Memorial Weekend 2008

Summer is here! I feel a little behind on my blogging, but the long weekends always mess up my sense of what day it is. So here it is Thursday and I'm just now getting around to blogging. Feels like Wednesday. We had a really fun weekend this past weekend just relaxing. I looked at my calendar and the last totally free weekend that Lee and I had was March 29. We almost went to the lake this weekend, but then we thought about how nice it would be not to have to pack everything up... so we stayed here. As an added bonus, Ellie slept until 7:45 on Sunday morning. 7:45!

Our community pool opened this weekend so we went there once on Saturday afternoon and once on Monday. I'm so glad that we started Ellie in swimming lessons early because she had a lot of fun splashing around with all of the other kids. I think we're going to be at the kiddie pool at least until next year because children have to be potty trained to go in the bigger pool. It's nice to be at the kiddie pool because you get to meet a lot of other moms. I got a little floaty to pull Ellie around in and she really liked that because she got to float around in the "deep end" of the kid pool, which is only two feet deep. The great thing about the pool is that it wears her out. She willingly took three naps on Saturday.

On Sunday, we went to my parents house for a cookout. We spent some of the afternoon outside letting Ellie play in the baby pool my parents had set up, but she liked going down the little slide and swinging on the swing set they have set up in the backyard more. My dad grilled out hamburgers, which Ellie didn't like very much. I think it's because they had that grill taste. She likes chasing my parents dog all around, but lucky for Abbey, she can still run faster than Ellie.

Ellie has had some big changes this week. We got her a new car seat so she's been having a lot of fun sitting up higher and looking all around. She is also switching classrooms this week into a toddler room. In order to advance, a child has to 1) be wearing shoes all day, 2) drink only from a sippy cup, 3) be walking, and 4) be at least a year old. I wish that's all I had to do to advance. She's been doing the first three things since she was 11 months so we just had to wait for her to turn a year. Poor kiddo. Her friends Tanner and Jackson are moving to another room and Simon's mom is going to stay home with him, so Grayson is the only little boy she'll know in her new class. Ellie is really friendly, but I remember how it is to go someplace new and not have any friends. It's a little scary... and it happens your whole life! We also completely did away with her bottles when she turned one. She was only taking one feeding from them in the morning, so I don't think she even noticed when we took them away. But she still has the paci... what to do about that. The doctor told us she has to loose it by 18 months. She uses it mainly at night and during naps now, but it's going to be hard to get her to give it up at bedtime.

After a year, I am finally getting back into the swing of working out. I kept on thinking that somehow it would work out that I would be able to workout after work, but I feel too guilty about leaving Ellie in another daycare situation while I'm off having a great time at a step class. So that only left me with the option of working out on the weekends and the dreaded mornings. I had been going just on weekends - well, mostly just on Saturdays - but one Saturday morning workout a week isn't cutting it. So this week, I started morning workouts. It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Getting up an hour before the crack of dawn is not my idea of fun, but it's my only option. I made the unfortunate mistake of telling my midlife crisis spin instructor my name this morning so he yelled at me for the full hour. "Let's go, Tiffany!", "Tiffany - How are you doing?!!", and "Tiffany, we've been climbing for a 20 minutes! You know what that means?!!". Yes, Rick. It means I'm about to throw my water bottle at you. I don't know if his name was actually Rick, but he looked like a Rick. Not going back to his class.

I'm having Ellie's one year photo taken on Saturday and she has Grace's third birthday party to attend. Such a busy social schedule!

Grace and Ellie

My friend, Leslie, just e-mailed me a picture that she took last weekend at Ellie's party. It's of Leslie's daughter, Grace, and Ellie on the slide together. I have to share it because it's so cute!

Grace will be the birthday girl next weekend when she turns three.

Have a fun and save Memorial Day weekend!

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If you look really closely you can see Sting. Greetings from the Police!

Ellie's First Birthday Bash

I can't believe my sweet little potato is officially a toddler now. They say time flies, and it really does. Next year she'll be TWO? Surely not. Ellie had a fantastic birthday and we were so lucky to have so many special family members and friends there to celebrate with us. We had sour cream chicken enchiladas, beef tacos, and chicken quesadillas from Maria's Catering. If you're looking for someone to cater an event in Dallas, I highly recommend them. Dessert was cupcakes. We had the party outside, so I had three tables set up in our driveway in back with bright pink tablecloths. For someone who is not a party planner, I think that everything came out really great. I haven't figure out if #2 (our yet-to-be-conceived second child we call "Dos") will get an equally as large party because this was a pretty big effort on my party to get it all together and an even bigger effort from Lee to get the yard together. Ellie, please do not expect another fiesta for Birthday #2. You will probably be celebrating in the side room of a McDonalds.

Ellie did really well with the cake and loved it when everyone sang to her and cheered for her. She had a pretty big cupcake as you can see from above and ate about 90% of it. It was impressive. She loved the frosting, but once she got past that, she started shoving handfuls of cake into her mouth. If you watched the video that I uploaded on Sunday, you might have seen that she ended the show by urinating on me. She was quite a mess with pink and purple frosting all over her face and in her hair.

Ellie was so tired by the end of the night that she almost fell asleep during a diaper change. Poor kiddo - too much excitement. Everyone left by about 7:45, but Bonnie and Brett hung out for a while and then Mike and Shanon closed the night down with us out in back with a bottle of wine. At about 10PM, the topic of shot gunning beer came up. I really wanted to see Lee shotgun a beer so I said, "Do you even know how to shotgun a beer?". Doubting my husband's ability to do anything is equivalent to the triple dog dare. Faster than you can say "cheap fraternity stunt", he had poked a hole in the bottom of a can and got 12 ounces down. It's like taking candy from a baby. Works every time.

For my first birthday, my parents gave me a rocking chair and a baby doll. Ellie already has a rocking chair, so we gave her a slide and I kept the baby doll tradition going. I think she was a little underwhelmed at first, but since she's had some more time to play with the baby doll (we've named her Emma), I think she really likes her. She gave her kisses on Sunday and it was so sweet. She likes to poke Emma in the eye but this may have taught her some bad behavior because on Monday, Ms. Rosa had to corral her for the last half of daycare due to the fact that she was poking the real babies in the eye. She really likes her new slide, and I'm glad I had it for the party on Saturday because the few kids that were there really enjoyed it. I have a feeling we're going to be spending a lot of time in the backyard this summer.

On Sunday we unwrapped the rest of Ellie's toys and gifts. I've got some video of that I'll try to share by Friday. I'm not going to say that Ellie needed anything, but she was actually lacking in age-appropriate toys and things to play with. It was starting to look a little like the Yearning for Zion FLDS ranch in her room, so the birthday came at just the right time. She got some really great books, a Dr. Elmo doctor kit, a ton of cute summer dresses, a piggy bank, some little People, and one of my personal favorites was Abby Cadabby. I play with this little doll more than Ellie does.

Ellie had her one year checkup on Monday. She's 20 pounds 10 ounces (50th percentile) and 30.25 inches long (85th percentile). I asked my mom to look up my statistics in my baby book and by comparison, I was 24 pounds 13 ounces and 31 inches long. I'm convinced that she was feeding me a human growth hormone. That's pretty big. I feel good that I was not as big as Ellie's classmate, Pork Chop. She's 11 months and 29 pounds. She's one big kid. Ellie had to get her one year shots, but now it's more traumatic because I have to hold her down and she's old enough to know I'm not helping her. She also had a vision test and a blood draw, which was more traumatic than the shots. The doctor called us today to tell us she's slightly anemic so she's on these vitamins now that look and smell like iodine. I mix it in applesauce and she doesn't know the difference. I can't imagine Ellie with more energy because she's already pretty energetic.

So that was Ellie's big birthday weekend. All of the pictures from the party are posted at our Shutterfly account, so enjoy. I think we're going to use this weekend to fully recover. It's a lot of work turning one!

Our First Video

We had such a GREAT time at Ellie's birthday party and I hope everyone else did too. I'll try to write all about it when I get a free minute this week. My dad helped me figure out how to get video from my video camera onto our computer and now I'm attempting to upload it to my blog.

My first video entry comes from the party on Saturday night when Ellie was eating her birthday cake. Take note of my face around 30 seconds into the video. You may have to watch it more than once. Drum roll, please - I now present to you "Ellie's Birthday Surprise"...

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There is a man outside my office window sitting on a swing. Awkward.

Mother's Day 2008

We started off our Mother's Day weekend with some sad news. Lee's grandmother, Adeline Likes - or Mammy to most, passed away on Friday. She lived in Tyler and was 90. Ellie was lucky enough to be born with three great-grandmothers, and while Ellie never met Mammy, I'm sure she would have enjoyed getting to know her. The picture of Mammy here is from the Tyler Rose Festival in 2002.


I was again not great about taking pictures (mostly because my dad was there to take pictures all weekend) so I'm going to use some from late April that never made it on the blog because I was too busy with Kyle's wedding, the trip to Austin, and Jenny's wedding in Cabo. I spent most of Saturday morning getting ready for Ellie's upcoming birthday party. This thing is taking on a life of its own. We are having it catered... which means I had to rent tables, chairs, linens, and a margarita machine. Lee has spent countless hours on our backyard (this includes tilling the entire backyard to plant new grass) and last night was busy until the wee hours making an "Ellie mix", which is basically a mix tape on his iPod for the party. Then there's the cups, napkins, CAKE, table toppers.... the list goes on. But I am SUPER excited about the party. I am so thankful we have so many friends and family members to celebrate Ellie's first birthday with us. It's going to be great!

We went to a beautiful wedding on Saturday night for a family friend, Catherine. Mom and Dad were able to babysit so I did not have to seek out Number Ten. At the end of the ceremony, a bagpipe player came down the aisle to lead them out. Very cool - I'd never been at a wedding with bagpipes before. Their reception was at the same place our was, the Dallas Petroleum Club. There were a ton of people in the lobby trying to get up to the reception so we were all crammed into the elevators together. As it worked out, we got onto the elevator with the bagpipe player, who was still wearing his bagpipes. I was standing directly in front of the guy with my back to him so when the elevator got quiet, I took the opportunity to ask the bagpipe player if that was his bagpipe or if he was just happy to see me. Ba-dum-ba! Thank you! You guys have been great. I'll be here all week.

Ellie got us up at 5:45 AM on Sunday morning to wish me a Happy Mother's Day. We tried to get her to go back to sleep, but it didn't work. Lee got up with her so I could sleep in a little... which means I slept until 7:20. We went for bagels and then had more fun at church with Ellie. She is totally uninterested in any books or toys that we bring to keep her busy. I really think she sees church as her time to entertain the people in the four surrounding pews by playing peek-a-boo or waving. This Sunday, her game was blowing kisses with a "Mmmuuuuuooooooaaahhhh!". I heard people behind us giggling. It's almost like she'll do anything for the thrill of a cheap laugh. I have no clue where she would learn that type of behavior, but on a hunch, I'm going to keep her away from bagpipe players.

After church, The Brights, Ben, Elizabeth, my parents, and the three of us were back at the Dallas Petroleum Club for lunch. Ellie was really good and sat there at the table with us eating the same food we were eating. Lee even gave her some cheesecake for dessert. I wish she liked vegetables as much as she likes dessert. While we were in the bathroom, Ellie met another little girl, Laura, who was about 10 months old. It was there that I had a really weird exchange with Laura's mother who looked to be in her early 40's.

"Oh look at Laura! She is so excited to see another little girl. Can she play with Ellie?", she asked. I put Ellie on the floor and told her to walk over there, which she did. She and Laura were laughing and just beside themselves. Laura's mother asked me if Ellie had other been around other children, and I told her that Ellie was in day care, so yes. She even has a boyfriend. Several, in fact, but I didn't think it was appropriate to brag since we just met. Then she told me that Laura was really excited because she'd never seen another child. Stop the bus. "Never?" No. "Ever?!!" No. I'm sure my bad poker face had "you're nuts" written all over it.

"You know you're raising a serial killer, right?", is what I wanted to say, but I toned it down and told her that she should enroll Laura in Mother's Day Out or find a play group. For the love of all things holy, find something for the kid. Seriously, if Ellie was stuck at home with me all day without ever seeing another child, she would have packed her tiny suitcase and bolted last week when she figured out how to walk. Poor Laura. She had "my mom is going to breastfeed me until I'm 10" written all over her face. When we walked off, I told Ellie she'd better thank her lucky stars that I don't keep her in a closet like Laura's mom does. I think it's good to scare some gratitude into children every once in a while.


In case you were wondering about the doves on our window ledge, Margo gave birth to twins right before we went to Cabo and when we came back, they were gone. I think she had actually given birth to them long before we actually saw them because after a while, we noticed she was sitting on them. We named the doves Walker and Texas Ranger. If they were sissy birds we would have named them Dr. Quinn and Medicine Woman.

The Crawl/Adventures in Babysitting

About 4 hours after I penned my last blog, I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst itching I've ever had. It was awful because my jellyfish stings had gone all hivey and they were spreading. The worst was that I had three stings on my chin so it looked like I had some weird lip herp. At 2AM, Lee told me to rub vinegar on my stings (this is what you're supposed to do when you're stung... not 6 days later). But I was desperate so I did. I didn't have any white vinegar so I used apple cider and wound up smelling like a rotten apple. For the record, it doesn't take the sting out 6 days later. Ice made it better. The doctor took me first thing in the morning and gave me Zyrtec and some steroids, which she warned me would give me extra energy. And they did because at Fancy's step class on Saturday morning I was using three risers and yelling things like "turn up the music!" while I made up additional "special" dance moves. For those of you wondering, the Dreamcatchers are still there, however I haven't seen them dress alike in a few months. But they do have a new cheer they yell when they like something. I can't make this stuff up.

The Crawl for Cancer was this weekend, and we almost didn't get to go because on Wednesday morning my babysitter dislocated her knee and didn't think she could watch Ellie while on crutches. This sent me into a babysitter tailspin. I called nine people and by Friday night at 7PM had heard "no" from all but one. All of my eggs were in Number Nine's basket. She was the co-worker of my co-worker's friend, but since I was all out of babysitting options, that practically made her family.

This poor girl probably thought I was nuts because I had e-mailed, voice mailed and then texted her. Number Nine finally called me while Elizabeth and I were on our way to Chelsea Handler's book signing for Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. "Hi Tiffany - it's Number Nine. I'm so sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. I was traveling for work and then last night I was at the Kayne West concert." We talked for a bit about Ellie, where we lived, when I needed her, etc. At the end of the conversation, she asked me I wanted to know anything about her. Oh God - I should be asking her some really tricky babysitting interview question. Ask her if she knows the number for 911 - no, that's a gimme... ask her if she's ever been convicted of a felony - no, that's weird... "Uh... so you've babysit before, right?". She replied a confident "Yes". Yes! "Well, Number Nine, I think this is going to work out great. We'll see you tomorrow at 12:30."

Nine showed up right on time, and she was actually a really sweet girl, about 26, UT graduate, lots of experience with kids, and most importantly she and Ellie hit it off. Ellie was eating when she got there, so when she was finished, I took her back to her room to change her diaper and show Nine where everything was. I asked Lee to clean her high chair tray. About two minutes later in the middle of my instructions, Lee came into Ellie's room, showed me and Nine a spotless tray and said, "Look at how clean I got Ellie's tray!". This is odd. "That looks great, honey. Thank you". Then Lee blurted out, "I just gave it to the dogs and they licked it that clean". No. You. Didn't. But I knew he probably had. I tried to ignored him and continued my nursery tour. Thankfully, Nine did not run from the house screaming.

We made it to the pub crawl right on time and had a lot of fun. Team "Nun too Drunk" (Catholic school reference - my idea, but was a little slanderous so I didn't think Katy would honestly sign us up as that) consisted of me and Lee, Katy and Joe, Veronica and Chris, Sandy and Jason, and Kennemer. Maunder bailed on us so there was just nine on our team. The event was held on lower Greenville and it was pretty big - there were 250 teams with 10-12 on each team. Every team got to pick their shirt color, and we were in gray tees. From what I understand, the event sold out in only two days, so if you missed out, register early next year. The idea was to go to 5 bars in 5 hours, but we only made it to 4. Lee and I are lightweights. We made it home around 6PM, and Ellie and Nine were playing. I will definitely use her again (if she will come back).

Every day, Ellie gets more skilled at walking. This means that she wants to practice all the time including while we're at church. This Sunday was by far the most challenging day we've had at church so far. We really can't let her crawl/walk all over the place, but holding her angers her inner beast. Lee and I took turns taking her to the back of the church so she wouldn't squeal. It was a full time job trying to wrangle her. Her other favorite thing to do now is slam doors, cabinets, drawers, etc. She hasn't gotten a finger caught yet, but that day is coming, I'm sure.

Later that day, we all went to Cooper's first birthday party at The Little Gym. You would think that with the word "gym" in the title, I would have gotten out of the little black dress I wore to church, but I didn't so I was Stephanie's inappropriately dressed friend in the low-cut black dress who was still crawling around on the floor. And I had no tissue paper for Cooper's gift so he got the tissue that the dry cleaners had shoved into the sleeves of one of my shirts. Class act.

Ellie had such a good time at the party. At first, she sat there taking in the rainbow-colored walls, padded floors, and jumping children, but after 2-3 minutes, she was up walking around and trying to climb on everything. The thing she liked the best was the parachute. Loved it and was hysterically laughing the whole time they had it out. They also had this thing that was like a bounce house minus the top. There were about eight to ten 2-4 year olds there running and jumping on top of it so I thought Ellie would be scared, but she wasn't. She wanted to walk and jump on it just like everyone else. I was trying to keep her close to me so she wouldn't get creamed, but little Miss Independent would have none of it. In between activities, they would play music while the kids ran around and Ellie would shake her little butt to the beat of the music. She even sat in a little chair at the table with the other kids and had cake. Halfway through the snacks, she took her plate and dumped everything on the table. We haven't worked on manners yet.

We had my parents over on Sunday night to thank them for keeping Ellie last weekend and to celebrate my dad's promotion. I grilled a steak and some chicken kabobs and made a salad and mom brought an appetizer and pie for dessert. Ellie was pretty worn out by the end of her big weekend. We were too. I think between party planning for Ellie's birthday, buying gifts, Mother's Day, and the wedding on Saturday night, next weekend will be more of the same. By the way - we still need a sitter for Saturday night... Number Ten, are you out there?

Jenny's Cabo Wedding

I don't know how coherent this blog is going to be because I'm all hopped up on Benadryl right now for the jellyfish stings, but I'll give it a shot.

I think the saddest thing about going on vacation is waiting and waiting and waiting for the vacation to get here and then it's over in an instant. Last Thursday, we left for four days and three nights of fun to celebrate Jenny and Brant's wedding. I took a ton of pictures and now I just have to organize them. I had never been to Cabo before, and I was not disappointed. It is so nice there and I would recommend it to anyone considering a beach vacation. It's not tropical and humid like so many other Mexican cities - it's very arid so most of the area is covered with desert-type plants except in the resorts where there is a lot of landscaping. We stayed at the Sheraton Hacienda Del Mar and really enjoyed it.

Bonnie and Brett were on our flight and sat in our same row on the airplane. As soon as we got there, we put on our swim suits and were out by the pool with margaritas in hand by 2PM. If only I could be out by the pool every day with drink in hand. Ruben, Meg, Tim, and Chrissy arrived a little later and we got ourselves ready for the shuttle to take us to the welcome party at a beachfront restaurant called Sunset da Mona Lisa. We had cocktails, hand-rolled cigars, pasta and took pictures during sunset. Following that, we all decided to go to a bar in downtown called "Squid Row" where the music was seriously bad. It was in the "what Mexicans think drunk American tourists like to line dance to" genre. They seriously played "Baby Likes to Rock It" but the Tractors. I think I insulted the DJ because he told me to stay out of his booth. We decided to pack it up and headed to Cabo Wabo, which is Sammy Hagar's bar, but left shorty after we got there because it was totally seedy and Bonnie needed to go home. Coincidentally, Bonnie was #1 that night.

We got up on Friday morning and decided to make it our day by the ocean and the pool. Ruben and Meg tipped us off that there was a giant squid on the beach so Lee and I had to find it and of course Lee had to poke it. The eyeball on the thing was the size of a golf ball. So gross. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was about 2-3 feet long. We walked down to a rocky part of the beach and there were crabs all over the place. I like to eat crabs, but they're a little freaky live. They look like cockroaches that can move sideways. We had a great time relaxing and even played a little sand volleyball.

Saturday night was the rehearsal dinner at Cabo del Sol Golf Club. We had cocktails on the patio followed by dinner and the toasts. There were a lot of speeches. Since we were going snorkeling the next day, we called it a night after dinner because we had to in downtown by 7:45 to catch our boat at the marina.

The whole marina area really surprised me because there is high-end shopping there. It's all new and very nice. Total 180 from the Bahamas, if you've ever been there. We had a private sailboat take the eight of us out to snorkel. Occasionally, I will have motion sickness on a boat, and I did on our little boat, but I never ralphed. After 2 hours of almost loosing my breakfast, we got in the water to snorkel. We had only been in a few minutes when Meg started screaming that something was biting her. I looked under the water and there was nothing around her. Totally confused by her freak out, I continued to swim, but then it started to happen to me too. I looked in the water again to see nothing, but eventually figure out that there were all of these floating worm-like things in the water. Jellyfish (or water fleas as our tour guides called them). It felt like fire ants biting. Instead of just swimming through them, I grabbed my arms and legs and started rubbing them thus rubbing more flesh-eating acid into my skin. Five days later, I am STILL all red and bumpy so I may go to the doctor tomorrow. Afterwards, we shopped with Meg and Ruben and then grabbed a bite to eat before heading back to the hotel.

Jenny got married on the beach at the One and Only Palmilla. This place really was the one and only. It so fancy that when staff walked by you, they placed their hand on their heart and bowed. Seriously. I mean one or the other would have been sufficient. I'm going to start making Lee do that. Jenny and Brant were married outside overlooking the ocean and then we had drinks and appetizers adjacent to the ceremony site after the wedding while the wedding party was taking photos. Her reception was a seated dinner and then there was a dancing with a band inside an adjacent building. Everything was so gorgeous and there were so many flowers. The whole weekend was absolutely perfect and I'm so glad we were able to attend. I think destination weddings are the way to go!

My parents were nice enough to watch Ellie while we were gone. We were so glad to see her when we returned. I missed her a lot, but I think Lee really missed her. Daddy's girl. She was taking 2-3 steps at a time before we left and now she's walking about 20 feet at a time. I'm going to try to get a video of it this weekend and post it.

Congratulations and best wishes to Jenny and Brant!