No words...

Blake's 1st Birthday

First of all, sorry I didn't do this yesterday, Joni. And, sorry I didn't get a video. I tried. I have three of Blake standing in front of me trying to get the camera and me saying "Can you say Daddy? Can you say dog? Can you say peekaboo?" No, apparently she couldn't. Sorry, friend, this is all I've got. I also tried to record her saying "Thanks, AJ, for my sweet shirt. I love it!"

Here are some other things in life that I am slacking on...it's not just my blog!!!

1. I just unpacked my bag from our trip to Edmond. (We got back last Thursday, as in not this past one, the one before that.)

2. Our Christmas tree is still up. All the decorations are off, thanks to my mom, but it is still standing in front of our window.

3. Two trees in our front yard still have Christmas lights on them... from last year.

4. I was supposed to clean the house today but our bathroom and bedroom were so gross that I didn't have time for anything else after Blake woke up from her 2 HOUR NAP.

5. Ryan and I are "training" for a 10k. I ran twice... the week before last.

6. I have two finches for class pets. They came home with me over the break. I was running late every morning last week so I didn't take them to school with me. If I had, I probably would have noticed that they were out of food...Saturday I wondered why they weren't chirping. It's because they died.

BLAKE'S FIRST BIRTHDAY

We decided to only have a family party for Blake's first birthday. And in hindsight, this was a genius idea. Read on to find out why...

On her birthday (the 23rd) we were still at home and had lots of errands to run because we were leaving that night to head to A-town for the rest of the week. She did not feel good and had to get in and out of the car A LOT but we did get to turn her carseat around. Yippee!

This was probably the best part of her day. In fact, at one point I thought "I bet your birthday last year was better than this!"

We had Blake's party on Christmas Eve when the rest of my family came in town. She was still sick and desperately needed a nap. This face pretty much sums up how she felt about the whole thing.

But, we still tried to party on anyway. We sang, she blew out her own candle and we practically force fed her a cupcake to try to get the cute cupcake and icing all over your face picture. It didn't really work.

She did manage to open a few presents before nap time. And of course, loved the boxes just as much as the gifts themselves.

Any guesses what this was? Great wrapping, Paco!!!

After a few doses of some benadryl and some tylenol, we did finally get her to eat some icing at the end of the day.

Happy first Birthday, Blakester! I love you with all of my heart!

"Attention Passengers...

there will be a 24 hour layover on our journey. Sorry for the inconvenience. Might I suggest unloading all of the Christmas presents, checking out the after-Christmas sales for an hour or two, trying to do all of your laundry, exchange a few presents for different sizes or colors, wash and clean out your car, and re-pack all of your things to pass the time before we continue on our trip? Thank you for traveling with Ware-Express."

On this day in History

(actually just last year...I happy enough to remember exactly what I was doing on this day last year, there is no way I remember for any other year.)

It was Saturday December 22. I had just finished teaching my last classes the day before. (There were two other girls at school due after me and they both had their babies before me. I remember sitting at a faculty meeting on Thurs. the 20th and they announced that one of them had their baby the night before, everyone was like "yea that is so exciting", said in your fakest excited voice, and I said "That sucks!")

Ryan and I had some Christmas shopping to do so we were out and about all day. I can't remember all of the details from that day but I do remember that evening we went to Target to shop for stocking stuffers. We set a limit of $20 and each picked a letter. The other person had to buy stuff for your stocking that started with the letter you chose. It was really fun! And required quite a bit of creativity. Being 10 months pregnant I had a major case of pregnancy brain: I shopped for about 10 minutes and had a few things that all started with the letter I wanted and not the letter Ryan wanted so I had to start over.

Then we went over to Pei Wei for some supper. I ordered Pei Wei spicy with chicken and fried rice. Did I mention that I was 10 maybe 11 months pregnant at this point?? So I was willing to try the spicy food mumbo jumbo. When our order came I piled on the spicy mustard. Ryan just stared at me with his eyes wide.

We headed home and crashed on the couch for some tv movies, I wrote this entry at some point and I went to bed fairly early. Little did I know, I had a big day ahead!!!

Today, Blake and I met Mary Catherine and Alex at the mall for some last minute shopping and lunch. Blake played at the mall playground and has almost mastered walking. She stayed with Paco this afternoon so I could run a few more errands and is now sleeping soundly. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES!!!!

I realized last night at dinner that since this was a leap year Blake will be 366 days old tomorrow!

New Pics Like I Promised...

I am awesome!

My Hiatus

I just tried to log in and put in the wrong user name and the wrong password twice. That's how long it has been. I have not been posting for a number of reasons. And I also haven't been reading other blogs either. I get this weird guilt trip about not posting and I don't feel like I "deserve" to read other blogs when I don't update my own. So I have been out of the blog world for about a month!!! Lots of catching up to do!

I have many, many things to post about. I think that is another reason I haven't blogged in awhile....too overwhelming! I can't find the time to make one post, especially since I can't freaking log on at school anymore :( So thinking about all the topics I need to update about makes my head spin. I decided that I have enough going on in my world right now and bloggin should not be something to stress over. So, I am going to play catch up. Little by little. Maybe several new posts at once. If anyone is out there, try to keep up!!

Here are a few pics to hold you over until tomorrow (or maybe the next day!) Son of a .... you have go to be kidding. I just sat here for like 20 minutes waiting for these pics (and catching up on some blogs... it was totally legal because I wrote a post) and they didn't load!!!! Ahhhhh!!! I am giving up and trying again tomorrow! Night, night.

Poop

Update on Blakester: (I know this is what most of you care about anyway)

1. Blake's first Halloween was a success. We went with Joni, Beau and Grant to Boo at the zoo on the 26th and then went trick-or-treating with the Williams' and Mimi and Paco on halloween. So Blake was able to sport the chicken outfit twice, and what a cute chicken she was!!




2. Blake is saying a few "words". I put that in quotations because, really, most are hit or miss. But she does have some that she says consistently.
-bye (and waves)
-boo
- peekaboo
-mama
-dada
-og (for dog)
-she can't say "all done" but she can sign it (not with a pen, with her hands)


3. My favorite trick right now? She will fake sneeze. If she sneezes or you sneeze or you just fake sneeze, she will say "aaaahhhhhh cha." She will also fake cough very dramatically.


Side story:
(I was wanting to post this last week but I decided to wait until Ryan actually got back in town so no creepy internet people would find out where I live and kill me while he was gone.)

So, Ryan was out of town all last week for a thing for work (which was really an honor for him because one of the families that he works with was chosen by the state to come and speak at a conference and be an example for how well the counseling program Ryan uses works...did that make sense?) and this brings with it many challenges. Number one, Ryan is the one that drops Blake off in the mornings. So each morning I had to get both of us ready. Did I have to wake Blake up and get her out of bed. Nope. The sweet girl was still adjusting to the time change and was rising and shining at 6:15. Wednesday morning Blake was playing in our bed while I was trying to make myself get up and I see what is best described as snot coming out of her ear. Yes, her first ear infection and Ryan is out of town! She busted her ear drum and all kinds of grossness was oozing out of her ear. But she felt fine the whole time. So we can check first ear infection off of our list of things to do.


4. This isn't really an update on Blake but...we have started putting her in cold weather pjs and they are so stinking cute. See how excited she is?!?

5. And, drum roll please, Blake took her first steps tonight!!! Real steps. Not walking around the couch steps. She was standing in the middle of the room holding a pair of pjs and decided she wanted to play with her giraffe rocker (thanks, Robin!) and she took two steps over to it!

6. Also, Blake is having a lower GI done this Thursday at 10:00 to see if we can figure out what is causing her constipation (this inspired the title of the blog...). There are several things that could be causing it but they want to rule out some major stuff first. FYI, Blake has had poop issues her whole life, all 10 and a half months of it. It is really painful for her to poop but her tummy doesn't seem to hurt otherwise. So hopefully this is something she will grow out of or can take some medicine for. So, if you think of us, please say a prayer for Blake on Thursday!

THE END

Are you kidding me?? and Blake is 10 months old!

Do they seriously think i can teach CHEMISTRY to 8th graders when I have conversations like this???

Me: This list has all of the assignments on it that you are missing. Don't even bother with the work that was assigned before Sept. 11th. It is way too late and I am not taking it anymore.

Student: Was Sept. 11th last week?


Blake is 10 months old. Well, now she is 10 months and 1 week old but whatever. Instead of posting my own pics. Here is a link to the pics that Lisa Woods took for us last weekend. They are super!!!

Picture Update

Wow! I did not realize it had been so long since my last post!! We have been busy and have done lots of things in the last few weeks. So here is an update in pictures:

We had some of Ryan's roommates from college over one night. Aaron and Andrea were visiting and are moving here in the spring and Luke and Lindsey recently moved here from out of state.

Ryan's cousins came in town for the Baylor v. OU football game and came over to the house Saturday night for some pizza and a little Dance Dance Revolution.

Blake is climbing on EVERYTHING. We have built her several tunnels, ramps and slides to climb on and through and she loves it. She also had a weird bump on her lip for a few days. Luckily that didn't last long.

We went to Oklahoma to visit Ryan's family and of course watched the Texas v. OU game on Saturday. Here is Blake in her OU gear. She is totally a fair weather fan though, so as soon as the game was over the outfit was changed. Tough loss, Sooners.

On Colombus day we didn't have to go to school and Ryan skipped work so we all went to the zoo (so did everyone else) and had a great day with Heather, Laine and Bowen.

That's all for now...tomorrow Blake is 10 months so I will be updating again after her monthly pics in the white chair. Sorry I stunk at blogging this month!

Why I need to work part time:

I am home today with the Blakester because she is sick. Well, she is sort of sick. Yesterday she had a cough. Then last night (really this morning) she was up for about two hours tossing and turning and coughing, A LOT. I have to make the decision to stay home early or I won't have a sub. So, at 4:30 I stumble to the computer with no glasses on...can't see a dang thing...and with my face two inches from the screen I enter the info for a sub. I went back to bed then woke up around 7:00 to make sure I had a sub for the day. I did, so I emailed my sub notes and the assignment for the kiddos to another teacher and she took care of the rest. Sometimes being absent is more work than just being there myself.

On to the title of this post. Here are a few reasons I need to work part time:
1. I love my job so I would still like to work.
2. But it would be nice to have a little more time with Blake.
3. I have done 3 loads of laundry.
4. I had breakfast and made coffee.
5. Cleaned up the living room.
6. Cleaned the kitchen.
7. Put all of my laundry away.
8. Blake is down for a nap so I get to check up on blogs.
9. I folded and put away all of Blake's laundry.
10. I am dressed (don't be too impressed, t-shirt and jeans with no make-up) and ready so that when B wakes up we can go to Target.
AND IT'S ONLY 12:00!!!!

This list may not be that impressive to some, but for me, this is pretty good. Now, if I were home all day everyday, I can guarantee I would not be this productive. How do I know??? Uhhhh, I was just home for 3 months this summer and probably did this much in a week (or two).
I even did Ryan's laundry that was sitting on top of the dryer. He came in and said "Are you doing my laundry?" Yes, I am. "Why?" So you can see how useful I would be if I stayed home part time. "That's what I thought."

A Blake Update

This clock is Blake's nemesis. It lives at Mimi and Paco's house in the kitchen. Everytime she is in the kitchen she keeps a close eye on this crazy kitty clock. Sometimes it makes her cry.

We had a fun visit to Abilene a few weekends ago. We went to a great new restaurant (like a new and improved Fuji's) and went to the fair for a few rides and some funnel cake. Blake experienced her first fair ride with Mimi. She looks a little nervous. I completely understand, Blake. Fair rides scare me. They transform from an 18-wheeler to a ride...and that is supposed to be safe???? Yeah....right....


This is a picture of Blake eating cheerios off of the floor. She also eats Lola's dog food. Awesome. The last one is of an exceptionally messy experience we had one night when Blake decided to touch the spoon before it went in her mouth and then proceeded to rub her nose.
Blake does not actually like this pacifier but if I take her other one away she always seems to find this one. But she only sucks on it upside down. The second picture is of Blake's "tornado."

Today Blake is nine months old. I love you, Blakester!!!!

Her most recent tricks:

*she can say baby- not "baba", she actually says "baby." Not on command, of course.
*she stands up from anywhere in the room. she no longer needs to pull up on things to stand.
*she cries when we drop her off in the mornings. this is my least favorite
*she crawls everywhere
*when she is mad, she crawls and says "mamamamama"
*she smiles all the time but she does not laugh very often
*she gives me sweet, slobbery kisses when I pick her up in the afternoons
*she can say "dada"
*we think she is saying "gog" when we talk to Lola
*she loves her swing in the front yard
*she can wave bye-bye
*she can give you high five but it actually turns in to like 20 or 25