My sister had her 2nd baby girl yesterday morning.  Once again, she had her baby on her due date.  How rare is it to have one on your due date at all?  But, twice!! That’s just crazy.  Her name is Cara Elizabeth.  I’m really not sure if it’s with a C or a K.  I was able to hold her for a while on Friday.  So precious.

In other news, I am supposed to start class on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, the whole financial aspect isn’t quite straightened out yet.  I pray everything works out.

Also, I’m moving my blog elsewhere.  This one seems very boring visually.  I have also been inspired by a cousin of mine.  Her blog is dedicated to the triumphs and stuggles in motherhood.  It’s beautiful.  I feel like I should devote more time to blogging on things happening in my heart and spirit, not just the life around me.  Plus, it will help me really soak in what I’m learning about God and me.  So I’ll post the address when it’s ready!

Is the title to my blog from Cars or Talledega Nights?  There’s a little boy in my class that is sooooooo country.  He is also extremely inappropriate.  The other day I asked him to "walk inside, not run" for the 15 bazillionth time.  He ran up to me and said "ME AND KENNEDY ARE ALL JACKED UP ON MOUNTAIN DEW!"  Lucky for him I have total boy humor.  So instead of being mad, I laughed for about 15 minutes.  Then I thought, wow, he would have been perfect to play that guy’s son in Talledega nights.

Other thoughts today:

I think Emory has my father’s hands.  He doesn’t have my hands or Cody’s hands.  I was watching him in amazement a few nights ago as he built a house with Lincoln Logs.  I love watching how his fine motor skills develop over time. Rediculous, I know.  Then, I noticed, I think he has my dad’s hands.  I hope so.  I have always loved my dad’s hands. They are perfect.  They are "working" hands.  I don’t know why I like that, but I do.  Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

I wasn’t going to blog about this, but she never reads this thing.  Angela is having a baby shower next week.  I want to send all of her gifts in time for the shower.  I am working on a baby quilt for her (yes, I’m 80, whatever!) I already had my sewing machine rigged together, but now it has officially broken.  I am "sew" disappointed. (lame joke i know!) i envisioned her opening a box thinking "i know what this is" and then getting a HUGE surprise. Oh well, maybe i can steal my mom’s.

i can’t go into details, but i am so irritated about a lady at work.  for some reason she took it upon herself to be in my business 4 times today!  my business!  for no reason should any of it have been her concern!  that drives me crazy, b/c i don’t care what anyone does as long as they aren’t causing any harm to my class. ugh!

i’ll share a picture of a quilt i made. they make me happy!

So, I was doing really well with the ellipticle until everyone in my house got a tummy virus.  That went away, but I got some kind of allergy crud.  It’s been about 2 weeks with no ellipticle action.  It’s time to get back on.

In other news…

I registered for school on Thursday.  I am super excited, but I also want to vomit b/c of the $!  I’m pretty disappointed that I’m 27 and still in college.  I do, however, have some great excuses for why that is.  I have a loving husband, a little pint sized superman, and a little baby buddha.  I am on track to finish school Winter of 2009.  That’s no time at all!

On to the kids:

Max rolls over now and says DaDa and MaMa.  I’m working on holding the bottle, but he would rather me just do it.

Emory plays the air guitar and says "Hey, wait a minute." if he thinks he’s being tricked.  He also has adult anxiety–meaning it takes him freaking forever to warm up to adults.  He goes to what is called Playball on wednesdays.  He freaks out when he sees the coach, or who he refers to as his "playball daddy." (weird!) This past wed. i bribed him with icecream. It worked! He went and had a great time.

I think that’s all for now.  Oh, I’m getting a new hairdo today!  I probably won’t post pictures b/c I’m too critical of myself.

Oh…this is funny.  I work somewhere new this year.  There are 4 pre-k rooms.  I previously knew 1 of the teachers (that’s how i got the job), but i haven’t really had a relationship with the other 2. Well those 2 girls and i had to go to training together on mon and tues.  I discovered that I went to Collins Hill with 1 of the teachers and I graduated from Central with her husband.  Of course, none of us remember each other. Small world. (to explain the CH and Central thing…I moved here from LA during 9th grade so I went to Collins Hill 9-10 grade, then we moved  and I went to Central 11-12 grade. That means I remember about 25 people from highschool…bummer.)

We took Emory to the zoo today.  It was just Mommy Daddy and Emory.  We told him yesterday about our plan to go to the zoo.  He decided he needed to wear his new rhinocerus shirt.  This morning he woke up rather perky.  We asked him where he was going today and he said "THA ZOOOOOOO!" Very cute.  So, Grandmama came over to watch Max.  I’m much more selfish with baby Max than I was with little Em.  So, it was kind of weird leavng him.  The zoo was great.  After seeing most of the animals (the giraffe wasn’t out?) Emory decided that the elephants and the zebras were his favorites.  He was great there.  He even walked by himself most of the time (we’re encouraging big boy behavior.)  We’ve kind of treated him like a bubble boy and now he can be a bit of a wuss sometimes.  We rode the train and he didn’t get scared when we went under the tunnels.  That’s the phase we’re in right now–everything is scary! We basically had a great big boy day. He even witnessed quite a few peddlers on the way out.  One was painting portraits (not actually painting so much, just had an easel with a framed portrait on it…didn’t see any other art supplies.) One was playing bongos.  One was playing a harmonica.  One was playing a keyboard.  The keyboard guy totally cracked me up.  It seriously sounded like he pressed that auto play button and was just pressing keys…he was having a conversation with someone at the same time.  Interesting.  People and their behaviors interest me, but that’s another blog for another day.  Emory crashed on the way home.  We were going to introduce him to the metro-Atlantan culture of The Varsity (that’s another blog too!) but he fell asleep.  We opted for Sonic instead.  That was our day, and the highlight of our spring break.

LAUNDRY! I don’t mind washing the clothes and making them smell great.  I hate putting the laundry away.  Apparently, my husband hates that task too.  We have a rather large pile of clean laundry that Mommy gets to put away.  In his defense, I am a neurotic freak about where things go.  He’s probably scared to touch it. Does anyone else get completely irritated by little tiny everyday things?

Sooo…apparently baby weight doesn’t melt off of me the 2nd time around.  I’m a whiner.  My husband is sick of listening to me whine about how fat I think I am.  I don’t diet, but I am cautious about what I eat.  I’m a huge believer in lifestyle dieting.  As in, be smart about what you eat in general.  I have 9 pounds to go to get where I was Pre-Max and about 14 pounds to go to get to Pre-Emory.  My downfall is…I don’t exercise…at all!  I know that’s the one thing I need to do to lose the rest of this weight.  I also have other issues (i’m tired ALL the time!) that I think exercise will help.  Therefore, I broke down and bought an elliptical today.  It’s really nice, and it has a program where you can set goals for yourself.  I’m excited about it.  I’ll keep you posted on how things go.

So my best friend/ soul sister/ cousin/ whatever you want to call her (I really love her) is having a baby!!!!  I can’t sign my ticket out of the state of Georgia quick enough to go be with her.  She is very excited and so am I.  She is going to be a great mommy.  I’ve always kind of played the big sister role to her.  So, I love to help her and guide her any way I can.  I have a vivid memory of her telling me about a boy that was picking on her on the playground when we were in elementary school.  I marched myself over to that little boy (I can’t stand the name Brandon to this day) and let him know that if he did it again, he would have to deal with me.  Very funny.  Anyway, in an effort to help her, I made a wish list of baby stuff I could not have lived without.  I’m going to post it here.  If you have any other ideas, please add to my list.  Oh…she’s probably, most likely having a girl.

1. Pack n’ Play:  I seriously thought these were a waste and I didn’t even register for one.  Thank you, Jesus, a smarter mommy bought me one anyway.  It has the attachment to make it a basinet/changing table.  Our babies lived in it for the 1st few weeks.  Later you can use it for the baby to play while you do housework.  And they can sleep in it on vacations!  You also need the "play yard" sheets for it….makes it cozy!

2.Convertible car seat: You can only use that carrier one for a year.  Again, I didn’t register for the bigger one.  So, I was counting down the days until I could go out and buy it.  There are different #s that tell you when you can start/ stop using it.  #1 means it is a reversible seat, so they can be in it immediately (although it looks really scary!) I think mine is a 2,3.  The box explains it.  If you have a girl you can get it in rockin patterns.  The only boyish ones are black, blue, or camo. Thank you, manufacturers…very creative!

3.Travel System: The car seat and stroller in one.  I’ll be honest…I hated it with my 1st. It seemed so big.  Now with two, it seems super easy and much smaller than the double stroller.  Ask around to people who have a similar lifestyle.

4.Floor toys:  We can’t have enough!  Babies get so bored so fast.  Right now we have the Gymini thing that looks like a mat with toys hanging over it, a bouncy seat with toys, and something that’s not on the market anymore (we call it the boat–it’s basically a music/light show that they activate when they kick at it,) and an exersaucer.

5. Swing-we love the baby papasan. And, after months of living in shame, I found out it’s ok to let the baby nap in it if needed.

6. bowls w/ lids and sippy cups: i LOVE the 1st years take and toss. you don’t have to worry about the stopper things on the cups and everything is soooo cheap. they sell a great bag that comes with spoons, forks, cups, bowls. the spoons and forks are great when the baby starts feeding themselves. the rubber ones are best when you start feeding baby.

7.bibs: i like carters the best. i like the ones that are terry cloth on both sides and lined on the inside. all the other bibs just allow the milk to seep through.

8.burp cloths: i like any that resemble a cloth diaper. they work best!

9.blankets: gotta love blankets! the only blankets i don’t like are the flannel receiving blankets. they annoy me. they’re just not big enough to do anything (except roll up and protect baby’s head from bobbling in the car seat.) someone gave me a thermal blanket for max…it’s my fave! it’s big and stretchy so it’s great for swaddling. Max LOVES to snuggle in it b/c it’s so light-weight. oh and you need about a million blankets! i like using the huge fleece or sweater blankets for floor play. (that almost sounds perverted!)

10. A great digital camera, camera card, and video recorder!

That’s all I got for now. I need to post this so she can read it.  Add suggestions! (even if i don’t know you!)

I figured out the picture header thing!  And Emory told me he couldn’t take a bath today because he was busy.

When I was single and had no children, there was nothing in the world that I hated more than Elmo.  I’m sure everyone has some children’s cartoon character that just gets on your last nerve.  The thing is, we (parents) don’t all of the sudden become crazy Barney lovers.  We just discover that a good Wonder Pets (although I do love little Ming Ming) show will keep our children happy, silent, and still for 27 minutes.  We also love any form of DVR so we can build up a master play list of all our kids shows for our way too many desperate moments.  So, this blog’s to everyone who has heard the Elmo song one too many times.  Everyone can thank my lovely dog Molly later. 

p.s. My favorite part is the eyeballs!

so i guess i didn’t figure out how to make that picture disappear after all.