Its a time to give thanks

and quite frankly, I am thankful that Thanksgiving is OVER.

It used to be that that Thanksgiving was my worlds-most-favoritist holiday. I have good memories of Thanksgivings past and they are all sort of wrapped up with my birthday which is sometimes on Thanksgiving.  On the years it is not, its always within a day or so.

However, over the past few years, I have started to dread Thanksgiving. It puts me in a bad mood. Which is also wrapped up with my birthday too and which makes me dread my birthday because it is all wrapped up with the Thanksgiving thing.

In the egocentric mind of a child, I guess I thought my birthday was HUGE - there was always LOTS of family around and special desserts. People traveled to get together for my birthday and it was fun in an eat, drink, and be merry sort of way.

My Aunt Lottie used to make a special cherry cake. I think she called a cajun country cake or country cajun cake or something like that. It was pink. And even though I am no fan of cake, it was pink and cherry and everyone made a big deal over it!

Then I grew up and the big deal turned out to be about Thanksgiving (oh, and by the way, Happy Birthday) but I still enjoyed the togetherness of it all and my friends and I would still go out and celebrate once we reached our thresh holds of the togetherness.

Now though, not living near family, we don't get to spend Thanksgiving with everyone anyone, which is depressing if you are used to big family Thanksgivings. Of course, even if I were to spend Thanksgiving with others, there is my birthday, which gets overlooked because everyone is preparing for, celebrating, or recovering from Thanksgiving. So, really, the birthday, not so great either.

Its depressing.

You see, if there is one day a year that things should just be a little easier, a little more convenient, maybe your loved ones make an effort to make your day a little happier, it should be on your birthday. But my birthday, for everyone, is about Thanksgiving.

So my birthday this year involved work, navigating the insane grocery store with a 12 month old hungry child and a pizza that came with the wrong toppings. This was followed by spending more time in the kitchen than I care too or actually do at any other time of the year. I am just not that domestic.

There are a few people who offer to celebrate with me on another day but that's because Thanksgiving is the priority.

I really want to love Thanksgiving again, but most of the time, I am just thankful its over.

Oh, and just so you all aren't worried about my doom and gloom attitude, I am, also, thankful for the Notorious MRA. Thanksgiving was definitely more comical because of him.

Wordless Wednesday

The one where Aunt Jenny came to town

Life has been so hectic lately that I have not had much time to share. I am hoping that we are finally settling back in and the posting will become regular again.

In the meantime, I have a backlog of stories that I have wanted to share with everyone... but then something comes up and I forget and then something else happens and I move on to that topic, writing a draft in my head. But, then something else comes up and so no stories were shared and now life is calming down and when that happens, well... there aren't as many stories.

So anyway, a few weeks ago Aunt Jenny came to town for a long weekend to celebrate the Notorious MRA's birthday. As you may remember, the house was full of family, neighbors, and friends.

My sister also has a good childhood friend in town so on Sunday she grabbed my keys (remember this as it is an important detail later in the story), took my car, and went to visit her friend.

This left MRA available to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa Angel.

That afternoon, Jenny texted saying she was nearly done and wanted to make sure we were home and, oh, by the way, did we need anything. I texted back that we were home and we did not need anything.

Another couple of hours pass and no Jenny. After some more time, she calls and says she is on her way and, oh, by the way, do we need anything.

When she FINALLY gets back the conversation goes something like this:

Me: What happened, where were you?

Her: Oh, I texted you.

Me: Yeah, I texted you back.

Her: I can't get texts from you.   (I am not even gonna touch this point because it gets better.)

Her: I have been at Target killing time. I did not want to come back to the house and be locked out.

Me: Jenny! You have my keys!  (hahahahaha)

She did the only thing she could - which was to put her head in her hands and say, "Don't tell anyone."

She didn't say don't blog about it, though.

Classic Jenny and why we all love her.

Wordless Wednesday

The official first words

Meet Poopy Puppy. As you can see from this photo, Poopy Puppy is pretty special to the Notorious MRA. So special that he, in fact, decorated the top of MRA's first birthday cake. Poopy Puppy goes with MRA most places and certainly is present at all times around the house.

The Backstory: We have a changing area set up in the downstairs guest room so we don't have to run upstairs every hour changing diapers.

During said diaper changes, sometimes, our curious little butterbean likes to explore the undercarriage. 

The exploration seems to occur immediately after diaper removal while you are struggling to open the box of wipes (that never, ever, ever seems to open the right way or the wipe never pulls through the slot so you have to take the damn thing apart with a poopy baby squirming all over creation) or right after you have just slathered the little guy with a handful of butt paste (which he finds very funny, by the way.)

This can be a problem and also disgusting if not addressed. So, we used to hand MRA the puppy to keep him distracted and amused. 

He became the Pooppy Puppy.

The other day, MRA began saying puppup and pointing at Pooppy Puppy. Puppup, puppup, puppup pupup puppup until he got Poopy Puppy in his chubby little hands. His first words, clearly and discriminately - Puppup. He says mamma and dadda, but he says it to a variety of objects including us. Only Poopy Puppy gets the puppup.

So we are talking the other night about this amazing new discovery of speech and Jonathan says, "Is it disturbing that our kid's first words are Poopy Puppy?"

Me: "Ummm, I don't thinks so. It could be worse, it could be butt paste." 

He shoots! He Scores... or he enjoys a healthy snack!

Jonathan is from North Carolina where basketball is king. The family did a great job of covering the state with graduates from Duke, UNC, and NC State.

So, yeah, basketball, HUGE!

And so it was that we bought MRA his first basketball net (sort of -basketball game anyway) for his birthday. 

When you push the ball through the net is plays music and he LOVES that aspect of it. As soon as the music starts, he starts dancing. 

At first, Jonathan joked that he would be the only guy out on the court shakin' his groove thang whilst playing but after a couple of days it has occurred to us that he  really likes to let you dunk the ball so he can stand there and dance with a snack in his hand.

He may end up being the team mascot!

Wordless Wednesday

A Notorious Birthday Party

 We had a fabulous party to celebrate MRA's first birthday party. The day was filled with family and friends. MRA is such a ham. He had so much fun playing with all the little girls in the nieghborhood. And BALLOONS! BALLOONS! BALOONS are the best. His face still lights up when he walks into a room with balloons left over from the party!

There were wagon wheel sandwiches and fruit axels to munch on. Jonathan found some Retro Red beer and made Red Wagon punch (Hurricanes) for the adults.

The red velvet cake was topped with a reasonable facismile of "poopy puppy", one of MRAs favorites.

And, MRA was so spoiled!



  

How much longer do I have to wear this hat?

MRA especially enjoyed his very own pumpkin cupcake... until Aunt Jenny gave him some of the red velvet cake which apparently was even better!

 

MRA had a fantastic time, which, really was the most important part (and the grandparents enjoyed it too.).

The importance of a "W"

The "w" on my phone keyboard is sticking. I guess it has been for about a eek now but I just discovered it. I have to say, it certainly makes my texts more interesting.

You have no idea ho many ords are spelled ith a " " until you try to type ithout one. And, I never really realized that ithout a " " both the ords ho and ho look like something pretty derogatory (at least in the phonetic orld of texting)or kind of holiday-ish depending on your perspective and quite poosibly your age .

 Hopefully, the people I text can make the mental leap.

Have a great weekend!

Wordless Wednesday

Maturity is having your own Port-a-Potty

Jonathan and I just returned from our annual Georgia/Florida weekend on Amelia Island with our friends.

Its always an amazing time and we spent much of the ride home talking about the weekends both past and present (or newly past).

As all the participants have matured become more successful in careers, the tailgate has become easier than ever. Every year, another layer that makes the set-up easier seems to get added.

First it was having satellite TV so we could watch Game Day.

Then, having the food catered.

Next came the purchase of parking passes ahead of time.

This year, we had the best addition yet.

This year the tailgate included the addition of a port-a-potty (thank you Cam and Jeff).

Our very own, no one else could use it, funk free port-o-potty! No hike across the lot, no stand in line and use a foul and disgusting port-a-potty shared by thousands.  Our own toilet!!!

And, well, Florida may beat us on the field almost every year, but they can't hang with us in the parking lot!

Our tailgate

Notice the port-o-potty peeking out from behind the vehicle inthe photo below:

Thier tailgate:

Looking forward to next year!

Happy Halloween

What better way to disguise an Angel?