Venice- Bama Style

For Mom's birthday my sister Stephanie and I came up with a plan to take her on a gondola ride at a mall in Huntsville. This is no ordinary mall you see... fancy. We didn't tell dad where we were going and with some effort we actually got him on the boat. This gondola was made in Venice and the driver said un-tippable. It was the perfect weather and sunset... perfect!

Here's Mom, Dad, my sister and her friend.

Gwen's first boat ride!

Our family.

Cheers! (it's sparkling grape juice)

Mom, Dad, and the Gondlier. He said he's seen 46 proposals this year and not one of them has said no.

Got Bread?

Is that a loaf of bread in the grass? No Ma'am, it's the Grandaddy of all mushrooms that I've found in Alabama!

Fairy Rings And Things

Today as I took a walk I noticed these mushrooms. It doesn't take much to entertain me. I thought these first ones looked like little people.

Here's a fairy ring for your enjoyment.

Have I mentioned Gwen likes to be held?

What a position for sleeping!

Friends and Family

Today I went to Jacksonville, Alabama to visit some of my college friends. It was so nice to talk with everyone. I brought my camera, but did I get pictures of any of my friends?... any of their adorable children? No of course not. That would make too much sense. Instead I got a picture of a street sign that amused me. "Possum Trot Rd" I'm curious... did they just not have room for the "O" at the beginning of the word? Also, have you ever actually seen an opossum trotting?

I tried to get some photos of my dad and Gwen today. We may just have to have another photo shoot.

Live Like You Were Dying

We are enjoying spending time with family. My mom brought home some Jack Stack's famous ribs from Kansas City. (Kansas City is known for BBQ among other things) Here is Dad preparing to eat one of them... that's right... one. I told him it looks like a barberian meal.

Here are my sister's two cats. I think it is so cute how they sit together on the couch like buddies.

Today I left Gwen in the nursery for the first time in her life. Fortunately she waited to have her "episode of the bowels" until she came home. I don't use that term lightly people... it goes everywhere. This shirt is my mom's. I realized a few days into my trip that half of my suitcase was filled with clothes for Gwen and I brought about two things for myself. Ah well...

We had a good service at my parent's church. The preacher is doing a series called "Live Like You Were Dying". With all that has happened in the last two weeks we really kind of identified with his speaking. During the service he gave everyone in the congregation an envelope with money in it. He said the church was over budget $10,000 and he wanted us to use the money to bless another person this week. Some people when they opened up their envelope got $5, some $10, some $20, some $50, and some $100. He said the rules were that you couldn't use it for yourself or give it back to the church. Mom, Dad and I all got $5. I gave mine to a man that said he was going to give it to a local school to pay for students struggling to pay for their school lunches. He is going to e-mail me and let me know how it goes. Mom and Dad have got to decide how to use theirs. I thought that was pretty thought provoking and unexpected.

During the sermon today the pastor quoted this song. I thought the words were really neat and I wanted to share them with you all.

Hold tight to the sound of the music of living, Happy songs from the laughter of children at play; Hold my hand as we run through the sweet fragrant meadows, Making mem'ries of what was today.

Chorus: We have this moment to hold in our hands and to touch as it slips through our fingers like sand; Yesterday's gone and tomorrow may never come, But we have this moment today.

Tiny voice that I hear is my little girl calling, For Daddy to hear just what she has to say; And my little son running there by the hillside, May never be quite like today. Tender words, gentle touch and a good cup of coffee, And someone who loves me and wants me to stay;

Hold them near while they're here and don't wait for tomorrow, To look back and wish for today.Take the blue of the sky and the green of the forest, And the gold and the brown of the freshly mown hay; Add the pale shades of spring and the circus of autumn, And weave you a lovely today.

In Alabama

On Wednesday Gwen and I and Grandma flew to Alabama. Gwen did really well on the plane. When we got into Nashville we went down to get our bags from baggage claim and we saw a TV star- Fred Thompson. I recognized him and told mother that he was on Law and Order and he also ran for President this year. He was with his wife and two kids, and NO I didn't say anything to him.

The only other celebrity sighting I've ever had was once in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I saw Randy Travis in a Cold Stone Creamery ice cream joint and introduced myself and asked him to sing the chorus from "Diggin Up Bones" with me. He did and I have a picture to prove it!!

This is the first time that Gwen's Aunt Stephanie and Grandpa have met her and they are enjoying getting to know her. Here are some pictures from today.

Looking sassy in her high chair.

Notice the dog head? That's Bonnie Jean Morris... mother's fourth child.

Here's Grandma giving her a bath.

She loves bath time.

Pic Of The Day

Yes, this IS a bug!!

Update

After 10 long days in the hospital, my brother came home yesterday evening. He's on loads of medicines, but he's feeling good. It's good to have him home. Here are some pictures from this past weekend.

Ben's mom and sister went in together to gift us this jogging stroller. I call it the Robocop of strollers. It's great!

2 Months

Sunday Gwen will be two months old. I can't believe it hardly. Today she got her first immunizations. To help keep me from crying I kept saying, "but now you won't have whooping cough." I can't help but think of the parallel between that experience and how God must think of us. He must really not like to see us in pain, but He knows the bigger picture doesn't He? Think of all the times I've learned from a painful experience.

Gwen weighed in at 11 lb 2 oz and 23 in long. She's in the 75th percentile whatever that means. :)

Plants and Bugs

First it was the bamboo... and now banana trees. Ben is thrilled with his recent purchase of a "hardy banana tree". He has done his research and this banana tree can produce bananas, but it probably won't. It dies in the winter and comes back in the spring. Tonight while we were taking a stroll in the yard I spotted a praying mantis. Creepy!


Here Ben is with his hardy banana tree. We move all the way from Miami only to buy tropical plants. :)


hardy banana tree


Remember the free tree? Here it is and it's blooming. More are on their way. It's a beaut!

Update

Please continue to pray for my brother Preston. We thought he would come home today, but it seems that he has a blood clot in his arm and will be in the hospital for 3 to 5 more days. His cardiologist was surprised... they thought it was an infection from all of the times they had to stick him with needles. He is definitely throwing a curve ball at all these doctors. He is not the typical patient it seems. His arm is red and tender and they are giving him blood thinners again to help with the clot. His cardiologist said he thinks it is his thyroid that is making him have the clots. His thyroid levels are coming down and it will just take time for it to tame down. He really wants to be out of the hospital and this news was difficult to hear. It seems that because of what his heart underwent that he has to watch his sodium intake very closely when he comes out of the hospital. Since I am his primary cook, that means we all have big changes ahead as far as eating. Eating at restaurants just isn't an option really. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers.

When You Can't Sleep

The other night when I had trouble falling asleep I thought of this scene. I had been watching this show that day and the scene made me laugh. This is a British show called "Vicar of Dibley" and it's hilarious. In this scene the vicar is the lady and the man is practicing his best man speech for a wedding.

My Brother

Hi everyone... some of you might have seen the post earlier about my brother Preston. I took it down because I thought I'd better ask if he minded me posting about his situation. If you missed that post, my brother had a heart attack on Friday due to a blood clot in his artery. It scared us all really bad. I took him to the ER and it happened there. He went to urgent care the night before and they said it was heart burn... went to his doctor the next morning and she said a virus... we were shocked when his heart stopped in the ER.
Here are the symptoms of a heart attack. I wish I had known these better...

• Discomfort, pressure, heaviness, or pain in the chest, arm or below the breastbone
• Discomfort radiating to the back, jaw, throat or arm
• Fullness, indigestion or choking feeling (may feel like heartburn)
• Sweating, nausea, vomiting or dizziness
• Extreme weakness, anxiety or shortness of breath
• Rapid or irregular heartbeats

He has hyperthyroidism which we think contributed to the clot. He was in the process of getting that taken care of. He's doing much better today... laughing, eating, walking... more like himself than the last few days. Please keep him in your prayers. Here's a video he made of himself on guitar. I personally think it's amazing!

Crazy For Como

Want to know something funny? My pediatrician sort of looks like Perry. Notice Perry and I are on a first name basis... ahem... yes, he may have died in 2001, but still...



I love her too... it's so sad she died of anorexia. Would someone tell brother Carpenter to let his sis do the singing?

Mom's Favorite

How to tell if you're mom's favorite.

Restaurant In A Gas Station

These photos of Gwen were taken today. This first one kind of shows the (maybe) dimple on her other cheek.

She looks so sweet in this picture I couldn't resist posting it.

Last night for our date night Ben took me to a restaurant in a gas station. Now, to most this would not be thrilling, but I'm the kind that finds this idea interesting. I love hole in the wall type places like this. I was amazed at how busy it was too. There were people lined up out of the door. You had to wait in line to order and you tell this guy what you want and he proceeds to yell it seemingly in a different language. Ben called it Barbequeez. It goes something like this.. "give me hog heaven, two fries and a ring." Look at the sign... you can get catering!


It's hard to capture the feel of the place really. This is Ben standing in the gas station part looking toward the restaurant.


This is what I had. It was good food. Can you believe that this is their regular sized sandwich and there is a larger one?

Lessons Learned By The One Handed Typist

Is typist a word? Well, it sounds a bit better than typer. Here are some lessons I've learned six weeks into motherhood.

1. Always, I repeat, always have a change of clothes in your diaper bag as well as an old bread bag. We had an "episode of the bowels" one day this week. I had the bread bag, but didn't have the extra outfit.

2. Cutting a baby's fingernails is nerve wracking.

3. You can give your baby a bath every day and somehow their hands end up smelling like Cheez-Its.

4. My neighbor told me that at bath time I should wash of her gums with a damp washcloth. Somehow I missed that in the books.

5. It's in the small details that you just are nuts over your kid and if you explained it to anyone else they don't really get it. Mine are the way she looks when she just wakes up, the sound she makes while nursing (similar to a hum), and our game in the mornings of me putting a cover on her legs when she sits in her swing and I'm making breakfast. She kicks it off, I go over to her and in a sqeaky voice tell her that she is a funny girl, she smiles and tries to coo, and I cover her legs again and it starts over again.

I went back to my "fitness for two" class tonight and saw one of the other girl's baby. It was great. By the way, I'm no longer a celebrity in there. Oh well...

Magic Moments

This song is called Magic Moments and is sung by Perry Como. This week Ben has been singing the whistle part of this song and it's very catchy. Why don't we still have dreamy singers like Perry Como? :)

Date Night

Last week Ben initiated "date night" for us by asking his mom to come and watch Gwen for a few hours so we can get away by ourselves once a week- Thursday nights. He told me that when our kids grow up and move away he didn't want us to look at each other and say, "who are you?" :) Last week we went to dinner and a movie and I did fine except for at the end of the movie I was a little fidgety and I was really wanting to see Gwen. This week Ben took me to dinner and then we went to the Overland Park Botanical Gardens and Arboretum. It is free and beautiful. Here are some pictures we took from there.

They had a hut to represent the Indians that once lived in Kansas. (I think) Here Ben is supposed to be discovering fire via rubbing two rocks together.


I'm supposed to look like an angry Aboriginal person, but Ben was making me laugh.


Ben picked up this fruit from a tree and said "this is a worthless piece of fruit." I don't think you can eat this kind of fruit.


Pretty rose.
Isn't it nice?


After the garden, Ben wanted to go over to Ace Hardware near our house because he saw they had a sale on the plants there for 75% off. He noticed a tree in the trash can and... you guessed it... he went in and asked it he could have it. He told the guy he could "take it off his hands for him." So, he got a tree for free. He was thrilled. I suggested next week we go ice skating. He suggested that we try lazer tag.

My Precious

My sister Stephanie said "no more bug stories.. we want more Gwen." So... what can I say to that? Here she is this morning. By the way Steph, I'm just trying to educate my loyal blog readers... all 4 of them. :)

She's grinning more and more. I think she's also sometimes trying to coo, but it's not quite there yet. By the way, Aunt Stephanie got her this outfit!


She's beautiful!
I think it's pretty definite that she has my nose. HA!

Is that a dimple on the left cheek? We'll just have to wait and see!

Amusing

FOR NORTHERNERS COMING SOUTH

In the South: If you run your car into a ditch, don't panic. Four men in a four-wheel drive pickup truck with a tow chain will be along shortly. Don't try to help them, just stay out of their way. This is what they live for.

Don't be surprised to find movie rentals and bait in the same store. Do not buy food at this store.

Remember, "y'all" is singular, "all y'all" is plural, and "all y'all's" is plural possessive.

Get used to hearing "You ain't from round here, are ya?"

Save all manner of bacon grease. You will be instructed later on how to use it.

Don't be worried at not understanding what people are saying. They can't understand you either.

The first Southern statement to creep into a transplanted Northerner's vocabulary is the adjective "big'ol," truck or big'ol" boy. Most Northerners begin their Southern-influenced dialect this way. All of them are in denial about it.

The proper pronunciation you learned in school is no longer proper.

Be advised that "He needed killin" is a valid defense here.

If you hear a Southerner exclaim, "Hey, y'all, watch this," you should stay out of the way. These are likely to be the last words he'll ever say.

If there is the prediction of the slightest chance of even the smallest accumulation of snow, your presence is required at the local grocery store. It doesn't matter whether you need anything or not. You just have to go there.

Do not be surprised to find that 10-year-olds own their own shotguns, they are proficient marksmen, and their mammas taught them how to aim.

In the South, we have found that the best way to grow a lush green lawn is to pour gravel on it and call it a driveway.

AND REMEMBER:

If you do settle in the South and bear children, don't think we will accept them as Southerners. After all, if the cat had kittens in the oven, we wouldn't call 'em biscuits.

Fireflies

Something we didn't have in Miami but we do have here are fireflies, or lightning bugs as I call them. I guess it was a few years ago when I found out that lightning bugs light because they are looking for a mate, but that's about all I know about them. So... I decided to do some research about them and let you guys know what I found.

This is an adult lightening bug.


*Around the world there are about 2000 different species of lightening bugs. Each species has its own flashing pattern so that two bugs of different species don't mate. Some lightening bug species don't flash at all.

*Lightening bug larvae are found underground and they eat slugs, earthworms, and snails. Adult lightening bugs (that live up to a couple of months) probably eat plant nectar. A few adult lightening bug species practice an especially tricky kind of cannibalism. Already-mated females emit flashes similar to the female responses to male Lightning Bugs of other species. When the male of the other species lands, the female emitting the false flashes pounces on the poor male and eats him!


This is a larvae.

*Fireflies were a part of Mayan mythology, often being associated with the stars. They also were associated with cigar smoking.. don't ask me how!

In addition to fireflies (or lightening bugs), Ben and I saw a bug in Miami once that was so unusual I set out to find out what it was. It is called an eyed click beetle.

The "eyes" are actually light organs on the insect's "shoulders," and have nothing to do with the vision of the beetle. If you flip one on its back, it will snap a spine into a groove on its "chest," propelling the insect into the air.. thus the name, click beetle. It will, after a couple tries or so, eventually land right side up! Amazing!