The Amaaaazing Spiderman and helper…

Don’t know what’s up with that smile, but here’s the Amaaaazing Spiderman…

and Spiderman’s helper…

Technology Test

So I’ve had my iTouch for a couple years now and I’m trying to incorporate it more into my life… I’m trying to be more mobile and less tied to my laptop. Along those same lines I’m trying to blog more… well, I guess it should be blog at all since I do it so infrequently. So I got this WordPress app a longtime ago and after some issues with iTunes and their changing payment policies I upgraded to OS3 and I’m sitting here holding my baby girl as she sleeps and posting to my blog on my iTouch! It’s slower than sitting at my laptop, but with the landscape keyboard (the real reason I went to OS 3… possibly worth $9.95 by itself) the typing is actually not bad and much more accurate! I’ve realized that I can’t wait for the perfect time to do the things that I want and I need to use the few minutes that I have here and there to do what I can like email on my iTouch, blogging, etc. There’s been so many things that I’ve wanted to post on my blog but I forget what they were by the time I get to my computer. I’m hoping that this won’t happen… as much anyway. ;-D

Let’s see how this goes… going to publish now…

The Beauty of Tenacity

 

 

Tenacious —  holding fast; persistent; characterized by keeping a firmhold: a tenacious of old habits; stubborn; obstinate; holding together; cohesive; not easily pulled asunder; tough

I need to be more like this little flower and bloom where I’m planted.  Not focus on how I could be so much better if I was planted without weeds or in better soil or where I was protected… but just be tough and do what I can with what God has given me.

 

Already??

From my wall on Facebook…

Status:      Shaun is at a loss for words… today her 4 year old asked, “How did I get in your tummy when I was a baby?”… ummm… yeah… “the talk” already??

Friend:       O man! How did you get out of that one?

Me:    

Mama: “When a mama and a daddy love each other and are MARRIED… they… ummm…well, there’s this… ummm…”

Xander:  ”Mama, where are we going?”

Mama:  ”Costco” “What city is Costco in?”

 

Whew! Thank goodness for a 4 year old’s short attention span!! Postponed that conversation for a while… I contemplated telling him to ask Daddio!! I was just kind of stuck on how scientific to go… well, there’s a mama cell and a daddy cell… ;-D

Procrastination…

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
  - Don Marquis

Or in my case more than a month ago!!  I want to post Rory’s birth story, but I just haven’t done it yet.  I want to do it soon before I forget some things.  I had such a heard time posting Xander’s birth story since I waited like a year before I did.

I’m trying to be better about procrastinating… well, I mean not procrastinate better, but to not procrastinate so much.  Today I succeeded in posting to my blog when I had the idea instead of putting it off and then not doing it at all.

And…

I actually got to Xander’s doctor appointment a whole 10 minutes before the appointment time and with 2 kids in tow!!  that’s better than when I was pregnant and only had one kid to wrangle!  Today was the first day that Nelson went back to work since Rory was born and I was beginning to panic about it all!  So, I’m proud of myself for the morning going as well as it did… and the afternoon so far.  I even fed Xander and I lunch!!

I rock!

Well, I know I had a lot of help the night before from Nelson and God had a ‘little’ part in it and Rory is pretty patient.

Flash Forward

Pickles 11 18 2008

This is Nelson David and me in 30 years… only difference is that either one of us would be the one that chortles.  Our humors never matured past junior high.  That’s one thing that keeps us together, but I can hardy wait ’till the kids are in junior high.  Can you imagine 4 people in the same house with that kind of humor??? 

A Teaser…

Last night we had some maternity pictures taken by a friend of mine who’s recently started her photography business.  She posted a teaser on her blog.  I hope that the ones of our faces turn out good and I don’t look too dopey.  I kept thinking while the pictures were being taken, “that was a doofy smile I just did”.  We were all so. very. tired.  Nelson has taken a few days off from work so that we could get the house cleaned and prepared for the impending arrival, but we’ve not been able to do much of that because we’ve been running from appointment to appointment.  It’s just been crazy busy!!  We had our photo session in the evening and after we left we decided to go through a drive thru to pick up dinner.  Xander fell asleep on the way home and slept all the way to 6am!!  I fell asleep on the couch reading email about 9pm!  Poor Nelson had to keep working on a work proposal and woke me up at 11:15pm when he finished to get me to go to bed!

I’ll post more pics when she finishes working on them… it may be awhile… she may have a lot of photoshop-ping to do!  :)

 

Fall, where RRRR ooooo???

Xander will be 4 January 3rd, but I love the way he still says some of his words.  Truth be told I kind of wish he still misprounounced some of the words he used to… they were so unique and cute!  He will be in another part of the house and say really loudly “Mama, where are you?”, but it comes out more like “Where rrrr ooooo???” with the “oooo” being much higher in tone than the rest and really long!

So,  Fall, where rrrr ooooo???  It’s currently 91 degrees on November 1st!  I’ve been in SoCal for many years now, but I still don’t like how hot it is this late in the year… of course being this pregnant really doesn’t make it nice either!  It’s Fall.  It should at least be cool.  There should be less green and more yellow, red, orange and burgundy leaves.  I should be at least be wearing long sleeves during the day and not just because all my bigger maternity shirts are long sleeves.  The short sleeve stuff leaves my belly hanging out and there is a real absence of short sleeve maternity stuff in the stores… not that I want to go out and buy some becuase probably as soon as I do the weather would actually be more fall-like.  I want to be baking pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies… anything pumpkin, really.  BUt I just can’t seem to get myself completely in the mood when I have to make sure the air conditioner is running full tilt to keep the kitchen cool enough for the pregnant one while the oven is going!

My Google Weather gadget says that today is supposed to be 81, tomorrow will be 70 with a chance of rain, Monday will be 63 and Tuesday will be 65 with a chance of rain.  Forgive me Google gadget if I don’t believe you.  DO you think we could just skip Fall and maybe go straight to winter?  I have these really cute warm jackets and hats that I got for Xander when he was a newborn (but he didn’t wear them becuase after he was born the weather got warmer) and I want to use them for this baby!!

Fall, where rrrrr oooooo????

Change is good, people!

I have naturally curly hair.  I get many complements on it, too, which is really cool.  But of course, I’ve always liked straight hair.  I know those with straight hair think I’m nuts, but they don’t get the fact that curly hair has it’s own set of issues to deal with and really have a life of their own.  Curly hair is a characteristic you’re known for.  Remember the tv show Felicity and the uproar that occurred when she cut her curls off??  There are many movies that the ugly duckling girl has curly/frizzy hair but then when the swan transformation occurs she now is beautiful, but with straight hair!  Curly hair is very fragile requiring conditioner and deep conditioner by the vat!  It wraps around everything and gets tangled in an instant.  Hair products specifically designed for curly hair come and go with fashion trends.  I can’t tell you the number of products that I used and loved that are no longer sold and the times that there is a real absence of curly hair products on the store shelves.  Don’t even get me started on the whole bedhead and hat-head issue!!  Curls usually require a lot more work than straight hair.  I always had to get up so much earlier in the morning than my straighthaired comrades.  Just not fair.

I gave up fighting the curls years ago, but if I get the chance to wear my hair straight, I can’t pass it up.  Usually, that happens when I get a haircut or highlight.  The stylist that I went to for many, many years usually blow-dried it straight and flat ironed it.  It’s funny, my curls always frustrated her to no end.  She always said that stylists do your hair better than you do, ut she could never get my curls to look like I could and they always looked so much worse!  After several attempts we finally came to a compromise, I’d do the curls and she would either straighten it or do and up-do since I couldn’t do those styles at all with my hair.

So every so often I’d have straight hair for a few days.  So many people wouldn’t recognize me and would say that they like my curls much better.  It’s so bad that a boss that I would have would tell me that when I had straight hair it would put him in a bad mood.  Don’t know what his excuse was on other days! 

Yesterday, I finally went and had my hair hightlighted and cut.  It’s been probably 3 years since I had my hair highlighted and probably 2 years since I last had it cut.  I was in desperate need of some attention.  While I was at my Dad’s house I watched episodes of “What Not to Wear” and I realized I had turned in to one of those women that just lets themselves go.  I was not anywhere near as bad as some of the ladies, but I had started on that path that a lot of stay-at-home moms travel.  When you’re home with kids it’s so easy just to stay in your pajamas or sweats because something invariably get wiped, spit, thrown, or dropped on you… and that’s not to point out what the kids can get on you!    Little kids are so demanding of time and attention that it’s a real struggle to get the bare minimum of hygiene accomplished when you’re home alone with them.  Those with straight hair can easily shower after the kids are in bed and still look relatively presentable with just a little work the next morning.  Such is not possible with curls like mine.  My curls are what I call “inbetween”.  With a little bit of work (from a stylist) they straighten out very nicely and with a little bit of work they make nice curls.  Going to bed with wet hair there is no hope of looking any better than Medusa in the morning!  My curls require the shower in the morning and the full complement of hair product and blow drying with scrunching to look presentable.  Not something that’s easily accomplished every morning… or even every other morning when you have a husband that leaves the house at the latest 5:45am, but usually at rediculously early hours that no self-respecting stay-at-home mom would get up just to shower when you could be sleeping!  But I digress…

So I got my hair done yesterday as the first step in taking care of myself  and of course had the stylist blow dry and flat iron it.  My second step is to get my makeup look updated.  I’ll post about that when I get it knocked off my things to do list.  I was excited because where we live now has like *zero* humidity (we used to live on the coast and the fuzzies would start almost immediately after leaving the salon).  So when Nelson gets home he says I’m glad you like it (referring to the color and it being straight), but I like you.  Which is a nice complement because it means that the package that he likes is more of what’s on the inside than what the wrapping paper looks like.  But still…  Today Xander (remember he’s 3 1/2 years old) says I don’t want your hair straight.  It’s not like it’s this way forever!  Come on you’re 3!!  As soon as my hair even sees a hint of water the curls will return!  My mother-in-law in the past has says she likes me better with curls.  Straight hair is just so cool.  This morning i woke up, ran my fingers through it a bit and I was ready to go!  You can actually run your fingers through it… curls are strictly off limits… no touchie… or massive knots ensue!  The only person who has said they like it straight is my dad!

It won’t be this way for very long and soon I’ll be back to my normal curly (or col-or-y as Xander says) self… no worries!  I’ve learned my lesson that you can’t fight genetics and curls rock!  But change is good, people!

Priceless

Lunch box, hot food container, thermos: $45

Annual Preschool registration: $50

First month of Preschool: $180

Xander saying that we can’t eat lunch until after we pray (after just 2 weeks in preschool): PRICELESS!!

We’ve had difficulty with Xander and prayer and I had the feeling that if it was part of a routine that he did with other kids his age that he wouldn’t have issues with it.  It looks like it’s working… now WE just need to make sure that we pray before each meal!!