This is What Angie Gets For Letting Mallory Come Over

Remember last week when I mentioned that Ella and Mallory had to have a bath after they played together?  And that the water had to be changed out?

Yeah, this would be why:

Ella and Mallory start out with water cans, innocently watering the corn (stalk stubs).

 

And then all that water turned the exposed dirt into mud, which demands to be played with.

  

And meatballs made for Lilly.

 

This isn't even as bad as it got.  I just gave up on taking pictures and started preparing for the clean up!

  

These two girls had to strip on the deck and be carried in to the tub, they were THAT DIRTY. 

And it was fantastic. 

(David and I just told them 'go play outside' and we were perfectly happy with the result.  It is so nice to see kids be kids and play in such a basic way!  Ella and Mallory had so much fun, and we've got so much mud, that I'm just sure Angie will look past the stained pretty purple shirt and bring Mallory back for more fun SOON.  Right Angie?!)

My New Favorite

Ashley uses her long monkey toes to hook onto the edge of her tray, which I think is so funny. But even more funny is the view from below, seeing these chubby legs sticking out!

Still in AWE Over Here

More photos of baby Anderson. Isn't he to die for?! I talked to Marisa and she sounds really, really good. It seems that everything is going well with her recovery and the baby in general. Or was that just the drugs talking?

Only a few more days until we will be there!

We are in AWE

Welcome, welcome to baby Anderson William!

Marisa and Rusty are now the hap, hap, happiest parents around as Anderson was born early this morning at 1:04. Marisa went into labor on her own yesterday afternoon and after feeling the soothing effects of the epidural, tried her best to welcome him on her own. Baby AWE was having no part of that, preferring to stay cozied up inside her ginormous belly. After an hour of persuasion, it was determined that a C section was necessary. Rightly so, since he weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 21 inches long! GEEZ LOUISE!

I hear that the color of his hair is disputable... Marisa says that in the right light it might take on the reddish tone of his daddy's.

In regards to the bets, it looks like I was closest as far as weight and length (I guessed 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 20.5 inches). Pen, however, was the closest as far as the delivery date (she guessed Sunday). Unfortunately, we were the two who placed the most cruel bets! No Vegas for us, though, I don't want to earn money off of that kind of pain!

ISN'T HE SO CUTE?!

I am such a proud Aunt and I absolutely can not wait to hit that Georgia soil and get my hands on him! Less than one week, y'all!

We're Waiting... Impatiently

Patience is a very nice and polite way to say WAITING.

Just when does waiting move past patience and become sitting on your ass? Not doing what you should because you are hoping/expecting for something to come to you?

I don't know where that line is. I want to be a patient girl, I really do. But holy moly, what if in my eagerness to be polite and patient I have let things pass me by, or even worse, go totally undetected because I have been sitting here, waiting?

If I jump up and shout I'M NOT WAITING ANY LONGER! I'M TAKING CONTROL, RIGHT THIS MINUTE! will I then become impatient? Or demanding? Or impulsive? Or Even Worse, stupid?

Because I'm at that point, people. The point where the line between being patient and being proactive is getting dangerously blurry. The point where I may make a rash decision because damnit, I am so tired of waiting and I want activity, forward progress, momentum RIGHT NOW.

I don't know when to continue giving free rein to the path of our lives, hoping and counting on the 'right thing' to happen or to choke up on them and guide us into what we think is the best avenue. I'm coming up blank here and wondering, just wondering, which is more erroneous?

We will eventually choose one of these tactics, and I sure do hope it's the right one. The one that gets us where we are supposed to be. What we are supposed to be doing. And whether that be by biding our time and waiting for the prime opportunity or by striking out and searching for it on our own, I know not.

This Is Just How We Are

Me: You realize that if we ever get divorced, Ella and Ashley will have a New Daddy like that. [snaps]

David:  Yep.

Me: What?  That's all you've got to say for being replaced?

David: You're the one talking about remarrying!

Me:  Yeah, actually I'm the one talking about divorce!

Me:  No, you know what?  You're not lucky enough to divorce me!  I'm going to make you suffer for the rest of your life!

David: No, I'll suffer for the rest of your life.

Me:  You're crazy if you think you're going to outlive me.  I'm taking years off of your life as we speak.  You'll be lucky to make it to 50!

David:  That's NO SHIT.

(I swear this is how it all went down, verbatim.  But before you go getting all worked up, it was totally tongue in cheek.  Unless David keeps beating me at Scrabble.  Then it's New Daddy all the way!)

There is a Reason We Call Her the Fly Catcher

I swear that Ashley spends half of her day with her mouth wide open. It always makes us laugh and sometimes gives us a little peek into those barren gums, just to make sure that no teeth have sprung up that we don't know about (and no, none as of this moment).

Ashley has finally, finally decided that crawling might be alright, and she has begun to scoot around a bit. She has also picked up on the idea of pulling up, and can do it herself for the most part. Critically related to that, she has learned that she must HOLD ON once she thrills herself by standing up. I suppose she learns the hard way since there were a few incidences of blatantly letting go followed by blatantly falling down.

However I feel about her casual, laid back approach to hitting a few milestones (which is very understandable, give her casual, laid back approach to everything else!), it pales to how I would feel if Ashley were like Andria's little boy, Wyatt, who is was walking at 9 1/2 months! I'm really ready for her to crawl and eventually walk, but not yet! Andria is a busy girl!

Lots of mouth openings:

And then one Ok, I'm done with the mobile, GIVE ME THAT CAMERA!

The Olympic Fever is Contagious

Ella is all about the Olympics. So are we, so we let her stay up late (sometimes too late) and watch all of the goings on, especially the swimming and gymnastics. Apparently Ella can do each and every event, because she acts them out in the living room, jumping around and making sound effects, especially with the diving.

At one point, when it seemed like all that was on was beach volleyball, we watched that too and boy did she pay attention. So much attention, in fact, that she decided to create her own beach volleyball area in the living room Saturday:

She told me this was 'Chow Yow Park' which is pretty dang close to Chaoyang Park where the competition is held. That girl, I tell you... Who would ever think that a four year old would soak up that kind of detail?

We attempted to play a little bit of beach volleyball in the house but that didn't turn out well. Even sitting down didn't keep the ball from hitting all sorts of things that are best left alone, like the entertainment center and fan/light, not to mention little babies.

I asked Ella which player she was, Misty May or Kerri Walsh, and she chose Misty May.

Misty has quite the spike.

Ella has also been paying close attention to the swimming and really liked to cheer for Michael Phelps (as did we!). It *almost* got to the point of driving us up the stinkin' wall with her asking over and over again about when Michael Phelps was swimming? Is that him? GO MICHAEL PHELPS! She got to see the race Friday night where Phelps beat Cavic by one one-hundredth of a second and was so excited, cheering right along with us. Later she says 'Cabbage just put is head down but Michael Phelps kept swimming and Cabbage lost because he put his head down.' Ah, Cavic, not only did you lose, but in the ears of a preschooler, you are now a vegetable.

I think staying up late all these nights in a row is going to kill all of us. David is quite the Olympics fiend so he stays up well past the normal bedtime to watch with me. Oftentimes I am the one who fades first and have to ask him how it all ended up! Ella, on the other hand, has been SUCH a bear with the decreased sleep. We keep telling ourselves that she'll make it up at preschool with a longer nap, but unfortunately that has not happened. And we are about to go insane with her attitude. But what do we do? Let her stay up late AGAIN and perpetuate the cycle! AAAGH!

Maybe the Olympics should do us all a favor and take a few days off to let us all catch up on some sleep? That would be awful nice of them.... But oh how I love to see the male swimmers... I suppose I'll fight through, somehow, someway!

Read The Writing On The Wall

Mallory and Ella found themselves in desperate need of a bath this evening after quite the fun time at the McClure ranch (more on that later). 

Before David went in and changed the water, because believe me, it was necessary, the girls played with every. single. bath toy Ella has.  The crayon soap is generally reserved as a *sometimes* toy since they are a pain in the ass to clean off the wall, but unsupervised as they were, E and M went to town.

Which one was reading my mind, I wonder?

       

Do you see the almost word beer at the bottom right?  Thank you, I will!

Place Your Bets!

Marisa is getting ready to have Baby AWE any day now, so I'm opening the tables for bets:

When will he come?

What will be his weight and length?

How long will labor last?

Will Marisa have a C-section?

How many times will she cry within the first 24 hours of his arrival?

And finally.... What do the A and W stand for in AWE?

Garth Brooks Owes Me Child Support

Jamie brought me one of her cookbooks to look through when she came over this weekend. It's by Trisha Yearwood 'Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen.'

Quite a few interesting recipes that I will keep, but what was most interesting is this photo near the beginning of the book:

Um, excuse me? Did Lilly come from Oklahoma? Could Lil be the offspring of this pup? OR IS SHE THE MOTHER? I hope not, because then I owe Garth Brooks child support. But isn't this nuts? I thought surely any remote relative of Lilly's would have long since been killed, due to her general sorriness and overall uselessness. But no!

I think a trip to Oklahoma is in order, where I will demand to know the origins of this dog, and then maybe Trisha and I will do a little Georgia cookin'.

Why Use Two Hands When You Could Use Four?

Ashley Kate has been accused of having monkey legs, and that might have been by me.

That child uses her feet to hold things she is interested in looking at or playing with.

I present to you Exhibit A:

AK checking out the Dressy Bessie doll (that Genelle so keenly suggested), foot coming up...

Exhibit B:

Feet holding DB securely, much like hands

Exhibit C:

Another DB foot hold

Exhibit D:

I thought you might like another angle, notice the foot coming in for the grab

Just some cuteness that I thought I'd throw in

Could these monkey legs come from me and the fact that I gave the child monkey toes? Could this really be my fault? Or is she just ambidextrous, but between feet and hands?

She does like bananas. Hmmm....

Cheek Feast

The other day Heather, from dooce, posted a picture of her little girl when she was a baby and commented "I still don't know how she made it out of her infancy with those cheeks still intact, I feasted on them daily."

My thoughts EXACTLY.

Another List

Let's see if I can rattle off a few things that have been going on:

* Ashley went to the doctor for her nine month appointment and everything is right on track. Still average height and weight, but way, way, WAY above average head. Yep, that's how we breed 'em over here, big headed!

* We found a water leak from somewhere, thought it was the fridge so we actually pulled it out from the wall. TALK ABOUT SCARY (unless you are Melinda who does that kind of crazy thing regularly).

*Water leak wasn't the fridge, turned out to be the AC. Had to turn off the AC for WTF is going on? inspection for a couple of hours on a day that hit the triple digits. Not. Fun.

* Determined that the drain line from the drip pan of the AC was clogged, I ALMOST belly crawled under the house to get at the pipe to unclog it.

* After closer inspection of the under side of the house, decided against that brilliant idea.

* David comes up with even more brilliant idea (after I have a come this close to getting bitten by every bug under the sun (and house)) that flushed clog pronto.

* Ashley is a sippy cup fiend. Also a mad fan of the Gerber Graduates little puffy stars.

* I bought the GG puffy stars because I thought they didn't have wheat in them, something that we were waiting until 1 year to give her due to my allergy as a babe.

* They've got wheat in them.

* Shit.

* Marisa is ready, ready, ready to have baby AWE. I SO remember that feeling that it's going to happen TODAY, and if not today then maybe tomorrow. YES! TOMORROW! That would be a good day! Just get this pregnancy over with already!

* Making tentative plans to take a little trip south in the next three to four weeks. See above.

* Ella Grace still loves that mutton bustin' medal. I bought her a little plastic sheep at Tractor Supply that looks just like the one she rode. It lives with the medal now.

* Oh, and about Marisa... She's got Meat Feet now too.

* David has had some interesting phone conversations as of late.

* Ashley has been dubbed 'feet of fury' at diaper changes and other lying about type times. I have tried to video it, because it's so funny, but to no avail. I swear she's going to break her heels if she keeps it up.

* The Animals of Science departmental softball team finished the season with a perfect record. Perfectly horrible, as they didn't win one single solitary game.

* No teeth as of yet for Ashley Kate.

* I saw the neatest idea for 'flowers' outside of the gym today: hot pepper plants! Little peppers, in varying stages of greenish white, orange and red just popping from their green leaf background. I think I'll take a pic next time.

* There has been some craziness going on over at Smartini. Possibly even me singing karaoke.

* The new ride is FAB, BTW.

* Except that I just went and paid the property taxes on the new ride. The Old Rides are FAB, BTW, for their relative cheapness when it comes tax time.

* We are still the McClure Used Auto Lot, with 4, count them, 4, automobiles at our house.

* Got a call last night about the truck... I did my damnedest to charm charm charm this guy into thinking it was the perfect truck he's been looking for all his life.

* We'll see how that pans out.

* Tuesday was a fun day as Angie Jo found out that she is having a little GIRL! Yea! Keeping up with the McClure's, I see... I offered a M name that would go rather well with Mallory, but I don't think she bit. Now Karen, on the other had, who happens to be naming her baby girl Meghan, she's a smart one! (Love you, Karen!)

* Preschool is closed tomorrow so Ella is going to work with David. This is going to be good.

* If AK doesn't quit waking up at 6 AM on the nose, I'm going to go out of my mind. Seven, baby girl, SEVEN!

* My house is a wreck, but what's new? This weekend we'll clean it up. That's it! This weekend. Riiight.

* Who's going to obessively watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics like me? Who thinks Michael Phelps is cute, not like me?

Is It Hot In Here?

Office Space Rundown:

Time: This morning

Office: Mine

Air Conditioning Unit: Getting replaced

Temperature: 98 degrees

Shirt: Stuck to my back

Makeup: Shouldn't have bothered

Kansas Wind: Could kick it up a notch or twelve

Fluid Intake: Up dramatically

Wishing I Was: Not here

Think I'll Leave: At lunch

Question: Is it lunch?