Megan Thurman Photography

Raindrops on roses and whiskars on kittens…

Okay, those aren’t really my favorite things-well, maybe thunderstorms, but that’s another blog for another time.

We’ve been home visiting the fam for a week now. There are so many things I love about coming home. Even though we’ve lived in California for almost 6 years, I still think of Arlington as my home. Anyway, I’ve been compiling a list in my head of my favorite things about coming home and it’s time to get them written down. In no particular order…

-Strawberry cheesecake with cream snow cone from the Sno-Hut. I’ve been getting this flavor of snowcone since my junior year of high school. It’s delicious. There’s just something about their ice and syrup mixed with a little cream. Yum.

-Bath time-I love bath time at home because most of the time my mom gives the kids their baths. She really likes doing it and I really enjoy having a break from bath time.

-Help with the kids in general. Derek’s parents love picking up Connor and taking him to the park. My parents love to play with him, too. He loves getting extra attention and again, I love having a little break.

-Eating at Jason’s Deli, Taco Bueno, Sonic, and On the Border. We don’t have any of these restaurants near us in California. When I was pregnant with Connor I craved Jason’s Deli baked potatoes so much and I only got the eat them a few times. I eat at all those places at least once while I’m home.

-Shopping at Hobby Lobby. Luckily I have a gift certificate from my birthday since I’m on a spending halt. I got a new digital camera and part of the deal was not spending money on scrapbook stuff for 3 months.

-Hanging out with my dirtbag brothers and sister-My sister just got into town today so we haven’t really hung out yet. But I’ve gotten to spend time with both my brothers. Patrick and I drove down to Houston for a few days. It was so fun to spend time with James, Kathy and their kids. I love hanging out with Patrick. He’s not my annoying little brother anymore, he’s just my friend.

-Homecooked meals that I don’t cook. Nick makes a big breakfast almost every morning and my mom or Derek’s mom cook great dinners. We eat well when we come home.

-Laundry service. My mom does our laundry. We just throw it down the laundry shoot and it magically appears folded on the stairs.

Connor and Logan playing with their cousins. I hope someday we live close so that Justin, Kayla, Madison, Abby, soon-to-be Max, Connor, and Logan can be little cousin-friends. They have so much fun together.

-Catching up with old friends. This trip has been especially fun because of a 10 year reunion with some of Derek’s friends. Plus my friend Shauna had a baby and I got to go visit her in the hospital. I’ve never been in town for any babies before.

I think Dorothy said it best, “There’s no place like home.”

It’s 5:45 a.m. and I am ready to go! Can’t wait to get get Texas and see everyone. In honor of the occasion, I have composed a song:

Today is aiplane day.
Today is airplane day.
Big white airplane in the sky
all the way to Texas.

I can’t really tell you the tune. Unless you went to Camp Olympia, in which case it’s to the tune of the Dolphin Day song.

This is Connor’s first flight in his very own seat. That’s big time. Hope he’s well behaved. The diaper bag is stocked with all kinds of goodies. He has his very own carry on with brand new color wonder markers and paper (which I personally can’t wait to color with-I’ve been intrigued by that stuff ever since I first saw the commercial.) We are all gtg. Which for you non-initial speaking people means good to go.

See ya on the flip side.

Today I baby-sat for a family that has become like my family out here. I met them 4 years ago when I was going to APU. Beth (the mom) was a nurse in the student health center. It turns out that she was looking for a babysitter for her 2 boys and I was looking for work. When I started watching them, Jeff was 10 and Matt was 6. They are a great family and I have loved getting to spend time with them the past 4 years. Beth has become my surrogate mom out here. We go to the same church-actually Derek and I started going to Hope Christian Fellowhip because of them. But, besides church I don’t see them much anymore. For 3 years I picked them up from school 2 or 3 days a week. It just didn’t work out for me to continue watching them this year with Connor’s schedule, coaching volleyball, having Logan, etc. I really miss spending time with them every week. So when Beth asked me last week if I could watch the boys today I said yes and was actually excited about baby-sitting. Jeff is about to be 14 and he is definately a typical 14 year old. He picks on Matt, his voice cracks, and he got really irritated today when he couldn’t go over to his friends house at the exact moment he wanted to because we needed to get permission from his mom first. Matt just turned 10 this week. He’s a great kid and Connor adores him. After we dropped Jeff off at his friends house, Matt, Connor, Logan and I went to the park. Connor had such a great time following Matt around everywhere he went and playing in clusters of trees that are Matt’s “forts.” It’s just been really neat to see Matt turn into such a great role model for Connor.

While we were at the park today, a woman said to me “Wow! Three kids-how is it having three kids? Is it a lot harder than two?” This can only mean one of two things. Either I am looking a much older than 25 these days or she thinks I was really young when I had Matt. I’ve gotten comments before when I’ve been out with Connor and Matt (or Jeff), I think because they are both blond and fair and look like they could be related to me. But the comments are always more like “Hmmm…these aren’t all yours, right? You don’t look old enough to have kids this old.” Or even “Are these your brothers (Matt and Jeff) and your son (referring to Connor)?” But I’ve never had anyone just flat out assume that I have a 10 year old son. It’s depressing to me regardless. Have I really aged that much that I look old enough to have a 10 year old? Or is it just completely acceptable to have a baby at 15?

Just because I love to post pictures, here’s a picture of Matt, Jeff, Beth, and Logan. Logan was just a few hours old. In fact, we hadn’t even left the labor and delivery room. They were the first people to meet Logan besides Derek, my mom, and I. Jeff and Matt still talk about how cool it was to meet him and hold him at 3 hours old.

Since I’ve started writing here, throughout the day I’ll think of random little tidbits that I should blog about. But by the time I sit down to write, I’ve usually forgotten all the little tidbits. Maybe if I just keep typing what’s in my head I’ll remember.

The American Idol finale is on tonight. Every season I start watching when it gets down to just 4 or 5 contestents. I’m a big fan of both Carrie and Bo so I’ll be happy no matter who wins (but I like Carrie just a smidge more). I did NOT like Bo the first time saw him. What’s up with that hair? But he slowly grew on me and now I appreciate his singing talent despite that awful hair.

Speaking of singing, this is one of the tidbits I wanted to share. I composed a great song entitled “Big Yellow Backhoe Bang, Bang, Bang.” It’s to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and goes a little something like this:

Big yellow backhoe in the yard.
Big yellow backhoe working hard.
Pick up the rocks, beep beep beep.
Drop them in the dump truck, bang bang bang.
Big yellow backhoe in the yard.
Beep beep beep. Bang bang bang.

Why on earth would I compose such a song? It’s all at the request of a very cute two year old. We have a bedtime ritual that includes singing lots of songs. It used to be Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or ABC’s, or the I Love You song from Barney. But a few weeks ago he started wanting made up songs like the “Big Yellow Tractor Song” or the “Broken Racecar Song”. But I think my favorite is the “Big Yellow Backhoe”.

Who can resist such a sweet face? Certainly not me. And when I’m singing my fifteenth round of “Yellow Tractor”, I try and remember that he won’t be little forever. He won’t always want me to spend 15 minutes tucking him in. Someday, when I make up silly songs, he’ll just roll his eyes. He’ll stop asking me to come in his room and instead will ask me to leave. He’ll stop saying “Hold you, Mommy” when he needs me to pick him up.

Don’t grow up, Connor. Stay little just awhile longer.

Derek has gray hair. I looked over at him on the way to church this morning and saw it, glistening in the early morning sun. I resisted the urge to pull it out right that second. He was, afterall, driving. I once tried to pull out a superlong eyebrow while he was driving, and I learned my lesson-only pull out hair when the car is parked. Anyway, as soon as we got to church, I yanked it out and we inspected it. It was a big, fat, shiny, coarse gray hair. His very first. Is it the stress of looking for a job? Is it the stress of two kids? Is it the stress of living with me day in and day out? Or is he just getting old?

I just spent about 30 minutes looking around for a site that I remember playing with a long time ago. It’s a site where you can upload a photo of yourself and change your hair and makeup. I finally found it here. I wanted to upload a picture of Derek and make him have completely gray hair. But unfortunately, they only have women’s hairstyles and gray hair isn’t even an option (beacause, really, what woman wants gray hair.)

Have you ever wondered what Derek would look like as a woman with short red hair? Wonder no more!

What about fully made up with an afro?

Hmmm…this almost looks like hair he sported about 8 years ago. Yikes!

I hope Derek doesn’t kill me for posting this. But it’s just way too funny to pass up. I crack myself up!

I’ve posted a lot more pictures of Connor lately, so here are a few I took of Logan today.

I love family traditions. I love the special ones that only happen once a year, and I love the little ones that happen every day. Growing up, some of my favorite traditions were birthday dinners, opening one present on Christmas Eve, eating dinner as a family almost every night, back to school shopping every year, and watching prime time TV together (ER and Home Improvement really stand out in my mind.)

Now that Connor is getting a little bit older, I’ve been thinking about what traditions I want us to have. One big one is the dinner tradition. Some of my favorite memories growing up are from around the dinner table. Some of my least favorite memories also happened over dinner, i.e. sitting at the table crying because I had to finish eating my peas before I could get up or have dessert, and being told I couldn’t go to my 4th grade best friend’s birthday party because I wrote a mean note to a nerdy girl at school. Anyway, I love family table time, so we’ve started the eating dinner together tradition. Believe it or not, Connor actually protests this sometimes. “No dinner! No dinner!” But, even if he doesn’t eat anything, he sits with us at the table at dinner time. And, of course, most of the time he ends up eating. You don’t get to 40 pounds at 2 and a half by missing many meals.

Derek and Connor have started a really fun tradition in the past week or so. Now, I don’t think this tradition will last forever, but it’s a tradition of the moment nonetheless. Every evening after dinner they go on a walk. There is major construction going on right across the street so they go outside to see the “yellow tractors, backhoes, and dump trucks.” We are also lucky to live about 2 blocks from a fire station, so most nights they head over there to look at the firetrucks. Along the way, it’s almost guaranteed that they will see bubba trucks, police cars, motorcycles, buses, and maybe even an airplane or helicoptor. One time they even saw a chicken. All of these excite Connor to no end. Every single night, without fail, Connor cries hysterically when it’s time to come in. “No bubble bath! No bubble bath! More trucks!” He then comes over to me, gets really close to my face, and in between residual sniffles, tells me about everything he saw. He’ll tell me how many trucks he saw and what color they were. He’ll tell me all about the noises they made. It’s so cute. I love this new tradition. I love that Derek and Connor get fun time together. And maybe a little selfishly, I love that 30 minutes or so when it’s just me and Logan. I don’t know how long this tradition will last, but I know that it’s one I will look back on fondly.

Here’s the construction right across the street.

Connor is dumbfounded.

I think he would sit here all day if we let him.

The dramatic scene displayed above is all because I had a poopy diaper and my mom wouldn’t let me go outside and color with chalk until she changed me. I HATE having my diaper changed, but I also refuse to go potty in the big toilet. I’m telling ya, it’s rough being two!

Last week Ryan posted a neat eye color calculator on his blog. I actually find the calculator a little tricky because hazel isn’t a choice. My eyes aren’t really brown, but they aren’t true green either. According the the calculator, if my eyes are brown (and Derek’s are definately blue) our kids have a 13% chance of blue eyes, a 13% of green eyes and a 72% chance of brown eyes. If my eyes are green, our kids have a 33% chance of blue eyes, a 66% chance of green eyes, and no chance of brown eyes. Connor’s eyes stayed blue for a pretty long time after he was born, but not bright blue-more like a slate blue. Now they are still sort of blue but more hazel-y than Derek’s eyes and more blue than my eyes. Here’s a picutre of them:

When Logan was born, Derek and I thought that his eyes were going to turn brown for sure. They were really dark slate blue. Over the past few weeks, it seems to me like his eyes have been turning bluer and bluer (is that a word?) I think his eyes are such a pretty color right now. I hope they stay just the way they are.

I took this picture of Logan the other night and couldn’t believe how much he looked like Derek. Maybe we should start calling him D.J. for Derek Junior. Then we can be cool and call him Deej like on Full House.

It has totally felt like summer the past two days. We spent yesterday swimming and playing outside and today at a great birthday party. I think today might have been the best day ever for Connor. The party we went to had a bouncer and Connor just couldn’t get enough. I could barely even pull him away to eat. The birthday party also had a pinata. He didn’t really get it at first, but once he figured out there was candy he was all over it.

Logan was all partied out.

I’m excited about summertime!