AMENMom

10 Cotton Bowl Observations

2012-01-06T23:13:00.003-06:00

Completely random, and in no order whatsoever:

1. Jarius Wright kept pointing to a tattoo on his bicep. At first I just thought he wanted to show off his guns. Still no idea what the tattoo said, but I really hope it's "Mom".

2. I love Jake Bequette.

3. Some words should be banned in football announcer's booths. My first choice is "momentum." At the very least, they should use it correctly. Momentum is something that builds, and thus cannot change hands every 30 seconds like those schmucks kept insisting it was.

4. I love Tyler Wilson. Did you see him talking to the KState quarterback after the game? I could squeeze his cheeks. What a great guy and player.

5. When football players on the sidelines wear their helmets propped on top of their heads, they look like total goofballs.

6. I love love LOVE Bobby Petrino. He is, in equal parts, endearing and terrifying. He gave a small smile during the post-game interview and I think it's the most positive emotion I have ever seen him express. He's like a grumpy, highly intelligent, slightly scary but still lovable teddy bear. Who seriously knows how to coach football.

7. Speaking of goofballs, can the NCAA make a rule that players cannot have hair sticking out of the back of their helmets? I know they think they look cool. They are so, so wrong.

8. Ethan called KState "the bad guys" whenever he came in the room to ask what was going on. I like it.

9. Man those guys looked zonked walking off the field after the game. I can't even imagine how tired and sore they are.

10. We should be #3.

The blog fights back

2012-01-05T13:29:00.002-06:00

I think I have a lazy blog. I took that long, ah, hiatus, and as soon as I came back it started acting up. It's probably trying to get me to go away so it can relax a little longer.

I've been having this thing for years, and for that entire time I've had this nice little sidebar that had pictures of my family, a little About Me paragraph, and links to the blog archives. Suddenly all that has disappeared. Well, it hasn't actually disappeared--it just moved to the verrrrry bottom of the page, as though the most recent blog entry felt crowded and gave the sidebar an angry shove downwards. This very problem has its own link in the "Help" section--however, it doesn't offer any solution. It would seem that the link should instead be listed in the "Problems people have that we acknowledge but make no attempt to fix" section.

Hopefully my computer-genius husband will be able to fix it this weekend, but until then I guess it's stuck like this.

Side note: 50 years ago, people always said they wanted their kids to marry doctors or lawyers because it would be so handy to have one of those in the family. I'm here to tell you that while doctors and lawyers are great, the 21st century is all about having a computer genius in the family. He's saved my hide about a thousand times, and that of most of our friends and family too. That, and his willingness to clean the bathrooms, are just a couple of the million reasons I'm hanging on to him.

Back by popular(ish) demand

2012-01-02T21:27:00.003-06:00

As you no doubt noticed if you're one of the many* people who read my blog regularly, I've taken a little hiatus the last few months.

(A side note: don't you love the word hiatus? It's one of those words that lets what you're doing sound way better than what it really is. I wasn't being lazy, I was taking a hiatus. It's like when professors and preachers take "sabbatical".)

I really didn't mean for it to happen, but the longer the time stretched since my last post, the harder it got to figure out how to jump back in. Family pictures? Witty commentary? Apologetic excuses? It was easier to just post some one-liners and iPhone photos to Facebook and move on with my day. As time went on, I received multiple** messages from readers asking me when I planned to return. I decided to make a clean break with 2011 and start fresh in 2012.

I've been compiling a list of post ideas. Now it's just a matter of having the discipline to sit down at the computer and write the posts, which really means having the discipline to use Aaron's nap time to blog instead of passively surf the Internet, catch up on DVR'd episodes of Anderson Cooper's new talk show, or dig through the pantry to see if somehow, somewhere we still have some Snickers fun-size bars left over from Halloween. We don't. I know this. WHY do I still look?

I will not promise that I'll post every day, because there are days when I don't have time to do much of anything except act as chauffeur and laundry lady. But I'll do my very best to appear at least a couple of times a week. If you're reading this, thanks for not giving up on me. I won't let you down!

*Many=7-8
**Multiple=2

On Being A Girl Who Loves Football

2011-09-01T18:47:00.005-06:00

Something big is happening this weekend!

What? Our wedding anniversary is this weekend? Oh, yes, that too. But I'm talking about something that is on waaay more people's calendars. It's Razorback football time!

I love football. And I don't just mean going to football games, and I don't just mean Razorback football, though I do love those things. A LOT. But I actually love the sport of football. I find it fascinating and entertaining. Yes, I'm a girl. No, I'm not a tomboy. I don't like racecars or power tools or other traditionally "boy" stuff (though for a brief period in college I was a pretty enthusiastic pro wrestling fan--but that's another story for another time). I just really enjoy football. I know I'm not the only girl around who feels this way--many of my girlfriends like it, and a few even love it like me.

The girls I know who care nothing about football think I'm weird, I know. They can't imagine why I'd be interested in what, on the surface, looks like a bunch of giants smashing into each other. There are plenty of reasons for my devotion, though!

1. It's all about strategy and logic. Whoever came up with the stereotype that people playing and coaching football are dumb clearly never took a look at the rules. The game is intricate, and playing it well requires intelligent planning and creative problem solving. Watching great coaches orchestrate brilliant plays is pure joy for my brain.

2. There's some serious talent out there. I've seen athletes throw and kick with strength and accuracy I can't fathom even after seeing it. I've seen guys run, I swear, without their feet touching the ground. I've seen players have two or three opponents dragging them to the ground from the back and they still manage to move forward, and I've seen them do somersaults in midair to avoid a fallen player and land on their feet to keep running. Football players have strength, of course, but watching their balance, grace, speed and skill in action is a fascinating study in physical superiority.

3. I like being a part of the cool crowd. Well, you know. If you live in Northwest Arkansas, you are surrounded by Razorback frenzy. I love being excited about something that unites me with my alma mater and my community. In a larger sense, I can go anywhere in the country and meet a complete stranger, and if they like football we have an instant connection and conversation fodder for as long as we need it. Unless they are an LSU fan; then I will have to walk away immediately and go wash my hands.

4. It can be so very, very satisfying. I don't care how un-football, how girly, how dainty you are, EVERYONE has a moment now and then when they want to throw something through a wall. That thirst for aggression is beautifully quenched when, say, a receiver catches a pass and is immediately and cleanly slammed to the ground by a defender he never saw coming. I'm sure anyone who doesn't like football and just read that last sentence is rolling their eyes and mottering something about Neanderthals and violence. Whatever. They just haven't seen a really good tackle.

5. It's exciting! I think everyone needs to have some hobby in their lives that they enjoy so much they have to cheer about it. It feels GOOD to hold your breath in anticipation of a pass landing in the right hands, to high five random people around you, to yell a cheer so loud you go a little hoarse. I mean, scrapbooking's great and all, but when is the last time it earned anyone a high five?

When I was in high school, my best friend (who will remain nameless because she might kill me otherwise) was quoted in our yearbook as saying that football was her favorite sport because of the tight uniform pants. She made a good point, but that doesn't really factor in for me these days. I love football for the game that it is and the experience of watching it. I am so ready for kickoff. Go Hogs!!!

Dread

2011-08-29T09:11:00.004-06:00

You know what I dread more than anything else?

No, it's not Abby's first date (though thinking about that does make me hyperventilate a little). It's not paying for three college tuitions. It's certainly not turning gray (as my children will happily point out, I'm already well on my way).

I dread the first time that I see my grandmother and she doesn't know who I am.

There's no way to know when this will happen, but as her condition continues to deteriorate several years after her Alzheimer's diagnosis, I see that we're getting closer and closer to that moment. For now, she clings to some memories. Not always our names or details, but she knows me and she knows Matt and she even knows the kids. You know, I always thought no one could love my grandmother more than me until I saw my kids get to know her. Abby and Ethan have put their Gigi on a pedestal that can't ever be touched. Remarkably, she lights up when they're around, somehow cutting through the fog that Alzheimer's has poured into her mind.

I know, though, that even the little clarity she has left won't be there for long. She's already lost so much. Every time I talk to her or visit her, I can see the erosion continuing. We've begun preparing Abby and Ethan to understand her confusion. I pray desperately that Aaron will get at least a little time to know his Gigi.

My best childhood friend, Steve, recently lost his father after a brutal fight with Alzheimer's. Before his dad's death, Steve and I were talking and he described Alzheimer's as a hateful disease, stealing the soul of the person we love and leaving their body with us to taunt us every day with what we no longer have. He is so right.

This experience with my grandmother has been so hard, but it's also given me a perspective that most people my age don't have. We're all so busy working, raising kids, squeezing in some fun between grocery store trips and meetings, that it seems like life will be like this forever. It won't, though. Eventually we'll be old too. In all likelihood, if I live long enough I will develop Alzheimer's. Will there come a day when I look at the children I gave birth to and raised and see them as strangers? Will Matt have to spend his days feeding me and making sure I don't wander out of our home? Will I be constantly terrified and confused?

Oh, I hope not.

We all face the probability of contracting Alzheimer's. The longer you live, the more sure it becomes that you will be diagnosed. It will be virtually impossible to live into your 70s or 80s and not have either you, a spouse or a sibling suffer. Is this how you want to end your time on this earth? I know it's not what my grandmother wants. It's not what I want either.

Our family is participating in the 2011 Walk to End Alzheimer's on September 10. Abby and Ethan know that we are doing this walk to raise money so doctors and scientists can work to cure the disease that has hurt their Gigi. For them, that's enough--they are ready to walk all day.

If you would like to donate with Team Gigi, you can go to the team's website here:

http://walktoendalz.kintera.org/springdale/teamgigi

and click on General Team Donation. We want to do this event to raise money to help end Alzheimer's, and we also want to teach our children that when there's something you don't like in the world, the first thing you need to do is try to change it.

I would love if the people who have read this blog entry decide to donate, but that's not why I wrote it. I wanted to remind people that Alzheimer's is not a disease that affects only the people who get sick, or even their families. It's a big, scary cloud hanging over every single one of us. This day I dread? It's coming for us all unless we do something to stop it now.

FIrst Day

2011-08-21T20:36:00.005-06:00

I have always loved the first day of school. There's so much newness and excitement. I'm a sucker for school supplies and the smell of freshly cleaned hallways. Now that it's my kids' first day and not mine, I find a whole new set of reasons to enjoy it. I get to experience a milestone in their lives, meet the teachers that will be guiding them for the next months, and I get to usher them off to another building five days a week where other people will deal with them for a while!

Just kidding about that last part. Really.

I don't think there's ever been a more responded-to AMEN post than the one about what Abby should wear. It tickled her to pieces to hear what all my friends had to say about her wardrobe. In the end, the purple and black won out (due in large part, I think, to its bling). Not to worry, those of you who voted for the other outfit: we kept it and it was her Day 2 look. Here's the fashionista on her first morning of third grade:

(Did I REALLY just write third grade? That is ridiculous.)

And speaking of ridulous, check out how cute an already-smoochable 5 year old boy (whose Kindergartener status his mother is not yet prepared to discuss on this blog) can get when you add new glasses to the mix:

I could eat them both up. They were remarkably patient with my photo session, probably because they knew I wasn't letting them go anywhere until I got what I wanted. The backpack photo was their idea, though:

Just in case there's a chance you haven't yet fully realized the fabulousness of my two older children, here's a closer look:

Ugggghghghghg. I need to look at these pictures every time I'm about to throw one of them out a window to remind myself of their many redeeming qualities.

I held it together really well while we dropped them off. The only time I teared up was when, without prompting, Abby ushered Ethan into what had been her school, and was now their school. Watching them walk together ahead of me made me a little weepy.

We walked them both to their classes and got them settled. They were both eager to get going and just fine to give us a quick hug and kiss and let us move on out. I dread the day when they don't need me to walk them in on the first day anymore. And by "need" I mean "want" since, let's be honest, they don't NEED me to do it now.

And in case you were wondering, Aaron took all this fuss and hubbub over his siblings in stride.

He knows that now he's effectively an only child for most of every day. Life is good.

Dress My Daughter

2011-08-04T13:23:00.004-06:00

This daughter of mine is something else.

We went shopping for her first day of school outfit, and we found two that we loved. I bought both, and we decided to think about it and decide later. Proving that social media has soaked into pretty much every pore of our culture, my 8 year old daughter, who has never been on Facebook but references it frequently as something her parents use to talk to people, suggested that we put pictures of the outfits on Facebook and let people vote.

She had a moment of hesitation when she realized that there are people that she does not personally know that would be able to vote. She does have about 3 ounces of shyness deep down inside. Finally, though, curiosity got the best of her. I decided to put the vote on the blog so I could write a little more than on Facebook.

Ironically, when she put the clothes on for the pictures, she decided she knows which outfit she wants to wear. However, this is the child that can change her mind about what flavor of ice cream she wants 3 times while we're getting spoons out, so I'm not confident it's a final choice.

So, here we go: let's play Dress Abby for Third Grade! Below are the two looks. Please comment ON THE BLOG (I need them all in one place to show her) with which you like better as a first day of school ensemble. Be sure to put your name in your comment so I can tell her who said what.

**Please note: I did not tell her to stand that way. This is her go-to trying on clothes pose.

Look 1: Pretty in Purple

Look 2: Lovely in layers

Time to vote!

**A point of clarification on the layered look: it's faux layering. The shirt is all one piece, designed to look like two. The skirt is attached to the leggings and is not real denim--it's a pretty thin cotton.

Parasailing, or Why Never to Trust Someone Doing Business Out of a Hut

2011-07-08T15:02:00.007-06:00

Two years ago on our trip to the beach, Matt and I and my sister-in-law Patty went parasailing. We loved it. I mean, loved it. We checked in at a dock in Destin, were ushered onto a swank boat, and zipped off into the ocean. Once there, we took turns pairing up and sitting down on the back of the boat, where we were harnessed to the parachute and lifted gently into the air to float along above the boat until we were brought back down again. Just before getting back to the boat, we were lowered until our feet dipped into the ocean and then zipped back up again. That's the only time we got remotely wet. It was relaxing and peaceful and really, really cool.

This year we thought it would be great to take Abby and Ethan. There's not really a minimum age, and I knew they would love the experience. Patty decided to take her oldest son Jake, too. Once we got situated at our house I set about making it happen.

Seacrest is a little bit closer to Panama City than Destin, so we decided to go there this time. I researched companies and narrowed it down to the one that seemed the nicest. I called ahead and made reservations. The lady directed us to show up at a beach, and when I asked her if there was a dock, she said we'd have to ride a smaller boat out to the main boat. Okay, sure.

On the designated day, we left Jake's little brothers and Aaron in the reliable care of Jacob, Michael and Siobhan and headed off to PC. We found a great parking spot and walked onto the beach. Here's a picture of Abby and Ethan, ready for the sail.

Over Abby's shoulder can you see the little brownish umbrella. Well. That was the parasailing company. It was sort of a little hut thing. The company representative, a middle aged woman in a sring bikini, was checking another family in. As we listened while we waited, I grew increasingly alarmed. First of all, she told them that they couldn't bring anything with them that they didn't want "completely soaked." Then when they asked how they were getting to the parasailing boat, she pointed at a giant yellow raft called a banana boat. I wasn't terribly worried about that, though, because the woman on the phone had assured me they had a much drier and safer option since we had children with us. Finally she told them to expect to wait at least an hour for their turn, but again I wasn't worried because unlike these other slacker customers, we had reservations.

Then I checked in.

While she was working on our paperwork, I said, "Boy, I sure am glad we don't have to ride that banana boat thing. That looks terrifying!" She looked up and said, "You DO have to ride it. That's the only way you're getting to the boat." Apparently the other, non-perilous option had broken down the day before.

Now let me just pause in my narrative a moment to explain to you what a banana boat is. You should Google it to see that I'm not exaggerating. It's a giant raft shaped like, well, a banana. 5 or 6 people straddle it and hang on to little handles. It is PULLED BY A JET SKI through the waves. And I don't mean over them, I mean through them. We watched a group go out, and at more than one point the banana was nearly vertical. People pay to go on these things as a thrill ride. I am not those people.

I expressed my concern at my children's ability to hang on adequately, and she peered at them and said, "Oh, kids usually only fall off if their parents hang on to them too tight." Super.

(A small side antecdote: when she looked at the kids, she noticed they'd taken their flip flops off and warned them to be careful of broken glass in the sand due to the recent tornado. WHAT? Do YOU remember hearing about a tornado in Florida ON the beach recently? Or EVER? Yeah, me either.)

At this point, I can see that if we survive the ride to the boat and back, we are going to be soaked and terrified. Everything within me is screaming at me to walk away, but I don't want to disappoint the kids, so I finish the paperwork. As she handed me the receipt she said, "Now we'll need you to be patient. It could be a while."

What? I had reservations.

Well, she explains, that apparently doesn't mean a whole lot of anything. They're running behind and there are people waiting in front of us. How long will it be, I ask. She confers with her assistant, the older shirtless hairy man sitting on a bar stool, and tells me to expect an hour. Over her shoulder, he mouths at me, "Closer to two hours."

That's it.

After a brief conference, we bribe the children with ice cream and get a refund while resisting the urge to tell them what to do with their banana boat. Once we got home I called the company in Destin that we sailed with before and booked us for our last day in town. Thank goodness, I thought. The drama is over.

Ha.

We got to Just Chute Me's office in Destin (clever name, eh?) and were thrilled that all workers were fully dressed. Well, except this one:

One of the workers had her dog with her, and I think the dog was more well mannered than Ms. Bikini. We had a speedy and very professional check in and were escorted directly to our boat, which took off the moment we were seated. Aside from the 6 of us, there were 6 other passengers from Georgia and the two guys working on the boat.

We quickly discovered why everything was so quick--there was a megastorm headed straight for us and they wanted to do their best to let us all sail before it got too close. To speed the process up, they wanted us to go up in threes instead of twos. After a quick conference, we decided to send Abby with Patty and Jake (she loved the idea) and Matt and I would go up with Ethan.

The Atlanta group went first while we enjoyed the boat ride and waited our turn.

And before we knew it, our little girl was being strapped into a harness that was being attached to a parachute. I started to have a little mama-panic, but then I looked at her beaming face and realized she would be just fine.

And sure enough, she lapped up every moment. She's like me--any time I am enjoying something thrilling, I have a huge goofy grin on my face the entire time. I look like an idiot on roller coasters, but I'm laughing so hard I don't care.

Look how HIGH she was! How far away! She was startled to see this picture and realize how high up she had been.

Their dip:

As they started being pulled in, we noticed that the two guys who were working the boat were moving much faster than before. When they landed Abby, Jake and Patty, they had them unharnassed and back in their seats in seconds. While they were up, we had been hearing very unsettling phrases on the boat's radio, like "serious winds" and "dangerous waves." The captain looked at me, visibly upset, and said, "I'm SO sorry, but it's just not safe to let you guys go up." We could see the storm bearing down on us, so not only did we not fault him for that decision, we were kind of glad he wasn't willing to risk our lives to make a little money. Ethan is a 5 year old who has no concept of wind velocity dangers or credit card refunds, so we were worried he would melt down, especially after seeing how much his sister had loved it. I explained the situation to him, and here was his reaction:

Bless his heart, I don't think I've ever loved that boy more than I did in the moment when he said, "It's okay mom! Maybe I can just go first the next time we come to the beach." I was astounded. The captain (who, it should be mentioned, was also on our boat the first time we went two years ago and so, even though he didn't remember us at ALL, we thought of as our old pal)(and who, despite the stuffy title of "captain" is young, laid back, and rather freakishly cute in that I-spend-all-day-every-day-on-a-boat-in-Florida way) was really bothered that he couldn't let us go up and decided to go into the harbor to see if the weather might let up enough to let us go there.

Once we got to the harbor, Cameron (that's the captain) pointed at Ethan and asked his name. E answered and Cameron said, "Well Ethan, while I see if I can get you in the air, how about you come drive this boat for me?"

Right then it turned into the best day of Ethan's life.

Everyone cheered while Cameron showed Ethan how to handle the steering wheel. Then Cameron jumped on the back deck to work on the equipment. He stayed there. Out of reach of my son, who was in reach of the steering wheel and the throttle of the boat holding 14 people. Ummm. We know our son and so we were a little worried, but E handled it beautifully and was in heaven.

Finally it was determined that parasailing was just not to be for us. Ethan barely noticed, because after Cameron came back to the wheel he kept Ethan there with him and opened up the boat to about 40 miles an hour. We all clung to our seats and prayed while E and Cameron had a grand time zipping through the water. When we got back to the dock, we thanked Cameron profusely for giving Ethan such a great experience and told Ethan he could tell his Kindergarten class this fall that he had driven a boat in the ocean. Everybody left happy.

I like to let the public benefit from the knowledge gained from my experiences, so if you are considering going parasailing on the Florida panhandle (and you should DEFINITELY consider it) here's my advice: Stay away from Panama City, banana boats, and women in string bikinis. Go directly to Just Chute Me in Destin Harbor and ask to get on Cameron's boat. Who knows, if you're nice maybe he'll even let you drive.

AMEN at Seacrest Beach

2011-07-06T10:00:00.009-06:00

Well, God bless Facebook. I have been trying to post pictures on this ridiculous thing for days and was pulling my hair out when a high school friend who I've reconnected with on Facebook introduced me to the miracle that is uploading to Flickr and imbedding the photos in the blog. What would have taken hours took just minutes. BLESS you, Jennifer!

Now Jennifer's saving advice means you all get to look at entirely too many pictures of our vacation, entirely too long after it happened. Sorry, but this is as good as it gets.

Our rental house. It was wonderful. Ours was the room on the second floor in the front--please note all our swimming laundry hanging out, white-trash style, on our balcony.

Our little hooligans after their first swim.

Man, this girl loves the beach.

She tried out boogie boarding for the first time and LOVED it, though her coordination left a little to be desired. When she would get a good wave, her face was the perfect combination of terror and delight, which is pretty much exactly what I felt watching my baby get tossed around by the ocean.

And here's the middle hooligan, whose attitude at the beach can only be described as happy-go-lucky. He didn't care what anyone else was doing, didn't need attention or anyone to play with. He just hung out with the ocean and the sand.

His favorite thing to do was stand in one spot and jump over every wave that came in. He could do it for an hour and never get tired of it.

See?

And then there was the littlest man. Aaron loves the water as much as his siblings.

Unfortunately, he got a nasty diaper rash while we were there, so he was stuck in his stroller for much of our beach time. He's like his mama, though--give him a good book to read and he's as happy as can be.

Our house came with a couple of bikes that had infant carriers on them. Matt procured a toddler helmet for Aaron and took off the first chance they got. Aaron LOVED the ride.

A couple of times, Matt stayed at the house with Aaron while I took the older kids to do something with the group. Both times, Matt and Aaron took long bike rides that ended with lunches at little cafes. I have my suspicions that they were using the cuteness of a baby on a bike to strike up conversations with pretty girls, but they both deny it.

I mean, look at them. Who do you believe?

Our last night at the beach, we went to a crab house for dinner. While waiting for our table we decided to take a few pictures. Here's the best one of our family:

This is my oldest brother Michael, his wife Siobhan, and their children Claire, Aidan and Natalie. I tried to sneak Aidan home with us in my pocket but he wouldn't let me.

This is my brother Jacob, his wife Patty, and their boys Josh, Jake and Drew. Josh and Drew are twins. Really. I promise.

This next set of pictures will give you the best sense of what our vacation was like. All 9 kids all together. Siobhan had to hold Claire as she was not in a mood to humor her pushy Aunt Nancy. The pictures make me laugh every time. While there was no chance of getting one where they are all actually looking at the camera and smiling, I was just so happy to have them be still for 10 seconds.

This is what WOULD be a fantastic family picture if SOMEONE had not made a goofy face. I'm not naming names, though.

And this is what we had to say goodbye to. Boo.

A huge part of our trip planning was that we were going to take our kids parasailing. The story is too good, and too long, to be in this post, so it gets its own. And now that I have the gift of Flickr, it will come with pictures! Lucky, lucky you.

My body's at home, but my brain's at the beach

2011-07-02T21:13:00.003-06:00

A little less than a week ago we got back from our vacation. I’m just now accepting the fact that we’re home, and therefore willing to blog about the trip as a past experience.

We went to Seacrest Beach, a tiny little beach town in a string of tiny little beach towns between Destin and Panama City. We sort of went there by accident a couple of years ago (you can read about that here and here) and we fell in love with it, so we couldn’t wait to return. We rented a big house with my brother Jacob and his wife Patty, my brother Michael and his wife Siobhan, and their two sets of three kids each. Yes, that makes 6 adults and 9 children in one house. Yes, it was loud. And messy. But it was also lots of fun.

I went through my pictures and noted the ones I wanted to put on the blog. Then I counted them. There were 58. Unfortunately, with Blogger, it would take about 4 days to upload that many pictures. I whittled it down to 30-something, and I think I’ll split those up into a couple of posts.

In fact, it’s being particularly persnickety right now, so I think this post will just have to start things off with 4 pictures, and maybe it will be a little more obedient tomorrow.

Our halfway decent family picture, if you don't count my out of control hair:

All together now: awwwwwwwwww.....

Boys sure do love sand. Pretty sure Aaron ate about 3 cups of it while he was sitting there.

I guess eating sand wears a little guy out...

Blogger has my blood pressure up right now with this photo frustration, so I'm going to walk away. Tomorrow I'll try again with more pictures--I really do have some great ones. In the meantime, go Google Seacrest Beach and see why I'm in denial about coming home.

A little perspective

2011-06-07T06:39:00.003-06:00

I love living in a place that has 4 seasons. Even though my car serves alternately as an oven and a freezer, and everyone in our family has to have two entire wardrobes (and there are many days where we need to access both of them) I love it.

A few months ago, we were experiencing one of the snowiest winters I've ever seen, along with some bitter cold. Facebook was awash with complains about missing the sun, and oh I'm freezing, and where's summer? Now summer's really gearing up. We've had about a week of temperatures in the 90s. And guess what? I open up Facebook to choruses of I'm melting and this is miserable and where's the breeze? This must be where the adjective "fairweather" came from.

I do get it. It's hot. If you're sitting at the ballpark watching your kids, or walking your dog, or weeding your garden, you're going to be uncomfortable. But before you get geared up to complain about it, let me offer you some perspective.

Last week, my friend Amy and I made the hour drive to Joplin, Missouri. I'm sure you know that much of Joplin was destroyed by a tornado that killed well over a hundred people. It was a week and a half later and we weren't sure what we would do, we just knew we wanted to help. We ended up working with a Lutheran church that was just outside the path of damage. We loaded up the car with coolers filled with cold Gatorade and water, and set out to give them to anyone who looked thirsty. It was about 96 degrees out, and we started in the worst part of the day, midafternoon.

I will not attempt to describe the damage we saw, because I'm incompetent to do the horror justice. Just know that whatever pictures you've seen, it's worse. Thousands of homes. Just meditate on that for a minute. Thousands. If you're familiar with NWA, a comparison of the length of the damaged area would be like driving from the 6th Street exit on I540 in Fayetteville to the Wagon Wheel exit in between Springdale and Rogers--about 13 miles.
It keeps going and going as far as you can see. We drove for over 3 hours, never going to the same place twice, and still didn't see the end of it.

I will tell you what we did see, though. We saw homeowners out in that heat (no shade, because nothing's left standing) combing through debris to find anything salvageable. We found a family trying to find some decorative items in the rubble of their elderly mother's home so she could feel somewhat at home in her new apartment despite the fact that they were so tired they could barely stand. We saw volunteers who had taken off work to spend 12 hours a day in the sun lifting splintered boards, window panes, and pieces of roof so they could prepare the lots of complete strangers to be bulldozed. We saw electricians sweltering while they raced to restore power to the fortunate homes that are still standing. We saw teenagers wandering in their neighborhoods, wanting to be close to home but not having them anymore.

Here's what every single person we came in contact with had in common: they were all VERY hot. They were all VERY thirsty. And they were all very, very happy to be there. The volunteers were cheerful and kind. The workers were all grateful for something cold to drink. The victims of the tornado, even the ones who lost every single thing they had, insisted that they were lucky, blessed, better off than others.

And do you know what NONE of them did? Not one of them complained about the heat.

That day in Joplin gave me tremendous perspective. I am so much more aware of how easily everything you value can be gone in a heartbeat, but also of how resilient people can be if they choose to. I may have to be hot a lot this summer, and I may not love it, but I can take it.

The weekend, part 3: Our last first birthday

2011-05-26T08:14:00.009-06:00

I've delayed writing this post for a week now. When I'm done, I will have posted about one of my children having a first birthday party for the very last time. Oh, the bittersweet of it all! Okay, I'll downshift on the mama drama a little.

Since last weekend was so filled with Abby's dance recital and other activities, we couldn't schedule Aaron's birthday party until Sunday afternoon. It worked out great. After lunch, Abby and I headed back up to the church to decorate. Abby made this beautiful sign for the door. The things that look like giant eyelashes on each of the letters are supposed to be fireworks. Please don't tell her that her "1" is backwards--it's a sensitive topic.

Aaron was very blessed to have lots of people who love him come to celebrate his birthday. We didn't do much (really, what all is there to do at a party for a one year old?) but we had plenty of fun. We did remember to get a family photo, and once again I was very happy with the results:

We also took a few shots of Matt and I with our baby-no-more. He cooperated beautifully, mainly because I was tickling him the whole time.

He was not, however, so agreeable to being put in the middle of a kiss sandwich. Too bad for him.

The big kids were very well behaved, and wanted to make sure I documented their presence.

And now to the part everyone is always waiting for. The smash cake. Abby refused to get messy with hers. Ethan went hog wild with his--we found icing in his ears for days. I posted a couple of pictures of that day here. Aaron was the perfect middle ground. He enjoyed his cake, but did not bathe in it. He was quite delighted to get to eat it all by himself. Observe the progression:

And just like that, it was over. We have a one year old. And a five year old that starts Kindergarten in 3 months and an eight year old that just danced in her first recital. I think I need my own cake now.

The weekend, part 2: Dancing Queen

2011-05-19T07:45:00.006-06:00

After a Saturday morning and afternoon filled with soccer, a friend's birthday party, and running errands, we prepared for Abby's big recital Saturday night. She's been taking ballet all year and LOVES it. I always pegged her as more of a hip hop or jazz kind of kid, but she's really enjoyed attempting to be graceful. I never took dance as a child, so this whole world has been new to me. And it is a serious world, let me tell you. The recital was almost THREE. HOURS. LONG. It would have actually been fun to watch the whole thing had we not had two boys who were not so into it with us.

My new camera did not let me down Saturday night. I still really don't know what I'm doing with it, so I was thrilled when I got such great photos. For the recital, I basically turned off the flash, zoomed in as much as I could, and prayed for the best. As you'll see, it worked.

Here's the dancing queen all dressed and ready to go:

Bias, schmias. The girl is pretty. She had to wear makeup which just made her look older and prettier.

Prepping her ballet shoes for the performance:

I always try to remember to get family pictures when we're together like this. For every 20 we take, we're lucky if we get one in which we are all even looking at the camera. We actually got two good ones this weekend! Here's the one the kind lady in front of us took pre-concert.

Abby's ballet dance was to We Are Siamese. Her teacher applied her cat makeup, which of course warranted another picture.

For most of her ballet performance, she was on the far side of the stage from where we were sitting so I didn't get a ton of great pictures. This is a pretty good one, though. She's the third from left if you can't tell. Somehow her headband got positioned on the very front of her head so it looks a little strange, but she's still lovely.

Abby was actually in 4 dances at the recital. Aside from her ballet performance, she was in the opening and closing dances along with all the students. But then. Her other dance was a daddy-daughter dance. Six young girls from the studio performed a routine with their dads. That's right. Matt, my sweet, quiet, behind-the-scenes husband went to practices all spring and got up on stage in front of a thousand people to dance. A little known fact about my husband is that he is a skilled ballroom dancer and has excellent rhythm. The dance was 50's style, to a song called Daddy Cool. Abby's best pal Audrey and her dad, Chad, also performed. Watching my husband up there, stepping WAAAYYY outside his comfort zone to dance with his little girl was one of the best moments of the weekend.

I got crazy lucky with where I was sitting and got some fantastic photos of the daddy-daughter dance:

Abby and Audrey in position before the song started. I LOVE this picture.

This is the only picture I have of the whole group. Just look at those six brave dads!

Some of their best dance moves:

I mean, come on. How can you not love that?

After the show, Matt gave Abby her flowers. She knew they were coming, I'm sure, but she was still so thrilled and thankful.

Oh my goodness! What a night. The kids didn't get in bed until almost 11, but it was worth every minute. I am so glad it went well, and I am equally glad that recitals are only once a year.

Up next: AAMEN's last first birthday party!

The weekend, part 1

2011-05-17T09:05:00.013-06:00

Let it be said that I am still recovering from our crazy weekend, but I want to start blogging about it or I'll never get it done. First, let me tell you that last week I bought a new camera. This was a purchase that was VERY long in the making, and I was crazy excited. Thanks to my good friend Cameron I was educated on my options and got a fantastic, fancy thing that makes me feel very professional. I only know how to take pictures on auto really, but I WILL learn more. I will. Fortunately for me, the auto mode on this camera produces pictures that are ridiculously good and as a result I have wonderful pictures of our weekend.

Friday, Aaron turned one. I still can't deal entirely with that. He wore the same t-shirt that Ethan wore when he turned one. I REALLY can't deal with that.

Please excuse his puffy red nose. The boys in our family suffer from allergies and he is no exception.

It was also a big day for Abby. She's been taking ballet this year, and her recital was this weekend. Friday she had dress rehearsal from 4:00 to after 8:00. She was one tired girl. Parents don't go to the rehearsal, but before I took her I used her as a test subject with my camera. This photo is unrelated to anything about our weekend, but I had to put it on here because--look at her arms!! She is cut. I guess all that monkey bar play has its advantages! She was not trying to show her physique in this picture--she was actually in the middle of some dance move and I just happened to catch her buffness.

This kid had a pretty easy weekend, but he's so dang cute I thought I had to at least give him this.

And a couple more pictures of the one year old. His big trick these days is clapping and saying "YAY!" Only his is more of an "AY!" which makes him sound kind of like a New Jersey cabdriver. It's charming.

Soon I'll post about Abby's recital and Aaron's birthday party. And I'll also probably post a really sappy, mother-ish something about my baby turning one. Did I mention I'm still not handling that very well?

Happy Birthday, Aaron

2011-05-13T20:15:00.003-06:00

This is the busiest weekend AAMEN has had in a long time, and it's probably for the best. We have a 4 hour dance recital dress rehearsal and 2 1/2 hour recital, a soccer game, church and two birthday parties, one of which we are hosting. Oh, and MY BABY TURNED ONE TODAY.

That's why it's good for us to be busy. It's kept me from spending the entire day staring at pictures of him and crying.

I want to write a post about Aaron that is worthy of my sweet, quirky third-born, but I am so tired right now that I am typing with one hand and holding my eyelids open with the other. So I'll write that post next week, and for now we'll just meditate on the deliciousness that is Aaron Matthew.

What do they know anyway? They named their band Toto.

2011-05-12T08:23:00.000-06:00

Yesterday while I was driving, one of my very favorite songs came on the radio: Toto's Africa. I have always loved that song. I started to sing along, and then I remembered what I always remember when I start to sing along to that song--I don't really know very many of the words. I kind of go, "Hmmm-ah-na-ooohhh-things we never haa-aaa-aad."

Of course, now you can look up lyrics to any song on the internet, but I've never thought to do it until now for Africa. There's one specific line that I really wanted to know. It's right after they sing "It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you. There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do."

What do YOU think they say next?

Now, don't cheat. I'll give you the answer in just a minute. But really--what does it sound like they say next? Because I'll tell you, even after I looked it up I'm still not sure.

Here are the various possiblities I had come up with before looking it up:

- I'll catch some rays down in Africa
- I've got to raise down in Africa
- I caught some rings down in Africa

None of them really made sense, but look, we're talking about an entire song that doesn't make much sense. So I looked it up with great anticipation. You know what the real line is?

I bless the rains down in Africa.

What?

What does that have to do with anything? And how do you bless rains? I think my ideas were better.

Also, in related news. Until Matt corrected me, I always thought the line in Abba's Dancing Queen was "feel the beat from the jamboree." Turns out tambourine and jamboree sound a lot alike.

Who a mother REALLY is

2011-05-06T13:21:00.004-06:00

The other day, I saw someone post this quote on Facebook in honor of the approaching Mother's Day:

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. ~Tenneva Jordan

I've heard it before, but for some reason this time I stopped and thought about it for a minute. I quickly came to the conclusion that Ms. Jordan, while very well intentioned, simply has it wrong. Here's why.

1. Moms do a lot for their kids, no question. I've lost sleep rocking sick babies. I've watched Dora the Explorer instead of what I wanted to watch countless times. I've played Candy Land until I had the color order memorized. This doesn't make me a selfless saint, though. It makes me a woman with a brain. I do love my kids and want them to be happy; however, I also know that quiet, content children is the most direct path to my sanity. If I have a choice between watching a show I like while a child whines in my ear or watching Dora and Boots try to outwit Swiper in total peace, guess what? Vamanos, Dora. So while the quote implies that moms sacrifice their wants for those of their children purely out of love, I say there are other forces at work there.

2. Last time I checked, most mothers are women. And women need their desserts. If this quote was about lasagna or scrambled eggs, maybe I could see it. But pie? Sorry.

Of course, a mom in this predicament would have to do something drastic. She would know that being short one piece of pie would cause at least one tantrum and probably a sibling throwdown or two. So I have created an alternative quote, one that I think much more accurately depicts the moms of today:

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly hides the pie on top of the refrigerator and serves Twinkies for dessert, then eats the pie after the kids are in bed. -AMENMom

Proud to be that thing

2011-05-04T11:45:00.003-06:00

I am in absolute and total denial that Aaron is turning one in just over a week. It cannot be happening.

Here's the thing. Aaron's my baby. My last baby. My last chance to hold my own tiny, squishy, smells-like-heaven itty-bitty person. I have loved it, and I don't want it to end. I don't want this sweet, curious, snuggly baby to turn into a moody, sneaky, dramatic (and fine, probably really cute too) toddler. I don't NEED an older kid. I have two of those already.

Because of some circumstances with my c-sections, it would be too risky for me to have any more children. I have told Matt repeatedly that if it were left up to me, I'd have 18 more. He points out that while Aaron is an exceptionally well behaved, low maintenance baby, there's no guarantee that if we had another it wouldn't be the exact opposite. He also points out that maybe the reason I want to have more babies so badly is just because I've been told I CAN'T. Huh. He may have a point or two, I suppose. Still. Just one more?? Okay, fine.

I fear that I am going to become that thing that I have mocked--the mother that dotes on the "baby" of the family. All right, so maybe I have already become that thing. I'm sure it will get better as he gets older.

Just in case, though, stage an intervention if I'm still carrying him on my hip when he's 5.

The biggest lie I've ever told

2011-04-11T14:31:00.005-06:00

One night last week, I was getting ready to tuck Abby and Ethan in for the night (they share a room). E was already in his pajamas on the top bunk, but before Abby changed I needed her to try on a new shirt. It was too big in the neck, but otherwise fit okay. I asked Abby what she thought. Here's the conversation, EXACTLY as it happened:

Me: Abby, do you like it?

Abby: Well, no. Because it's big at the top and it might show my boo....um...what am I allowed to call these?

Me: It's okay. You can call them your boobs. But you know, you don't really talk about those with anyone. Except me if you need to, but that's something private that we don't talk about with other people.

Abby: Oh, I know. I would be embarrassed. (GOOD to know, since she rarely has any vocal filter). But, um, what are they REALLY called? Like, what's their official name?

Me: Well, I think you must be thinking of the word "breasts."

Abby: Yes! Breasts. That's what I was trying to remember. But girls still don't talk about their breasts, except with their moms.

Me: Right.

Ethan: Mom, do boys ever talk about breasts?

Me: No. Never. Not EVER, son.

Couldn't have planned it any better

2011-03-29T06:47:00.008-06:00

NOTE: I wrote this entry hours ago with paragraph breaks at all the right places. For whatever reason, it will NOT publish any other way than as one big glop of words. I hate that, but who knows when it will be fixed, so the glop will have to do. ACTUAL POST: I babysat a LOT in college. I loved it. I distinctly remember having, at any given time, a few upcoming dates reserved for people who had called me and asked me to babysit. Sometimes they had tickets to an event, sometimes they were just going out to dinner. We are not like those people. Occasionally, we get it together to secure one of our two regular babysitters in advance. This is rare, though. Usually, both the girls are used to getting a call at about 5:30 on a Saturday night from me. "So, uh, this is TOTALLY last minute, but do you by any chance want to babysit in, like, 20 minutes?" Why anyone would give up a free Saturday night to come to our house and hang out with three hooligans is beyond me, but somehow we've convinced them, and this past Saturday night just such a thing occured. Matt and I found ourselves free! Earlier in the day we'd been watching Anthony Bourdain eat Asian food that looked crazy good on The Travel Channel, so we decided to eat at Shogun. If you aren't familiar, it's one of those Japanese places where you sit in front of a grill and watch a guy cook your food while doing all kinds of fancy food-related tricks. We sat with three prom couples and a large family celebrating the olderst daughter's 15th birthday. The prom couples were fun to watch. One of the boys had a fedora with a big red feather in it, and I had to resist the urge to call him Yankee Doodle out loud. The boy directly next to me kept using his chopsticks as drumsticks on the table, and I had to work even harder to resist the urge to snatch them out of his hand and beat him over the head with them. Shogun is a nice restaurant--architecturally beautiful, dim lighting. You know, the kind of place people go for prom. This is why I find it rather odd that when they acknowledge a customer's birthday, they do so by turning on 50 strobe lights all over the ceiling and playing a random pop song at full volume (think Michael Jackson or Katy Perry). When it was the girl at our table's turn, they cranked up some Bieber. The girl's mother stood up and started singing and dancing, totally feeling the groove. It was both amusing and tragic to watch the girl's horror. We had a lovely time and ate ourselves silly. Every time we have a real date, we say that we love it, that it's so important to make sure we keep doing it, that we need to schedule a regular date night. But what's the fun in that?

And the winner is...

2011-03-05T08:16:00.003-06:00

MELANIE!! Congratulations, Melanie! You are the winner of a $5 Sonic gift card, to be mailed to you directly.

To ensure a fair contest, I put numbered pieces of paper representing each comment into one of Abby's Hannah Montana cups. Then I interrupted the game of Phase 10 that she and her dad were playing to have Matt (who is still grateful that I didn't write a haiku about him) pick a number without looking. Abby watched and demanded to be the one to pick next time. He pulled the number 7, and the seventh comment belonged to Melanie!

This was really fun. I will have to do it again soon. Sonic appears to be an internationally accepted incentive! Thanks to everyone who entered!

Poetry? Yes. Poetic? Not so much.

2011-02-28T20:55:00.007-06:00

I was an English major in college. Did you know that? Probably. I don't hide the fact that I am a grammar freak and that misspelled words and absurdly placed apostrophes raise my blood pressure. I refuse to use shorthand while texting (I mean really, is it SO much quicker to type u than it is to type you?) and I use capitalization and punctuation at ALL times--Facebook, a scribbled note to Matt, whatever. It's a standard I have.

As much as I was born to be an English major, there were some classes I didn't like. At all. Like poetry classes. I had a very good reason not to like poetry classes--I don't much care for poetry. There's some stuff out there I don't mind, of course. We had to memorize Rudyard Kipling's "If" in high school, and I believe it to be the sagest bit of rhyming advice I have ever heard. But most poetry, to me, is just silly and over-dramatic. (I'm sure someone out there is reacting to this statement the way I react when I see someone write there when they clearly mean their.)

However! As I thought about what kind of blog post I needed to write today, I realized that poetry is the perfect mechanism for getting everyone up to date on life for AAMEN. I speak specifically of that strange, random, efficient form of poetry, the haiku. A few haikus are all I need to get everyone in the loop!

Also, I still feel the need to make up for my slacker pace of blogging lately. So this post will have my FIRST EVER BLOG GIVEAWAY! Yahoo!!! Here's the plan. Comment on this blog and tell me which haiku you like the best. All comments posted by this coming Friday, March 4, at noon CST will be entered in a random drawing to win A FIVE DOLLAR SONIC GIFT CARD! Okay, so it's not a new car or a KitchenAid stand mixer, but give me a break. We're raising three kids here. Play your cards right, though, and that's an entire work week's worth of Happy Hour Route 44s!!

The nominees:

1. Aaron's cast is off!
It was earlier than planned.
So thrilled to be done.

2. Our church just turned one.
We had a celebration.
I love The Harbor!

3. Love Steven Tyler.
He and JLo saved Idol.
Still glad Paula's gone.

4. Abby's birthday looms.
Eight years old just can't be right.
What is she thinking?!

5. Matt loves his iPad.
Abby and I love it too.
We steal it. A lot.

6. Thin Mints are my joy.
Girl Scouts, why not sell year round?
Life would be perfect.

7. Facebook sucks my time.
I need status updates though!
Because I...um...well.

8. Annie is our dog.
Aaron thinks she is his toy.
Annie disagrees.

9. Toys blanket the floor.
Carpet's somewhere under there.
At least I think so.

10. It's March already!
March of Twenty-Eleven!
Wow, I feel so old.

Only the best for my boy

2011-02-17T11:59:00.005-06:00

We've all heard it: No matter what great presents you get a baby, they only want to play wtih the box. I am here to tell you that it could not be more true.

Aaron is 9 months old now. Because he's still in his body cast, the easiest way to entertain him is to perch him in my lap, facing out, and hand him small toys to play with, one at a time. He plays, throws the toy on the floor when he's tired of it, and then I give him another. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

When we figured out this method, I went through the house, collecting all of the small, fun toys I could find and putting them in a bin. Then I went to the store and bought a few more small, bright toys so he'd have plenty of options. Of course, some toys get more attention than others depending on his mood, but there are several that I can depend on to keep him entertained the longest. They are:

- An empty water bottle
- The funnel drain attachment for my panini maker
- A gift bow from Christmas
- The foam keychain that came with his diaper bag
- A spoon
- The lids from several small Tupperware containers
- The DVD player remote
- A calculator

It's okay though! It makes getting his birthday present really easy. I'm just going to wrap up a few toilet paper tubes and a comb and call it a day.

Silver Linings To All This Snow

2011-02-05T10:13:00.005-06:00

1. There's not nearly as much laundry to be done since no one's getting out of their pajamas.

2. It takes so much less to make people happy now--45 degrees and partly cloudy would be met with rejoicing in the streets.

3. Think of all the gas money being saved when you don't drive for 8 days.

4. If you haven't taken your outdoor Christmas lights down/trimmed your hedges/cleaned up your yard lately, no one knows! The snow has provided you with a thorough disguise.

5. Since the snow has trapped you at home with nothing to do, you have plenty of time to post status updates on Facebook about how you're stuck at home with nothing to do.

Observations from the mother of a spica'd baby

2011-01-27T07:55:00.008-06:00

Two weeks ago today, we brought our 8 month old baby home from the hospital, 2/3 of his body covered in a fiberglass hip spica cast. Most every day has presented some new challenge or revelation.

1. The cast should come with handles. That baby is HARD to pick up.

2. Managing the care of a baby in a spica cast is equivalent to lifting weights every day. I am going to have serious biceps after this is over.

3. It has apparently occured to very few people--like 2--that babies in body casts that can't bend at the waist still have to be able to ride legally in a car.

4. Of all the new experiences to be had with this cast, the strangest has to be buying diapers, feminine hygeine products, and adult incontinence products all at the same time, and all for my son. It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes 14 items to adequately diaper this child and protect the cast.

5. Fiberglass is scratchy on the outside. My arms look like I've been in a fight with a cat.

6. Though nothing makes this easy, the food has certainly helped. Thanks to our church family and dear friends, we have eaten better since Aaron broke his leg than we ever did before.

7. It is possible to go into withdrawal from not being able to squeeze squishy baby thighs when you're used to doing 3 or 4 or 27 times a day.

8. Laundry is significantly decreased when your baby can only wear a t-shirt and one sock.

9. You'd think something as bulky and awkward as a body cast would diminish a baby's cute quotient, but seems only to multiply it by a factor of "awwwwww...."

10. This too shall pass. Right?

And they always tell you babies aren't breakable...

2011-01-27T07:45:00.004-06:00

If you are not privy to my near-obsessive Facebook status updating, then you may not know that the AAMEN life got a little more interesting a few days ago. Aaron, who is now 8 months old, broke his leg. His dad was holding him when he decided to dive backwards onto the floor. Matt saved him from the fall, but he had lunged with enough velocity to snap his femur in two. He's wearing something called a hip spica cast, which basically means he's got a fiberglass shell over 2/3 of his body for the next four weeks. It makes everything, especially diaper changing, a little tricky.

I have been astounded at how many people have texted, emailed, messaged and called with encouragement and offers of help. Our friends and family basically swooped in and took care of everything while we were in the hospital. When I told everyone that the only legal way to transport him in the car in his current condition is by using a harness, and that the harness is only available in this state at Children's Hospital but we can't have one because we aren't a patient there, no less than 10 people started calling friends to try to find someone there who could help us. No doubt we are on Children's black list now :) I am so thankful for the help, though!

I have no idea how the next 4 weeks are going to play out. Hopefully we'll settle into a routine and I can still get things done around here, including blogging. Go easy on me if that's not the case though!

My grandmother

2011-01-17T13:42:00.002-06:00

First, if you're reading this because you wanted an update on my grandmother, thank you for caring about her. Granted, it's not hard to do since she's pretty much the greatest person ever, but still. Thanks.

Second. If you're reading this just because you clicked over to my blog, then just take my word for it--my grandmother is pretty much the greatest person ever.

The basics are: my grandmother, who is 83 and has Altzheimer's, fell early Saturday morning in her bedroom. My uncle, who lives with her, found her and called my aunt, who took her to the ER. She has been in the hospital since then. She incredibly did not break any bones or sustain any serious injuries. However, she is covered in bruises, extremely weak and is not in touch with reality. Her blood pressure is spiking and she has run a fever ocasionally. Today her doctor said that she will remain in the hospital a minimum of 3-5 days, then be transferred to some form of a rehabilitation center. She has a bladder/UTI infection, which she had before the fall. These cause confusion and hallucination in elderly patients (which seems SO strange to me) so we are hoping that once this is cleared up she will function a little better.

We have been incredibly blessed in that 1) She didn't sustain any life threatening injuries and 2)though she does not know who we are or where she is, she seems to be happy to be there, is perfectly willing to cooperate with anything she's asked to do, and has not thus far shown any anxiety or fear. In brief moments of clarity, she's been her sharply witty self and has quickly become the pet of the staff.

She cannot be left alone, so my aunt, cousin and I are taking turns spending the night in the room with her. It isn't the easiest task in the world, mainly becuase my precious little grandmother snores like a 300 pound man. We are all happy to do it, though. My mom is staying in town indefinitely. I went down Saturday and came home yesterday. I am trying to arrange care for the kids so I can go back tomorrow for a night, and then again Friday or Saturday.

Every time I start to write the last paragraph here, I start to get a little weepy, so I'm going to nip that in the bud. I'll just say that I'll keep updates coming as they are available, and it means the world to me that people get how awesome this lady is. Thanks.

My Three Part Plan To Survive The Snow Day

2011-01-11T09:35:00.002-06:00

1. Diet Dr. Pepper (for me)
2. The Wii (for Abby and Ethan)
3. Gerber Puffs (for Aaron)

Plan B involves Benadryl, bedroom door locks and earplugs. Let's hope we don't have to go there.

He gets it from his dad, I swear

2011-01-04T14:21:00.003-06:00

I am not one of those people who blogs every time her kid does something cute or funny, but I could not help myself today. The following are photographs taken while I fed Aaron his lunch a little while ago. He's apparently a very big fan of his tongue.

All about the baby

2011-01-03T12:07:00.003-06:00

You probably noticed that in the last post, Aaron was not featured prominently. He's 7 months old--his Christmas experience consists mainly of drooling and chewing on bows. I don't want to leave the impression, though, that he did not have some fun of his own. Here's some proof:

Okay, this picture doesn't actually show him doing anything, but DANG! How cute is this kid?

When you are the third child, and Abby and Ethan are your siblings, you learn to be tough real quick. They are so gentle with him, but they've already started teaching him the finer points of wrestling. It's great fun to watch, because they try so hard to be careful, while the whole time their baby brother is attacking with full force, growling and pulling hair and pouncing and shrieking with laughter the whole time. Here he is on the prowl for a victim:

Aaand he found one. His favorite move is to crawl on their head and pull their hair while he blows spit onto their face. They're astoundingly tolerant of this.

Aaron's now fully mobile, which I am having a very difficult time accepting. Where did my BABY go?? For about a month, he has headed straight for his bumpers the second he is laid down in his crib. Over Christmas he apparently figured out how to untie them and this is how we found him:

*Note to all the baby safety fanatics out there: Don't worry. We've fixed the problem. The chenille bumpers no longer pose a threat to Aaron's life.

And finally. We went to visit my grandmother for a couple of days. My children pretty much worship the ground their Gigi walks on, and I was pleased to see that Aaron is no different.

She IS pretty cool.

Santa is my hero

2011-01-02T12:15:00.001-06:00

For round 2 of our Christmas pictures, we'll focus mostly on Christmas morning itself. First, a little bit of preparation for the big day:

Now let me explain. Abby and Ethan are sitting at the table by the fireplace where we have placed Santa's cookies and milk. You will notice that there is more that just snacks on that table, though. You see, not everyone knows this, but Santa has a room at the North Pole where he keeps a collection of gingerbread houses made by his favorite children. Since we make a gingerbread house every year (well, let me clarify: we decorate the pre-made house they sell at Wal-Mart--do I SEEM like the homemade gingerbread house type to you? I didn't think so.) we always have a present for him! Of course, we are sad that we can't keep our house to look at for the next 2 months, but he IS Santa. Recently we got it on good authority that Santa in fact likes to receive Christmas crafts of any kind made by children. I love that jolly old elf.

This was the kids' payload. Seriously, they got way too much stuff. Matt and I originally disagreed about whether or not Santa wrapped presents--when I was growing up he ALWAYS did. Then, though, Santa pointed out to me that when Santa doesn't wrap presents, he can spend that time watching DVR'd episodes of Modern Family with all his extra time. I was converted.

This is the kids' reaction to seeing their stuff. They got so excited. This was the best year yet for over-the-top reactions to presents. It got almost comical. Ethan nearly stopped breathing over a t-shirt.

See what I mean? He is hugging the Moon Dough that Santa brought him. He picked Moon Dough as a present to give to the boy in the family we bought for this Christmas, and since then had become obsessed with getting his own. He kept telling anyone who would listen all about it, quoting verbatim from the TV commercials. "It's like nothing you've ever played with before!"

Ethan also got a Spiderman costume. He wore it the entire day, until bedtime. It has built in muscles and makes his rear end look even scrawnier than it is. Abby wore her PJs all day.

I wish I had taken a picture of our living room a few hours after present time. It looked like a toy room exploded. You couldn't walk. Granted, this is only slightly different than normal, but it was a little overwhelming even for me. We're still putting stuff away.

Oh, and the Moon Dough that Ethan practically wept over? He played with it for 10 minutes and it's been in the box ever since. Awesome.

You WILL look at me!

2011-01-01T19:08:00.003-06:00

2011, eh? Fancy. Sounds futuristic, doesn't it? Twenty Eleven. Ooh la la.

We had a lovely last few days of 2010. It was a wonderful Christmas. The kids are at really fun ages for all the festivities. We had just enough going on to keep us busy, but not so much that we were exhausted the whole time.

I have a rule for myself that may seem strange in today's photo-obsessed society: I don't take pictures of my kids opening presents. Because. I realized that if I am taking pictures of them opening presents, I'm not really WATCHING them open presents, and missing the moment so that I can record the moment I missed seems a little...counterproductive. Besides, who really goes back and looks at pictures of their kids opening every single package?

Anyway, I managed to get plenty of other good pictures and I'm going to spread them out over a few posts. To get us started I'll give you a series of pictures taken on Christmas Eve. We have a tradition of giving the kids pajamas on Christmas Eve to wear that night. Below are the photographs I took in my attempt to get a good shot of my 3 children in their new pjs. My commentary is what I was actually saying while taking the pictures.

"Okay, just hold Aaron and be sweet to him and smile!"

"Abby, look at me! Ethan, quit eating your brother!"

"I don't care if he likes it! LOOK AT ME!"

"Aaron! Are you mocking me? WHY is no one looking at me??"

"Fine. Do whatever you want. I'll be in the other room packing up all your presents to take to the kids down the street."

A brief summary

2010-12-17T08:56:00.004-06:00

Well, this is embarrassing.

I hate when I go a long time between blog posts. Really hate it. It's like a vicious cycle--the longer it's been since I've posted, the more pressure I feel to do a REALLY GOOD post, which makes me procrastinate, which just...well, you know. So I finally decided I just had to bite the bullet. It's been almost exactly a month since I posted. Here, briefly, is a summary of that month:

- My birthday
- Matt's birthday
- Went to Mississippi (10 hours each way, with all three kids and 14 tons of stuff) for Thanksgiving
- Aaron got his first ear infection
- Helped with Teacher Appreciation Week at Abby's school--doled out 1,600 cookies to teachers among other things
- Got socked with a nasty stomach bug, along with everyone in my family except for Abby. At the same time. Worst weekend of. My. LIFE.

But! Now it is almost Christmas. Everyone is more or less healthy, and our only travel over this holiday will be a quick trip to Little Rock. So I can breathe easy and get back to blogging!

Wait.

Today is the last day of school for Abby and Ethan for two weeks.

Pray for me.

The Conversation Between Me and My Four Year Old Son On The Way Home From A Birthday Party Last Night

2010-11-19T09:36:00.002-06:00

Me: Did you have fun at the party?

E: Yes. When are we going to go to the North Pole?

Me: Well, we can't go to the North Pole. Santa's getting ready for Christmas, and we would distract him.

E: We can help!

Me: Oh no, only elves can help Santa.

E: We can be elves!

Me: That would be cool, but God created us to be people, not elves.

E: He made people to be people and elves to be elves?

Me: Yep.

E: And puppies to be puppies and babies to be babies?

Me: Yep.

E: What about buildings?

Me: Well, God gave people the abilities to make buildings.

E: Which ones did you make?

Me: Er, none of them. I haven't made any buildings. Some people make buildings, not all people.

E: Who made Chuck E. Cheese's building?

Me: I don't know.

E: I want to build a building.

Me: Well, when you are a grown up you can.

E: Okay. When are we going to go bowling?

Me: I don't know--maybe sometime soon. That would be fun.

E: But it might be too loud.

Me: Nah, it's not too bad.

E: Okay. But I want to go to the moon.

Me: Do you now?

E: Except aliens might eat me.

Me: What makes you think aliens eat people?

E: Because before I was born when I lived in heaven I saw an alien hide in a bag and grab a person that we don't know and eat them.

Me: Oh my goodness.

E: So I don't want an alien to eat me.

Me: I certainly understand that.

E: Mom?

Me: Yes?

E: Can we not talk any more until we get home?

Me: That will be just fine, son. Just fine.

iPhone Photo Fun

2010-11-15T15:55:00.002-06:00

I've slacked a little with the photo posts, but let's be honest. No one's surprised there.

My kids with a giant chicken. And? Doesn't this happen to your kids all the time? I mean, who DOESN'T have a picture of their kids hugging a chicken?

This is Ethan, in the middle of a furniture store, making himself at home. We were shopping for bunk beds and we let him bring his Leapster so he would have something to do besides climbing on stuff. It worked--he plopped right down in this lovely chair, dirty shoes and all, and played away. It nearly gave the salesman a heart attack.

I love my grandmother. We were cleaning out a closet in her guest room and found this hat. I plopped it on her head and took a picture, and she had the grace not to yell at me about it. I think she totally rocks the hat.

These are our good friends Jake, Amy and Chad after our church's rummage sale this summer. Chad is the one sticking out his tongue. Chad is our preacher. Our services, as you might imagine, are super serious.

This was the hallway we had to walk down to get to our room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas this spring. The hallways at Vegas hotels are all like this. Endless. Forget bribing the check-in person to give you a room with a good view--if you ever go to Vegas, ask for a room within a half mile of the elevators.

Things about me that would probably not be true if I did not have a 4 year old son

2010-11-09T11:56:00.007-06:00

1. I know that Hulk and Spiderman, while both on the same side, have significant tension and have fought each other.

2. I can tell when "I didn't do it" is true or false.

3. Straightening up the living room might involve picking up Buzz Lightyear, a dinosaur, 2 pair of Transformers underwear, 5 socks (never an even number) and a glue stick that is missing most of its glue.

4. I spend a lot of my time in public places apologizing for someone else--Sorry he bumped into you! Sorry that pen narrowly missed your head! Sorry my son thought your purse was a trash can! Sorry!

5. I say "excuse you" in response to another's burps more often than I have to say "excuse me" for my own.

6. I buy fruit snacks in bulk.

7. I can explain the landscapes on each level of Mario Brothers for Wii.

8. I know that no amount of logic, bribing, threatening, arguing, pleading, or ignoring will make a 4 year old eat something he doesn't want to eat.

9. I know that Aaron doesn't seem to mind having all of his toys piled on top of his face "so he can reach them really easy."

10. Before I fall asleep at night, when I am not worrying about my daughter's teenage years, I am worrying about what was done with that glue stick.

Things about me that would probably not be true if I did not have a 7 year old daughter

2010-11-08T15:52:00.004-06:00

1. I know the difference between Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato.
2. I know how to determine if a stomachache is real or fake.
3. Straightening up the living room might involve picking up a Barbie, a glitter pen, several pair of Old Navy flip flops, a ponytail holder and 17 Silly Bandz.
4. I regularly participate in a play session of Beauty Shop that results in my hair being weighed down with about 28 hair bows, bobby pins barrettes and clippies.
5. I check more addition problems each week than I DID when I was in second grade.
6. I buy Capri Suns in bulk.
7. The most-played song in my car is Hey Soul Sister. We listen to it EVERY. Time. We get. In. The car.
8. I am elevated to hero status by securing McDonald's for dinner.
9. I struggle to explain why a pink shirt goes with brown pants, but a pink shirt does not go with pants that are a different shade of pink than the shirt.
10. I spend a fair amount of the time between when I lay down at night and the time I fall asleep panicking about the teenage years.

Sweet relief

2010-11-03T12:49:00.003-06:00

WOW, am I glad that's over.

I hate election season for about a million different reasons. I hate campaign ads. I hate my local news being dominated by campaign stories. I really, really hate recorded telephone calls from candidates. And I hate losing my normally regular, level headed friends to political frenzy.

I learned from an expert to be cynical about politics. When I took Intro to Poli Sci in college, it was one of my favorite classes. This had nothing to do, I assure you, with the fact that my teacher was one good looking dude. That was why I sat in the front row, but not why I liked the class. I liked it because I learned how government is really run, and how far that reality is from what most people think.

I know people who equate the results of this election with the rescue from certain death and despair, and people who think it is the beginning of the end. Here's the thing: it's neither. Now we have a split Congress full of people on the far right and the far left, and a president that many Americans would believe anything they got an email forward about. You know what's going to happen in our government in the next couple of years? Very, very little. I mean next to nothing. No one will be able to accomplish anything, so things will stay the way they are.

I know people will think I'm apathetic, that I don't care about our government, blah blah. Not true at ALL. I just think it's unnecessary to get worked up about results that, in the end, are not going to produce that many new results at all. It's not healthy! Everyone just calm down. It's not good for your blood pressure! Now don't anybody go getting all sassy on my comments and lecturing me on why I'm wrong. Start your own blog if you want to, but this is mine and I'm always right here.

When the presidential election ended 2 years ago, I wrote a similar post describing my distaste for politics. I also explored the possibility of running for office myself in couple of years. If you don't recall, here is the post. I still think this is a really feasible plan. If I decide to go for it, you'll all be at the top of my recorded phone call list.

Taking back the night

2010-10-28T12:29:00.003-06:00

There are people who, when they are woken up in the middle of the night by a storm or a wrong number or, say, a 5 month old baby, can go right back to sleep.

I am not one of those people.

In a cruel twist of fate, Aaron (who has incredibly slept through the night since he was less than a month old) began waking up once or twice every night about a month ago. He wasn't hungry, didn't seem to have any particular agenda--he just woke up. So I'd go get him, rock him, and within minutes he would be out again. Lucky duck. I would then go back to bed and lay awake for an hour or more, trying to get back to sleep and taking way too long to succeed. This has resulted in a very exhausting October for me.

This week it seemed to get worse, so we finally decided that perhaps the addition of solid foods to his diet was the source of the problem. We did some experimenting with his feeding schedule and tried a few other tricks, and the past two nights he's been his old, sleep 10 hours straight self. Thank. The. LORD. I am just praying that it's not a trick, and that we are really over this miserable phase. We can't afford to keep buying the amount of Diet Dr. Pepper I was requiring each day to function.

The Whole Story Behind "Mary Had A Little Lamb" as Told By Ethan

2010-10-20T10:28:00.003-06:00

One day Mary took her lamb to school. And the kids made fun of her. And they took her hook. And her hat. And so the next day she had a new hook and a new hat. And they took them again. And so the next day she had a new hook and a new hat and she put "X"'s on them so the kids wouldn't take them. But they did.

So the next day Mary took all of the kids' clothes. Except for one boy who tried to help her before but he couldn't because the other kids wouldn't let him. And she put the kids' clothes down the drain. And there was a baby shark that lived under the drain and he liked to eat clothes. So he ate all the kids' clothes. And Mary was happy and had dinner.

iPhone Photo Fun

2010-10-19T14:09:00.002-06:00

Okay, so it's technically been longer than a week since my last iPhone Photo Fun post. A smidge longer. A scootch. My bad. Hopefully my superior photography skills and saucy wit will compensate for what I lack in timeliness.

This was taken when I was pregnant (obviously, I hope). My aunt became obsessed with me texting her a picture of my expecting self, and I finally did it to get her off my back. This was the one I didn't send, because A) I was still prepping myself, and B) my husband is a goofball.

Blech. There was a period of some weeks in which Abby's smile resembled that of a hillbilly due to her numerous lost teeth. When I was a kid I had no qualms about pulling my own teeth, but for some reason now it grosses. me. OUT. I could barely even look at her when I took this picture.

This is Ethan and one of his BFFs, Aidan. They play soccer together, and they can be entertained for hours by being sent on "soccer missions" in our yard. For example, I'll tell them to kick their soccer balls to the tree, then pick them up and walk backwards to the bench, then sit on them for 10 seconds, then repeat. This was the sitting for 10 seconds part.

Blech again. We took the kids to Tulsa in August for our Daycation. We went to the Aquarium, and there was an albino turtle there. It both fascinated and repulsed me. Look at its creepy red eyes!

Awww. This one is definitely not blech. No big story here, just me smooching on my (at the time) itty bitty baby. The one that is now over 5 months old and working his way steadily to Butterball status.

Where are your parents?!

2010-10-12T14:06:00.004-06:00

Kids' television shows are weird.

I've written before about the annoying need for all kids' shows to teach something. More strange, though, is the bizarre characters and plots out there. For some reason, since they're wrapped up in a shiny package with catchy songs and flashy graphics we don't pay too much attention to this. I started thinking about it, though, and it's pretty disturbing. Let me show you what I mean. Here is a rundown of the basic plots of some of the more popular shows out there for children:

- Dora the Explorer: A young girl spends her days in the company of her best friend, a talking monkey. They use a magical backpack and map to go on adventures with no adult supervision. They encounter snakes, crocodiles, and fierce storms. Their foe is a weasel that steals from little children.

- Go Diego Go: Dora's cousin Diego also has an animal best friend--a jaguar. Super safe. He, his sister and the jaguar traipse around rescuing wild animals from precarious positions, including imminent destruction by predators.

- Wonder Pets: A baby duck, a turtle and a guinea pig escape from their cages in a classroom to fly around the world in a homemade boat/airplane in order to save animals and occasionally plants. These rescues are usually from more benign emergencies than Diego's--a dog that can't get outside to relieve himself, a plant that can't get water. About three quarters of the dialog is sung instead of spoken, though to no particular tune and certainly not following any rhyme or song pattern.

- Toot and Puddle: Let's take a minute and just examine the freakiness of the name alone on this one. Yeah. Toot and Puddle are two pigs of an undetermined age who enjoy traveling the world and absorbing the culture. And their names are Toot and Puddle.

- Blues Clues: A man in his 20s lives with a dog and a talking salt and pepper shaker, nightstand, mailbox, and various other talking household items. They don't really do much besides talk.

- Special Agent Oso: Oso is a panda bear that goes on missions to help children figure out how to do basic tasks. So, for example, a little girl will be in her back yard to water her flowers, and the bear will drop out of the sky and help her figure out how the watering can works. I'm a grown woman and that would freak me out, but apparently a 5 year old would think nothing of it.

There are plenty of others, but you get the picture. What in the world are these writers thinking? Well, I guess they're thinking that these plots are gold mines, because that's exactly what they are. Kids eat this stuff up like candy. It's fine with me, I guess, as long as Ethan doesn't start asking for a jaguar or talking to the salt shaker.

iPhone Photo Fun

2010-10-08T14:06:00.002-06:00

Matt's in the middle of a camping trip with some of his buddies, so things are a little crazy around here, but I knew if I didn't get this post squeezed in my hoardes of fans would never forgive me. And without you 3, I'd be so sad!

This is the World's Largest Chocolate Fountain, found at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. It's behind glass, which is pretty smart, because if it wasn't I'm sure people would stick their heads right under there and drink. Not me, of course. I'd bring a cup. It's hard to tell the scope in this picture, but it's over 15 feet tall. It's running out of the ceiling. Three different kinds of chocolate. Hoo boy.

We went to see the Blue Man Group when they were at the Walton Arts Center in September. It was my 3rd time to see them, and I love them every single time. This is a picture I took during the show--we had pretty darn good seats. There was a brief moment of terror when they picked someone 5 seats down from us to go up on stage, but I breathed easy once it wasn't me.

This was the scene at The Harbor in July at our rummage sale. We had SO. MUCH. STUFF. It was great. I am one of those freaks that likes putting on one of these sales. Something about making money off of things you don't want any more is just so satisfying.

My eldest on the occasion of her 7th birthday. We checked her out of school long enough to take her to lunch. We told her we'd go anywhere she wanted. Of course, we went to McDonald's. As you can tell I had to coax her to pose for the camera.

The first remarkable thing about this photo is that it's the first one I ever took with my iPhone. The second remarkable thing about this photo is that it's of Ethan and he isn't doing anything destructive.

Silver Linings: The Gulf Oil Spill

2010-10-04T07:10:00.003-06:00

I had the best of intentions to make this a weekly feature, but I think I'm going to have to reclassify it as a "regular" feature. The problem is that I'm having trouble coming up with very bad things to talk about lightly that won't upset or offend people. Hopefully this one does neither, but we'll see.

5 SILVER LININGS TO THE GULF OIL SPILL

5. The ocean is so much more shiny now.

4. Free gas for everyone! (Well, everyone who has an apparatus to extract and purify oil from ocean water, and another apparatus to turn oil into gas.)

3. Exxon finally gets to hand off the "Oil Company Most Hated By Environmentalists" title to someone else. Congrats, BP!

2. Thousands of overworked fisherman finally have time to take a vacation.

1. We can rant about the irresponsibility of the oil spill when we hear the updates on news radio as we drive the half mile from our house to drop our children off at school in our SUV, right behind our next door neighbor who is dropping her children off at the same school.

Biker baby

2010-10-01T14:23:00.005-06:00

Mom, it's my first Bikes, Blues and BBQ. Let's ROLL!

I mean, um, I love you Mommy! Can we please go to Bikes, Blues and BBQ?

No, you say? You might want to reconsider. It's unwise to mess with a biker baby.

iPhone Photo Fun

2010-09-30T07:00:00.002-06:00

Here we go!

Our kids are a little...obsessed with technology. They get it from their father. Abby got a Nintendo DSi for her birthday this year, and she and Ethan can be entertained for hours. This picture was taken at my grandmother's house. I like it because I can look at it and pretend they like each other, when in fact they just tolerate each other because there's only one DSi and they have to get that close to both see the screen.

Is there going to be a picture of my son behaving badly every week? Probably so. This is Ethan scrubbing white crayon off of our love seat. Let me tell you, removing crayon from microfiber is not my idea of fun. It's not his either.

Mmmm. This picture was taken this past Christmas when we visited my brother Jacob and his wife Patty in Mountain Home. We were joined by my brother Michael and his wife Siobhan. We stayed up after the kids went to bed one night and played spades. We had a fantastic time until things turned a little...dramatic. You can read more about that here. I've no doubt I'll be getting a smarmy comment from Michael on here any time.

We have a fantastic group of musicians at our church, The Harbor. One Sunday morning, they all came dressed like lumberjacks (granted, one is a very pretty lumberjack). Also, note the one-foot-forward pose that all boys performing music seem to make.

Ohhh, just looking at this picture makes me want to go wake him up and squish his cheeks. Well, almost. This is Aaron the day we brought him home from the hospital. He's wearing the same outfit that Ethan came home in. I can hardly stand looking at this he's so cute.

I feel the need, the need to read

2010-09-28T17:46:00.002-06:00

I love to read.

I have always loved to read. When I was a kid, I read all, and I mean all, the time. I read when I ate. I read before I went to bed and after I went to bed. I read while I was watching television. I likely remain the only student in the history of Baker Elementary to get recess detention as a punishment for reading (apparently hiding my Babysitter's Club series #8 book, Boy Crazy Stacy, under my math book and reading while I was supposed to be working was not okay.)(Yes, I know I'm a freak for remembering what book it was that got me in trouble in the 6th grade. It was traumatic--I had never gotten detention before.). I read any time I rode anywhere in a car. The unfortunate result of that was that when I turned 16 and got my driver's license I had no idea how to get ANYWHERE because I never paid attention when I was a passenger. I got teased a lot for that.

I majored in English in college. I enjoyed it, though it annoyed me to have to tear apart a book to try to find what an author was "really" trying to say. I always wanted to meet one of these authors and have them tell me that they just thought it was a cool story, so they wrote it.

Few things in life delight me more than a really good book. That's why it is such a BUMMER that I have not read a really good book in a really long time. I can't even use the excuse that I don't have enough time--I could definitely squeeze some reading into my day, though it would cut into my Spider Solitaire time. The problem is that books are EXPENSIVE. Well, you say! Just go to the library, you silly girl! I do. I have. About a million times. The problem is, the library just throws all the fiction books into one giant section. At Barnes and Noble, I can go to their featured books table and instantly find 10 books I want to read. At the library, it takes me an hour to peer my way through one aisle, sifting through the Westerns and Romances to find the good stuff. Who has the time for that? And inevitably the book I want is in hardback, and I am way too clumsy to read hardbacks. So, most of the time I am without a book to read.

I don't mean to imply that I never read. I get People Magazine in my mailbox every Friday, and it is usually devoured before I go to bed that night. We also get Reader's Digest, and I make pretty quick work of it too. (Mock not--there's some good stuff in there, and the funny stories people send in are great.) (Okay, I just read that last sentence. Go ahead and mock.) Also the newspaper semi-regularly. And of course, there are the legions of books I read with the kids. Why, just last night we read:

Skippyjon Jones in Outer Spice
Goldalicious
Hippos Go Berserk
The Care and Feeding of Rabbits (no, we don't have a rabbit and we aren't getting one. Ethan wanted to know why rabbits eat carrots, and his sister got him the book at the library. It did not answer his question.)

I have to fix this problem! I need grown up books to read. I think what I need to do is make a list of books I'd like to read and take it to the library--maybe if there are enough on the list I can find a few in paperback. I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Because it seems appropriate, here's a list of some of my favorite books:

Time Traveler's Wife (#1. If I could only read one book for the rest of my life, this would be it.)
Poisonwood Bible
Memoirs of a Geisha
Kite Runner
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Anything by John Irving; A Prayer for Owen Meany is genius
The Devil in the White City
The Handmaid's Tale
All 3 Stieg Larsson books
Anything by Edward Rutherfurd; New York is my favorite
The Harry Potter series
Velvet Elvis (I'm not usually a nonfiction fan, but this book changed the way I view my faith)

Okay! What am I missing out on? What do I need to read RIGHT NOW? And if you own it, can I borrow it?

iPhone Fun and an announcement

2010-09-23T08:05:00.000-06:00

Okay, this is going to be the second installment of my series, iPhone Fun, in which I display and describe random pictures I have taken with my phone. Before we get down to that business, though, I just have to say: WHOAH! Yesterday my blog got more than twice the visitors it has ever recieved on a single day. I have to think it's because of the millage post and the several kind people who linked to the post on Facebook. I haven't gotten any death threats yet, so I'm going to assume most people liked, or at least tolerated, the post. And hopefully they were so blown away by my witty style and mastery of the English language that they will become regular readers.

And so! I have decided to add a second regular feature to the blog. In order to help us all remember that it's never as bad as it seems, I am introducing the Silver Lining series. Each week I will provide 5 silver linings to what most people would consider an impossibly bad situation. Can you hardly wait??

Okay, now on to today's post. I give you, selected at random and certain to classify me as stranger than you even thought before, photos from my iPhone:

Like the good mom that I am, I forgot to bring my camera to Ethan's last soccer game this spring, and so my iPhone holds the only photo of him after he recieved his medal. He's awfully proud, which is funny considering that he mostly ran about 10 feet behind the other players and cried because they wouldn't let him have the ball.

Ahhh, Ethan again. A few weeks ago he played quietly in teh room he shares with Abby for about 20 minutes. Not sure why I let that happen. I guess he decided the stuffed animals needed to take a ride, so he climbed on top of their bunk beds and methodically propped each animal on a fan blade, rotating the fan to reach each blade. He never said a word about it, just came out after he was done and had a snack. Abby found it like this several hours later. Am I the only mother who has the need for a "no placing toys on the ceiling fan" rule?

Wild Hair Day at Abby's school. I was coming back from being out of town that morning. This was what her dad came up with, and what I saw when she came home from school that day.

This is torture. When Matt and I went to Vegas in February, there was a spectacular bakery in our hotel that we went to once or twice. A day.

Abby and Ethan singing and doing the motions to "One Eyed, One Horned Flying Purple People Eater" on the way to our daycation in August.

Okay, that's it for today! You have to wait another week to see more oddball pictures. Don't worry, though--you won't have to wait more than a day or two for more oddball blogging.

But hey, think about it this way...

2010-09-21T21:41:00.005-06:00

I have a lot of friends who are VERY disappointed that the Springdale millage did not pass today. It's a bummer for sure, but I always try to look on the bright side. I wanted to do my part to cheer everyone up, so I present to you now:

THE TOP 5 SILVER LININGS TO THE "MILLAGE NOT PASSING" CLOUD:

5. Our kids will have so many more friends when they have 60 kids in their class.

4. Har Ber students will be able to swing by Sonic Happy Hour on their way to their off-site athletic practices.

3. Nostalgic Springdale High alumni can rest assured that their football stadium's bathrooms remain "original" and "authentic".

2. If the school district buys the right kind of trailers to use as overflow classrooms, they can just hook them up to big trucks at the end of the day and deliver kids to their houses--talk about saving on bus costs!

And the number one silver lining to the Springdale millage not passing:

1. Everyone has something to post about on Facebook!

I love you all, and I am impressed with your dedication. Apathy is for wussies.

Which are you?

2010-09-20T11:20:00.004-06:00

Tomorrow our city votes on a proposed 2.4 mill increase to our property taxes. The bulk of the money will be used to build new (badly needed) middle and junior high schools, but a not insubstantial chunk will be used to build a new football stadium and other athletic facilities for our newer high school, and upgrade the football stadium of the older high school.

I am not going to use this blog to either support or criticize the proposal, partly because I don't want a bunch of drama, but mainly because I have mixed feelings about it. One the one hand, overcrowding in our schools is a continual problem, and I do not really want my kids in classes with 60 kids. On the other hand, I feel like we're getting a little played by the way they lumped in the frills with the needs. At any rate, I can certainly understand reasonable arguments on both sides.

The mill increase means property taxes would go up $4 per month for every $100,000 worth of property owned--doesn't seem exhorbitant. However, the way people are going on about it, you'd think we were being asked to take out second mortgages in order to avoid the total shutdown of the school system. I've listened to most of the dialogue with a fair amount of interest, though sometimes people use arguments that I find extraordinarily irritating. And talking about things that irritate me is much more what this blog is about!

Here are the arguments from each side that most make me want to bang my head against a wall:

1. Do NOT tell me I shouldn't vote for the millage because "we pay enough taxes already." That's like telling your 10 year old son that you aren't going to buy food for him anymore because you just bought his 16 year old sister a car and you're tired of spending so much on your kids. If you have reviewed the proposal and you don't believe the district needs the things the millage will pay for, fine. But to oppose a tax on the general premise that you just don't like being taxed is silly.

2. Do NOT tell me I should vote for the millage if I support education and my school district. This one really bugs me. I think a lot of people feel like they have to vote for any education millage because they don't want to be thought of as the jerk that doesn't want their city to have good schools. There's a lot of bullying going on in this department, and I don't like it one bit. Voters were presented with a complete package--one option to vote for. It IS possible to want more money spent on our district, but to oppose spending so much on athletic facilities, or to oppose the amount spent to build each school (our newer schools do look very mansion-ish), or to wonder out loud why other areas that it seems should be higher up on the priority list aren't. We don't get to vote on tweaking the budget, or approve part of the projects but not all of them. So to criticize someone for not immediately jumping on the millage bandwagon because the phrase "more money for schools" is used is just ridiculous.

So! According to these arguments, if I support the millage I'm a greedy tax loving hoarder, and if I oppose it I'm a freeloading unsupportive education hater. Peachy.

Well! It feels good to get that off my chest. This time next week, regardless of what happens, the millage won't be news any more. There will undoubtedly be some other controversial issue that will have everyone worked up into a lather. I can hardly wait.

iPhone Fun*

2010-09-13T09:20:00.005-06:00

I am excited to announce a first in AMENMom blogging history--a regular feature! Keep your seats, folks. I am shamelessly copying this idea from a couple of other blogs I read. Once a week, or thereabouts, I will post 5 random photos that I have taken with my iPhone and explain them. I recently uploaded my iPhone photos to my computer for the first time, and trust me--there is plenty of photo fodder (how's that for some good alliteration??) to carry this feature for a while.

I have to admit, when I got my iPhone last fall I really didn't think I'd use it to take pictures all that much. Boy, was I wrong. The kids know there is a camera in my phone and they demand to have pictures taken all the time. Also, since my phone is with me pretty much 24/7 (Yes, it's a bit of an addiction. No, I don't see any problem with that) I can take pictures of really random things I see. And let me tell you, I see a lot of random in this life of mine.

I put all of the blogworthy photos into a folder on my computer, and I will pull 5 at random each week--I won't even look at them until they're on the blog. Should be an interesting mix each time. So, week one! Here we go!

Ooh, a good one right out of the gate. I got an app on my phone called QuadCamera that does photo strip-esque pictures. It takes them every fraction of a second. I feel fairly sure that if Matt had any idea this could someday end up on the Internet for all to see, he would have ensured its destruction long ago.

Ethan has a pair of pajamas that are WAY too big for him. For reasons I cannot comprehend, he loves to wear the pants, even though they are a foot and a half too long and the waist band is twice as big as his own waist. Here he is modeling the fact that they do fit, if worn a la Pee Wee Herman and when he sticks his chest out as far as possible to keep them from falling down.

There's a local park with a pond that is home to dozens of ducks and geese. It's the local "good parent" thing to do to take your kids to feed the ducks every once in a while. This picture deceivingly makes the process seem entertaining and quaint. In fact, it's terrifying. Those suckers are aggressive and MEAN. Especially the big white geese--they hiss at you! And bite! I am not ashamed to say they terrified me.

Oh, baby. In February Matt and I went to Vegas. He had a conference there, so all we had to pay for was my airline ticket. I was 6 months pregnant and this was our last chance to relax before we became a family of 5. Since Matt was gone to meetings most of the day, I spent a lot of time laying around, reading and eating. The first morning we were there, I allowed myself the luxury of ordering room service. Eggs Benedict is one of my favorite breakfasts of all time, and this one did not disappoint. It was like $38, but whatever. Today my breakfast was an Eggo waffle. It all evens out in the end.

Matt's parents brought the kids these accoutrements on New Year's Eve this past winter. They LOVED it. This is one of my favorite pictures of them.

*I considered titling this feature "iPhone Phun" to poke a little fun at so many people's tendency to misspell out of an attempt at cuteness--you know, "Kammie's Korner" and "Kwik Kash" and the such. In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

The yuckiest thing in my life

2010-09-09T06:49:00.003-06:00

Warning: the topic of this post is gross. If you are squeamish, you'd be best off just moving on to the next blog on your list.

I normally don't write about gross things, but this particular thing is such a major part of my life right now that I figured it deserves a little respect, in the way that brilliant criminals deserve respect for their quick thinking and daring attitudes while also deserving to be tossed in prison. Oh, to be able to deal with this problem that easily.

The problem--plague, really--of which I speak is this: spit up.

Matt and I were alarmed when Abby, at a couple of weeks old, began spitting up substantial portions of her formula after every feeding. It got worse and worse. The pediatrician said she had reflux and prescribed Zantac to keep her from being in pain from all the spitting up, but nothing could stop the flow. She didn't grow out of it until she was almost a year old. Then we had Ethan, and he was just as bad. When I got pregnant with Aaron, we knew that in all likelihood he would follow suit.

He has not disappointed.

This time we were ready--as ready as you can be, anyway. We know the right bibs to buy (terry cloth is most absorbant), the best position to feed him in, and to never lay him down on any surface without first covering it. We bought dozens of cloth diapers, which make the best burp cloths ever, and they are placed strategically around the house. I never leave home with Aaron without a change of clothes, 3 bibs, and 4 cloth diapers in his bag. Friends are welcome to hold him, but they are first warned that they might need to change their clothes afterward.

Aaron actually has a pretty mild case of reflux compared to the other two. He spits up a LOT, but it doesn't have the, shall we say, velocity that the other two managed. And right now he's still just on formula so it's not too bad. Soon, though, he'll start baby food and that's when it gets really nasty. It's okay, though. I've done it twice, I can do it again. And it will end eventually.

On a less icky note, we saw Blue Man Group this weekend at the Walton Arts Center. It was fantastic. It was my 3rd time to see them. I'm a huge fan. The people who sit in the first 2 rows have to wear ponchos to protect their clothes from stray paint, Twinkie stuffing, and marshmallows (if you haven't seen the show, don't even try to understand). Before the show, I watched those people don their ponchos, looking nervous, and saw them flinch every time something went flying during the show. Amateurs.

A good day

2010-09-04T21:04:00.004-06:00

A year ago today, I woke up in a fabulous hotel room in the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas. I had a wonderful day with Matt, exploring the Red Rock Canyon, wandering around downtown Vegas and eating a lot of really good food. We didn't know it yet, but I was in the very earliest stages of my third pregnancy--too early to feel any symptoms. We were celebrating our tenth anniversary.

I recalled this experience today, our eleventh anniversary, while sitting on my couch in my pajamas, feeding Aaron and watching a rerun of West Wing. Not quite the same kind of experience. Our day was not what you'd call carefree or romantic. I got to go to Wal Mart for groceries on a Saturday, at noon, on a holiday weekend, the day of the first Razorback home game, with an infant that cried every time I stopped the basket or moved out of his line of vision. Matt got to clean out the garage in search of the possum that somehow snuck in several days ago and has been using it for his bachelor pad ever since. (He found it.)

The funny thing is that I really don't mind that we didn't have a super-exciting day. We're going to see Blue Man Group at the Walton Arts Center tomorrow night (we saw them in Vegas on our second anniversary and they were GREAT) so we are celebrating--just not today. And anyway, the day seemed appropriate somehow. The thing I love about our marriage is that we are both so content with the normalcy of our lives. We aren't those people who must have excitement and drama at every turn. A great evening for us is one in which the kids go to bed early and we get takeout and watch a movie or play cards. And let's be honest, when we do go to Las Vegas, we don't exactly tear up the town. We're too old and too dorky for that. For heaven's sake, we went bowling the last time we were there.

I remember in the days leading up to our wedding, people continually asked me if I was nervous about getting married. I never quite knew how to answer. I was nervous about the wedding, sure--would I trip walking down the aisle? Would I get embarrassed by one of the MANY people in my family able to make that happen in any number of ways? But I was never in the least bit nervous about getting married to Matt. That was the easiest thing ever. Even then, when we were just 22 year old children, I knew how lucky I was. I knew that he would be a faithful husband, a great parent, and a loyal friend. In the last eleven years, he's nursed me through losing my tonsils and wisdom teeth, plus 3 c-sections. He's done more mopping and vacuuming than me, let me sleep late when the kids get up early on Saturdays, taken the trash to the curb every week (okay, MOST weeks), coached a girls' soccer team, and let me have slightly more than my fair share of the covers. He's one of the good guys. One of the best, really.

So sure, I'd have loved to have spent our anniversary on a great vacation somewhere exotic. It's not necessary, though. I love him just as much when we're sitting in our living room. Especially when I know there's no longer a possum lurking in the garage.

Maybe I should have asked about the curriculum

2010-09-01T20:26:00.003-06:00

When kids start going to school, there must be some secret meeting where they're trained to reveal nothing about their day to their parents, no matter how much prodding they receive. What did you do today? Nothing. What did you learn? Don't remember. What did you have for lunch? I forgot.

It drives me batty. Abby's finally learning that it's easier to just give me a couple of nuggets of information than to suffer through my harrassment. Ethan is a wall of silence, though. He will stand by his insistence that his brain has completely deleted the contents of his day no matter what I do, or threaten to do.

Except for today. Today he threw me for a loop. We got in the car, and I asked him to tell me what he learned, not really expecting an answer--just doing my motherly duty. So imagine my surprise when the following conversation ensued:

Me: So Ethan! What did you learn today?

E: Tricks.

Me: Your teacher taught you tricks?

E: Yep.

Me: What kind of tricks?

E: Doing headstands.

Me: Headstands??

E: Yep. Headstands and clown juggling.

Me. Um.

E: Oh, and you know what else?

Me: Clown juggling?

E: Yes, mommy. Clown juggling. And you know what I learned about Friday?

Me; What?

E: That it's Tuesday.

Me: Ummm.You learned that Friday is Tuesday.

E: Yep. And do you know what ELSE I learned?

Me: I'm pretty sure I don't have any idea.

E: I can't tell you. My teacher said I can't tell my mom and dad the other thing that I learned.

Me: Well then.

I figure one of three things is going on here:

1) My son lives in a world of his own imagination a good portion of the time, and I took a little visit there today.

2) My son has gotten tired of me asking about his day, and decided to try to freak me out enough that I won't ask any more.

3) Pre-school is WAY different than when I went.

In my head

2010-08-26T07:50:00.002-06:00

God must really get a kick out of me.

I have this apparently unbreakable habit of creating in my head perfect visions of how things will be. When I started staying home, I imagined a sparkling house, laundry always caught up, quality time reading and playing with the kids, and having time to volunteer regularly. I was sure the last two summers would be an organized montage of library events, summer excursions and water play. I'm pretty sure I don't have to paint the picture of how NOT any of those things my time has been.

Abby and Ethan are in school now. Ever since I knew we would be having Aaron in May, I've been imagining this time when both of the others would be gone all day and I would have hour upon hour home, alone, with my baby. I could clean house! I could play pattycake and organize the kids' clothes and clean out the pantry! I could take long walks pushing the stroller and meet the school bus every day and be holding the baby in one arm and dinner in the other each night!

See what I mean about God? He must think I'm hysterical.

So far, Ethan has missed 1 day of school for fever and Abby has come home early and then missed 2 days for a virus. Today, in theory, I will be alone with Aaron. I'm pretty sure that things will be a bit more survival mode than Martha mode, though. At least for a while. I'm not as concerned with getting the laundry done as I am getting to take a shower. Not as concerned with making dinner as I am with getting to eat lunch with both hands. Not as concerned with meeting the school bus as not being asleep on the couch when it gets here.

It's okay though! It's only August. I'm sure that by October Ill have found my stride and things will be great. By then I should be able to work on the kids' scrapbooks for at least half an hour each day.

Shhh. Do you hear somone laughing?

Daycation

2010-08-21T13:31:00.004-06:00

A couple of weeks ago Matt took the day off of work so that we could take Abby and Ethan on a "daycation." (I made that up. Or at least I think I did--if you've ever heard someone else say it, please don't tell me.) We left Aaron with our friends Chad and Marla and their 3 girls and headed to Tulsa. We went to the Oklahoma Aquarium (surprisingly great for a water-themed destination in the middle of the landlocked heartland), Cheesecake Factory for lunch (worth the trip alone) and Kaliedoscope Children's Museum (no extra comment here, but the parentheses seemed necessary for consistency). I think my photos tell the story of the day best, so here we go:

You can feed stingrays at the aquarium. I have to admit, they freak me out a little after the Croc Hunter thing. Also, the food you give them it totally gross. A and E loved it though.

Proof that a shark could indeed eat both of my children whole, and that contrary to popular belief A and E do NOT have the biggest mouths on the planet. Note that I did not pose for comparison myself.

They fed some turtles too. Much less threatening animals, and the food was only carrots.

Warm fuzzies in the tropical room.

More warm fuzzies in my happy place, The Cheesecake Factory.

While perhaps totally irrelevant to the story, I want to record for posterity how ridiculously good my food looked. It tasted even better.

The best strawberry shortcake I have ever had. Yes, I was at the Cheesecake Factory and I did not get cheesecake. Back off.

The kids' museum was great. There was tons of stuff to do, but what our kids seemed to enjoy most was the little town they had with all these rooms where the kids could do grownup stuff. They had a post office, restaurant, grocery store, salon, doctor's office--you get the idea. This first picture is funny because I don't know that Ethan has ever seen anyone do this--he was just following my prompts.

This was Abby's process to diagnose my stomach pains.

Abby loved to play the busy grocery shopper. Here she's the doctor on her way home from work.

Ethan made an excellent checker. Matt's purchase cost "two hundred and fifty nine seventy fourteen."

Abby in her other favorite role, injured elderly citizen.

At the salon they had several mannequin heads for kids to work on. They were mostly fine, but one was downright creepy. I took its picture and someone must have noticed, because less than 5 minutes later an employee replaced it with a much more normal head.

The kids went ballistic when they found the jail. They marched us in, laughing maniacally the whole time. We tried to convince them to leave us there, but it didn't work.

We had a great day and were worn out when we got home. It wasn't the beach or Disneyworld, but it was more than sufficient.

Things I Could Live Without...

2010-08-12T11:00:00.000-06:00

...but would prefer not to:

(in no particular order)

1. Diet Dr. Pepper, preferably from Sonic

2. My TV shows

3. My pillow

4. My cell phone

5. Paul Mitchell styling glaze

6. Wal Mart

7. Marketplace's chicken berry salad

8. Yellow Box sandals

9. The remote opening doors on my minivan

10. Spider Solitaire on the computer

11. Facebook

12. Houndstooth Razorback t-shirts

13. Cherry Chapstick

14. People Magazine

I'm sure there are more. I'll add as they occur to me. What are yours?

Countdown to quiet

2010-08-09T07:09:00.002-06:00

A week from today Ethan starts pre-K. Three days after that, Abby starts 2nd grade. And thus will begin a phase of my life in which I will be home all day, every day with a tiny baby who can't talk back, throw toys or ask for a snack every 25 minutes. Can you sense the joy in the words I type?

Actually, and I can't believe (I mean REALLY can't believe) I am saying this, but I will kind of miss this summer. Back in April, when I was hugely pregnant and the kids were in school all day, the prospect of week after week of being at home with 3 kids, two of which I knew to be a little high maintenance and one whose maintenance level was yet to be determined (but let's be honest, anyone who requires being fed and having their bottom wiped clean can be classified as high maintenance) was straight up terrifying. And I have surely had my moments when I wanted to hide under the bed and cry.

But there have also been the other times--teaching the kids how to hold Aaron without breaking his neck, playing marathon games of Sorry and Candy Land, successfully convincing Ethan that only very cool and brave 4 year olds can help with laundry--when I found myself quite content and even entertained.

I'm sure that the school year will pass by in a flash. Then I'll be facing next summer, when instead of two kids and a baby, I will have two kids and a toddler. I need to start storing up on Prozac now.

Turns out you DO know a place

2010-08-03T11:44:00.002-06:00

Wow. This little blog got a BIG surprise yesterday.

I was at home, feeding Aaron and playing Chutes and Ladders with Ethan (yes, at the same time)(no, it's not easy) when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the area code or number, but I forget my own kids' names these days, so I answered anyway. You know who was on the phone?

A lady named Angela from Cracker Barrel's corporate office.

OH my goodness! She explained that Cracker Barrel is sent an alert when their company name shows up online, and she had read my blog about our church's little incident with a CB manager last weekend and wanted to let me know they regret what happened. I immediately pleaded with her not to let my blog get the guy in trouble--none of us were really mad about what happened, we just thought it was funny. I blogged about it because I thought the 7 people who read my blog would also find it amusing. She promised me he would be spared any wrath.

I also promised her that we understood that what happened was most likely the result of a guy having a bad day, and that we know CB is not an anti-rummage sale company. She was very gracious, sweet, and exactly what you'd expect someone who works for CB to be--the epitome of southern hospitality.

That reminds me--in my original blog post, I said that CB's headquarters are in NYC. I said this because when our church rented the space we use, we had to notify all adjacent property owners (conditional use permit--you don't want an explanation, trust me), and I had to send a letter to CB. The address I had to use was in NYC. However, Angela was calling me from Lebanon, Tennessee, which is the location of the headquarters as listed on their website. So I don't know if they just have an office in NYC, or if I mistakenly sent that letter to some random barrel company in New York, but either way I made a dig there that was unwarranted. They are nothing if not authentic.

As I said, Angela was wonderful to talk with and didn't even seem mad at me for the jokes I made about CB. Hopefully she realized that they were said in jest (does anyone even say "in jest" any more?) and that I am a big CB fan. Their hash brown casserole is the stuff dreams are made of. To even further show the value CB places on community relations, Angela told me that our church pre-school program is to recieve a CB rocking chair as a donation. Now THAT is a cool thing. If you have never experienced a CB rocking chair, you don't know what you're missing. We'll all be fighting over it. In fact, I bet anything Chad will want to start preaching from it.

I have said many times before that a company that messes up but works hard to fix it has a more loyal fan in me than one that never messes up at all. In this situation, CB didn't really even mess up--they just had an employee that had an off day. But Angela's phone call and the rocking chair proved to me that CB is a first class company. This is a huge relief, for two reasons: 1) You like to know that there are people and companies still like that out there, and 2) I can go eat some pot roast tonight.

You think you know a place

2010-07-30T06:58:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday our church, The Harbor, held a rummage sale to raise money for our pre-school program. It went really well. We had a crazy amount of stuff given to us to sell, and we were busy with shoppers all day. One good reason for the crowd is that we are in a great location. We're right off of the freeway, and everyone going to either Cracker Barrel or Hobby Lobby go right through our parking lot.

To make sure people knew we were doing a sale, we put some signs up--not billboards or anything, just those little signs that stake into the ground. We put several up, including one that went right where you turned off of the road into the parking lot between us and Cracker Barrel.

Well.

Around noon, some people came in to shop the sale and told us that they had seen a Cracker Barrel employee walk out to our sign, pull it up, and take it back into the Cracker Barrel with them. What?! Cracker Barrel stole our sign?? So our pastor, Chad, went over. He asked for the manager, introduced himself, and politely asked for our sign back. The manager was likely embarrassed that he had been caught. He gave Chad the sign, but justified taking it by saying "I'm trying to sell stuff too." I don't even want to take the time to talk about how ridiculous it is that he would think our rummage sale goods would be competing with Cracker Barrel. Whatever.

After Chad returned and relayed the story, most of us got pretty worked up about it. The main things we couldn't get over were: If he didn't want the sign there, why didn't he just tell us so? Does he even have a right to ask us to remove the sign? Who steals a rummage sale sign? Put up by a church?

Next we moved on to what action we should take next. We came up with several options: painting the words "Cracker Barrel steals from churches" on our windows, making a giant rummage sale sign, putting it in the back of a truck, and parking it right in front of Cracker Barrel, moving the bake sale that Abby and her friends were conducting outside to more directly compete with Cracker Barrel's cobbler sales. Chad reminded us, though, that churches shouldn't really partake in revenge, and we reluctantly agreed that he was probably right.

I debated whether or not to blog about it but I finally decided that the public has a right to know about what happened. We have no way of knowing whether the manager was acting out of independent outrage or following orders from the top of the Cracker Barrel chain (incidentally, do you know where the headquarters for the Cracker Barrel corporation are located? Tennessee? Alabama? Nope. New York City. Yeah, super authentic.) Regardless, I think I would want to know about this before I ordered my next stack of pancakes or slab of hamburger steak.

So there you go. The story of the church that was victimized by Cracker Barrel. Now that I've shared, I feel much better. Perhaps I'll even send a note to the manager, telling him there are no hard feelings and that I sincerely hope we didn't permanently destroy the market for country goods in Northwest Arkansas.

Always blame the laundry

2010-07-27T11:45:00.002-06:00

Geez, it's been almost an entire month since I last blogged. That's terrible! When people call me out on it, I tell them, "I think about doing it every day, but something always comes up and I never get around to it." I can tell they think it's a cop out. Usually beacuse they something to the effect of, "That's a cop out!" But it's true! My days seem to be passing at warp speed. I don't expect you to take my word for it, though, so I am going to give you a rundown of what a typical day is like around here for me. I know better than to hope for any sympathy (and really, I'm not exactly worthy of any) but at least you'll know that I'm not just neglecting the blog to, you know, paint my nails or something.

7:00 Wake up to feed and change Aaron.

7:30 Put Aaron down to get Ethan breakfast (Abby's still asleep).

7:35 Sit down at computer.

7:36 Aaron starts fussing; pick him up.

7:45 Put Aaron down to get Abby breakfast .

7:50 Pick Aaron up again and get him to sleep.

8:15 Lay Aaron down; load dishwasher.

8:30 Sit down at computer.

8:31 Separate Ethan and Abby, who are wrestling in the living room floor for control of the remote.

8:35 Remember the laundry in the washer and dryer that I never finished the day before. Re-run both machines.

8:45 Get ready to take a shower.

8:47 Aaron starts crying; abandon shower.

9:00 Put Aaron in swing. Fold laundry from dryer.

9:05 Interrupt folding to get Ethan the first of the 12 snacks he will request.

9:15 Clean up milk that Ethan has spilled on the carpet.

9:20 Play a game of Uno with Abby.

9:30 Play a game of Candy Land with Ethan and Abby; referee argument over whether Abby cheated to get the Princess Frostine ice cream card.

9:45 Remember that there are no clean bottles; rush to clean them before Aaron wakes up.

10:00 Feed and change Aaron.

10:30 Prepare to lay Aaron down; abandon plan when Abby's friend from down the street rings the doorbell, sending the dog into a barking frenzy and scaring Aaron half to death.

10:50 Lay Aaron down; sit down at the computer.

10:52 Tell Abby and her friend that they can have a snack when they ask.

10:53 Listen to Ethan explain why Mario could beat Bowser at bowling.

10:55 Remember that I never switched the laundry in the washer to the dryer. Do so.

11:00 Sit down at the computer.

11:01 Tell Abby and her friend that they cannot play with makeup as they are requesting, becuase the last time they did they used 3 of our bath towels to get it off. Ponder how children with 2 million toys each can justify claiming boredom.

11:02 Let Ethan lead me to his room "without peeking" to show me the block tower he has built.

11:05 Sit down at the computer.

11:07 Surrender the computer to Ethan after he hangs on my arm whining about wanting to play games on Nick Jr.'s website.

11:30 Make sandwiches for lunch.

11:40 Spend 10 minutes getting Ethan, Abby and Abby's friend to all agree on a movie to watch while they eat lunch.

11:50 Sit down to eat lunch.

11:52 Aaron starts crying; pick him up and finish lunch with one hand.

12:15 Lay Aaron down; clean up from lunch; remind Abby that her friend has a house that can be played in, too.

12:30 Take world's fastest shower; put on the only clothes that aren't dirty or still in the dryer.

1:00 Tuck Ethan in for nap; threaten his life if he gets up.

1:10 Feed and change Aaron.

1:30 Jump out of my skin when Ethan materializes beside me claiming to have finished his nap. March him back to bed.

1:50 Lay Aaron down; sit at the computer.

1:55 Abby and her friend come back from the other house and--surprise surprise--ask for a snack.

2:00 Remember that there is laundry to be folded; start the dryer again to get the wrinkles out.

2:05 Pour myself a glass of Diet Dr. Pepper. It's not the first of the day, and it will likely not be the last.

2:06 Answer the knock at the door while kicking the dog to keep her from barking. Tell Abby's friend her brother is here to fetch her.

2:10 Play 4 games of Skipbo with Abby to keep her from dying of boredom, poor thing.

2:45 Abby's friend is back. Skipbo is abandoned.

2;46 Remember to return 2 phone calls from the morning--my friends and family are fortunately used to me calling them "right back" about 4 hours after they call.

3:05 Ethan wakes up and requests a snack 47 times in 30 seconds.

3:15 Watch the dance routine that Abby and her friend have created.

3:30 Sit down at the computer.

3:34 Tackle Ethan to keep him from climbing the entertainment center.

3:40 Hear my cell phone ring. Spend 10 minutes hunting for it.

3:50 Feed and change Aaron.

4:30 Dang-the laundry! Start the dryer. Again.

4:40 Closely supervise the kids playing with Aaron to ensure his survival.

5:00 Sit down at the computer.

5:05 Realize I should be figuring out something for dinner.

5:06 Figure out McDonald's.

5:07 Tell Ethan that I enjoy listening to him play Mary Had a LIttle Lamb on the piano, but it loses a bit of its magic after the 23rd time.

5:10 Sit down on the couch to play with Aaron myself.

5:30 Matt comes home. He sees me lounging with a smiling baby, Ethan watching Phineas and Ferb on tv, and Abby channeling Hannah Montana with her pal. He knows better than to be fooled by the tranquility.

Evenings are a wild mix of soccer practice, church, dinner, 7 more snacks, more feeding and changing Aaron, reading books and tucking kids in. Then it's time to collapse myself and prepare to do it all over again.

Hopefully you can see how this is an environment that is not always condusive to blogging. For example, I have been writing this blog post 2 minutes at a time for the last 7 hours. Soon, though, the older two return to school and Aaron's schedule will be more predictable. I figure by September, I'll be settled into the school year groove and be able to blog all the time.

Let's be honest, though. That laundry will probably still be in the dryer.

This much fun AND I got a free t-shirt!

2010-06-29T09:38:00.006-06:00

Saturday I spent a little over 6 hours at the Tyson Track Center helping package meals to send to Haiti. The event was sponsored by a nonprofit called Numana. I was a little apprehensive, because if there's one thing I can't stand it's inefficiency, and there was great possibility for inefficiency in such a large operation. However, I was very pleasantly surprised. These folks have turned meal packaging into an art. Each assembly line has the potential to be a finely tuned machine, churning out hundreds of meals in minutes. In 24 hours, over 1.4 million meals were packaged. Not too shabby.

I had a great time, and there was no shortage of bloggable moments. I'm feeling a little ADD today, so I'll give them to you in to-the-point bullet form:

- The first table I worked with (I was a coordinator,and my job was to manage a line and train people as they came to it) consisted of a couple of cheerful families of 4. We got along famously. Then a lady joined us who was a little, well, more senior than the rest of us and pretty crabby. She kept pointing out to me people at other lines who weren't wearing the required hairnet or gloves. I was not about to start playing health inspector, so I just kind of nodded and moved on. After about half an hour, though, I caught her shaking her booty to a Madonna song that was playing over the loudspeakers while she worked. I liked her a lot more after that.

- Midway through my shift, the crew from The Harbor (our church) showed up. My parents brought Abby so she could help out, and her buddy CG was there too. I set the team up at a table and got them started. We had a great time. I especially enjoyed that as a coordinator, I was the only one not required to wear an apron and hairnet.

- Somehow the lady from my first table ended up working with The Harbor crew for a while. When I saw her join the table, I snickered to myself, knowing that she would not hold back. Sure enough, she apparently called out Sarah for being too slow right off the bat. I have no idea what the team did to scare her off, but it worked and she was gone after a few minutes.

- At one point my dad thought it would be fun to, instead of handing the bag he had just sealed to Abby for boxing, toss it to her. This would have been a great idea if she had been looking. Instead, it smacked her in the head. Way to assault your granddaughter with relief rations!

- There was a guy with a microphone walking around, cheering on volunteers, updating everyone on how many meals were completed and spurring on competition between tables. At one point he started taking requests for music to be played over the loudspeaker. Someone requested "something by Usher." He said, "Is that a singer?" WHAT? The guy was my age, maybe a little older. Who doesn't know who Usher is? He was completely discredited in my books after that.

- After The Harbor team left, I worked with a group of high school students from a church youth group. They were 1) Really fun 2) Really fast and 3)SO young. How do teenagers keep getting younger?

- For the last hour I was pouring ingredients into the bags with two of the guys from the youth group. One of the ingredients is vitamin powder. It smells vaguely like ramen noodles, and if you don't pour it in the funnel just right it poofs out in a cloud and coats everyone nearby. I came home completely covered in a yellow film. On the bright side, I won't be vitamin deficient for some time.

- Abby brought home her disposable plastic apron and hairnet. She wore them all day yesterday.

- While I was there the music played constantly, so I must have heard easily over 100 songs. So why, why, WHY is MmmBop the one that is still going through my head?

That's just wrong.

Hold up there, Romeo

2010-06-24T10:28:00.004-06:00

When Matt and I found out back in 2002 that our first baby would be a daughter, we joked about having to fight off the boys and keep a baseball bat by the front door. We now have a boy-crazy 7 year old, and rapidly multiplying gray hairs to show for it. We've slowly grown accustomed to Abby talking about her boyfriend or why Troy on High School Musical is soooooo cute.

However.

I was not prepared for this.

I was finally going through the pile of papers she brought home from the last day of school (don't judge me, I have a newborn). In the spring her school does a post office project. The third graders serve as the postmasters, and everyone writes letters and "mails" them to the other classrooms. Abby sent and received dozens of such letters. I found one in the pile from a boy in her class who I know to be sweet and kind of quiet. I opened it. Here, with the spelling errors corrected, is what I read:

Dear Abby,
You are cute and charming. You are awesome. I think you are the awesomest kid in the whole world. I love seeing your face. It is so beautiful and you are my favoritest friend in the whole wide world. I love the way your eyes sparkle and I love the color of your skin.

Love,
(Boys' name withheld to protect the apparently-not-so-innocent)

WHOAH THERE. This is written by a SEVEN YEAR OLD! To MY DAUGHTER!

She never told me about this letter when she got it, despite my having asked every day if she sent or received any good mail. She still doesn't know I've seen it and I don't intend to tell her as I'm fairly sure I don't want to hear the rest of the story, if there is more.

If you need me, I'll be online researching all-girl boarding schools.

Are you with me?

2010-06-15T17:45:00.002-06:00

Have you heard about 2 Million Meals for Haiti? It's a huge effort by the Razorback Athletic Department and several corporate sponsors to package (you guessed it) 2 million meals for Haiti--in 24 hours (7PM Friday, June 25-7PM Saturday, June 26). If they accomplish the goal, it will set a world record. To do it, they need 10,000 volunteers over the 24 hour period. Volunteers need not sign up--you just show up ready to work a 2 hour shift (or more). I am really excited about this, and I want to get together a group to go on Saturday. Will you go with me? If you're interested send me a message or leave a comment and tell me if there's a certain time you prefer. I'll set a time pretty soon and send out details. I think I can register a group so that we can work together. Yay!

Here is the website if you want to read more details:

www.razorbackrelief.com

GO TEAM AMENMOM!

Enough about the baby...

2010-06-14T20:35:00.006-06:00

We now return to our regular, petty blogging.

I have a question. It's a biggie. And I'm betting that most of you have an opinion on this subject, some of you quite a strong one at that. I know that topics of this importance and sensitivity are risky to bring up, but that's the kind of fearless blogger I am.

Here we go.

Should Sonic carhops get tips?

Some of you may not be avid Sonic-goers, or (horror of horrors) may not even live near a Sonic. But around here, Sonic is not just a fast food joint--it is an addiction with a cult-like following. Their food is good, but most people worship Sonic for their freakishly delicious sodas and drinks. The ice, the styrofoam cups, the precise carbonation-syrup mixture--these folks know what they're doing. And every day between 2 and 4, drinks are HALF OFF. Sometimes you can barely get in the parking lot.

I digress.

Sonic is different than other fast food places in that it does not have a dining room. Instead, you pull your car into one of many parking spots, order over the handy speaker, and have your tasty goodness delivered via a cheerful carhop, who is occasionally on roller skates. This creates a unique hybrid of counter service and full service, which is a grey area that creates the tipping dilemma. I know people who are staunchly on both sides of the issue.

I have contemplated this for some time, and I think I fall into the "Don't Tip" camp for a few reasons:

1) If you pay by credit or check card (which I almost always do) you are not given the option to add a tip onto your card. Surely if the powers that be at Sonic wanted you to tip they would set this up.

2) Carhops make a full hourly wage--not the half-minimum wage that servers at restaurants get. So tips are just icing for them.

3) Most of the time, my order at Sonic is only a couple of dollars. Tipping etiquette says that a 15% or 20% gratuity is good. So I'm going to tip the kid a a quarter? Or during Happy Hour, fourteen cents? This seems silly.

Now with all this said, if I happen to be paying in cash, I usually let them keep the change if it's not a lot. I'm not adamantly opposed to tipping the carhops, I just don't think it's necessary. But I realize that it's theoretically possible, though highly unlikely, that I could be wrong, and so I want to open it up for discussion. Are there reasons I have completely overlooked that I should be making an effort to tip every time? Or am I accurate with my analysis?

Okay, all this talk has got me craving a Diet Dr. Pepper. Lucky for me Sonic's open late!

An equation

2010-06-11T21:32:00.005-06:00

Talented photographer (Jason Hudson) + Beautiful baby (Aaron)=Fantastic pictures

Which one is your favorite?

Aaron Matthew

2010-05-24T15:28:00.002-06:00

He's here! Aaron entered the world in a remarkably smooth way last Thursday, May 13, at exactly 8 AM. I do love a punctual baby. Amazingly a week and a half has already passed, mostly in a blur of feeding, sleeping, greeting visitors, and wishing I was sleeping. I can't complain, though--so far Aaron is an extremely laid back little dude. With his siblings he really has no choice, but it's good that he seems to have figured it out quickly. We are all completely smitten, and I am just now getting to the point where I'm willing to do something that requires me to not be holding him for more than 30 seconds. He's hard to put down. That tiny face! Those soft feet! Oh, kill me now.

We had an fantastic stroke of luck in that a friend of mine, Jason Hudson, who is also a brilliant photographer, needed to update his infant portfolio right when we were having Aaron. He was kind enough to come to the hospital and take pictures when our family met him for the first time. The results are AMAZING. We are going to his studio tomorrow to get some more shots of Aaron, and I'll hopefully get a CD of the hospital shots then. They'll be up on the blog directly after! For now, here are a few of our own:

Tick tock

2010-05-10T20:00:00.002-06:00

I am approximately 59 hours away from giving birth. Impossible. But there it is, a clock just ticking away. I'm very excited, and a little nervous (the last time I had a c-section the spinal block paralyzed me from head to toe for 10 minutes. Not an experience I'd care to repeat.) This will probably be the last blog post I can manage for a bit, save pictures of the new little man, so I have a few random tidbits for the occasion:

- We named the baby. Hallelujah. His name is Aaron Matthew. Apparently Matt was secretly favoring that all along and holding back on me--why, I have no idea. I finally called him out and he confessed. It was at the top of my list too. It's a relief to have that decision made.

- Two of my three sisters-in-law are at my house right now. They are both teasing me pretty heavily. I forgive them both, however, because Siobhan baked me a ridiculous cake (good ridiculous) and Renee is supplying brilliant artwork for Aaron's nursery. I miss sister-in-law #3. Patty, come on over!

- Matt gave me my pre-birth pedicure. I love that man.

- Because my mother has been harrassing me for days to do it, I texted a picture of my pregnant self to my aunt Linda tonight. She called immediately, and when I said hello she jumped right in by yelling "You're HUGE!" I love you too, Linda.

- I feel sure that my hands and feet are currently producing enough heat to cook something. It is so bizarre, and highly annoying. I can melt an ice cube in my bare hand in 15 seconds.

I'm sure there are more fascinating things to share, but right now I'm tired and hot and have a tiny foot lodged in my rib, so I'm going to stop here. I only have 2 days of pregnancy left in my life, and I am determined to enjoy them. Then the real fun starts. I can't wait!

Progress

2010-04-22T10:26:00.002-06:00

We are three weeks away from having The Boy Who Has Yet To Be Named. Time is picking up speed with alarming velocity. We've made progress in many areas, thank goodness, but others are still horrifically lacking. Here are some updates:

- We bought a minivan. This makes me very, VERY happy. It's an Odyssey and it's tricked OUT. I love a new car smell SO much, and nothing's better than the first whiff. I actually prepare myself right before getting in, and take the hugest breath possible right after I open the door. I look like a complete idot, but I'm high off the smell of leather so I don't care. So! We now have a way to transport all three children and the both of us at once safely and legally. Check that off the list.

- This past weekend my brother Jacob, his wife Patty and our three nephews came to visit. We had a wonderful time. Saturday night we had planned a date night. Our church's amazing Ms. Debbie usually does date nights once every weekend, so we were going to leave all the kids at the church with her and go out for a grown up dinner where no crayons would be present on the table. We got to the church to drop off the kids, and I walked into the main room to see about 60 people standing there, all yelling "SURPRISE!". I think anyone who witnessed my reaction can tell you that I am not exaggerating when I say I completely spazzed out. I had NO idea. My clever and wonderful friend Marla had me believing all along that she was throwing me a shower this coming weekend, thus throwing me completely off the scent of the real deal. I could not breathe for about 20 minutes. Everyone thought I was going into labor. I had a great time, and Matt and I are still talking about what a special night it was. We got lots of thoughtful presents, including some diapers--which made the first diapers that we have for this baby. Not very responsible of us, but still! We can check that off the list too.

- About 15 minutes ago, I finished clearing out the room that was Ethan's and will now be the baby's room/house playroom. It's going to be in interesting experience in space sharing. It really needed to get done, because A) the presents from the shower are currently piled on my dining room table and B) you know, he comes in three weeks and all.

- I can't remember if I've already talked about this on here, but Ethan and Abby are now sharing Abby's old room. We painted it and put in bunk beds. I was sure this was going to be the source of multiple bodily injuries for both children, but so far we're doing pretty good--Ethan has fallen out of his bed twice (but he's on bottom so it didn't hurt too bad) and Abby got startled while Matt and I were checking on them after they were asleep one night and stood straight up (since she is on the top bunk, this unfortunately meant a collision between her head and the ceiling, but my girl has a STRONG head and was fine). Other than that it's actually working out really nicely.

We have a LOT more to do in the next 21 days, but I'm feeling marginally less overwhelmed. Now if I could only get everyone to leave me alone about this baby name thing*.

* NO, we do not have a name for him yet. YES, I am telling the truth. NO, we do not really have a name but pretend not to just to throw people off. NO, it does not bother us that we haven't named him yet. YES, we will probably wait until he's born to name him.

Fun with Facebook

2010-04-12T15:04:00.005-06:00

I fully realize that this blog entry might upset some people. After all, I am broaching a subject that people take very seriously, something that many of my friends spend more time thinking about each day than their families or jobs.

Facebook status updates.

I have been on Facebook for a while now, long enough that I consider myself a proficient user. I log on multiple times a day and read all my friends' news. I also make regular status updates of my own. I was hesitant for the longest time to use Facebook, but I must admit I love the way it has kept me updated on the lives of most of my friends and family.

Now. Anyone who knows me at all will tell you that I have just about zero tolerance for unoriginality, corniness and stating the obvious. Please understand that I know that this is not normal, and that a certain amount of the blame lies with me and NOT with the people committing these types of acts. That said, I have, over my time on Facebook, come up with a list of things that I will NEVER do on my Facebook status update.

I recognize that I'm treading on very thin ice here. I figure that I am Facebook friends with about 90% of the people who read this blog. Of those people, I'm estimating that at least 70% of them have done at LEAST one of the things I'm about to list as things I would never do. My hope is that people will see the humor in my cranky ways and not be offended. Hey, maybe even I'll dig up a prize for the person who admits to committing the most Don'ts! Well, we'll see. Love it or hate it, here we go.

1. I will never comment on the weather. This doesn't bother me a ton when it's something benign like "It's a beautiful day!" But when we had that freak snowstorm in March? I saw at least 30 updates that said within a few words of exactly this: "Snow on the first day of spring! What's going on?" It snowed. On the first day of spring. This is unusual. I get it.

2. I will never phrase my status update as a letter to someone/something. Examples: Dear electric bill, why are you so high? Sincerely, Me." or "Dear Sun, I miss you! Where are you? Please come visit me soon! Love, Me." (for the last example, reference also #1. Double no-no.)

3. I will never curse. Not even the B-grade curse words. I don't curse anyway, but even if I did I wouldn't do it on Facebook. It doesn't exactly scream classy. Or original.

4. I will never describe what I just ate, simply for the purpose of describing what I just ate. And any time that an update does merit a food mention, I will never use the words "yum" or "yummy."

5. I will never LOL. NEVER. And I will definitely never LOLOLOL. What does that mean anyway? Laugh out loud out loud out loud?

6. I will never describe any private medical or personal hygiene issues, of myself or other people. You're not going to be seeing breastfeeding updates or dirty diaper descriptions from me.

7. I will never make a political statement. Not even close. I won't touch them with a 10 foot pole. I think I'm allergic to them.

8. I will never use song lyrics as a status update. Unless they are part of a really clever message.

9. I will never copy and paste someone else's status update as my own just because their status update says I should. Even if by not doing so, I am showing the world that I don't love God/my family/my country.

10. I will never use my status update to ask for barn walls, horses, aquariums, roof poles, or any other such nonsense. I don't play any of those Facebook games, but even if I did, status updates are no place to beg.

11. I will never use cryptic statements. Examples: "Why do some people enjoy being hurtful?" "Something big's about to change for me--I'm nervous!" "I am shocked." Really. If you have something to tell, tell it. If not, then keep on moving. Facebook is not a big game of Guess That Drama.

So, have I offended everyone yet? Anyone still speaking to me? Anyone going back to look at how many of these things you've done in the last 24 hours? Don't worry--I don't claim to be any sort of authority on what's cool, so pay no mind to my opinion. And don't think that I don't know that there are at least 2 of you (you know who you are) who are at this every second trying to figure out a status update that will incorporate as many of these things as possible in an attempt to make me crazy. Go for it. You can't phase me. It's a beautiful day, and I have a yummy dinner waiting for me.

Things That Happened at Wal Mart Today That Should NOT have Happened

2010-04-03T17:47:00.003-06:00

1. They were out of plastic Easter eggs. On the day before Easter. Smooth move, store purchasers.

2. The wonderful woman who took my sandwich tray order over the phone this morning also retrieved my order for me when I got there. Only she was a man named Collin. He didn't seem perturbed by the fact that I had called him ma'am at least 5 times on the phone, but I'm a little nervous to eat the turkey all the same.

3. Four employees were stocking the bread aisle, creating a massive bottleneck. At 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon, the day before a major holiday. I think the stock managers are competing with the purchasers for some sort of inefficiency award.

Well, at least that's done now.

2010-03-20T10:25:00.000-06:00

A Comparison

2010-03-15T21:03:00.004-06:00

When I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first child:
I got an email from BabyCenter each week, which told me exactly how big the baby was and which milestones it had reached. Matt and I read and imagined with wonder.

Now, 30 weeks pregnant with my third child:
I'm aware that the baby has all his limbs, because he's using them to beat me up from the inside, and I know that he's somewhere between the size of an apple and a basketball.

When I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first child:
We had a first and middle name selected, and a fair amount of baby items with the name already embroidered on them.

Now, 30 weeks pregnant with my third child:
We have a list of 14 names that is growing, not narrowing.

When I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first child:
The nursery was almost complete, with cute stuffed animals in the chair and the crib bedding washed and on display.

Now, 30 weeks pregnant with my third child:
We are 98% sure the crib is in the attic, and 90% sure it will get brought down before the baby arrives.

When I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first child:
I eagerly anticipated doctor's appointments, writing each one on my calendar as soon as they were made.

Now, 30 weeks pregnant with my third child:
I try to remember to call Matt after the appointments to let him know that there is indeed still a baby in there. I also try to remember all the appointments.

When I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first child:
I had a catalog of photos of myself at various stages of pregnancy.

Now, 30 weeks pregnant with my third child:
Not a single photo yet. Oops.

When I was 30 weeks pregnant with my first child:
I was eating everything in sight and sleeping every minute that I could.

Now, 30 weeks pregnant with my third child:
Well, some things never change.

Baby Girl

2010-03-10T15:24:00.002-06:00

Maybe it's the pregnancy. Okay, probably it's the pregnancy. I am very emotional and sentimental these days. NOT a good state to be in for your oldest child's birthday.

On Monday, Abby turned 7. Since toddlerhood, it's seemed that Abby has been straining against time, racing to get older faster than the days will let her. If she had it her way she would skip all the single digit years and move straight to 10 or 11. If I had it my way...well.

Abby loves all the trappings of girlhood--Hannah Montana, purses, makeup, boys, High School Musical, Jonas. But she also loves drawing and painting, playing on the monkey bars and wrestling with her daddy. Thank goodness pop culture hasn't completely taken over. Still, sometimes it seems like there's no "little girl" left in her.

And then.

Then we'll be doing something, like sitting at McDonald's for her birthday lunch, and her daddy will ask her what flavor McFlurry she wants as a birthday treat. She'll answer "In Em Ins", which will remind me that she still mispronounces M&Ms the same way she has since she was 2, and somehow I don't feel so rushed any more. Happy Birthday, Baby Girl.

Here's a picture of Matt, Abby and me at her first birthday party. I know, we were all babies then.

God Bless Fitted Sheets

2010-03-05T09:15:00.009-06:00

In 3 days, my daughter turns 7. I don't want to talk about it. 6 was bad enough. So instead, I'm going to go to my happy place and talk about Las Vegas some more.

We stayed in the nicest place we've ever stayed on this trip--the Bellagio. It's smack in the middle of the strip and was the first hotel, when it was built in the 90s, to turn the corner from themed cheesiness to opulence. It worked for them. The place is magnificent.

Every hotel in Vegas has a "thing"--something unique and grand to draw the tourists. For the Bellagio, it's the fountains. In front of the hotel is a massive 9 acre lake*. In the lake are approximately 1,200 fountain nozzles that present a choreographed show to music every half hour to 15 minutes. Some of the sprays go 24 stories high. If you want to see a brief clip, click here and select Video Tour. The music ranges from opera to classical to Sinatra to pop. It's incredible to watch. If you've ever seen Ocean's 11, this is where they all stand at the end.

Here's a view I found online from the top of the fake Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel across the street (no, I'm not kidding). This gives you an idea of how giant the fountain show is.

Matt and I made sure to catch the show a couple of times. The first show we saw started, and we both cracked up when we heard the music: Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On. Really? Talk about cheesy. Still, the fountains were great, and as we left I said, "Well, at least if we see another one we know it can't be worse than that song choice!"

Well.

The next night we went out, and when the music started playing and we realized it was God Bless the USA we almost couldn't stand up we were laughing so hard. It's not that there's anything wrong with those songs--necessarily--it's just that we had hoped for something really fun or dramatic, and instead got sappy Americana. But whatever.

When you walk in the lobby, you're immediately captivated by this crazy, 2000 square foot hand blown glass sculpture hanging from the ceiling:

I LOVE this thing. Not sure why, but I can never take my eyes off it.

The other main attraction at the hotel, besides of course the casino, is the conservatory. It's a huge glass-ceilinged room with some of the most incredible flower and plan work I have ever seen. They change it out 5 times a year, but the workers are constantly working to replace old flowers with new ones, repair problems, etc. The only problem with this room is that everyone wants to stop in the middle of the walkway to take their picture, so you have to stop every 3 feet to avoid walking through someone's frame. Drives me batty, so I usually only walk through once.

There's also a fine art gallery, and a restaurant filled with Picasso originals, but those are for rich people so we don't go.

Our room was, as expected, lovely. There was a great bathtub, a switch panel by the bed to open and close the drapes and sheers automatically, and the best dang shower I have EVER been in. The water pressure is so good you can actually feel a breeze created by the velocity before you get in. They have turn down service, and you get tasty chocolates on your pillows. All the comforts that should be present in such a hotel and then some.

However.

They have followed a trend that I find very disturbing, but which seems to have become the norm now in hotels. This is probably my single greatest pet peeve about staying in a hotel. In what must be some sort of cost saving measure, hotels never use fitted sheets anymore, Bellagio included. I cannot tell you how much this bothers me.

I am completely OCD when it comes to my covers. I admit it. They have to be just right or I can't sleep. I have been known to get up out of bed and remake the covers just to I can get back in and rest. At the top of the list of importance is that I cannot be having sheets all bunched up at my feet. Blech. Well, when a bed is made with a flat sheet on bottom instead of a fitted, this is practically inevitable. Matt has finally resigned himself to listening to me grumble constantly about this if we're at a hotel. I can't say I was surprised that the Bellagio is no different, but I was holding out a little hope that a hotel that can supply me with endless designer shampoo and lotion could spring for a dang fitted sheet.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed our hotel and its amenities. And if ever I get to go again, I will bring an iPod to listen to my own music during the fountain show if need be. And I'll bring a fitted sheet.

*I didn't make all the facts in this post up--I found them on Wikipedia, which means they must be true.

Viva Las Vegas, babe!

2010-02-25T21:00:00.002-06:00

We're back! We spent a glorious, relaxing 4 days in Las Vegas. Matt had to go to a conference during the day, so I divided my time between sleeping, reading, eating and shopping. My own little slice of heaven. Then at night we went to dinner, downtown Vegas (our favorite) and even to the movies--I highly recommend Valentine's Day.

While we were there, we did the math and figured out that it was Matt's 6th trip to LV, and my 8th. I know, ridiculous. What can I say? We love the place. There's something so fascinating about the hugeness of the buildings and the lengths at which companies go to get your attention. In Arkansas, a heated pool is considered a hot hotel commodity. In Vegas, you need a 40 acre lake that has a fountain show every 15 minutes, or a full-scale pirate battle with 50 actors and pyrotechnics. I love that grandmas with fanny packs walk next to showgirls, and guys at IT conferences eat lunch beside Elvis impersonators. Nothing and no one is out of place in Las Vegas.

Not too much out of the ordinary happened on this trip. We did witness 2 fairly amusing incidents, though:

- On the Dallas-Vegas plane, we sat in front of 3 60-something year old ladies who apparently travel together a lot. One was obviously the ringleader and yapped the whole time in a ridiculous Southern accent. They kept talking about all the trips she was planning for them--at one point she wondered aloud what kind of adapter she'd need for her blowdryer at their "London motel." At one point, one of the other ladies said, "Oh! If you ever plan a trip to China? I don't wanna go." The other lady immediately chimed in, "Me EITHER. Or Singapore?" First lady: "NO." For the next 5 minutes the two of them took turns naming places they WOULD NOT go, and the other would answer with a resounding "NO!" Apparently, anywhere in Asia's out, as well as Africa and Puerto Rico. Adventurers.

- On Tuesday night, Matt and I were standing in front of our hotel, waiting for the light to change so we could cross the street. We noticed a large group approaching, and as they got close it became clear that it was a large wedding party (again, a fairly normal thing to see in Vegas). The couple looked straight out of that New Jersey reality show. Once they got up to us, I realized that all was not well. The bride was BLAZIN mad. The groom had been walking a couple of paces behind her with his buddies, but when they stopped, he came up beside her and said in a booming, Joysey accent, "Ay! Babe! It waddn't my fawlt I was late! My ma needed ta tawlk ta me. What was I posed ta do? Huh?" I think if there had been anywhere in her dress where she could have hidden a weapon (and there was most certainly no such room) we'd have witnessed a murder then and there. I saw, in that moment, the realization in his eyes that he was not going to be able to laugh this one off. Matt and I guessed that within 10 minutes he'd be on his knees begging forgiveness while his friends writhed on the floor laughing. Great way to start a lifelong union.

As much fun as we had, we are so glad to be home. It was great to see the kids again, and I'm sure our parents were VERY glad to see us take them back. I'd love to go back again soon, but my schedule's a little full for a while with having a baby and all. I guess Vegas will have to keep being fabulous without me.

Beds are overrated

2010-02-20T19:12:00.002-06:00

When Ethan was in his crib as a baby and toddler, he was the easiest kid to put to bed EVER. We changed his clothes, loved on him, plopped him in his bed and walked out the door. He didn't fuss, didn't play--just went right to sleep. We had had a rather difficult transition to a big bed with Abby, so I was a little apprehensive about moving him. Turns out there was no need for apprehension. Dread would have been more appropriate.

My longtime readers will recall our struggles with getting E to stay in bed. I posted about it frequently, including here, Two years later, and we're still going strong with the struggle. We've settled into an impasse of sorts, in which we leave his door open but put a baby gate up so that all he can do is stand at it and whine. We go on about our evening--works for us.

Anyway, even though he's contained Ethan is determined to prove his independence in some way. He's chosen to refuse to use his bed. Every night we tuck him in to his comfortable bed. We cover him with blankets. Every night before we go to bed, we check on him, and he has pulled all his blankets off the bed, dragged out any number of toys, and finally fallen asleep somewhere in his floor. He's not particular on this point--any old piece of floor will do. A couple of weeks ago I started taking a picture from the doorway after he settled every night. Below are the results:

He was really active on this night before he finally caved. Note the mess.

He loves to sleep with his ankles crossed like this. Can't be good for circulation.

It's like he was on his way to whine at the gate and just couldn't make it all the way. Note that he's turned his socks backwards.

On this night I looked for him for a good while before I realized that he was, of all places, in his bed! He must have not felt well.

The good news is that once he's asleep, we can pretty much do whatever we want and he won't wake up. So we go in and scoop him up and move him to his bed, where I think he stays the rest of the night. I only hope he grows out of this habit, or someday his poor wife will really get tired of stepping over him to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Bless her heart, though, that will probably be the least of her worries.

Walk this way

2010-02-19T22:40:00.002-06:00

Tonight I was sitting at the dining room table and Matt was at the computer. He turned around and we were talking to each other--we could see each other but had the kitchen and about 20 feet between us for those of you who haven't seen our house. It was about 9:30 and the kids had been asleep for over an hour, thank you Lord. All of a sudden, Abby walked right past Matt and into our bedroom , holding her pillow. She's a serious sleepwalker.

She's sleepwalked regularly since she was 3 or 4 years old. It doesn't happen often, maybe only once a month or so, and only when she's really tired. She's always been a very deep sleeper. I can go in her room, turn the lights on, and put laundry away at night and she never moves a muscle. So far the sleepwalking has been pretty unexciting. It usually involves her coming into the living room and wandering around until we guide her back to bed. We're pretty sure it always happens early, before we go to sleep, but I guess for all we know there are nights that she gets up and roams the house for hours.

It's really amusing to us, and it frequently results in some humorous situations. More than once I've seen her come out to the living room and then head back to her room. By the time I get in there, she's gone into her closet and is repeatedly walking into her shelves. I just turn her around and point her to her bed. Once she came out, walked to the side of the chair Matt was sitting in, bent over to put her head in his lap and fell fast asleep standing up. A lot of times she needs to go to the bathroom while she's up, so we take her but she falls asleep on the toilet so we have to hold her up and take care of all the mechanics for her. Super fun.

Abby never remembers sleepwalking the next day, and I think she suspects that we are making the entire thing up. Thankfully she's never tried to get out of our house or do anything dangerous (again, as far as we know--I suppose she could be going out to rave parties at 3AM and we'd have no clue).

Ethan does not sleepwalk (yet)(that we know of), but he has his own very strange nighttime ritual. I shall write about it tomorrow--and this story comes with visual aids. Ohhh, yeah.

Things I Like Or Have Liked That I Have Gotten or Will Get Made Fun Of For Liking

2010-02-18T22:06:00.002-06:00

1. The Miley Cyrus song "Party in the USA"
2. Dennis Rodman
3. New Kids on the Block

It's Mario time. All the time.

2010-02-17T09:16:00.002-06:00

I think some people are more predisposed to addiction than others. While I have been fortunate to avoid addiction to any seriously harmful things, I know I have addictive tendancies. Right now, my addictions run to the fairly benign: Diet Dr. Pepper, American Idol, Pop Tarts, Facebook.

It appears that I have passed this trait on to at least one of my children. Ethan is OBSESSED with Mario Brothers. I cannot stress this enough. Anyone who has been around him for 5 minutes can testify that I am not exaggerating. We have the new Super Mario Bros. for Wii, and the boy lives and dies by it. The first words out of his mouth every morning are "Can I play Mario?" The last words out of his mouth every night are "Can I play Mario in the morning?" If we are out somewhere, all we have to do is get in the car to begin the trip home and he starts up. If you are with him and need to occupy him for 20 minutes or so, just say "So Ethan, what happened in your last Mario game?" You will get a blow by blow account, punctuated every 10 seconds with "N'd'you know what?"

Abby likes it too, though her interest is not nearly at the level of Ethan's. We can't let them play together because they fight constantly. One day when it was her turn, I made the colossal mistake of going on YouTube and pulling up a video someone posted of their Mario game. I showed Ethan, and now if he can't PLAY Mario he wants to WATCH Mario.

It could be worse. He could be obsessed with toy guns or SpongeBob or something. And while Matt and I are careful to limit his Mario time, I think we're both a little prouder than we'd like to admit when he gets a 1Up or uses his Yoshi to eat a turtle. I can tell by Matt's face that even though his mouth is saying "Only 5 more minutes, Ethan!" his heart is saying, "That's my boy!"

Fine, fine

2010-02-16T11:20:00.004-06:00

Here's the deal. I find (and I think any of you would agree) that I am at my blogging best when I am writing about the mundane, the unimportant, the irrelevant parts of life. Such is my lot in life--to focus on the worthless--and I am satisfied with it. Most of the time, this works beautifully for my blog, since there is a neverending stream of such things floating around in my head.

The glitch occurs when something important is going on. Big important things feel too monumental for me to write about, so I put it off. However, I feel like until I write about the big important stuff, I can't go and write about dumb stuff. So I procrastinate, and pretty soon it's been a month and I have people yelling at me and sending me smarty pants text messages (you know who you are) for being a poor blogger.

All right already! Here you go. BIG IMPORTANT THING: Matt and I are part of a group of people that started a new church in Springdale. It's called The Harbor. The experience has been a tremendous blessing. We've had two services so far, and both have been so much fun I can't believe I get to count them as "going to church." It's only going to get better, too. We have been running around like crazy people getting everything set up and in order, but we've had a ball. I can't wait to see what's in store for us.

Ahhhh. That's better. I covered the basics, but if you'd like details I'm happy to give them to you--just ask. Meanwhile, to make up for lost time, I promise to blog EVERY DAY from now until this coming Sunday, and which point Matt and I are escaping to Vegas for one last vacation before baby #3 (still unnamed--I don't want to talk about it) makes his appearance. So get ready! The mundane has been building up all this time, and it's ready to be unleashed!

PS. Spammers have found my little blog and have been sending bizarre comments in other languages. To stop this, comments will now require word verification, which is where you have to type the word you see in the funny font. I know this adds an extra 3 seconds to your committment, but I believe in you. You can handle it.

Is it tomorrow already?

2010-01-26T18:56:00.002-06:00

I love a good Catch 22. Here's an excellent one for you: I am so busy chasing after my wild man of a now-4 year old that I didn't have time to write a blog entry on his 4th birthday, which was yesterday. Could have written the entry if he wasn't around, but wouldn't have had anything to write about.

So. I write this entry in honor of my sweet son for his 4th birthday. And I am writing the entry a day LATE in honor of my Mario Brothers-loving, tile-grout-coloring, insanely-loud-yelling, never-wanting-to-go-to-sleep, always-wanting-a-snack, kissing-me-on-the-elbow-because-he-thinks-it-will-butter-me-up, never-walking, always-running, won't-brush-his-teeth-without-a-fight, asks-me-to-marry-him-every-day, wears-me-OUT-but-I-wouldn't-have-him-any-other-way boy.

Happy Birthday E!

BBB

2010-01-14T12:52:00.005-06:00

You people crack me up. It's been so much fun reading everyone's suggestions for naming BBB (Baby Boy B.). Unfortunately, a lot of the names suggested are not options because we have close friends/family members/friends' dogs (Cooper) with those names. I made a big list of all the remaining ones, plus a few of my own, and gave it to Matt. He started slashing. When he hnaded it back to me, here's what was on it:

Aaron
Thomas
Evan
Daniel

Gee, thanks for giving me something to work with, honey. We have since added a somewhat improbable name to the list--Hudson. I am reading a book with a character named Hudson, and I mentioned it, SURE that Matt would say it was too "cool", but surprisingly he likes it. This from the man who thinks Preston is too cutting edge.

Anyway, no decisions have been made yet. The way this pregnancy is flying by, we'll probably be sitting at home the night before the c-section feeling like we forgot something and realize that we forgot to pick a NAME. We really may just wait to see him to decide, though I'm pretty sure I have several friends and family members (hi, mom) who would have gigantic hissy fits about that.

Thanks for everyone's input. I got 38 comments--a record for AMENMom! I'm sure a major syndicate is preparing to offer me a paid blogging gig after that coup. Keep up the good work!

PS. Nub is not an option. Sorry Rich.

Name that baby

2010-01-04T13:34:00.004-06:00

It's a boy. OH, is it a boy. The ultrasound tech was in the middle of measuring the baby's head when he did a back flip and gave us an eyeful (the baby, not the ultrasound tech). Matt and I are really excited. Abby is getting there. Actually, she's not at all, but she will. She has to. Please LORD, let her get there.

Now we have the monumental task of choosing a name. Plenty of names out there to choose from. Except not. We have a few...challenges. And preferences. I am therefore soliciting the assistance of all 4 of my loyal blog readers. Below are the issues:

1. First off, I have given up on making any sense out of our initials, though if the name starts with A, M, E or N I guess that would be a bonus.

2. Our last name (which Matt won't allow me to say on here but it starts with a B and is one syllable and is also a common word) sounds funny with any names that start with a B, any names that are only 1 syllable, and any names that are also words. Which knocks out a LOT.

3. Abby and Ethan are both names that can't really be shortened, and I like that. Not totally committed to that, but I like it.

4. Matt will not stand for anything remotely "trendy". Ethan is cutting edge for him.

5. The middle name will likely be Matthew, so it should sound good with that.

6. It should kind of "go with" Abby and Ethan. This is hard to explain, but most people will know what I mean. We can't have Abby, Ethan and Frank, for example, because that just sounds strange. Also, it can't be too much like Ethan, so Evan and Easton are out. I get confused enough as it is.

7. There are lots of names I love that are not options because people we know or are related to have the audacity to already have that name. The nerve of some people.

I think that's it. I really need some ideas here. Help!!!

PS. If you came here from Facebook, please post here and NOT on Facebook, so I can keep track. You don't have to log in or anything.

To Blind or not to Blind

2009-12-30T20:26:00.003-06:00

We just returned from spending a few days in Mountain Home with my two brothers, their wives, and their combined 6 children. Add our brood, and that's 14 people. Sounds like a recipe for insanity, I know, but it was really a lot of fun.

Each night, after the kids went to bed, the 6 adults played a game. Two of the nights, it was spades. And therein lies the event about which I wish to write today. We had a disagreement of rather spectacular proportions, and I would like some outside opinions on the topic. This is about the game of spades, so if you don't know how to play you won't be able to have an opinion on this. Well, maybe that's not the case--I know some people whose ability to create an opinion on something is completely unrelated to whether or not they know anything about it.

Anyway.

Here's the situation. Since there were 3 couples, and spades is a 2-couple game, we devised a round robin method of play, in which each couple sat out 1 of every 3 hands. So the first round was couples 1 and 2, the next round was couples 2 and 3, and the third round was couples 3 and 1. It worked beautifully. We predetermined how many rounds we would play so that each team played an equal number, and at the end the team with the highest points would win. The individual scores wouldn't matter (so even if Team 1 beat Team 2 in all their games together, Team 2 could still win if they ended up with the most overall points).

Two rounds before the end of the game, Team 1 had about 600 points. Teams 2 and 3 each had about 300 points. They both expressed the wish to play the next hand "Blind Nil," which can only be done if a team is at least 200 points behind. Team 1 opposed this, arguing that while both teams were in fact more than 200 points behind Team 1, they were NOT 200 points behind everyone, and therefore were not eligible to play Blind Nil. A heated discussion ensued, One member of the group, and I will not say which member other than to say that it is his or her birthday today, threatened to walk away from the game if he or she did not get his or her way.

Is this post dorky enough for you yet? The thing is, there really isn't a real right or wrong answer--it's not like there's an official rule book for 3 teams playing round-robin spades. So to determine the best choice, you have to use an innate sense of logic and understanding about the purpose of allowing someone to go Blind Nil in the first place.

Now the post is DEFINITELY dorky enough.

Okay, I need some feedback now. Which of the following do you believe is the right decision?

A) Teams 2 and 3 should not have been allowed to go Blind Nil at all, regardless of who they were playing in the round, because they were not 200 points behind all other teams.

B) Teams 2 and 3 should ONLY have been allowed to go Blind Nil if they were playing a round with Team 1, even though individual round scores didn't matter.

C) Teams 2 and 3 should have been able to go Blind Nil at any point, regardless of the round, as long as they were 200 points behind the leading team.

I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks! Feel free to explain your rationale. Hopefully I have explained this neutrally so as not to have swayed my loyal fans. If I end up being in the minority with my opinion, I will gracefully concede. Probably.

PS. Happy Birthday, Mike!

Ways I can tell, without looking at a calendar, that it's almost Christmas

2009-12-14T13:30:00.003-06:00

***A disclaimer before you read this post: I LOVE Christmas. This list might make it seem like I'm all jaded and bah-humbug-y, but that's not at all the case. Still, no one reads this blog for sweetness and light, so once again smarminess reigns on AMENMom. ***

1. It is a physical miracle to make it in and out of the toy section of Target unscathed.

2. I have to wear sunglasses to drive down my street at night or risk being blinded by "exciting" light displays.

3. Radio channels that usually play songs revolving around girls' bottoms and "hooking up" are suddenly airing music about a baby born to a virgin.

4. My newspaper is 4 times thicker due to store ads.

5. Sonic's cups have clever Christmas sayings on them.

6. People in charge at my children's schools and our church actually arrange for them to get on a stage with an audience in front of them and sing.

7. Catalogs virtually explode out of my mailbox daily.

8. Our laundry doubles. (I don't know how exactly this is connected to Christmas, but it has definitely happened.)

9. Matt is laid up for a couple of days after he strains his back pulling all of our decorations out of the attic.

10. I draw a complete blank when anyone asks me what I want for Christmas, then just blurt out the first thing I can think of that sounds remotely normal. This usually results in me getting 42 bottles of body wash for Christmas.

How do you know it's almost Christmas?

For the record, we have very nice dish towels.

2009-12-09T22:35:00.002-06:00

Here's the deal. When we found out I was pregnant, we knew we needed more living space. That gave us two choices: make our house bigger or buy a bigger house. We made a valiant effort to go with choice A. We LOVE our house, our street, our location, everything. We just need a couple more rooms. Unfortunately, with our house and our lot it just wasn't feasible. Also unfortunately, this meant we had to do the thing I have always feared more than just about anything on earth, except maybe homeschooling: putting our house on the market.

Have you been to my house? If so, then you know that it's a mess. We are clutter fiends. We just have a lot of STUFF. You know? I don't know what other people do with all their stuff. They have to have it though! For example. Where do other people put kids' sunglasses, unused picture frames, the channel guide for their cable, and 30 boxes of crayons? I can tell you where we put that stuff. The bar, or the desk, or the dining room table. Not anymore, though! Now we will have strangers waltzing through our house, judging us on our toothbrushes and our kitchen towels and our choice of window treatments. Ugh! I loathe the thought.

First, though, we had to spend a frantic couple of weeks prepping the house, which for us meant filling to the brim a 10 foot square storage room with things we own but in no way, shape or form actually use or need. Seriously, I am selling 95% of it as soon as it becomes garage sale weather.

We are close to being done, but still not quite there yet. If we get any lookers this weekend, they are in for a startling surprise when they go in our garage, in that it resembles a room from that show "Hoarders" more than it does an actual garage. We haven't been able to park a car in there since 2004. I am not joking.

My sincere hope is that someone will read this blog and go, "Hey! I was just thinking that I need a new house and I love Nancy's. I'm going to call her and make an offer RIGHT NOW!" Barring that, my hope is that the people who come look at the house will find it charming and will be forgiving of the little clutter that will inevitably sneak back in over time. And by over time, I mean by Friday.

Dance on

2009-12-07T20:24:00.004-06:00

How embarrassing. It has been almost 3 weeks since I last blogged. To my public, I apologize. To all 6 of you. It has been a busy few weeks. Right on the heels of my birthday was Thanksgiving and Matt's birthday. We've got tons of stuff going on, blah blah blah.

Last week, I left on Tuesday for Little Rock unexpectedly. My great uncle Lonnie, my grandmother's brother, passed away Tuesday evening. I stayed until the funeral on Saturday.

As I was growing up I spent a lot of time with Uncle Lonnie and his marvelous wife, Aunt Joyce. They live out in the country, and every trip to their house was filled with tractor rides, walks to the pond, and nervewracking encounters with aggressive geese (don't laugh until you've had one chasing you). All of that paled in comparison, though, to the pure entertainment package that was Uncle Lonnie.

Before I was born, Uncle Lonnie was in a car accident that ultimately caused both of his legs to be amputated and created a lifetime of medical issues for him. Most people would see this as a mountain-sized burden. Uncle Lonnie saw it as an opportunity to amuse and/or terrify people. I would go as a child to see him in the hospital after various surgeries on his legs, and he would spend his entire visit trying to convince me that if I tickled the air where his feet were supposed to be he would really feel it. Popping his legs off in front of unsuspecting visitors was one of his favorite pasttimes. I remember the first time he did it for Abby--while she was recovering in the fetal position I laughed until I cried with my uncle.

I am crazily blessed to have a huge extended family that I 1)actually like and 2) am close to. The days before and of Uncle Lonnie's funeral were a wonderful time of visiting, joking and much, much laughing. We are not a quiet bunch. In a group of cool people, Uncle Lonnie always stood out as one of the coolest, and I will miss him often. His and Aunt Joyce's 52 year marriage was one of a handful that, when we got married, Matt and I decided we want ours to look like 50 years from now. It is a lofty goal, let me assure you. No one came within 20 feet of them without knowing they were crazy in love.

Uncle Lonnie's funeral was lovely. Matt and I decided, for multiple reasons, that we wanted Abby to go. She loved my uncle, and I was worried that she couldn't handle it. She was a champ, though, and even would pat my back and tell me it was going to be okay when the emotion and pregnancy hormones collided and threated to turn me into a sobbing mess on the church floor a few times. Don't even get me started on the incredible military burial, one of which I have never witnessed in person before and is enough to make me weep just thinking about it.

I know that my uncle is in heaven, and I am sure that Uncle Lonnie is providing some serious entertainment up there. Abby asked me if he had his whole body back and was dancing with Jesus using his real legs. I told her there was no doubt.

It happens every year

2009-11-19T16:24:00.002-06:00

It's my birthday today.

Woo hoo!

Yeah, that doesn't really work. I remember when I was a kid, I thought that adults were A) lying or B) really boring people when they said birthdays weren't a big deal to them any more. Well, call me boring, because they just don't matter as much as they used to. Don't get me wrong--I love the 7AM phone calls and 20,000 Facebook birthday wishes as much as the next gal. But when I was younger, the entire day seemed to shimmer with excitement. I can go entire stretches of time now on my brithday without even remembering that it is, in fact, my birthday. Birthdays used to be celebrated by staying up late. Now I celebrate by sleeping in late.

I am not one of those people who does not want to admit her age. Maybe I will be some day, but I somehow doubt it. I turned 33 today. For some reason, this has resonated with me on several levels.

33. Thirty three. As close to a third of 100 as you can get. Over halfway to Social Security (if it's still around in 2041). Sirty sree if you talk like Ethan.

The age Jesus was when he was betrayed by one of his best friends, tortured and killed.

Wow.

Thirty two was good to me. Thirty three is bound to be a wild ride--I'll have offspring #3, send #1 to second grade and #2 into pre-K, and have to go from saying the year beginning with "two thousand" to beginning with "twenty." BIG stuff, people. I'm not worried, though. I'm sure God will help me survive through this year and beyond--if for no other reason than to see what I can come up with to write about when I turn 40.

Wild things

2009-11-07T16:39:00.003-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, Abby and I went down to Little Rock to help my aunt Linda throw my grandmother a Ladies' Lunch. I know, sounds wild, right?

It was actually quite a lot of fun. I got the idea from talking with my grandmother and hearing how much she missed just hanging out with her friends, laughing and talking and making fun of other people (she didn't admit to that, but we all know it's true). Many of her friends can't drive any more, or don't feel up to lots of outings. I knew that all of them would enjoy a chance to get together.

I was right. We had 9 ladies total--it should have been 10, but my sweet Aunt Joyce had to stay home at the last minute to care for my crazy Uncle Lonnie (he's a trip, and worthy of his own post someday). My Aunt Phyllis even drove in from Birmingham and surprised my grandmother. Once everyone got there, there was not a moment of silence. These chicks have got a lot to say. Since I grew up spending so much time with all of them, you don't have to look much further than that party to see where I got all the fun parts of my personality. Sassiness, brassiness, sarcasm, and a near-violent love of football were all borne in me by these women. Thank goodness! Someone to blame :)

Here are some pictures from the shindig:

My grandmother upon my Aunt Phyllis' surprise arrival. The surprise element did not disappoint.

Eating lunch. Abby was the main server, and she and the ladies thought that was grand.

The group. If there's a cooler bunch of broads on the planet, I don't think I could handle them.

So glad we could have this time together

2009-10-29T11:33:00.002-06:00

It's OVER. I did my expectant mother duty and got my flu shots today. Now my mother, aunt and nurse-friends can quit worrying that I will drop dead on the street. I can quit trying to care about germs, too.

Not that this peace didn't come at a price. I went to the mass flu clinic at the Jones Center today. Along with about 6,000 of my neighbors. I do not exaggerate. I did a little crowd-math while I was waiting, and I think I was around the 1,800-2,000 mark, with way more behind me than in front of me. I waited in line for 2 hours to get my shots, which took 30 seconds. During this time, I was afforded the opportunity to stand near lots of "interesting" people, who I have come to see as walking blog fodder.

There was the girl behind me who was furious that pregnant women didn't have a VIP line and that made racist statements the entire time, which were apparently acceptable because she "has a Hispanic for a boyfriend." There was the man who belched every 5 minutes, and the mother who frequently told her children not to dare act like the other children in line "whose parents obviously don't care if they behave or not." There were plenty of such children, but I had more than my usual amount of sympathy for the parents, as their children were being forced to wait in a long line--not for a carnival ride or candy, but to get a SHOT. Let 'em run around a little if it helps.

The wonderful workers were very efficient. They plopped me down and descended on either side. The seasonal shot wasn't too bad, but the H1N1 shot HURT. And it STILL hurts. Yes, I am whiny. It's my prerogative. At least I didn't scream and cry like most of the other recipients. Granted, they were pre-schoolers, but whatever. Pain is pain.

So it's over. I have whatever is in a flu shot (eggs? swine saliva?) floating around in my system, Scooby Doo Halloween band-aids on both arms, and a new appreciation for people who stand in line with their mouths shut.

I tried.

2009-10-16T12:12:00.002-06:00

Here's my confession. I am not a germaphobe. Never have been. I'm not sure why, but I just don't have any space in my brain taken up with fears of what's lurking on the bathroom counter or the bottom of my shoe or the shopping cart handle. I understand--sort of--why people are concerned about such things, but I'm just not wired that way. And amazingly, I've lived my life without any major catastrophes resulting from this lack of diligence. I've never had the flu (or a flu shot for that matter, but that's a discussion for another day, so lecture me later). I rarely get colds. For a long time, I worked on a college campus, where viruses go to speed date, and never caught anything. I would say I'm sick less than the average person. Wouldn't that point to germaphobia being a little...pointless?

Still. Since I'm pregnant, and there's all this hysteria about the flu and H1N1, and apparently pregnant women are getting much sicker than other people when they get it, I decided this week to try to make an effort to Avoid Exposure to Germs. I bought some hand sanitizer (the new foaming kind, which is heaven sent because the other kind is just plain NASTY)(though it still makes me nervous to have it because have you seen the stories about kids that eat it and get drunk? That has Ethan written all over it.) I promised myself that I would pay attention to who and what I touch. I would have the kids wash their hands as soon as they get home, before engaging in any acts of affection. Et cetera.

It didn't work. For a lot of reasons.

1. When I go pick Ethan up at school, he catches sight of me and runs full force at me, yelling "Mommy! Mommy!" Am I really going to hold out my hand sanitizer like a weapon and demand that he de-germ before I get a hug?

2. Germs stay on stuff for, like, 2 days. Short of wearing antibacterial gloves and a body suit, there's no way I can avoid them. And they're everywhere--I have a first grader and a pre-schooler bringing them home by the truckload every day.

3. I work with the elementary kids at church on Wednesday nights, and I was determined to at least have some boundaries there. Until they were playing Simon Says and Simon told them to all go hug Mrs. Nancy. What was I going to do, run screaming from the gym chased by hoardes of Simon-obeying germ transporters?

4, I just don't have the time. When I'm walking in to Wal Mart, I'm not just walking in to Wal Mart. I'm answering my cell phone (it's usually my mother), grabbing Ethan out of the path of an oncoming truck, stopping my shopping list from blowing away with my foot, telling Abby to quit performing her Hannah Montana impersonation in the doorway and racing to get the last "cool car" cart for the kids before the lady next to me gets there. By the time I remember that the last person to be holding the cart handle could have been there to get her Tamiflu from the pharmacy, I've got my hands already firmly planted in her germ residue.

So I am giving up. If I get sick, I get sick. C'est la vie. Germs, you win. I don't have the time or energy to avoid you. Just know, though, that if you mess with me you mess with my kids, and Ethan is not afraid to drink up some Germ X to show you who's boss.

Wake me up in November

2009-10-12T12:45:00.003-06:00

Blah. That is exactly how I feel. Blah.

I'm a little over 8 weeks pregnant now. So far, I have avoided serious nausea (mainly by eating at least once an hour) (which you know is a sacrifice, but anything for the baby) and most of the other unpleasant symptoms that can attack a newly pregnant woman. However, I have one in spades: being tired.

If you've ever been pregnant, you probably know what I"m talking about. This is not an I've-been-up-15-hours-and-need-to-go-to-bed tired. This is a for-no-good-reason-my-bones-are-exhausted-and-I-couldn't-move-if-the-house-was-on-fire tired. While Matt was out of town last week, there were times that I would be laying on the couch and something horrible would come on tv. The remote would reveal itself to be across the room, and I would debate for 20 minutes whether or not to yell until one of the kids woke up and came out of their room to get them to hand it to me as opposed to moving the 10 feet necessary to retrieve it and come back. Usually the internal debate would be ended because I'd fall asleep. Forget about the laundry. it's been having a block party in the hampers for days.

I know I'm just a few weeks from coming out of the haze. Then I'll go into that wondrous phase of pregnancy where I have insane amounts of energy and my stomach grows roughly an inch a day. I am ready. Until then, just pass me a Snickers and a pillow. Thanks.

We're not gonna take it!

2009-09-29T08:01:00.002-06:00

Well I sure started something.

A couple of days ago, I posted the following as my status update on Facebook:

"FYI, especially does not have an X in it. You know who you are."

Anyone who knows me knows that this kind of stuff flies all over me, and I am teased frequently for my low tolerance of grammatical, spelling and speech errors.

Apparently I'm not the only one. Other than when I posted about taking Abby to the ER and that I'm pregnant, no other Facebook update of mine has ever gotten more comments. People UNLOADED. Irregardless, supposably, Wal Marts, nucular. The list kept growing. 24 comments and counting so far.

Wow, people have some serious verbal bones to pick. I feel their pain, I really do.

So! Here's your chance. What saying, spelling or wording drives you bananas? Is it when people leave out the R in library? Or add an X to escape? How about when people brazenly misspell to, too and two or use apostrophes like they're accessories? Rant all you like.

Here's one more of mine to get you started. It really annoys me when people use "cute" nicknames for business by distorting the name. Examples: Mickey D's, Jacque Pennay's, Tarjhay. WHY? WHY do people do this?

Stream of...something

2009-09-23T10:21:00.003-06:00

The following is a chronological list of the thoughts I had in about a 30 second period yesterday. I'd like to say the pregnancy is making me strange, but let's face it. It was a pre-existing condition.

1. By the time this third child is finished with the 5th grade, I will have had one or more children in elementary school for 13 consecutive years.

2. They should rename that school after me.

3. When this one goes to Kindergarten, Abby will be in SEVENTH grade.

4. If I haven't killed her sure-to-be-a-smart-mouthed teenager self yet.

5. HOW do people homeschool? HOW?

6. I'm hungry.

Finally

2009-09-21T07:40:00.003-06:00

Well. I'm pregnant.

You probably already knew that. But just in case you didn't, now you do! I haven't blogged in some time, because I've discovered that when I have something BIG to write about but I have to wait, I can't seem to make myself blog about something else like there's nothing going on--no impending BIG thing. But now I've told everyone that I know or can think of to tell, including the woman eyeing me in the buffet line while I heaped my plate at my friend's wedding this weekend (the baby NEEDED that artichoke dip). So now I'm free to blog!

Based on the reactions I've gotten from a majority of the people I've told, I feel I need to clear a few things up about baby #3:

1. It was, in fact, planned. We wanted another child. Yes, we have met Ethan. We still wanted another one.

2. This will be our last. I have had 2 c-sections. Doctors recommend a max of 3. I am not a rebel.

3. The baby is due in mid-May. Upside: the kids will be in school for the duration of my pregnancy. Downside: two weeks after the baby is born they'll be home for the summer. We're looking for residential summer camps in New England now.

4. I feel fine so far. Really tired and hungry every 10 minutes but otherwise fine. I had mild pregnancies with A&E, so here's hoping the trend continues.

5. We are fully aware that baby #3 messes up the whole AMEN acronym. It is being diligently and carefully considered.

6. Abby is conditinally thrilled that we are having a baby. The condition is that it be a girl. If it's a boy, she wants to give it away. Her girl name choice right now is Flower.

7. Ethan could not care less that we are having a baby. This will, I suspect, change when it arrives.

Did I answer all the burning questions? I assume you've spent every waking moment since discovering the news wondering these things. And don't even pretend that since you read #5 you haven't been trying to come up with a way to add a new letter in to AMEN and come up with a new and more clever word. It's okay. No one can help themselves.

Elvis said to tell you all hello

2009-09-08T19:22:00.005-06:00

Ahhh, Vegas.

I counted on the way home, and this was my 7th trip out to that oasis in the desert. I know, I probably don't seem the Vegas type. Let me tell you, though, I don't think there's a city I love more in the world. It's such a...spectacle. There is so much to see, and do, and eat.

Matt and I have been together 4 times, so we've both very hip on the happenings of Vegas. Okay, that's completely untrue, but we have seen most of the large hotels and have gotten over being tourists for the most part. The two highlights of our trip, by far, were going to Red Rock Canyon and the Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues.

We had been to Red Rock once before, on our second trip out there. It's stunningly beautiful, and absurdly fun to scramble over giant rocks. Below is an overabundance of photos of our day there this time.

The Gospel Brunch was a fantastic stroke of luck--I ran across an ad for it when we first got there, and immediately procured tickets. How could you NOT want to spend your Sunday morning going to a gospel show (with an all you can eat Southern buffet) in Las Vegas? Beats me. We had the time. of. our lives. We were shouting and waving and dancing with everyone else, and we were in the mild group, let me assure you. We even got to go up on stage since it was our anniversary (50 other people went up too, but whatever. It was one big party.) I have several video clups from this, but they are loud and not great quality, so I won't mess with putting them on here.

Many of you may be wondering, does Nancy gamble when she goes to Las Vegas? The answer is, of course, no. I just buy these little round plastic discs and play games with them.

Enjoy the pictures!

No time

2009-09-03T16:58:00.003-06:00

For the last 4 days I've had intentions of sitting down and posting about the army of worm corpses that have appeared on our driveway (I even took pictures of the nasty things), but time has slipped away from me. And now, I am walking out the door in 2 minutes to jet off to Vegas with Matt to celebrate our 10 year anniversary the way any superhip parents of 2 do--we're going to sleep a LOT and eat even more.

Don't you wish you had this life?

What? Cool people LOVE me!

2009-08-23T19:08:00.004-06:00

I've been writing this blog for over 2 1/2 years, and I hold no delusions that it's read by a great number of people. Most of my readers are either related to me or see me often enough that they'd hear most of the stories in person, so reading here just saves them the time. Every once in a while, though, I find out that someone's reading that I don't know very well, or even at all. This thrills me to pieces--it feeds my ego and my love of knowing anyone new all at once.

Some time ago, in the last year or so, I got a comment on my blog from someone named Cameron (some of my friends who read the blog even asked me who he was, since it was apparently inconceivable that anyone besides them would read what I wrote.)(Come to think of it, I'm still not entirely sure how Cameron found this thing. Cameron?). I clicked on his name to check out his blog, and discovered he's a college student from Bentonville and quite the clever writer. We continued to read each other's blogs regularly. This is how I came to know that he's a musician and audiovisual genius, that he has an adorable girlfriend named Aubrey that he regularly raves about (SMART boy) and that he's in general a cool guy. That's why, when I needed someone to do video for a wedding I have coming up, he popped right into my mind. I sent him a message, and he ended up getting hired. Then when I needed to find the perfect piece of photography equipment last week, I knew he'd be just the person to ask.

It was funny actually talking, because we'd never met but knew all sorts of stuff about each other. This guy who I had never seen face to face knew that I have a drama queen daughter and a wild child son and a sweet, if blog-shy, husband. He knew about our summer vacations and saw our back to school pictures. I know that he's an avid Mac user and what classes he took last semester and where his girlfriend worked this summer. It may seem strange, but in this case I got wedding and photography help and he got a video job, so it was pretty handy.

Then last night, Matt and I went to Van Buren with Chad and Marla to see the concert of one of my favorite singers, Travis Cottrell**. I knew that Cameron was also a fan, and at some point read on his blog that he actually knew Travis. Cameron was at the concert too, and afterwards Matt and I got to meet him. It was so fun! And a little surreal, I suppose. We recognized each other right away (neither of us is exactly camera shy or hesitant about putting our pictures on our blogs). Matt is thrilled that Cameron is willing to talk to me for 30 minutes about the finer points of choosing the perfect auxiliary camera flash, so he was very eager to shake hands. We chatted for a few minutes, and then Cameron introduced us to Travis. I decided that meeting both of them at the same time was worth visually memorializing, so I made Matt take a picture of us (a bigger deal than you might think, since taking a picture with people you don't know is not exactly Matt's thing). Travis is on the left, Cameron on the right. (That's me in the middle).

Pretty fun, right? Thanks to this blog, I now have a hip college student with lots of helpful knowledge for a friend. And look at what Cameron got out of the deal! He's now pals with a wordy, over-enthusiastic thirty-something stay at home mom. Lucky, lucky boy.

**The concert was ridiculous. I'm not kidding. Incredible. Insanely fantastic.

Too cool for school, apparently

2009-08-19T18:34:00.003-06:00

You know that saying, "Youth is wasted on the young"? I think the same is true of the first day of school. Every adult (except maybe teachers) associate the first day of school with pure excitement. New supplies, new friends, a new teacher, it's all so cool! Kids are not quite so impressed. It's a pity.

I'd love to tell you that I have a fantastic story about Abby's first day of first grade. In fact, it was completely normal and low key in every way. We got ready, went to school, delivered her to her classroom, and...that was that. I picked her up some hours later. I asked how it was. She said good. Case closed.

I did manage to get some pictures of Miss Whatever before we left for the morning:

Note the horseshoe earrings. Her school's mascot is a stallion, and horsehoes are everywhere.

This photo might lead you to believe that my children can be in physical contact with each other without one of them being injured. This is not true.

Her idea of an appropriate first day of school photograph.

At her big kid desk.

Yawning. Two minutes in to her first day of school. Just another day for her. No big whoop. What's for lunch? Ho hum.

Well, hopefully things will get more interesting as the year progresses. Otherwise, I'll be forced to blog about random people that annoy me. Heaven knows there's no shortage there.