Prayers Needed

Matt's friend is in need of prayers again...It's so hard to understand God's will - and I'm sure that I never will on this one, not until I'm looking God and Jesus in the face and ask them "Why?" Will it matter at that point? I'm referring to his friend that he went to high school with, the one that's been battling cancer now for a couple of years. I guess Matt had a conversation with him today and it seems now that despite undergoing treatment for the last couple of weeks, the tumors are growing and he's going to have to make a decision between quantity and quality of life. As you can well imagine, this is hitting Matt really hard, so please pray not only for Tom and his family, but for Matt as he deals with this and the helplessness that he all feel as we try and understand why good people have to go through rotten things here on this earth.

All boy

Illustrations to solidify my "all boy" little man...

This is the climbing wall at the birthday party from last weekend that he successfully climbed on his first attempt. At the time that this picture was taken, I have NO idea how many times he had climbed this thing. When he started, he did have socks and shoes on, but after being in the moon jump, it was easier just to keep them off, and he seemed to do just fine without them on this. Go figure. Oddly enough, I wasn't even really worried about him getting hurt on this...am I simply getting numb to the minor injuries at this point in time? Hmmm...

Easter pics...

Then Easter Sunday afternoon when we went and got our wonderful spring pictures (then again...I could be a little biased)

We couldn't have asked for a more perfect setting for which to take these pictures, and for it being as late as it was - Kellen behaved remarkably well! With everything that happened over that weekend, I really appreciate the fact that we were actually able to get these done at all, but Matt knew that I really wanted to do this and we just wanted to spend some time together. Kellen was so entertaining in the car - pointing out all of the sights and "pretty flowers" along the way to our perfect spot.

Easter weekend

Originally attempted to post this on 4.17.06...Will try again today.

Well, it was Easter weekend this last weekend and it was a weird one for us. Matt was off this weekend, but we didn't end up getting to do all of the things that we had originally planned. His MeeMaw passed away on Saturday. It was something that we knew was coming, and is ultimately a good thing, as she is now with Jesus and Pee Paw in heaven. For those of you that don't know, this is the MeeMaw of the MeeMaw & PeePaw that Matt was so close to...the PeePaw that he lost in February of 2000, so this - as you can imagine - is bringing back those memories of his grandparents for him. Please pray for our family and his as we all go through this loss, but rejoice that she is now no longer in pain and is eternally at peace. The viewing is tomorrow afternoon and the funeral is on Wednesday morning, so we may be out of pocket for a few days...for those of you that want to get in touch with us, you probably have our cell phones and can reach us.

Kellen had another birthday party to go to on Saturday afternoon (in case I forgot to blog it, which I probably did - he had a birthday party at McDonald's on Thursday evening - and the indoor playground and party room there is GREAT!! - he loved it and loved playing on the slide!). Anyway, this party was an Elmo party...and man-oh-man was this an elaborate party! For a three year old! They had a moon jump, had hired a clown who was doing face painting and then did a magic show and made balloon things for each of the kids, rented a sno cone machine, and had different game stations set up throughout the entire yard...probably a dozen or so. In addition to this, they also had one of those MONDO play-things in their backyard...with the slide, swings, and a rock-climbing wall - one that Kellen successfully climbed on his FIRST attempt. (Oh my...what are we in for??) The owner of the house (after Kellen's second or third climb) came up behind him and watched him...asked how old he was, and almost had to catch his eyes when I told him that he would be 3 in July. I"m guessing it's not made for someone his age???

Anyway, then I realized again just how much of a flirt my little man actually is...there is this cutie pie of a girl in his class named Paiten...(her birthday party was a few weeks ago) went over to the play area where he was about to climb the rock wall again. He turned to her and so politely said, “Paiten help me, please.”

Umm…he had already done this very successfully close to a dozen times…virtually without ANY help, yet he wanted this cutie pie of a girl to “help him, please” with the rock wall. Her reply?

“Ok Kellen. I help you.” Then she proceeded to go into teacher mode and tell him how to go about the wall.

OH MY GOSH! Are you kidding me?

Anyway…so yesterday we went to church, then everyone took Sunday afternoon naps…Oh wow…That was SO nice. They were late and long! We got up and moving, then went for a late afternoon drive to take spring pictures. However, something had happened to Mommy slightly before and during the nap…something called the starting of a spring cold. Anyway, we drove to Navasota, then a little farther in search of the ‘perfect patch’ of wildflowers, heavy on the bluebonnets. We finally found them a little past 7:30 PM, parked and got ready for the pictures. We took some with all combinations of the family…and they really turned out great! I’m so happy about them!

I woke up this morning feeling even worse…and it’s progressing in a downward spiral – YUCK! Kellen and I were eating dinner and I was rubbing my head and mentioned something about not feeling well – he asked me about it and then said that he wanted to kiss it and make it all better; leaned over and kissed my forehead, leaned back, smiled really big and said with a smile, “Now you’re all better!” What a sweetie!

Vick’s vapor rub was my friend last night and he’s been my friend so far this evening. It’s the only way that I can breathe at this point in time…Surely these head colds can’t last that long…I’m just hoping that I’m not growing into allergies.

***

As you might imagine, a lot has happened since last weekend. At the time of this attempted posting, there was a problem with our internet or the blog or something, so I just copied and pasted the message I had written into a word document so I could blog it later...

Will update later...enjoy your weekend all!

Forgot his kiss

So we're trying to get into a routine with the new job, so forgive my lack of posting...Tonight, however, I just couldn't miss this one. Daddy picked Kellen up at daycare and I finished up with my chiropractic appointment, ran to Walgreens for Kellen's contribution snack for the spring party at school tomorrow, beat them home and started a quick supper (I've determined that grilled cheese is a great quick dinner for a "fend for yourself" night, which is what tonight had been deemed). Kellen was just being too cute all night long...just little comments that solidified that he was/is growing up.

However, the clincher came at bedtime...literally 5 minutes ago. It was a tug at the heartstrings & growing up moment - all in one.

After Daddy left for work, Kellen came into the room I was in with some toys and sweetly asked, "Mommy, you want to play with me?"

Oh my goodness...how could a Mommy refuse that sweet and innocent request?

So of course, we went to his room and played blocks, got his special book out (his LeapFrog book that he had a tendency to be a little rough with, so it stays in the closet unless he's supervised with it), and just played, played, played. What a nice time! Such a change from the grump-a-munch of last night and this morning. Whew!

At about 7:30 or 7:35, we go into the bathroom for bath time...he does some business on the potty (still making progress - YEAH!!) and then takes a 10 minute or so bath. Since the bathroom is 95% completed - but at least functional, bathtime is SO MUCH MORE enjoyable now! At about 7:45, it's time to get out of the bath, but he doesn't really want to...he enjoys playing in the bath so much (at least tonight I didn't have to take him out twice to pee pee like last night...but hey, at least he told me that he had to go and pee peed in the potty, right?). I let him sit in the bathtub while the water is draining, and he's watching the water drain, looks at it and says, "The bathtub is really thirsty!"

Kids and their perception...it's just hilarious!

Potty again, then he wants me to hold him like a baby...it's the only time he wants me to do it and I'll still take advantage of it...fingernail grooming (how DO the fingernails & toenails of a child grow that quickly?), then it's on to PJ's, brush teeth, read a book, say blessings (translation: prayers), music on and night, night. As I walk out of the room, he tells me good night and that he loves me...it just makes my heart melt.

I make it down the hallway and then hear a small voice yelling, "Mommy!"

I walk back into his room. "Yes baby. What's wrong?"

"You forgot my kiss."

"Oh ok sweetie. I"m sorry." He's sitting up in his bed at this point in time, he hasn't gotten up, which he knows he is not supposed to do after he's been tucked in. I walk over and give him a kiss and tuck him back in. "Do you want another one?"

"No, that's enough."

See what I mean? Tug at the heartstrings...he didn't want to go to sleep without his kiss from his Mommy...but growing up...he only wanted the one.

"Well," I replied, "I'm going to give you another one anyway." And I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Another exchange of 'I love you's' and he was officially down for the night.

Late night

Late night...and all my fault. Kellen went to bed tonight at...wait for it...9:30. YIKES! My appointment ran late this afternoon, so I didn't get to pick him up until about 5:40, then we had to swing back by my office because I forgot some plants that a co-worker had brought for me today for the flower beds that really needed to be planted tonight...made it home by ~ 6:10 or 6:15 to see Daddy only for a little while before he had to go to work. We're living in the house equivalent to Mother Hubbard's cupboard, so we went to Wal-Mart for some of the finishing things for the bathroom...and that took just a little longer than Mommy thought it would. Then on to Kroger (now it's 8:00), and we were back to the house by 8:40, but a quick bath and getting ready for bed...and by this time he was so tired that he was fighting it, not fussing, but..."read me a book, just one more book...I want to play with..." You get the idea...After he was in bed I went outside and planted in the dark...who knows how that will look in the morning! It's a good thing that it's wandering jews and they're supposed to be scattered throughout the flower beds!

I have absolutely NO idea what I'm still doing up at 11:30...I'm trying to be productive but am just exhausted...so I'm going to call it a night.

First night on the new job

So today is Matt's first "real" night at his new job. He went to work two weeks ago, but it was orientation and during the day...tonight is a twelve hour shift and he has to stay awake the WHOLE time...YIKES! He tried to stay up all night last night and sleep today to get his body adjusted and I think that he did a pretty good job of it, so we'll see how it goes. I'm sure that the first night will be the roughest on his body. Then we'll just be in for the rotation of this schedule, which I'm still not quite sure how it works.

Kellen got his finger stuck in the door at daycare today...he saw me arrive at school because they were outside when I got there, so he ran to the door and tried to open it up and was less successful than he had been in the past...it shut on his finger and I just heard this horrible scream! I knew that he was at the door waiting for me, but had no idea what happened...quite honestly, he was standing next to a kid that is somewhat of a tough-guy (I don't want to call him a bully, but he's really rough and we've had incident reports that don't name names, but Kellen can tell me who did what now), so I thought that the kid had done something to him. I ran over to the door and the kid pointed to the door and said that he had hurt his finger in the door and Kellen agreed with him. He told me that he had tried to open the door and that the door had shut on his finger and he couldn't get it out. Poor guy! He didn't seriously hurt anything (no broken bones or even broken skin), but it hurt him for a little while!

A good washing of the hands just in case and we were on our way home to see Daddy before he went to work...

Happy Birthday!

My love is celebrating his birthday today! We didn't do much celebrating, but I gave him every opportunity. Instead, we drove back from Conroe this afternoon, stopped off at Wal-Mart to pick up some landscape mulch for the flower beds that he wanted to work on and get finished, and made our way home. Kellen woke up just a little before we got home and was in a great mood - how nice for us! Matt worked on the flower beds and projects outside, and I did a test wall with the faux finish that was the #2 version for the bathroom - don't ask, but I'll elaborate anyway - I thought that I had the bathroom project finished last week only to realize that Matt (and ok - me neither) really liked the finished product. So I repainted the entire bathroom with two coats of the light color and we decided that I would do a ragging technique using a loofah or possibly a sponge. So anyway - after the test wall, we decided that we liked the loofah look the best and while Matt was working outside, I repainted the test wall, finished up the painting in the bathroom with the areas that I could actually get to...realizing that I unfortunately could NOT get to the small space behind the faucet OR the toilet...smudging ensued in both of those spaces in the most unfortunate of manners - fixable, but unfortunate. After Matt finished - er, took a break, from outside to admire *grin* the bathroom - I wrangled him into taking the faucet out so that I could get to that area...then a short time later after confirming the plumbing details, the back of the toilet was off as well. So...the painting is officially finished!! A big WHOOP on that one!

And...I'm not too proud to admit that Matt was - is - right...it looks great! The finish and technique works good in that bathroom - despite my reservations. I'm a perfections (surprise, surprise) and this is an imperfect technique...can anyone guess why it bothers me and will take me some time to get used to???

To fully complete the bathroom project, we will need to put the faucet & toilet back in working order, put the door back on, put up door trim & molding, pick out & put up a thingy-mi-bob for behind the toilet, get a new shower rod & hanging brackets, light switch cover (sometime in this project the original has been misplaced - hmmm), and just put all of the stuff back in the room....Doable, right? I think everything but the door trim and molding can probably get finished this week....

I'm so happy about the progress with this!!!

Anyway...on to Kellen...he was able to spend all day on Saturday with his MawMaw and I think that they had so much fun! We took Candyland and Memory this time, and he kept asking to play Candyland...he really likes that game! (Note: he actually plays by the rules at home, but I guess things are a little different at MawMaw and PawPaw's house...). He branched out movie-wise and actually watched Hercules and the Little Mermaid - two of my favorites! We got home tonight and he was singing the Hero song from Hercules - it was too adorable - and talking about an octopus, his memory just astounds me. Matt is talking about trying to count his vocabulary this week - his guess was that he was between 200-300 words...I told him good luck and that at one point in time I was writing all of his words down (of course, this was when he was first learning to speak), but stopped after a 6-9 months or so because I just couldn't keep up with how many words he was learning and using!

Lonely feeling

It was a wierd feeling today to wake up in a completely empty house (not including the dog) and I wondered...why is it that I can't really remember living like this? It wasn't that long ago that this was what it was like when Matt was at work...just me and Bailey. But I can't remember it...life before and without Kellen just seems hazy...a blur.

It was a really early morning (alarm going off by ~ 3:30 AM). I was waiting to meet my ride at 5:00 AM...and we were in Galveston by a little after 8:00 AM...the presentations went well - I don't think I have any student prospects out of this trip, but perhaps some seeds were planted. The folks down at the Galveston campus like to really roll out the red carpet for us, and today was no exception - they took us out to eat for a snazzy seafood lunch and I'm still full from all of the appetizers, seafood gumbo, and shrimp pasta that I had! They really spoil us on these trips!

Day care mystery

Well...Kellen has the folks at school stumped...on Monday, yes-his first day in his new class, he got a horrible cut on his cheek...about 2 or 2 1/4 inches long...right on the top of his cheek, under his eye, and stretching virtually to his ear/hairline. Well, when he did this/it was done to him - the exact details of this incident remain a mystery to all except Kellen, and his story changes each time it's told - he apparently did not cry, run to the teachers, yell, raise a ruckus, you get the picture. So, as a result of his apparent silence, the teachers weren't aware that he was injured until some time later, at which point in time they tried, to no avail, to determine what exactly had happened. Obviously, no such luck. When I arrived at school to pick him up, the teacher was incredibly apologetic, and I tried to ask Kellen what had happened as well...I got the same two stories out of him that the teachers had gotten, plus a brand new one! Oh boy!

We're keeping antibiotic ointment on it in hopes that it won't scar, but we'll just have to wait and see on that one I guess. He and I had talked about not touching his boo boo (I'm trying to get him NOT to scratch it...), and have been putting the ointment on it in the morning before school and then at night before bed, and have left instructions for the school to keep it on him as well. But he knows he isn't supposed to touch it because we've talked about it. When one of the teachers came into his class to put his medicine on his face, he responded to her with, "No, don't touch my boo boo! Mommy said we no touch the boo boo!" Apparently he was really cute about it...and it just cracked her up with how sweet and emphatic he was about not touching his face. She finally convinced him that his Mommy said it was ok and that she was just going to put the medicine on it like Mommy did.

Ok...so fast forward to tonight...I went to meet MawMaw because I have a work trip tomorrow and he's going to stay with MawMaw and PawPaw for a few days...Sidenote: I'm not sure who's more excited about this arrangment...the kid or the grandparents! Anyway...he was so sweet in the restaurant! At one point in time, he just looked at me, stroked my hair, and said, "Beautiful hair, Mommy. Beautiful hair. I want to kiss it." Then leaned over and just kissed my hair. Ohmygoodness.....For those of you wondering...yes, tears did well up in my oh-so-emotional eyes and I just wanted to hold him and squeeze him forever! What a blessing!

Waitin' for paint to dry

Well...as the title might indicate, we're actually moving forward on the bathroom project. YEAH! *Happy Dance* (and sore back tomorrow, I'm sure!) Matt finished the sanding yesterday morning and I damp wiped the walls to clean them off after the dust had settled somewhat. Started on the first coat of Kilz primer this morning and the first coat took a little longer than I had anticipated, but that's ok! Let that dry really well, caulked a little bit and smoothed that out, and on to the second coat...trying really hard to cut in on the edges, etc...[note: I am obviously NOT a painting pro]. As it stands right now, I've cut in again and am waiting on Matt to sand down some areas that need it...then I'll do another whole third coat, let it dry, and then it's onto COLOR!!! Our initial thought for the painting technique won't work, so I'm going to scour the DIY network to get some ragging painting techniques (scary thought, isn't it??). But we're moving on it and I'm seeing PROGRESS!!!

6:00 PM Update...The final (I think!) sanding is completed, and the 3rd coat of Kilz primer is on the walls. After looking at the DIY network website and then again at what we had initially purchased for our painting technique, I am thinking that it will actually work...they have included an edging tool in the package (smart folks), which is what I was concerned about...so...I think Matt and I have decided that we'll let this primer get good and dry and the color will go on tomorrow after work. Whoo hoo!

(I know this blog may be incredibly boring to some...but for those of you who are regular readers, you'll understand why I feel the need to include this project update *grin*)

My son the flirt...

Our little man is a flirt, and last night he ended up with a busted lip because of it...now let me explain. We went to the Aggie baseball game (and there's another funny story when I told Kellen we were going to the Aggie Baseball game that I'll write in a second), but he had such a great time during the game (except for the last inning and a half...it was an hour and a half past his bedtime and he was just ready to go...didn't misbehave, he just said he was ready to go and was tired and laid on my shoulder). But anyway...there were two girls and a guy sitting behind us and he decided that he was going to flirt with them...played with them and talked with them for a while, and then in the midst of flirting with them he tried to duck underneath the metal bleacher and hit his lip on the seat and busted it...good. What a ham!

So the other story...We were riding in the car when I told him that we were going to go home and get ready to go to the Aggie baseball game and he looks at me and says, "Watch the dancers?!"

Ummm...wrong sport sweetie! "No Kellen, that's Aggie basketball. We're going to watch baseball."

Three times we repeated this exchange, with all three time ending in him asking for the dancers. So does it surprise anyone that the night ended with him flirting with two girls sitting behind us???

Unfortunately we didn't pick up a "W" last night, but hopefully tonight will be better.

Backtrack to Thursday...Uncle Jonathan, Gramma & Grampa came to visit for Uncle Jonathan's birthday and we just had such a good time all day! They timed their arrival so that Grampa could make breakfast, which is always a treat, then Mommy and Grampa went to the store and got things for lunch. I think that Kellen played with just about every toy that he owned! The gang watched a couple of movies, and just enjoyed each others company...such a nice visit!

Potty man & tattle tale

Some days I really feel like we're making progress on this potty thing...then other days...well.

Kellen cracked me up on the way to school this morning...He had me wondering if Matt had gotten pulled over for speeding, because he asked me to "go fast like Daddy" and then said something about Daddy getting in trouble. I asked him if Daddy had gotten in trouble while he was with him...and asked him if Daddy had gotten pulled over by a policeman. He told me yes and nodded his head very seriously...I called Matt and asked him about it...told him that his little boy was trying to tattle on him. Matt laughed and said that Kellen had asked him to go fast, too, but that he had told Kellen no because that could get him in trouble and Kellen didn't want Daddy to get in trouble, right? Well, apparently the poor little guy just got all kinds of confused.

He's moving to the next class up in school on Monday, so tomorrow is really his last day in Ms. Christy's classroom and she's not taking it well. When Matt picked Kellen up from school yesterday and got his stuff from her room, I guess he mentioned something to her about it and she got upset, again...She's commented to us several times that she's really going to miss him and that he's one of her favorites, which is something that I'm sure she's not supposed to say. I made sure that I took a picture of Kellen today for her...one of his fall school pictures that is just oh-so-cute! He's going to have major adjustment issues as well, so I'm really not looking forward to that next week. He really likes Ms. Rhanda, but Ms. Christy has her own special spot in the nightly "bless" (prayer) time...he blesses his teachers and friends and then blesses Ms. Christy on top of that...We'll have quite the adjustment on this one!

Outta' whack

Outta whack is apparently what I am...and I'm not talking about my psychological self, for those of you wondering. *grin* After a conference in mid-February when a 10 minute massage that felt oh-so-good left me concerned because the masseuse indicated that my C1 was out of alignment, I was referred to a chiropractor and have been going to this Dr for the past week...after seeing the x-rays that she took...I concur...I'm outta' whack! My back x-rays look HORRIBLE! Nothing broken that a surgery could fix, but definitely misalignment issues that desperately need to be addressed. No wonder I almost always seem to be aching! She feels like many of my current issues (back pain, shoulders, lower back, etc., as well as my TMJ & migraines could all be connected). Finally...someone else that seems to think holistically...Matt laughed when I said that...I guess chiropractors are known for that philospophy...but anyway...she also gave some credibility to some other symptoms that I was having that had been dismissed by others, so that made me feel like I wasn't going crazy...just that my biomechanics are completely outta' whack and causing a host of problems that need to get fixed.

Anyway...I did a treatment on Tuesday, Thursday, and again on Friday...set up this next week for Monday, Wednesday & Friday...In her words, "We should have been friends a long time ago."

Wish me luck through this journey...I'm having to fight many of my bad habits, since I regularly pop my back (it's been out of alignment for so long that I guess I've just gotten in the bad habit of doing that...and I've been told I MUST stop) I'm now realizing just how often I actually did that! Who knew? (Other than everyone around me?!) I've always thought that I've been kind to my back since my wreck in high school, but apparently, that hasn't been good enough...or maybe it would be a WHOLE lot worse if I wasn't aware of my tendency for back issues...Who knows! Let's just pray that we can get me straightened out - Literally - quickly.

Date night...the grandparents version

This was just too cute...and I had to share...do you think they missed their grandson?

Written in an email from MawMaw this morning....

'We finally kidnapped the kid!

If only for a short while. We went to CS when Dad got home from shooting. Threw Kellen, the bicycle, football, and teeball set into the car, along with Woody and Buzz Lightyear who could not be separated from Kellen.

Spent a couple of hours at the park. He was on the bike for about 3 minutes, hit a few balls, threw the football a few times and the rest was all slidin'! Frontwards, backwards, on his back, on his stomach, sliding down, climbing up! He had a ball and so did we! The we went to Sonic for a Wacky Pack, which he wolfed down - looked like PawPaw eating. He was in a great mood and there was a lot of giggling and laughing. He got a little tiger/lion looking thing that is supposed to velcro on the seat belt - called a "seat-belt buddy). Anyway, we found out it eats hands and hair! How scary! He talks SO grown up now. Brought a tear to our eyes.

Oh yeah, he loved his Cheerios holder - we had a small snack at the park. I'm keeping the fish at my house.

He wanted to "run free" for a little bit so off he went. Headed straight for the soccer goal! Pawpaw showed him how to kick the ball into the goal, but I think he is going to be a goalie. The most fun was dropping Buzz and Woody through the net. "Uh oh, Woody!" "Uh oh, Buzz!"

Got him home and gave him a bath. The plan was to watch Matadgascar (spelling????) and "hold his book from Aunt Boo" but he spotted a Hermie and decided he wanted to watch that, all the while insisting that PawPaw read his new book. PawPaw got a kick out of him "multi-tasking" (or could it be hyper activity?). He would get interested in the book, then realize he was missing the video and peer over the book and then push it down. George would stop reading and he would want him to start again. I know, I know, we should have turned off the video. We did watch part of Mata whatever with Kellen laying on his couch (me hoping he would go to sleep BEFORE Mommy and Daddy showed up, but no luck). He had to be tired but was still in a good mood (around 9:00 by this time. He was a little sad going to bed - didn't want to give kisses or say goodbye, but I think he went to sleep quickly. I didn't hear any crying which would have made MawMaw and PawPaw feel guilty for keeping him up.

Anyway, since our schedule has been SO hectic and will be this week also, we had to settle for a short visit, but we had a great time! Matt and Becca got some stuff down around the house and then went to Snook to use a gift certificate at the steakhouse.'

I make you feel better

We've told Kellen that his hugs help to make us feel better, so after I dozed today and he decided that it was time for me to wake up, he showered me with hugs and after every one, kept saying, "I making you feel better, right Mommy?" It was just the sweetest thing!

I think that he's in the middle of a growth spurt right now...he ate two regular sized pankcakes this morning for a late breakfast (his Pap Pa Gerren would be proud), then snacked on yogurt before nap, finished it off when he woke up, then has eaten a Cheerio cereal breakfast bar, a strawberry fruit breakfast bar, and a Cinnamon Toast cereal breakfast bar. [just for the record - I don't normally let him eat this, but he hasn't been feeling well today and this was a simple solution to a somewhat peaceful food issue for him today] And he's been eating like this (volume-wise) for about a week or week and a half now...just abnormally large portions for him (at one point in time it was normal for him to eat 4 scrambled eggs plus 2 small pancakes for breakfast - NOT KIDDING, but not anymore).

We'll see how long this little spurt lasts and what we end up with afterwards.

Date night

Matt and I had a date night tonight...what fun! I had received a gift certificate to a steak house in Snook for Christmas, and MawMaw and PawPaw were in desperate need of a Kellen-fix, so they came over and took him to the park for a while and watched him while we went out to eat. What a treat! It was a well deserved reward for work well-done today (ok, so we, at least I, didn't get as much done as I wanted to, but we both did get quite a bit done around the house today...and we still have one more day left of the weekend).

Apparently Kellen repeatedly slid down the slide...over and over and over...they had taken his tricycle and baseball set, as well as his football, but he mostly wanted to slide...He just loves that so much!

And, for those of you who were wondering, the renting of Ice Age worked...he's no longer scared of the lion, and I'm still working on getting him to call it a tiger.

Grumpmeister

Grumpmeister...I think that's my nickname for Kellen for this week. He's been such the little grump - and it seems like it's been all week, but I'm sure it just seems like that to me right now because it has been such a rough night. He's 2 1/2...it's normal, he's 2 1/2, it's normal...perhaps if I keep repeating it, it will sink in, I'll remember it and be less frustrated...

I had really wanted to take him to the Night of Champions tonight, but decided pretty quickly against that once he started acting up...Got to daycare and he decided that he wanted a cracker...I didn't have any crackers and neither did his teachers at daycare...but he wanted one anyway...and made sure that everyone was quickly realizing that by getting louder and louder...I quickly picked him up, told him we were going home to get something to eat, and left. Immediately.

Swung by the Kroger pharmacy drive through...then home...on the way I told him that we would go home, get something to eat, take a bath and get ready for bed, then I would let him watch Ice Age, even though it was still a week day...if he behaved...did he want to do that? He said he did, but then said he was tired and wanted to go to bed. THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY FIRST CLUE...MY FIRST WARNING SIGN THAT SOMETHING WAS HORRIBLY WRONG. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME THAT I DIDN'T READ THE FLASHING WARNING SIGNALS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME? I repeated what he had said back to me, asking him if he just wanted to go home and go to bed, he said yes, then said no, that he wanted to go and watch Ice Age. So I said ok, let's go home, eat some pizza (left over from last night), get our bath and watch the movie.

This suddenly was NOT ok with him. He didn't want pizza...he wanted pasta. Then decided pizza was ok since it was pizza or no Ice Age...then at home he decides that he doesn't want milk with his pizza, he wants something else, then milk was ok since it was milk or no Ice Age...then he wanted prune juice, but not in a big boy cup (sorry..all of the other sippy cups are dirty, other than what the milk is/was in)...now the prune juice in the big boy cup is ok since it's that or no Ice Age. He doesn't want his sleeves down, then he doesn't want his sleeves up...and none of these things are simple, soft-spoken requests, but all out tantrums and the world-is-going-to-end fits. Then he spills ALL of his prune juice...all over the table, chair, himself, and the floor. Oh boy.

Bathtime was relatively uneventful...as was potty time before and after the bath. So was getting ready for bed. I think at this point in time he was so wanting to watch Ice Age that just thinking about it was getting him mesmerized...

He really is sweet, he's just 2! But, on the grand scheme of things, I've got it really good! There are some days that I can actually reason with him...using consequences...today was (partly) one of those day...If you don't X, Y or Z...you won't be able to watch Ice Age...not a bribe...just a consequence of an action. And, for the most part, it worked.

By the end of the night, he was fed, bathed, dressed for bed, happy, we had said our prayers, and he had been tucked into bed...having gotten a rare treat (movie during the week) in the meantime. I do love my little man! And just have to remember...he's 2 1/2...he'll eventually grow out of this and I'll look back with fondness at this time and miss it!

Reflection

Matt and I attended the funeral of Mary Jo, the original director of Stepping Stone, Kellen's daycare, today. She was diagnosed with cancer only this past August and passed away on Saturday. Her husband made several poignant comments during the ceremony, to the effect that even if he had the power to bring her back, it would only be selfish to do it, because she's so much better off now...with Jesus and in no pain, and somewhere so perfect that our minds can't even begin to dream or comprehend it. I pray for her family and those closest to her for what they're going through, as I know that I'm still reeling with the shock of it all, as she didn't want anyone (or at least many people) to know about the cancer while she was going through, as she firmly believed that she was going to receive healing until right up until the very end. Her husband also made another point...she now has that healing, just in a different way than she had expected to receive it and they had prayed for it. Anyway, my shock comes from only finding out about her cancer toward the beginning of last week...so everything seems to have gone at such a high rate of speed because I barely had time to comprehend her cancer diagnosis and let that sink in when Matt told me yesterday that they'd posted a sign at daycare that she'd died.

She made Matt and I feel so at ease about our choice of day care centers...any concern that we had was promptly addressed, even something that could be considered trivial. I remember when Kellen was moving to an older classroom and the teachers weren't able to feed him breakfast any longer...he was having to feed himself "big boy" food. I was stumped as to what I was supposed to fix for him (I know this seems really stupid, but I really was stumped...we had been on baby food and mixed cereal for so long and my brain was trying to wrap around the idea of Kellen feeding himself mixed cereal...umm..how 'bout NO, but I hadn't transitioned my brain to him eating other foods). Mary Jo just giggled in a nondemeaning way, and suggested that other parents found it useful to make scrambled eggs, or big batches of pancakes, waffles, etc., and made lots of suggestions for healthy breakfasts that were age appropriate and that wouldn't take all morning to make. Thus I became known as Kellen's mom, the one who brings scrambled eggs and pancakes every morning, for the next at least 6 months (ok, so it was longer than that..but he LOVES them!). Anyway...I don't have any idea of how many kids there actually are at that daycare, but within days she knew our names, which kid we belonged with, and our family situation (Matt's work schedule craziness), etc., and I imagine she did that for every single family at that day care, plus every other day care she oversaw, since she was the area director in addition to the College Station director when we first began there. She was an amazing woman, and I'm so glad that she's no longer in any pain...

Published!

I've been focusing on Kellen with the blog, which of course is just the MOST fun, but today I received a much needed pick-me-up in the mail - my first book in which one of my photographs is published! I am now a published photographer. Not that that statement says much, but it's just kinda' cool... It's a picture of Kellen after his first birthday where he's fast asleep in a hammack, titled Worn Out, and I showed him the picture in the book when I opened it up.

"That's ME, Mommy! That's Kellen in the BOOK! I want to HOLD it!"

He was just thrilled about seeing himself in the book, and watching his reaction to seeing himself in print is just hilarious!

Anyway, I'm not feeling well today, and took the day off of work, but did manage to crawl out of my hole long enough to pick Kellen up from daycare, rent Ice Age, swing by the Dollar Store for some much needed cereal and fruit bars, and then stopped by Chicken Express for dinner. Not even a hint of motivation to cook tonight, so no use in pep-talking myself through it or beating myself up about it. After dinner, Kellen's bath and getting ready for bed, I broke all normal rules and allowed Kellen to watch Ice Age...even started the movie at around 7:15 or so, so he'll have a late bedtime..rule breaker am I! I really want him to watch it from start to finish and get rid of this terrible "scared" period that he's going through right now that started about a week and a half ago when he was interrupted while watching this movie (when I unthinkingly plucked him from what I didn't consider at the time to be a scary part for a 2 1/2 year old...crazy mommy am I!). He was mesmerized by this movie...I don't think that he moved a muscle through the ENTIRE thing! Luckily, this Kellen-respite did allow me to summon the energy to throw a load of laundry in, unload, reload and run the dishwasher, but that was the extend of the housecleaning duties that I managed to accomplish before joining him - that was enough to wipe me out! Toward the end of the movie I did talk him through some of the parts and made sure that he understood that Diego the lion...(then I tried to explain that it really was a tiger...but he's still calling it a lion) was really a nice lion and didn't hurt the baby at all, and that the bad lion was gone and couldn't hurt anyone and see...the baby went back with his daddy and the daddy was happy at the end. We'll see how much of that actually sticks, but hey, we have the movie for a whole week!

My spot

Kellen has kept us in stitches this morning. He came into bed ...(none of us are feeling well today, Matt's getting over his crud, I'm getting my once or twice yearly sore throat, and Kellen's coughing up a storm).. and immediately nestled into his spot. At one point in time Matt tried to toustle my hair, only to have Kellen swat away his hand and exclaim, "That's MY Mommy!" He was being a little of a wiggle wort, and moved around, so Matt snuggled over to me, encroaching on Kellen's 'spot' in the bed. The little man decided he was having none of that! He told his daddy that was his spot and to go back to daddy's spot...then moved daddy back to his spot (with daddy's allowance, of course). He was cracking us up!

At one point in time, he had asked me a question, and my answer was, "Ask your Daddy." He then turned to daddy and asked the same question, to which his reply was, "Ask your Mommy." When Kellen turned to me, I pretended to be asleep and snoring, and immediately so did Matt. Kellen asked us both to wake up, etc. for a minute or so, then I hear this deep, profound sigh and a sad little voice saying, "Mommy and Daddy are asleep. I can't wake them up. I try to wake them up but I can't."

The next time he asked Mommy to wake up I opened my eyes and responded to him, and he looked at me and said, "Daddy's sleeping. I can't wake him up." So I suggested that he try and wake his daddy up with a big kiss...which he did, and guess what? It worked!

Man oh man he cracks us up!

Shapes & Sizes

Kellen is just a hoot!

Last night we're making grilled cheese sandwiches and he wants to watch and help. I picked him up so that he could see the sandwich being made and hold the spatula...then he decides that he really wants to help...actually help...and I let him help me flip the sandwich over (very carefully, of course). Bless his heart, he doesn't understand how cooking works, but he apparently loves to flip grilled cheese, because he immediately said, "Turn it over again, Mommy!" Then he looked at the spatula he was holding in his hand, inspected the bottom part, and matter-of-factly informed me that the hole in the bottom (the manufactered hole in case you wanted to hang it), was an oval. Yes, sir it is.

This, on the heels of another funny...slightly a PG funny though...so consider this your warning....

Sunday night, after we've gotten all ready for bed and have actually been tucked in and said our prayers, Kellen informs me that he needs to go pee pee in the potty. Since we're really working on this, I pick him up and hustle him to the potty, asking him to hold it so that he can pee pee in the potty and as quickly as I possibly can, take his pants and diaper off and sit him on the potty. As he proceeds to hold his penis down to pee, he looks and me and says, "My penis is big, Mommy" (just a note because I'm not sure how these things work all of the time, it doesn't actually look this large every time that he goes pee pee...it was unusually large at this particular moment).

Trying desperately not to laugh, I nonchalantly replied, "Oh is it?"

"Yes. It's big penis, Mommy"

"Oh, ok. Just go pee pee, Kellen."

Kellen then proceeds to pee pee in the potty. Hooray! He's doing so well with this!! He flushes the toilet (his reward for actually doing something), then gets off of the potty.

I just had to ask, "Is your penis still big?"

As he's standing next to the potty, he bends over, looks at his penis, grabs it, points it up to face him, then drops it, looks at me and replies, "Nope. It's little now."

Well allrightly then. Oh if he only knew how funny he was.

As for today, I picked him up early, we had spaghetti for dinner, he had a nice bath, and we had a great time playing tonight. After his bath he wanted me to wrap him in his towel and hold him like a baby, which I gladly did...that seems to be the only time that he allows me to hold him (other than when he's ill), so gladly, gladly, gladly...He was worried because the bath was an early bath (~6:30) and he's used to going to bed afterwards, so he kept telling me that he wasn't ready to go to bed...Cute little thing!

Restful & Playing

Kellen has just been playing all day long! Daddy didn't feel well today, and was up from midnight until 4 AM, so we left him alone and let him sleep until 10, and didn't go to church this morning. Mommy and Kellen just played in the living room, and Kellen would retreat to his room every once in a while for some quiet play (read: room destruction *grin*). At one point in time, every single block was out of the bin, he was sitting in the block bucket, everything was off of the bed, and every single stuffed animal was out of their baskets from under his bed. I was fortunate that he didn't take all of the books off of his shelf!

Luckily for us, he does a pretty good job of putting them away when asked and prompted (with a little assistance, of course). He's so much fun!

Breakin' the rules

We sure did that last night! Matt was/is on a 48...and I had rented a movie Monday night, but we didn't get a chance to watch it, so Kellen & I came home and watched Shark Tales last night. I got off of work at a decent time...was at daycare by 5:35 yesterday afternoon, made it home by 6:00 and we had the movie going shortly thereafter...I was dissapointed, but Kellen enjoyed it. It won't be one of the ones that we put on the list to buy, unless we can get it for $5.00 or less or something like that. At 8:00 Kellen finally said that he was hungry, and wanted cereal bars...rule breakin' here we go! I relented...and that's what he got for supper...a very late supper. Before the movie we tried to call his MawMaw and PawPaw to wish then a Happy Valentines Day, but just got a voicemail on their cell...called his Pap Pa & Gramma and talked to them both...I was pushing it because I forced those calls before the movie, and he was getting ancy...

On another note, yesterday was day # 2 that he's had only 1 accident at school. The second accident for both days was in the transition between school and home. When we got home yesterday he told me that he had pee peed in his underwear, then proceeded to pee pee in the potty...stayed dry throughout the entire movie, then pee peed again in the potty when the movie was over...YEAH! I think I've found a technique that's going to work with him...a least a little bit...Thank goodness for pull-ups with Buzz and Woody!...That might be the incentive that he needs and what works for him. We'll see and I'm still not stressing about it...after all, he's just 2 1/2 and doing very well by most accounts with this particular issue!

Relaxing...

Well, we decided against the baseball games for both yesterday and today...it's just too chilly outside for Kellen to be out for a prolonged period of time, but we sure have had fun so far this weekend! After a round of naps for everyone yesterday, Mommy and Daddy included (how nice!!), Kellen and I played with some his puzzles and toys for a while,















then we rediscovered his bean bag, and have moved it to what I imagine will be a somewhat permanent spot in the living room, and he and his Daddy had a blast playing with it















...although I'm sure in the future we'll have to lay down some ground rules on horse-play and the bean bag. Then he wanted to lay on his bear skin rug while being in the room with us before bedtime















..such a great family day and night that we had yesterday! The small exception being that the poor little guy had what I can think of as his first real scared moment...we were watching the Olympics and Ice Age and flipping back and forth right before bedtime, and he went to bed right after Diego tried to get the baby from the mammoth (can't remember his name)...when I tucked Kellen and after we said our prayers he whispered that he was scared that the lion (ok, so it was a sabertooth tiger...he's 2 1/2) was going to get the baby. It took a while for me to catch what he was saying and connect it with Ice Age, then I realized that he was worried about the baby...tried to tell him that the lion (no use in confusing him at this point in time) didn't get the baby and ended up helping the baby at the end and that no one hurt the baby at all in the TV. Come to find out, he was also worried that a lion was going to get him...Poor guy! It ended up taking much longer than usual for him to finally go to sleep last night because of this all...lesson learned - if I'm going to pull him out in the middle of a movie, make sure it's not in a part that could be considered scary! Come on, Mommy!

Today we tried out a new church, took Kellen to the park to get some pictures of him looking so cute in his outfit, then let him play for a little bit...not too long, because although the sun felt good, the wind was biting cold!





















Doesn't he look adorable? And he had so much fun on the slides, too! He just loves the playground!















Back home we're just hanging out...Mommy got her second nap of the weekend today (what a treat!) and Daddy is now outside working in the yard. Kellen is running around playing with his toys and singing, so I'm off to join in on the fun!

Weekend!

Well, it's the weekend...and we had big plans that may or may not actually make it through to fruition. This weekend is the opener weekend for Aggie Baseball, and Matt and I were really looking forward to taking Kellen to at least one of the games, but it rained ALL DAY yesterday (there went our dinner with Daddy after work - he was on shift and we were going to go and meet with him *sad face*), and a cold front has now come through. Kellen was rubbing one eye pretty badly last night and woke up this morning telling me that it still hurt, so I'm not sure what's going on with that. As you can well imagine, we're concerned about taking him to Olsen field, where it's almost always 10-15 degrees colder than what the temperature actually is...just the way that the field and stands are set up..ahh...decisions, decisions. Perhaps it will be better tomorrow and we'll be able to take him then...I think the game's at 1:00 PM on Sunday.

We'll see! As for now, we're just enjoying the family time...and I don't want to miss it...Post more later!

Wrong side of the bed

That's how Kellen woke up today...at 5:20 AM and on the wrong side of the bed. I tucked him back in...in HIS bed, told him it was still night-night time and that he needed to go back to sleep. And sleep he did! At 7 AM he still hadn't woken back up! Finally at about 5 minutes after 7 I saw his light turn on in his room and went in to greet him...and I was greeted in turn by a little monster man. Yikes! Wrong side of the bed I tell you, wrong side of the bed.

Screaming through getting his diaper changed and clothes on, we leave for school...Whoa buddy! I made sure to give them fair warning when we got there, too.

One of his teachers told me yesterday that in the afternoons he's transitioning to the older classroom, but I didn't realize that they meant today...they did...so when I went to pick him up he was on the big playground, and having so much fun that he was NOT ready to go home with Mommy (despite the fact that I actually left work at 5:00 PM...really!). I let him play for 15 minutes or so and just watched him interact with his friends and then we left for home.

Apparently, the grump hadn't gotten all worked out at daycare. What a night!

Renewed & Refreshed (try #2)

I attempted to blog this for the first time on Monday night and finished up a little after 9 PM. When I went to publish the post, blogger had gone into a one hour hiatus for web mainentance and I lost my posting. Arg. So...I'll try again.

This past weekend we went to visit the Karnes' and were able to experience first hand the new StoneWater Church that they have helped to get off the ground. The Lord used this weekend to reach us in a number of ways, and we really needed it! Matt was supposed to attend a Men's Retreat they had the weekend prior, but I was swamped with work and just didn't feel like I could get away for the entire weekend, so I canned the trip for the whole family...which was really a blessing in disguise. Like Matt had said, if we had gone last weekend, we wouldn't have gone this weekend, as two weekend trips in a row would have just been too much. We were able to attend a special service on Saturday night, the Sunday morning service, and went to a SuperBowl party, and it just reinvigorated Matt and I about our search for a church in BCS that will really meet our needs. I think that we (or at least I know that I have) felt so badly about not being involved in a church that I might have been too willing to begin attending and join a church that was just OK rather than awesome, and this past weekend helped us to see what we really desire in and from a church. We need to be really prayerful and mindful of where God wants us to be so that we'll be able to serve Him to the best of our abilities...I'm no longer going to be satisfied with just sitting in a pew (ok...so I haven't attended a church that actually had a pew in ages, but you get the idea). I want to be somewhere where I can really get plugged in and be used to serve...God has given my certain gifts for a reason...and it's not just so that I can be good at my job at work (I know that may have come out prideful, but that wasn't really the point...) This weekend also helped to me realize (re-realize perhaps) that my job is only a means to an end...it does not and should not control me...and I think that I've been letting it. Now, for those of you who don't know - I LOVE my job...but I work WAY TOO MUCH. Anyway, there were a number of other reasons why Matt and I needed to be there this weekend, but I won't go into all of those...instead, I'll try and take the blog back to its original focus...

Kellen!

Some cute and funny things that Kellen has done (that I can remember) since my last post (that I have time to blog)

*We were coming back from this weekend and stopped to get him something to drink. Matt decided to get him some chocolate milk, so I told Kellen what Daddy was getting him to drink. He immediately started calling it hot chocolate rather than chocolate milk, and I corrected him so that he wouldn't get upset when he drank something cold rather than warm from his sippy cup, which would have just made our little man a not-so-happy little man (which, as you can imagine, we did NOT want on the road trip). Kellen seems to understand, acknowledges, makes the distinction, and says, "Oh, ok, chocolate milk," then proceeds to drink it from his cup. After taking his very long first drink, his Daddy asks him if he likes it. To this he replies, "Yes, Kellen like it. But IT COLD!"

More later, including a funny story about mud on a truck...

Drained

I am just drained right now...on so many levels. I work nonstop during the day, but can't seem to stop the never-ending supply of to-do's and deadlines (and yes, I do prioritize, practice the 80/20 rule, work the HECK out of my student worker, etc.). My boss even told me that I was going to have to start saying, "NO!" - and not just to Kellen and Matt - but to requests University-wide, and start being more selective about my outside projects and committees...I guess you know it's pretty bad when your boss is telling you that you're going to have to start saying no to things, huh? He's given the administrative staff the charge of coming up with staffing solutions, but with virtually no extra budget, it's fairly difficult to find a way to hire additional help...I told him that I would just continue to stretch myself and get it all done...His reply, an emphatic, "No way."

We're trying out a new church right now, I wonder how many times in a row you should try a church before you try the next one? What's the rule of thumb on that? Hmmm? I think that Kellen enjoyed it yesterday...as he was getting ready this morning I think he thought he was going back to church because he was talking about it again.

Today...I guess Kellen had a bad day today at school, because he bit one of his friends. Yikes! I think that's only the second time he's ever done that. Arg! He and I had a talk about biting after I read the incident report, then I saw a note in his cubby that said he had bitten himself on the wrist. What was with him today? I know that he and his Daddy wrestled a lot this weekend, so maybe they need to wrestle with boundaries...I think that Kellen is still too young to understand the difference between wrestling with Daddy and what is acceptable play with Daddy and what he's able to do with other people. He just can't make that separation yet. But what do I know? I'm just the Mommy and that's just my speculation...

I'm looking forward to this weekend...I have a goal...Matt and I are thinking about and planning to go out of town to a friends for the weekend for the Super Bowl and make a weekend of it...and I'm clearing my Monday as well in an attempt to make it a relaxing weekend. We had originally scheduled to go out of town this past weekend, but work swamped me and we had to cancel on my account...maybe I'll be able to make up for it this weekend. Something to shoot for!

UPDATED POST at 10:35 PM

Letters of nomination - I've written a few of them tonight for some awards that are due early next week, so I can scratch part of one thing off of my to-do list...at least I've gotten them started. Now I'm only waiting on two more students to send me their packets and I can work up their letters...maybe I'll even get these packets submitted early! (Did I just WRITE that???) I don't believe in jinx's, but did I just do that to myself?

I'm tired, my brain is throbbing...and I'm wondering if my letters even made any sense...I guess I'll tell that one tomorrow when I read over them again at the office where they are now waiting for me on the printer. Gotta' love that proxy!

Raindrops

The day started very early for Matt, as he came to the rescue of one screaming toddler at 4 AM. Kellen was apparently standing at his door, light on, waiting in desperation for one of his parents to rescue him. From what we're still unsure of, but rescue him nonetheless. Matt decided to let me attempt to have one night of uninterrupted and sound sleep - would have been my first in a week - so he and Kellen laid down again in the living room. It is my understanding that they did actually go back to sleep (it must be something about Daddy that can make that happen, because it sure doesn't when Mommy tries it!). Around 6 or so, the two men come crawling into the big bed, wanting to snuggle...well, one wanted to snuggle and play, and the other just wanted to get some more sleep. Since this is a G-rated blog *grin* you can guess which one was which. Mommy still wanted to sleep, so poor Kellen was told to just lay down - no playing - it wasn't time to get up yet. At one point in time he was starting to say something to me and when Matt got onto him, he turned and said,

"Daddy, I just wanted to talk to Mommy."

Then he turned to me and said, "I love you Mommy."

Oh my goodness. What a sweet way to wake up on a Sunday morning. A little later, Kellen turned to me and whispered,

"Mommy, raindrops are falling from the sky."

Yes, it's raining here, so today will most definitely be an inside day. But it was just so sweet how he said it...like it was some big secret that he was sharing with me.

Truck

Well, in this last week I feel like I've been hit by a truck...a mac truck, but I was somewhat expecting this (see one of my previous posts when I discussed my expectations for the first week of classes). There hasn't been a day this week that I've taken a lunch or left the office before 6 PM...daycare closes at 6:15 PM, so I'm cutting it really close to be able to get Kellen before they close and I get charged extra $$ for being late...and was actually late on Wednesday by ~ 5-7 minutes, so they have a right to charge me but I don't know if they will. I've brought work home with me (but was just too exhausted to do it), so I guess that negates the effort, huh?

There is a lot going on, so my brain really isn't able to focus and direct for this post...more regular posts will begin again once the first week of school craziness has come to an end.

Friday the 13th

Was such the stereotype yesterday for my poor student worker...she had a wreck on the way to work on University Drive (8:00 AM) with an international student (not to stereotype - please don't take it that way - who exclaimed, "This happens to me a lot!", then after that was settled, got lost in Research Park (had never been there before), and while trying to get out of Research Park, got pulled over by a cop. Luckily (or unluckly, however you might want to look at it), at that point in time she burst into uncontrollable tears and the cop had mercy on her, just giving her a warning rather than an actual ticket. Poor thing! I was somewhat hesitant about giving her much to work on considering the day she had already had, but couldn't help it...The main lobby area of my office had been repainted this past week and was still very much is disarray...we had to get this whipped into shape before the students rolled back in (or more students, anyway, as my calendar can contest they've been pouring in since January 2nd). We recovered some of the sound boards in maroon fabric, but the fabric store was out of maroon (what fabric store in College Station doesn't stock enough maroon fabric...I ask you that question?), so we had to strategically place the recovered and original ones back on the walls and go from there. We've also gotten new office chairs for the conference room, etc., so all of those items have had to be moved around, etc., etc., etc. And this doesn't begin to cover all of the other things the I needed her to do, so she was really hopping yesterday. I do think that it helped to take her mind off of things, even for a little while, and she's really creative, so she had fun redecorating...

As I had feared, I'm starting the semester off with too many things on my project to-do list at work...some of the things that would have lessened my stress load for next week weren't able to get done this past week...so next week will be even more of a doozey than this week was. At least that's what I'm preparing myself for, anyway. That way if it turns out to be that way, ok - I've prepared myself. If not, great!

Many things at the university level are segmented undergraduate/graduate, because I think the powers-that-be assume that there are separate people in each department that do both of these segments...so having graduate fellowship/scholarship deadlines for major $$$ during the first week of school isn't a major thing if someone only deals with graduate students...but it's a MAJOR issue when that individual also deals with undergraduate students...my week is not my own during the first week of classes. My time will consist of putting out student fires. Period. But, it's a big deal to me (and the department, of course, as it increases the matriculation rate) to try and give our graduate applicants the most opportunities for "free money" that they can get...so in comes the stress. Which perhaps is why my boss approached me on Thursday and asked me to be thinking about how I would want to structure some additional, professional help for the academic area to take some of the load off of me...But the kicker is this...I can't figure out what I would want to give up. Working graduate applications helps me to know and develop relationships with the incoming graduate students, which in turn helps with the recruiting and outreach component of my job, as I can call on them and recruit them to help with the departmental recruiting...kind of a big cycle. If I wasn't involved in their graduate application packages and working with them through that process, I wouldn't develop such strong relationships with them and don't feel like I would have the rapport with them like I do with the newer students that have come in since I've been there...Undergraduate - no way am I getting rid of that. I've made too many strides in that area in the past two years...Outreach and recruiting, well - it ties in with both of those aspects as well...but perhaps a graduate assistant or someone working part-time to coordinate the actual recruiting activities with me as their supervisor would actual work. This takes quite a bit of my time. But...this was one of the aspects of my job that I was going to work into an academic course and try to teach as a 485...planning and logistics class...since I'm meeting with the students that do outreach at least once a month anyway, Dr. Heinz and I had already talked about this since I miss teaching. Arg! Pros and cons with each and every aspect of my job. Well, I'm glad he doesn't want a quick response from me!! But, I will say this...It is VERY nice to have a boss that understands - without me even saying it - that there are limits to what a person is physically, mentally, and emotionally able to do and is willing to do whatever they can to keep their employees happy and productive. After his initial comment, I agreed I was going to have some help pretty soon, especially if we were going to keep growing, and I laughed and joked that I couldn't do many more 3:30 AM - 11 PM days...he just shook his head at me and agreed...then commented that I had other people that counted on me..like Kellen and Matt and that I couldn't continue to work those kinds of hours. I am so blessed to be in this position! Thank you God for opening the right doors at the right times and putting me exactly where I needed to be.

Sorry for the work ramble...

Now...the fun stuff. I have a long weekend! Monday is a holiday for TAMU, so I have a 3 day weekend! Whoo Hoo!!! Jeff is coming into town this morning, and we're going to the Aggie Basketball game this afternoon. What fun!

Whooped...

This week has just taken it out of me...Monday was crazy...broken shower that began at 6:00 AM that resulted in an unplanned day off for me and an entire day of plumbing pain for Matt and I. Luckily, Matt was off on Monday and was able to fix the problem, but his extensive to-do list originally scheduled for Monday was shelved, much to his dismay. Tuesday I brought quite a bit of work home with me in an attempt to get caught up, told myself I was going to take a power nap after I put Kellen to bed, and knocked out in the recliner at 8:00...for the night...woke up at 3:30 and was just up - for good. Wednesday the candle burned from both ends, running from 3:30 AM until 11 PM. I worked from when I woke up on the things that I had brought home to do the night before, then had a normal morning, worked through lunch and then until 6, got Kellen & picked up dinner, met Matt at my office, had dinner with them there at the office, then Matt took Kellen back to the house and I stayed at the office...until later than I have ever done before (at least that I can remember). I was part of a panel presentation today and with Monday mayhem, just hadn't had a chance to catch up and prepare for it - at all, and winging it for a presentation, even a panel, just adds stress to my stress meter. Whew!

I'm trying desperately to get to some semblance of "caught-up" status before the semester starts next Tuesday...will I make it? Who knows! I estimate the answer to be an emphatic NO!

My day

Well, today is my day...Matt had written me a "My-day" note that was supposed to be for Janaury 1st, but he had gotten off shift on New Year's Eve and they had run quite a bit, so he asked if I would want a rain check so that I could get a full day's worth of the my-day coupon. You betcha! We'll hopefully get quite a bit done today and then get the added bonus of just getting to spend some time together...both quantity and quality time. Yeah! If the day is nice, I would love to take Kellen to the park to have a picnic and fly his kite, too...he just loves doing that - especially since it's a Shrek kite with a huge Donkey picture on it.

Now if I can just get over this head cold I could really fully enjoy the benefits of "My-day." The last two days at work have just been miserable with this thing! But it's going around, so I guess I'll take my small part of the misery along with everyone else. I just wish that I could take some medicine to make me feel better, but no such luck. I think I'm on the downward side of it now...at least it feels like it this morning, except that now I feel like it's settling in my chest and throat more and I'm getting a slight touch of a cough, which I hadn't had much of before. Oh I've just got to get over this before schools starts back up! Way too much to do at work to afford getting sick! These two weeks were supposed to be for me to get caught up...I can't handle getting back into the grind if I'm heading into another semester already behind. Arg and Yikes!! I remember now why I was working from home every night in an attempt to stay in some semblence of "caught-up" status. I haven't been doing that...I actually haven't done much of that in a while...but I'm feeling the pinch to perhaps start back up to avoid what I imagine to be the landslide...

OK...enough yipping about me...What happened to Alias this week? I went to watch it back on Thursday night...and there was a new season of Dancing with the Stars on instead. What gives? Where did my show go? It wasn't on after Lost...because Lost wasn't on this week - it was the Rose Bowl. Where all of the shows just messed up this week because of Bowl Games? Hmmm. So instead of watching my show, Kellen insisted that we watch the dancing...he enjoyed it immensely, actually. He loves watching dancing, including the dancers at the Aggie basketball games, of course. But, much to my surprise, he really enjoyed this show! I had gotten him all ready for bed and was just going to check that Alias was coming on, then put him to bed, but when I noticed that there was no Alias and dancers in its place, I decided to let him watch some of the dancers and continue to play with his toys. He was so cute...dancing to the music along with the TV. What a hoot!

Hooray for the weekend!

Basketball fun

Kellen and I went to the women's basketball Big VII conference opener tonight against Oklahoma State...it was a good game and we won 74-52 and one of the best part's was that the tickets were half-price...he and I both got in for $4.00 - Whoo Hoo! Kellen did really well..he only got restless during the last 5-6 minutes of the 2nd part of the game, which I thought was pretty good! It started earlier than previous games we had attended, which is one of the reasons that I think he did so well...a 5:30 start time is a really good thing for him! He loved to watch the Aggie Dance Team, of course, and swayed and clapped while they were on, then asked for more when they were finished. He sure is all boy, isn't he? I asked him if he wanted to go to the basketball game when I picked him up at daycare, and that's all he talked about until we actually got to the game. He really enjoyed himself and we had a great time.

We had originally planned to go and see Daddy tonight since he's on a 48, but there were too many issues with the trucks at both stations, so we decided against it...I would have hated to drive Kellen and I down there for them to get a call and us not get a chance to spend any time with Daddy - that would have really stunk. I guess it worked out all right anyway. Since we switched gears and went to the game, I had planned to come home and watch Lost, but didn't think about the fact that tonight is the Rose Bowl...Hello, Rebecca!

Kellen's wish

Today Kellen really got his Daddy, shocked him right to the core, I believe...by telling him that he wanted a baby brother. Yup. I'm really not sure where he's getting this, except perhaps at daycare...one of the moms of a kid in his class is expecting their second child - perhaps their discussing this in his class?, and the director of the daycare is now back from maternity leave, but still! He can't seem to make up his mind about whether he wants a baby sister or brother. He told me the other day he wanted a baby sister, then changed his mind and ordered an older sister....today it was a baby brother. As I was putting him to bed tonight he decided to ask for an older brother & older sister, plus a baby sister and baby brother. Hold on a minute there bucko! It doesn't quite work like that! He's cracking me up with this, but it's so sweet!

Back to it

So it was back to work today for me. Matt stayed home with Kellen, as daycare was closed, and I got the report that Kellen was a bit of a handful...fussy and just cranky. Daddy's thinking that the munchkin isn't feeling well. Uh oh. Not what we need...he's had the runny nose, sneezing, coughing thing, but hasn't been running a fever, I just hope it isn't getting any worse. I haven't felt the need to give him a breathing treatment for a while - in a very long time, actually - so I hope we don't have to go back to those again. The last time I actually remember having to give him a breathing treatment was when he and I were in Ohio, I think...or did I even have to give him one when we were there? No, that was a high fever, but I don't remember breathing trouble in addition to that...I just took the breathing treatment maching and medicine just in case...did I give him a treatment there? Hmmm...when was the last time he had to have a breathing treatment? Well, my memory obviously isn't registering, so it's clearly been quite some time...

Poor guy...even as I'm typing this I can hear him coughing in his sleep. I hope that he's able to get a good night's sleep tonight and try and get over this thing.

Blessings

As I was putting Kellen to bed, he started to say his "Bless," which is what he calls his prayers. I don't know if it was just him being cute, just himself, or not wanting me to leave the room, because he got me after he went through his normal, "Bless Daddy, bless book," etc., He added a new one tonight with asking for a sister, he actually asked for a little sister, then changed his mind and asked for a big sister. That's going to be fun to try and explain...hmmm. (Just to clarify and for those of you who might be wondering based on Kellen's prayer, no, we aren't expecting a new addition to the Hapes family). After his prayer, he thought for a while and then said, "Ok, that's all. Love Jesus. Amen." However, as I was walking out of the room, he stopped me, "Wait Mommy! I forgot bless."

"Who did you forget to bless sweetie?"

He looked me square in the eye and replied, "Bless Mommy. Happy New Year. I love you. Night-night Mommy."

Man oh man...This kiddo can just make me fall to pieces! How did I get so lucky to be blessed with such a wonderful little guy?

I'm about to start a project that will require me to remember details - facts and events in great detail actually - about the period of time when he was first born. I remember being out of my mind in love with him, but I honestly don't know what has been my "favorite" time period since he's been born. Each time period has had their own special points, wonderful and some not-so-wonderful, I'll admit, moments that I cherish. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by...and now we're embarking on yet another year.

Let the fun continue!

Play day

Well, it's New Year's Eve...this holiday really isn't a big deal to Matt, and his attitude is rubbing off on me more and more, although I've always wanted to do the whole New Year's Eve thing. He's on a 24 hr shift, but we were actually able to see him twice today! What a treat! Bright and early this morning, after Kellen's haircut that was supposed to be a surprise for him, (Kellen's hair is a lesson in compromise between Matt and I...short during the summer - a 4, or when Mommy messes up and gives Daddy the wrong guard, a 2; longer during the fall and winter - he got his haircut today with an 8, and I think it looks wonderful!), he called to say that they were on their way to the Med...Well, I was literally finishing up with Kellen's haircut, and it wasn't even 8:00 AM yet, so we raced to get ready so that Kellen could see his Daddy. He sure was excited about seeing him and just ran around the inside of the ambulance playing with Daddy. We could only stay for a few minutes while they were finishing up with the paperwork, etc., as they had to get the truck back in service, but it was a nice treat.

Back to the house and Kellen and I just played and played all day long. My to-do list is written out, and there is nothing scratched off of it today...Ha! I had so much fun with Kellen that it doesn't even bother me. We played with his new toys, I tried to find homes for his new toys (where will they all go?), we read book after book, and watched lots of VeggieTales in the midst of it all. He discovered the massager that my parents got me, tried it out, and exclaimed, "Kellen like it!" He sat against it for a little while and would make noises just to hear his voice vibrate. It was so funny! Then he decided that he wanted to share, prompted me to sit forward, put it behind my back and told me, "Mommy's turn." What a sweetie! He has a bad case of the sniffles and a cough, so I gave him some medicine that I think made him drowsy, because he actually snuggled next to me a little after noon and said that he was tired...That's my cue! Naptime here we come. I read him a book then told him to get in bed and he didn't even fuss. He crawled into bed, snuggled into his pillows, surrounded himself with his stuffed animals, and was pretty much out.

I hadn't watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation yet this year, so I pulled it out of the cabinet and watched it...I just think that movie is hilarious! Then I took a short nap while Kellen was finishing up with his. How nice! I was awakened by my cell phone...I'm still getting used to its new ring...It was Matt and they were coming back to the Med. I heard Kellen stirring and talking to himself in his room, so we got ready to go see Daddy again. Lucky us! This time when we got there, the ambulance was still parked by the ER doors, and the lights were still going. As we pulled into the parking lot, Kellen exclaimed, "See Daddy! That's Daddy's big truck!" That kiddo's a smart one! We parked and he got very upset that we couldn't get out immediately and go see Daddy. I tried to explain to him that Daddy was working and we had to wait for just a few minutes until he was all through. I'm so glad that he was able to see his Daddy today...and twice...what a treat, really.

As we left, Kellen was upset because he wanted Daddy to stay and not go back to work. I told him that Daddy had to go back to work to help people. "Oh, ok. Daddy go work and save people. See Daddy 'morrow." Oh my goodness, sometimes he just makes my heart melt!

Back to the house and he and I just continued to play. I did get something constructive done though...I made some cookies. Mmmm. Yummy! I also chatted for a while with my grandma's, which was nice, too.

Maybe in 2006, I'll be a little better about sending birthday and anniversary cards, etc. I had an aunt that was wonderful about doing that. She never missed an event, and getting a card from her always made me feel so special. In an attempt to organize this effort, I've started an events excel sheet, so I'll be trying to get birthdays and anniversarys from folks and get going on this.

Well, it's now 2006 in New York. I just watched the ball drop in Times Square on TV. I'm glad that Dick Clark is able to host this event this year...he sounds pretty good despite the stroke, so it's obvious that he's been working hard to try and get back to TV shape.

2006...what does the Lord have in store for us this year?

Painting progress

Well, I feel like I've made some progress today on that spare bathroom project (yes, I'm still working on that!). However, I've gotten my motivation back and I'm actually working on it again, which is a good sign. I've gotten what I hope will be the final layer of caulk on the seam and have taped off the room. Matt will sand the caulk down later on this afternoon, depending on how it's drying. This is supposed to be a quick dry caulk, but it still seems to be a little tacky, so we'll see. I'm hoping to get a coat of primer on it today as well, but it all depends on the drying time of the caulk and subsequent sanding, so everything is up in the air on that one...But, I finally feel like I'm making progress again, which in my book is good. Yeah!

And by the way, I should no longer lose phone calls and my cell phone signal when I move into another room to talk, as yesterday Matt and I got me a new cell phone. For some unknown reason we didn't feel that the $10 to transfer the stored phone numbers into the new phone was worth it and I spent several hours yesterday afternoon converting phone numbers into my new cell phone. Urg! I will NOT do that again! The next time I get a new phone, I will spend the lousy $10 to transfer the phone numbers! On the up-side, I now know how to program phone numbers into my phone...with ease.

While I'm waiting on the caulk to dry in the bathroom, I'm going to work on another project...I'm going to try out my space bags. Yes, I ordered them off of the internet. My mom swears by them and Kellen has outgrown lots of his clothes and I have gotten them back from Julie, with no one else in line to lend them to, so now I have to actually store them. Let's see how this storage experiment works!

Christmas fun!

So I finally got the docking station out of Matt's truck and have uploaded the pictures...Christmas fun and recap here we come!

Satuday
Let's go back to Saturday...Christmas Eve day...Matt was scheduled to work a 12 hour shift that night, so his aunt and uncle moved their normal evening routine (Christmas Eve chili & cold cut sandwiches) back a little bit so that he could participate this year...we got out of town a little later than we wanted to, but made it to Conroe by ~ 1:45-2:00, and the whole gang got to the Gilmer's a little after 3:00 PM...we were shooting for sometime between 2:00 - 3:00, so we really weren't that far off, especially for our gang! I don't think that anyone stopped eating once we walked into the door, but hey...what's a Christmas gathering without continuous munching? Matt & I broke the gift-opening order tradition, which normally runs from the youngest to oldest, and opened our present first, since Matt had to leave to go to work - rule-breakers are we!



Uncle Randy's sister, her son, his wife & their two daughters came as well, and the two girls are just a little older than Kellen, 3 and 5 or 6. He had fun playing with them throughout the night.



At one point in time, PawPaw was bowling the kids, which they just loved! We ended up leaving around 6:30 or so, and went to look at Christmas lights before heading back to MawMaw and PawPaw's for the Hapes Christmas Eve routine...open one present, usually new PJ's, and the reading of the Bible Christmas story.



Kellen got an incredibly cute little stuffed puppy dog...but when I asked him what the puppy's name was, he thought he needed to ask PawPaw...he didn't understand that he could name it himself! I still don't think that the puppy has a name...other than "puppy" right now.

Sunday
Christmas morning....Kellen woke up pretty early (4:30AM) scared of something, but crawled back into bed with me and actually went back to sleep. I feel like that was a Christmas miracle all in itself! We slept in until almost 7 AM...another Christmas miracle...he rarely sleeps that late! When he woke up, he told me, "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Birthday Jesus." We're trying to make sure that he understands what this holiday is actually all about...but the true little two-year old self shone through when the next words out of his mouth were, "Open presents, Mommy!" I told him that we had to wait until Daddy got home from work until we opened presents, which I didn't figure would be too long, based on how long we had actually slept. Sure enough, we stayed in bed just talking and playing and a few minutes later, Daddy walked through the door.

He was the designated present-opener, and had a blast doing it!



I don't think that I've ever seen him, or any other kid for that matter, slide across a present like he did with his first one of the morning...a baseball set.



Elmo was, of course, a HUGE hit...Wait a minute...wasn't I the Mommy that swore Elmo would never be allowed in my house??? Oh well! I can tolerate him...But I haven't budged on the purple dinosaur (how annoying) or the Teletubbies (those things give me the heeby-geebies!).



He also got the Disney edition of Memory, much to PawPaw chagrin...he'll really enjoy this game, given how much he enjoys some of the Disney movies. I guess I'll need to introduce him to some of the others that he hasn't seen yet that have made their way to MawMaw and PawPaw's because they're on VHS (Little Mermaid & Hercules are two that I can think of off the top of my head).



I'm so glad that MawMaw and PawPaw were able to find a stick horse for Kellen. Matt and I had looked for one for him, but we just couldn't find one that we liked! This one is really cute, and it has wheels on the back! I've never seen one like this before...and Kellen loves it! He was riding the horse all over the house!



He just loves trains...so he got a Thomas the Train train set...and he played with it quite a bit over the weekend! However, he didn't actually want Thomas to pull the two cars that came with it! He would get very upset if we attached the cars to Thomas and would quickly pull them apart. He would let Thomas push the cars, but not connect and pull them...I'm not quite sure why?!?

As you can probably tell, it was just a lot of fun this year with him, as he enjoyed his presents and wanted to play with each and every one as he opened them up. We "stashed" them away as he opened them, and toward the end, he found the "stash" and remembered what he had opened earlier. Aunt Boo remarked that he had found his stash...he picked up very quickly on the terminology and yelled, "Kellen play with stash!" If the tone hadn't been what it was (read: terrible two temper tantrum), it would have been pretty funny.

Daddy got the Lord of the Rings trilogy, among other things, of course,



...and Mommy got a wonderful foot massager...mmmm.



We didn't go down to Channelview on Sunday like we normally would have...MeeMaw was actually staying with MawMaw and PawPaw, so we had Christmas dinner there in Conroe and just hung out at the house, which was actually nice and relaxing.



We watched the Polar Express with Kellen and then Sunday evening ended up being game night, which was fun as well.

Monday
Aunt Boo had planned a get-together with high school and college buddies for Monday, and the presence of "dork boy" was requested, so we stayed around for Monday as well.



Kellen enjoyed playing with the other kids, but got just a little jealous when they all wanted to play with his PawPaw. He made it quite clear that that was his PawPaw!

Whew! What a wonderful Christmas...two weekends in a row! Perhaps I should have blogged this in phases...I didn't realize it would take me quite this long to get all of the narrative and photos added...it's almost 11:30. Yikes! That's enough blogging for one night. Enjoy!

Potty Progress?

I know that I still haven't updated with Christmas...but that will have to wait...I just got Kellen to bed and feel like we're actually making progress with the potty...and it's been initiated by Kellen, so I just had to blog it!

We were getting ready for his bath tonight and we were walking to the bathroom and he asked to go to the potty. I sit him on the potty and seconds later...I hear him actually going pee pee. Success! Initiated by him! Bathtime ensues...an Epsom Salt bath, no less, as he has some form of sore on his finger that Matt will just have to look at when he gets home from shift tomorrow morning that I managed to lance tonight (blood and yucky green stuff came out that I'm sure was not a good sign). Bathtime was officially over when he told me he pee peed...but I must have mistaken that for him telling me he had to pee pee, because he got very upset when I let the water out and washed him off again and he asked to sit on the potty...I finally understood what he was asking, sat him down on the potty and wrapped the towel around him, and he pee peed twice more!

Yeah!

As for me today...I was just a little off...I had a doctor's appointment, looked at my PDA and was still an hour off for my appointment. I thought that I was running late, but was actually an hour early...What was going on in my brain? They were able to work me in, so I had more time to kill (read: run errands) before my haircut appointment, which actually turned out to be a good thing. I was able to get all of my errands done between the two appointments and then was done with the out-of-house errands for the day. Back to the house to try and clean up without Kellen underfoot, since he was at daycare, but I don't feel like I got as much accomplished as I wanted to, although I did get quite a bit done. Matt and I have quite a list of to-do's for ourself for this week, so we'll see how much of that list we're able to knock out while we're both off of work - him until Saturday and me until next Monday.

I promise that I'll update on Christmas...but I don't have the docking station for the pictures, and it makes more sense to do all of that (pictures and narrative) at once...I just hope I don't forget any cute details!

Future football player

Just had to blog this...it was too cute. So Kellen got a football in his stocking and was throwing it to PawPaw tonight...did this for a while and then turned to me and said, "Kellen throw football. Kellen need helmet to throw football to PawPaw."

Yup. Our future football player here...And he was throwing overhanded, fairly on target...and hard! Will give more Christmas details later in a longer blog. I just got Kellen to bed and I'm off to play cards with the gang.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing...

Matt and I spent yesterday afternoon driving around looking at houses...some we know we can't afford...Indian Lakes, or is it Village, anyone?...and some that could actually be possibilities at some point in the future. We looked at a brand new one that I fell in love with that was just a little bit out of our price range...then another (4/2) that I adored that was way outta' our league! I love to dream that a 4 bedroom (with walk-in closets in all rooms), 2 1/2 bath, split floor plan with the great-room style Matt and I have come to like, in College Station in either the Southwood Valley area or out where we are now would just drop into our lap, well within our price range...Hey, it's Christmas Eve day...I can dream, right? We'll get there...maybe not the 4 bedroom, because we really don't need that, but the house itself will come in God's timing.

This morning has already been a busy one. We're (I'm) trying to get the last minute details ready for the trip to MawMaw and PawPaw's, and Matt isn't feeling all that well, so he's still in bed...well, he's actually gravitated toward the futon, but you know what I mean. I've gotten some more of the Christmas baking done...scratch the brownies and one batch of the peanut butter fudge off of the list...a couple of batches of no-bake cookies and another recipe of peanut butter fudge, if I have time, and I think I'll call the baking good for this year. No cherry or chocolate pie this year...that would be kinda' hard to transport, considering we have all of the gifts and the dog to get in the truck, in addition to Kellen boy...too much hassle.

Merry Christmas!