Secrets!

Ok, so if you like what you see, let me know. I haven't posted on here for awhile, but I will tell you a secret if you send me a message!

Christy

20 Firsts

Ok...so those of you on the MySpace site are familiar with these "bulletins" that get posted on a VERY regular basis. I am not feeling the need to write tonight, but I wanted to post something...so here goes. Enjoy.

20 Firsts

1. Who was your first prom date?
Ed. Tehe.

2. Who was your first roommate?
Susi (She's on my Friends List)


3. What alcoholic beverage did you first drink?
I'm sure it was beer

4. What was your first job?
K&L. Duh.

5. What was your first car?
Mercury Sable

6. When did you go to your first funeral?
Not sure...first one that I remember was a man from church.

8. Who was your first grade teacher?
Mrs. Rush

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
California

10. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with?
I don't remember "Sneaking" out.

11. Who was your first best friend and are you still friends with them?
Kelli Ross. Haven't Seen her in Years.

12. Where was your first sleepover?
1st Grade...Priscilla Nicholson's House in Moscow by the train tracks. I learned to ride her bicycle on her that gravel road!

13. Who is the first person you talked to this morning?
Ed

14. Whose wedding were you in the first time?
Mine. I have kept the bride's book a few times...before though.

15. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
Check on Ali

16. What was the first concert you ever went to? Geoff Moore and the Distance/Petra. Secular concert...Metallica! :)

17. First tattoo or piercing?
Ears....in 5th Grade. No tats.

18. First celebrity crush?
Wow. I can't even tell you.

19. First crush?
Chris Dussex in Montessori.

20. When was your first detention?
10th Grade. Stupid Orchestra. They wouldn't let us chew gum...needless to say, we did.

Repost as 20 firsts!

What's That Smell?

What's that Smell?

So, it is fair to say that we have reached another milestone in our lives. My daughter's First Birthday Party. And what a party it was. Though it was not technically her birthday (it is Tues), we wanted to make sure that everyone would get to attend so we picked a weekend to celebrate. The party was not scheduled to start until 2pm, but people started rolling in earlier than that. I think that everyone had the same idea, "let's get there early so we can play with the birthday girl before everyone else gets there!" While this may have been a good idea on paper, when it came time for the execution, it did not work. I was frantically trying to get the house in order when people started showing up. Fortunatly, I had some good help to finish things so I could go get myself ready.

After everyone arrived, we all had a great time visiting and chowing down on some yummy Corky's BBQ. Poor Little Ali ate about Half of my friend Heather's Sandwich! She must have been a hungry little girl! After dinner, it was on to present time.

This was Ali's first attempt at opening presents. She had no idea what to do at first, fortunately, we had our nephew Jacob to help her figure it out! It took her no time to learn how to pull tissue paper out of the bags. She had a really good time with the paper, even if she didn't quite understand it all. Also, there were some really great toys under all that paper! Wooden toys, educational toys, and pretend toys. All great things for a little one to have!

After presents, it was time for cake. Now, by this time, you must understand that Ali had been up since 7:30 or so without a nap. By cake time (somewhere around 3 or so), she was exhausted to the point of passing out. We put her in the highchair and gave her a little "baby block" cake to eat. Her big cake was baby blocks stacked up on top of each other. She wasn't too sure what was going on with the cake, but eventually she wrapped both arms around it and pulled it toward her....then she took a big bite out of it! It was too cute. After she fiddled and gnawed on it for awhile, she started nodding off. It was the most adorable thing that I have seen in a long time. Her little eyes were drooping and closing and her little head was dipping and lolling....and the whole time her little hand never left the cake! I guess she gets it honest. Never let go of the cake!!

Poor baby. She had a long day. But it was a wonderful day. She played and played with her friends and family. We unwrapped new presents (at the request of her cousin) and played more! By the time that everyone left at around 7pm, she could not stand it any longer. She finally passed out. We put her to bed, and she slept for about 12 hours. My sweet baby girl!

After we put her to bed, Ed and I started to address the chaos that was our house. There was cake EVERYWHERE. There were toys EVERYWHERE. And there was trash EVERYWHERE. I guess this was all to be expected...and fortunately it all cleaned up relatively quickly. We even were able to unpack all of her new toys and find new "homes" for them all. She got some really neat things...puzzles, wooden toys, a kitchen playset, a carousel rocky horse, and many many more things. She even got her first baby dolls.

One of the most profound things happened while we were cleaning up and organizing toys. Do you ever get a whiff of something that smells so overwhelmingly familiar that it just stops you right in your tracks? This happens to me occasionally, but I had another moment like this yesterday when we opened up the Cabbage Patch Doll that she got. It's really odd...I was trying to adjust the bow in the doll's hair (her name in Jaida Lina, by the way) and I could smell her head. I know how odd this sounds, but trust me. It smelled just like the Cabbage Patch "Premie" that I carried around for years. I took him everywhere...bed, church, dinner...he was seldom out of my sight. All of these memories flooded my mind when I opened this doll. I suddenly realized that my little daughter is beginning to form memories of her own. She will one day be playing with her daughter or son and think back to when she was a little girl. It's really odd to be thinking about your life in such a way. It seems that just yesterday I was playing with that doll. I would 'feed', 'diaper', and care for that little man in the only ways that I knew how. All of it just practice for the real thing. I'm now watching Ali carry her dolls around. Is she practicing too? I can't wait to find out.







CMD

Attn: All Drivers

Attention All Drivers:

I have noticed that many of you in the Little Rock area like to drive well in excess of the posted speed limits. This includes interstate driving, as well as city driving. Just so you know, the cops will get you. You will be ticketed.

Don't plow through a 25 mph neighborhood at 40mph. This is just STUPID. You WILL eventually be caught. Trust me on this.

Don't completely ignore the posted speeds in a construction zone!!! It is terribly annoying, and occasionally dangerous, when I am going the posted 55mph along I-40 at Levy and you FLY past me at 70+ mph. Do you not understand that they have lowered the speed limit there for a reason? Are you TRYING to kill me and my child? I drive a Mini-Van for a reason.....if I wanted to go fast, I would not have chosen the Sienna!!! PLEASE respect that. Furthermore, driving the speed limit actually helps with your gas mileage. It is CHEAPER to drive the speed limit.

And one more point...when you make an illegal left-hand turn after the light has turned yellow, don't get pissed off at me when you get hit. YOU are the STUPID person that thinks it is wise to ignore the posted traffic signal because you are IMPATIENT!!! Don't you dare have the nerve to blame me if I hit you!

Ok. I feel better now. Until the next time I get in the car, that is.

CMD

Pigg-O-Stat

So it's quite possible that we may be horrible parents. This morning, at approxamately 7:50am, Ali pulled her bulletin board down and knocked some of the thumbtacks off. We could not find one of them....so we had to call the doctor. Fortunatley, we were able to go to the Dr's office instead of ACH. I didn't really want to have to wait at the ER for an x-ray. We were pretty sure that she didn't swallow the thing, but we had to be sure.

We get to the Dr's office, and they listen to her chest to hear her breath sounds and she sounds good. Down to x-ray we go. Somehow, it has never occured to me that little kids must sit incredibly still for CXRs. I have never thought about a squirmy child sitting for an x-ray before. Well, they have. They had this interesting contraption left over from medieval torture days called a Pigg-O-Stat (I have no idea about the name). Poor Ali had to be strapped in with her arms up over her little head. Edward stayed with her (they made me go behind the lead wall), but she cried and cried. I know that she was not hurting, but she still looked really unhappy.

Due to the modern miracle of technology, we were able to see the films asap. Digital radiography is so cool. No wait time. No Tack, either. We still have not found that little bugger, either. I'm hoping to find it soon. Before the dogs do. They don't sit still for x-rays, either.


Pigg-O-Stat. Such a funny word. Dang. I should write about more. I am trying to fill up the time until Grey's Anatomy. I guess I could do something else that may in fact be constructive, but I refuse. Oh well. I'll go watch Ugly Betty instead. I hope it's good.

CMD

Cousins

I have learned so much about genealogy tonight. My daughter has a 2nd cousin that is also her 5th cousin. I guess, techincally, her daddy is also her 4th cousin, once removed. It's crazy. I didn't know how all of that worked until I actually looked it up on Genealogy.com. This was all spurred by a funeral that I attended today.

My grandmother's sister (My great-aunt) died this weekend and the funeral was today. I saw relatives that I haven't seen in years. I was having a problem figuring out who was who and how I was related. See, my great aunt was older than my grandmother, and she had her children earlier in life than my grandmother did. This means that my mom and her brother are quite a bit younger than their cousins, in turn, making the generations kind of staggered in age. My mom is probably closer in age to her second cousins than her first cousins. So I tend to get confused easily.

I came home and promptly made a chart to help me figure it out. I understand things much better now that I have a visual aid!!

The funeral was in PB, so I got to take Ali and visit Grammy. She had a blast in the new toy room with all the things to play with. Grammy and I were both exhausted! Grammy even volunteered to play with her while we went to the funeral. By the way, if you have to go to an Episcopal funeral, call me. I'll tell you all about it. Let's just say I was not expecting what we were in for.

So we had a good trip, and I learned an interesting bit of information about relatives. Ask me if you have any cousin questions. I'll be glad to help sort it out!

CMD

I think I need a Hobby.

I have decided that I need a hobby. Television is not a hobby--it's a sick obsession. I admit it. I am a TV Junkie. I need it to function. The month of September signals the end of summer for most people, but for me, it means the beginning of the fall television season. Old shows that left me to wonder all summer long about their eventual outcome return to ease my anxiety and further endear me to their characters. New show premiere, filling me with a sense of curiosity not only about the plot and characters, but also whether or not they will make the cut. This past week has been a blur of loose ends being all sewn together and the beginning of a glorious new fray.

All that being said, I have decided that I need a hobby. One that does not take much time or MONEY to get started. One that also does not require the full attention of my mind. I also would like a quiet hobby. Being the musician that I am, I am tired of disturbing others when I want to play. I can't play anything while Ali sleeps, and this is a problem. For this reason, I think that I would like to give knitting/crocheting a try. A friend of mine recently told me about a program that AR Children's Hospital is running called "Knitting for Knoggins" where they want people to make hats to ensure that all kiddos go home with a warm hat this winter. It interested me. I have crocheted in the past, but it has been a very long time. I think that I might give it a try. Plus---I can always knit/crochet WHILE watching TV. Isn't that sneaky!

If any of you have better suggestions for a hobby....please feel free to let me know. I'm out of ideas.

CMD




Oh yeah, just in case you are wondering...here is a list of the shows I TiVo'd this week:
(*indicates brand new shows)
Sunday:
Simpsons
Family Guy
(This week we add Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters)

Monday:
*The Class
How I Met Your Mother
Two and a Half Men
The New Adventures of Old Christine
*Vanished
*Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Tuesday:
Law and Order: SVU
The Unit
*Standoff
Wednesday:
*Justice


Thursday:
*'Til Death
*Ugly Betty (Starts this week)
The Office (In the interest of full disclosure, I have not watched this show's previous seasons)
Grey's Anatomy
ER
*Six Degrees


Friday:
Law and Order

Saturday:
Since when did Saturday become "recap night"?

And you can't forget Sesame Street, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, each weekday!
I'm telling you. I need a real hobby.