Little Pumpkin

First of all, we are SO EXCITED for the Erwins because they found out they are expecting a GIRL in February!! I have been sending girl vibes to Knoxville since I found out Nicole was pregnant, so it must have worked. Now Ellie has someone to go to Camp Marymount with. If Ellie goes, she will be the third generation Marymounter. My mom went one summer and never went back (Mom loves not camping), and I went for four summers with Nicole. But who knows - Ellie will probably want to go someplace in Texas with her school friends. When we die, Lee and I want to be cremated and Lee says he wants his ashes scattered on the 50 yard line of Neyland Stadium. I have no clue where I'd like to be scattered so I usually default to saying just dump me in the lake at Marymount. I'm afraid that if they did that, I'd become one of the scary stories they tell the campers like "Enoch and Erma" or "Cheryl". According to camp legend, Cheryl was the crazy girl who used work in the kitchen and started digging up dead bodies to use for meat in the spaghetti sauce. She now lives in the cave by the spring. If they dumped my ashes in the lake, they'd probably tell the campers if you chant my name three times and look in the lake at midnight, you can still see my face. And nobody wants to be remembered by a story like that.

I'm going to have to squeeze two weekends into one blog. We had a fantastic football weekend last weekend because all four of the football teams we were rooting for won: Texas A&M, Tennessee, the Cowboys, and the team playing Texas. This weekend we went 1-3 because only Tennessee won. I felt really old for the first time last weekend. It was the annual Texas-OU game at the Cotton Bowl. We've never gone to the game, but every year the Friday night before the game, we go to a party hosted by a club that Lee belongs to. When I got the invitation this year, I was shocked to see that the party that the party started at 9pm. Are you kidding me? I'm usually on my way to the Land of Nod by that time. Then I remembered that it's been at 9pm every year we've gone and I realized I just can't hang anymore. So sad.

During all of the football madness, Lee decided that Ellie needed a Jack in the Box so he went to pick her up one at a local toy store. While he was there, he thought that she needed a two-foot tall Cookie Monster too. He was so excited about giving her Cookie Monster, but when he pulled it out of the sack, this was the scene that unfolded:

If you can't tell, Ellie is not a Cookie Monster fan. Every time we showed it to her, she started crying. We took it back the next day and got her a much smaller Elmo doll. She loves it. I think I'm going to have to find a Tickle Me Elmo for Christmas.

On Friday night, Lee and I went to the Dallas Stars game. We got to view the game from a suite because one of the labs we use at work invited me. Job perk. My mom spent the night that night to take care of Ellie. The next day, Ellie, mom and I went to a market the mother's association was putting on at our church. Both of us proceeded to buy way too much stuff. Mostly for Ellie, of course.

On Sunday, we did what every parent with a small child does at Halloween - dressed her up and took her to a pumpkin patch. After church, we went to the Dallas Arboretum for a photo op. Right in the middle of church, I realized we didn't have Ellie's stroller because we had taken Lee's car instead of mine. We had Ellie's Bumbo so we could sit her up for pictures, so we rented a wagon and put the Bumbo in it so she could look around. She loved it. We took her Halloween costume so she could take pictures in it, but I'm not going to put those up on the blog yet. I have to keep some things under wraps. Check back on October 31 for her costume debut!

Now that Ellie is well from the stomach flu, I think she's getting sick again with chest congestion. I can hear her in bed coughing now. It's the same thing I'm just now getting over. Uuuggghhh. Poor kiddo. I get everything she gets at daycare and she gets everything I get.

Last but not least - Happy Anniversary to my parents. Thirty-five big ones today!