Memorial Day Weekend '09

Hello friends and family! I should apologize for my blogging absence, but we have been VERY busy. It should be noted that after two calls this afternoon from both my Grandmother and Nana about my lack of picture updates, I made it a point to sit down tonight and get it done. I did try last night, however blogger was not cooperating with me.
Last week my good friend Beth came for a visit. She traveled from Baltimore to meet Reese for the first time and see Corpus Christi...as exciting as the city may be. She was even a good sport and attended two of my Stroller Strides classes as a willing participant. Let's all give a hand to Beth who worked out on her vacation. She rocks. Beth and I have known each other since we were born, well since she was born because she's younger than me. We spent many a summer in beautiful Cape May, NJ...many other times at each other's homes and it was nice to see her again. We hope she'll come back soon.

Now onto the LONG and picture filled update.

The first two pictures are of Reese putting several layers of clothing on at once. About a week ago she received a package in the mail from MiMi and it was filled with all kinds of new clothes. I am the same way about wanting to wear new clothes, but she took it to a new level. My Dad used to say "If it's new she'll wear it" about me...Dad, same goes for Reese. I taught her well.
Three shirts and three pairs of shorts...no joke

We hit the pool for the first time on May 17th. She had a BLAST and reaffirmed what we already knew...she LOVES water. We were attempting to take a picture of Reese ready to go to the pool for the first time. It turned out to be the perfect mug shot.

I guess she did not get this trait from me as I can not do the Vulcan salute (FYI she did that completely on her own and we laughed our butts off when we saw it in the picture)

Beth and Reese checking out the "air-panes" on the flight deck of Lady Lex

Fighter Pilot Reese...aboard the USS Lexington

Hello from sunny Corpus Christi Beaches...it's lovely this time of year...feel free to visit.

This is how you do the beach in Corpus....it's weird/unethical (to me) to drive on the beach

A shining example of why you shouldn't be able to drive your car on the beach. The nice man in the bigger Dodge helped pull the other out of the sand/water. In the two days Beth and I were at the beach we saw a car, this truck, and a dump truck (several times over again) get pulled out of the sand. It's free entertainment.

Cheese!

Mommy and her bambino In the hole that Ryan dug.

Beth....ON A BOAT!

Beth riding in the waves on Reese's float.

Why it's meant for babies...yes she was stuck

Ryan and Reese feeding her breakfast to the seagulls. Also note Ryan's sandcastles in the picture. He mentioned to me on Monday that it's nice to have a kid so we can play with all her toys....(he likes being a kid again). I had to remind him that yes, it's nice, but it only works when you actually involve your child in the sandcastle activity. He spent the greater portion of his time building his own apartment complex.

I will likely title the picture below, "Three morons in the street"

Really this was three grown adults, all smart in their own right (only looking like morons during this process) trying to fly a kite with no wind in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It should be noted when Ryan sets his mind to something he follows through (well maybe not with school as of yet) but he did get the kite to fly (finally!) Reese and I sat and watched (and used sidewalk chalk and bubbles) as they ran up and down the block countless number of times, getting LOTS of stares from passers-by.

Hope you all enjoyed this LONG and informative blog.

I'm not dead yet!

Obviously by the title of this post you all know I completed my race and lived to tell. I got up at 4:15 this morning to eat some breakfast and head out for race. We got to the shuttle lot at 5:50 and I loaded the bus and rode to my starting point. Myself and 1980 other people kicked off at 7:02 a.m. for our 4.08 mile trek in the sand. Thank goodness the sand was packed down nicely, it was so packed down that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. There were a few little rough patches and some loose sand in some spots but it could have been MUCH worse. I made friends on the last mile with a very nice elementary school boy who ran with me for the last portion. I told him he could run if I did (as I saw him walking) and we both pushed each other to the end. I completed my leg in 42 minutes and passed my baton off to the next lucky contestant. I will say the last 100-200 feet was the softest sand I have ever seen and I did almost roll my ankle...like I said thankfully it was packed down for my run. I also must give props to my team who kicked some MAJOR booty and the 8 month pregnant lady who I saw running. My team came in 79th out of the 230 Women's teams and 1001 over all (out of 1980 teams). Our whole team was done in 4 hours and 40 min...with the Portland Stroller Strides team coming in 4 minutes before us...it should prove how FIT we all are. We're HOT MAMAS!
Then came the fun part of going back on the shuttle bus. I waited for 30 minutes for the bus, got on the bus and sat in traffic for 2 hours before we reached our car. Yes three of my other leg runners were done with their portion before I even got off the bus. Sitting on the city bus with hard seats was more painful than the run.
My whole team could not make it to the after party to take a picture but we had some...and one even from the Portland team...Kristalynn, Julie, myself and Neysa (Julie and Neysa we on my team)

Myself, LeAnn (another SS Mom who ran on her family team) and Alice Ann who was on the Portland team.

GOOD JOB MOMS! We did it...next year we'll do it again and we'll be better prepared for the CF traffic after we're all done running.

I'll be putting my Finishers Medal next to my Cookie Eating Queen medal...really a running medal and a medal for winning and eating contest should ALWAYS be side by side.

I think we're over the hump

We're on day four of our week without a pacifier...Nap time still proves to be our biggest challenge, but bed time has gone cry free the past two nights. She knows that only babies use pacifiers and that she's a big girl. Hopefully today's nap will continue to go well with less crying as we go along. (Day 2 was 1.5 hours of blood curdling screams-NOT FUN).
On Saturday I am running my leg of the Beach to Bay relay marathon. Myself and a team of some super fit Moms from Stroller Strides decided to run. I have leg 1 and while it will be cooler at 7 a.m. I am not sure how 4.08 miles of running in the SAND will work for me.
I'm pretty sure that by late afternoon on Saturday I will be dead. (Please be sure that Ryan honors my wishes and buries me in College Station. I want that new cemetery where I can overlook Aggieland for eternity. My family knows my other dying wish regarding my child...respect my wishes or I will haunt you all from the grave.) I'm hoping to finish my leg in about 45 min so we'll see how it goes. I never in my right mind thought I would run a relay marathon much less the leg that is in the sand but stranger things have happened. Last time I ran any sort of race is when I did a 5k with my juvie girls in 2004 the semester I supervised Girls on Track.

Reese has a new baby doll (Baby Ty..sorry Gail) and it came with some bottles (Thanks Monica and Wayland) so she's been feeding her baby and mothering it. Very cute until she pokes the baby in the eye. Good thing she's not so rough with real live babies.

Here's a video. I think this is the video where she uses her finger to clean the baby. For the record I have never done this to her so I have no clue where she came up with this.

And I leave you with that as Reese is going through my checkbook and I should probably make sure she's not "coloring" on my checks.

hell week

Today begins what Ryan and I seem to think will be "Hell Week". This morning at about 10:30ish Reese gave away her pacifiers. (I should be noted one was kept at home in the event of a major catastrophe which would have required a pacifier) Reese's dear friend Ty (or as she likes to call him "Baby Ty") is about 3 months old and we figured he MUST need pacifiers. We figured that throwing them away would not make as much sense to her as telling her that Baby Ty needed them. So she kindly handed them to Ty this morning and we said bye to them. As soon as we got in the car she asked for it and I said "Remember we gave them to Baby Ty" She followed me by saying "Remember" and that was that.
We had a small session of crying when I put her down for her nap but I would say a mild crying for 15 minutes was not as bad as it could have been. For the past few weeks we've been putting her doggie blanket in her arms for bed time in hopes that it would comfort her and she would be used to it when the day to ditch "passy" came. Hopefully we'll have a good week...if not I will be hairless by Thursday.

Happy Mother's Day!

We had a great weekend and I got spoiled on Mother's Day...I guess all the hard work I do at home is finally being noticed (wink wink). Saturday we woke up to Reese and a slightly pink eye. I was worried she had pink eye so I carted her off to the el doctor. Turns out we were dealing with a double ear infection. Obviously she has a high tolerance for pain because Little Miss gave NO indication that she was even in pain. No ear pulling, fever, crankiness...nothing. I was shocked as this was our first ear infection. Let's hope it's out last. So she's now on some meds and we're changing massive NASTY diaper...the unfortunate side effect of the meds. Yuckola! Ryan took care of it yesterday for me...thank goodness.
Saturday might Reese got to hang out with that babysitter and Ryan and I enjoyed a night out with adults. We had a great time. I know I look like Satan with my red eyes..no I didn't spend all weekend doing drugs..apparently my allergies were just that bad. My eyes are clear again today thank goodness.
This is what happens when Reese and I read the paper together.

Riding the scooter

Mother's Day was nice. Ryan made waffles (from scratch) and installed a ceiling fan over the kitchen table. I had been asking for one for a while so we all piled in the Family Truckster and headed over to Home Depot and got one. I took a nap, Reese took a nap and Ryan worked. We had a super fun day. A nice break from doing all the work. Like I said Ryan even changed one of the nasty diapers I've seen in a LONG time.

Mommy and Reese on Mother's Day!

I hope all the other Mothers I know also had a wonderful Mother's Day...especially My Mom...

Finally a new post!

We made a quick trip to College Station for the March of Dimes..spent less then 24 hours in the city we love but had a very nice little visit with some of our very good friends. Reese played in her first splash pad with her friend Brock...she had so much fun. She really loves the water. She also got to go into the pool with Grampy for a little while in Kingwood. She just kicked her feet but I can already tell when we're there in July for our annual 4th of July festivities she'll have to have her swimmies on before she leaves the house because when water is around there is NO stopping her. We start her Mommy and Me swim lessons in a few weeks and I know she will love it. Our neighborhood pool opens up next week and Reese's friend Ella, and her Mom, are going to be hitting the pool with us so we're super excited. Pool time is always better with someone to hang out with.
Reese is still in love with her sunglasses...as you can see by the picture below. In fact yesterday she wore them into the store while we were running errands. She ripped them off when we got inside and handed them to me to hold while we shopped. She's such a big girl.
She only has the pacifier in the car and at bedtime...we're getting ready to kick the habit...I'm just not ready yet.

Getting under the table was the easy part. I'm clearly a bad Mom for taking a picture of her when she was stuck. She got out seconds after I snapped the photo

Reese figured out how to get herself dressed. Sometimes she gets things a little backwards...see below

Note the back pockets...they still fit backwards so she didn't care.

She had a BIG learning week. It's so cool to see the things she comes up with these days. Every day when I put her down for her nap she counts to herself before she goes to sleep. She can go from one to eleven but always leaves out 5 and 9. Close enough.

Also she enjoys reading the book "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you See". This week she mastered saying "Panda Panda What do you see" and as you'll see in the video she sings the last part of the "Farmer in the Dell". Not sure why she looks up to wave at the ceiling fan but she says "Hi Ho the Derr-er-O" again so close...

She also knows the tune Happy Birthday when I play it on her little piano book. She saw me playing with it and without me singing along she knew I was playing Happy Birthday. She "plays" the piano now and sings Happy Birthday to anyone she can think of. I think the video it's for Daddy...but yesterday Reese also wanted Chewie to have a Happy Birthday. Enjoy the video