Friday, June 27, 2008

Thirteen


That baby of mine, that 7 lb 5 oz baby girl that I delivered yesterday, turned 13 today. No more chubby tummy to blow air bubbles on, no more warm bottles or diaper changes... We've traded things like that for phone calls that go on for hours, video games, and monitoring chat rooms. No, "Let's go to McDonald's for my birthday dinner!" It's now, "Hey, let's make jambalaya for my birthday dinner!" We'll have no more broken eye glasses, loose teeth, or even braces for that matter. We've moved on to contacts and a flawless smile! No more, "Mommy can you show me how these softball socks are supposed to go?" Now it's, "Hey Mommy, did you see me get her out at 2nd!?"
I'll always miss my infant, my baby, my little girl that needed to hold my hand in the grocery store parking lot. But I like this girl, this "young lady" that's taken her place too. She's sweet and fun and an interesting kid. She's challenging and worth every second of time that I spend loving her.
In fact, I think I'll go enjoy her right now because I know very well that soon, 13 will be a memory too.

Friday, March 21, 2008

The Egg Hunts

We've done two egg hunts already and it's not even Easter Sunday yet. I belong to two "mommy" groups and both of them had hunts this week. The hunts are getting progressively earlier, I've noticed. The first was at 11:00, today's was at 10:00, tomorrow's is at 9:00. See, this is great for me. Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I live up to that whole "Mexican time" thing. I notice that I seem to get worse as I get older...or maybe it's because I haven't worked in so long. One way or the other, who cares about all that timeliness junk. Don't worry, I still make dr.'s appointments and such (within 5 minutes anyway). Okay, so back to the hunts...I'm glad that they've gotten earlier as the days go by. It's perfect for someone like me.

So far they've been at parks where the eggs were "hidden" (more like layed out) in large grassy areas. My nephew is on spring break this week and attended both with us and today wanted to know if the he would get to find the eggs instead of just walking and picking them up. We'll see how the Round Rock egg hunt goes tomorrow, but I have a feeling it will be the same way. Payton and Sabrina really enjoy them though. They don't know anything different, so walking along and finding eggs is fine with them.

We all brought a dozen eggs to the first one, so they were filled with all kinds of different things from goldfish crackers to fuzzy plastic chicks. The eggs were supplied at the one today and I really didn't expect much, but they had lots of good stuff in them too. Sabrina got a cool plastic ring and Payton found a couple of balls and an airplane along with lots of candy. I was thinking of the few times that I took Camri and Vanessa to the Governor's Egg Hunt in Topeka and every egg that was laid out was filled with jellybeans. Bluh. I have a feeling the Round Rock egg hunt will be like that tomorrow. We'll see if Payton runs screaming from the Easter bunny as I clearly remember Vanessa doing every year. lol

Friday, January 25, 2008

Vanessa quote

Vanessa found an empty kool-aid cup with some ants crawling around the inside of it. So she threw it away and made me laugh when she said this.

"There! You can eat all the food you want cuz you're stuck in the trash can and there's no way out. You can feed on the pizza crust and lie on the empty plates."

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Vanessa


Forgot to add one of Vanessa. Whoops!

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Castaway Cay


Pirate night on the ship.


Mr.P

Sabrina and Ariel

Pirate ship...Aaargh!

Disney cruise!!

We went on a Disney cruise!!! I wanted to blog before we went, but everything seemed so crazy. Also, after having the annoying cough for a few days, it turned into another cold. Another one! I couldn't believe it. I had already lived through my obligatory winter cold and then I got another one....a worse one too. Then, after a day or two of that, I started feeling achy all over and feverish. You got it...the flu. Geez, could I acquire anything else...PLEASE!?!! Luckily, my last day of really feeling bad was last Saturday, the day before we left. I had the sniffles on the cruise and my head ached quite frequently from being full, but I'm so glad I was over the flu part of being sick before we left. I'll take the cold over that, thank you.

Okay, on to the details. This was a celebration and a gift from my parents to all of us kids and grandkids in honor of their 40th wedding anniversary and retirements. Wow, what a gift! We had so much fun!!

Last Sunday, we woke up around 3:15 am to catch a flight to Orlando. From the airport in Orlando, we caught a bus which drove us to the port where the Disney Wonder ship was waiting for us to board. From there it was a carb eating, show seeing, pool swimming good time. There was so much stuff for us to do, it was a little overwhelming. They have something called the Oceaneer's Club that Sabrina and Payton played at quite a bit. It's a place that 3-5 year olds can go to and they have all kinds of activities that they do with them. Their favorites were a Heffalump Hunt, finding Tinkerbell, and a pajama party that they were at until midnight. You heard me...midnight. Wow, my 3 and 4 year old party kids. Camri and Vanessa had groups that were there for them too, but they mostly wanted to stay around the adults, especially Camri. She's at that age where she wants to be a grown up and would rather hang out than go to something for kids her age. They did, however, find time to seek out their groups when it was Karaoke time. And Vanessa spent an evening with other kids her age doing crafts and playing video games. The first place the ship stopped was Nassau. This was kind of nostalgic for Jeremy and I because that's where we went on our second honeymoon. It looked exactly the same as I remember it...maybe a little bigger. We did some shopping there at a market we found. The 2nd and last time that the ship stopped was at what turned out to be everyone's favorite spot, Castaway Cay. It's an island that Disney owns and it was absolutely GORGEOUS! The water was crystal clear, the sand was like talcum powder, and there were seashells all over the place. Camri and Vanessa went on a stingray petting adventure which they loved. Of course we found one willing soul (Uncle Javi) to be buried up to his neck in sand. They even had a separate beach for adults which was quiet and filled with starfish and sand dollars as well as seashells. Oh, I almost forgot, they also have the ship from Pirates of the Caribbean there! That was really cool to see. I was disappointed that you couldn't walk around on it, but it was very very cool to be able to look at and take pictures of. I took one that looks like a postcard. After we were herded back on the boat after Castaway Cay, we spent the rest of the time on the ship until docking again in Orlando. I could go on and on and on about the characters we saw, the shows, the food, etc., but that's the gist of it.
I believe my parents wanted to see some of the money that they had saved being enjoyed by all of us. Well, we enjoyed it. Not a penny was wasted by us not enjoying ourselves. That was the most fun I've had in a very long time and it was so much funner to be there with our family.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Go away cough.

I've recently gotten over a cold that's turned into a cough. I have no other symptoms than this wretched cough. It's more annoying than anything. Nothing seems to help suppress it and it makes my voice sound like Marge Simpson. lol My parents got here on Sunday and though the cough wears me out, it feels so good to have them here. Also because I get babied a little too. My daddy made me some of the best chicken soup from our leftovers in our veggie tray and my mom paired it with some of her homemade tortillas. Just their hugs and kisses and cool hands on my face...AHHH...there's nothing like it. I've coughed my way through this and am on my way to bed. Hopefully I'll feel a little better tomorrow.

Happy New Year!!

Surprise! Of course you're reading a post from me. It's a new year and the turning of a page, so of course I'm going to dive into all kinds of these resolutions just like all of you. We'll see if I make it to February. lol

We all had so much fun this past weekend. Some of Jeremy's family drove down from Topeka. They got here this past Saturday night, just in time to get some football in. On Sunday, I woke up to a BEAUTIFUL bouquet of roses! It was mine and Jeremy's 13th wedding anniversary. Cheers! My sister-in-law and I went shopping twice, switching kids in between. She was looking for Heely's which apparently are much cheaper here than they are in Topeka. That evening, my father-in-law treated everyone to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. The food was awesome (as usual) and we had a great time drinking some of the best margaritas I've had in a long time and singing way too loud. My FIL and I treated everyone to a very loud rendition of When Doves Cry by Prince and Jeremy and I (well more I) to an even louder rendition of Happy Anniversary to You as the waitress made us stand on chairs. On New Years eve, I took the younger half of the kids to Texas Jumping Beans and wore them out. It's this great big 12,000 square foot empty warehouse that they've filled with tons of those blow up things you can jump in, run through, slide down, etc. They had a really good time. All of them had little sweaty heads and red cheeks by the time we left. Our evening was pretty much the same as everyone else's, although we did play charades which turned out to be pretty funny. Jeremy said he grew up with his extended family playing once in a while, but I've never played before. We all went to bed pretty late and I couldn't believe it when they all got up and were out the door by 7:45 am. Wow!

We pretty much layed around all day recovering from the weekend. None of us even changed out of our jammies.

I hope you all had a very very very happy new year and got to share it with family or friends...or both!