him so unhappy. My main concern became John's happiness, and success in his career. This job caused a lot of stress, and has made some life living very difficult for us. John is the most important person in my life right now, so I'm willing to give up something I have wanted for years now because he means just that much to me.

Once again, I'm at peace.

I totally hate the cliche statements -

"It's all in God's time."

"God's gonna give you a baby when He thinks you're ready."

"God just has other plans for you." yadda yadda yadda...

While these are some of the least comforting statements, I believe they are true. I believe that even though it seems as if God's closing the fertility treatment door, this may be His way of telling us that we don't need the fertility treatments anyway. I got pregnant once, and maybe that's why we went through the first one, just so He could show us that it IS possible for us to get pregnant.

God is moving in our lives right now in more ways than I can even tell right now! I'm nervous and excited and all sorts of things right now - strapped in and ready to go along for the ride.

Thank you for your continued prayers for us. This will be a bit of a rough transition for a few weeks, but we're up for it! John starts his new job on Monday!

Here we go God!

Officially Over

The fatigue is gone. The soreness is 95% gone. The physical pain is gone. The baby is gone.

The one thing that is not gone, however is my love for our baby. More love than I thought possible in such a short time.

I was in such pain Saturday, I finally lost any little bit of hope I had that our baby would survive, and would be born big and healthy in October. I couldn't move. I was confined to the floor. My breasts ached worse than I had ever felt, and I couldn't turn over, move, or anything without wanting to scream. On top of the pain I was already feeling. I found myself yelling at God. Begging Him to take the baby if that's what His plan was. To please not drag this out (me, on the internet again had read stories of people who waited WEEKS to miscarry a baby - I could not imagine...) and let us have false hope. The pain subsided temporarily. Until about 3 AM Sunday. It was agony. I seriously felt like I was in labor. I'd have major sharp pains, and then they would die down, and I would doze off. Then they'd come right back, and we repeated this process. I tried to wake John up, but couldn't. I managed to get up and get my phone, some headphones, and a cold rag. I put Pandora on my Fernando Ortega station, and tried to relax.

Of course all that did was make me cry. and then bawl, and then blubber... This woke John up. I finally got him to get me some Tylenol PM (i hadn't taken anything, since I hadn't started bleeding yet). I just laid in his arms and we cried together until about 5 that morning. When the meds kicked in, i finally was able to get some sleep, and we slept until after 11.

I got up that morning, and it had begun. I knew it was over. I was still in a lot of pain off and on Sunday, and was still dog tired. John and I laid around, played a bunch of WoW, and just tried to keep ourselves occupied.

Yesterday morning, I was going to try and go to work, but when I got up, I was very weak and pretty dizzy. I decided I should just stay home and try to rest some more. John got up to go to work as usual, and I was just about to doze back off when I heard the door open. I thought he had forgotten his phone, but he came back into the bedroom, put his stuff down, and told me his boss had told him to stay home. :-) I was very happy. We went back to sleep for a while.

Later, I found out that John had completely forgotten his schedule changed, and he doesn't work on Mondays anymore! HA! Silly John and his poor memory. :-)

I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I've gotten to spend with him over the past week. I feel this sadness has brought us closer together than we've ever been. We're coping really well together, and have had a lot of deep talks about our future and what our plans are. What we hope to see accomplished.

God has definitely been there, too. I can feel the prayers. I can feel His love. I can feel Peace. He has shown me in so many different ways how He is there. A friend of mine shared this scripture with me last Friday:

Psalm 34:17-18
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

To say my spirit was crushed through all this would be an understatement - but I feel He has done just that. He has saved me from that darkness. He has heard my cry. He has given me a peace about this all, and I have hope that John and I will have a baby. I have hope that we can try again soon, and be successful.

Thanks to each and every one of you who has called, emailed, or contacted me in some way through this. I'm sorry if I missed your call, and didn't return it - or if I seem distant. At this point, I'm really not up for talking about it in person with anyone - I'm ready to go on. I know eventually, I will want to talk about it again, but i feel right now that bringing it up will not help us to move ahead.

Just Waiting...

I don't feel any different. I still feel as pregnant as I did last weekend, when everything was fine.

I wish I hadn't had that bloodwork done on Wednesday. At least if I was going to miscarry, then i would only know when it already happened. But sitting around, waiting to miscarry? This is for the birds.

I just hope it happens soon. I want this to be over with.

I'm sooooo very thankful to have the support of family and friends... What would I do without y'all?

And just like that....

It's over.

There will be no baby in October.