Sunday, February 24, 2008

Time with my Grandparents (from Cooper)

As you may already know, I lead a pretty busy life. Its nice to just have a day visiting with the grandparents every once in a while. A couple of weeks ago my Saturday started with Grandpa Charles coming over. He's my Daddy's Dad. Mom started taking pictures the second he walked in the door.
After awhile, Daddy and Grandpa (he loves to hear this word) had a "tea party," apparently we Gardner's do it differently than most. I'll have to remember for future reference that we use iced tea in plastic cups and break out the sausage and cheese from Daddy's Christmas gift set, which Mommy said was the most disgusting thing she's ever eaten, but Dad and G'pa ate it up! I sat at their feet like Shiner does sometimes, hoping for a dropped nibble, but nothing.
Later in the evening, we took a trip to see Grandma (Mommy's Mom)! She just sits there and looks at me and talks about how funny I am, but as you can see from the picture below...she's the funny one! Mommy bought her a nativity scene for her Christmas decoration (note that decoration is singular)and it plays music and lights up. Someday I'll understand what this all means, but for now I understand that Grandma is lots of fun and a great cuddler too!


This was a little later after the fun had died down...these adults seem to enjoy sitting on these elevated pillows quite a lot! I've noticed that all of my grandparents and Mommy and Daddy love these things! Something else for me to ponder.... My other grandparents live far away so I don't get to see them as much, but I know that they really love me and miss me. Here's my visit to see Grandma (Daddy's Mom) on New Years:

She had lots of presents for me to open, and then put the bows on my head. It was so funny!


Here's when I went to see Grandpa (Mommy's Dad) for Thanksgiving. Can you believe how young I look? Grandpa has a neat log cabin house and Mommy says he has mini elephants living in his beard. I can't wait to get bigger so I can search for them.


I really just wanted everyone to know that my Grandparents are the best and I love them so much!

P.S. I know some of you Grandparents have trouble deciphering this technology stuff, but its easy to leave me a comment. I'd love to hear from you!





G"old" friends

Any of you who were Brownies or Girl Scouts should remember the song:

Make new friends, but keep the old.

One is silver, and the other's gold.
I'm not really sure why this is really one of the only things that stuck with me from my short service as a Brownie, but it resonates in my head every once in a while.
I have two Gold friends that have made such an impact in my life, I had to blog about it.


First, there's Tressa. From those first days in the first grade with our unintentionally matching hot pink dresses covered in brightly colored geometric shapes and our deep conversations about Bon Jovi and how we were both such big fans, to today with our children and our less glamorous, yet more fulfilling lives, we were meant to be friends. God made this obvious by putting us in eachother's paths repeatedly. We first met in Central Arlington where we went to Key Elementary together, Tressa and her family moved away a few years later. Another few years later, my family moved to a neighborhood in South Arlington where it just so happened my old buddy Tressa had moved to a few years earlier. We were inseperable after that.


Similar story with Annie. In the 9th grade I moved to San Antonio to live with my Dad for a while. There was this girl I kept seeing in choir, PE, and at another anonymous event outside of school. We finally started talking and I invited her to stay the night at my house so we could ride together to sing with our choir on the Riverwalk for Christmas! My 1.5 years in S.A. were pretty much spent with Annie, we too were inseperable after that. When I moved back home, I went back and visited a few times but sort of figured we'd drift apart and eventually lose touch. Not so! To my happy surprise, Annie moved to the metroplex to go to college and now I have her here near me!


As we've all grown, we haven't always been in the same stages of life as eachother and our correspondence has sometimes lacked. This just happens.
In the past few years, our lives have all become similar again and I feel as close to them as ever-even though we hardly see eachother. We don't have to. It doesn't matter how long its been, its always so comfortable like no time has passed at all. These girls are my sure things-as cliche as it sounds, they really are family to me. To make it even better, they like eachother a lot too, which I love.


What I really wanted to relay in writing this blog is what amazing women they've both become...and I've been lucky enough to witness this (not that they weren't equally wonderful young women). Since having a child, I often find myself asking "What would Tressa/Annie do?" Maybe I should have WWT/AD? bracelets made for myself. :) They are both such strong, spiritual, creative, caring, loving, intelligent, and capable women. I often find myself in awe of them and all that they are able to accomplish and have accomplished with such peace and grace. Seriously, I'm blessed to have shared the majority of my life with two such beautiful people.
I love you guys!!!!

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

7 Weird Things about me

Okay, so I got tagged by my lifelong best friend Tressa, to post seven weird things about me. Seeing as I'm a generally weird person, this shouldn't be too hard.

1. If I have the time, I like to compare the words in my sentences to see if there is an even number of letters throughout it.

2. If I see a hawk-I know it will be a good day.

3. I have a serious obsession with lists...and turning those lists into spreadsheets and somehow making the data quantifiable so that I can keep track of it. This is something I'm working on.

4. I am so in love with my son, that it actually physically hurts. I know this isn't weird but its fairly new to me and I can't quite explain it. Steven says he knows exactly what I mean.

5. I've recently joined an audiobook club so that I'll have something to do on my 2 hour commute each day. I now look forward to my drive! If anybody has any book suggestions-I'll add it to my queue. I'm currently listening to Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, which was a book I started before I was pregnant with Cooper and never had a chance to finish.

6. I really miss being in school.

7. Two of my best friends are about to have babies (possibly even on the same day)-Annie and Tara. I am so excited for Levi and Ryeland's arrivals but really wish they could come on a weekend so I can come visit! This is stressing me out, and I think thats weird how much I let it bother me that I probably won't be able to be there for them. Why can't you guys plan to have your babies around my schedule? :)

There you have it! I am tagging Shantell and Annie now-since they are my only other blogging friends.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Crazzzy Cooper's 1st ear infection

So, as of Friday both Cooper and I have confirmed ear infections. While its the bazzillionth ear/sinus infection for me, its Cooper's 1st-and boy is it a new adventure! None of my veteran mother friends ever told me that amoxicillin (aka bubble gum medicine) turns docile, sweet babies into crazed lunatics! If I had known this, I may have chosen a better time (besides right at bedtime) to give Cooper his medicine.



While I love to see my son's energetic smile, flailing hands, and hear him screaming out in happiness and glee about his newfound hyperactivity, its not my favorite thing at 10 o'clock at night (past my bedtime too) especially when I too am feeling awful. After an hour so of hearing Mom beg and plead for him to go to sleep, Cooper finally gave in.



So, we got through the night somehow and today is a brand new day for us to experience even more of the new Cooper. We started out the day with breakfast and his first dose of medicine at 8 a.m. As I'm writing this blog, its 1:15 p.m. and Cooper has yet to nap (he's usually napped twice by now). He's so wide awake right now that he'd even like to add his own viewpoint to this blog:


I have no time for silly old sleep, there are things to scream about and laugh at, like Shiner and pictures of Mommy and Daddy...oh, and the door! Aaaaaaahhhhhh! hahaha! Mommy knows that I don't feel good, so I've discovered that there are little things that I can do to really get her attention. Things such as fussing for prolonged periods, making little coughing noises, and snorting make Mommy want to hold me and kiss me and make me feel better, I can even get her to say "Oh, poor baby," if I really make a sad face. This is all just a ploy to get close to her so that I can grab her glasses and her nose. Then I'll pull on her hair and act like she's a horse and I've got a hold of her reigns! Whatever this new sweet, liquid food she's giving me twice a day is, I want more! I've never felt more invigorated in all of my nearly 8 months of life! Aaaaaaaaaaa! Da-da Gaga Baba! AAAAAHHHHHH!!!



This morning, a few hours after breakfast, Mom made a futile attempt to get me to take a nap. It was absolutely hilarious! She nursed me, rocked me, put me in my crib with the mobile on, read to me, walked around with me, laid in bed with me, she tried everything! I wasn't going to give in that easily. The funniest part was when she thought that putting me in the swing, even though she always tells Daddy I'm too big for it, would help anything! Watching my parents is so funny! hahahahahaha Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!



So now you see what I'm dealing with...

I really hope that its actually the medicine causing the hyperactivity and this isn't just some milestone that all babies reach around this age...or maybe its just a milestone MY baby has reached. If that turns out to be the case, I'll need your prayers.

Inspired to blog

My two oldest, best friends have been blogging for a long time and I LOVE reading updates on their families. They've asked me to write my own but I didn't think I had enough time-then I realized that I write in my journal every so often, whats so different about doing it online?

Plus, I got an email about another new blog from my friend Shantell/Cooper's caregiver/photographer/jack-of-all trades, that got me all misty-eyed because it was about my little Coopy and the beautiful pictures she took of him! Here's the link to the blog I'm speaking of
http://shantellwyatt.blogspot.com/2008/02/coop-deville_16.html

So, this is my new blog...it doesn't even have to be read, its a good tool for chronicling my families life and its therapeutic to boot! Best of all, it will make my Mom happy.