BFW Squared

Big Fun Weekend in Balmy Fort Worth

And a good time was had by all.

(Shoutout to our in absentia members.

We missed you, but we'll see you on Facebook.)

Highlights:

*Homemade pizza and breadsticks. Always a hit with this crowd.

*Chloe wowed "The Aunties" with her sunny disposition, superhuman leg strength and drooling capacity.

*Sophie filled in as entertainer, reading, singing, and constantly asking Kel to take off her glasses (apparently Soph doesn't think they suit).

*Getting significantly lost on the way to Dallas Love Field, driving on the tollway with no cash and writing four, yes four, separate checks to the North Texas Tollway Authority. Oh yeah, and

forgetting to sign one--I'm totally going to jail for that.

*Milkshakes at 1am.

*Certain people hijacking certain other people's computers and signing them up for social networking sites (Facebook, anyone?).

*Flair.

*Lazing about for an entire day, catching up and gazing adoringly at the children.

*Not getting significantly lost the second time around to Dallas Love Field.

*The food court at Hulen Mall.

In summary:

Six tolls and gas for five trips to the airport: $92

Middle-of-the-night Milkshakes: $10.50

Making new memories with old friends: Priceless

Correction

Further evidence that Sophie's a brilliant little 2-year-old. She is already (unwittingly) correcting my grammar.

Me: Sophie, if you stick your fingers in the car door when it's shutting it will hurt really bad.

Sophie: It will hurt really badly?

Me: Yes, Sophie, it will hurt really badly.

I stand corrected. (And I don't mind at all.)

We've Hit the Trifecta!

Introducing the cousins:
Elizabeth Marie, Chloe Elizabeth and Avery Elizabeth (clockwise from top).



Cute for now, sure to be trouble in the very near future!

For some cute baby humor, check out Avery's dancing debut. Definitely worth watching, very well (although inappropriately) choreographed by her daddy.

From the Front Lines

This post is brought to you by Harris Methodist Hospital and their fantabulous wireless internet. How is it that women have been bringing new life into the world for thousands of years without it??

That's right, you all are getting a post straight from what will (eventually) be my delivery room. I feel a little bit like Pheobe on that episode of friends where she has the heart attack--typing away on my computer while awaiting one of the most significant events of my life. But hey, I've got to kill time somehow.

At this point I'm hooked up to varoius machines, which are serving to illustrate that nothing, I repeat, nothing, is happening in my uterus at the moment. When the doctor comes in, hopefully we can get this show on the road and convince Little Miss to come out, although she is proving to be a bit more stubborn than her sister was.

I'll post pictures (of the baby, not of the process) when I get them.

Birthday Love

I was dreading my 31st birthday. Not because of the painful process of aging. No, instead I was dreading it because I was expecting an uncomfortable and unproductive visit to my OB. And indeed, that is what I got. But, thanks to all the birthday love I received from everyone the day was not entirely lost. I'd like to share a few of my favorite birthday wishes, although I must issue a Parental Advisory for the content.

On my voicemail (from spaghettipie, received while I was at the OB):

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
I guess you're getting an exam of your hoo-hoo,
Happy Birthday to you.

In my email (from cdub):

My birthday wish for you:
May no baby come forth today (unless you are miserably large)
So that you never have to share your birthday with another (unless you are selfless like me and do not mind.)

A birthday card (from Anna):

Pictured on the front are two friends having coffee.
Friend 1: Where's your birthday party going to be at?

Friend 2: Don't end your sentence with a preposition.

Inside the card:
Friend 1: Where's your birthday party going to be at, Bitch?


Overheard talking to herself at naptime (from Sophie):
"Today is Mommy's birthday.
Happy birthday, Mom."

And this one is not a birthday wish, but it was a gift in its own way.

Lying in bed with Mommy after hearing Daddy yell at the tv
(from Sophie, who gets in trouble for yelling):
"I need to go stop him. He's having a bad choice."
Yes, having a bad choice indeed. Tee hee.

It was a happy birthday after all.

Waiting

I got my fortune cookie yesterday. The fortune was interesting "Your ability to find the silly in the serious will take you far." The numbers not so helpful. But on the back there was a single word, "Wait." And I said to myself, "That's just fantastic for you to say, Mr. Fortune Cookie, you're not the one who has been toting around another human for approximately 266 days. Hmpf." Anyway, my due date has arrived, and I'm just waiting for this baby to come out. The biggest problem is that I have cleared my schedule for the week "just in case" (I should have known better) and now I'm basically really bored. I'll go check in with the dr. on my birthday--just what I always wanted for my birthday, an intrusive cervical exam--and see how Little Miss is doing. I'll keep you posted.

In other waiting news, we are also waiting to see if anyone wants to buy our snowcone stand, as I am not completely sure how I will be running the thing while caring full-time for two small children this summer. So, if anyone wants to buy our snowcone stand, here's the posting on Craigslist.

And finally, I'd like to close with David's fortune from yesterday, "Good news of long-awaited event will arrive soon." I'm fairly certain this fortune has nothing to do with my having a baby, but is instead referring to the Baylor Men's basektball team and their re-entry into the NCAA Tournament after a hiatus of 20 years.

The Most Comfortable Place in the World. . .

is apparently my womb.

I went to the doctor last Wed, about 10 days shy of my due date, and it appears that little miss Chloe (that's her name) is quite comfortable in there and has made no effort whatsoever to start the whole process of being born. Yeah, so dial down the emergency mode, folks, any phone calls from me in the next week have very little chance of being related to actually having a baby. I'm just going on with life and acting like she's never going to come. With Sophie, I was chomping at the bit to have her. I was so excited and also very, very hot and swollen (may I recommend winter/spring babies?). With Chloe, I'm thinking, the longer she stays in there, the more days I have to rest up before all heck breaks loose here. I'll keep you all posted, but don't hold your breath.

In other news, Sophie has a new trick. After her first day in Sunday School (instead of the toddler room) and hearing the lesson about the feeding of the 5,000, she has taken it upon herself to preach. She got a mic stand and a Bible and started reading. Apparently, every page in that Bible reads "Jesus do anything" because after she turned each page, that's what she said.

Her vocabulary has also expanded to include "widicwous", "dewishous", and "adowabow". We think she is all of the above. Oh, and for the last two days, her requested reading has been The Illustrated NFL Playbook, circa 1988. Not making this stuff up, people. By the time she's three, I'm hoping she'll have a pretty good grasp of the virtures of the 3-4 defense and the West Coast Offense.

Also, if you're interested, my writer's group has written some Reflections on Lent. They are posted every M/W/F throughout Lent. I wrote the one about bacon. Go figure.

One last thing, the other day I googled Chloe's name (Chloe Elizabeth) and found this funny blog. Read the post from 2/22, you'll like it, I promise.

And The Winner Is. . .

And really, is anyone surprised at this outcome?? I'm glad I only lost out by 13%. Maybe I'll have bettter luck with the next one--although I'd love to get a redhead.

Tender Moments and Other News

Last night I was lying in bed with Sophie as she fell asleep. I was singing a gentle lullaby and she reached her sweet little hand out to touch my face. But instead of the gentle caress I was expecting, she grabbed my nose and shouted "HONK!" Needless to say, the lullably quickly disintegrated into giggles and a full-scale nose honking battle. So much for winding down.

In other news, this is my first post using our new wireless router. Our other one has been out of service for months now and we've had a 50 ft. cord running the length of our house since then. I'm so glad that I don't have to trip over that cord anymore.

And finally, I have 5 weeks until my due date. I'm not totally huge yet, but am expecting remarkable growth over the next few weeks, which means I will continue to become more and more unwieldy and awkward with each passing day. Too bad y'all aren't here to make fun of me when I try to tie my shoes.

My Favorite Picture

I'm tired of looking at my giant belly every time I get on the blog, so I'm posting another one.

This is my favorite picture right now and is the wallpaper on my laptop. For me, it's a quick bad-mood killer. Enjoy.

The View From Up Here: Sarah's Picture Dump, Part I

The Giant Orb That Is My Belly

(Oh, and my feet.)

Me at 33 weeks.

My Sweeties on Christmas Eve.

Sophie and her new cousin, Elizabeth Marie.

The brothers and their little girls.

Happy 2008!

If You Like Law & Order. . .

(And I know you do.) Then watch this SNL clip. It's genius-especially Sam Watterson.

A Theory

I know that I owe several long-ish posts, including, but not limited to: a holiday recap, recent Soph-isms, and pictures, pictures, pictures. (I didn't have any good belly ones of me, and will take one when/if I ever put on makeup again.) But I wanted to break my posting dry spell with a short little post regarding my latest insight on my journey of self-obsessed self-discovery.

I am a neat freak.

Please, please, stop laughing. If you've doubled over in laughter, take a moment to realign yourself before reading on. (Note: For those who have never had the privilege of a) living with me or b)stopping by my house unannounced, I will let you know that my living quarters in reality, whether dormitory of single-family home, have never exactly matched the above statement. I am, in fact, the girl who fell asleep with a bagel in her bunk bed, only to have it fall onto her roommate who was sleeping in the bunk below.)

But upon recent reflection, I have come to realize that I crave order and organization. I discovered this after my recent 10-week clean out my closets/cupboards/attic campaign. The pleasure I took both in creating the organizational system and in reveling in its completed glory were a little shocking, if not a little unhealthy. I charged into the Christmas season with a clean and truly organized house. I have also recently noticed my tendency to organize the minutia around me. Example: While sitting in a meeting, I looked down and noticed that all the assorted candies provided by the presenter had somehow made their way into a symmetrical design. Hmmm. This also happens with assortments of pens, toys or random piles of change. It's as if I can't help myself.

During the holidays, I had houseguests for 16 days. I hosted several parties. My house stayed clean and orderly almost the entire time. My most recent guest left on Sunday. Since then my family and I have been living in relative squalor. So how does that qualify me as a neat freak??

My basic theory is this: Clutter and mess (e.g. the boxes sitting in my living room waiting for me to put my Christmas decorations away) make me frustrated, irritable and depressed. Order and organization energize me. As soon as I let my guard down and the clutter begins to pile up at all, I get discouraged and overwhelmed. I do what any self-respecting person would do and throw in the towel. I sit on the couch eating old Christmas candy and watching that terrible game show "Merv Griffin's Crossword." (The only thing on at 2pm.) And I'm stuck. My lack of inertia to get up and do the dishes and fold the laundry then sneaks its way into other tasks, such as posting to the blog in a timely manner and returning phone calls. Next thing I know, I haven't showered in two days and my toddler is watching Cinderella on a 24-hour loop.

So I've got to find a way to stay on top of the mess and clutter that ordinary life creates AND be quicker to recognize clutter-induced depression when it appears. Which reminds me, I've got to go fold this laundry that's been living in baskets for four days. I'll reappear when the Christmas decorations finally come down. . .

Advent

This is a little late, but I wanted to post a link to an Advent Devotional/Reflection Guide put out by my church. It's a great way to keep your heart and mind focused throughout this month.

It Pays to Be a Nerd

Ladies and Gents, it's time to put your nerdiness to good use!

There's a fairly new website designed to donate food to hungry people. Basically, you go to it and see how nerdy you are by knowing/guessing the definitions of words. For each correct answer, the owners of the site donate grains of rice to the UN's World Food Programme. It keeps track of your stats and lets you know your vocab level (1-50). Try it out. I did check it out on Snopes and the story clears. Kel, you should assign this to your students!

"Fwick"

I've had a less than stellar day and an even less stellar attitude.

I also have a two-year-old who doubles as a digital voice recorder.

You figure it out.

Procrastination

I've been meaning to do a lot of things over the last few weeks, many of which got passed on from one week's to-do list to the next. I really needed to download pictures from my memory card (dating back to June.) I wondered why I was stalling and putting it off. I sat down at 9 pm to download the pictures and upload them to Ritz. It is now 11:30 and I'm still waiting to finish uploading . . . No wonder I've been stalling, since when do I have three hours in a row to sit here and wait for pictures to load. On a slight rabbit trail, there is a comedian I really like named Demetri Martin who has a funny take on procrastination. Here's the link, but to see the procrastination part you'd have to fast forward to 3:45 or so. The whole thing is hilarious, though.

I was just trying to post a few pictures for y'all of Sophie's birthday, but Blogger and/or my computer are not cooperating. More later. . .

Curse of the Candy Corn

I have a love-hate relationship with candy corn, as I'm sure most people who eat it do. It's so very delicious, but I have to monitor my consumption because there is a very fine line between "candy corn satisfaction" and "candy-corn nausea". Even one extra candy corn can push you over the line. I seem to think that the only true cure for candy corn nausea is, of course, more candy corn. After self-medicating, I then run into what is called "candy corn regret" and swear off the stuff for good (mainly because the bag is empty.) But of course today I bought another bag, and I am disappointed to say that Target-brand candy corn falls very short of the highest candy corn standards, set by the confectioners over at Brachs. I mean, I'm still going to eat the whole bag by day's end, but the impeding sick tummy just won't be quite as worth it.

There's a Mariachi Band in my Back Yard

Technically, they are not quite in my yard, just on the other side of the chain-link fence that separates my back yard from my neighbor's. I stepped out of the shower tonight to the sounds of two trumpets in harmony, accompanied, of course, by guitar and at least two men singing. It sounds as if they are right outside my window. Unfortunately we could not ascertain whether or not the performers are wearing the requisite mariachi uniform, and it's way too dark (it's after 10) for David to sneak over and take a picture for me to post as evidence. That would be awkward, considering he's going to have to go over there in about an hour and ask them to go serenade someone else so I can go to sleep. I know, I'm a big party pooper. I guess I'm just mad I wasn't invited.

Catch-all Post

There are a lot of little things to share/discuss, so without further adieu, here's my bulleted list:

*Sophie turns two tomorrow. She had her "painting party" birthday party last weekend. I will post pictures when we get them from the girl that took them for us. It was super-fun. Tomorrow we will go with Gigi and Grandpa to the Dallas World Aquarium, which is a giant rainforest/aquarium. It's gonna be so fun. She's getting so big and learning so much. New "Sophie-isms" include saying "Oh, doot" (trans: oh, shoot) and pulling up a chair to the counter to help me make dinner. She's morphed in to a girly girl and likes her princess nightgown and baby doll. She's still a big Thomas the Train fan, though.

*I am pretty much done with first trimester nausea. My stomach is still pretty sensitive, but I can eat again. We hopefully will discover the gender of Baby #2 next month. Also, Sophie will have two new cousins on her daddy's side next year, so three new babies in 4 months for Grandma Kiki. She's physched.

*Fall TV is coming. I've got my last-season shows lined-up: Heroes, The Office, 30 Rock, but the jury is out on any new shows. I meant to write a post about Tim Gunn's Guide to Style, but got interrupted mid post. The question is: Do we like or not? Episode 1 had me bawling, of course, but that's not saying much these days. I'm also interested in Chuck, Life, Bionic Woman and maybe The Women's Murder Club, mainly because of Angie Harmon. So far, my lineup is pretty NBC heavy, but we'll see how the season progresses.

I guess that's all the news that's fit to print.