Lately

• Cooper has been saying more and more words lately. He also has been doing some funny things. On Monday we went to lunch with a friend and while we were eating, Cooper pointed his straw at each of us and said "Pow". It's pretty obvious that he has an older brother.
• Tonight, Keith chose to read "Love You Forever" to the boys for their bedtime story. I wanted to strangle him by the time he was done. That book is emotional, especially when you have sons. Garrett asked me if I come into his room and rock him and sing to him when he's asleep (this is what takes place in the book, in case you haven't read it.) Keith actually got choked up at the end when the son sings to his mom. The sweet part of the story is that the book he was reading from was dated Christmas of '89 with a very sweet note inside from Keith's mom to Keith. That would have been the year he turned 13. I'm sure he wasn't thrilled to get that book back then, but it's pretty neat to have that as a part of our kids' library now.
• About a month ago, Keith ripped out the shower in our master bathroom. The fiberglass pan in the bottom of it had cracked and it was going to cause a lot of mold issues if we didn't replace it. We've always had problems with the corners leaking anyway, so he has completely ripped out all the tile, sheetrock, floor pan and even chiseled up some concrete in the foundation because the drain pipe was installed crooked causing more leaking. It's kind of been a mess, but it looks like we're on our way to getting it back to normal. He's bought some special stuff that will help to seal up the shower extra tight so we won't have any more problems with leaking and mold. Some of the sheetrock and even 2x4's had mold on it, so it's good we're doing this. It's just not so fun having 4 people sharing 1 shower (not at the same time!) Stepping over tub toys is always a fun experience when you're showering.
• Since we're about 7 months away from Garrett starting kindergarten, I've started telling him different things that he will need to know once he gets there. I'm afraid I'm making the principal out to be a monster, but I want him to know that he doesn't ever want to be sent to the principal's office. So when he does stuff that he shouldn't be doing here at home, I tell him that if he were to do that in kindergarten, he would be sent to the principal's office. I'm not sure if I should be doing this, but at the same time, I want to be sure he knows what will be acceptable and what won't be. Manners will be acceptable, loud burps and farting will not.
• I spoke with our insurance company today. We have our house and vehicles insured at the same place. Somehow we were able to save $500 a year AND increase our coverage. If you haven't spoken with your insurance company in the past few years, you may try calling them and just ask for a new quote to see what you would get. You never know!
• I'm back at my attempts to eat healthy and exercise like I started last year. I lost 25 pounds last year, so I'm hopeful I'll be able to atleast do that much this year. I went to weigh on Monday to see if I lost anything last week and the batteries on my scale are dead. Of course Walmart didn't have the replacement kind, so I have no idea if I've lost anything yet this year, but I'm trying. I didn't exercise tonight because I have felt exhausted all day. I hope I'm not getting sick because my throat is a little sore too. But I took some extra vitamin C this evening, so I'm in hopes that I'll feel better tomorrow if I get a good night's sleep tonight.
• I've never been big on taking vitamins though I've always made sure the boys take theirs every morning. When I went for a check-up last fall, my doctor specifically told me some vitamins that she would encourage me to take. I've actually never had a doctor tell me that before. Keith has always been big into taking vitamins, so I decided to buy what my doctor recommended and I've been taking them for a couple of months now. I honestly haven't noticed any changes, but I "think" I'm healthier, so I guess that counts, right?
• Just in case you care, I've been taking the following on my doctor's advice: Omega 3 Fish Oil (She said this is just an all-around good vitamin to take and it does a lot of good for the body, including helping brain function.), a multi-vitamin-specifically one with D3 not just plain old D (D3 is supposed to be a better form of vitamin D. I accidentally bought a multi-vitamin for women over 50, so if I start getting more wrinkles and gray hair, I'm going to kick myself.), CoQ10 (This is supposed to be good for your heart.), Cayenne Fruit (this is supposed to help lower cholesterol and up metabolism), and during cold and flu season I'm taking an additional vitamin C.
• On Wednesdays for the next 8 weeks or so, I'm teaching a class on Claymation to our 4th-6th graders at church. It's been awhile since I taught that back in my teaching days, so it's been fun pulling out some old materials and brushing up on classroom management. I've also already discovered different ways of doing things than when I taught this years ago. It really is true that with age, comes wisdom. I have about 20 kids in my class, so I'm hopeful that 8 weeks from now, we'll have a few really great Bible Stories turned into awesome Claymation movies. If I can figure out how to, I'll post some on here once they're finished. As of last Wednesday, the Bible stories that will be turned into movies are: Jonah, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednago, the birth of Jesus, and one more that I'm drawing a blank on. It should be really fun to walk them through this process.

Goings On

Keith has still been working long hours. He's hoping those will end real soon. So am I.

Cooper finally took a couple of independent steps yesterday for the first time. Of course he has to do things his own way on his own terms. Not only is he waiting more than 3 months longer than Garrett's first steps, but he's also refusing to take any steps towards me. If I stand him up in front of me, he either sits down and laughs, or he free falls towards me assuming I'll catch him (and of course I do.) The only way he's taken steps is just in walking back and forth between the couch and his toy basket. Every now and then I've looked up to see him take a step here or there today, but he hasn't walked more than 2 steps in a row. I'm curious to see how long it will take before he's walking more than crawling. At this rate, who knows.

I took the boys to the library today and let Garrett check out 5 books. (The limit is 10, but I don't want to have to keep up with 10 borrowed books. 5 is plenty.) When we were checking them out, the librarian asked Garrett where he got a tractor book that he had chosen. He told her where it had been and I explained it was propped up on display and asked if it was ok for us to take it and she said it was fine. Turns out they had been looking for the book for a long time and couldn't find it anywhere. And it was open and on display on a shelf. Sounds kind of like me when I'm trying to find something. She told Garrett thanks for solving the mystery of the missing book. On the way out of the library, Garrett asked why he didn't get a sticker for finding the book. Apparently we need to talk about being proud of our accomplishments no matter how minor they are and whether or not they are tangibly rewarded.

Garrett's birthday is coming up in just a few short weeks. I can't hardly believe that he's going to be 5. I'm just not ready for that yet. I think we're basically ready for the party though. It's going to be so nice having it someplace other than our house this year. I just need to either order some cupcakes from somewhere or start making plans to make my own cupcakes this year. I also can't decide what to do for a meal for our family after the party. We'll have some extended family here who won't be going directly home after the party ends at noon, so we need to figure out what to do for lunch. There will be about 14 of us in total and several who have food allergies. So I can't decide if we should just come home and I should have something already made or if we should find somewhere to go where everyone could find something that they can eat and where we also wouldn't have to wait forever for a table to hold all of us. Who knows what we'll end up doing.

On Tuesday we went swimming for one of the first times this summer. It was actually Cooper's first time to swim in a big pool. In our area, there aren't any public pools nearby. The closest one is about 20 minutes away and it's not very clean. But one of our friends who lives nearby has a pool and she invited us over. (She's given me a blanket invitation to come anytime, but it's just not in my personality to show up at someone's house and swim without an invitation for a specific day and time.) It was a lot of fun. Garrett loves to swim. I never did sign him up for lessons this summer and I'm kicking myself for that. But I think if we had regular access to a pool, it wouldn't take much to teach him. I taught myself how to swim in our neighbor's pool when I was younger. Cooper also really enjoyed the water. He splashed a bunch and was extra talkative. Maybe we'll get in atleast one more swim before the summer is over.

Please pray for my friend Mary. She just had her new baby, Megan, this week and Megan has a blood infection and will be in the NICU for the next week or two. That's all the details that I know right now. I haven't been able to talk to Mary, I've just been updated by her sister and sister-in-law on Facebook. Mary and I have literally known each other since birth. (Well, her birth, I'm 6 months older.) I have very few memories before the age of 10 that don't involve her. Even though we haven't lived close to each other in years and years, anytime we get together, it's as if we just saw each other. I love friendships like that. She currently lives in Florida and of course I live in Texas, but thankfully our parents only live about 45 minutes apart. So whenever we're both in Indiana for a visit at the same time, we always make plans to get together. I'll keep you posted on Megan and Mary. Thank you in advance for your prayers.

What we've been up to and other stuff you may not care about

Keith has been out of town on business (got home last night). So I've been on single mom duty.

Which didn't really consist of any major changes, other than trying to explain to Garrett where Daddy was when he asked for the hundredth time. Keith's work hours can keep him out until after the boys go to bed and out the door before they get up on some days, so it isn't totally unusual for them to go a day or two without seeing him, even when he's "home".

Yesterday I took them both to see a free movie at a local theater. This week they were showing "Monsters Inc" which we own and have seen many, many times, but it's always a fun experience to see something in the theater. And when it's free, well, that definitely makes it a good choice. (Of course we bought a small popcorn and coke to share, so it wasn't totally "free"...)

Tomorrow Cooper has yet another eye appointment. I'm in hopes this will be his last one for awhile. It looks like the second tear duct probing worked, so she'll just be doing an eye exam tomorrow, which includes dilating his eyes, hopefully that won't be weird for him.

Today I called and booked a local place for Garrett's birthday party. We've always done birthday parties at our house, but we're going to do his party someplace else this year. Garrett's school does gymnastics on Thursdays (when school is in session). Their teacher has a school bus that she has retrofitted with various gym equipment and that's where the kids have gymnastics. However, she also has an actual gym where she gives lessons too. We've been there a couple of different times, once for a birthday party and once for a playdate with church friends. So we're going to have his party there this year. I'm really excited about it. The price is awesome. Almost half of what most bounce house places in our area charge and in my opinion this is more fun. And she has an open topped bounce house in the gym too for the kids to jump in some.

The positives to doing his party this way are: the owner of this gym is very hands-on during birthday parties. She basically runs it, helping kids on equipment, stopping any bad behavior before it starts, moving kids from one activity to another, etc. (And by the way, the equipment is not "professional" gymnastics stuff that's really big and no way a child could play on it. There's low balance beams, a low set of rings, a mini-pommel horse, and everything is totally padded. A 2 year old could have plenty of fun in there. I'm sure Cooper would have a lot of fun there too, if I didn't have to worry about the older kids trampling him.) Another positive is that I won't have to worry about my house. While I'm sure we'll have some family swing by our house before or after the party, it won't be a houseful of people. I also won't have to cook for anyone. You just take cupcakes to the party and about halfway through the party time, she stops the kids for cake and present time. Can I just say that as far as Garrett is concerned, his birthday can not get here soon enough.

Cooper has mastered standing alone. Finally. I can stand him up in front of me and he just stands there and laughs. Then he sits himself down and raises his arms so I'll stand him up again. Repeat. Sometimes he gets distracted and will stand for awhile before he realizes that he forgot to laugh and sit down. I think we're on our way to seeing him taking his first steps soon.

I have a zit on my face. Why is that even allowed at age 31?

Our landscaper finally took the paperwork to our water company. I called them this morning to check and when I told her what I was needing to know she called me by name and said he had brought it in. She doesn't know me, so apparently we're the only ones they were waiting on inspection paperwork for.

But he still hasn't shown up to replace our dead plants.

Monday Randoms

~I swear that Cooper eats more than Garrett does at most meals. Tonight's supper for instance: Garrett had a chicken leg, a couple bites of cottage cheese, and 3 strawberries (weird combo, I know, it was grocery day, so I just throw stuff together for dinner on Mondays). Cooper had at least the equivalent of a chicken leg's worth of shredded chicken meat from the breast, a jar of apple chunks (it's Gerber's toddler apples. He can feed them to himself, but they're softer than if I was to simply cut up an apple and give it to him), and a half of a slice of homemade bread.

~I relished in the 2 and a half hours I spent at the hair salon on Saturday morning. When I called my girl to make an appointment, she was pretty full on Saturday morning but she worked me in. I knew I would be there longer than normal because of that, so I brought a book and just enjoyed sitting there and reading without either of my children present. Ladies, if you don't go to an actual hair salon to get your hair done (or if you color your own hair) please take the time to find a great stylist and let her work her magic on you! You are so worth the time and money spent to make yourself feel good about how you look. Even though my gray is minimal at this point, I love knowing that it's nicely hidden under a good dose of haircolor (I just use the closest thing to my natural hair color with no highlights so it's hard to tell I have anything done, unless you're on speaking terms with my gray hair. And in choosing my natural hair color, I really have no "roots" to speak of except for my handful of gray. So I can go longer between colorings.) I waited an extra 15 minutes in order for the wax to heat up so I could get my eyebrows waxed while I was there. It was so worth it! I told Mistie that it doesn't matter how long I've been tweezing/waxing my eyebrows, I could still grow 2 wooly worms on my face if I did nothing to tame them. Yet there are people out there who actually have to pencil in their brows! I'm so jealous.

~I'm having a hard time deciding on Cooper's 1st birthday party theme. For Garrett's first birthday, we did John Deere tractors as our theme because that was his nursery theme. It's Cooper's nursery theme too, but I don't want to repeat any party themes that Garrett has had. I've contemplated doing Veggie Tales. We really love them at our house, but I never could find any party favors when I was planning Garrett's 2nd birthday (which was when I considered that as the theme). I'm not sure if I could find them now, but I would assume somewhere on the internet, they probably exist. The downside to this is that Cooper hasn't really shown much of an interest towards them when they're on TV. He does seem to like our "Ultimate Silly Songs" DVD, but no more than his ridiculous "Singing Babies" DVD (that one is so weird, but he loves it). I've considered Elmo or a more broad Sesame Street theme. Cooper really watches when the Elmo's World portion of Sesame Street is on. But he hates our Tickle Me Elmo, so I don't know if he watches him on TV out of love or out of scared fascination.

~Whether or not you're a fan of country music, please listen to the song "The House That Built Me" by Miranda Lambert (if you click that, it will take you to the music video for the song). It is such a good song, full of nostalgia. She performed the song on the country music awards last night and I was full-blown crying by the time it was over. I've heard the song before, but it just hit me harder listening to her sing it live.

~I started reading Beth Moore's book "So Long Insecurity" yesterday. It's really good so far. I believe I'm on chapter 6 right now. One of my favorite parts has been her pointing out how that having kids only magnifies your insecurities (so true! Garrett constantly tells me "Momma, my belly is almost as big as yours!"). And how hard it is to know that your child is dealing with an insecurity, even a minor one. She talks about when her oldest daughter got her driver's license (she's now my age) and started driving herself to school. She told her mom that she needed parking lessons because her friends were making fun of her crooked parking. So for the next several days, Beth would drive herself to the school parking lot and straighten Amanda's car for her in the parking space so her friends wouldn't tease her. Amanda had no idea she was doing this. But I can totally understand where Beth is coming from and if there's ever an instance where I could do something like this for my boys in order to minimize insecurity, I would do it in a heartbeat. Even if you don't think of yourself as being insecure, or maybe you're a man and think this book doesn't apply to you, you should still read it. We all have insecurities. As Beth points out, the woman who looks the most put together and who we would all assume to be the most secure person, is probably the least secure of anyone. If nothing else, she has a lot to lose, should her life come crashing down around her. And men, reading a book like this will open the window inside the mind of a woman more than you probably realize. Many of you complain that you don't know what makes women tick, read this book and solve part of the mystery. I'll let you know once I've finished and what my thoughts are on the complete book.

Weight Loss Recap and A List

Surprisingly, I lost 2 pounds this week! I wasn't expecting that because I'm having a hard time getting back into the weight loss mode after the craziness of our lives the past couple of weeks. Of course, this afternoon I ate a mini bag of M&M's, so take with that what you will. Easter weekend is not friendly to those on diets.

So this puts my weight loss at 18 pounds! As I'm getting out summer clothes to wear this week, I'm able to tell a difference between how those clothes fit last summer compared to how they fit this summer. Of course last summer I had just given birth to a baby, so I'm not sure how good of a comparison that is. While I never gain weight when I'm pregnant, it never fails that everything "shifts" around, so clothes just never fit the same after having babies. My hips and thighs used to be my main problem area, now I have pants that are big everywhere except for the waist, which is very frustrating.

I've had a few random things I've wanted to blog about, but nothing that really constituted a full blown blog, so I thought I would share those here:

• I've heard of Justin Bieber over the past few months, but really had no idea who he was. Until this past week when I saw him on American Idol (he didn't perform, but was in the audience for some reason) and then the next day I saw him performing on The View. Wow. I have no idea what has happened to the taste of young girls in America, but, seriously? This is the tween heartthrob? He makes New Kids On the Block appear to be hard rock. He's not even cute. Obviously, I'm not anywhere close to his target demographic, being 31 years old, so he couldn't care less about my opinion. I'm sure he's a super nice kid, and I'm not dogging him personally, I just find it surprising that he's super popular. Of course I feel the same way about Miley Cyrus, but that's times 100.
• I hate it that I shed hair so badly. I know some of it has to do with still being less than a year post partum and my thyroid problems also contribute to this problem. But it's so frustrating to find Cooper with a handful of my hair from crawling around on the floor. Even though I try to vacuum at least every other day in order to avoid this, it still happens. I'm kind of looking forward to him walking just so we can get past this stage. I promise I'm not wishing his life away, but I'm tired of digging hair out of his mouth and hands.
• I've mentioned before how clumsy I am, so I thought I would share a recent story of this. The other morning I was rushing to get myself basically ready. I was walking out of the bathroom, when my foot hit a small spot of water and slid out from under me, I caught myself on our bathroom counter, but the sharp corner that I caught myself on, dug into my right side. Now I have a bruise the size of a half dollar on my ribcage. And my leg and arm are still sore from the weird contortion I made falling and subsequently catching myself. Keith was standing in our bedroom and saw me do all of this, which makes it even more awesome. Smart man that he is, he didn't even comment on it until that night before we went to bed. I was talking about a blog I had read where the author was talking about how watching people fall makes him laugh hysterically (and I can be the same way). Keith said watching me fall just scares him because he's afraid I'm going to get hurt. And sometimes when I've fallen, he thinks I must have fainted and that's what caused me to fall. Poor guy. I've yet to fall from fainting. I'm just a klutz.

December Miscellaneous

• It's 2 days before Christmas and I am done! One more present to wrap and that's it. I should be wrapping it now rather than blogging, but I just don't have the energy. I've shopped, I've wrapped, I've baked, I've taken many pictures of the boys by the tree, now it's time for Christmas to begin.
• Garrett has had many and varied items that he has requested from Santa. I'm not even sure I've bought most of the things he's mentioned. He goes from asking for a skateboard (how he even knows what they are is beyond me) to asking for a new Buzz Lightyear. The one he has is a bit worn, but still completely functioning so I don't think we'll see Buzz under the tree this year. (The new Buzz Lightyears that are out in anticipation for Toy Story 3 next summer are upwards of $50! That's a lot to spend on a toy that he could outgrow at anytime.)
• For the first time ever, I had to make sure that the gift count for the boys was even. Now, before you roast me for even buying Cooper many things seeing as how he's only 6 months old, he needs several things so I just bought what he's needing and wrapped it up. I figured it was easier to do that than to explain to Garrett why Cooper had nothing under the tree.
• I really appreciate our household appliances for deciding to all go on strike at this time of year. Well, not all, but our stove blew up (pretty much literally) and our kitchen faucet went down the drain (har har). So we had 2 expenses we weren't planning on in this, the most expensive time of the year.
• Stove story: One morning last week, I turned on the stove to heat up pigs in a blanket for breakfast. This in itself is unusual for me. During the week, we're cold cereal and the occasional piece of toast kind of people. But for whatever reason I thought pigs sounded good. The stove had already preheated and I had stuck the pan in the oven. Keith was about to walk out the door when he said something was on fire in the stove. So I told him to turn it off thinking maybe the foil I covered the pan with had fallen onto the heating element. Turning off the stove did nothing for the fire (and no foil had fallen onto the element.) So Keith grabbed the fire extinguisher and sprayed it in the stove. It did absolutely nothing to that fire, but it did make a total mess all over the kitchen. At this point we kind of felt a bit panicked. Here was a fire in the stove that was not phased by the fire extinguisher. Keith grabbed the stove, yanked it away from the wall, unplugged it and started dragging it to the garage. His plan was to just haul it into the yard and let it burn down, but thankfully by the time he got it to the garage, it had quit. A piece of the heating element had completely split open and the fire was following around the element as if it was a lighted fuse. Weird and scary. Thankfully a new element and a good cleaning (from the extinguisher mess) was all the stove needed. I was thankful I had a weird craving for pigs that morning because under normal circumstances, I would have had the stove on when Keith wasn't home. So I'm not sure how all of that would have gone down if it had been up to me to keep our house from burning down.
• While Keith replaced our kitchen sink and faucet all by himself, he wouldn't recommend anyone else trying it. It was a rough couple of days at our house. But I love my new stainless steel sink and faucet. The ones that came with our house were very cheap, basic white ones that we haven't liked since day 1.
• So for those of you keeping count we've had to completely replace our a/c unit, dryer, kitchen faucet and repair our dishwasher, stove, and refrigerator, all within the past year. The only appliance left standing with all its original parts is the microwave. Please don't quit on me now baby. That's where all the real cooking in this house takes place.
• Garrett is now a commercial afficionado. He told me the other day that I need "Bump-It hair". How awesome that even my 4 year old recognizes my lack of hair volume. (If you have no idea what a Bump-It is, just google it. Southern women like big hair and that's supposed to help you out.)
• I'm feeling weird because I'm actually looking forward to my new eating and exercising lifestyle. My plan is to start this on January 4, so I'm thinking I will try to do a weekly progress report. That will help me to feel as if I have someone keeping tabs on my success/failure so I will maybe feel motivated to keep it up. I WON'T be posting my weight, but I will share losses or gains weekly. So we'll see how it goes. 5 pounds a month is my goal.
• I hope all my wonderful friends and family have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. If you have snow in your area, enjoy yourself! We don't see much of it down here.

I promise this post isn't all about my kids. This time anyway...

The boys were Woody and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story for Halloween this year.

So I apparently took a break from blogging without even realizing it. I can't believe it's been over 2 weeks since I've posted anything. 2 kids definitely keep you busier than 1. You would think they would also afford me with plenty of things to blog about, and they do, but my mental capacity is all but obliterated, so even when I think "I should totally blog about this." I forget about it approximately 10 minutes later. So here are a few things from off the top of my head.

• Cooper's 4 month check up was yesterday. Everything went well! He weighs 16 1/2 pounds and is 26 1/2 inches long. I looked back in Garrett's baby book and Cooper outweighs him by 1 1/2 pounds at this age, but they're the exact same length. Cooper may be our Linebacker and Garrett our b'ball Center. haha Keith and I have no aspirations for them to play sports, but if they want to, then they can.
• On that note, Garrett and I went to our church's fall festival on Saturday night. We worked a booth for the first part and then made our way around to the rest of the booths after our shift was over. One of the booths was a basketball throw. It was exactly like one you would find at an arcade. The kids got 3 chances to make a basket (and got candy either way, so that part didn't really matter.) The boy in front of Garrett was at least in 2nd or 3rd grade, maybe older. He missed all 3 shots, no big deal, it's a tough shot to make. Garrett steps up and totally misses the first 2 shots, then makes the 3rd. I was really surprised! I think the guys manning the booth were too. There were high-5's all around. And Garrett couldn't have been prouder. He's very competitive right now, so I wasn't sure how he would react to missing all 3 shots. Thankfully we didn't have to find that out.
• Back to Cooper's doctor visit, (because I love to switch topics at the drop of a hat) everything was really good. The doctor said Cooper is the picture of health, advanced with his physical abilities, and very ready for more baby food. haha So he's now eating cereal in the mornings and a veggie in the evening. Sometimes he only wants 4 or 5 bites, which is perfectly fine with me. But he loves trying it out and he always has to stick out his tongue and barely taste what's on the spoon before he will open his mouth to take the first bite. Just to be sure I'm not trying to trick him I guess.
• Garrett has become a marketer's dream. He loves quoting commercials to us. Just this morning when we were at Walmart, he kept saying "Look better. Walmart" That's their new slogan and he loves repeating it. While I was writing this, I forgot the slogan (see? My mental abilities are shot...) so I said "Garrett, it's Walmart what?" That's all I said and he said "Look better. Walmart." Then he pointed out a light bulb that's burnt out in the kitchen and said "We need to go back to Walmart and buy a new one." He also recognizes the Target logo even though we rarely go to Target. He said they have the good toys. And I shared this on Facebook awhile back but I'll reshare here too. Recently I handed him the Toys R Us catalog and told him to pick out what he wanted. This is the first year where I've really thought he would understand what I was asking and really pick out things he wants. Well of course he wants everything! Minus the girl toys. Which I found funny because we've never said "No you can't have that, it's a girl toy." In fact, he's accidentally been given the "girl toy" in his McDonald's happy meal and he loved it (My Little Pony). But he does not want any girl toys for Christmas. He does, however, want Cooper to own all baby-related toys in the catalog too. When I pointed out a few of the baby toys that he had circled and asked about them he said "They're not for me, they're for Cooper." Good looking out for the baby brother.
• This Saturday will be Cooper's first time to be kept by someone other than me or Keith since he was 2 weeks old and my parents kept the boys so we could go out one evening. Keith's parents are coming up to spend the day with them while we go Christmas shopping and hopefully squeeze in dinner and a movie. Maybe Cooper will be cooperative for them.
• I know some of you are thinking "Christmas shopping? Already?!" And that would be a big yes. Once I got to looking at the calendar I realized that it's either this Saturday or the Saturday before Christmas. All the Saturdays in between are full with a variety of other activities. And we are homebodies so you have to know that these are for real activities that we have to be involved in or else we'd totally skip them and sit at home in our pj's. And yes, I am a stay at home mom so as everyone thinks "I have plenty of time to go Christmas shopping during the week!" hahahaha Not really. I cannot even look at something I'm considering for Garrett if he's around. The kid is sharp and has called me out on that a few times already. And while it sounds like I could just go shopping with Cooper while Garrett is at school, those of you who actually think that, have never had a 4 month old baby. I could shop for maybe an hour and then the meltdowns would start. From both of us.
• I don't think I will be able to listen to Steven Curtis Chapman's new CD anytime soon. In case you weren't aware, his new CD is almost completely full of songs he's written since the death of his young daughter. I can't begin to imagine how sad I will be just listening to the songs. Even if the songs themselves aren't sad. I love SCC and have always appreciated his music. I'll bet 50% of the married people reading this blog had his song "I Will Be Here" played and/or sung at your wedding. It was played at mine, sung at my sister's. I even sang it at a friend's wedding. Of course he has many, many other great songs. I love that he has consciously made the decision to keep living his life and share with the world the emotions he's dealt with since Maria died. I think it would be way too easy, in that situation, to just curl up into a ball and cry all day. That would be my first instinct anyway.
• We recently watched "Yes Man" and I have many ideas floating in my head that I want to jot down about that movie. I'm not going to attempt to do that now, but I will say that I think this was one of Jim Carrey's first movies to actually have a point that made sense and even made me take a hard look at myself. Now, I'm not going to outright tell you to go out and rent this movie. It is, after all, Jim Carrey. So that means there's most definitely inappropriate language and at least one downright crude scene. So, should you decide to check this movie out, you've been warned. I hate that too because the message of the movie really was a good one, in my opinion.
• We also recently watched "The Proposal" and it was really cute! I love Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds is always funny. There's something about his line delivery that I love. I think he's probably a pretty sarcastic person in real life. And I heart sarcasm. Big Time.

And I think that's all my current mental abilities are capable of. You're welcome for this wonderful post of mediocrity. Now you have a snapshot of what goes on inside my brain.

I'm emerging from the depths of laundry, diapers, and spit-up to bring you this mediocre post. Enjoy!

I know.  It's been awhile.  I do apologize.  I'm not sure what exactly has been keeping me too busy to blog.  Hmm, maybe it's the almost 8 week old baby, or the almost 4 year old boy, or the housework that never ends, or the job I just went back to last week (on a part/part-time basis haha, was working 10 hrs a week, cut it back to 5 for the next few weeks), or the husband who, for some crazy reason, wants a part of my time for conversation and the like.  Not to mention that I am completely addicted to FarmTown.  If you've never played it before, seriously, it's so addicting.  So you might not want to get involved if you don't want to wake up in the night and wonder if your field of tomatoes is going bad.

I do apologize for yet another random post, but the lack of sleep is really starting to get to my brain function.  That and who knows how much time I actually have to write this.  It's easier to come back and finish a random blog post than to try and pick back up mid paragraph a few hours later.  My multiple, unpublished blog posts can attest to this.

I can't believe that in 21 days, Garrett will turn 4!  He really is looking and acting older all the time.  It's hard to believe he used to be that baby who would hold his breath and pass out.  Fun times!  He comes up with the funniest things sometimes.  I just can't believe how much he catches and picks up on throughout the day.  Here's just the latest thing he's done that I've found funny.  He has invented a game that he can play with Cooper.  (Can you tell he's dying for his brother to be old enough to actually play with him?)  The game goes like this:  Cooper spits out his pacifier, Momma asks Garrett to give Cooper his pacifier (if I'm unavailable to do so.  I wouldn't dream of making my child do something that I'm more than capable of doing myself...), Garrett gives Cooper his paci, Cooper spits it out again, Garrett gives it to him again, Cooper spits it out again, Garrett gives it to him again and holds it in his mouth.  He laughs and says "We're playing the paci game!"  I don't think Cooper likes the last step of the game.

In 11 days, Cooper will be 2 months old.  I can't believe this, mainly due to the fact that it feels like a much longer time of no sleep.  The temper is becoming more and more apparent.  Earlier today, he was ready for his bottle, but it was taking me a minute to get everything situated before I could sit down and feed him.  When I did pick him up to feed him (maybe 5 minutes after I had initially put him down), he wouldn't take the bottle without crying a little more just to let me know how unpleased he was with my tardiness.  The positive to him getting bigger is his ability to participate in some additional baby equipment.  I put him in the exersaucer today for the first time.  Of course he had to be propped with pillows, but he sat there for 10 minutes or so and just looked around.  

And that's the end of my free time.  Cooper has had enough with the swing and the paci game, so I guess it's Momma to the rescue.  I apologize for my lack of posting and the fact that this does not include a picture.  I'll attempt to make up for this in my next blog entry.  Maybe.

My Favorite: The List Format

• After a year or more of searching, we have finally bought a wooden swing set for our backyard. I had no clue when we first started looking for one that it would be a long, drawn out process. These swing sets are not cheap, which meant that we really wanted to find a used one in Craigslist. However, they are super popular in our area (maybe everywhere?) so as soon as a decent one was posted and also didn't cost a fortune, they were snatched up before I could even contact the seller. We got to where we actually walked up to a house in our friends' neighborhood and asked them if they were interested in selling the swingset in their backyard. (Our friends told us this house didn't have kids and had recently moved in, so we were in hopes they would want to sell it. They took our number down and never contacted us. They've since moved out and that swing set still sits there.) Finally, I had enough of the searching process. Garrett really needs something to play on right now when I don't want to haul Cooper to the park or somewhere else for Garrett to run off some energy. So I posted on our local Craigslist that we were looking for a wooden swing set. A couple of days later, a lady emailed me a picture of one she had for sale. We looked at it on Monday night, liked it, and paid her for it. Keith will be going to pick it up first thing on Saturday morning. I know Garrett is going to have so much fun playing on it once it's all set up.
• I am officially addicted to cheddar Chex Mix. Why didn't I discover this while I was pregnant?! My dad brought a bag with him when he came to visit and I probably ate half of it by myself. It is so good! Yesterday, Keith, Garrett, and I all polished off an entire bag. And I will confess that I did the majority of the polishing. Of course, that was my lunch because I never had the chance to sit down and eat anything. But still, I need to step away from it before this turns ugly.
• I took my first official trip out of the house with both boys by myself. I don't count trips to the doctor's office. This was the big one. Walmart. How crazy was I to dread taking just Garrett to Walmart in the past? Now I've got a baby in addition to Garrett and I'll just confess that taking a baby out in public is more stressful than a preschooler. Yes, Garrett could throw a fit (though he seems to have outgrown this for the most part). But with a fit-throwing child, you can take them to the bathroom and spank them and get on with your shopping. When a baby has a melt down, there's really nothing to do unless you just pick them up and walk out of the store. I know this is what the "experts" recommend that you do. But I'll be darned if I get halfway through my grocery shopping only to leave a cart full of things and go home. Of course if Cooper is having an epic meltdown, then I don't have a choice. Thankfully yesterday's trip went pretty smoothly. I had my carrier with me in case he got tired of sitting in his carseat, I could put him in the carrer on my chest and keep shopping, but it never came to that. Towards the end of the trip, I could tell he was "working" on something and by the time I was paying for the groceries, he was done and ready for his diaper to be changed. He cries loudest when he's hungry, dirty, or in the process of being changed (namely his clothes, but he's not a fan of the diaper change either.) Surprisingly, the cashier didn't even notice I had a baby with me until he started crying. I'm not sure what she thought was in the carseat sitting in the cart or who the cans of formula were for... So I changed yet another dirty diaper in the car. This is my second or third in the past week. Apparently he needs a change of scenery to get things moving.
• Garrett started sleeping through the night at 8 weeks old (just a few days before I had to go back to work, God bless that boy!) So we are halfway to that point with Cooper. For the most part, I'm doing things the same way this time, so I hope the end result will be another baby sleeping through the night at 8 weeks. I'm also ready for him to be awake more during the day. It seems like we only get 20-30 minutes at a time where he's awake and relatively happy. I'm finally starting to see his sweet smile and want to see it more often. But if being awake means more crying, then we can hold off on that for now.

Update

•My trip to the doctor for my leg ended with her telling me it was infected.  Normally she would have lanced it, but she didn't think that was the best route since I'm a couple of weeks away from my due date and it's on my inner thigh.  She also figured that it would go away on its own, but, again, with the location, she knew I wanted it cleared up as soon as possible in case of an early delivery, so I'm on day 2 of 10 days worth of antibiotics.  Yes, they're pregnancy-safe.  And on a side-note, should you ever encounter a pregnant woman who is taking antibiotics for whatever reason (so long as they've been prescribed by her doctor of course) please don't immediately ask her if they're safe for pregnancy and whether or not that's the best route to go at this late in the game.  At some point we have to trust our doctors to know what's best for us and I really don't want to hear someone speculating that the fact that I'm taking antibiotics for an infection in my leg may not be safe for my unborn baby.  I'm doing my best to make the right decisions for both of us.  And it only irritates me beyond belief to have someone questioning those decisions.

•My baby shower luncheon on Sunday was lots of fun.  Keith and I have been members of the same Sunday school class since we first joined our church about 6 years ago.  For the past 2 years, I've been teaching Sunday school in our preteen department, but Keith has stayed in our class and I'll be rejoining him after Cooper's born.  The women in the class all went out to lunch on Sunday (On the Border!) and showered me with gifts and a fun, girls-only meal.  I got LOTS of diapers and cute outfits.  When I got home and showed Keith all the diapers we were given, he couldn't believe it.  

•Cooper's room is basically finished.  We still haven't painted the letters spelling his name and hung them on the wall, but that's all that's left.  I may go ahead and take pictures soon and get them posted before I'm too busy to do so.  Along with the room becoming a mess once he's here and actually living in there.  

•Monday is my next doctor's appointment and I'm excited to find out if I'm making any progress.  I've definitely been having contractions this week.  Yesterday I had 2 painful ones back to back.  Of course I was outside with Garrett, walking around the house, so I had to just stop and stand on the sidewalk until they went away.  We came inside pretty quickly after that.

•I got a letter in the mail this week saying that both my family doctor and Garrett's pediatrician are leaving their current practice.  To say I was upset was an understatement.  I've been seeing my family doctor for at least 5 years now and Garrett has seen the same pediatrician since he was born.  Of course I'm due in 2 weeks and will be needing a pediatrician soon after, so that letter sent me scrambling.  First thing I did was to post on Facebook, asking for pediatrician recommendations, which I got a couple, so that was nice.  Then I called our pediatrician's office to see if he was going to be staying in the area.  Of course the letter doesn't say where he's going, just that one of the other pedi's in the current practice would be happy to take care of us.  I don't want to see one of the other pedi's.  If we can't see our current one, then I'm going to switch to someone close by.  Anyway, it turns out that both my family doctor and the pediatrician are starting a pediatric clinic in a town not much further than where they're currently located.  The upside is that we won't have to switch pedi's.  The downside is that my family doctor is switching to pediatrics (I was specifically told her age limit was 25.  So basically "Buzz off old lady.") so I will have to find a new doctor for myself, but I would prefer that to a new pediatrician at the moment.  But I'm keeping the other ones that were recommended in the back of my mind in case this other office is further than I really want to drive.  Especially since you practically live in the pediatrician's office for the first year of baby's life.

•It's hard to believe that our days as a family of 3 are drawing to a close.  I'm excited about having the baby, but a little apprehensive about how it will change what we currently have going on.  I'm elated to be able to get up off the couch without a lot of grunting and straining however.  

My All-Time Favorite Blog Format: The List

• I decided on going the Bath & Body Works route for my shower hostess gifts.  It was too hard trying to come up with something specific for each lady and I don't even know the women Keith works with.  So I picked them all up a gift package from B&BW on Thursday.  I also bought Garrett's teacher a gift for putting up with him all year.  She'll probably have him next year too, so I want her year to end on the best possible note.
• Cooper's room is almost finished!  I only have one more wall to hang things on and the items to be hung either need to be painted or are still in a container in the attic.  I also have a trash bag in there full of things that need to be hauled to Goodwill.  Then I want to buy a cushion for a straight-back chair that I have in the corner of the room and I'm trying to find a small area rug to cover up some spots on the carpet that Garrett lovingly contributed to the room during his 3 year stay.  Once all that is finished, I just need to put the sheet on the crib and tie the bumper pad around the edge.  I promise I'll take pictures when everything is complete.
• For the past several months, Keith and I have been increasingly frustrated with our cell phones.  They're going on 2 years old and the batteries are shot.  We could only talk for maybe 10 minutes at a time before we needed to charge them again.  So today we headed to the AT&T store to check out new phones.  It's always fun to get a new cell phone and I'm really enjoying mine so far.  Keith said he was afraid I would go into labor and not be able to reach him because his phone battery was dead.  So hopefully that won't happen now.  
• I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that as of today, I only have 30 days until my due date.  So in 30 days or less I will be the mom to not one, but two boys.  I do consider myself as already having 2 kids, but it's pretty easy to take care of them when one is inside my belly.  Garrett asked me the other day how Cooper gets a drink in there.  The easiest way for me to explain that was just to say that anything I drink, Cooper gets to drink.  It's hard to explain concepts like that to a 3 year old.  I'm really hoping I don't get the question "How did Cooper get out of your belly?" once he's born.  

Randomness

Thanks for the comments on the glucose test post.  I will admit that I was initially feeling very apprehensive about my retest on Tuesday.  I kind of felt like I did in school when I failed a test and had to retake it.  Like I wasn't quite up to par.  (Not that I failed many tests...)  But thanks to Beth and Alicia, I feel a little more prepared for what might be in store if I was to fail the test, and Mary and everyone else who has reminded me to enjoy the 3 hours of mostly sedentary time.  I bought a new book today that I'm withholding from myself until Tuesday morning.  So that will help to pass the time pretty quickly.  I went with "Confessions of a Shopaholic".  Certainly not the "Lost" of the book realm, but I think waiting in the doctor's office requires more of a mindless reading material.  Plus the movie looks cute, so I may as well read the book before I see it.  So I can be disappointed like I always am once I see the movie after reading the book.

On to our weekend, Garrett is now officially in his new bedroom.  We haven't hung anything on the walls yet, but everything is in his new room, the painting is finished, new curtains are hung, etc.  His first night in his room was NOT good.  I really hope he'll adjust quickly.  We've taken off the bedrail on his bed because he never really seemed to sleep up next to it, so I don't think he needs it.  And that didn't seem to be his problem last night.  He was just very restless and crying out in his sleep a lot.  Then at 3am he came to our room.  I know I need to put an end to that before it becomes a habit for him, but I didn't last night.  I will soon, though.  But last night, when he came in our room I asked him what he was doing and he said "Nuffing", as he climbed into our bed with his blanket.  I'm not sure why he thought that was "nuffing".  Hopefully tonight will be much better.  Would it be terribly mean of me to lock our bedroom door after we go to bed?  Yeah, I figured you would think so.  As soon as we get everything hung on the walls like we want, then I'll post pictures of the room makeover.  

Once I get this test out of the way, we'll be looking forward to visiting with several members of my family this week.  First, my aunt, uncle, cousin, her kids, my grandparents, and another uncle are all coming over to my house for a visit on Friday.  My cousin will be going back to Massachusetts next week after spending over a month in Texas visiting her family.  She's never been to my house before, so they're all coming over to spend the day and eat lunch with us.  Then on Friday night, my youngest sister and brother, Christie and Jesse, will be coming to my house from Indiana.  They'll be on their way to a wedding in south Texas, so they're stopping by our house for some free food and lodging.  Then I'm using them as free postal service to send birthday gifts back to my parents and my nephew who all have birthdays coming up as well as a gift for my yet-to-be-born nephew who will be joining us in less than a month.  

So we're looking forward to seeing everyone on Friday.  Garrett thinks his cousin Jake is coming because we bought his birthday present the other day.  He asked if we could make him a cake and sing happy birthday.  Well, even though Jake isn't coming, assuming my test comes back with good results, maybe we can make that cake and celebrate on our own. 

Randomness

~I think I'm getting a cold.  Nothing bad, but enough to make my head feel stuffy and cause me to sneeze a lot.

~In reference to tonight's episode of "Lost", Ben is much more evil than I realized.  I knew he was evil, I just didn't realize to the extent that it goes.

~Today was a pretty warm day and I did not enjoy it.  It was almost too warm in the house and I cannot tolerate being warm in the slightest when I'm pregnant.  I'm really dreading the next 3 months or so.  I spent Garrett's naptime laying on my bed under the ceiling fan.  I have a feeling I'll be spending a lot more time in that position.

~I broke down and bought a second pair of maternity jeans.  I was really hoping to make it through this pregnancy with one pair, but that's impossible to do when you're a stay at home mom.  Jeans are part of my uniform.  I'm not the type of person that can go out of the house wearing sweatpants.  Thankfully I have several pairs of maternity capris and shorts so I will be wearing those soon as well.

~I think people who design maternity clothes are a little behind the fashion times.  The only pair that I found that fit comfortably through the stomach and thighs are bell bottoms.  Or they have that appearance anyway.  I bought them because pregnant women have limited options when it comes to jeans that fit your stomach comfortably.  But I don't think they're as fashion forward as they could be.  Of course, I'm not as fashion forward as I could be, so maybe they're the perfect pair for me.

~Tonight Garrett went to his room and brought out his pajamas, a pull-up, his lotion, and baby wipes.  Without being asked!  He was ready to get dressed for bed.  (The lotion is for his eczema.)  Keith looked at me and said "We picked the best age difference for our kids.  This is going to come in handy once Cooper's here."  I must say I'm very excited to have a helper in the form of my oldest son.  Now if I could just get him to take over nighttime feedings, we'll be all set.

~Garrett calls pine cones, pineapples.  I find that to be funny.  He would have a collection of them at home if I would let him.  I manage to sneak them into the trash can when he's not looking so he only has one floating around the house at a time.  

~Please pray for my Grandma and her family.  Her younger brother died this week.  He recently found out he had leukemia and went downhill pretty quickly.  It's been hard on my Grandma.  He's the first of her siblings to pass away and I'm sure the fact that he's younger than her makes it harder to comprehend.  Thankfully she and my Grandpa were able to fly out to California and see him before he died, and they were able to attend the funeral as well.

25 Random Things

On Facebook, everyone is doing these "25 Random Things About Me" notes. I'm nothing, if not a good follower, so I jumped on the bandwagon and here it is.

1. I'm a PK (preacher's kid), but not the typical PK. I'm neither a wild hellion, nor a goody two shoes. Just a normal person. Or as normal as I can be, anyway.

2. I've lived in 3 different states: Indiana for 9 years, Illinois for 8 years, and Texas for 13 years. Even though I was born in Texas and lived there the longest, I consider myself a midwesterner.

3. I'm super clumsy, though it seems to be getting better the older I get. I have lots of stories of various times that I've fallen or spilled something.

4. I'm the oldest of 5 kids, I have 2 younger sisters and 2 younger brothers. I'm 10.5 years older than my youngest brother. He was only 10 when I moved out and went to college. I'm sorry, Jesse!

5. I completely paid my own way through college, part of the time I worked a full time job and took night classes, but I always had atleast a part time job. Of course I also accrued a good amount of student loan debt too, but it's paid off now.

6. I taught school for 4 years. I did half days teaching the Gifted/Talented program and the other half of the day doing ESL pull out classes.

7. Keith and I met through another friend and started dating a couple of months later. We dated for 4 and a half years, while I was finishing college. I had just turned 19 when we started dating. I was 23 when we got married. We married 2 weeks after I graduated from college.

8. After dating him for that long and then being married for almost 7 years, I've learned a lot about Accounting, guns, and vehicle maintenance, all areas that he knows lots about.

9. I've even changed the oil in my car all by myself, when I was in college.

10. He gave me a stainless steel revolver for Valentine's Day when we were engaged. You can't say that romance is dead after that one. :)

11. 6 weeks before we got married, Keith's truck was stolen. They never found it.

12. We went to Jacksonville, Florida for our honeymoon. We drove the entire way. You certainly get to know someone really well when you spend that amount of time in the car together.

13. On our way, we stopped and spent the night in Pensacola. We wish we would have just stayed in Pensacola/Destin because they're much nicer than Jacksonville, but oh well, live and learn.

14. Exactly 7 months after we got married, we moved into our first house.

15. A year and a month after moving in, our house was hit by a tornado and it did almost $20k in damages. But thankfully it was still standing and mostly livable. We had to move into another bedroom because the master bedroom took the brunt of the hit. Our neighbors weren't so lucky.

16. Since moving out to go to college, I haven't lived close to my family. They've been anywhere from 3 hours to 14 hours away. They're currently 14 hours away.

17. I love to read and I'm always in the middle of a book. I don't have a preference to the kind of book and I have a wide variety of authors that I enjoy reading. So long as the book holds my attention. I also reread books that I love, and I do so multiple times. Keith does not understand this.

18. I turned 30 in December. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around that.

19. I know I could potentially get some flack for this, but after having used a Mac for the last 4 months, I much prefer a PC.

20. I wish I knew how to play a guitar.

21. August 29, 2005, Garrett Lucas was born. I had no clue what I was about to be dealing with at that point, but we've spent the last 3+ years learning. I love him to pieces. He's a smart, sassy kid who keeps me on my toes all day long. Thank heavens for the Mother's Day Out program at our church. We both get a break from each other a couple of times a week.

22. When Garrett was 9 months old, I quit my teaching job to be a stay at home mom. I don't know how full time working moms do it! You're awesome!

23. I work very part time for our church, doing the bulletin, the website, and a few other things like that.

24. I'm currently pregnant with baby boy #2, Cooper.

25. We are done having kids after Cooper is born. I don't think I can handle more than 2 kids.

Random '09

~I have to brag briefly. Yesterday morning, Keith and Garrett were reading "Rudolph" and Keith was trying to get Garrett to tell him the letters in the word Rudolph. Garrett looked at him and said "It says Rudolph." Keith said "I know what it says, I just want you to tell me the letters!" Then today we were on our way home after running errands and we passed a Walmart semi truck. Garrett said "That says Walmart."

~Keith bought a GPS system and it came in on Wednesday. He seriously loves that thing already. Initially he wanted to send it back because there's a small flaw in the screen and the back of it is missing a cover over one of the screws. (Keith is very particular about things like that.) But now I think he's fallen in love with it so hard that he's going to have a hard time sending it back and waiting for another one. He asked me last night what I would do if this were my GPS. Then he retracted and said "Well, it is your GPS, but... well, you know what I mean." LOL So I said if it was completely mine, I would just keep it because it works fine and those little flaws don't bother me, nor would I have probably even noticed them in the first place. But I can understand why he's aggravated, so I don't care either way. Send it back and he's fully justified in doing so, or keep it because the flaws don't affect how it works. We'll see what he ultimately decides. He has it at work today...even though he rode with his boss because they had to go to Fort Worth and his boss has his own GPS. I'm telling you it's true love. Had I known which one he would have wanted, I would have bought him one for Christmas and I could have gotten all the credit for an awesome gift. It's too late now.

~Yesterday we had Christmas with Keith's family. We had a good time and Garrett got several gifts. He is currently playing with the playdough factory which he absolutely loves. He's been playing with it off and on for the past 3 hours. It's not like he's never played with playdough before, but this particular tool that came in the factory is new to him and he apparently loves it (almost as much as his dad loves the GPS.) Keith and his dad both bought each other guns for Christmas, not surprisingly. Keith bought his dad some sort of rifle with a scope on it and his dad bought him a .45 stainless steel revolver with a holster and 8 boxes of ammo. Garrett was thoroughly intrigued with both guns. He loved the scope on the rifle, but was so funny when he was trying to look through it. I don't think Garrett has any choice but to be a huge gun enthusiast, he's surrounded by it.

~I've slowly started taking down our Christmas decorations. Right now everything I've taken down is on the dining room table. Last year when we took down all the decorations, they never made it out of the garage into the attic where they belong, but Keith is determined to put them in the attic this year to clean up our garage some. So I'm going to wait to box them up until he's ready to immediately take them to the attic. It will be nice to get our house back to normal.

~I have baby appointment #3 on Monday. We should get to hear the heartbeat which will be really fun. I'm also hoping he'll let me know when we'll be doing the ultrasound to find out what we're having. Garrett is on a baby sister kick right now. He punched me in the stomach earlier today for saying that I thought we were having a baby brother. That didn't go over too well with me. But I really don't think he's going to care one way or the other. Yesterday he was around his 8 week old cousin, Michael. He stared him down for awhile at one point, but he mostly just ignored him. He didn't even care when I held him for about 15 or 20 minutes, so I thought that was a good sign. Of course Michael slept the majority of the time so Garrett never really got a chance to hear him all out crying and, in turn, potentially get annoyed or worried about him. I've felt the baby move very sporadically. It's mostly been small tapping in my lower left abdomen. But it's not even a daily occurance right now. I know in the next month it will become more frequent and more noticeable, so I'm trying to enjoy the minimal movement right now. The first time I felt Garrett move I was 16 weeks pregnant and it seriously felt like he did an entire body flip all of the sudden in my abdomen. I'm sure I had been feeling smaller movements before that, but that was the first one that registered with me.

~Once all the Christmas decor is put away, I will seriously begin tackling the guest room which is a current disaster area. I want to completely clean it out and then paint. At that point I'll start slowly moving Garrett's things in there, making a very valiant attempt at getting things organized from the start. Then we'll set the crib up in Garrett's current room and I'll start moving down our baby equipment from the attic. I told Keith once this stuff comes down, it's not going back up. The only thing that would go back up would be if we have a boy, then I'll be boxing up Garrett's clothes as he outgrows them and moving them temporarily to the attic. We only plan on keeping the pack n play and the highchair. Everything else will be given away when we're done with it. The crib turns into a headboard and footboard for the full sized bed we have, so it will continue to be used. I have no plans for painting the baby's room until it's older and I know its personality, likes, and dislikes. If it's a boy, he'll inherit Garrett's nursery decorations and will have a John Deere tractor/barn yard theme. If it's a girl, I have some pictures that I'll hang in there and will just have to buy some bedding that will match. In a way, all of this is overwhelming, but I know that we have about 6 months till the baby gets here, so that helps. Though I do want Garrett moved into his new room atleast a couple of months before the baby is born. I think that would be easier on him.

I think this is about as random as it gets. I should get off here now and put away some laundry. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's day!

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.

Update

Apparently I'm unable to write a steady blog this summer. It's not as if I'm overwhelmingly busy or anything, I guess I just don't have much inspiration right now. I figured since it's been 20 days since I last posted I would give you all a random update which is obviously all I'm able to do lately if you read through my last few posts.

Today is Keith's birthday so we've had a fun weekend. Yesterday his parents came over and watched Garrett so that we could go out and celebrate. You know "celebrating" might mean more to some than others. But to a married couple with a (soon-to-be) 3 year old, it simply means to spend time away from your child(ren). You can't get much more celebratory than the lack of whining at dinner coupled with nobody screaming "I lost my shoe!" in the car. And celebrate we did.

Let's see... First we went to the movies (the number 1 place where we simply cannot go with our child unless we're seeing something with talking animals or living inanimate objects). We saw "The Dark Knight" which was really good. It lives up to its name and is definitely a "dark" movie as far as superhero movies go, but it's not depressingly so. After the movie we really lived it up and made a stop at Toys R Us. Garrett's birthday party is next weekend and we had yet to buy him anything and we needed to get some presents so he didn't try to emancipate himself from us. Dinner was next on the agenda so of course we hit up our favorite restaurant, I'm sure you can all repeat after me by now, Texas Roadhouse. It was yummy, as always. We then rounded out this kick-butt night by heading to the place where all couples go on their dates-Walmart. Yes, we're lame, please don't feel the need to point that out to me. I can assure you that we did not buy any groceries, so you can all breathe a sigh of relief. However we did buy baby wipes, along with vitamins, a magazine, a t-shirt for Garrett, and picked up a prescription. We were living large, let me tell you.

Today for the actual event we met up with some friends for lunch at the Spaghetti Warehouse. They have a 3 and a half year old son so we commisserate with each other while our boys yell and drop food and attempt to empty the salt shakers. After lunch the birthday boys (the husband of our couple friend had a birthday 3 days ago) got to spend some kid-free time by checking out some gun shops (their choice, not ours, the women would have went to Target if given the choice). We contemplated what to do but decided that the best choice was to take our 2 maniacs to her house so they could destroy the other kid's room while she and I visited in relative peace. The boys actually played well together and I enjoyed the company of my friend. I believe Keith has had a good birthday (minus my cake fiasco this morning. Let's just say that the recipe that I used does not allow for a cake to be baked in 2 small, round pans and now, 12 hours later, my house still smells like slightly burnt cake, yum.)

So we move from celebrating Keith's birthday to celebrating Garrett's next weekend. We're partying a month early because my family will all be in town. I'm so excited to have them here for Garrett's birthday. It's the first party for him that they've been able to make it so I'm really happy that this is working out. This will actually be Garrett's first time to be around both sets of grandparents at the same time so it should be interesting. I've got the cake ordered, the party supplies waiting in the closet, and the gifts hidden. (Well, hidden better than they were earlier today. Garrett found them, drug them out and asked "Are these Garrett's?" I told him yes, but they were for his birthday so he had to wait to get them. Keith told him later that they were actually for his friend. I'm sure he's really confused, hopefully he'll forget he ever saw them until they're unwrapped on Friday. They've since been rehidden and I now have to rethink my usual hiding spot for gifts.)

The gifts were a debate this year. The past 2 birthdays I've just gone out and bought toys or clothes that Garrett needed. Obviously I know that no toys are actually "needed" but what boy should live his life without a mini basketball goal? I would classify that as a need. :) This year Keith wanted some input into the gifts and I know that his input will become more and more the older Garrett gets, which is completely fine with me. At first we planned to buy him one of those nice, wooden swingsets that will last for years and won't tip over when more than one child is swinging. Unfortunately when you buy one brand new you're basically buying a used car as far as the prices are concerned, so a brand new one is temporarily out of the question (we've since found a couple different options but none that would be here by Friday so we'll see...). We then went on to look at used ones for sale and some people think their swingsets are made from 24k gold apparently. I'm not paying $600 for a rotten piece of wood that probably wouldn't survive being moved 2 feet much less 50 miles. So we gave up that dream. We then thought about buying him one of those electric cars. But after looking at Toys R Us' inventory, that's not happening either. How do some of these families own those kinds of toys and not only do they own them, but they leave them to sit outside in the weather. You can't buy one for less than $300 and that just seems like an awful lot of money for a toy that my child will outgrow in a couple of years. But Daddy is still considering one for Christmas so we may end up with one despite my objections. I threw around the idea of buying him an easel because he really likes to color, but I couldn't find one so we settled on buying him a train set and a Spiderman action figure. I think he will really like those.

All right that's pretty much it, I guess. I should have a better way to wrap this thing up but I'm tired. Garrett hasn't been sleeping well the past couple of nights because we both have colds and his always result in a bad cough. Saturday morning he was up at 5 am hacking up a lung which lead to him staying up for the rest of the day. Which meant that I was up for the rest of the day. I do NOT miss the newborn stage, that's for sure.

Aimlessness

So it's been awhile since I've blogged and I figured I would do a random update of things going on here.

*Potty training is going pretty well. The accidents have been minimal, not even one a day. Though I'm still hesitant to go out of the house without a pull-up on (Garrett, not me), the rest of the time he's in underwear. The best part of it is that Garrett actually wants to go to the bathroom "all by myself!". Which means that he gets himself on and off the toilet and the only thing I have to do for him is wipe when necessary. That's so nice for me because sometimes he's going to the bathroom every 30 minutes. I can't always get right there to help him so it's nice to know that he isn't going to have an accident if I can't get into the bathroom with him.

*Our summer is going nicely. Garrett hasn't driven me insane yet, so that's a plus. We've gone to 2 movies so far. "Shrek the Third" (which was free at a local theater) and "Wall-E". I'm not a big Shrek fan, but Wall-E was cute.

*Garrett turns 3 next month, which is really hard to believe. We're doing his party a few weeks early because my parents will be in town for my cousin's wedding. It's going to be a "Toy Story" theme (the party, not the wedding.) Garrett is actually the ring bearer for the wedding so that should be interesting. He'll either shock me by totally cooperating and being the model child or he'll walk down the aisle with a few minor complications and then go wild once he gets down front at which point I will be waiting in the wings to grab him before my cousin breaks down in tears. I'm betting that the latter will probably be the scenerio that I'm dealing with. It should be fun!

*At the end of this month Keith will celebrate his birthday. He will be 32, which is just crazy. When we met he was only 22. I can't believe it's been that long! Maybe I'll do a "Toy Story" theme for his party too. I'm sure he would love that!

*Last night we watched the movie "Jumper". It's a pretty new release on DVD (we actually rented the Blue-ray version, but I don't want to rub it in). I liked the premise of the movie, but I felt like they could have taken the story line in a much different direction and it would have been a better movie and the ending was very abrupt. I really want to see the movie "Hancock". If anybody here has seen it, is it worth it to arrange a sitter so we can catch it in the theater or should we wait until it comes out on DVD?

*I just have to end this with praise being heaped upon the inventor of the iPod. Yes, I've had an iPod for a couple of years now, but I have found myself using it more and more. Initially I only had about 100 songs on it, but now I have over 1,000. Plus I have a few cartoons downloaded on it for Garrett when we're out in public and I don't want to hear another scream. So, my hat is off to you Apple people. You really know how to keep a mom sane and happy.

Livin' La Vida Loca

The past 3 weeks we have been crazy busy.

First a road trip to Indiana where we watched my youngest brother graduate from high school. While we were there, Keith and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. Well, I use the word "celebrate" loosely. We said "Happy Anniversary" to each other and it was acknowledged by my family (including my dad while preaching that Sunday morning) and that was the extent of our celebration on the actual day. At some point we'll get around to atleast going out to dinner and a movie in celebration of surviving 6 years of marriage to each other.

Second we survived driving 14 hours all in one day on our way home from Indiana. (Going up there we broke it up into 2 days.) Surprisingly, Garrett was excellent during that long day in the car. Not one single tantrum was thrown. To say I was shocked by this good behavior would be an understatement.

Once we got home I started in with cleaning my house thoroughly. Because...

Third, my mom, my sister Grace, and my niece and nephew all came to my house a week after we got home from visiting them. No, it wasn't because they were just desperate to see us again, but my mom had a family reunion in Hurst, Texas the following weekend so they came down a few days early to hang out at my house. We spent several days stuffing our faces with food that they don't have up in Indiana. Yummy Double Dave's pizza (mostly their dessert pizza, I wish you could order one of those to go) and Mexican food from Posado's. Our all-time favorite Mexican food restaurant is Mercado's in Tyler, Texas. Tyler is just too far to drive with 3 kids under the age of 6 just for some good eatin'. So we settled for second best. We did some outlet mall shopping and some Target shopping as well. Then we headed over to Hurst for the big family reunion. My mom is the middle child of 5 kids. Her family is really big. There's 5 kids, 4 in-laws, 16 grandkids, 9 grandkid-in-laws, and 7 great grandkids. Her siblings and her parents haven't all been together in about 8 years so we were past due for a reunion.

My cousin Andrea and I did all the planning for the reunion so that also kept me busy leading up to our Indiana trip. Reunions are more work than I realized. But it was totally worth it. Some of the work, I brought on myself because I decided we needed a family cookbook with a compilation of all our favorite recipes. It turned out great and we have approximately 60 pages of family recipes shared amongst everyone. I also put together a video slide show as a surprise for my grandparents. I think they really liked it. The reunion went well. We had a great number of the family come and we enjoyed getting to spend time visiting with each other. My brother and sister-in-law came up from Houston which was great. We hadn't seen them since last December. The family that wins the "who traveled the farthest" award would be my cousin and her family who flew in from Massachusetts. It was decided that we would have another reunion in two years. And any family member who doesn't come will be kicked out of the family. Let's hope I can make it.

Third, this isn't really anything to do with being busy, but it's a good story to share and wrap up the blog. Since Garrett is almost 3, I figured this summer needs to have more activities than the previous summers. He's not content to be at home like he used to be so I've been coming up with some cheap things that we could do that would get us out of the house and keep him entertained. One of the local theaters is showing free kid movies on Tuesday mornings so we went there today for the first showing. The movie was "Shrek the Third". I've never seen any of the Shrek movies and this one really didn't impress me, but it was a free movie and Garrett seemed to enjoy sitting in the theater next to one of his friends, chowing down on popcorn and watching the movie on a big TV (atleast that's what he called it). With about 10 minutes left in the movie (I'm totally assuming that, it seemed like it was almost over) it shut off. My friend and I figured they were having technical difficulties and decided to go ahead and gather our things and head out. Before we got to the door, two movie employees walk in and say that the electricity just went out in the theater due to a bad storm in the area. I have to say that when we got to the theater not even 2 hours earlier, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so I found that odd. But when we came out of the theater there was a really bad storm outside. It was actually raining and blowing so hard that water was coming into the lobby. There was no way anyone could go outside, in fact one of the high school guys who worked there had trouble even opening the door because the wind was blowing so hard. And he was a pretty big guy. So my friend and I decided to hang out and play some of the arcade games. I mean, let our sons play some of the arcade games. :) Ten minutes later the manager comes into the lobby and says that a tornado has touched down roughly 5 miles from the theater and we all needed to get into the hallway as a precaution. Lovely. Just where you want to be when a tornado strikes. With your 2 year old son in the middle of a theater. My friend and I called our husbands (who work together) to tell them what was going on and have them check the weather. Keith didn't see anywhere that said there was a tornado warning for our area. A few minutes later that same theater manager comes out and says they called the police department and were told that there wasn't a tornado. I would love to know who told them about the tornado in the first place since there wasn't anything about it online (the weather channel website and some local news websites) and obviously they didn't hear about it from the police. Anyway, it was still too bad outside to attempt to go to our cars so we threw more quarters into the arcade money pit before it let up. We initially were happy about the free movie, but I'm sure we spent the equivalent of a movie ticket on those games while we were passing time. Thankfully the storm let up before we were broke and we headed home. Hopefully Garrett doesn't expect that kind of excitement the next time we go to the movies.

I'm sad to say that all of our big summer plans are now over and it's not even officially summer! Of course Garrett and I will do a variety of things in order to pass the time but no more trips are planned for the next few months and no more visits with my family. In fact we won't be seeing them again until Christmas. I'm sad. But that's just life when you don't live close to your family. Hopefully these last 3 weeks haven't given Garrett high expectations for the next few months. Long trips in the car and stays in nice hotels with indoor pools just aren't on the agenda. Maybe the occasional free movie at the theater combined with running in the sprinkle will be good compensation.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

I Wish...

*I could take a 2-3 hour nap right now. My child slept terribly last night and was up for atleast a 2 hour block in the middle of the night.

*Indiana and Texas were closer so we could see my family more frequently than twice a year.

*That I could have a quick peek into the future (about 17 years from now) so that I can see if my current parenting techniques are working out or if I should just call "Super Nanny" now and get it over with.

*I had the powers of Evie from "Out of This World". It would be nice to be able to touch your fingers together and stop time occasionally.

*I could meet David Cook (the new winner of American Idol). He seems like such a nice, normal guy. I was so happy for him to win last night, he really deserved it. I just hope that the AI producers don't make him record some stupid pop album when that clearly isn't who he is.

*Texas weather didn't have to get so hot so soon. Why can't we have spring-like temperatures for a little while? 99 degrees in mid-May is not good and I am not looking forward to the scorchers that are bound to be coming our way this summer.

*We had a pool. It would help get through the 100+ degrees that we will be seeing all too soon.

*Potty training was already accomplished. We've had a few poop related incidents in the last 10 days or so and we're not even in potty training mode yet. I can only imagine what potty training has in store for us.

*We could hire someone to work in our flower beds. They look terrible. I hate pulling weeds and digging in the dirt as does Keith. Our flower beds haven't been weeded one time this year and it is completely obvious. I'm embarassed for people to see them, but not embarassed enough to get out there and pull them when it's so hot already plus my child would be in the middle of the road the second my back was turned to him.

*My child wasn't such a picky eater. He would rather me rip his teeth out of his head than to convince him to eat a bite of vegetables (or anything on his plate at dinner time).

*"Lost" didn't have to come to an end yet. I'm really enjoying this season and I don't look forward to waiting until February before the new season begins.

*There were good TV shows on nowadays. Minus a few like Lost, CSI, AI, and a few of the sitcoms that I try to keep up with, there just aren't very many good shows on. Has anyone else seen the previews for a show coming out (this summer or the fall, I'm not sure which) called "Swingtown"? That looks like pure trash. Each new television season brings with it one or two shows that push the envelope even more than it's already been pushed. I remember when "Three's Company" was considered risque, wow that show is so tame when compared to others out now.