Halloween and some things

This was the year of the candy.

In the past, we haven't participated in our library's story hour. I remember observing a few minutes of it several years ago and thought "There's no way Garrett would ever sit still long enough for this!" But this year, a friend's mom contacted me and asked if we would come to Story Hour. All of her son's Story Hour friends had moved up to kindergarten so he didn't really know anyone attending and she thought we might want to attend, so I decided to try it. Garrett is of course old enough to cooperate now. Cooper is a different story, but since Garrett seems to like it, we've been going a few times a month.

This past Wednesday was the Halloween party at Story Hour and we were there with our Batman and lion suits ready. Our Story Hour has the kids trick or treat to the moms so we got PLENTY of candy. And I didn't even have Cooper participate. He just stood with me to "help" pass out candy. Or to screw up a library computer while I passed out candy. Whatever. Then we had pizza and desserts galore. It was a fun party.

On Thursday, the boys' school had their Halloween parties as well. Their school's tradition includes trick or treating to businesses around the square in our town (our church is only a block or two off of the square, so we just walked it.) That was lots of fun and, again, PLENTY of candy. They had PB&J, cupcakes, cookies, etc for the party too. Then on Sunday, our church had Fall Festival. Cooper stayed home with Keith while Garrett and I attended. We didn't need a repeat performance of lunch on Sunday (I'll get there in a minute.) And again, lots of candy, fun, and games was had. Garrett played every single game in our church's Fellowship Hall, plus a Darts game set up outside that was new to Fall Festival this year. (He popped 2 out of 3 balloons! I was impressed.)

We had just enough time to get home, sort through the candy, and prep for trick or treaters. We had WAY too much candy to even consider going trick or treating ourselves and I knew the boys would enjoy getting to see all the kids coming by our house in their costumes. So we handed out all of the candy that I had culled from our stash. Yes, we regifted our Halloween candy, but don't worry, I sorted through all of it to make sure everything was properly wrapped and nothing looked suspicious.

We had a very well behaved group of kids show up over the course of the trick or treating. Aside from the incessant doorbell ringing that some kids enjoyed doing, they were all polite and never complained about what I was giving them (lots of suckers. Sorry kids!) One group of kids showed up and I was hurriedly handing out the candy when I came to one of the last kids in the group. A little boy dressed up as a very cute clown (no makeup or mask). With Down Syndrome. Can I just say that had he not been with a group of friends, I would have emptied out every piece of candy I had into his bucket and given him a big hug? Instead, I just gently patted his arm and told him I really liked his costume. He smiled real big at me and ran off to be with his friends. I have to confess to getting a little choked up after I closed the door.

Backing up a bit, Sunday morning was a special Sunday at our church. We are in the process of building a new campus because we have outgrown our current one. The new one is just a few blocks away from the old one and the youth building is close to being halfway done. We have just started a new fundraising effort in order to start building a children's building. So, instead of our typical Sunday morning of 4 (yes 4!) services at our current building, we combined all 4 services into one big one on our new property next to the youth building in progress. We had hundreds of folding chairs set up under a tent with a makeshift stage for the band and pastor. It was awesome.

One of the services that we have on Sunday mornings is a service for hispanics that's done entirely in Spanish. Some of the people who lead their music, joined with the band who leads the English speaking service's music and they lead the music in a bilingual bit of awesomeness. We sang songs like "I Am Free". Which has an echoing part in the chorus where one group sings "I am free to run" and then another group repeats it. Well, on Sunday, the Spanish speaking group sang it in Spanish and the English speaking group repeated the line in English. I got goosebumps just listening to it.

After the service, all of the Sunday school classes congregated to eat a picnic lunch together. Our class has many children among us, so we chose to go the easy route and order pizza. Everyone brought their own drinks and lawnchairs and we set up in a corner of what will be a parking lot and enjoyed lunch together. Cooper was awful. First off, he was wearing overalls for the first time since he was a newborn. He kept sticking his hands inside them for some reason and at one point, he tripped and fell flat on his face because his hands weren't out to catch himself. He wanted Garrett's juice. He wanted our soda. He did not want his water. And he let everyone know about this. He also wanted to join all the big kids playing football. So it was fun trying to keep him out from underfoot, out of everyone's stuff and off the ground when throwing his (many) tantrums. He was the youngest in the group at this lunch, so he didn't quite know what to do with himself.

But on the other side, I got to watch Garrett playing with other boys his age. His current close friends are all girls, which has its pluses and minuses. He rarely does anything physical with them (aside from fending off some attempts for kisses. He's not a fan yet, thank goodness.) But he also gets caught up in crazy girl drama (it's interesting considering that they're only 5, but it does happen.) So I got to watch him (attempt) to play football with 2 other boys his age. He actually got in there and mixed it up! Tried to steal the ball a few times, jumped in the middle of tackles, etc. I must admit that I was impressed. Up until this point, he's never really shown me that he would be willing to go to lengths like this. And he also is a bit big into crying when things don't go his way and very competitive. But surprisingly no crying took place and he seemed to have a lot of fun. Especially for a boy who had never even picked up a football before (we have none, but I will remedy this at Christmas.) Thankfully (I guess...), Cooper kept me busy enough that I couldn't have micromanaged, explaining to him how to play, why he should stop whatever, etc. I know he has to figure out stuff like that, so I'm glad I wasn't able to get involved. It's a big challenge for me to keep my mouth shut in areas like this! It's also why I will never coach any team that he plays on. It would not end well.

I apologize for yet another lengthy post with no pictures. If we're friends on Facebook, I promise I have posted many recent pictures there, so be sure to check them out if you're so inclined.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas

Well, we came thisclose to getting a White Christmas here in north Texas. On Christmas Eve, the flakes started coming down pretty thick, but by Christmas morning, everything was gone except for the cold weather. Oh well, we were still pretty excited to see snow on Christmas Eve.

Christmas '09 went down like this:

Keith had to work up until the day before Christmas Eve, so we were basically business as usual. Garrett didn't have school any the week of Christmas, so his class party was the Thursday before. He had a great time, we made ornaments (which was a bit tricky since Cooper was with me, but I needed to help Garrett with a few parts. Thankfully several of the other moms were really helpful.) We ate kid food, which consists of PB&J (though Garrett does not like those), rolled up lunchmeat (which he loves), cheese cubes, and of course the prerequisite veggie tray which all moms force their child to eat a few pieces from before they can have a Christmas cookie or cupcake. Garrett said he absolutely hates broccoli (who knew?) but I managed to get him to choke down a few carrots before he moved on to dessert. The gift exchange required that each child bring a $5 gift for a boy or a girl. We found a nice nerf gun for $5 to give to someone, but unfortunately Garrett got in return a remote control car that didn't work for even a second out of the box. Too bad he couldn't have ended up with his own gift. But, such is life when a lot of toys nowadays are cheaply made.

We went to church and watched the Christmas musical that Sunday, which was really good. And then I spent the days leading up to Christmas trying to keep Garrett out of the presents. On Christmas Eve, we spent the day at Keith's parents' house where we exchanged gifts with his family. It was a fun day, especially with the snow I mentioned earlier. When we got home that night, we put the boys to bed and then started assembly. Garrett's big gift was a 2 wheel bike with training wheels and Cooper got a "Busy Ball Popper". We only assembled those 2 gifts, put out the stocking stuffers and then went to bed.

Both boys were up at 6am, but thankfully are still young enough that we got them into our bed and we all slept until 7:30. (I know this was probably the last year that will happen, at least for awhile.) Of course we couldn't just run into the living room and start opening presents because for some crazy reason, 6 month old babies tend to insist on eating before anything else happens for the day. So we all had a quick breakfast and then moved on to stockings.

One thing that our family does, that my family did growing up, is that we take turns opening presents. None of this, free-for-all ripping into presents with wrapping paper flying everywhere and you're done in less than 30 minutes. Growing up in a family of 5 kids, the present-unwrapping festivities lasted a good 2 hours. Which we loved because it drug out the anticipation. We went around the room, each person opening one gift and we took turns who got to go first with each round. It was really fun, so that's what we do at our house now. It's nice to be able to see my child's reaction with each gift they open rather than ask them after the fact what they thought because the unwrapping was too chaotic.

Garrett's new bike that he found 2 weeks before Christmas in the box in my closet. He immediately told me "I don't know what that bike is in your closet." Thankfully he never mentioned it again and he seemed surprised on Christmas morning, so who knows.

With the several presents that Garrett opened, he proclaimed 2 of them to be exactly what he wanted. (Though he's liked all of them so far.) One of which I bought on a whim a few days before Christmas. He had never even mentioned Gator Golf, wanting it or otherwise, but I saw it was on sale and thought he might like it since he's currently into golf. Turns out that was one of his favorite gifts. That and the kid sized Snuggie that he got. He's been dying for one for quite awhile now.

Cooper seems to love the ball popper and a driving toy that we bought him.

For Christmas this year I got, the Wii fit, another Wii game, several photo albums, a Shark sweeper (which I've been wanting for a long time and I'm loving it!), a few books (Eat This Not That! is one of them and it's a great book! If you've never read it, you should! So interesting.), and a calendar. It was a great Christmas! We had a nice, relaxing day being at home, just the 4 of us. We've been doing this ever since we got married and I'm so glad we're able to spend Christmas at home with just our family. I fixed a ham for dinner along with the usual side dishes and we had plenty to eat.

The day after Christmas was spent doing some major cleaning. My closet got a big overhaul, the bathrooms were cleaned, floors swept (with my new sweeper, of course!), laundry done and put away, bedsheets changed, and all my Christmas decorations boxed up and ready for the attic. I know that seems early, and it is. But with all the baby equipment in our living room this year, I was getting tired of feeling cluttered. The tree was taking the spot where I've had the Jumperoo, so it's been floating around the living room and the Exersaucer always stays in the middle of the floor, so it was driving me a little crazy to feel like things were out of place. Next year it will be much better because this equipment will be gone and it will just be toys like always. I feel a little bit like the Grinch putting everything away the day after Christmas, but it's nice to feel like my living room is a bit more organized.

It's really hard to believe that Christmas is over! I feel like this year, more than any other year, it just snuck up on us all of the sudden and then flew by without any warning. I hope next year I'll be able to savor it a bit more. I also can't believe that by next Christmas, Cooper will be 18 months old! Definitely no longer a baby.

Veterans Day (and a few other things)

I think it's so important to recognize our veterans as well as those who are actively serving in the military. In today's time, the anti-war movement is very vocal and unfortunately, this can translate into anti-servicemen and women. If you know someone who has served or is currently serving, take a minute out of your day to say thank you. It means more to them than you know.

Keith's grandpa is a WW2 veteran. From the sound of it, he's one of the few still living. He's in his 80's and has been in poor health ever since I've known him. He still has shrapnel in his leg from the war. He has survived cancer and a whole host of other physical ailments. During one of his month-long hospitalizations about 5 years ago, he met with a pastor and, after listening to what he had to say about salvation, he accepted Jesus in his heart. He's never publicly told the family this, we only know because his wife was there and she has told us. I can't imagine exactly what it would do to someone to go to another country at the tender age of 18 and watch virtually everyone else in your squadron get killed along with doing plenty of killing of your own. He's never been one to talk about his experiences in Germany. I do know he brought back a few interesting things from his time there.

When I was student teaching, I lived with Keith's grandparents for 4 months. One evening the movie "Thin, Red Line" came on TV. Keith's grandpa asked me if I wanted to watch it with him, so I said yes. I hadn't seen it before, but I had seen "Saving Private Ryan" and I think they both came out around the same time. Keith's grandpa is a man of few words (much like his only grandson), but every now and then, he would comment on what we were seeing in the movie. He would say things like "That's very close to what actually happened over there." Or he would point out errors they made. To say it was an interesting experience would be an understatement. To be honest, I wish I would have had a video camera rolling somewhere because I know his 2 sons and 3 grandkids would have loved to hear all of that.

One of my biggest fears, being the mom of 2 boys, is that in 14 years or more, our country will be in or will go into a war that will require one or both of my boys to be drafted. I do understand the need for the draft, but when it comes down to contemplating the idea of one of MY sons being drafted, then I have a harder time with it. If one or both of them were to make the decision to enlist, then I wouldn't try to stop them, but the draft would be much more difficult to accept.

I will never forget when I was 8 months pregnant with Garrett, our pastor showed the video for the song "Letters From War" by Mark Schultz in a Sunday morning service. I sobbed through the whole thing.



If for some reason that video isn't showing up then here's the direct link.

On a completely different subject, I can't believe Christmas will be here in about 6 weeks!! I've already seen a few Christmas lights up on peoples' houses and of course I've seen the Christmas displays and heard the Christmas music when I'm out doing my grocery shopping. I'm excited to see what Cooper thinks of the Christmas tree. Garrett's first Christmas, he was barely 4 months old, so I don't think he really knew what was going on. Cooper will be 6 months old this Christmas, so hopefully the tree will mesmerize him (during those times I'm needing him to be mesmerized rather than crying to be held) and maybe I'll get some good shots of him and Garrett around the tree.

I've been able to get some of my Christmas shopping done. I've bought several things online. It's just so much easier to do that, especially when you either find really great deals that make the shipping worth it, or you get free shipping. If you're looking for something to get for that "hard to buy for" person, check out this site. I LOVE her stuff. I bought one for my parents for their anniversary this summer and I've bought a couple more for different people for Christmas this year. And for the locals, she's from Mt Pleasant, Texas, so she's kind of a local herself. I personally like buying from locals. I don't know her, so I'm getting nothing for advertising for her!! Just thought I would pass on an idea if you're wracking your brain, trying to figure out a gift. Just know you probably would want to order from her by early December in order to get it in time for Christmas. But I will say that when I ordered back in May for my parents' anniversary, I literally received it in a week, so she's really fast if she's not really busy. I've already placed my Christmas order to try and avoid the rush.

Are you ready for the race that will begin in a couple of weeks? At least, that's what it feels like to me. The race of the holidays and the end of the year. I love it, but it sure does get hectic at times. Good luck to all of you with your Christmas shopping and attempt to avoid gaining any weight between now and New Year's. Just give it up, we all know that 3-5 pounds (or more!) is inevitable.

Doctor's Visit and Mother's Day

Getting the boring stuff out of the way, my doctor's appointment this morning was, again, the basic stuff.  Everything looked good, Garrett was well behaved, and I'll see the doctor again in about 2 and a half weeks.  After that appointment, it will be a weekly visit till D-day.  Hard to believe we're already at this point!

My Mother's Day weekend was greatness!  Keith had been asking me periodically what I wanted for Mother's Day and most of my responses had to do with spending time together, either just us, or the 3 of us as a family.  (My Love Language is Quality Time, with a good dose of Acts of Service thrown in there, in case you couldn't tell.)  And Keith enjoys quality time as well, but I guess he figured that he also should get me something tangible, so he kept hinting around trying to get me to tell him something I wanted.  I really couldn't think of a specific item that I was needing or wanting, so I wasn't much help, but from the things that he said I suspected he would be getting us a new TV for our bedroom.  

We're one of the few families in the US who do not have cable or satellite and instead watch our TV via antenna (not bunny ears or tin foil, by the way, but an actual antenna that we've put in our attic rather than on the outside of the house.)  What this means is that when all the TV stations switch to digital signals next month, the TV in our bedroom will be rendered obsolete.  Yes, we can buy a converter box that will make it work, but this TV is 19" and 10 years old, that I had in college.  I should confess that it has a nice, melted spot on top of it where I had a lit candle sitting on it back when I was in college and the candle melted all the way down and the candle holder got hot enough that it melted a hole about the size of a silver dollar in the top of the TV.  It looks lovely.  And this TV does not have the ability to be hooked up to a DVD player, so really, we'd rather have a new one.  (Just FYI, the antenna picks up digital signals, so our living room HD TV works perfectly fine.  There's no way you can tell that it's coming through an antenna except for the smaller number of channels.  And hey, it's free!)

OK, back to the topic at hand.  I assumed a new TV was in the works, so I was excited.  On Saturday morning, Keith and Garrett headed out to buy my gift and run some errands.  Garrett had told me the night before that I was getting a necklace for Mother's Day, so I had no idea if he had heard this from Keith or if he was just making it up.  He has the knack for saying things with such conviction that you assume it's the truth, but that isn't always the case.  While they were gone I was able to clean the kitchen and mop the floors, along with organizing the cabinets in our laundry room.  It was a productive morning.  (And yes, I'm nesting.  Thank you for asking.  Or as Keith said the other day I'm "building my nest".)  

Keith and Garrett came back a few hours later and Garrett ran in the house shouting "Surprise!  Happy Birthday!".  He had his holidays a little confused.  Then Keith walked in with a Nintendo Wii.  I was thoroughly surprised.  We had talked about getting one last Christmas, but never did and I think that was the last time it was mentioned.  Keith is not into video games.  They don't really appeal to him, so I know this was bought solely with me on his mind, which makes it that much sweeter.  It took a little work to get it hooked up, Keith was thoroughly impressed with my electrical engineering abilities.  He sat back and held a flashlight for me while I dug around in our cabinet to get everything connected.  

Once everything was hooked up, I turned it on and proceeded to set up our family Mii's.  That was hilarious.  Garrett kept saying "That does NOT look like Momma!" or Daddy or Garrett.  I told him we were just doing the best we could.  I was going to name myself Lydia, seeing as how that is my name, but Garrett insisted my name was Momma, so that's what I went with.  My how life changes when suddenly I'm the Momma in the game instead of that designation being given to my own Mom.  I bowled the first game and once Garrett saw what it was all about, he took over.  He's spectacular at pitching, terrible at batting, takes a lot of work (and a sweet forever) to bowl a full game by himself, along with being a pretty good boxer (provided he's paying attention to what he's doing and not attempting to play some unseen game with the joystick on the nunchuck controller.)  Keith bowled one ball for Garrett and once he discovered that you actually have to go through the motions of bowling and that the sensor picks up how fast or slow you roll the ball, he was pretty impressed and will probably play a little more frequently.  But so far he hasn't actually played a full game of anything yet.  I was excited when my sister told me that I can download the original Super Mario Brothers to play.  I LOVE that game!  And Keith was excited when I told him we can download the internet channel and surf the web on the TV.  He's always wanted to be able to do that.  Now he wants to know if they sell some sort of computer mouse-type controller so that he can feel like he's on the biggest computer ever.  

  

Right now we just have the basic Wii package with the Wii sports game, but eventually we'll add another controller or two along with additional games.  I'm excited to get the Wii fit because I've heard a lot of good things about that.  It will go into my workout rotation once I'm no longer pregnant and actually working at losing weight.

I will briefly share the rest of our weekend now that I've rambled on (for 16 pages, FRONT AND BACK.  Name that show!).  After playing with the Wii, we went and ate lunch at Jalapeno Tree, which is a local Mexican food restaurant chain.  We had never eaten there before and it was ok.  I've had better Mexican food, but I've definitely had worse as well.  We took Keith's mom some flowers for Mother's Day and visited with his family for a bit.  (I sent my mom flowers too for those who were wondering.)  Then on Sunday we went to church and had lunch at Baker's BBQ afterwards.  Garrett spent most of the afternoon outside with Keith while Keith fixed the a/c on his truck and Garrett played.  I mostly relaxed inside.  Then we noticed Garrett's eyes getting red and puffy so he came in because apparently he's allergic to something outside right now.  He took a shower and some Benadryl and went to bed a little early.  This morning his eyes still look a little red, but not as puffy (and by red, I mean underneath his eyes are red, not his eyeball.  He's always done this with allergies, but they've never swollen up like they did.)  This morning I gave him some Children's Claritin and that seems to be working even better than the Benadryl.  After he went to bed, Keith mowed our yard, which was another Mother's Day present for me, as far as I'm concerned.  He had spent all day outside working on his truck and then proceeded to spend more than 2 hours on the mower because he knew the tall grass was bugging me.  

I hope all the other moms out there had a wonderful Mother's Day!  It's so nice to feel appreciated.  I'm going to have to be sure we celebrate Father's Day early because this year it falls the day before my due date and I would feel badly if we end up spending it in the hospital or with a newborn, so we'll have to celebrate the Sunday before.  I already know what I'm going to get for Keith, I would post it because he never ever reads my blog, but on the off chance that he might over the next couple of weeks, I'll keep it a secret.  But as far as he's concerned, what I'm going to get him will be every bit as exciting as a Wii, so I can't wait to see his reaction!  (And Keith, if you are reading this, no, it's not a '69 Camaro.  Sorry!)

Happy New Year!

It's kind of hard to believe that today is the last day of 2008. A few days ago, Keith and I had a discussion about what we thought the world would be like once we hit the 2000 year mark. I wonder why everyone thought the world would be such a different place? Keith and I grew up in different parts of the country, in different environments, yet both of our predictions for our planet by 2000 were very similar. Think Jetsons combined with Independence Day and Minority Report. Why did we both assume we would be driving hovercrafts and have jet packs strapped to our back? And while there have been a lot of technological advances in the past 20 years, we still aren't anywhere close to living in buildings that are hundreds of thousands of feet up in the air like the Jetsons did. I wonder, if the world were to be around long enough, would we ever reach the point where we were living like some of these futuristic movies and shows? Of course I now would say that definitely by the year 3000 that would be the case, but I'm sure whatever I might predict for that era would be far from the reality.

I'm not sure how I got off track there. I planned to post my New Year's Resolutions, or atleast some semblance of them. I'm a big list maker and I usually can follow through with my lists, but resolutions are a completely different thing. I've rarely followed through with them, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

1. After the baby is born, I want to get on a good exercise routine. Hopefully I can lose some weight by doing that along with eating healthy. Watching "The Biggest Loser" this season has given me motivation. Now I just need to get a personal trainer and a personal chef and I'm all set.
2. I want to do better about planning out our meals for the week so that I won't continue to get in a rut of fixing the same things all the time or eating less healthy than we should be.
3. I want to have more of an established house cleaning routine so that it doesn't get down to a day where I'm just fed up with the house and end up cleaning the entire day just to set things straight and I'm exhausted and worn out by the time I'm done.

I think I'm just going to keep it to 3 things, maybe I'll be more apt to follow through. I know there's something major missing from this list and that is the resolution to either read the Bible more consistently, pray more, have a consistent quiet time, etc. I definitely need to do all these things too, but like I said above, I don't usually do a good job of sticking with my resolutions whereas these are more important things that I really do want to accomplish, so I'm going to leave them off my resolutions list, but just know that they are areas that I'm constantly working on, New Year or not.

A brief look back on 2008 shows an average year in the life of our family. Nothing super exciting or life changing occurred. Obviously I did get pregnant and that is exciting and most definitely life changing. We also bought a new TV and all the accessories to go with it after having gone 6 years with a 19 inch TV from the 80's. That was pretty big for us. I feel like the biggest changes have been with Garrett himself. The jump from a 2 year old to a 3 year old is pretty big. I was looking back on blogs that I posted around this time last year and I can't believe how far we've come. He's now potty trained, sleeps in a regular bed, and talks up a storm. It's hard to comprehend how much he's changed in a short period of time. Especially when we see him every day, the changes aren't as significant to us.

Obviously looking ahead to 2009, we will have a less than typical year. Newborn babies tend to do that. The first half of the year will be preparing ourselves and our house for a new addition and the second half of the year will be spent adjusting the new baby to our life and schedule. I'm really hoping for an easy baby this time. They can take after Garrett in the sleep department because he was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks, but everything else could be a little different and it would be ok with me. I feel like I'm on the cusp of something new. Up until now I've been in the baby mode. Not necessarily having baby fever, but knowing that I was going to be enduring the newborn stage once more. But after this we're done having babies, so I feel as if, as this baby grows, we will be slowly shifting from the baby mindset to a family mindset. Really establishing household routines and family traditions that will stick with us until our kids are in college. Not that we haven't already been doing all of this for the past 3 years with Garrett, but I feel like everything will be more firmly cemented this go around.

OK, so now I feel like I'm babbling. I really should get off here and do some house cleaning. Here's hoping I might even feel like taking down the Christmas tree and decorations.

Happy New Year's to you and your family! If 2008 was a great year for you, then I hope 2009 will be the same. If 2008 was a tough year, then here's hoping that 2009 will be all you're wanting and more.

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving this year was a very low-key celebration, but we had a good time and ate good food. We spent the day at my in-laws. They fried a turkey and made most of the side dishes, I brought a broccoli casserole and some other veggies as well as rolls and a pie. Keith's Grandpa has been in poor health for a long while now, but he came up for 30 minutes so he could see Garrett. (They live next door to Keith's parents so it wasn't far for them to go.) They said he's special to them because he's currently their only grandchild sharing their last name. And a boy at that. Garrett is basically it as far as the name lineage goes. Keith's dad has one brother who only had one daughter and Keith only has a sister, so Garrett will carry on this branch of the family name. Of course if I'm having another boy, then they will share in that responsibility.

Garrett is a very friendly kid for the most part, so he enjoyed having a captive audience in the way of Keith's grandparents. They hung on his every word and ooh'ed and aahh'ed at the appropriate moments as Garrett was showing off all his toys. At one point Keith's grandma looked at me and asked where he got the chatty gene because Keith was not a talkative child. (Is anyone surprised by that?) Apparently I haven't shown my true colors to most of Keith's family because they all acted surprised when I told them I was a pretty chatty kid. (Hence one of my nicknames being Gabby Abby.) My mom got a good kick out of that when I told her about it later.

(Garrett and one set of his great-grandparents)

After eating the yummy food (of which Garrett ate exactly one bite) we all watched Garrett work off that piece of turkey. Keith's parents have a pull-up bar in the doorway of one of their bedrooms. His mom has back problems and this helps her to be able to stretch out her back as well as do a little working out. Garrett was completely enthralled with it and would have spent the entire day doing pull ups if he had a willing participant to help him. This product has an infomercial that we've seen many times. So often, in fact, that Garrett has it basically memorized. One of the lines in the infomercial is "Wanna get ripped" which Garrett loves repeating. So he said this multiple times while "working out". I never got him saying it in its entirety on video, but here's an idea of what he was doing.

Later in the afternoon, Keith and I went to his sister's house to see her new baby. Michael Brayden was born a couple of weeks ago and Melanie didn't feel up to getting out of the house with her 3 kids, so they stayed home that day. The baby looks a lot like her other 2 kids.

After that visit we went back to Keith's parents to pick up Garrett and head on home. We live about an hour from them, so we wanted to get home before it got too late. On the way home, Garrett sang to us in order to keep himself awake. The whole time at Keith's parents I kept trying to get Garrett to sing his days of the week song, but he refused, instead he decided to sing it over and over in the car on the way home. I apologize for most of this being dark. I thought the camera would pick up a little light from outside, but it obviously didn't. Keith doesn't like having the interior lights on while he was driving so that's why I turned them off and on a few times.

Once we got home, we ate leftovers from lunch and then watched "The Incredibles" which was on TV.

We had a great day. The weather was perfect and the food was delicious. I hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Now it's time to start checking people off my Christmas list. I have bought exactly nothing for Keith, but I'm almost done with everyone else. I attempted to do a little "Black Friday" shopping yesterday morning, but our local Walmart was a joke. Nothing was labeled with their sale prices and more than half of the items that I was interested in buying weren't even there and I didn't see a place where they had been there earlier. It makes me wonder if they were even available at our Walmart. Oh the joys of attempting to find a great deal. It usually backfires on you.

I have to add that Target totally came through and gave me a $25 e-giftcard for their mistake with the mispricing of the carseat that I tried to buy from them a few weeks ago. So I've cancelled my Target boycott. Good thing, since I love that store.

Thanksgivings Past

As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I've been thinking of the ones that I've celebrated in the past. A drawback to having a dad in the ministry means that you ultimately live in a variety of places, which also means that you probably don't live close to family. So when you don't live close to family, you don't celebrate holidays with extended family.

Thank goodness my immediate family is pretty big. 5 kids, 2 parents. A 7 person Thanksgiving feast is still a pretty good party. We always enjoyed ourselves whether it was just the 7 of us or if we had additional family members visiting. For many years my uncle Jamie, my mom's youngest brother, would come to our house for the holidays and take part in our family traditions. I can also remember atleast a couple of Thanksgivings where 2 of my cousins came to spend the holiday with us because they were attending Wheaton College in the Chicago area and we were the closest relatives to them. Those were fun times as well. But the majority of our holidays were spent with just our family.

I think my fondest memory of Thanksgiving is simply that the menu rarely changed. Baked turkey, stuffing (somestimes homemade, sometimes StoveTop and to be honest I love both equally), broccoli casserole (the best EVER), canned cranberries (they had to be canned because they had to have the can shape to them, just another tradition), a variety of veggies, homemade rolls, and the creamiest mashed potatoes you will ever eat. ("These mashed potatoes are so creamy." Name that movie!)

One of my favorite Thanksgivings was a few years ago when Keith and I hosted both of our families in our house. It was our first time to fry a turkey and I also baked one (which was also a first). Everything turned out really good except I was heating up some black eyed peas, actually a ton of black eyed peas, and they weren't thoroughly heated until about halfway through our meal. But other than that, it all turned out well.

While my worst memory is probably our first Thanksgiving in Texas. My mom decided that was a year to make homemade stuffing and she asked me to give her a hand in the kitchen. Somehow the uncooked stuffing was in its pan, sitting on top of the stove waiting to go in the oven and I turned on the wrong burner for something I was heating up. I ruined the stuffing because the burner I turned on was under the stuffing pan. My mom was NOT happy. I had to make a run to the grocery store for some StoveTop.

Until my parents moved to Indiana, Thanksgiving was always the holiday that Keith and I spent with my family. (The one in '04 being the exception.) We would drive down on Wednesday night or early Thursday and stay until Saturday or Sunday. It always worked out well because it was about a 5 hour drive so we were able to spend several days in a row since we were both off work. Garrett celebrated his first Thanksgiving at Nana and Pawpaw's house. While we ate, he tried out the Exersaucer that Grace loaned to us.

(Garrett's first Thanksgiving.)

(Garrett's second Thanksgiving. So he's not really eating here, but I promise this was taken on Thanksgiving day. That's Keith's dad's dog, Scooter.)

How sad is it that I don't have a picture of Garrett on any other subsequent Thanksgivings. I guess it's true what they say that the older they get the more the newness wears off. :) Hopefully that won't apply to baby #2.

This year will be the third Thanksgiving that I haven't spent with my family. Of course it's sad, but it's just life when you live 14 hours away. I know they will have an excellent day (minus my dad's broken ribs of course) my grandparents will be there along with my mom's brother, Jerry, and his family. Poor Brad and I will be the only missing members of the family. Brad, we should have gotten together and done something extremely fun this year so they would all be jealous.

A few of the things that I'm thankful for:

1. Keith
2. Garrett
3. Baby #2 (I really should come up with a nickname to use. Got any suggestions?)
4. My parents and siblings, nieces and nephews.
5. Keith's family
6. All 4 of my grandparents who have blessed me over the past almost 30 years and are still around to meet my children and bless them as well.
7. The rest of my extended family.
8. The fact that God has provided for us in abundance. I am so amazed at the things He does for us. We are so blessed.
9. My family's health. I know there are so many families that struggle with a chronically ill child or family member and we have been overall very blessed in this area. My dad's broken ribs will heal and he will go back to being a healthy, busy man.
10. My new job that I didn't really go looking for but it found me. It's nice to be able to make some additional money as well as work with some pretty cool people. (And get free homemade pies from church members for Thanksgiving!!)
11. Keith's job which has allowed me to be a stay at home mom for all these years. I know there is many a night when he doesn't get home until 10pm or later and in those moments he's hating his job with every fiber in his being, but he has learned a lot while working there, established a lot of contacts, made many friends, and is paid enough so that we don't have to worry too much about our finances. I think he would agree with me, with maybe the exception of when he's in Minnesota for a week.
12. Our house, which I may grumble about because it's on the small side, but it looks nice and is fairly easy to clean (when I'm in the mood) as well as having an affordable mortgage. That's probably the biggest asset.
13. Our vehicles that get us from point A to point B, one of which is completely paid for and the other is very close. One is Daddy's truck and the other is Momma's truck, according to Garrett. He much prefers to ride in Daddy's truck. (I don't really drive a truck either, it's an SUV.)

I hope you all will take the time to count your blessings over the next couple of days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Random Friday

I think my Friday posts will just be random thoughts and ideas. By the end of the week, my brain is pretty fried. I'm sure once I've got this new job under my belt, I won't feel quite so frazzled, but in the mean time, here's some randomness.

• I still haven't decorated our tree (I haven't even "fluffed" it out) and it's been standing in my living room for a week. Somehow Garrett has managed to slide it a couple of feet to the left from where I originally had it standing.
• Part of the reason for the lack of decoration is because a mouse has gotten into our garage, so I'm hesistent to go in and out of the garage bringing in ornaments. I don't want to take any chances of that mouse getting inside the house. In fact, I've gone so far as to exit and enter our house via the back door, and then walk around to the garage and use our keypad to open the garage door. I hate mice with a passion! And I actually saw this one come in the garage, so that makes me freak out even more. Keith put out glueboards to catch it, but we apparently have a mutant on our hands because yesterday morning he found a glueboard covered in fur and a tail (!), but no mouse. Gross! That sucker better be gone soon if he knows what's good for him.
• I'm still feeling pretty good with my pregnancy. Not much morning sickness to speak of and some exhaustion, but that's about it. I apologize to anyone reading this who has experienced terrible morning sickness (Hi Grace!), but somehow I've lucked out in this department for both of my pregnancies. Since I only have a couple of weeks left of the first trimester, I'm in hopes that I can only feel better from here on out. Until I'm hugely pregnant, then I'll feel much, much worse. I'm just glad this baby is due in June and not August like Garrett. That summer was miserable.
• Because of how the first 9 weeks of this pregnancy have gone so far, I'm feeling more sure of my instincts that this baby is another boy. So far everything has been very similar to my first pregnancy.
• Keith and I looked through the baby name book last night and he vetoed a few more names. Finley, Linley, Graham. But he said he liked Leopold. I called his bluff and said I would be ok with Leo (I have an uncle named Leo, so it's not too big of a stretch) and he said no to Leo, so I pointed out that Leo would be the obvious nickname for Leopold, so he retracted that name. I know all these names probably sound a little "out there" and I have no plans of choosing an odd name, but I think some of them would grow on you. He did say he liked the name Natalie, but not as much as the other girl name that we've both liked for a while. I'm not going to share our current front runners for now, maybe once we find out what we're having. I did actually find a boy name that he liked equal to our favorite, so that name could change. Is it bad that I'm forgetting what that name was now? We may have found a new boy name and now I've forgotten it! I'm sure he'll remember, or I'll find it again...maybe.
• I still have a long ways to go before our guest room is ready for Garrett to move in. I really want him moved into it a couple of months before this baby is born. I don't want him to think that the new baby kicked him out of his old room. But I think he's going to love the new room so much, he shouldn't care. I'm doing a Disney movie theme, with posters from the movies "Cars", "Monsters Inc", "Toy Story", etc. I plan on framing the posters so they'll look a little nicer hanging on the walls. And this bedroom is bigger than his current room, so I think he'll enjoy spending more time in there playing. Some of his Christmas presents are specifically geared for his new room too. I've already picked out the paint color and have an idea for the bedding and curtain, it's just a matter of buying those things.
• Thanksgiving is next week! I'm really excited about the turkey and I cannot wait for the yummy rolls and potato casserole. The plus to being pregnant during the holidays is the fact that you can feel free to eat more than normal because you're "eating for 2". However, the negative to being pregnant (atleast for me) is that I get full much faster than normal. So I'll probably have to eat my food in multiple sittings. The crazy part is thinking ahead to next Thanksgiving when I'll have a 4 year old and a 5 month old. Bizarre!
• I'm sure I'll post again between now and next Thursday, but just in case I forget, I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! We will be spending the day at Keith's parents' house and sharing the meal with them. I'm responsible for the vegetables and a dessert, but I think I'm also going to bring some rolls. His family doesn't really eat much bread (the shock and horror, I know!) so I'm not really sure if anybody will be taking care of the rolls. In my family, it's better to have too many rolls, than not enough. Of course that's probably why most of us have a weight problem.

FYI

My first 'real' post on my new blog.

As you can see, I've transferred all my old blogs from MySpace. It was time to breakout into something different.

One of the first questions I've already been asked is where I came up with my blog name. As you know, my name is Lydia. Growing up one of my many nicknames (my family is big on nicknames, I'm not even sure how many I've had) was Lid the kid. I think that was the most prevelent of everything that I've been called. So when I found out that I was pregnant with baby #2, I decided that I wanted to start a new blog where I could journal my thoughts and feelings on this pregnancy as well as all the crazy and wonderful things that Garrett gets in to. My first thought was what to name the blog. I didn't really want to do anything with my kids' names, obviously the second child is yet-to-be-named and I didn't want anything solely named for Garrett. So Lid and the Kids just kinda came to me and there you have it.

Since my last blog from a couple of months ago we've been busy. Obviously a baby has been conceived and is currently in the development process. I've also taken on a parttime job working for our church. And Garrett has been full-steam ahead.

First things first, the pregnancy. I'm feeling decent right now. Occasional nausea and many, many afternoons of exhaustion, but overall, everything is good. My younger sister, Grace, is also pregnant. She's 9 weeks ahead of me and she has had terrible morning sickness. So all I hope for is that I don't go through what she has gone through. Of course I also hope and pray for a healthy baby as well. I would honestly love to have another boy, but we'll see once we have the gender ultrasound. I'm guessing that will be in February.

Garrett gets bigger and more "grown-up" all the time. He's loving Mother's Day Out (or preschool, whichever title you would prefer to give it). He talks about his teacher constantly, so I think that's a very good sign that she's doing a good job with him. He knows all of the ABC's, can count to ten (though he doesn't really recognize any numbers), and I've most recently discovered that he has also learned the days of the week. When his class had their Halloween party, his teacher led the students in their morning activities as the parents watched, and Garrett impressed me by being able to recite all of the days and even knew what day of the week that particular day was. He still doesn't know any of his colors. He calls everything yellow, except for yellow, that he calls blue. But I know he'll catch on eventually. He is completely potty trained with the exception of bedtime. Just this past week, he's been waking up from naps completely dry, so I've (hesitantly) been putting him down without wearing a pull-up and so far we've had no accidents!

I'm very excited about the upcoming holidays. I can practically taste the turkey and dressing. Yum! I've also started my Christmas shopping. I'm actually normally done by this point of the year, but I've been a slacker the last few months, so it's time to get my game face on and get everything purchased. I'm hoping to get my Christmas tree put up in the next week or so. It's a little early for it, but we're going to be out of town for Christmas this year, so I want some extra time to enjoy it.

It's hard to believe that we're already in mid-November. The countdown is on for 2009.

Random The Easter Edition

~Hunting Easter eggs is very funny with a 2 year old. He has trouble finding his sippy cups, so searching for eggs was on the difficult side, even when they were hidden in plain view!

~After the egg hunt, Keith and I enjoyed a good laugh at Garrett’s inability to find things. About 10 minutes after said laugh, Keith comes in the living room and asks me "where’s my cell phone?" I wonder where Garrett gets it?

~Garrett has spontaneously decided that having his hair cut isn’t something worth screaming about (I wish this decision had been made a year ago). I gave him a haircut last night and he cooperated as best as a 2 year old can, and even said his reflection in the mirror looked "cuuuute!"

~Being told on Easter morning that you look "purty" by your 2 year old is the ultimate compliment. When it is then followed by an attempt to take a bite out of your necklace because he assumes it’s of the candy variety, it makes me wonder what exactly was purty, me, or the possibility that my necklace was made out of sugar.

~In other news, my mom turned 50 on Friday. I just had to share that on here. We love you Momma and wish we could have been there to celebrate! Garrett still sings "Happy Birthday to Nana" every day.

~I cannot believe that it’s almost April! This year is just flying by. I can’t wait for May so we can go to Indiana to see my family!

~I went to a store last Friday because I knew they were having a big sale and wanted to take advantage of it, if possible. I arrived approximately one hour after the store opened for the day. After making my selections, I walked up to the register and got in line. As soon as it was my turn to check out, an employee walks up to the cashier and tells her to shut it down so they can update their system. She turns to me and tells me it will only take "4" minutes. It’s very obvious that I have a 2 year old strapped into the stroller attached to my hands. Who makes the decision to shut off the register BEFORE checking out the mom of a toddler? After waiting there for 10 minutes (and listening to Garrett hollar "I wanna go home!" approximately 100 times), I told the cashier to forget it and walked out of the store, followed by 3 other customers. They should have taken care of that before opening that morning.

~Lost is the best show ever, seriously. If you have never watched an episode you should consider going to abc.com and start watching one here and there, starting at the beginning. I fully stand by the statement that you will LOVE this show. If you don’t want to look for the little hidden clues and read all the websites where everyone speculates as to what’s going on, you don’t have to and you’ll love the show just as much as I do. I have to say that when Rousseau died at the end of last week’s episode, I was sad. She’s been a good character who we haven’t seen much of. However, I was very happy that Claire and Jin lived to see another day. I’m assuming that they will eventually go the Rousseau route considering what we’ve seen in the flash forwards, but I hope that I’m wrong. I am not happy that we have to wait until April 24 for the next episode!! Darn you writers and your silly strike!

~I am back on another reading binge and I seriously need to stop. My mother-in-law isn’t helping me any. She brings me Walmart bags full of books that she gets through some sort of book exchange that she participates in. Our bookshelf is overflowing with books and Keith only has one shelf of Accounting books. He does not understand my reading addiction, but I don’t understand his desire to look up trucks and tractors on the internet, so I say we just call a truce and stop making fun of each other.

~We have decided we’re going to become pet owners. Yup, we’re headed to the pet store sometime this week to take the plunge. The only thing we can’t decide on is do we buy one or two goldfish? No, we’re not getting a dog or a cat or a bird, honestly I don’t have much of a desire to ever own any animal that is capable of making noise or has any sort of fur. Keith is in full agreement, but Garrett loves the fish in the aquarium in our church’s nursery so we’ve decided to get a bowl with a couple of them and let him enjoy watching them swim around. I’m sure atleast one of them will be named Nemo. Or he might step out a little and call them Buzz and Woody. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.