Friday Five

1. Oh, my lovely Rangers. Although I am SO proud that you're finally playing for a world championship, your first two performances were abysmal. Especially yours, bullpen pitchers!! I've been a fan forever, and most of the forever you've been a relatively dismissible team, so I'll love you either way. But now that you're back in Arlington, I expect you to get back to your winning ways. Thank you very much.

2. I went to Canton today! If you aren't familiar with First Monday Trade Days, where have you been? you're missing out. It's acres and acres of super-cute-but-totally-unnecessary stuff that takes hours and hours to look through. I used terrific restraint in all the cute little girl shops and even in the home decor booths. So what got me? Car floor mats. I wish I were kidding. We've been seriously needing some in my car and just hadn't gotten around to actually buying them. So while it wasn't the greatest deal on the planet, I snagged them. They were zebra print. I'm a sucker. Oh, and I also got some yummy cider mulling spices because this girl discovered a love for cider while visiting Matt's brother and sister-in-law in Connecticut a few years ago. I love fall. Well, whatever we call fall in Texas. It only got up to 70 today; that's cool weather, right? Oh, and I got an old window. Random sounding I know, but it was only $10 and I've been wanting to start a project. And the sweetest girl on the planet offered to keep Avery today so I could have a baby-free shopping day with the girls from church. How awesome is that?!? Thanks, Brittany!

3. Is anyone else terribly ready for Tuesday's election to be over?!? I'm actually very interested in politics, but by the end of each election season, I am just so over all the negative ads. Ugh, they sound like a bunch of whiney babies.

4. Speaking of whiney babies, is it possible for the Terrible Twos to start at 16 months?!? I'm (halfway) kidding. My sweet little girl has turned into a not-so-sweet, tantrum-throwing, parent-hitting, "no"-screaming little nightmare the past couple of weeks.I'm seriously hoping this is just an effect of her recent teething (or at worst, a short phase) because I don't think I'm quite ready for this whole discipline thing. Yikes!

5. Happy Halloween. I guess. I've never been a huge fan of Halloween, but I do love when it's over and we get to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas! We still need to figure out what we're doing with Avery on Sunday night, but until then, I'll leave you with this picture of my adorable little cow at Mother's Day Out for her costume day.

Friday Five

1. I've been a bad blogger these days. Usually I catch up on my posts while Avery is napping, but lately I haven't been able to peel myself away from the couch after sitting down for "just a second." Too. tired. must. get. rest.

2. This week was pretty tough because, like I mentioned on Monday, we had to find a new home for one of our dogs, Sadie.  We took Sadie in when she was a year old, right before Avery was born. Our friends were looking for a new home for her, she was super sweet, and we thought it would be good for our dog Nutmeg (who we rescued from the shelter when she was 8 weeks old) to have a playmate when we were busy with the baby or at work. Well, after over a year, Nutmeg never got over her territorial nature, so the dogs had not been getting along at all; since we're down to one income we're struggling to pay our own bills, much less those for two dogs; we just hadn't been able to pour enough attention into Sadie to fully housetrain her so she can be part of the family; and our backyard neighbors have been making our lives a nightmare. Still.

As sad as we were to see Sadie go, she went to the ideal home for her. A couple that I knew from high school had just lost their 14-year-old lab, and they came over to meet Sadie soon after I posted a note on Facebook that we were looking for a home for her. They loved her and ended up taking her home with them that day. It all happened much faster than I expected, but it really is the best situation for her. She's finally able to be the family dog without having to fight for attention with her territorial sister. And now she has two kids to play with instead of just one.

3. Fridays are our chill days. We have a pretty set routine from Monday to Thursday, so on Fridays Avery and I hang out in our pajamas until around 9 and then we just do whatever we (um, I) feel like. Today we went with my friend Valerie and her two kids to an outdoor mall that has a pretty cool play area and then to lunch at Chick-fil-a. Even though Valerie and I didn't get to catch up as much as we'd like (it's amazing how much attention three kids require, haha!), it was nice to just hang out with somebody who gets what your life is like. Avery was a little shy today, but I think she enjoyed the company as well. :) And I scored two shirts and three pairs of socks for Avery at Old Navy for a grand total of $4.01.

4. This weekend isn't much different from most of our weekends: busy. Matt has to chaperone a choir lock-in tonight, which means I'm on my own again. I know I shouldn't complain; it could be much worse. But he's going straight to church tomorrow after the lock-in is over at 7am to help with some technical stuff in the sanctuary. Then on Saturday night we're having some of the Little Women cast over to watch the taped performance, and as excited as I am to see everybody, my house isn't quite together. Sunday is another full day with church, choir practice, more church, and getting the house back together in time for another week to begin. One of these days we will keep a weekend free to just spend time as a family, whatever that's like.

5. My Rangers are ONE win away from going to the World Series! I'm so hoping they pull it off tonight because I'm super nervous about what would happen if the Yankees forced a game 7. I'm still debating whether or not I'm going to try to go watch the game at my parents' (i.e. put Avery to bed there and bring her home after she's been sleeping for 3 hours) or just suck it up and listen on the radio at home. Stupid TBS for buying the rights to the ALCS.

Have a great weekend and GO RANGERS!

Where We've Been

Whew, this week has been crazy to say the least. I won't attempt to catch y'all up on everything, but here's a brief rundown.

On Wednesday, Avery and I had to stay home from BSF because she had started running a fever on Tuesday afternoon. I didn't want to be the mom who got everybody else's kids sick. Plus, I felt pretty craptastic myself. We also ended up staying home from Lifegroup that night because I wanted her to sleep the whole night in her own bed (as opposed to going to sleep at my parents' and us picking her up on the way home). We figured a little sleep would go a long way and she'd be better in no time. She was on an antibiotic for an ear infection, after all.

Well Thursday morning she was acting like she felt tons better, but I noticed some spots on her arms and legs when I got her out of bed. I thought they were insect bites and immediately started inspecting her bed, but no little critters turned up. I kept her home from Mother's Day Out just in case, but we did run up to the church for  an hour so I could get things ready for Sunday (since I was missing my normal workday by keeping her at home). On out way out the door, I asked Adrienne (the super helpful Tuesday/Thursday church volunteer) what she thought of Avery's spots, and she thought they looked like chickenpox.

Great.

Only, Avery had gotten the chickenpox vaccine about 10 days prior. So I called the doctor's office and when the nurse called me back, she thought the spots sounded like a "normal reaction" the the vaccine that shows up on about a third of kids a week or two after getting the shot.

As the afternoon wore on, however, those spots had spread all over her little body and looked like hives instead of insect bites. I took my little cheetah girl across the street to my super-nurse neighbor Whitney, who was like, um, that's not a reaction to a shot; she's allergic to something.

I gave Avery some Benadryl that night and decided to call the doctor in the morning. But when Friday morning rolled around, Avery's poor face had ballooned into a swollen red mess. Poor thing! I got her into the doctor so they could actually look at her without just trying to diagnose it over the phone, and it turns out that she is severely allergic to her antibiotic (which, ironically enough, she didn't break out until her last dose).

To top it all off, my little monkey fell in the office and busted her chin. At which point I promptly lost it and we both left the office in tears.

Then I found out that her babysitter for Saturday (I had a ministry team workshop and Matt had all-region all day long) backed out on us at the last minute, and I had no other options because I had lined that up two weeks in advance.

So while my sweet neighbor Brooke watched Avery so I could run to Costco (by that point, I just couldn't handle taking a sick baby with me), I called my friend Kendra who was completely willing to come with her husband Carlos and spend the day with Avery while we fulfilled our commitments.  As long as they could come watch the Ranger game with us at my parents' that night. Yes, please! I'm so thankful for good friends!

And then we all know how that first ALCS game went. Up 5-0, 8th inning meldown, 6-5 loss. No need to relive it.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much a blur of non-relaxation, and now we start over.

I'm still wrestling with all God has been teaching me, Avery's still not 100%, Matt's schedule this week is out of control, our house needs to be cleaned more than you know, and we came to the incredibly difficult conclusion this weekend that we need to find a new home for one of our dogs. Sigh.

But surprisingly, I'm okay. And I'm not grading research papers this week. :)

Give up everything?

After shedding more tears than I care to admit, I finally finished reading Same Kind of Different as Me last week. I cried so hard I was thisclose to throwing up. The only reason I didn't was that I was too tired to get out of bed to puke. TMI. Guess I should've warned you.

So between that book, our BSF study in Isaiah, and reading Crazy Love for our ministry workshop on Saturday, my brain and my heart are working on overdrive. I'm on a collision course with truth and am finally taking a good look at who God is, how He views sin, and what it means to really follow Him.

I honestly don't know what it means. I mean, sure, Jesus commands us to give up everything to follow Him. I don't always do that. I hold on to my plans and my family and my stuff. Why am I trying to give God my leftovers?

I can't continue to compare myself to others, thinking that "how I'm doing" is somehow relative to those around me. It's not.

As A.W. Tozer put it, "...the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like."

If I will actually come to a point that I grasp the magnitude of God (note that I didn't say "understand Him fully;" that is impossible), my life will be different. I won't look like a church-ified version of the world.

My thoughts are pretty jumbled right now as I process, but here's what it comes down to in the words of Francis Chan: " Following Christ isn't something that can be done halfheartedly or on the side. It is not a label we can display when it is useful. It must be central to everything we do and are."

Show Us Your Life: Kitchens

Today's Show Us Your Life at Kelly's Korner is Kitchens. So yay! That's probably my favorite room in our house (mostly because it's the most finished) so I'll play today. :)

Ah, where I attempt to cook. Proof, there are even pots going in the picture.

I really should write on that chalkboard.

I love love love this light fixture. I had my aunt on garage sale watch for me, and she found this for $10! Did I mention that I love it?

Um, please ignore the fridge. I wish I could have one of those pretty empty fridge surfaces like you see in the magazines, but I can't help it. I use my magnetic surfaces.

Our kitchen is small but open and functional. We like it a lot. The end.

Friday Five

1. How 'bout them Rangers!?!? Holy cow! From the time we saw them play on opening day this year, we knew there was something special about this team, and so far, they're proving us right. All those years of being a die-hard fan when they were the joke of the metroplex are paying off because we are ON FIRE! Two road games against the 1st place team in the East to start off the postseason? No big deal. We're up two games to zero and have scored a combined total of 11 runs to their one. I'm even willing to overlook the annoying "fans" who are jumping on the bandwagon even though they haven't given a crap about the Rangers since 1999 (ahem, the last time we made it past the regular season). I'm too stinkin' excited to care! Come on, boys. Take those Rays in three (or four. or five. as long as you win the series.).

2. I started Bible Study Fellowship a couple of weeks ago. If you're not familiar with BSF, it's an international weekly Bible study that focuses on a book of the Bible for a year. This year's study is on Isaiah, and it's been fantastic so far. It's really challenging me to get in the Word consistently, and since I don't get to go to Sunday School because of children's ministry commitments, I've been thankful to participate in this study. I've already learned so much about God's sovereignty, judgment, and hope, and I can't wait to see what the rest of the year holds.

3. Hopefully I will never need to take Avery to one of my doctor appointments ever again. I have learned my lesson. Nightmare unnecessary to relive.

4. This is the time of the school year I've been waiting for. As much as I've loved staying home with Avery, there are times that I really miss teaching. However. This six weeks is research for the sophomores. If you've never tried to teach 150 15-year-olds how to write a formal argumentative paper using MLA format, you're missing out lucky. And if that part isn't bad enough, at the end of the unit, you have to grade 150 120 said papers. And after that, you get to deal with psychotic lovely parents who don't understand how their darling child got a zero because they would never plagiarize, or the parents who "red and editted there child's paper and didnt catch any missteaks," or the parent who thinks it was completely unfair that their child got 20 points taken off of the grade because they turned it in late; didn't I realize that their computer crashed and they ran out of printer ink at midnight the night before it was due?!? So at this moment, I'm relishing the fact that I am free of that excruciatingly painful experience.

5. Weekend plans: watch the Ranger game (duh) and go to Kendra's birthday party on Saturday night, and then it's church, the state fair, and Shrek on Sunday!

15 month update

My next Avery update will not be three months in the making. Too much happens in that span of time to try to remember and update in one post. Here's my attempt:

Avery, at 15 months you are:

• 25.5 lbs and 33.75 inches tall. Strangers always think you're at least 2 when they meet you because you look so much older! You're off the charts for height, but you're right in the middle for your weight, which means that your weight is slightly below average for your height. But we think you're just right.

• wearing size 4 diapers and 18 month clothes (although we're starting to transition to 24 month and 2t).
• talking up a storm. You've added a whole list of words to your vocabulary: book, bath, water, milk, baby (your favorite word!), no, dog, eyes, nose, mouth, shoe, sock, door, book, shadow, sit, snack, bubble, shark, poopoo, wet, diaper, 'side (inside or outside, depending on which side of the door you'd like to be, haha!), walk, down, up, jump, Mommy, Daddy, Meg, Sadie, hi, bye, and so many more! You also repeat most names, but you refuse to say "Allison." You just spit every time we ask you to say her name. It's cute now, but she might start getting offended if you keep it up too much longer!
• very social. You wave at anything with legs, and you give high fives and fist bumps ("pound it!"). You have a precious little smile and you love to play with other kids. You're fascinated with older kids and try to follow what they do, and your face just lights up when you see a "bebe."

• active! You started walking on the first day of school (August 23) when you walked to Daddy when he got home. We haven't been able to stop you since. You love to play chase and crawl up onto the couch (and right back down again!). 
• wearing shoes. That one took awhile, but you love them now! The second you see me pick one up, you start yelling, "Shoe! Shoe! Shoe! Shoe!" until I get it on your foot. 
• loving the Backyardigans. Well, you really just love the music; you tune out when they're not singing. Both the theme song and the shhhh secret agent song can calm you down any time you're upset. Kendra and I actually had to listen to Secret Agent in the car for 2 hours on repeat when we were driving home from Brownwood because it was the only way you would stay asleep!
• jumping. Hehehe, this is the cutest thing ever. When we tell you to jump, you just squat down and then pop right back up. You haven't quite gotten air yet, but you are very proud of yourself every time you "Jump!"
• ahem, very aware of your bodily functions. This week you started telling us when you're wet or when you "poopoo" by saying the appropriate word and grabbing your diaper. We might be starting the potty training process a little sooner than expected...
• so loving. You give the best hugs and kisses! You always say "Ohhh" and pat people when you hug them, and you learned how to blow kisses.
• fascinated with baby dolls. Your favorite word is "baby," so it's fitting that your dolls are your favorite toys. You're so sweet with them! Well, when you're not slamming them down on the ground because you like the noise it makes. :) 

• mulletless! You got your first "haircut" last week because Ms. Cindy was appalled that I was letting you walk around with a mullet. She snipped off just a little of the hair in the back, and we've even managed to get your hair in a ponytail a couple of times (much to your dismay)! 

• growing up way too fast. You bring so much joy to our lives, and we're so blessed to call you ours. We love you, baby girl! 

Love,
Mommy and Daddy

Friday Five

Matt took an early weekend, so we're spending a few days visiting his family:


1. After a stop at Chick-fil-a on our way out and a relatively uneventful drive (during which we didn't even stop at Buc-ee's for Cinnamon Bun Indulgence cappuccino), we finally made it in town at 11pm. Avery decided it was time to wake up and play. A cup of ice water (go figure) and lots of snuggle time later, she went back to bed. And so did we. Driving I-45 at night is exhausting!

2. I played a 117 point word against Matt in Words With Friends. That wasn't part of our trip. It actually happened on Wednesday. I had to gloat.

3. Sleeping in and Snowflake Donuts for breakfast on Friday morning can't be a bad start to the weekend.

4. Avery LOVES the new tunnels and tent that appeared at NeNe and PopPop's house. Pictures to come.

5. The rest of the weekend promises even more excitement: Kemah tonight, cookout lunch tomorrow, visiting the Trunks tomorrow night, and (ugh) driving back on Sunday.

Sorry my Five wasn't a little more cleverly written, but have a great weekend anyway!

p.s. I'm thinking about starting to link up the Friday Five since more people have started writing their own. Maybe next week?