Our Weekend

The weekend got off to a rough start because Keith worked until midnight on Friday. It looks like that is the last of his late nights for awhile, but I really don't like staying up that late anymore. I could have gone to bed, but I ended up staying up till he got home.

On Saturday morning, we went out for breakfast. I always enjoy eating breakfast out when we can. It's crazy though that Cooper now needs his own breakfast rather than just eating off of our plates. He has a pretty big appetite.

After breakfast we drove down to Keith's sister's house for a birthday party for 2 of her kids. One has an August birthday and another has a September birthday, so she just has a family party together for both of them. Since Cooper ended up not getting a nap beyond some sleeping in his carseat, he was a bear that evening. Keith and I went to bed by 9pm because we were so tired from staying up late the night before. At 11:30pm, I woke up to Cooper crying. Garrett used to do this when he would get "overtired". I always knew if he didn't get a good nap in, he was not going to sleep good the night either. Cooper apparently is keeping up this tradition. He was up for about an hour before he finally went back to sleep. I tried a few things to get him to sleep, but he kept waking up. Keith held him for awhile to try and calm him down, but ultimately he had to cry himself to sleep.

Sunday morning we both woke up feeling as if someone had ran over us with a truck. Cooper definitely got up on the wrong side of the bed and was throwing fits right and left as soon as the sun came up. We ended up missing church because we didn't want to have to hand him over to the nursery workers to have to deal with an extremely cranky kid. I hate missing church when we don't have to, but in cases like this, I feel like it's better for everyone involved if we just stay at home. I ended up putting Cooper down for a morning nap (which we've done away with for awhile now) and he slept for almost 2 hours.

I was able to get all of the laundry done and mostly put away and Keith worked on putting pulls on our hallway cabinet. Both boys get into this cabinet all the time. On the bottom shelf is all of our games and puzzles and on the top shelves is where I keep all of our craft stuff and office supply stuff. Since Garrett has access to it, he's painted his carpet along with writing all over in his room with marker. I've been wanting to make these cabinets inaccessible, but there wasn't any way to do so. They're right outside of Garrett's room so if I put up a gate, then he wouldn't be able to get into his room (plus he can get over gates if he wants to). So we put pulls on them and then I bought a child-safety latch that goes over the pulls and keeps the doors from being opened. It's so nice! Now I just need to reorganize those cabinets now that little hands can't get in them and make big messes.

That afternoon we did a little shopping. I've been needing to buy Garrett's birthday presents for awhile now, so I dropped the guys off at Sears and then went to Toys R Us. I met the guys back at Sears when I was done and Keith decided we need to get new bath towels. So we picked out 2 new ones for each bathroom (so basically a new towel for each of us). Towels are expensive! But all of our current ones are 8 years old, so I guess it's time to start buying a few new ones here and there. Then we went to another store and looked at new bedding. We've had the same comforter on our bed for years now, not to mention the same pillows. We ended up just buying new pillows because all of the comforters I liked were more money than we wanted to spend.

Last night we worked in the yard, mowing, weedeating and pulling weeds in the flower beds. Even with watering our new grass everyday, it's still dry out there and there are some areas where the grass is looking a little brown. But I'm sure that can be attributed to the 100+ degree days we've had for awhile now. Keith has upped the watering schedule, so hopefully everything will perk up soon.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow Cooper will be 14 months old and in 13 days, Garrett will be 5!

Weekend Recap

First I have to say that I'm sorry for my sporadic posts. Now that I'm working again for our church, my writing time is spent writing articles for the bulletin and other aspects of my job.

On with my weekend.

Last Friday, me and the boys went to visit my grandparents. They live about an hour away and we try to get over there for a visit every other month or so. We had a good time visiting with them along with my aunt, 2 uncles, cousin, and her daughter. We went to Fuddruckers for lunch, which is always a good choice. Before we left another uncle, aunt, and 2 cousins came by on their way to Oklahoma. So we visited with them before hitting the road to come home.

Thankfully Keith was home around 7pm that night, which is early for him lately. He's been working roughly 7am to 10pm every day plus working Saturdays. So not only did he come home early on Friday, but he was off on Saturday too. It was nice! On Friday evening, I kicked off our mowing marathon. Since we killed everything in our yard, reseeded, and have been watering and fertilizing like crazy, our new grass is growing by leaps and bounds, which requires more mowing than normal at this time of year.

Saturday was spent with more time in the yard before it got too hot. Then we went to lunch at Texas Roadhouse. I love that place. Once we got home, I vacuumed, mopped, and did laundry. In the middle of all of that, I somehow managed to break my little toe. Pretty fun. I was stepping over some toys and kicked a corner on our wall. My toe caught and snapped. Now it's swollen and purple. Thankfully I've mostly been able to walk with just a little limping. I've made sure to not wear any close-toed shoes and to keep my weight shifted onto the inside of my foot instead of the outside. If it bends a certain way or gets hit (I've noticed my boys hit and step on my feet a lot! Didn't even realize it till now.) then it really hurts.

On Sunday we went to church and then ate lunch at Chili's. We normally don't eat out twice in the weekend, but we were enjoying the fact of a "normal" weekend for a change. After Chili's we had to go shirt shopping for Keith. He has worked for the same CPA firm for 11 years now and the entire time the dress code has been business casual. Khakis and polo shirts with the occasional button-down. For some unknown and absurd reason, they've decided to implement one business dress day a month. That starts this Wednesday. Keith has a suit, a multitude of ties and several dress shirts, but most of his dress shirts don't fit him well in the neck. When we bought them, they weren't necessarily purchased to wear with a tie.

And just a brief lesson on shirt sizes (which I just learned this weekend), the bigger the neck size on a shirt, the bigger around the shirt is. Keith has a bigger neck, but not necessarily a big stomach. (He's 6'6" and weighs 275, "big stomach" is a relative term.) So the shirts with a comfortable neck look kind of tent-like on him. But he'd rather not choke to death on a tie, so we bought a couple that will work along with some button extenders for the shirts he already owns. Turns out you can buy these little things that clip onto your shirt's button and it will extend the neck size about 1/2" or so and it's hidden by your tie knot so no one will ever know.

Once we got home, Keith put together Garrett's new wagon. Keith's grandma got him one as an early birthday present. The only wagon we had was a little one meant more for kids to pull their stuff around in, but this wagon is more for kids to be pulled around in it. It has a seat with a seatbelt on it and everything.

Last night after the boys went to bed, we watched "Shutter Island". It was an interesting movie. I didn't know anything about it ahead of time, besides the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio was in it. Keith and I both thought it was good, though hard to follow at times. Now that we've seen it to the end, it all makes sense, but when you're watching it for the first time, it's confusing.

And in other news, Cooper is getting really close to walking independently. I seriously didn't think it would take him this long. He's been pulling up and walking holding onto stuff since he was 9 months old. He will now walk holding onto just one of my hands instead of two. He stands for long periods of time in the middle of the floor and takes falling steps. He's intentionally falling and he will take a step or two on the way down. I hope he'll start walking soon. Mostly because he's moving up to the toddler nursery at church in 6 weeks and around that same time, he'll start attending Mother's Day Out in the toddler room as well. I'm sure it would be a good thing if he was actually "toddling" once he moves to these classes.

How old were your kids when they started taking steps? Garrett was 10 months old. Cooper is 2 weeks away from 14 months and still no independent steps.

Monday Morning Recap

I know I mentioned in my last weight loss blog that I'm changing my weigh-in date to Fridays, which I did, so I'll post a weight loss recap on Friday. But I will say that I jumped on the scale this morning and saw a 1.5 pound loss, so I was happy to see something. But it's not my official weight loss for the week, just thought I would share it.

This weekend we rented a couple of good movies that I thought I would briefly share about. I've been on a terrible roll of renting bad and dumb movies. I'm not sure if Blockbuster online doesn't do a good job of describing the movies or if I'm just bad at choosing them. But this weekend I went to the actual Blockbuster store to rent a few. The nice thing about doing Blockbuster online, as opposed to some of the other online rentals, is that you can return your online rental to a brick and mortar store and rent another movie for free. We watched "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" with Michael Douglas, on Saturday night. It was a good legal-type thriller movie with a twist. I personally didn't like the twist at the end, but Keith did, so it depends on your movie preferences, but on a whole it was 100x's better than the last 2 movies we had seen.

Sunday afternoon, before the Super Bowl started and while Cooper took a nap, we watched "Love Happens" with Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart. Great movie! A romantic comedy, light on the comedy, but not your typical romance. I really liked it. It definitely had its sad moments which can be affirmed by the fact that Keith said at one point during the movie "He just makes me want to cry." Not talking about the main character, Aaron, but another man in the movie, a dad. I'll just leave it there.

We ended up staying home for the Super Bowl this year. The past few years, I've been teaching Sunday School in our church's pre-teen department so I've gone to the pre-teen party. But this year, with Cooper being little and going to bed about 7:30, we decided to forgo our adult SS class party and stay home to party by ourselves. I really enjoyed it, but I tend to be a home-body, so I know it's not for everyone. My absolute favorite commercial was the Stevie Wonder/Volkswagon one. I really hope we'll see that one again. I was rooting for the Colts, largely in part to the fact that I lived in Indiana for 10 years of my life and my parents currently live there, but I guess I'm ok with the fact that the Saints won since it's their first win ever. And I've heard good stories about their QB.

We've been spending the past several days (weeks) really trying to encourage Cooper to crawl forwards. He is a very fast backwards crawler and has been doing it for months, he just doesn't quite know how to go forwards, unless he's holding onto something, like the edge of the area rug. He will go from sitting to his hands and knees which obviously puts him in a forward motion, but once he's on his hands and knees, he ends up going backwards. The good thing though is that he spins on his stomach and turns around in order to get to where he needs to go, so he's getting better about running into things (or under them), but it would still be nice for him to figure out the forward part. I've put all sorts of things to try and entice him to move forwards, he just doesn't quite know how yet.

He's also started getting on his tiptoes and his hands, so he looks kind of like he's doing a man's push-up. Or crawling like a monkey, except he usually isn't moving when he does this, he just stays stationary. He can also pull himself up to where he's standing on his knees, and he has started rocking back and forth when he's sitting up. He usually does this when he hears music, but sometimes he'll just start rocking and there isn't any music playing. And yesterday he started nodding his head yes, which looked so funny. He'll be 8 months old in 9 days, which is just crazy!

Garrett celebrates his half birthday in a few weeks, so I promise I will write a big post just about him in honor of that birthday. He's a total goofball sometimes and absolutely loves playing Wii. We've had to limit him with it because he would play it all day long.

Well, it's almost naptime for someone in this house (I wish that someone was me.) then I will hop on the treadmill. I'm actually to the point now where I love walking on it. I've downloaded some great music and put together a fun workout playlist, so I look forward to having some alone time with my iPod while I'm also getting myself into shape. I do NOT look forward to the days I do the "Shred". Yikes! I haven't done it enough for it to be getting easier or something to look forward to. But I definitely feel the workout when all is said and done, so I know it's worth the time. But I countdown the minutes while I'm doing it.

My Weekend Without Kids...Well, Kinda

This weekend was pretty full (for me anyway) of activities that aren't the norm around our house. It wasn't my intention to pack everything into one weekend, it's just the way it turned out. (And apparently I had much more to say about the weekend than I realized. So this is long.)

On Saturday morning, after getting breakfast for everyone and getting the boys dressed, I left to get my hair cut/colored. It had been atleast a couple of months so my hair was feeling desperate. I love my stylist. She always does a great job with my hair and we have fun chatting (not one bit of gossiping!!!) while she does her best to make me look presentable. Which we all know is a tough task, but she takes it on rather well. I usually can't get out of there in under an hour and a half when I have everything done, so Keith had a lot of fun with the boys at home. (Well, it would have been fun had Cooper taken a nap that lasted longer than 20 minutes...)

When I got home, Keith's parents were at our house, ready to spend the rest of the day with the boys so we could get out of the house. Excluding an evening when Cooper was 2 weeks old, this was our first time to leave him for an extended period of time. Not that I have a problem doing this, we just don't have any babysitting options in our immediate area (scratch that, we do have options, but I save them for emergencies. I have a problem with asking my friends with kids to take on my 2 kids just so we can go see a movie. Especially when one of my kids is still too little to run off and play with the others. So I save calling these friends for if/when something comes up that I desperately need their help.)

Keith and I had accumulated several things that needed to be returned at a variety of places. I loathe making returns and exchanges at stores. It is such a pain, but everything needed to be returned. One was a vacuum cleaner where the on/off switch was completely broken off while it was still new in the box. So we made our rounds with the returns, while also buying Christmas presents here and there if something caught our eye. We ate lunch at Texas Roadhouse, which is our go-to restaurant. We love it! Then we went to see "Couples Retreat". Hilarious!! We love Vince Vaughn and he was really good in this movie. Again, not the cleanest movie, so no official endorsement from me. But it was still funny.

After the movie we went to Best Buy and bought a few more Christmas presents, then went to Cavenders. This is a western clothing shop, for those of you who have never heard of the place. Keith had a pair of pants given to him for his birthday (in JULY!) that were bought there and he needed to return them because they were the wrong size. He found a shirt to replace them and then insisted that I buy a pair of cowboy boots. I've never owned any in my entire life and ever since we've known each other, Keith has always wanted me to get a pair (along with a John Deere t-shirt and a cowboy hat, but let's take this one step at a time.) I dug through the boots on clearance (I refuse to pay $300 for a pair of boots I will only wear occasionally) and found some that I really like. So I'm now an owner of a pair of cowboy boots after almost 31 years of life on this Earth. *And all the Texans gasped in horror at that statement.*

We then headed to the place we dreaded going, but knew it was unavoidable if we were going to make an attempt at more Christmas shopping. Toys R Us. This is NOT the place to go on a Saturday night. Apparently everyone with kids and nothing else better to do goes there and lets their kids run wild and play with all the toys in the store. I'm pretty sure it's a STORE and not a playground, but whatever. We had balls bouncing all around us down the aisles. Insanity. We did find a couple of things for Garrett for Christmas and checked out a few more, so I don't feel as if this was a trip wasted.

By this point, it was 6:00 pm. I hadn't given Keith's parents any bedtime instructions for the boys and since Cooper typically starts his bedtime routine around 7pm, we figured we should head on home. Thankfully the boys did well for their grandparents, so that was a plus.

Sunday morning, we went to church and had great services and Sunday school time. We picked up Sonic burgers and came home to eat and straighten up around the house a little. From lunchtime until 4:00, I stayed busy getting laundry done, making the rest of Cooper's bottles for the evening, starting supper, and laying out pj's. Because at 4:00, I was headed out of the house for the rest of the evening, leaving Keith to tend to the boys. He's certainly taken care of them by himself many times, but he had never put them to bed by himself. Bedtime in itself is not a big deal, it's the hour or two leading up to it that can be chaotic. Mostly with Cooper.

My reason for abandoning my husband to do bedtime alone was because my friend, Kelli, and I had tickets to a David Cook concert in Dallas. I met her at her house at 4:30 and then we headed to Dallas. We found the concert venue and then drove around downtown to find a good place to eat supper. We decided on an Italian restaurant and had a hilarious time trying to find it again. We parked in a parking garage right on the same block as the restaurant and were totally confused when we came out of the garage that we ended up walking around the entire block before we finally found the restaurant again. I don't think Dallas is necessarily unsafe, but I don't want to make it a habit of walking around downtown after dark. After we finished eating, we managed to find the parking garage without rewalking the whole block, but then we couldn't figure out where the stairs or elevator were, so we just walked up the garage in the driving lane. We're morons.

Let me just add that if you smell urine while walking in a parking garage, be sure to watch your step. Keith said he has seen much worse than that in the parking garage he parks in every day. That's just disgusting. If I'm a homeless person (and I'm assuming it's homeless people doing this. At least I hope it is...), then I would rather find a patch of grass to take care of business than in a parking garage! That's, of course, assuming I was unable to find a public restroom or a shelter's restroom to use.

We managed to find our way back to the concert venue and somehow the line waiting at the door had tripled in length. Thankfully the doors opened pretty soon after getting in line and we moved through all the check points quickly and got about 8 rows from the stage. This venue is standing room only, so it was basically first come first serve as far as your "seat" goes. I haven't been to a lot of concerts in my lifetime. It wasn't something we could afford growing up, then when I was in college, I was more concerned with paying my college tuition and affording food without accumulating a huge amount of student loans that I never went to any concerts. So the majority of the concerts I've been to have been ones that my youth group went to at different times over the years.

So I say all that to say that I had never attended a standing room only concert. First off, it's a very frustrating experience for a person who likes order, like myself. Nobody really has an assigned area. While you would like to think that people would respect your space, they don't. I saw many people push and shove their way through the crowd and they weren't doing it to get back to their friends. Things like that make me so mad! When there was about 20 minutes left in the concert, the lady next to me, shoved her daughter about 2 people in front of me. The same daughter had been hitting me with her purse all night, so while I was irritated that she got in front of me, I was happy to be done with getting beaten up.

(Why, women, would you bring your purse into a standing room only concert where you're only going to have to hold it for 4+ hours???? I put my cell phone, ID (not that I needed it, it was just in case), credit card and some cash into my pockets and hid my purse in the car. If you really think you need to bring makeup in order to touch it up during the concert then I have to call you a moron. It's dark in there. Not to mention the fact that if you're doing it to attempt to impress the singer, as some do, he doesn't give a flying flip about you other than the fact that you paid money to come see him perform. He won't notice your stunning makeup in the midst of an audience of hundreds and think that he needs to meet you. So ditch the purse.)

Back to my story, after the mom shoved her daughter in front of me (and the daughter was at least 21 because she had a drinking wristband on), the mom made a move as if she was going to stand in front of me. All 6 feet tall of her in front of 5'5" me. I used a good placed elbow to keep that from happening. She kept looking down at me as if she was going to intimidate me into moving out of her way. She finally realized that I wasn't intimated by her ridiculous tattoos and moved in front of someone else. RUDE!!

The concert itself was really good. There were 2 opening bands: Green River Ordinance-a band who is from DFW and had lots of local fans in the audience, so that was cool, and The Script-a band from Ireland who actually opened for Paul McCartney when he played at the new Cowboys stadium. I was surprised they would be opening for David Cook after a gig like that, but I certainly don't claim to know how that kind of thing works. Both bands were good, though The Script was probably a little less my style. David Cook and his band were also great. He played quite a few songs off his current record along with 2 songs from before he won American Idol and then he covered "I Just Died in Your Arms" from the 80's.

After the concert, Kelli and I drove around downtown because we were both confused as to how to get back to the road we needed to get to her house. You certainly would not have thought that she drives in Dallas on a regular basis or that I'm somewhat familiar with the city. I should have brought our GPS but it never occured to me. Needless to say, don't ask either of us for directions. And definitely don't let me drive you around Dallas. Unless you need to get to a mall or Keith's office. Those are the only places I'm sure of where I'm going and how to get there.

It was really a fun and busy weekend. I'm sure it will be awhile before I have another one like it, but that's ok. My body needs to recover from the concert.

Weekend Recap

This weekend was both busy and low-key at the same time.  I'm not sure how that's possible, but I think we managed to pull it off.  

Saturday, Keith and Garrett spend the bulk of the day outside finishing up the assembly of Garrett's swing set.  (It's done!  A few minor details are left to be done, like putting sand around the concrete that Keith poured at the base to bolt down the swing set.  And someday we will need to refinish it, but that will take place when it's MUCH cooler outside.)  I spent the day cleaning during Cooper's naps, and when he was up, enjoying him by himself.  I haven't really had the chance to do that.  Not that I don't absolutely love and adore my oldest, but it was kind of nice to just spend time with Cooper when he was awake.  It's crazy how much you can get done when you just have a baby in the house, no 4 year old.  When Cooper was asleep (and even when he was awake part of the time), I was able to clean both bathrooms, clean the kitchen, and vacuum.  It felt so good!

Sunday morning we were getting ready for church when Keith and Garrett both just had this sneezing fit that would not stop.  It was almost funny.  We decided to just hang out at home because they didn't want to do that at church.  We assumed it was allergies, but then Cooper started sneezing and has a runny nose, so now we think it's a cold.  (According to our doctor, little babies do not get environmental allergies.)  I was able to get all of the laundry done, folded, and put away, which is a huge accomplishment in itself.  Those stages are usually stretched out over the course of a few days (or more).   I also went to Target and finished buying for Garrett's birthday party which is this Saturday.  I'm still in denial that he's going to be 4.  

Now today has been spent suctioning Cooper's nose with a nasal aspirator (so fun!).  I thought this was early for Cooper's first cold, but I checked Garrett's baby book (yes, I was THAT mom who wrote down everything with him.) and he had his first cold only a couple of weeks later than Cooper's age.  Of course that was in November with him and this is only August.  I have a feeling we have a long winter ahead of us with 1 kid bringing home germs and passing them on to the other.  I do NOT look forward to it.  I've already started implementing many rules with Garrett: 1. Do not touch Cooper's face.  2. Do not put your finger in Cooper's mouth.  (yes, this rule is necessary.  Don't ask.) 3. Do not touch Cooper's hands.  4. Cover your mouth if you sneeze or cough.  5. Do not get within 1 foot of Cooper's face.

I've given him a list of things he CAN do as well, like touching Cooper's head or feet etc, but I'm going to have to be strict about this in order to avoid having a chronically sick baby this winter.  Of course the media hype about the swine flu for this winter certainly doesn't abate my fears any.  

Now I'm attempting to do a little each day in order to prepare for Garrett's birthday party on Saturday.  Last night we made a construction paper chain with one link for each day between now and the party so we can countdown to his birthday.  He was so excited about taking off a link tonight.  Today he helped me clean out his room.  We put up (and threw away) a lot of toys in order to make room for the new ones.  

And now I'm up and down with Cooper.  His nose doesn't seem to be stopped up, just runny, but he is running a low grade fever and can't seem to get comfortable.  Calgon, take me away!  I'm praying this cold is short-lived.

Holiday Weekend Recap

I feel like we were able to get a lot accomplished this weekend.  If for some reason I go into labor this afternoon, I will feel like everything is done.  Except for the vacuuming.  But maybe I can muster up the energy to get that done when I get off here.  

On Sunday morning, we went to church and the preschoolers who attended VBS last week performed the songs they had learned.  At first, Garrett wasn't too sure he wanted to do it, but when I explained they would be going on the stage to sing, he said he was ready.  My child has some kind of switch that flips on as soon as he's in the spotlight.  He actively participated with the singing and hand motions.  

I really wish I could post a video or a picture or something to show it, but our trusty digital camera decided to completely die on us when we tried to take pictures.  It has been showing signs of having some issues, but we were always able to turn it off and turn it back on and it would start working again.  But on Sunday, I turned it off and on 100 times along with giving it a couple of smacks for good measure, but nothing worked.  It would turn on, but the screen was black and when we took a picture, it was just a black screen.  But I had some other pictures on the memory stick that we were able to see just fine, so who knows what's wrong with it.  It's 4 years old so we're just going to replace it, but I really would have hoped it would last a little longer than that.  I guess I should be happy we discovered this now rather than in the delivery room right after Cooper's birth.  

After the service, Garrett went to Sunday school (where he decided he had issues with being left in there, ugh, I don't understand kids sometimes.  One week he's thrilled to go, the next week you would think he was a visitor who had never attended SS or our church before.  Even though he's been going since he was 3 months old!)  Keith and I went to a breakfast for parents of preschoolers which was fun.  I was expecting doughnuts, but we had eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, pancakes, biscuits, juice, etc!  It was very yummy.  Then after breakfast we went to the church's petting zoo which was for all the kids who had attended VBS.  Garrett got to ride a pony, feed kangaroos, goats, sheep, a llama, and a calf.  He also pet a duck and a camel and saw a monkey.  We could have pet the monkey, but monkeys are gross in my opinion, so we just looked at him from afar.  Then we topped off the petting zoo with a jump in the bounce house and stopped off for a Happy Meal on the way home.  He had a full morning!  I do have some pictures of the petting zoo on my phone, but since I'm still learning the new phone, I'll post them later.  I'm very impressed with the cameras that our new phones have on them!

On Sunday night, Keith and I watched "Taken" after Garrett went to bed.  It was a really good movie!  It will definitely keep you from allowing your teenaged children to travel abroad on their own.  Up until Sunday afternoon, Keith wasn't sure if he was going to have to work on Memorial Day or not.  He's in the middle of this huge project that is supposed to be done by June 1.  According to him, he could work 24 hours a day between now and the first and it still won't get done, but he was going to go in to work on it if that's what he needed to do.  After discussing it with his boss, they decided that the a/c probably wouldn't even be on in their building, so there was no point in them driving in to work in the heat.  So Keith called his staff and told them to enjoy the holiday.  

Of course Garrett slept terribly on Sunday night, taking forever to fall asleep, coughing non stop when he was sleeping, waking up as soon as the cough meds/inhaler had worn off, then deciding at 5:30 yesterday morning it was time to get up.  What an enjoyable start to the day off.  We insisted he lay down until 7:00, which he did, but he did not do so quietly.  Once we were up and dressed, Keith headed up to the attic to start bringing down the rest of our baby equipment.  I did not realize how much we still had up there!  I took the bigger pieces out to the driveway and hosed them off while Keith washed our SUV and Garrett alternated between playing golf (he's becoming a noticeable lefty when he golfs, but his toy clubs are for righties, so that's an interesting game to watch) and standing on the fringe of the water that Keith or I were spraying from the hose.  Then he would complain that his feet were wet and he needed to change his shoes.  His croc shoes, that were meant to get wet.  I pointed out that I was wearing flip flops and my feet and shoes were soaked.  He's the kid who begs daily to go to the beach or go swim in a pool.  I mentioned that if we go to the beach he will get his feet and shoes wet, so he said he doesn't want to go to the beach anymore.  

We all got cleaned up and headed to our friend's house for a cookout which was a lot of fun and the food was yummy.  She made homemade pudding for dessert, which I loved!  We came home and Keith painted a wall in our living room that we had spackled and textured last week, but hadn't had the time to do the actual painting.  I alternated between grilling hamburgers, cutting Garrett's hair, and attempting to keep him out of the paint and away from the wet wall.  I would have kept him outside the entire time, but it was pretty hot out there and he had already spent a lot of time outside so his skin was looking a little red.  I wanted to be sure he didn't get a sunburn.  He woke up this morning looking a little browner, so I'm thinking he has my skin tone because Keith was pretty red this morning after the time we spent outside, whereas I don't even look like I was outside.  Which isn't a good thing because I would like to go to the hospital with a darker shade to my legs than Casper-white.  We topped off the weekend watching "Mall Cop" last night which was funny.  I like Kevin James, especially in the movie "Hitch".  He wasn't quite "Hitch" funny, in my opinion, but it was still good.  

Last night I enjoyed waking up to a horrible cramp in my calf.  I had to get up and walk around the house until it finally worked itself out.  Then it did it again this morning!  I hope that's just pregnancy related and not old age related.  

Now I'm off to finish up some things in Cooper's room.  And hopefully get my floors vacuumed, just in case.

Our Weekend

Saturday was a rainy day around here, so we spent the majority of the day at home.  I finished organizing my closet and we worked some in Cooper's room.  When Garrett took his nap, Keith and I watched "Fireproof".  I honestly only watched the movie because I kept hearing people talking about it and I wanted to be able to say I had seen it.  But it was a really good movie.  I would highly recommend married couples, or couples who have plans to marry, to watch this movie.  It gives you a lot to think about and consider when you're talking to or dealing with your spouse.  I could turn this into a whole blog about how to treat your spouse, but I'll refrain.  I will add that one of my all time favorite books on marriage is "Love and Respect".  I would highly recommend this book.  I have the "Love Dare" book that was used in "Fireproof", but I haven't read it yet.  I can assume that it's every bit as good as "Love and Respect", just a different format with a challenge to complete each day, whereas "L & R" is more of a general way to treat your spouse and relate to them, along with a good reminder of the differences between men and women and what we want from each other.   

Yesterday I had my first baby shower.  It was a small group of girls that I teach in Sunday school and their moms.  It was fun and relaxing.  I was given several cute outfits, some blankets, diapers, wipes, and a teether.  My favorite was from my friend Shari who hosted the shower.  She gave me a Ralph Lauren polo shirt for Garrett and a matching polo onesie for Cooper.  They will be so cute for pictures!  I can promise you will be seeing them many times until Cooper outgrows his.  She sent me home with the cake leftovers and 2 plates full of fruit.  Garrett was thrilled to see the "birthday" cake (as he calls it), but I only let him have a very small piece because yesterday he complained of having a stomachache and he had the signs of having "sour stomach".  I really don't know what causes that or why he would have it, but I was careful with what I let him eat in case it made a repeat, but thankfully nothing happened.  This morning he told me his stomach still hurt, but I hope it will start feeling better.  Beginning tomorrow, our church is having a preschool-only Vacation Bible School.  It will be Tuesday through Friday for 3 hours each morning.  I know Garrett will have a lot of fun going, so here's hoping this stomach issue is resolved today.  (I'm looking forward to a few hours each morning to do some work in Cooper's room, I must be honest.  Garrett only has another week or so of "school" and then I'll be doing the final touches on Cooper's room and the house with him "helping" me.)

Yesterday we went through the Dairy Queen drive thru because I was craving onion rings (they were out of them!!  How is this even possible?).  On our way back home, we stopped at the gas station to full up my SUV.  Garrett said "What's Daddy doing?" and I told him "Daddy's putting gas in Momma's car.  He's a stud."  Garrett said "Daddy's a spudge."  For some reason that just made me laugh so hard.  I don't think Keith found it quite that funny.  

Weekend Recap

This weekend we were very productive.  On Saturday, Keith had some errands to run, so Garrett and I took advantage and got doughnuts for breakfast.  Keith is not a big fan of the doughnut in any shape or iced variety, so I figured Garrett and I would enjoy a doughnut while Keith was gone for the morning.  And wow, did Garrett ever enjoy the doughnuts.  I bought quite a few thinking we could have another one for breakfast on Sunday morning, but as it turns out, a 3 year old can eat more doughnuts than a person would think.  

Once Keith got home, the 3 of us headed to the movies to see "Monsters vs. Aliens".  This is one of the first movies where Garrett has actually noticed the commercials (along with the ads and toys from McDonald's) and has told us repeatedly that he wanted to go see that movie.  So we picked the first afternoon showing in hopes that most of the families would be at home with napping children.  There were still quite a few in the theater, but it wasn't too crowded.  We also opted to see the movie in 2D rather than 3D.  I'm not sure if Garrett would have worn the glasses the entire time and I also didn't want to scare him with the 3D animation.  As it was, he seemed to really enjoy the movie and didn't talk non-stop nor did he try to run up and down the stairs in the theater.  Both are always a positive.  Between the 3 of us, we completely emptied a large popcorn, plus Keith and Garrett shared a hotdog.  I draw the line at buying $4 candy.   (If we still had some Easter candy leftover, I can guarantee that would have made it's way into my purse, but somehow it's all gone...)

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and trashing the house as much as possible.  I don't really understand how we can take a relatively clean house on a Friday night and by Monday morning, it looks as if a tornado swept through.  I would be cleaning right now instead of blogging except for the fact that I spent the morning buying groceries and then putting them away.  The more pregnant that I get, the less time I can spend on my feet.  (Can you really get "more pregnant"?  Probably not.  You're either pregnant or you aren't, but you know what I mean.)

On Sunday morning we went to church and took Garrett with us into services.  Thankfully with each week that he joins us, he seems to get more of a grasp on how to behave.  That's not to say that he doesn't act up, and a good amount of time is spent rolling around on the floor (him, not me).  But at least he's grasping the "whisper" concept along with the fact that he can't walk around.  I draw more cars and trucks during that time period than I ever have, but he enjoys adding the wheels to my drawings and he seems to know what it is that I've drawn, which is pretty amazing considering that I have zero artistic abilities.  I have noticed that there's a big different between the little boys who are accompanying their parents in church and the little girls.  The girls tend to stay sitting down, even if they're not always quiet.  Whereas the boys tend to stay standing, facing the seat of the pew as they draw, color, play with cars, whatever the case may be.  

After Sunday school, we ate lunch at Schlotzsky's where Garrett took a sweet forever to eat his meal.  I have no idea what it is about their sandwiches but every time we eat there, we are always waiting for him to finish.  That's never the case anywhere else.  Then we went to Home Depot to buy the last of our painting supplies.  Once we got home, Keith finished applying texture to the walls in Cooper's room while Garrett and I took off all the outlet and light switch plates.  I used the screwdriver because I don't quite trust Garrett not to somehow electrocute himself.  Though he really does know how to use tools.  He has completely dismantled a chair in our breakfast nook.  With his play tools, no less!  I still don't really know how he did it, but we have a few screws that need to be put back in place and nobody sits in that chair in the mean time.  

The prep work for painting the room took longer than we expected, so Keith decided to wait until Garrett went to bed before he began the actual painting.  By 11:00 last night, the room was completely painted and it looks great!  Now it's time to do a little touch up and then paint some on the trim and we're done.  It feels so good to know that we're getting close to being able to set up the furniture and then I can start working on the closet to get it organized.  Once everything is done in there, I will take pictures and show the finished product.  

I apologize that I'm becoming a once-a-week blogger, but I feel like I'm staying busy between working some from home, attempting to keep the house clean, and spending time with Garrett.  I know the blog will move even further down the list once Cooper's here.  But I will have lots of pictures to share at that point, so I will probably have many more picture-filled posts with much less talking.  I know my parents will be very happy with those.

And to wrap this up, I have to share something funny that Garrett told me yesterday.  I've been really attempting to work with him on his colors because he only knows maybe 2 and he doesn't even know them consistently (blue and yellow, by the way).  Somehow he knows and recognizes all of the ABC's even to the point of spotting letters in strange places, like noticing that the ladder Keith was using yesterday makes the letter A.  Anyway, I was reading a book about colors with him and the story even says what color the object is, but when I would point blank ask him "What color is that?" he would just pick a random color and then I would correct him.  By the last page of the book, I said "What color is that?" and he said "Whatever."  Keith almost died laughing, he thought it was so funny.  That's his attitude about learning stuff too, so he loved that Garrett was so "done" with deciphering colors.  Here's hoping he'll have the primary ones down by the time he starts kindergarten.

My Crazy Day (and an introduction to a new family member!)

Nephew update:

Tyler Aaron Reed was born on Friday, April 3, at 11:45 am.  My sister was only in labor for 3 hours!!  Tyler was having some trouble breathing right after he was born, so they took him to the nursery to be on oxygen and, I think, some type of medicine.  He was there for about 24 hours and then they let him go with his Momma in her room.  

You can see the bandage on his hand where he had an iv for part of that time.  But he's doing wonderfully now!  He weighed 7 lbs 7 oz and was 20 inches long.  They will be going home tomorrow.  I have no idea when I'll actually get to see him in person.  Considering that they live in Indiana and I'm in Texas, who knows.  I had considered flying up there at the end of the month for a visit, but after a lengthy discussion with my husband, he put the kibosh on my plans.  I'm not sure why.  It certainly can't have anything to do with the fact that I'll be 8 months pregnant at that time.  I was hoping it would work out, but it doesn't look like it will.  

So I have to wrap up this blog with a bit about my day today.  Keith was asked to go hog hunting this evening, so he wanted to do some target practice at his parents' place beforehand.  Since his parents are out of town, I figured Garrett and I would come along and ride around on the 4 wheeler for a few hours, then pick up pizza from Pizza Pro, which is something I've been craving lately.  

We got down there and Keith got the 4 wheeler out of the garage for me and took it for a spin around the yard (his parents live on 50 acres, and next door are his grandparents on another 50 acres, so there's plenty of room to ride on.)  For some strange reason, his parents' German Shephard, Hank, was NOT happy with us riding the 4 wheeler.  He was perfectly fine with us being there and being in the yard.  He's not a new dog, so he does know us and is familiar with us.  But as soon as Keith started riding around the house, he immediately started barking, growling, and snapping at him, all while running back and forth in front of him trying to stop him from going anywhere.  It was VERY irritating and a little worrisome because he is a pretty big dog and could hurt you if he got a hold on your arm or leg.  Keith drug him down to the dog house to tie him up so Garrett and I would be free to ride around.  Keith wasn't going to be in our vicinity with his target practice so he wouldn't be able to keep Hank away from us once he left.  Somehow Hank managed to get out of his collar and chase Keith around on the 4 wheeler some more.  So Keith took him back down to the pen, put the collar back on him (this time a little tighter), and came back up.  Next thing we know, here comes that stupid dog again.  He always wears the collar, so I'm not sure why he leaves it on when he's able to get out of it.  I just told Keith to forget about it because I knew he was losing time to be down at the shooting range.  

After he left, I tried one more time with the 4 wheeler.  At first, it seemed like Hank was going to be ok with Garrett and I riding on it because we were going pretty slow and sticking close to the house, but after our 2nd lap, he started getting really aggressive again.  So I parked it and we went inside.  I wish we could have atleast stayed outside so Garrett could play because it was such a nice day, but that dog proved to me that he could not be trusted if he was going to behave like that.  The few times we did walk out there, I armed myself with a big stick that I would have used if I needed to.  He never once barked or growled at us, but he did follow us everywhere we went.  Keith would have been happy if I had armed myself with more than a stick, but I wasn't going to use deadly force unless it was necessary.  I personally think that dog is bipolar.  

After a couple of hours, Keith came back and I went and picked up the yummy pizza.  While I was gone, Keith managed to ride the 4 wheeler far from the house and for whatever reason, Hank left him alone.  So Garrett did get a nice ride today and he even got to see an armadillo.  But before we left, Keith was putting the 4 wheeler back in the garage, and Hank was back to his old tricks with barking and growling at him.  See?  Bipolar.

Keith left with a friend of his to go hunting and Garrett and I headed home.  About halfway here (which is an hour's drive), I noticed that our SUV was driving a little funny.  It was pretty windy today, so I hoped that's all it was, but I knew deep down that it wasn't.  But it was still driving and handling ok, so I just kept on going.  The closer I got to our exit, the more I knew that something was wrong.  I figured it was a flat tire, but, again, the SUV was handling ok and I wasn't hearing any weird sounds.  I told myself that I would keep driving until it wouldn't go anymore or I heard something that sounded really bad.  I also prayed.  A lot.  

Somehow we managed to pull into our garage safely.  I immediately jumped out to check the car over, and there it was, the front, passenger side tire was almost completely flat, but still intact.  I have to say that I've always been a little apprehensive about the fact that our SUV has Firestone tires on it, what with all the bad press they got several years ago with blowouts and causing SUV's to rollover.  But this tire held together really well considering that I drove a good ways on it with very little air in it.  I immediately called Keith to let him know and he was happy that we were home safely and didn't care about the tire, so long as we weren't on the side of the road.  I know the tire is definitely ruined and we won't be able to patch it after today, but it was worth my sanity and safety to keep from pulling over on the side of the road with a 3 year old, and myself being 7 months pregnant.  I'm not sure what caused the tire to do this, but I'm sure it has something stuck in it because Keith would have noticed if it was low on air before we left his parents' house.  He's very hyper about tire maintenance and keeping them properly aired up and in good shape.  

So thus ends what felt like a ridiculously long day.  I'm so glad it's over.

Spring Break/Weekend Recap

Last week was Garrett's spring break.  I'm not sure how the 3 year old set is doing spring break these days, but I can probably guarantee that ours was a little disappointing.  Had Garrett even been aware that it was, in fact, spring break and that many other families were actually going places and doing fun things.  Fortunately, he can't read, much less read a calendar or tell time, so that is currently working in my favor.  When Cooper's 3, Garrett will already be in real school and having a real spring break, so I'm sure Cooper's 3 year old spring break will be more fun-filled than Garrett's.  But let's not point this fact out to Garrett, shall we?

In reality, when you're 3, an only child, and on spring break, you really just want to be back in school.  You're missing out on all the fun that comes with hanging with the other 3 year olds and having a pretty cool teacher.  Instead, you're hanging out with a pregnant Momma and never seeing Daddy because it is, in fact, tax season so he's not home before 11 pm and is gone before 7 am.  I'm sure those are the kind of hours Garrett would prefer to keep, but Momma won't allow it.

So spring break included a day of fun going shopping with Momma while she was looking for birthday presents for all the family members celebrating their birthdays this time of year.  The bright point to the day included a lunch at Steak n Shake.  I think the vanilla shake made up for the fact that he had to walk through Michael's with me while I bought a poster frame and wicker basket.  But the majority of spring break was spent playing outside.  Digging holes in the ground (the sandbox is currently full of water due to all the rain we had the previous week) and trying to play in the sandbox-turned-pool when Momma wasn't looking.  We also watched Pinnochio many, many times.  It's currently out on DVD (for those of you who don't own it), so we bought it on grocery day last week before it goes back into the "Disney Vault".  I did consider actually going somewhere and doing something fun, but I think every school district in our area was on spring break last week.  In my mind it makes more sense to hold off going to the zoo or to the theater until all the school kids are back in school.  So I'll try to muster up the energy soon and head off to do something fun that will make up for our lack of breaking the bank for spring break.  Maybe.

This weekend was fun because my youngest sister and brother spent most of the day on Saturday with us.  They were traveling from south Texas back to Indiana and spent the night with us on Saturday night.  We had fun getting to see them and spend some time together.  I know they were exhausted from a long week of partying hard without parental supervision, but we still enjoyed seeing them.

Sunday was church and Sunday school.  When we picked Garrett up from Sunday school, he showed us his craft which was where they took pictures of things they like out of magazines and glued them on construction paper.  My favorite part of this was the fact that one of the pictures was a baby dressed in a bee costume.  I assumed he liked it because it was a bee, but when I pointed to the picture and asked what it was, he said it was a baby, like the one in my belly.  The rest of the pictures were of animals and a cowboy, so I was very impressed that the baby ranked with those as something he likes.

We had lunch at Chili's where Garrett acted as the unpaid, unofficial greeter because our table happened to look over the entrance, so he waved hi and bye to everyone.  As well as telling them to have a good day.  The actual greeter was very impressed with him and told him to apply for a job there when he was, you know, old enough to actually get hired.  We went to the mall afterwards with the plan to check out the animals at the pet store.  It's the red-neck version of the zoo, of course.  Unfortunately our mall's pet store is currently relocating and hasn't opened up in their new location, so Garrett got to ride a mini train in the mall instead.  The interesting part about our time in the mall was that when we first walked in we could hear a group of people yelling/screaming.  It's so hard to know if that's a bunch of little kids who aren't being supervised or a group of teenagers just trying to be annoying, so I mostly tuned it out, but there were plenty of people looking around and trying to figure out what was going on.  We saw several cops and mall security in the mall too, which made us think that this wasn't the best time to be there, but we were heading in the opposite direction as they were, so that was probably a good thing.  According to a mall cleaning lady, who told the lady running the train, someone in the food court was choking.  I'm not sure why you would be yelling or screaming when you witness someone choking, so who knows if that's really the case here, but we did see a stretcher being taken up to the 3rd level where the food court is, so I guess that's possible.  It seemed like they were yelling for an awfully long time if someone was actually choking during the whole ordeal.  A fire truck and an ambulance were sitting outside of the mall when we left.  

The rest of the day was pretty anticlimactic after that.  We did our taxes and rested up for another week of late nights.  I know Garrett will be happy to head back to school tomorrow and Keith is counting down the days to when he'll actually be home in time to eat supper with us.  Me?  I'm just happy to know I don't have to be "on" as the cruise ship director of fun and crafts between the playing outside and watching a movie every day this week.  Atleast school breaks up the monotony of my lack of fun ideas.

Weekend Recap: The Flu Edition

I would do a recap of my weekend, but it would go something like this:

Garrett, stay away from Daddy, he's sick.

No, don't play your drum, Daddy's trying to take a nap, he's sick.

Don't jump on Daddy, he doesn't feel good.

Daddy doesn't want a kiss, he'll give you his germs and then Garrett will get sick.

Of course, the conversation would then turn to Garrett saying that he, too, was sick, as he eked out the biggest cough he could muster.

When I wasn't keeping Garrett off of Keith and otherwise entertained (when Daddy's home, he's usually the entertainer and the entertainee didn't understand what was up with the change of schedule), I was checking Garrett for fever to see if he was also coming down with the flu. I'm not even sure how many times I've felt him under the guise of kissing his forehead. So far so good, he has managed to stay healthy. We have some Tamiflu in the fridge waiting for the day when he might start running a fever, at which point I will immediately begin administering it. I know you can give it to them before they start showing symptoms, as a precaution, but I'm a little nervous to give him something that I'm unfamiliar with, not knowing how he might react. So I'm going to wait for the first sign of him catching something, and then I'll start giving it to him. Probably not the way you're supposed to do it, but I tend to do things backwards.

Unlike the last time Keith was sick and he told me I was a terrible nurse, he didn't automatically request to be admitted into the hospital in order to get the type of treatment he was expecting this go around. I did the best I could to take care of his needs and make him comfortable on top of my other normal activities, oh, and the fact that I'm 5.5 months pregnant and just don't get around as easily and pain-free like I normally do. And he said that I did a better job this go around than I did last time.

I'm so humbled by his compliments.

Despite the fact that he woke up this morning asking me if a headache could make your stomach hurt (migraine, anyone?), he still got up and went to work. I told him I was washing my hands of any nursing care if he was going to insist on pushing himself and going back to work when I think he should have stayed home one more day. He took a bottle of tylenol and vitamin C along with him as he headed out the door. Of course after taking his morning dose of Tamiflu and blowing his nose a dozen times. I'm sure his coworkers will be glad to see him back.

When I asked him if he cared about the fact that he might be spreading his germs around, he said he picked it up from a guy at work, he was just taking it back. And he didn't want to be at home contaminating us anymore than he had to. That statement alone makes up for the fact that "in sickness" happened to coincide with Valentine's Day this year.

So now I will spend the day cleaning and spraying everything down with Lysol.

I hope my next post won't be written from a flu-ridden stupor.

Our Weekend

This weekend wasn't quite as exciting as last weekend, but we did manage to get quite a bit done.  On Saturday morning we went out for breakfast and then did our weekly grocery shopping.  When we were eating breakfast, Keith told me that once baby #2 gets here we won't be going out to eat for awhile afterwards.  He doesn't think we can handle eating out with 2 kids, we can barely handle it with one.  This was after Garrett took his balled up straw wrapper and tossed it across the crowded room, narrowly missing another family's table.   I have no idea what he was thinking exactly, he had held it up to me and asked me what it was and when I responded that it was trash, he threw it.  As if we blithely throw trash around at our house.  Though you would have thought so a few hours later...

We came home, put away groceries and begin putting our house to right.  While I took down our Christmas decorations weeks ago, in reality they just moved from the living room to the dining room, which has been bugging me.  So I spent quite a bit of time sorting through it all, boxing everything up and taking the boxes to the garage.  I put Garrett to work picking through everything to find the ornament hooks and putting them in a ziplock baggy.  He loves doing odd jobs like that, but not picking up his toys for some reason.  Now all that's left in there is the Christmas tree.  It's too big and heavy for me to move, so I'm going to wait until Keith has a free moment to take care of it.  

While I was working on this project, he was busy cleaning and organizing our room.  We have a nice filing cabinet, but I rarely file papers properly, so he was working on that along with sorting through a lot of other miscellaneous things cluttering up the bar in our kitchen and the floor of our guest bedroom turned junk room turned eventual new bedroom for Garrett.  I had just finished my project and sat down for a break when my in-laws walked in our back door.  I heard the door open (Keith had been outside working in the garage) and Keith said "The house isn't very clean right now."  My in-laws are very sweet, but I think the majority of women out there wouldn't be too thrilled at the idea of their in-laws seeing their house in the state that mine was in at that moment.  Yes, my dining room was clean (with the exception of a 7 foot Christmas tree laying in pieces in the floor), but my kitchen was littered with non perishable groceries that hadn't been put away, along with some dirty dishes.  But that's nothing compared to the toy store that had exploded in our living room in the first few hours of the morning.  We typically have Garrett pick up all his toys every night before bed and we don't normally allow him to get out a million and one toys at the same time, but since Keith and I were both occupied with our own projects, Garrett took on a project as well, which was to see how many toys would completely fill the floor in our living room.  

And there I sat on the couch while my house was a veritable pigsty.  Oh, and did I mention that my mother in law cleans homes as a side job to earn extra money?  She's the type of cleaner who gets on her hands and knees to wipe down the baseboards.  You could probably eat off the floor under her washing machine.  I'm sure she was extremely proud of me when she walked in our house that morning.  Of course I apologized several times for the state of the house and she was extremely understanding, but I still hate for people to see my house in disarray like that.  

It was right around lunchtime when they got to our house and they were hungry.  Since we weren't prepared for company, we all went out to lunch.  They visited at our house for a few hours and then went home.  We attempted to do more cleaning before calling it a day.  After putting Garrett to bed we watched "Eagle Eye".  It was a good movie, especially if you like government conspiracies, as Keith pointed out.  

Sunday morning we headed to church and attempted worship service with Garrett.  He was fairly good, though he refuses to whisper for some reason.  After church we came back home and just had sandwiches for lunch after which we resumed our cleaning from the day before.  We managed to get the kitchen back to normal, one bathroom cleaned, and quite a bit boxed up from our former guest room.  

After all this cleaning, I've discovered that I'm getting far enough along in my pregnancy to have some intense pelvic pain after being on my feet a lot, especially when that's combined with some lifting and walking back and forth from room to room.  I remember this pain with my first pregnancy, but don't remember experiencing it this soon.  I'm still feeling the after effects today.  So I'll have to space my cleaning out a little each day rather than forcing it all in a one or two day spree.

On a side note:  Garrett's latest from this weekend (besides throwing trash at strangers) is that he now says "I'm gonna spank you" and swats at us.  When he first said it, he completely caught me off guard and the situation it was used in was pretty funny, so, unfortunately, I laughed.  Rookie mistake.  And we've been paying for it the last couple of days.  

Weekend Recap

On Saturday morning we got up and did a few loads of laundry.  We had a birthday party to attend at noon and I had no clean pants to wear.  We cleaned the house, got ready and headed off to the birthday party.  Our friends' son turned 4 and he had a fireman themed party.  They always have excellent food at their parties because the mom works for the company that owns Chili's so we had chicken crispers, egg rolls, buffalo wings, not to mention the steak and chicken they grilled for fajitas and yummy, homemade queso dip.  Good food always equals a good party.  

After a couple of hours at the party, we headed home to get Keith and Garrett ready for their little excursion.  Keith loaded up his guns, ammo and various other hunting accoutrements while I packed the clothes and things they would both need for an overnight trip.  Garrett loaded down a bag with the toys needed to entertain a 3 year old.  I tried to explain to Garrett what was going to happen, since this is his first time being with Daddy and not Momma overnight.  Keith has business trips that he takes, sometimes for an entire week, so Garrett is somewhat accustomed to not seeing Daddy for a few days, but he always sees me everyday, so I knew it might be a little different for him.

After they left, I posted my last blog post and then headed to the movies.  I did see "Twilight" and there was quite a few more people seeing it than I had expected.  That movie has been out for awhile so I had hoped it would be a small crowd.  The overwhelming majority of the movie watchers were obviously teenaged girls.  And with teen girls comes nonstop chatter.  Thankfully where I sat, there weren't any around me, but about 10 minutes into the movie, a couple came down from the back of the theater and sat beside me.  I heard the guy say "Maybe it will be quieter down here."  He was one of two guys in the entire theater, but he seemed to enjoy himself.  I heard him laughing at several different spots, though he probably just found the story line a tad funny since it IS for younger girls.  

Anyway, the movie was pretty good.  I found the cast they picked for the characters to be a little odd, but I always feel that way after reading the book and then seeing the movie.  I apparently have a different imagination than the casting director.  They also had some "off" scenes in comparison to the book, but over all it was a good movie.  I do want to add that the director definitely went out of his way to make Edward Cullen (the male lead) about as romantic as a 17 year old could possibly be.  The book of course portrays him as a romantic, but the movie included these little things that I noticed to make him even more "swoon worthy".  While I enjoyed it and appreciated the fact that he's just a movie character, I do feel badly for all those teenaged girls out there who've read these books and seen this movie and are now on the hunt for their own Edward Cullen.  There's no guy on this planet who would meet up with the qualities that have been given to this character.  But I'm sure there are at least a few teen girls who think he does exist somewhere and won't settle for less than him.  I feel sad for them when the day finally arrives that they realize this character is just that, a character.  Nothing that a real life guy would ever live up to.  Overall it was a good movie choice to pass the time with.

Since Saturday, I've had several people remark on the fact that I chose to go to a movie alone.  I just wanted to say for the record that I enjoy doing things solo.  Sure, I like to do things with friends or my husband, but I also don't mind doing things on my own and can appreciate the quiet and solitude that comes with going it on my own, including going to the movies.  It's not like you can talk to a friend in the movies anyway, at least you shouldn't be, if you are, then stop, it's annoying.

After the movie, I came home, took a shower (yes it was only 7pm), got into my pj's and settled onto the couch to watch another movie.  We have a fairly extensive movie collection that we seldom watch.  I debated between "The Notebook" and "Titanic" but decided on neither because they're too depressing, though I love them both.  I settled on "Hitch" (with Will Smith and Kevin James).  It's funny and a semi-chick flick.  When it was over, I went to bed, watched a bit more TV and fell asleep with the lights and the TV on.  Woke up at 3am, turned off the light, left the TV on and went back to sleep until 8am.  My alarm hadn't even gone off, I just woke up on my own.  The joys of being 30.  I went to church, came home, finished the laundry, washed all the sheets on our beds, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned my bedroom, and about that point Keith and Garrett got home.  

Keith gave me a rundown on their weekend.  Before he went to his parents' house on Saturday, he stopped at a sporting goods store in Athens to buy a few more things he was needing.  He said Garrett made shopping almost impossible (LOL), but he got what he needed, just didn't have time to browse any (welcome to my world!).  After visiting with his parents some, Keith went down to his dad's shooting range to "sight in" his gun.  I think that just means to make sure the scope and everything was set properly.  It took him 2 shots to bullseye, so he was happy with that, he even brought home the target to show me.  At 6:30 or 7:00pm, he and his friend headed out to the spot where all these wild hogs have been spotted.  They only waited for an hour or so and then 9 or 10 hogs came through.  Keith picked out the hog he wanted and shot it.  His friend attempted a shot, but missed.  The rest of the hogs took off, but Keith's hog was down for the count.  He took a lot of pictures, but I'm going to refrain from sharing them here, they're pretty gross.  It was a huge hog though.  He had some shots of it in the bed of his truck and it took up a lot of room.  He took it by his parents' house to show them, Garrett was still up, so he showed him too and took his picture with it (only a man would do something like that).  Then they hauled the hog to the back of his friend's property where he said the coyotes would eat it.  Turns out you can eat hogs like that, but they don't taste all that good, so Keith didn't bother with the ordeal of butchering, cleaning, etc.   

On Sunday, Keith did some more target practice, and then he and Garrett left for home when his parents left to go to a funeral.  They stopped in Athens for lunch and then were on their way.  Keith said that Garrett was very ready to see me and didn't even want to stop for lunch.  Then from Athens to Kaufman (about 40 minutes), Garrett talked nonstop about David Cook.  Believe me, Keith gave me lots of grief about that.  I promise you, I do not talk about him to Garrett (or anybody).  But I do listen to his CD in the car and Garrett knows who it is.  That's it.  For some reason, Garrett asks to listen to his music all the time and is always asking if the singer on the radio is David Cook.  I am not intentionally creating a tiny fan of his, it's just happened.  (But hey, if my 3 year old likes his music, you probably would too.)  :)

So that was our weekend in a nutshell.  I thoroughly enjoyed my alone time.  I realize that it was probably the last one for a very long time, so I'm trying to lock in my memory of a quiet, clean house and the chance to watch a movie in peace and quiet.

In closing, 3 weeks from today is my ultrasound.  I'm nervous and excited at the same time.  We'll see what's hanging out in my belly, a boy or a girl.

The Weekend Wrap Up

This weekend was boring so I'll spare you the play by play. Keith went "pawn shopping" with a friend of his. For those of you unfamiliar with pawn shopping, this is where Keith and friend go from one pawn shop to another in the Dallas area looking for good deals from a variety of things that people pawn on a daily basis. Right now they're looking for good deals on guns, their motto is you just can't have enough. But Keith has bought many tools at pawn shops as well. Thankfully he's never purchased a gift for me at a pawn shop. Atleast, if he knows what's good for him he won't. He did buy something from one of the pawn shops, but I couldn't tell you what it is if I wanted to. It kind of resembles a towing chain with a hook on it, but I know he called it something else. I know you're disappointed that I don't have more information to give you.

Sunday was church, then grocery shopping which is becoming a Sunday ritual at our house. Then we picked up Wendy's for lunch and came home. After eating and putting away groceries, Garrett took a nap in his room and I took a nap on the couch. We did a little cleaning once everyone was up and then I changed Garrett's clothes and took his picture for our Christmas card. Here's one that didn't make the cut.

After Garrett went to bed we watched our usual Sunday night TV while I did some online Christmas shopping. I can now say that Keith is the last person I have to buy for and excluding him and a few stocking stuffers, I am done with my Christmas shopping! He's insisting on buying a scope for one of his guns and considering that to be his Christmas present, so I might take him up on that. With a few inexpensive exceptions of course.

Today I found out that my sister is having another boy! She's due 2 months before I am. She also has a son who is 8 months younger than Garrett, so if I'm having a boy too, all 4 of our boys will have a cousin close in age to them as well as one of the same gender. It should be fun at our family get-togethers in the future if we have 4 boys within a 3 year age span.

The Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend started the same as last weekend, the eating of frozen pizza (well, not frozen, obviously I heated it up in the oven first) and the watching of "Don't Forget the Lyrics". (The contestant on there was awesome! She was born without her right ear, though the inner workings are all there and intact, the outer ear is not. The surgery needed to fix it costs $100,000 so her goal was to win $100k. Which she did. When she correctly sang the missing lyrics and Wayne told her she was right, she cried, her boyfriend cried, her brother cried, I cried. Then Wayne gave her a pair of diamond earrings from himself and the show's producers so that after she had the surgery she would have her first pair of earrings to wear and show off her new ear. I thought that was so awesome. She ultimately won $200,000 before quitting. I was thrilled for her.)

On Saturday morning we headed out to eat breakfast at a fairly new "all you can eat breakfast buffet". It's actually a local barbecue place that recently started serving this buffet on the weekends. It. was. good. And cheap. For the 3 of us, all you can eat, including drinks, we paid less than $20. And they had eggs, 2 kinds of potatoes, 2 kinds of sausage, ham, bacon, biscuits and gravy, pancakes and syrup, fruit, cereal and juice. Keith said we're never going to IHOP or Denny's for a Saturday morning breakfast again. Unfortunately for me, I was only able to eat about half of my plate's contents because I get full so darn fast lately. But Keith finished off his plate and mine, so he didn't have to actually get a refill of food. We both love breakfast food, especially when nobody has to cook it. Because let's face it, I'm not going to attempt to fry bacon, the few times I've tried, our house stunk for a week. So let somebody else stink up their own place and we'll just come eat it and then be on our merry way.

After breakfast we headed out to do a little more Christmas shopping. Keith bought 2 things for his dad and I bought something for my brother. As we were debating where to go next, Keith called his mom to let her know about the purchases he had made and she told him that they were getting ready to leave to come to our house! They don't have a cell phone (the madness) so it's a good thing he called when he did because who knows how long they could have sat at our house before we finally came back home.

We rushed home and immediately went into high gear to get the house clean. Why is that always the case? Of course my intentions were to clean the house when we got home, but instead we had to do it in a rush. But it got done (save for our bedroom and bathroom, I just closed the door and walked away. Sometimes it's easier like that.)

The reason for their visit was because we had offered them several pieces of furniture that we had in our guest room. Now that baby #2 is on the way, we had to start thinking about the room assignments and what furniture was needed and where. Basically all the furniture in our guest room was deemed unnecessary, so they brought up an enclosed cattle trailer (his dad has cows that he hauls to auction once or twice a year, thus the need for a cattle trailer) and hauled everything off. We got rid of a bed (very sad to see it go, but much too big for a kid's room), a dresser, a 19" TV from the 80's, a VCR, a small cabinet, a clock, and a bag of cassette tapes. Not sure where all of that will end up, but between Keith's parents and his sister, everything had a home, so we didn't question it, we were just glad to be rid of it.

And now the real fun begins. Painting and more moving of everything. But that's for another post.

On Saturday evening, Garrett and I finally decorated the tree. He was very possessive of the ornaments and was not happy when I would hang a few towards the top of the tree. He wanted to be the one to hang every ornament. After a nice little discussion, we were seeing eye to eye and my tree is now decorated! Garrett grouped all of his ornaments by things that were alike. Santas in one section, snowmen in another, etc. I am very happy with the tree skirt and new stockings which I bought last year after Christmas. I do have a 4th stocking and even considered hanging it, but we don't have another stocking holder, so baby's will have to wait until next year.

Garrett and I decorating the tree. I'll post more Christmas decor pictures another time.

On Sunday morning, we got up and ready to go to church. For some reason Keith decided to get out the train that I had bought to set-up under the Christmas tree as additional decoration. This was about 10 minutes before we needed to leave the house. Garrett of course went ecstatic over the train and refused to part with it, so we let him bring a couple of its cars with him to church. We also decided to bring him into the church service with us because we only have a few more months before he has to be with us in church, so we might as well start bringing him in occasionally so he can get an idea of how that works. He was pretty good for his first time. He loved the praise band, of course, but he refused to whisper whenever he needed to say something to me during the sermon. He also broke one of the new train cars while sitting there. I'm just glad he did scream in frustration. That might have been awkward since our pastor was preaching on being thankful.

After church, he wasn't too thrilled to be heading to his class. He thought he had gotten away from the nursery that morning. But he seemed to settle down fairly quickly. (Our church has three Sunday morning services, we go to the 8:30 service and then go to Sunday school after that. I know many of you probably do the opposite on Sunday mornings and I realized what I just said might be a little confusing.) Keith went to his SS class and I went to mine (I teach 5th grade girls). Afterwards we met up with some friends of ours. They're awesome and wanted to give us a train table that they were getting rid of. They know how much Garrett loves trains and that we don't currently have one (though we have been looking at some). Their kids had 2 and they were wanting to cull some things before Christmas. So we totally lucked out! Then we all went to eat lunch together which was lots of fun. They have a daughter who is 2 and a half months younger than Garrett and a son who's 5, so Garrett enjoys their kids immensely and Keith and I enjoy visiting with the couple.

We then headed to Walmart for a fun-filled time of grocery shopping. At this point in the day, I wasn't feeling too good. I gave Keith a couple of items to take care of while I quickly went through the grocery section getting what I knew we needed for this week. Thankfully I never got sick in the store. I'm not even sure what you would do if you had the need to throw-up in a public place with no trash cans. I ultimately decided on throwing up in my purse if I needed to. Yes, it would be totally disgusting, but I wouldn't want to completely gross out the other shoppers. And now you're probably grossed out too. Sorry! Maybe I should wear a sign that says "I'm Pregnant" out in public in case something like that happens. I think it would be easier to forgive a random pregnant woman for being sick than almost anybody else.

We came home and put away groceries while Garrett proceeded to play with the new Christmas tree train for the next 4 hours!! He only stopped for bathroom breaks and a snack, that's it. This is how hardcore, serious my son is about trains. Initially I tried to help him with setting everything up, but I think I just got in his way. I can't even imagine how much time will be devoted to his new toys after Christmas. Ultimately the train is a piece of crap. Parts of the track have broken and one of the train cars is completely unusable. I'm sure trains like this weren't really meant to be played with as much as Garrett has. He's not rough with them, he just enjoys setting up a variety of configurations with the tracks and then watching the train race around them. I'm not sure if it will actually end up under the tree, but he's enjoying it nonetheless.

Last night was spent doing laundry and additional cleaning. Our church's annual Thanksgiving dinner was going on as well, but I was a little concerned as to how that would work for me. I'm sure the food would have been delicious, but I didn't want to take the chance that I would start feeling badly in the midst of a packed Fellowship Hall full of wonderful church people eating yummy food. If there was the slightest possibility that I would ruin that for everyone, then I didn't want to take that chance. I'm sure I don't need to go any further after my grocery store discussion above.

The cleaning out of our guest room has evoked a cleaning, organizing Keith. So he spent a lot of the evening cleaning out his closet as well as mine (!) and coming up with more things we needed to get rid of. Then this morning my hero killed the mouse that has had me riled up for the past week. He found it alive on a glue board in the garage, so he said "It met it's fate with a size 13." I don't want to know any more than that and I'm sure you don't either. I'm just glad it is gone. Did I mention that it ate a huge hole in my rocking chair cushions?!! We moved our rocking chair into the garage when Garrett got to be mobile because I was worried about him pinching his fingers in it. So I took the cushions off of it and wrapped them in a couple of garbage bags and set them on top of a few items in the garage. Somehow they had fallen to the floor at some point over the past couple of years and then met their fate with this mouse. Thankfully cushions like that are relatively inexpensive (atleast they were 3 years ago), but I'm still infuriated at the audacity of that mouse. The rocking chair will be coming into the house as soon as the Christmas tree leaves, so I guess I need to start hunting down some new cushions.

I'll leave you with a prayer request. Please pray for my dad. He slipped and fell on a patch of ice this morning while on his way into work and he broke 2 ribs. I know he's in a lot of pain and would appreciate your prayers.

The Weekend Wrap-Up

This weekend was a pretty busy one for us. I always consider the weekend to begin on Friday evenings, so I'm gonna start there.

Supper on Friday typically consists of either a)leftovers, b)grilled cheese, or c)frozen pizza. This Friday it was C. And I threw some frozen Buffalo wings in the mix. Because I like to make things interesting. Keith has an extreme dislike for the "buffalo sauce", so I just used it for dipping my wings while he ate his plain, and Garrett mostly focused on the pizza. The boy can put away the slices, let me tell you. I dread seeing our grocery bill when he's a teenager.

After supper we settled down to watch some TV. Well, I settled down to watch TV, post-supper time is usually the Keith and Garrett wrestling hour. So they mixed it up on the living room floor while I tried to hear what was going on with "Smarter Than a Fifth Grader". It's not really my favorite gameshow, but some people's stupidity really makes me laugh, so I typically watch it for that reason. Towards the end of the show, we put Garrett to bed. Yes, after all the rough housing. He's used to it by now and it doesn't usually take him long to go to sleep. I guess it wears him out. I'm long past arguing about getting Garrett stirred up before bedtime. They both enjoy it, so that's the important part.

After "Fifth Grader" comes one of my personal favorite gameshow/variety shows, "Don't Forget the Lyrics". I love this show! First off, Wayne Brady is the host and I love him. He's funny and actually has a good singing voice. I love this show for many reasons. One of which is because I love a wide variety of music and this show involves people being able to sing songs from different genres and different years. I certainly don't know many of the songs on the show, but I still enjoy watching it. I think my dad would be a perfect contestant for the show. And he should pick me to be one of his lifelines. :) I know a good bit of country music, and he doesn't, and I know a lot of the "newer" songs. By "newer" I mean from the 80's till today. Whereas my dad knows older stuff, namely from the 70's, but he's one of those guys who just always knows random trivia, and that includes many songs as well. So I think he would do well on that show. As well as "Millionaire". Maybe someday I'll be able to convince him to try out.

Saturday morning we got up and headed to Huntsville. My brother, Brad, and his wife, Kristen, evacuated from Hurricane Ike back in September (?) and when they went home they forgot a couple of things here. So we had made plans to meet them in Huntsville, which is roughly halfway between us and them, and we took them their stuff and had lunch together. It was nice to see them again and we enjoyed the visit. Garrett was excited to the extreme to see them. He also thought he would see Nana and Pawpaw, for some reason, but I think he understood once we explained that they weren't there.

After lunch we headed back home, stopping at Gander Mountain for Keith to do a little shopping. He was actually doing some Christmas shopping, which I'm proud of him for. Atleast he's trying to get it done early. He didn't get anything, but he was able to do some price checking. And Garrett enjoyed literally pulling me around the store pointing out the mounted deer heads on the wall. When we got home, I agreed to get out our Christmas tree. Garrett had been very well behaved during the time spent in the car, so this was his reward. Our tree never actually made it up to the attic last year after Christmas, so it's been sitting in the storage bag in our garage for the past year. I pulled it out, put it together, and plugged all the lights in (it's a pre-lit tree, but there's still alot of plugs that need plugging in and it always takes me multiple attempts before everything is working.) So now we have a bare tree in our living room. In the next week or two, we'll get around to decorating it. Hopefully.

Sunday was church. Keith announced to our Sunday school class that we're pregnant with baby #2. I think he enjoyed getting to share the news. I'm the one who told when we were pregnant with Garrett. I teach a girls' SS class, so I wasn't in there to hear the reaction, but he said everybody was excited for us. After church, we went to Whataburger for lunch. I had a coupon for a free kid's hamburger, but Garrett insisted that he wanted chicken, so that's what he got. I could have used the coupon for myself, but for some ridiculous reason the fish sandwich sounded good to me. Yeah, I don't know why either. I ate about half of it, but then got full. It tasted pretty good for a fast food fish sandwich though. I think it was the tartar sauce.

Then we headed to Walmart to do our weekly grocery shopping. I normally avoid doing this on the weekends, but since I've started this new part time job, I wasn't sure if I would get a chance to go this week by myself. Garrett's at the point where he's hard to take shopping, so I didn't want to do it alone. Keith took him through the toy section (poor, poor man) while I bought groceries. He said Garrett had atleast one meltdown because Keith asked him to move out of someone's way and he refused, so Keith picked him up and physically moved him. He told Garrett to have patience (which is something we're working on with him right now. We have a song we sing and everything. If Garrett's in the mood, he'll sing the song and get over it. He was NOT in the mood at Walmart.) Keith said Garrett's response to the patience remark was "I don't wanna have patience!!!" Screamed at the top of his lungs. But in the midst of all that, Keith somehow managed to find a couple of things that he wanted me to get for Garrett for Christmas, so that helped out a lot because we've been having a hard time deciding what to get him this year.

After coming home and unloading groceries, we left again. Yes, I know that's a lot of coming and going on Sunday, but Dick's Sporting Goods was having a sale that Keith wanted to check out and compare prices to what he had found at Gander Mountain, so I agreed to come along, so long as we could also swing by Target. I bought several Christmas presents in Target, but Keith just managed to raise his blood pressure at Dick's. I won't even go into the entire story, but Keith did say on the way home that he needs to learn some patience too. I told him maybe he needs to start singing the song when he feels that way. That comment didn't go over too well.

The rest of yesterday was spent doing some light cleaning and a few loads of laundry. Garrett went to bed early because we never got around to putting him down for a nap. So that meant I was able to watch "Desperate Housewives" in peace. Yes, I know I probably shouldn't be admitting that, but it's one of the few shows that I enjoy watching. I also watch "Brothers and Sisters" which comes on afterwards. The main appeal to that show is that it's about a family of 5 kids, and since I'm the oldest of 5 kids, there's a pull to watch and compare. Obviously they're very different from my family, but there are some similarities which make me laugh. And Keith always says after it's over "See, that's why you don't have a lot of kids. It never ends well." I've had plenty of responses for that, but I won't go into those here.

I hope your weekend was wonderful and exciting. Or atleast somewhat productive. I'm feeling good about my Christmas list. Now if I could just get this tree decorated.