Parenting: A Walk in the Park

Parenting is like a walk in the park. Especially if you're a Daddy.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, or Christmas Adam as we say in my house, and it was so beautiful we decided to go to the park by our house.

It was about 75 degrees outside, so people were wearing things like this, and it was okay.

Not only was it hot, but it was sunny, so we made G wear his new hat (go BYU!). He didn't keep it on very long, however.

Here G is following Teddy Roosevelt's advice to speak softly and carry a big stick.

Until you get mad, then you should yell and wave the stick around, preferably hitting things

We stopped for pictures on this lovely bridge.

Aren't they cute?

There is Frisbee golf set up at this park. I have never even heard of this,

but apparently, you stand at the sign and try to throw the Frisbee into this goal.

There were like 13 holes. And we saw two or three groups playing, so it's pretty popular, I guess.

We were warned when we entered that there might be dogs about.

Sure enough, there was a cute coley.

And two giant Great Danes. I could have posted more, too, but I didn't.

All in all, it was an awesome day. I was looking forward to a moderately climated Christmas, but alas . . .

Utah Trip

Well, since our camera was lost and now is found (thank you, thank you all the looked for it, but mostly thank you Helen, who found it and shipped it along with the famous chocolate-covered cinnamon bears from the BYU Bookstore. If I didn't love you before, I would certainly love you now. You're the greatest!) now you get some pictures from the trip:

As you can see, it was very dry in Utah, which made for some interesting hair days.

My Mom enjoyed having all the grandkids around . . . . I think

Here I am enjoying storytime with the oldest

Here are all the cousins on the DH's side. Aren't they cute?
We went to the Bean Life and Science Museum in Provo and almost got attacked by a cougar. Must have been the U sweatshirt Johnny was wearing.
One day G is going to be this tall

G learned some new skills in Utah. He may not have crawled, but he learned to wave and push down blocks.
One of the highlights of the trip for me was this: a musical birthday tribute. This is the second performance and it's still just as funny, and it will be equally as funny the 50th time I watch it, if not more so. Enjoy!

Gentlemanly Jerk

I was shopping at Albertson's the other day, which I try to avoid doing for many reasons: a) although they do have good sales occasionally, they require to you read between the lines of the deliberately ambiguous fine print; b) their good sales usually have ridiculous limitations like limit 1, which makes it hard for a good Mormon in the middle of flu season to stalk up on things. So frustrating. And c) something inevitably goes wrong at the register making things more expensive than I was planning. Like the other day, when although Albertson's supposedly triples manufacturer's coupons up to $.39 they didn't even double my $.35 coupon. Annoying.

Anyway, I went to Albertson's to get some chicken because it was a decent price and we needed some. So I found the other things I wanted and headed over to the meat section. They didn't have any chicken out, but there was a man standing by who said they were bringing out more. He was very much a Texas cowboy, slightly overweight, little twang, probably had boots on (I didn't check). Kind of like this guy:So I am playing with G in the cart, waiting, and they finally bring out four packages of the chicken on sale. The cowboy gets one, then an Indian woman comes up and starts picking up two packages and is looking at the third and last, when the cowboy perks up and says, "Hey Lady, this woman was waiting here first!" The woman was really embarrassed and mentioned how she didn't know I was waiting for the chicken, which the cowboy very angrily set her straight on. I, in the mean time, was also embarrassed, picked up my chicken and went away quickly.

On the one hand, it was very nice for this cowboy to do a gentlemanly thing and stand up for me. On the other hand, did he have to be such a jerk about it?

This new oxymoron of the gentleman jerk has been simmering on the back burner of my feminist brain center since it happened. Still not sure what to make of it, but I'll let you know when I get things sorted out.

Snow! or Why I Love Utah Winters

I am sorry for all the people in Utah who did not like all the snow we ordered for our vacation. What can I say, I may really like the mild winter so far in Texas (minus the icky brownness everywhere), but I miss snow. So the week we were in Utah, I wanted new snow everyday. I almost got it too.

I'll be honest, although I had a great time on vacation (thanks everyone, I love you!), it didn't really feel like a vacation. Not because it wasn't restful, or different, but because I've never visited Utah for a vacation before. Normally flying to Utah means the end of a vacation. So it was disorienting. Also, all my good friends are great in the fact that, if we only see them once a year it still feels like see them all the time. Which just means home always feels like home.

Problem now: We already had Christmas, but I can't shop cause no one else has!
Just as a reminder, this is what I was doing last year. Good times, mostly. So if you didn't get to see us last year, you know why. If we didn't see you this year, I'm sorry. Next time I'll be more aggressive on my emailing.

And the Award Goes to . . .

Now I know and you know that G is cute. Quite possibly ridiculously so, but we are not the only ones to have noticed. Since all he needs to be absurdly happy is 1-food, 2-sleep, and 3-people, we often get comments at church about how fun he is. (For the record, he will still be abnormally happy with only two of those three things, and is quite normally happy with only one, but only for short periods of time.) My parents have also dubbed him the happiest baby they've ever seen.But he has also gotten himself noticed on our little outings. Which is in addition to all the people who coo at him while we're shopping. While we were at the State Fair, we were stopped in the livestock pavilion by some nice people who told us that they had seen him earlier walking around and thought he was the cutest baby at the whole fair.
So he won a blue ribbon there.

And when we were at the TCU game, we were saved from a lot of abuse by the cute little guy. People would see him and not care that we were dressed in red. In fact, after the game we went to Albertson's to take advantage of a great deal on diapers (I used a $2 coupon and got a box of diapers for $11. Heck yes!) However, we had to carry 3 boxes of diapers, a diaper bag, and a really tired baby all the way back to the car parked a mile away. On the way, TCU fans were driving around yelling stuff out of their car windows, mostly "What's a Ute?", but you already know how I feel about that weak-sauce insult. However, when this one particular SUV drove by and went to yell stuff at us, they saw G and said, "Oh, they have a cute baby, we'll let you off the hook, then." And because of lights and traffic, they passed us 3 separate times, and pretty much said the same thing every time. It was pretty funny.But it just goes to show that as much as I'd like to not believe it, if you are cute in life, you can get away with a lot, and often times people will give you things.

Which is why, in addition to them being more comfortable, I always try to wear dresses and skirts. You'd be surprised how much more smoothly errands go during the day when you look nice and presentable.

Long Suffering

Don't worry, my wrists have been slapped for not posting in awhile. But hey, remember when it used to be months at a time without a post? I am improving. Thank you for being so long suffering with me.

But this post is not about you, sorry. This post is about Guido, of all things. Because of this, I would like to title this video "Long Suffering" and dedicate the following poem to Guido:

You could be a lady-in-waiting, but you're a Tom cat.
You wait with giant eyeballs for me to walk by before you jump on my feet.
You wait until I am comfortable and reading before sitting on my book.
You stalk me with unequaled patience and orange hair,
But sometimes you earn your keep.

Errata

I forgot to tell you what I am thankful for on my last two posts.

I am thankful for a warm bed and a nice house.

I am thankful for a wonderful friend for a husband who can explain sports to me without sounding a bit condescending.

Also, I do actually have a correction. My favorite quote from my Primary lesson was not the one I posted, but rather a different quote from the same child. I started Singing Time asking them what we celebrate in November, which they all knew was Thanksgiving. But when I asked them what we celebrate at Thanksgiving this little boy shouted, "Christmas!" It was pretty cute.

Walking in

The other day, I walked in to get G from his nap and found this.

Alarmed, I checked in the crib.

Yes, G had managed to pull off the bumper in his attempts to get out.

And he wasn't very happy about it. Okay, mostly he wasn't happy that I went and got the camera instead of getting him out. He was quite happy when I walked in the first time.

Then, another time, I walk in my room to take a shower and find this:

Guido has built a little nest for himself in my covers.

Cute, maybe. Weird, definitely.

And apparently he has acquired a taste for covers because multiple times I've found him underneath the comforter in the guest bedroom. Then this--I walked in on him in my sewing room.

Those blankets were not arranged like that when I left them. I guess napping in the sun isn't enough any more. And it hasn't even been that cold . . . Strange cat.

Football Saturday

Yes, I spent all last Saturday surrounded by footballs. And for those of you who know me, you will appreciate the sacrifice. (For those of you who don't know me, why are you reading my blog?) It started with a flag football game with guys (and some girls) from Johnny's work. It was a beautiful day, the bees were out.

G got the chance to make a new friend.

Why did I take pictures like this? Well, because 90% of the time, this is what was happening on the field:

Or I'd see this, Uncle Ed walking back in after a play.

But when there was excitement, G and his new friend would watch.

And see things like this:

After the boys were done getting all sweaty, we went home and changed for the real action, the TCU/Utah football game. For G, this meant looking like a gangster in really oversized clothing.

Johnny was kind enough to explain the basic rules to me on the car ride over, so I did get to appreciate some of the game. And I won't lie, being one of the few red-shirted people in a sea of purple was kind of fun. Especially since TCU are the "horned frogs" and their color is purple. Hmm, no fuel for teasing there . . . Also, their idea of an insult was to ask Utah fans what a Ute is. I'm not exactly sure how their ignorance was supposed to offend me, but it certainly didn't. They had it printed on shirts, too. I wanted to say, "I thought they taught American History at this school," but I held my tongue. It made me laugh on the inside, though. And I'm pretty sure every fan they asked it to told them it was a Native American tribe, one of the few still willing to sponsor a college, which could only make TCU fans feel stupid. So, way to go Horny Toads, excuse me, Horned Frogs.

Anyway, we had ridiculously good seats, once the security people cleared out the leftover students standing right in front of us.

And although G doesn't look too happy, we still had a good time for the most part. He only cried twice when our small group of Ute fans cheered for touchdowns.

And in the end, Utah lost, but at least TCU was using this game to support breast cancer. And I got a football education. Was is worth 3 days of soreness for Johnny? Or 3 am nightmares for G? Probably not in my book, but I'm sure the guys would disagree with me.

Exploring our Asianity

Sorry it's been a few days. It's not for lack of material I haven't been posting, rather there is too much. I hardly know where to begin, so I will have several new posts in the near future.

Last weekend, we explored some of downtown Dallas. We went to the Asian museum and saw ridiculously awesome carvings. People's talent amazes me sometimes. Then we did a little origami, mine is a lotus flower.
Then we walked around the arts district and enjoyed the sunshine and nice weather, and fun architecture. We also went to the Farmer's market, but more on that in another post.


I'm a very grateful that we live by such a fun city and that we can use our legs to walk around.