February 2007 Archives

First off, a big shout out to my mom, who had a bit of a health scare last week but came through it with flying colors. Mom, we love you very much and we're all glad you're okay. That's what's at the top of things we're thankful for. It sucked being hundreds of miles away and having to wait on Dad to communicate any info. (We found out you were alright from Todd, by the way. Apparently Dad was too flushed with relief to make any calls.)

Anyway, we're very glad all that is over.

On a completely different subject, I heard a song the other day that reminded my of my sister and my niece, Aly. They just got back from Mexico, where they were giving their time and energy towards improving the lives of people less fortunate than they. I'm very proud of both of them. Alecia and I are always talking about how we'd like to volunteer here or give there. How we want to do something to make the world a better place for our kids and maybe spread some of our own good fortune to others who need it more. But that's usually all it turns out to be--talk.

So for Julie and Aly to actually hop on a plane and give up their daily comforts to sweat and strain for other people, well, that's pretty impressive to me.

Enough family mush, though. Instead, here's the song that made me think of my brave niece and devoted sister. Good job making a difference, guys. I hope you not only make this a regular pursuit, but maybe inspire some of the rest of us to get off our rears and roll up our sleeves, as well.

With My Own Two Hands by Jack Johnson featuring Ben Harper

Right click and choose "save as" to download the song to your desktop before playing, please.

I've taught the girls to say, "What up, dude?" when they answer a call from Bill.

It's probably not the best phone skill to teach them, but it sure does make Bill laugh each time.

I have a friend who takes time every week to write a "Grateful Friday" post on her blog. She told me that so many things can go wrong, but it's important to remember the things for which we're grateful. In that spirit, I'm starting Grateful Friday on this blog. I encourage everyone else to share the things for which they're grateful as well. It's always nice to realize just how lucky each of us are.

I'm grateful for:

- Our new TV. I'm finally starting to understand what Bill has been saying about HDTV.

- That my cold is starting to go away, or at least it's just turned into an annoying tickly cough. I was sick most of last week, including losing my voice. It wasn't fun.

- Having the girls back home. We picked them up from my mom's on Sunday and I practically ran inside the house before the car had even stopped. Bill was off work on Monday too, so we had some extra time together as a family.

- My mom and sister watching the girls for a few days, so that Bill and I could spend some time alone for Valentine's Day. It was really nice to just focus on one another during that time. And hold hands. You don't realize how little you do that when your hands are already full of kids and diaper bags, etc.

- Dinner with some old friends at their place. They're an incredibly sweet couple who are currently trying to have a baby. I've never met any people who are more deserving of becoming parents. I wish them all the best because Bill and I both agree that they will make excellent parents.

- Bill's birthday this weekend. We've got some surprises lined up for him, and I hope he enjoys them. (No, I'm still not telling, Bill!)

- The exciting changes happening in our family in the coming months, some of which I can't mention yet. (And, no, I'm not pregnant!)

- Warmer weather has returned to Atlanta. I'm excited about the future walks and bike rides we'll be taking with the girls.

My cousin's daughter, Graisi, is jumping rope for the American Heart Association this year. She will be jumping in memory of her brother, Grant. Eight years ago, Grant was born with 3 congenital heart defects. He died in surgery to repair one of them. Donations to the AHA aid research to help prevent birth defects like Grant's.

Take a moment, if you can, to donate towards Graisi's cause. It's one that hits home not only for her family, but for hundreds of others across the country.

Click here to donate.

(The website will only accept minimum donations of $25, but if you'd like to donate less you can contact the AHA directly and give in honor of Grant Smith.)

Is anyone watching American Idol this season? As usual, I'm following it each week. And this season, I've gotten Alecia in on the action. It now joins Lost and Studio 60 as the only shows we watch together on a regular basis (Entourage will rejoin the list when the next season premieres).

We've both watched the earlier rounds, but now that the top twelve men and the top twelve women have all had an opportunity to sing for America, the real fun starts. It's impossible to guess how the judges will make their decisions during the initial auditions and the Hollywood round, and we only get little glimpses of a handful of participants, anyway. But now, we get to see as much as the judges and decide for ourselves.

After the first two nights of individual performances, who do you like? Who's going home? (Here's a link to the AI contestants' page, if you need to see who we're talking about.)

Although I'm rooting for funny guy Chris to make it to the next round, I think the best male performances came from tiny latino AJ, human beatbox Blake, and humble dimbulb Nick. The male group is sort of lacking in personalities this year, and most of the performances so far have been pretty shaky. It's hard to see anyone jumping into the lead at this point.

As for the worst of the guys, it was hard to choose. There were several awful performances on day one. Alecia and I agree that Rudy, Sanjaya, little Chris and Sundance all sort of sucked. Personally, I don't think there's been a worse performance in a while than Chris's from Tuesday night. Alecia, however, thinks that Chris is at least cute, and that poor, hairy Sundance is going home. I hope he gets to stay around just long enough to sing something in his own style.

The girls were significantly better than the guys. Alecia's a big fan of alternachick Gina, who was good enough to survive, but no superstar tonight. Instead, our favorites were Jordin, Melinda and single mom Lakisha (who came out with so much emotion you could feel it through the TV), with Sabrina and Stephanie just slightly behind (though neither of us really like Sabrina). Basically, all of the black girls were on fire tonight. Meanwhile, the white chicks went down in flames.

Our bottom three girls consisted of Amy, Antonella and Nicole. All three were horrible. You'd have to assume Antonella will stick around by sheer beauty for at least a week or two, so it's probably between Amy and Nicole to see who goes home. Like Chris's performance for the guys this week, I don't think there's been a worse female performance in several seasons than Nicole's tonight. I think Alecia's more against Amy, for some reason. Maybe because I said she was sort of cute earlier on. :)

So our predictions for who's going home on Thursday are...

Bill says: Rudy and Nicole
Alecia says: Sundance and Amy

What do you think will happen? There are only a few guys and girls who are safe, so this first vote could really be a toss-up. It will be interesting to see how America votes...

Last weekend was an interesting one for us. Bill and I bought our new TV on Friday. We were up until about 1am playing around with it and getting it all set up. Right about 1:30, as I was about to head off to bed after finding myself falling asleep in the chair, Maddie woke up crying and coughing. I walked in to find her vomiting and completely scared. She had no idea what was going on and was terrified. I scooped her up and took her to the bathroom as she continued to vomit all over me. She finally calmed down and stopped so she and I took a shower together (it was in her hair and mine) and then settled in on the couch so I could hold her until she fell asleep again. About 45 minutes later, she started again. Again, I rushed her to the bathroom, barely making it in time. Time for a wardrobe change.

She settles in again and it seems like she's done for the night. Then Josie wakes up. I let them both cuddle in our bed to watch a little Dora while they fall asleep. I start to nod off again. Then, of course, Maddie starts again, this time with Josie falling in right after her. Two kids vomiting all over our bed and my pajamas. Time to get changed again. At this point, I've spent most of the evening topless and we are running out of blankets on all of our beds. Throughout the rest of the night, the girls took turns vomiting. Maddie seemed to be okay with it as the night went on - not fun, but she wasn't freaking out as much. Poor Josie, though, just shrieked every time.

I know this sounds familiar to those who have kids, especially older ones, but this is the first time the girls have been really sick like this besides spitting up when they were babies. I'm thankful that Bill and I were able to tag-team and each handle consoling and cleanup duty.

Saturday morning they did a little better. Josie was still sick until around 10am, but then they both stopped. Later in the afternoon we realized they both seemed a little hot. Josie had a temp of 103 degrees and Maddie had one of 100 degrees. Time to head to the doctor's office. Four hours later (after-hours care isn't so prompt in their service) we find out that they have a little flu bug that's going around. They weren't dehydrated so we were to take them home and let them rest and drink little sips of Gatorade for the next day or so.

By Sunday morning, both girls were back to normal and jumping all over the place... and we had most of the laundry done.

Josie ended up celebrating her birthday over a couple of days. Although it was on the 1st, her party was on the 3rd and Grandma and Grandpa stayed until the 4th. Poor kid now thinks every day is her birthday. Every day she says, "My birthday!" She still just starting to say more words, and her enunciation is still a work in progress, but she can say that phrase perfectly. She knew exactly what it was all about. One day last week we were at a restaurant that had cakes near the door. Josie pointed and yelled "my birthday cake!!!" Speaking of cake, she insisted on Blues Clues. I had taken her to Party City to pick out some invitations. I figured she would pick Dora the Explorer, who is her favorite and ALL she talks about, but instead she picked Blue Clues, hence the theme of her party and cake.

The party was great -- small with just some family and friends -- and both sets of grandparents got to be there. Most of the cake and snacks were eaten, and kids laughed and played the entire time, so we consider it a successful and fun party.

Here's a clip of Josie opening one of her presents on her actual birthday. We tried to get her to talk about her birthday, but Maddie kept chiming in:

The girls visited Grandma and Grandpa in their hotel room one evening and had fun jumping on the bed. They also had fun spinning in the chair, although Josie got a little dizzy:

That evening Josie also got to show off her flying skills:

The girls are so funny and so much fun right now too. We've got lots more videos to share. I'll try to post more when I get a chance.

I've been working on organizing some of the video we've been taking of the girls. I came across these from a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

Josie is a pirate

Maddie shows off her latest dance moves

Well, our heating was fixed last week. It turns out that our thermostat is so old that the slightest bump would make it click on and off, thus burning out the motor on our heating unit. We fixed the unit and got a new thermostat. The thermostat is awesome and I never thought I'd be so excited about one, but it's digital and programmable so that's cool. The bad part is that we found something out when it was replaced. Basically there's a gigantic hole in our wall directly behind the thermostat. I'm not sure how the old one stayed on, but luckily the repairman had a few tricks up his sleeve installing the new one.

This week our dishwasher was fixed. The GE repairman came out to take a look. At first we even considered getting a new dishwasher, to match our new-ish stove, and because just the visit to take a look at our old one was going to cost $70 in labor. In the end we went ahead with the repairs. It turns out that the problem was with our sump. And that problem was that it had been chewed through by rats. I'm not sure why they would chew on it (bored?) but they did quite a job.

The replacement sump cost only $20 but our total for labor and parts was about $200. Yeah, it stinks. Our next step is getting rid of the rats. We have two dogs and a cat, so you think they'd have done their job in scaring the little guys away. But no. Instead they completely freak out whenever the doorbell rings.

Bill bought a bunch of traps and set them out underneath the dishwasher the other night. In any other situation, I might have researched a way to get rid of them humanely, but honestly I just want them out of my house! The "willies" are surpassing any altruistic feelings I may have had towards the rodents.