Weekend with the Grand-Parentals

Our time with Steve and Cozy was wonderful. It's always so sad when they have to go back home to Missouri.

The last time they came, Annabeth was just five weeks old. They were originally going to wait to visit until she was a little older to give us time to settle in, but we didn't want them to miss out on her tiny-ness. Plus, we wanted to take them to the rodeo. I thought I would be totally normal by then, but now I cringe whenever I think of that visit because of how crazy I still was from the hormones, exhaustion, and the wardrobe crises I was having every time I got dressed. Plus, at that time Curtis and I were at our wits end with the potty training marathon. We were both about to lose our minds, but everything fell into place shortly after. I think we were in a better place for this visit.

I already talked about what we did on Friday. On Saturday, we drove out to Tomball to have the world's best chicken fried steaks at a place called Goodson's. (You can read all about it on this blog review I just found.) After that we went to It'z Pizza, not to eat again, but to play the games. Well, it turned out that you have to pay for the pizza buffet to get in for the games. Awesome. We were not going to get out of there without Jackson getting to play some games unless we wanted to make a long visit to Meltdown City. Rather than pay for every one of us, Cozy, Annabeth and I left the boys and went shopping for some fake plants at Garden Ridge. Have I mentioned that I'm hosting bunco next week and that's why I'm in a rush to finish up at least some of my decorating? The boys had lots of fun playing games and I found some greenery to go above my kitchen cabinets.

After that, Cozy and I went to visit an outlet mall. The Baby Gap outlet had super cute onesies for baby boys for $4 and $5. For the record, I think the boy colors at Baby Gap are the BEST and I miss buying those little onesies. I got Jackson and extra bathing suit and swim shirt (love those) for our upcoming Galveston trip.

That night we had dinner at a neighborhood Japanese steakhouse. Yum. The only unfortunate thing was that we were seated with a young married couple who were clearly on a date. I felt so bad that they had to sit with us. I strategically placed myself and the children as far from them as possible. But from where I was sitting, I had an optimal view of their scowling faces. I don't know if they were super annoyed by us or if they were in a fight. Curtis and I have been in that position before, but hopefully we did a better job at masking our disappointment at being seated with other people's kids while ours were with a babysitter.

On Sunday morning, Steve-Papa (as Jackson says) and Nana left before 7 am. So sad. We went to church and then had lunch with our friend Ralph from Charasia. Ralph is who Curtis and Jerrell went to visit in India last fall. His organization saves young daughters of prostitutes from having to follow in their mothers' footsteps. They care for them in special homes where they are educated, taught about the love of Christ, and equipped to live a vibrant adulthood instead of being enslaved in a brothel. It's an amazing organization, to say the least.

I'm about to bombard you with a ton of pictures.

Nana and Pappaw came bearing gifts. Annabeth got a Jumperoo. She LOVES it.







Jackson got some miniature Nascars and a Tom and Jerry DVD. He also got this awesome wooden horse that his Great-grandpa Dixon made him. It's so neat!

















Here's Nana reading the Dr. Seuss pop-up book with the kids.



Jackson was really amused by his sister.









After we got home from Jackson's swim lesson yesterday, Annabeth had little beads of sweat across her nose. Welcome to your first Texas summer, baby girl. It seriously feels like August right now. So does that mean it will feel like October when August does come? Lord have mercy. We might actually get some rain today. Bring it on.



Sometimes the best thing to do when you've been in the 104 degree car is to get nekked.




Here's our bed with the new quilt. It totally made the room come together. I love it. When I first saw the quilt in the store, I thought it was a little too homey for me. But I think it works with the furniture we have.



That end table had a jumbled stack of books on it until a few weeks ago. After a visit to Hobby Lobby, it's in much better shape. That's Curt's side of the bed, so I had to add a picture of Jacks in his Batman costume to man it up a bit.



Thanks for all the great advice on what to do with my frame. I'll let you know what I end up with!

Help Me With My Weird Frame

I'm so stinking excited right now. Remember a million years ago when I said we were getting a new bedspread? (Here's my explanation for that.) We finally find one today. Curt's mom and dad are here visiting this weekend and my mother-in-law loves Pottery Barn as much as I do. So we made a little trip out there to look around. (Afterward we enjoyed a fun lunch at Paulie's. Yeah!) I still had a bunch of money on my Christmas gift cards to spend. While we were there, Curtis pointed out a quilt that he liked. I was totally shocked. It miraculously works with the color of our crazy-long, hard to replace red curtains, our black furniture, and the blue gray bed skirt and pillows from our old duvet cover that we got so sick of. We brought it home, plopped it on the bed, and voila'! I can't believe that our room finally looks finished after 15 months. I need to buy a couple of pillows to go in the shams and then I'll take some pictures for you.

The only thing I can't figure out is what to do with this weird frame we bought at Ikea last year.



It looks really ugly by itself, but I promise it's cool with our bedroom furniture. You can see what we have here. At the time, I thought I'd put a mirror in it, but I was delusional. It's not a conventional shape, plus we already have two mirrors in the room. I'm not real sure what I was thinking. I put some scrapbook paper in it last year as a temporary fix. Time to figure this bad boy out. What would you do with it? Tossing it is not an option because I like the way it balances my boxy furniture.

The dimensions are:
Width: 23 ¼ "
Height: 33 ½ "
Picture, width: 15 ¾ "
Picture, height: 19 ¾ "

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Earlier this week I spent some time going through my posts from Jackson's first year. I wanted to look at his pictures and compare his infancy to Annabeth's. I realized a few things in reading those posts. For instance, Jackson was about 2.5 pounds heavier than Annabeth at 4 months and an inch longer. They rolled over (tummy to back) at about the same time. Jackson took his sweet time doing the back to tummy roll and Annabeth is doing the same. By now Jackson was already showing signs of teething. Annabeth is not really.

Poor Annabeth - she's already been sick so many times. I guess that's the lot of the second child. Jackson's first sickness was at 7 months old and he came down with it on the morning before his first airplane ride. That probably worked in my favor since he's much calmer when he's sick. But Annabeth has had one cold after another. She was a little warm and fussy on Sunday and by yesterday she was coughing and sneezing non-stop. She has not been nursing well this week. I can't tell if it's because my milk is running low or because she can't breathe through her nose. Ever since Memorial Day, I've been really nervous about my milk drying up. I've been working on making sure she's nursing enough times each day. Since she sleeps 12 hours at night (don't hate me), it would be easy to drop to too few daytime feedings to sustain it. Today I realized that the drop in supply may be hormonal. Hopefully that's all it is. Regardless, it does not make baby girl happy.

So I've had two sick kids this week with completely different things. Jackson's was so weird because he had every sign of the stomach virus, but no vomiting. He even leaned over the bowl, cried, shook, and sweated, but nothing came. I think he just fought it so hard. That day he was the most pitiful I've ever seen him. He laid on a blanket on the floor for hours. He's been getting a little more energy back each day. I will say that he's been very easy to deal with. Today he was almost normal. But when I grab his little hand, there's still not much strength in his arm. Bless his heart.

Reading my old posts made me feel like such a loser blogger. I was much better in the past. I swore I wouldn't post again this week until I had something "good." But I've got nothing! Nothing, I tell you!

Well, I do have one thing. Jackson got this water-filled, squishy toy from my aunts on Sunday. The next morning he squeezed it in such a way that it made a weird bubble along a seam. He brought it over to me and said, "Mommy! This look like my bunny!" Sure enough, it looked like a set of hiney cheeks. I laughed so hard I nearly fell off the couch. Are you confused? Maybe I failed to mention that four generations of my mother's family have referred to the private parts as the bunny.

Really, who am I to change things? How arrogant would I be to think I could improve on such a longstanding child-rearing tradition? No pun intended. That's a lie. I totally meant it. If "bunny" was good enough for Minnie Ola Roundtree and Aletha Green, it's good enough for me. When my kid yells out that his bunny itches in a crowded elevator, I will thank my lucky stars that my mama raised me up right - and her mama before her, and her mama before her. Don't worry, they didn't leave us completely in the dark when it came to anatomical correctness - we always knew we had a front bunny and back bunny.

Last Week in Pictures

I have a sick boy today. Jackson has never been so still and quiet in his entire life. He's acting like he has a stomach virus, but he hasn't thrown up yet. He's laying on the living room floor on a blanket, with a big puke bowl next to his head. Poor baby. While I wait for the puke to hit the fan, here are a ton of pictures from last week.

These are from last Monday night when the Lazos came over to play.

Here, Sunni is doing some serious Wii bowling with Baby Clara in her arms.


Curtis trying to teach Jackson how to bowl.


Old pals - Ava and Jackson.


New pals - Annabeth and Clara.


Look, they're already leaning on each other.


Father's Day

Our breakfast table. I got up at the crack of dawn to get donuts for all of us and then everyone but me ended up sleeping late. Isn't that the way it goes?




Jackson is proud to have his sprinkled doughnut.


Mom, Dad, Melissa and I always call ourselves the Original Moores. But these are the Original, Original Moores.


Dad with Aunt Tina and Aunt Mary.


Memaw, Hannah and Annabeth. I got Memaw that apron from Anthro a while back. It's so cute on her!


My cousin John with Annabeth, who was looking like a football player in that moment.




My Pappaw and Daddy


Mom with the kids. Wait for it...wait for it...


Aaaaand she's crying.






Throwing down some pop rocks.


Looking for the ones that didn't quite pop.


Confetti head.


This was the day she started trying to grab her feet and I wanted a picture of it so badly.


What are you doing, Mommy?


Tripoding it up for the first time.




Simultaneous lovie holding and thumb sucking.


Tummy time after Brother's in bed and she has all the attention.


Later that day...reaching for those toes again!


Here's Daddy doing the same and stretching before a run, only he never has been able to reach his toes. Seriously. How he can be like this and so good at every sport boggles my mind. The first time I saw him stretch, I thought he was joking. It doesn't even look like he's trying!