Slacker blogger...but not by choice

Man, I haven't truly posted something worthwhile in what seems like ages. Work has had me so swamped that the only thoughts swimming around in my headache riddled brain have been about making sure that the mondo-conference I'm wrapping up today went off without any major bumps. T minus two hours and I will have achieved that goal. Yes, I'm blogging from work. Don't tell my boss. I needed a little me time in the middle of this morning. So shoot me!

I'm hoping and praying that this tic in my right eye goes away later today, too. Somehow I'm thinking it's going to hang on until we are leaving port on Sunday. I've made myself checklists of everything to pack...one list for the kiddos, one for DH & me. If you could be here right now, you'd see me on the phone with DH as he runs errands for me this morning. What brand of diapers? How many? Does this sippy cup sound like it will work? Will he eat this type of veggie or fruit? It's so sweet and incredibly cute when he is being helpful.

Rain, rain go away

We're going on our 3000th straight day of rain. Okay, so 3000 is a bit of exaggeration, but I swear it's been raining since I can remember and we've still got chances of rain in the forecast through next Tuesday. We've had our fair share of flooded roadways, rivers, and creeks, but other parts of Texas have gotten it even worse. Parts of the Hill Country had 19-20 inches of rain in 24 hours a couple of days ago. North Texas isn't any better. Homes are flooded, bridges washed out. I can't remember ever getting this much rain at once. The jokes abound around here about needing to build an ark. What's not a joke is that we do need to pray for those people who have lost everything due to these flooding rains. My heart goes out to them.

Even Pook, who loves the rain, is walking around singing Rain, Rain, Go Away. I think it's just because it's cutting into her pool time. Since she learned to swim with her floaties and jump off the side of the pool by herself, all we here is "when do I get to go swimming again?" She's starting to doggy paddle in her bathtub just to keep up her skills. ;)

Other random stuff

Try giving the Diesel a bath these days and you're going to get wet. He luuuhhhuuuvvvvsss his bathtime! He also loves to kick and splash water everywhere. We've got to get him in the pool. My sister gets to do that this week. Lucky her!

I'm so going to miss my kids this next week. I asked DH if I was like this when we left the Pookster for the first time when she was 10 months old. He responded with a quick yes, so I guess it's to be expected that I'm a little anxious about our trip.

Must cut this short for now. IT is coming to run a virus scan on my 'puter.

Rough day

Don't really want to elaborate, but if you can spare some prayers...send an extra up for me. No one is sick or hurt and it's not the end of the world, but I could sure use the power of extra prayer to get through this week.

I don't have a right to complain or whine. We're going on an already paid for cruise in 5 days. I just really need to feel the arms of Jesus around me right now.

One week from today

For some odd reason the Love Boat theme is playing in my head. ;)

Now if I can just make it through this week at work, there is a big, honkin' light at the end of the tunnel. Seven days until we set sail. I'll be back later to add more to this post. I have a meeting in about 30 minutes. Working on Sundays BITES!

Great news & one happy face

How did our trip to Austin go, you ask? The actual car ride was miserable. Rain...all the way down. Traffic was horrid and we were 30 minutes late, but the results of the voyage were completely worth it. The pediatric cardiologist did not hear the murmur from the VSD in Diesel's heart so he officially removed the VSD from his medical file. Praise God! Dr. Wong is a fantastically nice guy and turns out he and his wife are Baylor grads to boot. We spent 20 extra minutes just chatting about that. Small world, I tell ya!

In honor of our fantastic news I just had to post this page. By far, my fave photo taken of him so far.



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Oh...the Pookster & Father's Day

Father's Day turned out to be a rainy one here. Very rainy. However, I do think that DH had a great day overall. I mean, you can't go wrong with a lazy Sunday afternoon spent watching the drama unfold in the US Open. And the one thing you can always count on is that at some point during the course of a normal day, Pook is going to make you laugh. That moment came early this morning as we were getting ready for church. She had made her daddy a present at school and gave it to him this morning (a really cute pic of her in a magnetic frame). As DH is telling her thank you and gushing over it, she says....

"Yeah, well when it's kid's day they better be making me something!"

I just had to interject, "Honey, everyday is kid's day."

Kids! Where do they come up with this stuff? My dad was visiting us this weekend and he swears we've got to get her in commercials.

Speaking of Dad, we had a great visit. There's a lot of history there that I won't go into right now, but it was actually nice to get to see him. He brought along my little brother, too. He's 5 and such a sweetie. Big into Spidey these days. I guess I have all that to look forward to with Diesel.

Another Pook story

I wasn't actually present for this one, but I'm going to share it anyway. Apparently, DH was watching that new Fast Cars & Superstars and Pook comes strolling through the room, spots the photos of the Alltel commercial guys on the hood of one of the cars and says, "What up...Chad." You think that means our kid watches a little too much TV? Yikes!

PS

I posted a couple of new LOs but wanted to show this one off. I am blessed beyond belief!

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Just your average boy

Had Diesel's 6 month appointment yesterday. Our chunk of burning love weighed in at an even 17 lbs. and was 26 3/4 inches long. About the 50th percentile for each...just your average boy. He seems so big to us because while Pook was a chunky baby, she was always on the petite frame size and fell off the charts for height at one point. She's still petite, just don't call her little. She has a severe aversion to that word when used in reference to her. Little toot!

Our sweet boy was born with a VSD (ventricular septal defect) that caused a heart murmur. However, the ped and ped cardiologist believed that it would close on its own by the time he was 6 months old. I'm happy to report that our ped didn't hear it and we go to the cardiologist next Wednesday to get the all clear from him.

After three shots and a whole lot of screaming baby, we left the doctor's office with a very sound asleep boy on my shoulder. He didn't even wake up when I put him in the car seat or took him out at the sitter's. Don't you wish you could sleep like that again? Such is the life of being a mom. Every little noise wakes you up because you're always on guard about your little ones. Hey, I'll sleep when I dead, right?

Trifecta

How could I forget to post this? My bodily injury trifecta became complete when I turned my ankle in our softball game last Friday night. Yep, you heard right. After my self-inflicted, dog-inflicted, burn-ridden torturous week, I turned my ankle rounding 3rd. In the first inning! I felt like such an old lady. Luckily, it's not bad, but it sure hurt for a solid 3 days. The old body...she just ain't what she used to be. :)

Gamote & defrigiderator

I'm just a little sad. DH & I were reminiscing today about the things the Pookster used to say and do. Since she started talking, she's always had a vocabulary that amazed us, her teachers and even strangers. Still there were times that some words just weren't easy to say and she wound up with her own special pronunciations like

gamote = remote
defrigiderator = refrigerator
hunder = thunder

You get the idea. What has made me sad is that my sweet baby girl is not a baby anymore. She's not really even what I'd call a toddler. She's full-blown, sassy malassy, parent-correctin' little girl.

"Uh, Daddy...it's not gamote it's REmote."

Heaven help us when she hits her teens. :)

When it rains...

Why is it that when one part of your life gets hyper-busy all other parts seem to follow suit? This week at work has just slammed me. It might not be seem as bad if this week wasn't the week for the Pookster's swim lessons. Thank the dear Lord above for DH's flexible summer schedule (and help from my MIL) that has allowed me to work an extra 45 minutes while they run all over town picking up our offspring only to bring them back to this side of town for her swim lessons. The house is once again a wreck and laundry is screaming to be done. This is my life, I guess.

Cruise coming up

Passports? Check!
Tickets? Check!
Excitement? Double Check!!

This will be my first cruise (DH has been before) and I cannot wait! A glorius 8 day/7 night adventure for just us. And a couple of friends. And a boat full of people. But, hey, we'll be kid-free! Don't get me wrong. We're going to miss them like C-R-A-Z-Y, but they'll be in excellent hands with my sister (Hey, chica!) and having a blast with their cousins. 18 days and counting, baby! Can we leave tomorrow?

What church do you go to?

Pook story coming up. Keep in mind that this is our chatterbox of a child.

At school, the teacher is talking about making good choices (this is the staple of their classroom) and always telling the truth. Our dear sweet daughter walks up to Mrs. Duncan, taps her on the shoulder and says.....

"Mrs. Duncan, Jesus doesn't want us to tell the truth."

*Mommy sidebar - HUH? Since when?

A lengthy conversation followed and I'm not really sure why the Pookster said that. It might be because we talk all the time about what makes God happy. You know...minding Mommy and Daddy, being nice to Diesel, not arguing, etc.

Oh...and Mrs. Duncan's reply?

"I've got to ask your Mommy & Daddy where y'all go to church?"

Goodness gracious!

The weekend

Thankfully the weekend is upon us and for the first time in what seems like forever, we're all going to be at home together. These are my favorite times. Lazy Saturday mornings when Pook climbs into bed between us and pesters us to turn on cartoons while we try to catch just a few more minutes of sleep before the Diesel beckons. Maybe my sweet husband will treat us to his yum-yum-yum delicioso pancakes tomorrow. (Those of you with kids will surely get that Dora reference :))

Speaking of tv shows...can I just say how completely bummed DH & I are that Studio 60 was cancelled. Grateful as we are that NBC is at least airing the remaining episodes, it just reminds us how miffed we are that it's not coming back. How they can keep My Name is Earl and dump such a witty, well-written show is beyond me.

Have I mentioned that DH & I play on a coed rec softball team? Silly me. It's a regular part of our summer routine. First softball game is tonight and we are soooo looking forward to it.

Breathe deeply.....heck, just breath period

Whirlwind of a day week already. Oh, wait it's Thursday. Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday. What natural law is it that says anything thing that can go wrong will? I'm renaming it Leslie's Law.

Earlier this week, while curling my hair, I dropped the curling iron and tried to catch it...with my bare arm. Brilliant, I know. I'm sporting a pretty sweet burn on my upper right arm. Looks like I tried to brand myself. Then, today we almost had one seriously dead dog on our hands. Well, that's because I almost killed him. I had the responsibility of taking both the kiddos to their respective school and day care this morning. That always makes for a hectic morning, but it's not normally so patience-trying until you throw in an uncooperative dog. Shiner, our still-a-puppy Australian Shepherd, decided he didn't want to be put up this morning and proceeded to toy with me and wouldn't come when called. Not even for a treat. Damn dog. A result of his "play" he raked his tie-out cable across the top of my foot at a high rate of speed and took multiple layers of skin with it. Again, damn dog. So now I'm the not so happy host of not one, but two burns in the span of 3 days. I think I'll lock myself in the house this weekend and not even attempt to go near anything that might leave some kind of damaging mark on my skin. I just need to remember in times like these , when nothing seems to be going my way, to breathe deeply...heck, just breathe period.

The Pook & Diesel, by the by, were safely delivered. Thank God for those bright spots in my day.

What I did on my day off

I had to stay at home with Diesel yesterday. Our sitter was having her 6 month cancer free cat scan. We are praying that it comes back clean as a whistle.

Sooooo I got to do some scrapping. Yeah, me! Here are a couple that I worked on. Of course, you can always find my layouts here.


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