Le-mon!

I just saw these pictures for the first time. Andrea found them on my mom's camera and sent them to me. They are from November-- my mom had given Jack a lemon wedge from her tea, and even though he seemed shocked by the taste, he contintued to eat the lemon wedge, and then ate another one. I am mainly posting these so you can see the last photo. I think you'll like it.

Show?

Jack is obsessed with this.

"Have I possibly gone daffy?"

Really, nothing says "Happy Cinco de Mayo" like a foot of snow.

Dude, where's YOUR car?

When I took Jack to the park on Wednesday, I came across an interesting group of people. There was a rather large lady (maybe late 30's), a guy and a girl (both about 22 or so-- the guy: not wearing a shirt), a younger guy (around 18), a little girl (around 4) and a little boy (possibly Jack's age.) At this particular park, there are only two picnic tables under the small pavilion. The three older people were sitting at one picnic table. I was going to set my bag on the other picnic table, but the younger guy was laying down on one of the benches. (Here's a picture of the park for reference, but those aren't the crazy people. That's Aubrey, Jack and Andrea):



So, I just held onto my bag and walked with Jack around the play area. No matter how much I watched this group of people, I could never figure out who the parent(s) were or how they were all related. They would all randomly shout out things like "so and so, get your butt over here" or "so and so, get that out of your mouth!" Anyhow, after I had been there for about 5 minutes, the larger lady, noticing my baby girth, said "when are you due?" I said "June." Then she said,"Do you have a car?"

(If you're thinking "I wasn't expecting her to say that", then we are right on track with one another.)

"Um, yes."

"Do you think that maybe you could take my son (possibly the guy loafing on the bench) to the mall, pick up his friend and bring them both back here?"

I was so shocked at such an inappropriate request, that I just stood there for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to respond.

"Well, I just got here and I was going to let my son play for a bit."

"Well, I didn't mean right now. Just whenever you get ready to go."

Now I'm thinking to myself "there is no way I'm going to take some random guy to pick up some other random guy-- and I'm especially not going to do it with my son and my unborn child in the car."

She then said "I would do it, but I have to wait here for my boyfriend."

(?!)

I didn't really say anything else, she just kind of started talking loudly to (her daughter?) the 20 something girl next to her. (She talked loudly the WHOLE time we were there and a lot of times she was swearing about something.) The rest of the time, I felt really awkward because I knew I would have to say something to them when I left-- and what would I even say?

Meanwhile, Jack was having lots of fun around the play area-- and I would have enjoyed it a lot too, but I just felt so uncomfortable around these people (we were the only people in the park, and it's really small.) Fortunately, Jack started showing interest in the green outside the play area, so we spent a lot of time looking at the trees (when jack sees a tree he says "tee!") and at one point Jack had a pretty good time chasing a squirrel all over the park.

Eventually, Jack wandered back to the play area. Then the shirtless guy came over to the play area, sat on the jungle gym, and started SMOKING. They were all smoking the whole time I was there, but at least they had been smoking under the pavilion. So I'm feeling pretty annoyed and I'm ready to leave. Just then, some guy (late 30's) shows up, so I'm feeling better about leaving-- thinking that maybe he is the older lady's boyfriend. Jack started showing signs of being tired, so I picked him up and started heading for the car. I walked by them and said "well, I really need to take my son home so he can take a nap. Did y'all figure something out?" The older lady said "Yeah, see this guy? The guy that showed up in the suburban? He's my boyfriend, the guy I was waiting for, so we're going to go to the mall together." Uh, ok.

So, I said "y'all take care" and started walking towards the car. Just then the 20 something girl came up to me (closely followed by the shirtless guy) and said "do you have any baby clothes?" I said "yes." She said "oh, well, I have to get all of my stuff out of my brother's garage soon, and I thought maybe you could take my baby clothes off my hands."

"No thanks. I'm all set."

This concludes the story of my strange park encounter.


Something else that is strange-- I just looked at Weather.com to see what the weather is going to be like this weekend: winter storm watch*. Oh, brother.


*Changed from "winter storm watch" to "snow advisory"

"You were half, now you're whole."

Jeremy returned on Friday from his three week absence. He was in Duncan Oklahoma, and it was no fun! I'm only just now posting this because I'm so used to people seeing my pictures on Flickr, that I rarely think to put them on here. Anyhow, it was so great when Jack saw Jeremy at the airport. I put Jack down on the ground and he started running towards Jeremy whilst laughing and smiling. I'm thinking Jeremy probably didn't mind that welcome.

Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that.

Oh, brother.

This commercial for Kissimmee came on TV the other day, and Jack started cracking up. I was filming Jack watching the commercial today and Aubrey decided that she also thought it was funny...

and cuteness abounds.

Water, water... where?

Is there a bird that looks like a seagull, sounds like a seagull, but isn't a seagull? If not, there are some very sad and confused seagulls in Casper. It's really depressing on two fronts-- one, you hear these seagulls and it reminds you of the beach, but you realize "oh, I'm in Wyoming"; second, these poor birds! They just fly around parking lots, probably wondering "where the heck is all the water?" Maybe I'll go out there with some fish and a kiddy pool. Now that's a good way to get killed.

We are not amused!

(Ok, we are completely amused.)

Jack is now tall enough to reach things that are on the kitchen counter and he can even more easily reach things from our kitchen table. Like last night... when he picked up my cup of COLD water... and carried it all the way over to where I was laying on the couch... and poured it on me.

He did it so quickly that I couldn't stop him. I only had time to realize "whoa, he's got my cup" before he lovingly tried to give me a drink. It's actually quite impressive that he picked up the cup from the table, and walked that far without even spilling it. After I recovered from gasping, I joined Jeremy in cracking up. We always try not to laugh when Jack does something "wrong" (because sometimes it's pretty funny) but, hey-- we're only human.

"Lousy Smarch weather."

(And yes, I know that is the subject title for Jeremy's most recent blog, but I said that line when I was on the phone with him earlier and he stole it from me, so I'm stealing it back.)

Really Jeremy's blog just made this blog a lot less significant, but I have pictures! Pictures of the snow! Ha-ha! Beat that!

Anyhow, I'll keep going with my blog in case you haven't read Jeremy's yet. He's snowed in. I'm snowed in. We're all snowed in, but, sadly, in different towns. Jeremy drove to Gillette for a job yesterday morning and was supposed to be back last night. Now it looks like the earliest he will be home is tomorrow night.

Am I missing something? Isn't winter over? "It's still just once a year, isn't it?" I mean, two days ago I was running around the park with Jack-- 65 degree weather, wearing short sleeves, and now I can't even leave my parking lot.

Earlier it was snowing so hard I was reminded of that part in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer-- when the big blizzard hits-- and the makers of the movie, instead of taking time to make the snowfall look real, they very lazily just dumped a big bucket of fake snow on one of the houses (some of you will know what I'm talking about.) Well, it turns out that isn't just a bad effect! Sometimes God does that to little towns in Wyoming.

I know the craziness of this weather change isn't lost on any of you in Texas. I just looked at the weather for Tyler: 77 degrees. Casper: 23 degrees (wind chill: 7 degrees).

So just remember us when your enjoying your wonderfully sunny weather.

Jerks.




(You should open the larger version of that picture to see the extra large snow flakes.)

PopPop!

Johnnie and Tammy came to visit us this past weekend, and Jack learned to say "PopPop" (which is what we have been calling Johnnie for Jack since Jack was born.) I guess he decided it was pretty fun to say (can you blame him?) because it was his most said word while they were here (hmmm... actually, that may be a toss up with "light!") Every time Jeremy walks through the door, Jack will say "dada!", but once he walked through the front door with Johnnie, Jack, instead, said "PopPop!" Jeremy looked a little dejected.

When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top...

I haven't blogged in a while. Part of that reason is that Blogger's "spam-prevention robots" detected that my blog has "characteristics of a spam blog"... whatever that means. So they shut down my blog temporarily, or made it where I couldn't post new blogs. I had to send some kind of request to blogger so that I could resume blogging. Anyhow, that is clearly resolved, so I thought I'd kick things back up with a video of Jack. Shocking, I know.

Recently, the weather here in Casper has almost started being nice. It would actually be perfect (50-60 degrees,) but it is still very windy. Oh well--we'll definitely take what we can get. Since the recent weather change, we've been going to the park, and Jack has discovered the big purple spiral slide... and he likes it. This video is a full documentary of one of Jack's ventures up the jungle gym. (Unfortunately, because of the wind, you cannot hear Jack's precious laugh when I meet him at the bottom of the slide.)



Here are a couple more slide pictures that I particularly liked.

I don't have a coupon for this...

After being in the grocery store for about two minutes, Jack decided he was tired, about two hours before his usual nap-time. He started nodding off while sitting in the shopping cart. I picked him up and within a minute he was passed out, so I just laid him in the basket. I saw a lady in Wal-Mart the other day who had done that with her baby. I thought "man, if she can do it, so can I." And it was pretty sweet. He looked so cozy all bundled up in his coat, which has some pretty nice, soft lining in it (just in case you were thinking, "man, he looks uncomfortable.")

It's fun to spin!

(Don't mind the cow mooing in the second video.)

"We'll have conversations worth having..."

I can't believe I've neglected to blog about this, but... we found out we're having a little girl! Big news to everyone, I'm sure. Anyhow, I'm very excited about this, for SO many reasons. A large one being that I was a bit afraid of having all boys. I'm also really looking forward to dressing a little girl. There's also the aspect of a mother-daughter relationship, yada yada yada. But lets just get to the main point here....

PIGTAILS!!!

Anyhow, her due date is June 17, which is, coincidentally, the day before my birthday. You can also expect her newest cousin from the Allen family around the same time. I think Charlotte's due date is about a week before mine, so our kids could actually be born on the same day. One of my favorite stories of all time will be that we found out that Drew and Charlotte were pregnant in the same conversation that they found out we are pregnant. That's gotta be pretty rare.



Jack and I discovered a bunny here in our condo parking lot the other day. With much glee, Jack chased the bunny all around the parking lot until he could no longer see him. I'm very grateful for the weather change (it got into the high 40's yesterday,) because it means that the snow and ice is melting, which means Jack can run around outside... and chase bunnies.

Take that!

Jack doesn't like my camera.

Stack 'em up, Jack.

I'd like to buy a D, Pat.

I'm not ashamed to admit that Jeremy and I watch Wheel of Fortune... a lot. Jack has come to be quite the little fan himself. He loves to clap when he sees the contestants clapping. It used to be that everytime Jack would hear people guessing letters, he would shout out random sounds. Now he always says "D!"

I should have a video of this, but I don't. You'll just have to take my word that it's pretty stinkin' cute.

A full-blown case of the crazies.

I just spent 30 minutes looking for a sippy cup that I had just put in the dishwasher five minutes before I started looking for it.

Jack has a bad tendency of putting his sippy cups in random places: laundry baskets, cabinets, partially unpacked boxes. And the sly litte fellow only seems to hide his sippy cups when they have milk in them. This makes for a particularly unpleasant find. So this time I was determined to find it before the milk went bad, and I guess I did-- 40 minutes ago.

Fortunately, my pregnancy craziness hasn't caused me to do anything that would harm Jack in any way. There was the time when it was really cold outside ("it's cold out there everyday. What is this, Miami Beach? Not hardly") and I put him in his carseat really quickly-- when I got in the driver's seat, I looked back at him and realized I hadn't buckled him in to his carseat. It is fortunate that I am a fairly protective mother, because I do look back at him quite frequently, and in this case, I hadn't even left the parking lot yet.

I hope I'm not startling you. I promise to keep him safe, you can count on me.

Speaking of which, I should probably go see what he's doing right now. Oh, right. He's taking a nap.

A cute infestation

Jeremy doesn't yet have his company car, so sometimes I take him to work. When I do, I get really happy, because upon arrival, I often times see several bunnies-- just sitting on the grass in front of the office.

BUNNIES!!!

One of Jeremy's co-workers told him that the bunnies reside under one of the buildings on the Halliburton lot. Well, tonight I got a picture of one of the Hallibunnies.

Too...tired. Can't...swallow...yogurt.....

It used to be pretty obvious when Jack needed to take a nap. He would always rub his eyes and start acting cranky. Now he is so freakin' active that he doesn't even slow down enough to feel tired. The other day, he missed his morning nap, and started falling asleep during his lunch. It makes me feel bad because he doesn't act tired until after he's been sitting still for about 5 or 10 minutes. Well, he started falling asleep again two nights ago during dinner, so I thought we should catch it on video. It makes me sad because it just seems so pathetic, but at the same time, it's pretty cute.

(And no, we didn't drug Jack for this video.)



As soon as we finished recording this video, I got him ready for bed, and of course by the time I had his pajamas on, he was wide awake, running all over the place...

Priorities

Before we unpacked any boxes, even before our bed was put together, we had to put up our tree. It has certainly helped. Having an unorganized condo with lots of boxes, it's nice to be able to look at the tree and listen to some Christmas music and actually be able to enjoy the season a little bit. It shocks me that Christmas is only a week away. I feel like I've been robbed of this Christmas season so far. We haven't been able to really get in the spirit, I don't think, anyway.

It's cold here. That seems like it would make it seem more Chritmasy, but it really doesn't to me. I don't really associate cold weather and snow with Christmas. I associate 50 degree rainy weather with Christmas. Anyhow, Jeremy got back last night with the rest of our stuff and he left everything in the U-Haul overnight, and today, when he got it all out, we found that many things were frozen. Jack's diaper wipes, and all of the almost empty bottles of beverage he consumed on the road.




And I had to include this picture. Jack found my Disneyland cap in one of our boxes and he enjoys putting it on and taking it off because it's much easier to do than with his dad's hats.

My, how you have grown.

October, 2005



December, 2006

Pork chops...

Jack successfully ate with a spoon by himself today. Well, I say "successfuly." He certainly doesn't understand the concept of scooping up the food-- most of the time, him getting food on his spoon was just luck-- but I was able to put the bowl in front of him and he pretty much ate the whole bowl of applesauce by himself. I would post a video, but, being in the midst of moving, I do not know where my camera is. That also prevents me from posting high quality pictures, but I took these with my trusty camera phone.












Ok, gotta get back to unpacking.

(Boxes unpacked: 7)

Beep-beep!

Jack decided that he wanted to see what it was like to be sick. Pretty good timing, I'd say, since we're moving on Friday. He's been having the works... runny nose, fever, vomiting, diarrhea. Pretty fun! It's certainly been a couple of sad days. I'm not a fan of that little boy being sick. Well, I guess that's pretty obvious.

Anyhow, I'm not just blogging to tell you about Jack's sick issues... I'm mainly blogging because I have two things to show you.

A picture of the feverish little boy after he fell asleep on my chest,



And a video of Jack saying one of his favorite new words.

Would you eat your hair if it smelled like strawberries?

Jeremy and I are going to move to Casper, Wyoming sometime mid-December, so right now we are in Casper for 10 days (well, 8 now, since we've been here for a couple of days already) looking for a place to live.

Let me rephrase...

Jack and I are in Casper. We all got here, Sunday, and when Jeremy went to work on Monday, his boss told him that he and the other new guy were leaving that afternoon to go on a job... for two nights. I've been hit with a few harsh realities this week, and one of them is that Jeremy's job is going to be like this. Unpredictable and sometimes long trips away from home. I know 2 days isn't a long trip, but I just wasn't prepared for it.

Today Jack and I went to the local Applebees here in Casper. As I was eating, a waitress was walking by me with some sort of strawberry drink, and right then, my waitress bumped into her, which resulted in her spilling the drink all in my hair and down my back. The waitress that spilled the drink made a sound of horror, while I was trying to decide if I should be embarrassed or not (which I decided against.) So the waitresses ran to fetch napkins and such to clean up the mess. Meanwhile, the slew of other diners were looking at me commenting on the mess (while one man actually complained about the little bit on his shoe.) A Christmas-sweater-clad lady seated behind me said "Ma'am... some of the drink got in your hair." It was hard not to be rude (especially since she was so sweet), as I would have to be comatose not to realize a drink had been poured on my head. I just kind of smiled and said "yes, I can feel that." Hmmm. That was kind of rude now that I think of it, but maybe she was understanding, considering the circumstances. Her husband was very kind to me. He got a napkin and started wiping off the back of my hair/jacket. "Well," he said, "I got all the chunks off your back."

I really wasn't upset at all. I actually felt kind of bad for the girl because she seemed to feel so bad. My waitress was pretty apologetic, which I really thought would lead to them compensating me in some way. The manager came up to me, and I was sure she was going to say "we're so sorry... your meal is on the house." But all she said was "if you have any trouble getting that out of your clothes, feel free to send us the cleaning bill."

So, I finish my meal, and my waitress brings the check and says "I'll take care of this when you're ready." The only thing she took off was a couple of dollars from Jack's sandwhich. (I don't know why. HE'S not the one that got a drink spilled on him.) I'm a little surprised by this, and I'm wondering now if it's because maybe things are different in Texas. People actually care about their customers being happy and coming back to their restaurants. I don't know if that is the reason. Anyhow, to add insult to injury, my waitresses didn't refill my drink the whole time I was there. She brought me my check before I was even close to done eating and she didn't even realize my empty glass then. I eventually had to ask her for a refill. Then she took my credit card but forgot she had it. She kept walking by me like she was waiting for me to pay my bill. Finally I said "don't you have my card?" She said "Oh yeah!" Is it rude that I did not give her a tip? I really couldn't even bring myself to do it. I have never not left a tip, but I made an exeption.

Here's a tip. Serve your customers!

Also... don't spill drinks on their heads.

When I was 17, I drove a very good car.

Ugh. I can't believe we have to sell the Prelude. I don't want some random dude driving it! It's MY car. Oh man. Selling this car is a very difficult thing for me to do. Since I was 17 years old (dang, I had actually just turned 18, I just really wanted to use that lyric for the title), this car has been nothing but dependable. I've never had any problems with it. Even after countless trips between Bartlesville, OK and Texas, and many notable roadtrips (Wisconsin, a month long trip to the East Coast, California, etc.) The ol' Lude is now up to 136,050 miles on the odometer.

Anyhow, it's been such a good car, and carries seven years of many memories and stories, that I couldn't NOT blog about it.

I'm gonna miss you, Lude.

"I lost mine..."

Jack just started this new hand gesture. I don't know where it came from, but I like it!

He's the master of fright...

I certainly hadn't planned on dressing Jack up for Halloween, but my friend invited us over so all of our kids could dress up, so I thought "what the hey." (Actually, I was more like... SWEEET!!! An excuse to dress up Jack!!)

Viva Eckstein!

My little friend is the World Series MVP! Oo-da-lolly.



Oh, how I love him. So little, so enthusiastic.

(I'm such a sucker for little fellas.)

So graceful...

Well, I'm pregnant again-- and so returns the evil clumsiness monster.




I think maybe I need to get a helmet for Jack, since he's often hanging around me. I guess a better idea would be to not handle breakable objects when he's near.

Oh, dear.

What is this, Miami Beach?

Well, I'm a little late posting this, but the first snowfall here in Brighton happened on Tuesday. It melted pretty quickly, but it was really pretty while it lasted. Now it's back in the 40's. Ugh. So warm.




The best thing about cold weather: Getting to put hats like this on Jack...