Another due date come and gone

Considering this is the third time I've gone past my due date, I'm not surprised. The end is in sight, though. I'll be induced February 4th if nothing happens before then. At least you can start getting your hopes up, Eric!

It's about time

I opened the front door today to a frosty, white, wintry scene. We had freezing rain most of the morning, and all I can say is, it's about time it felt like January. I was wearing flip-flops and sweating in a t-shirt two days ago. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm 40 weeks pregnant.

If only we could get some of this:

Lubbock, Texas, January 2007

Or this:

Salt Lake City, Utah, December 2007

But I'd be willing to wait until after the baby arrives, and we're all home safely.

¡Autobús!

¡Autobús! That's what Jack Jack was yelling every time we passed a bus. His other favorite ID is ¡camión!, especially the red ones. ¡Camión rojo!

The wheels on the bus go round and round.

This month in preschool Ellen has been learning about transportation. To see pictures of hot air balloons in progress and assembling traffic light snacks, look here.

On Friday for Spanish we sang "Las ruedas del autobus" and played "Luz roja, luz verde." Then we walked over to the bus stop by our apartments that takes students to campus and rode the circuit to Texas Tech, by the Law School, through the rest of campus, and back to our original stop. We had so much fun that Ellen and Jack were totally wiped out after lunch and both took long naps.

Here's the photographic evidence in reverse order:

About 20 feet from our apartment, Jack decided he needed to sit on the curb and rest. All the other kids thought that would be a great idea. Rocks are a good idea, too.


Jack's rock!


All the kids who rode the bus:




Man, do I look pregnant, or what?


All the students in the background are wondering what in the heck we're doing on their bus.


Bentley was not so sure about being on a moving bus.


Our preschool friends and their wombat:


For more on our bus ride, look here.

Surprise!

So I have the best sister-in-law, VT partner, and friends ever. About a week ago Chelsea told me she and Susan wanted to take me to dinner before I have this baby. They made sure to talk to Jack about it first so he could pick a good night, and then told me to pick a place to eat.

Unlimited Olive Garden salad sounded soooooo good, so we made plans. Earlier in the day, Susan called to tell me she'd be near my house and could she pick me up. The thought had crossed my mind that they might be planning a surprise, but I wasn't really expecting anything until about an hour before it was time to go. Another friend called to tell me sorry, she couldn't make it to my shower/dinner tonight and to have fun. !!

We did have fun! The diaper cake is adorable. I'm really glad I waited to go buy diapers, too.

Aunt Jenny came to visit.

And we only got one picture of her. But we sure had fun! When I picked Ellen up from preschool last Wednesday she had made a bus out of construction paper and shapes. "Do you want to show Daddy?" I asked. "NO! I want to show AUNT JENNY!" Ellen was emphatic. She held Jenny's hand in the store, crossing the street, walking to the car, and generally everywhere.

We took Aunt Jenny to the Science Spectrum, to Market Street, to Texas Roadhouse, to Thai Thai, and she even got to be there for Friday Spanish at our house. She fixed Ellen's hair, played, watched the Muppets, and even got Jack Jack to take a nap when Mommy was wiped out.

The morning after Jenny left, Ellen woke up and said, "Where's Aunt Jenny?" Come visit us again soon!


Hair done by special request


Helping make dinner?


We needed all the clippies in our hair.


We love Aunt Jenny!

Just . . .

Just the two of us . . .


Just the three of us . . .


Just the four of us . . .

And counting! Just a few more days to go. Or 13.

Geocaching!

It was a nice afternoon, and we all needed to get our kids out of the house. We didn't find any caches, but the kids did love watching the ducks and geese, and Bentley and Uncle David introduced Ellen and Jack to the bliss that is throwing rocks into a body of water.


Thanks to this sweet ride, Jack Jack now knows how to say "red jeep!"


Daddy is trying out the academic look.


This is a floating dock that was being guarded by some stray pit bull mix. After making each other nervous, we left for better prospects.


Is the cache hanging from that string in the water?


Maybe it's attached to one of these metal rails by a magnet.


Better prospects included a hill dropping off into a lake. Fun for throwing rocks, nervous-making for parents of kids who like to run and may not know when to hit the brakes.


Throwing rocks is sheer delight.


Yes, Ellen is wearing pants under her dress. It was chilly.

Spring cleaning, a little early

As of today, I have seven days until my due date for baby #3. We're planning on a post-date baby since that's how Ellen and Jack arrived, so I think I really have a few more days to get ready. But a couple of days ago I realized that my two-child existence is almost over.

Relatively speaking,
I know how to go shopping with two children.
I know how to prepare meals with two children.
I know how to get two children in and out of the house, and in and out of the car.
I know how to get two children ready for church by 8:00 am.
I know how to put two children to bed.
I know how to clean house with two children.

I am really, really grateful that we live in a small apartment with disproportionately large closets in every room. I am really, really grateful that we don't really have that much junk lying around or hidden in the big closets.

For the past several weeks and probably months, I've been taking in the state of the closets and cupboards in our apartment. Two weeks ago I started with Ellen's closet and went through baby clothes. The process of sorting, selecting, re-storing, washing, and putting away new baby's clothes took several days, but both Ellen and Jack now have organized closet shelves, and our baby won't have to go naked when we bring her home.

Last week I took a break, so on Monday I started in on the hall pantry/food storage/school supply/emergency/miscellaneous closet. It wasn't as bad as I thought. I moved on to under my bathroom sink and then the hall coat/stroller/game closet.

I also decided it would be a good day to wash every article of dirty clothing since Jack Jack had no clean pants to wear. In the process I realized something had disconnected behind the dryer because it was venting hot air into my living room instead of outside like it's supposed to. So I pulled out the dryer because I don't have enough racks and chairs to hang wet clothes to dry on. I was able to reconnect the tube, but it was so dusty behind the dryer that I went ahead and cleaned up while I was back there. Then I felt like sweeping and mopping all the linoleum surfaces.

By now I was getting tired and feeling like a character in a book: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

After dinner and the kids were bathed and in bed, I folded the mountain of newly clean clothes. When I went to put my own clothes away, I finally had to come to terms with the disastrous state of my own closet. On Tuesday. . .

I think this is what they call nesting.

What I was doing a year ago

More on this later.

Why you should always keep your front door locked

I was at the back of my apartment playing with the kids this morning when I heard people talking loud enough to be inside my apartment. Then I heard, "This isn't her place," and then my front door slammed.

When I got to the front door I noticed it was unlocked, which is weird, because Jack either locks it from the outside on his way to school in the morning, or I lock it behind him as he leaves. I looked outside, and sure enough, there was an older couple at the end of the sidewalk headed the other direction and wondering which apartment "she" really lives in.

Whatever happened to knocking first?

Lucky Southern New Year

Jack did tell me that if I was going to cook something special for New Year's Day, I had to include black-eyed peas, cornbread, and collard greens. That's what he grew up eating on January 1st every year for good luck.

Having grown up in a non-Southern family, I have no idea how to make black-eyed peas and collard greens, and my cornbread is just barely acceptable since I don't own a cast iron skillet. So I cooked a pot of black-eyed peas anyway, but I forgot to get the collard greens. At our "New Year's" party, I convinced everyone to try cornbread and black-eyed peas. Jack also mentioned Tabasco sauce as an important ingredient. When I reluctantly got around to tasting black-eyed peas with Tabasco sauce and cornbread myself, I ended up going back to get a second and third helping. It turns out that black-eyed peas and Tabasco sauce are really good. . .

And then Jack got home for lunch. And let me know that the Tabasco sauce is for the collard greens, not the black-eyed peas.

Happy New Year!

We had friends over for a New Year's Eve party on Dec 31st. Since the kids are a little young to be staying up until midnight, I took a page from my growing up years and found a country that would be celebrating midnight at noon our time.

Welcome to Novosibirsk, Russia!! I read up on some Russian New Year's traditions, we made snowflakes, and I already had an appropriately (according to the Internet) decorated "New Year Tree" with snowflakes on it, but that was about the extent of details.

Friends came at 11:00; the kids played; we talked and ate (not Russian food -- I didn't get my act together in time). By far the hit of the party was having all the kids stand underneath the snowflakes on the wall. They were really standing underneath a sheet full of balloons and colored paper confetti that Ellen, Jack Jack and I had put together that morning. 10 seconds before noon we counted to 10 and we all said, "Happy New Year!" I let the sheet fall, showering the kids with confetti and balloons. The rest of the time they spent gathering handfuls of confetti and throwing it at their parents while shrieking, "Happy New Year!"

Ellen really got into the confetti.


Jack Jack really got into the chocolate filled double stuffed Oreo cookies. His method of eating an Oreo consists of inserting it vertically in his mouth and gnawing/sucking on it until he has grown a sufficiently impressive goatee. By then the cookie is eaten or lost somewhere.




The balloons were also a hit. All the kids got to take one home. (We had popped enough already that morning. All the kids had to take one home.)


During post-party "clean-up," Ellen re-enacted her favorite part of the whole New Year's shebang:


Happy New Year! Happy 2009!