Baby Magnum

If you loved Magnum PI's hairy chest you will love this baby. I should have titled this crazy-camera-lens.

Am I dating myself with a Magnum reference? My Husband and I saw a man at a concert recently wearing short shorts like Tom Selleck wore. It was a great source of amusement for us both. I think he wanted to show off his awesome legs that weren't so awesome.

Today I waited in the drive-thru of Starbucks for a latte a lot longer than I have had to wait in line for gasoline this week. That is saying a lot. (I mean a latte.) I paid a lot more for it than the gas too. Gotta do my part to keep up the Economy.

I'm getting ready to get ready for my in-laws to come. I'm not quite there yet. I do feel the stress, though. What to feed them? That is the million dollar question of the day. I have PMS (again) so it may not be a nice weekend. Last night I got a lot madder than I should have about a clean pair of baseball socks being in the dirty clothes basket. I told everyone in the house how unhappy I was about it (except for Baby Girl because she was asleep). I went on and on and talked under my breath and huffed and...you get the picture. I'm pretty sure my 6 year old said something like "I love you more than you can imagine" and I responded "well don't put clean socks in the hamper!" I think something was said about me being disrespected as well.

I really do have a lot of laundry. It can get to a girl.

We aren't so colorful

I want to add that the little truck should actually be a Jeep. Baby Girl isn't that skinny by a long shot (we have spelled F-A-T in our house a few times). Please exchange that June Cleaver skirt I am wearing for my Costco loungewear. I'm not sure my Hubby has that much hair. Otherwise this is us!

I've gotten a few emails that I haven't replied to yet. I am underwater here with work, schools, the consignment sale and the checks that go along with it. Also, my pictures have been "offline" for a few days and there is never much of a reason for me to blog without my pictures.

All is well.

4 things

Kristin tagged me some time ago and I am finally getting around to answering the questions.

4 things I was doing 10 years ago:

• Looking for a wedding photographer
• Looking at wedding magazines
• Planning to quit my not-so-glamorous software job
• I'm sorry. I just can't remember back that far.

4 things on my to-do list today:

• one load of laundry
• 2 baseball uniforms ready for tomorrow morning
• arrive at the consignment sale I have been working all week ON TIME
• shop for 1/2 price items tonight

4 things I love about my husband:

• That he is so helpful with the kids
• His laugh - or more that he laughs at stuff a lot even though it isn't funny
• He always loads the dishwasher (I should have put this one as #1)
• He loves me a whole lot for no reason. (I had to make sure I added the last one because it is true and I hated to show so obviously that I am definitely an "acts of service" gal.)

4 jobs I have had:

• Cracker Barrel waitress or as I like to remember it - Hell.
• Admin to a Financial Planner that was going bankrupt. The madness.
• Movie theater goddess and ticket taker.
• Personal Financial Manager to a bunch of rich loonies. Have I mentioned that I quit this job?

4 movies I have watched more than once:

• Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman.
• When Harry Met Sally
• Pretty in Pink
• High Fidelity

This is the first 4 that came to mind. Movies I have already seen are my favorite kind. (can I add Urban Cowboy, Coal Miner's Daughter, Rudy, The American President and 16 Candles?)

4 places I have lived:

• Alabama
• A college apartment that might be considered a dump now, but was acceptable then.
• A scary Atlanta apartment with non stop crying babies and shirtless men walking the parking lot with knives strapped to their belts.
• My house I built with my husband going on 8 1/2 years now (that my 2 boys are tearing down room by room)

4 places I have been:

• Austria
• France
• Alabama
• Mexico

4 places I want to visit:

Nappa Valley
The Caribbean
Scotland
Italy


4 shows I watch:

• Lost
• Friends
• Big Brother
• The Office

4 things you may not know about me:

• I'll just refer back to this old post so you can see my dairy farm picture again. It is lovely.
• I'm having trouble thinking of something. I already admitted that I collect pretty ribbon and do nothing with it.
• I eat chocolate every single day. That isn't much of a shocker.
• I got kicked out of 6 Flags when I was 14 or 15. I was mostly innocent.

4 people I tag:

Mary C & Mara even though they have private blogs
Leah
Flssgrl

Welcome!

No Girls Allowed

They play on the stairs so she can't get to their Legos. They use their feet to keep her from climbing up. I'll try to get some pictures of how they barricaded their stuff inside the living room so she can't get it either. She doesn't seem to upset about it yet. After all, she still has her computer cords and cookbooks to play with. She continues to stay busy making mad dashes for the fireplace and ripping magazines.

Another bad family photo

Have I mentioned that the middle one won't stay off the baby. Really. How annoyed she must be (not as much as me for sure). She has sufficiently learned to smack him and he deserves it. She bit him on the foot once and that was totally deserved too (although I didn't say it out loud). If someone ever gets in your face and screams "GOO GOO GAAA GAAAAAA!" you should just bite them. It is so very understandable.

Stay tuned for my post coming next year: "Baby Girl won't stop biting children in the church nursery; What do I do? and "She bit for blood. Not so funny anymore."

**Note: As you can see, the Big Guy still isn't tying his shoelaces and neither are we.

Family Portrait

Listed on my Little Guy's school supply list was "family picture". Hmmm. You would think that we would have one. I put it off for weeks and finally tried to arrange for my Aunt to come over and take our picture. That didn't work out so finally I set the timer on my small 6 year old Sony and made everyone get on the couch. This is what I got. I kind of like it. It is just the way we are. I'm in sweats and a college T-shirt, my Hubby has his clothes on to run and one of the kids is crying. I started to send it in and then on Labor Day my Aunt used the same pitiful Sony to take this one:
I had to do a lot of editing to get it to even look this good. I like the way she said "I took a good picture" when I showed her later. There was 10 feet of space above us in the original picture. I'm wearing another college t-shirt, however, the kids weren't crying so I consider it a big success despite the way my hair looks. Those are flag stickers going across my Hubby's chest. Another big success when they aren't stuck to our be-hinds.

Not that you asked

I'm feeling a bit strange. I have a long convoluted thyroid story that ends with me taking Synthroid and having my thyroid levels checked a lot more often than I care for. I think something is out of whack and it feels like it might be overactive again. Do you remember that Family Ties episode when Michael J. Fox takes amphetamines and can't stop and he is studying and spinning in that chair out of control? I don't either. Anyway, that is kind of how I feel. I go and go and go and never stop. I am only sleeping about 5 hours at night and don't even take my afternoon nap or hardly sit down during the day. If my housekeeper had not quit and I didn't have so many outside projects, my house might finally be well-organized and spotless. Unfortunately, I have a gabillion things going on right now. If this all sounds great to you, it is. It is wearing me down slowly, though. Pregnancy and babies usually mess things up with my thyroid so I hope it is settling back to where it wants to be and will leave me alone soon. Before this started I visited my endocrinologist so I should get that report back soon in many weeks. The man has gone crazy. I had Baby Girl with me and he talked to her and then rambled on and on very fast about some story I couldn't understand. I'm not even sure he was speaking English. He told me to take a sip of water so I could swallow and he could feel my thyroid as I did that. I just held the water in my mouth waiting for him to tell me when to swallow and he just talked on and on. He finally walked away and I guess he forgot what he was doing. I just tried to get out of there. Poor man only gets samples of thyroid medication so he is probably overdosing on that stuff instead of whatever regular doctors get hooked on.

Sorry no thyroid picture to post. It would be even more boring than this rambling.

Baseball x2

I had to participate in my first Little League baseball practice tonight. Both boys had a practice at the same time at different places. Honestly, I can't decide which is more boring. Baseball games or baseball practice? I took the Big Guy and he was the littlest guy there. I think a lot of his teammates are third graders and pretty good. He didn't seem too phased by it. He did a good job except for occasionally daydreaming in the outfield and swatting at moths with his glove.

The pictures of the shoes are from last Spring and he has already grown out of them. Hubby struck gold at the first practice when he took a nice pair of cleats the next size up from a Dad about to throw his kids shoes away. What is wrong with people? Why would you throw away a $40 pair of shoes not even worn 6 months? I'm sure my Hubby just took them and didn't explain to him how The Salvation Army works. If I had been there I might have asked where they live 'cause no telling what they are throwing away at the house...

30 day count down to a one year old

11 months old today. Wow. She won't be a baby much longer. She is turning into a toddler in front of our very eyes.

Bye-bye is her first official word. She can also say ma-ma, da-da, Uh-uh (uh-oh) when she drops things and my new favorite, duck. I like the way she sticks her tongue way out to say it. She also does a very cute version of "tickle, tickle, tickle" and scratches my arm at the same time.

As we celebrated Labor Day at Grammy's house we asked her to say my Aunt's name (Becca) and she repeated it clear as day. We laughed and laughed and laughed because we are so easily amused. Everyone also laughed and laughed when I told my facts about an obese woman eating a whole loaf of french bread with 2 sticks of butter for breakfast. It wasn't funny at all and yet my mother and aunt couldn't control themselves. I guess you had to be there. We often talk about very random things at our gatherings.

Baby Girl has been pulling up and standing for a little bit and just this week has started cruising a lot. Just like the boys as babies, she is magnetically drawn to the fireplace and the shelf of cookbooks. Someone out there is laughing that I have cookbooks...stop it.

She is on the verge of really smacking her brothers when they annoy her. It is mostly my Little Guy that can get in her personal space and last week she went after him and bit his heel with all 3 of her teeth (btw she got #4 today which means the Big Guy's 4th tooth will fall out any minute).

Her favorite play spot is under our kitchen table and don't even think about putting her in a pack-n-play or exersaucer. She can be a loud one. She seems to have a good sense of humor because when I imitate her frantic whining for her beloved banana, she laughs really hard. She also laughs at me when I try to teach her the sign for "more". I think she is just laughing at me come to think of it. That can't be good.

Happy 11 months, Baby Girl!