On Saturday, my sweet god-daughter, Katie, turned 1! It was a special day and I was so happy for Becky & Andy to be celebrating this big event! It doesn't seem all that long ago that Becky and I were fighting the infertility battle together, and now her little one is 1 year old and the Z Man is almost 6 months! Here are a few pics from the party! Happy Birthday Katie-bug!
In the pile of presents!
Who's the birthday princess here?? ;-)
Z Man is flirting with the ladies...
In his 1st party hat!
Zach and Julia were chatting it up...I think he was asking her out! :)
For Old Men...me no likey. This movie is very gory and just not my thing. Matteo and I had the usual "what movie should we rent" discussion and agreed on nothing. He claims I always get my choice and then get on the computer and not watch anyway. But what REALLY happens is I decide the least yuck of his choices, end up not liking it as I assumed already I would, and either fall asleep or get on the computer.
I wanted to watch The Great Debaters or Under the Same Sun or Other Boleyn. Those got the thumbs down. So I said fine, lets watch the nasty Old Country. Let me tell you folks, its just not my taste. There is death and blood and violence every where. yuck. So here I sit on the computer.....trying not fell asleep.
I think next time this definitely qualifies me as the movie picker!
Today I saw some weird/odd/sad happenings!
The first was at BRU. You know how they have those coupons where if you buy so much stuff you get a free umbrella stroller?? Well that must be going on right now. I walk in the front door and this couple is trying to strap in probably a 6 week old into there, who of course was screaming. I am coming on the door with a giant baby gate to return but I stopped the checker to alert her to the situation and she was JUST about to stop the couple too. Luckily she did because it was making me totally uncomfortable. I wouldn't even put Z into the BOB until he was like 8 weeks b/c i was so worried about the head support but that poor wee one should not have been in the umbrella stroller. So what would you do? When you see something that you know isn't right, do you say something or do you let those people worry about it?
The second was at Kroger's. I was shopping for some dinner stuff tonight...made our tomato, basil pasta. Delish!!! But anyway, its a Friday night, I was leisurely shopping at Kroger's. I get into the line and there was an old lady who forgot her check book so the line was moving slowly. And she wanted stamps...it was not fast. So the line starts to back up. Yes, they have one line open for us shoppers that have more than 15 items. Then ALL OF A SUDDEN, this lady starts YELLING about some grandpa trying to cut in front of her, another guy using the 15 or less aisle, and the slowness of the line we are in! She actually goes and gets the manager! I mean, yeah, it sucks the line is slow, but c'mon! Its not the poor high school checker and baggers fault! Anyway, I digress (one of my fav sayings), I just wanted to tell the lady to take a chill pill. She was out of control.
And then on the way home from the store, we drove by the vet and their was a lady walking a dog...but not on a leash. What the heck lady? If I was boarding Esther and you are taking her out, she best be on a leash. Just in case. And the lady had a surgical mask on. Maybe there was more to this story. But it was odd, or sad. Whatever you choose.
So anyway, we come home and have the delish pasta dinner. Matt is all impressed cause I used the fresh basil and smoked mozzarella instead of the dry basil and shredded mozzarella you buy in the bag. Its what the original recipe calls for and I must say, it made a difference. Try it out folks.
Z man was ready for bed by 8pm so he was down for the count by the time we ate dinner. We watched some Samantha Brown's Weekend Adventures and now watching Super Bad. I have never seen it before. Matt is dying over her on the couch and I am not getting it as much as he does. Must be a boy thing.
Anyway, tomorrow is Charla's shower. I cannot wait to see her and her twin belly! Sue, Kari and I got her Boppys and covers and 2 cute boy/girl layettes. Can you believe no one had bought her boppys??? I LOVE mine and use them every day STILL. Best invention ever. I am excited to share the love of the boppy with her tomorrow. Oh yeah, and as an extra off the registry gift...I found these little Carter's onesie/pants outfits. The boys is brown and chocolate and says "I love Mommy" and the girl's is pink and chocolate and says "I love Mommy". So cute!
Ok, so now back to Superbad. After the shower I will be doing major cleaning. Open house on Sunday, say some prayers please!!!!!!!!!!!
did anyone watch this show besides me and Ginny?? well last night was the finale and we just watched it tonight. it was GREAT!! i liked autumn and bailey from the beginning so i was happy to see them in the final. although i thought autumn was a better singer, when bailey was up on stage she was just more believable. i actually got teary for them watching their dreams come true when they got to perform! have any of your dreams come true?? i would say my most recent feeling of that was on that last push when Zach arrived and was finally here and safe! it wasn't like a "I'm a rock star" dream come true but one of those "I've waited for this my whole life" moments....amazing. do you have other dreams you still hope will come true?
anyway, good show. i hope they do one again. i watched grease too, this was better. wonder what happened to the grease winners after their run ended?? and i hope to see autumn on the stage one day too....And i think ill buy a ticket to see legally blond in Houston!! :)
Apply directly to the head!
I work on a trade floor so we have CNN, Weather Channel, Fox news, etc on TV all day and I swear that's like the 10th time I have heard that STUPID commercial today. Does anyone actually even USE this product?!? And does it actually work?? I wish they had a less annoying commercial!!!!!!!!!
Still no word from the 2nd showing on Saturday. WAAAA!!!!!!!!
Mom and I headed out with the Z Man today for some shopping! There is a children's resale store that I wanted to check out in Copperfield (there's one at Willowbrook too) and it did not disappoint. I could have bought a lot more I am sure but currently, I am trying not to toy overload while still in this house. No where to hide stuff when prospective buyers come a knocking. I got a Leap Frog Learn and Groove Musical Table which goes for $45 at Toys R Us for $22!! What a buy! Looks brand new too. I also got the F.P. Laugh and Learn Puppy for $5! He doesn't even look gently used, looks brand new. Zachary really likes the puppy too. He was all open mouth smiling when puppy was singing "head, shoulders, knees and toes!" Everything is sterilized and repackaged. I will definitely be going back but Mr Man was ready to go. Rox, they had exersaucers there for $30-$45! I almost called you to see if you wanted me to get you one, but they didn't have the one like Becky and I have and I couldn't decide which one you would have wanted...
So once back in the car, Zach conked out so we headed to BRU. I needed some formula and wanted to return the baby gate we bought for Austin and never used. BRU won't take returns now unless you have a receipt which I did not have with me. ARGH. Not even for store credit! Oh well, I put it back in the car and we shopped anyway. I bought some spoons and stuff to be prepared to start solids. Makes me kinda sad. He is growing up so fast. I think I will wait till 6 months though so a couple more weeks. Did you do Rice Cereal?? And if you did, for how long?
Anyway, back to shopping. We got a high chair too. Ended up going with the evenflo Majestic. Its a little bigger than the Chico Polly that I had registered for, but I thought the tray came off easier, its a little taller, and I liked that the leg separator was in the chair not the tray. Don't ask me why! Got a few other odds and ends as well. I had $10 off coupon and a 15% off plus formula coupons AND had gift cards for the entire purchase!! WOOHOO! And found out I still have like $150 left. I will be able to put that towards the convertible Britax which I think Z will be ready for sooner than later. His little feets are getting really close to the end! I need to see how tall he is. MAX is 22lbs and 29 inches.
So got loads of stuff and only actually spent about $30 of my own money today. Go me! :)
We had a great time at Katie's birthday yesterday too. Zachary enjoyed his first party. I cannot believe Katie is already a year old though. Time flies when you are having fun! I will post pics on that later. Off to feed Master Zachary and something for Matteo and I as well!
Ha, funny line to use. But for real. I have So many wire hangers in the closet from dry cleaning and since I'm in the process of cleaning out the closet...I need to get rid of them! What do you do with them? Throw them away? That seems so wasteful! Can wire hangers be recycled? Would the cleaners take them back? Or a resale place? I don't know but you know, since I am so "green", I am trying to find a nice way to dispose of them. Any suggestions??
Ok, so I totally copied Gin's friend Chrissy, but when I made one myself it made me laugh so hard I just had to share. Enjoy!!
We have a second showing on Saturday! I know it sounds silly...but we have had TONS of lookers but this will be our 1st second showing. I am going into extreme clean mode tonight!!! Please say a little extra prayer for us if you can. We are ready to move into the next phase of our lives in a new home for Zach with a big yard for Esther! :)
Ok, it has been over a week since my last post! Where is the time going?!?!?! Anyway, I am tired and up past my bedtime so I promise to catch up soon.
Today little miss Ella Grace was welcomed in to the world by proud parents Ashley & Jason and big brother Jackson! She is a precious little doll and I so enjoyed meeting her this afternoon! What an amazing blessing!! So many babies in 2008 and many more yet to come!
Proud Parents with baby Ella! 
Sweet baby Ella...check out the hair!
Z and his new friend Ella...can you believe these 2 are the same size at birth? ;-)
And the Proud Momma...she did great! There were some scary moments a few months back and we have all been praying and so happy to have Ella here safe and sound and beautiful! Such a precious little girl! Congratulations guys!!
This medal is tasty! 
And these a from Sunday before our visit to the pool!
Is there a baby in that hat?
Apparently there are sizes on these hats...perhaps this will fit Z when he is like 3 years old!
I've been kinda lax in my picture taking over the last couple weeks so I will get working on that. Z is a hoot these days and just getting more and more fun every day. We are so busy playing I forget to take pictures! Tonight when I was giving him his bath, I started batting some water on him and he just started cracking up! It was the cutest! I love my little man!
I know a couple of you have already have told me what you have and what you do or don't like about it...but I am going to throw it out again. Zach will be five months this week so we need to be prepared for the big solid foods coming up in the next month! We registered for the Chicco Polly but did not receive so now I am open to other. Perhaps the Evenflo Majestic or just a booster seat? What high chair do you have? What do you like and not like about it? AND...when did you start on the solids and how and what first?
Also, I have said it before but I'll say it again, I definitely think Z is teething. He is drooling ALL the time and Rox and Becky and now I think I have too felt a tooth on top. I've heard the bottoms come in first but his feels like a top one. I've tried the oragel a few times when he is real fussy for no reason and it seems to help immediately so I am guessing that could be part of it! How long when you feel them before they pop out?
Anyway, the rest of our Sunday was fine. After Z stayed awake during church, lunch, and for about an hour at home...I put him in the swing and it magically soothed him to sleep as usual for a nice 2 hour nap. Then we were up and hung out at the pool. A nice man and his niece were in the pool playing too. He said he had an extra float this was too small for his niece so he gave it to us. How nice is that? Z enjoyed it too! We now have a collection of different baby floats! Perhaps whenever we move we need a house with a pool! Z loved his time in the water and is starting to do some kicking while in there now. Perhaps we have a swimmer on our hands!
Today has been the day of never ending sports. We left this morning to church with Wimbledon on...and came home and it was STILL on. Granted they had 2 rain delays BUT they played for like 5 hours! They said it was the longest men's finals ever. 5 hours of playing some SERIOUS tennis. I don't think I could even play for an hour. Perhaps I need to start playing on Wii some more for practice. So Nadal won too. I was pulling for Federer, I have always liked him for some reason. And he would have broken some record from like 1880 if he was to win 6 consecutive wins there. Oh well. Apparently Nadal broke some other record by winning both the French Open and Wimbledon.
And now the Astros are in the 16th inning versus the Atlanta Braves. Tied at 6-6 for like forever. It was almost over when we went to the pool at five and now its 730 and still on! I have been to the Braves Stadium once for Susan's bachelorette party. We had such a fun time and its a really cool stadium I thought. We were looking super cute in these snarky Astros baseball tees we made. I should find the pic.
OK, Matt just got back with dinner from La Madeline. YUM. I think I have done pretty good over the weekend considering all the food that was around. I am trying to be good! We shall see what the scale says later.
Hope you all enjoyed your 4th as well and back to work tomorrow! Night!
The rest of the weekend has been good! We had a showing yesterday afternoon that I think went fairly good. It was another young couple and they had a 6 month old. Kinda good we were here since of course with us having a wee one too, they wanted to know why we were moving. And we could tell them honestly just to be closer to my folks. So maybe that will help us having been here when they were here. So we shall see!
Mom came over to watch Z last night which proved to be a good decision. He was SO good on Friday and since we weren't going to the Creller's until after 6pm, I just didn't want to put him to the test again being away from home for bedtime. Mom said he was a bit fussy trying to get down so I am definitely glad he was at home at least. We had a nice time catching up with the folks at the BBQ and hearing about the Field Day fun they had. The giant slip and slide thingie was still set up so Matt got a few good runs in! We were home by 11pm which was more than late enough for us but glad we were able to sneak over to the Crellers for some fun.
Today we were up early for church. Its July Revival time which entails some good soulful hymns and lots of singing! I thought Z would sleep through it since its during nap time but he was wide awake. I think he enjoyed all the singing :) It was a good message and everyone was excited to see Z so i was glad we could make it. We headed over to Barnaby's after for lunch which was delish as always!
Z was awake through lunch and for at least almost 2 hours after we got home....but the power of the swing finally lulled him to sleep. He has been talking up a storm today and wanting to sit up more and more. And hes getting good at it too! And holding and grabbing at everything. Where does the time go???
Anyway, all in all, it was a great weekend. Do I have to go back tomorrow????
Ok, so its a day late, but we were busy yesterday!
The 4th of July parade at Zach's school was quite a treat on Thursday. His infant room's theme was the Olympics so baby Z was dressed up in sweat bands, a gold medal, cool visor and decorated t-shirt. The babies were all on the 6 kid buggy and lookin quite surprised to see all the parents there waving flags and snapping pics as they were wheeled by. It was pretty cute and I video-taped it. Perhaps I will be cool and try to figure out how to upload it so can you laugh along too. It was quite amusing. The teachers all did a good job though and I enjoyed Z's 1st parade. Reminded me of my days participating in Cypresswood's annual parade and decorating my trike or bike or truck or whatever we were riding in that year. Seriously. It was such a big deal. We were SO excited armed with our crepe paper, shoe polish, and flags to decorate our mode of transport. I was usually with Kelly and her fam as her grandma lived across the street so they were always in town for the 4th. I look forward to when we are in a neighborhood and Zach is participating like that! :)
Yesterday we spent the afternoon, errr, all day and into the early morn, at the Senior Labbe's house. They were in Canada so we had the run of the mansion. The babies LOVED the pool and I think Z could have stayed in all day. He was so chill in his little floaty inner tube. Too cute! We laughed thinking about what a different 4th it was from 2 years ago when we were at Becky's mom's house and enjoying the pool. The only 2 babies back then were Alex and Jack so there was much more debauchery going on. Yesterday there were our 7 babies, plus 3 little labbe's, plus a set of twins and 4 more babes in utero! So quite the different afternoon. But alas, babies do go to sleep and there were baby monitors on(and don't worry, there were responsible adults there such as myself in case the babes woke up!).....so the after dark party was back to the old school ways with some entertaining antics of Allison on the slide, giant cannonballs off the diving board, and keg riding in the pool (to which Amy was the BY FAR champion!). We rolled on home around 12:30 and left with the image of B still trying to ride the keg unsuccessfully ;)
All in all it was a really fun afternoon and I wish I had that pool at my house! Perhaps we will take Z to our boring pool tomorrow for some more fun. We also had a promising showing yesterday as we were headed out the door. But when I checked the comments, they were undecided due to some of the less savory establishments off of Westheimer. Come on people, its Houston. If you want to live in town, that's just part of it. UGH. Its always something. We have another showing this afternoon. Someone make an offer! Lots of lookers...no takers :(
Anyway, I digress. So far its been a good 4th weekend. Later this evening we are headed to the Crellers for some more 4th fun. Debating see if my mom felt like sitting. I don't want to have to put Z down somewhere else again just to wake him up and move him. He was SO good yesterday and I don't know if I want to put him to the test again!
Hope you are all enjoying your extended weekend. Take a moment to remember our troops both here and abroad and say a little thanks for the freedoms we enjoy here in America! :)
Toodles!
Nothing going on but I felt the need to post. This week at work has been H E Double Hockey Sticks (I'm working on not cussing now that we have a child in the house). Pretty sad when its only Tuesday and the week has been for sh*t already! (there I go again, I'm getting good, huh?). Working on a trade floor with a bunching of cussing men makes it easy for it to become the norm. And speaking of, when did cussing become acceptable? It wasn't when I was growing up, not even in high school. So it must have happened somewhere in the 2000s. I mean, they can say witch with a Capital B on main stream tv!! And if you watch any show on cable, you hear much worse. Or they just bleep it out, but anyone over the age of 10 can figure out what the bleeped words are. I don't like it though. I think we all need to start cuss jars, I bet they would fill up pretty fast.
But I digress. Matt is watching this nasty show Fear Itself. I am trying to avoid eye contact with the tv so I won't have nightmares. Men and women definitely have different tastes in television watching.
Speaking of tv, The Bachelorette was good last night. I was glad funny face lawyer got the boot. He has bugged me from the beginning. And his dramatic get out of the car to pause at the end was just too much. Even better was the fake tear he wiped away on the tell all show afterwards. I also enjoyed D's banter with Graham and her comment about "don't worry, I am much happier" or whatever it was the elicited tons of oooohs from the audience. His face looks like our friend Jeff Anderson and they had the same voice...must be his doppelganger (isn't that what the secret twins are called?). Anyway, it always made me and Matt laugh when he was on b/c it was so much like him, only taller! So who do you think she picks? I really like Jessie and Jason but not sure which one is right for her? I am curious to see who it will be!
Does anyone watch the Mole? We are this season for lack of anything better on. I don't really get the show. I mean, are we supposed to be playing along? The show is edited so obviously the people playing know more what's going on. I love the NY dude, Paul, that's on it though. He is feisty and makes me laugh. And I like Paul too. I do NOT like mark or Clay. They just bug, like they are acting too much. Even if you are the mole, you don't have to be so weird. It makes people think you are NOT the mole. I am ready for Big Brother or Amazing Race to come back on! Time for some good reality tv!
Hopefully work will get better. There is one chick I deal with at another company who is screwing everything up and its causing me distress. Hopefully she gets her stuff together and tomorrow and Thursday will be better.
As for the Z man, he is STTN still! I swear, it was the cold thing (thanks again Theresa for that theory!)! Ever since we put him in the sleep sack, lots of Zzzzs for the Z! Which makes me feel like a bad mom before but hey, all good now. I do think we need a new sleep sack though. Z is outgrowing his and currently looks like he is wearing the coneheads costumes were wore in drill team in high school. If only I had a pic for you! Oh, and Thursday his school is having a 4th of July parade. I can't wait to go see. Anyone know where I can get a cute 4th outfit??
OK, I think that's enough rambling on my end for the night. The Astros have tied up the game and are in the 10th inning. I guess they have decided to just royally suck when we go to the games....
Is it Friday yet???
