Scary Websites

Okay don't have time to go into why now but I've just discovered two websites that have made me think twice about what I order at a restaurant. Check them out before you go out to eat--You'll solve the mystery of why eating "healthy-looking" things at restaurants don't always help you lose or maintain your weight. Prepare yourself to be frustrated with your favorite restaurants!!

www.calorieking.com

www.dailyplate.com

The Cousin and The Fair

How's that for a creative title? I actually don't have pictures from the fair yet--tomorrow maybe? Here are pictures from Saturday while we watched the kids play together. You know they don't actually play together at all but like any play date it's a good chance to catch up with the adults in the room/vicinity. This is my parents' back yard, the same yard I played in when I was little.

Here is the cousin Henry. Isn't he cute?! He does look like Graham a little more now but we still think Ty is Graham's "mini-me." That's my Dad posing in his best picture-ready outfit. See why it doesn't bother me that Sean wears shorts and t-shirts almost every day of the year? Look what my dad wears! My sister in law Ana is in the background. She had just made the 6 + hour drive with Henry. 
Charlie in her bucket. Bless her heart we just put her in there and give her a toy--literally one toy-a ball and she's happy for like 2 hours. The ball can't get away from her and she's protected from ants. I wonder why she doesn't crawl yet...
Ty learned how to throw "horse apples" the last time he stayed with Nattie and Popeye so he showed me this time how good he is at it. I have no idea what those are really called so if it's not horse apples I apologize.
When at Popeye's there is always a little violin time. See he could wear those same clothes years from now and fit right in with Pat Green's band. My son the future fiddle player.
Emmy, Charlie, and Graham. We had just finished taking the kids' pictures with the pumpkins--I promise I'll post them when I get them. Nattie's been busy hosting everybody and hasn't had time to look through her pictures yet!

The Fair was a success. It was hard but the good kind of hard where you know it was worth the effort. There was a fair amount of walking and eating, a few fits, and a lot of family togetherness. True to form, Ty would not eat the food. We tried pizza, two kinds of fries, and crackers. We resigned ourselves to the fact that his dinner would be golden grahams and saltine crackers but near the end of our time there he finally ate some fries. Victory! Sad that we throw a party when he eats fries. At least there is something in his stomach when he goes to bed. Am I a poster child for organic, low fat, homemade food for your kids or what? 

Lord Help Us

It's been a big weekend here. Friday night I decided to drive down to my mom's house with the kids for the night and acknowledged it was UT/OU weekend but thought to myself, "Well, it's 6:00 p.m. the day before the game so people who are already in town are already out...doing their thing...and people who are coming in tomorrow are, well, coming in tomorrow so we'll be fine." An hour and half later, while still on the toll road heading south, I punted and turned around. I was only five miles away from my house. Had this happened when I was pregnant with Charlie my road rage would have likely gotten the best of me. It was the kind of traffic that makes you want to cry. Just ask my children. They both did (6 o'clock is pushing it for bed time anyway,) so we came home, slept then headed out early the next morning. 

My brother and his family are in town so we got to see them Saturday for a few hours. We only see them every few months and the main attraction is Henry, their 14 month old son. He started walking since we last saw him and he's a sweet little man. We'll see how he does at the State Fair tomorrow--on that note, if you've got extra prayers for silly things laying around, could you attach Ty's name to one of them and send it up? Thanks so much. We'll see how he does at the State Fair too. Around his age I got lost at the same State Fair because I stopped to watch a lady eat french fries and when my parents found me I was asking her for one. How much does THAT sound like Ty? Oh my it runs in the family. It'll be interesting to see what/how he does tomorrow. I'm thinking bribes and time with Nattie just might get us through. His most spoken words right now are "Nattie" and "Popeye." The word "violin" is a close third and clearly the three go together. Dad always lets him hold/play the violin when he is at the house and it is like crack to Ty. Is that my first drug reference on my blog? Maybe...but it might not be the last.

Mom took about 50 pictures of the three kids yesterday so as soon as she sends them I'll post them. It has been her life's mission to get a good picture of them over the last year and I think she succeeded. I'll see what you think about who the kids look like-even Graham (brother) has said Ty looks more like him than Henry (his own son!)

Nothing Goes Together

None of this goes together but well, do my thoughts normally go together if we're honest? Usually when I wait a few days between posts it is because there is nothing to write about and no new pictures. Or I am on a trip/vacation--like I do that a lot. Twice this last year. Anyway I know it's been a few days and I thought I'd explain: I feel like I'm carsick all day. Every day. The nausea has kicked in and I'm on meds round the clock so I can take care of my kids. I have one pill that I take during the day that doesn't really do a whole lot-just takes the really bad edge off and then I have one that really works but puts me to sleep. Since Sean is on a trip I can't exactly take that one so it's been a rough couple days. Sorry to complain but you can't really talk back and tell me to "buck up," so I thought I'd mention it to explain why I haven't been updating! A few things that don't go together:

Sean calls McDonalds "McNasty's." I do not share his disgust for McDonalds. I actually love their cheeseburgers and really love their big straws. I mean you can choke on a gulp if you're not experienced with their straws. Yum. We go to McDonalds most Sundays on our way home from church  because there is one right by our house and the kids are starving since our church doesn't end until 12:35-45. Yeah I know that's just wrong. Anyway we were making our weekly trip last week and Sean decided he wanted something different and looked at the menu for a few minutes. If you ask me he took way too long but anyway he picked something and started ordering. This is what he says:

Speaker Lady (SL): Hello welcome to McDonalds, can I take your order?

Sean (S):  Yes, I'd like a # 2 for my pregnant wife, a large fry for my son, and a Big N Nasty.

SL: What? 

S: Laughing so hard can't talk

SL: What did you want? I no understand you. 

**There was also a language barrier.**

 

I find stuff like this hilarious because Sean never does stuff like that without planning it out and I knew he hadn't. He wanted a Big N Tasty but since he thinks of McDonalds as McNasty's he got confused.

Ty has learned to go up the ladder and down the slide by himself! Victory! We were a little worried the first few times but now he is a pro and he is soooo proud of himself. He loves doing it so much that Wednesday when I took the kids to Denton to Sean's parents house he tried theirs out too. Without shoes on. I forgot his shoes at home. What kind of mother forgets shoes for her son who is an eternal mover/shaker? A nauseated one.

I bought Charlie a baby book this week. She is ten months old. I'm taking care of things, aren't I?

I have a copy of The Shack on my desk here and can't bring myself to read it. I've heard that it involves losing a child and I don't think I'm up for it right now. Hormones are the reason for the nausea and I don't think that is a good mix with a book about loss. I alternate between Blues Clues and Runway Moms for entertainment...nothing too engaging or emotional. Been learning a lot. See why I won't home school my kids? They would not learn anything!

I ripped my favorite jeans on Wednesday and man was that sad. They are stretchy and I've worn them about 200 times in the last two years. Might explain why they were a little thin around the knees. I was playing with Charlie on the floor trying to motivate her to crawl and twisted the wrong way...rrriiiiiiiiipppppp. It was that loud. 

My brother and his family will be in town this weekend and we're going to the State Fair. A tradition in my family and not in Sean's family. We've made him go the last three years and he actually has fun once he gets there. The corn dogs have a good pull on him. Personally I like the funnel cake. Last year I could only eat a few bites because I was already on my diabetic diet so Charlie wouldn't come out weighing 12 pounds. She only weighed 8'11. Three weeks early. Okay I ate almost the whole funnel cake.

Babies are up...bye bye.

Ty the Lion

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

Halloween! Oh the excitement of passing huge blow up zombies on the street...well even more exciting is seeing candy corn on the end of every aisle at the grocery store! Last year Ty was a lion. He was supposed to be Spider Man but the costume that I ordered on ebay ended up being too small so at the last minute I borrowed the lion one and it was so cute! I'll look through pictures to see if we have one with him all gussied up. Do you have big plans for Halloween? We are heading over to Amy's (Sean's sister,) to eat taco soup and trick or treat with all 9 of Ty and Charlie's cousins from the Wilborn side. It's fun. There are always at least two kids that cry the whole time. Any bets on which two this year? Yeah we think so too.

The New Development

Little more info about our new development...not that anybody asked but it's on my mind today because of Bible study. 

We went to Santa Barbara a few weeks ago and before we left my mom made a comment that she would send some form of birth control with us since this was our first getaway together in a long time. She said she didn't want us to get carried away on our trip and forget that raising our kids is a tough full-time job. She made comments during the trip that made us laugh (little did we know I was already with child,) and we totally understood her point of view! We have laughed at our inability to parent them both so many times--They are alive by the grace of God. I felt fine on the trip and was really tired but we walked quite a bit more than I do on a normal basis so I never thought anything about it. We got home on a Wednesday and that Sunday was Ty's birthday. I felt totally normal but realized it had been a while since I had needed...what are the proper words...feminine products. I knew we had taken preventative measures and that I could not be pregnant but thought a call to my Dr. office was in order so I called on Monday. My nurse, whom I would happily give a kidney, laughed and told me it might be a fluke or an adjustment issue. I had stopped taking the pill months ago and maybe my body just wasn't fully adjusted...ha ha. That ha ha was her. She told me to take a test to make sure. I didn't. As scatter-brained as I am, I still knew we were careful. 

A few days after Ty's birthday I felt wierd. So I took the test that I had bought the day Justine (nurse) told me to buy but knew I wouldn't need. Then I saw that it was positive. Then I put it in my pocket because I just couldn't bring myself to tell Sean just yet. The perfect moment presented itself about two hours later, while both of our kids were having massive meltdowns. I started laughing and couldn't stop, which only made the kids more upset because I couldn't tend to them. I laughed until I cried. Sean looked at me like I had lost my mind and said, "You're pregnant aren't you?" I had not told him I was buying a test, etc. It was just a dead giveaway that I found our kids' fits hilarious. I mean what is God thinking?! We are clearly defeated at two!

I was most nervous about telling my family because they are who help me raise my kids when Sean is on trips. I waited about a week and a half to tell them, and at least five times during that time mom mentioned how glad she was that our kids would have each other and how much easier it would be on me, them, Sean, and the whole family now that we were done having kids. I thought she was calling my bluff or something but pregnancy is not something she jokes about! Time after time she would say something she thought was encouraging and I'd get off the phone and think, "Well now I KNOW I can't tell her."

I finally did. She said, "Do what?" Then she said, "Well, we'll figure it out. It happened to me too." The "IT" in her life was me. I've known for a long time that I was an accident and in some twisted way God made me believe I may have been an accident to my parents but that I was here for a reason. Thankfully it was always a joke and my family didn't use it as ammo against me, well a little bit of torture from my siblings, but I never questioned that they loved me. 

Today during our study we talked about the truths that we can teach our children while they are little. We talked specifically about the truth that all of us here are on purpose, part of the world to bring God glory. The point of the lecture was to help moms apply this truth while parenting, to help our kids understand that no matter their circumstances, they are here because God wanted them to be here. They have meaning and relevance.

We are still in a little bit of shock about this pregnancy but we are thankful for what God is teaching us. I go to the Dr. next week and will find out more details but for now, we are grateful for Ty and Charlie and hopeful for this baby.