She Has Yet To Figure Out

That crawling up the steps with something in her hands usually never turns out the way she expects.

There will be many more art projects to replace this one.

Her heart wasn't completely broken, probably because she looked just so incredibly cute.

Remember the new ponytail holders?

They are working out splendidly!

I Cannot Tell You...

just how painful this was.

My pure awesomeness resulted in a visit from FedEx this p.m.

My precious Baby Boy told me on the way home tonight that he really wanted a couple new ring tones for his new phone and I replied,

"and I really want to look hot in a bikini".

He didn't think it was funny.

However, I found it quite amusing.

Have I learned my lesson on hiding things?

Nope.

I learned that next time, I will have to send myself a reminder email so I'll know where to retrieve the item when the time is right.

We are officially on countdown to gaining back a small piece of sanity in our lives.

We are making all kinds of changes

and

all of the changes are positively awesome!

Giraffe Loving Adventure

Seeing as how we were not on our home turf and I was pretty certain we would not see anyone we knew, I decided to take Chunky Monkey to feed the Giraffes.

I figured that just in case there was some mega-meltdown or just in case we somehow managed to do bodily harm to the Giraffes, we would not have any personal witnesses to pass on the storytelling drama.

The Giraffe Feeding Adventure was extremely neat.

This was the first time that Monkey has been that close to a Giraffe and she thought the Baby Giraffe was remarkable!

I was beyond thrilled to be that close to the Giraffes as well.

Initially, there was only two other people on the deck with us and when they left, we had the place to ourselves.

It was a really neat experience and we got to take our time feeding the sweet little Baby Giraffe and the Mommy Giraffe.

We were face to face with him.

I truly was in awe.

The food kept falling onto the deck, so we took our time sweeping it together with our hands so that we could give more food to the baby.

Chunky Monkey loved helping.

Then, the Big Daddy Giraffe (or so I have named him) walked up and frightened Monkey to the point

that I really thought she was going to jump out of my arms!

Wow!

They are amazing animals!!!

We will have to go back if for no other reason than to feed the Giraffes again.

Thank You All You Beach Goers

May 29, 2011

~~~

Thank you each and every one of you who decided to spend the Memorial Day weekend somewhere other than where we were. 

Birmingham and Montgomery were both ghost towns

and

we appreciate that.

There was no wait, no crowds and no long drives to the beach.  

The weeks leading up to Memorial Day, we kept asking each other, "so...do you want to go to the beach?".

The same response from both of us, "I don't really care.  Do you?".

In the end, that translated to neither one of us having any interest in going.

So, while everyone else was out of town, we decided to torture ourselves in  the 3000 degree Alabama heat and we headed to Montgomery.

There we saw

 Ducks - Addie's favorite animal. 

A sad looking little Monkey.

And A Grumpy and Hot Homo Sapien.

Chunky Monkey's lunch meal came with a hat that (of course) was way too big, but she was in love.

She wanted to wear the silly hat, but it just wouldn't stay on no matter how hard she tried.

Chunky Monkey didn't have hardly anything to say, she just wanted to look at each animal.

I don't know what she was thinking, but she appeared to be having a good time.

I was having a good time as well, despite the awful heat,

the train being put together with duct tape,

the debris in the lake,

the horses standing around waiting for their turn to give a child a piggyback ride, 

and the poor elephant that appeared to be so hot that he had to lay down and let his trunk submerge into the water just to gain relief from the awful scorching sun.

Chunky Monkey was in a daze. 

It was so freakin' hot.

and it was only May.

So Smart...

May30, 2011
~~~
Julien has been away from home since last Thursday and Addie misses him terribly.

This afternoon, we were driving when we turned onto the road that runs right in front of Julien's school and Addie was very intently looking out the window. 
She looked at me and said, "Julien?". 
She was so excited!
She thought we were going to pick Julien up from school. 
Chris and I were both just so thrilled that she wasn't screaming in the car remembered where we were going and made the connection, yet it reminded us just how very much she misses Julien when he is away.

We are so very proud of each little bit of progress we see!

It Only Took Ten Months

but we finally convinced my Mother to try a different hospital for her health care needs.

If you want to get technical, when it was determined that a trip to the E.R. was imminent, she was given two options to choose from and one of them was not the hospital that she has virtually lived in over the last ten months. 

Now she is residing in a different hospital.

While my sister is able to navigate this hospital effortlessly because she spends half of her life working there, I just about had a mental breakdown while figuring out where to park and where to go.  At one point, Julien was pretty certain that I had ended up at the Birmingham Airport...he has no faith in me. 

On the bright side of things, our experience with this hospital staff has been positive and they give all appearances of doing everything to take care of Mom.

Considering she gets really ticked off when I post things on the Blog about her, I won't go into detail, other than to say that open heart surgery for some people seems to fix them, but for my Mother it has seemed to devastate her.

I am more hopeful than ever that we are going to get her all patched up and back into commission.  We have some big things going on this year and we need her in proper working order before that time gets here!

It Was Worth It

May 25, 2011

~~~

On the way home from work, Addie was so incredibly quiet.

I knew that whatever the reason was probably wasn't going to be good,

but,

I just couldn't help but enjoy the quiet.

I had the review mirror turned so that I could see her and she gave all appearances of being perfectly healthy.

She didn't appear to be in distress, she was just quietly sitting...

and I could hear something that kind of sounded like plastic.

In my mind, I decided that it was the little Ziploc baggie I had given to her with a few little Gummy Bunnies inside.

Except, I never saw her chewing anything and considering it was a thousand degrees outside, it only made sense (in my delusional mind) that she just decided she didn't want a snack.

Yet I could hear something...that honestly was on the side of unidentifiable.

When I pulled into the garage, got out and opened Chunk's door to get her, I saw it.

It used to be a Gummy Bunny.

My talented Baby Girl had somehow managed to pulverize the bunny into a sticky mess that resembled glue.

I couldn't help myself but laugh as I was dialing the phone to call Chris

and

I asked him if he could come down and help me carry a few things up.

When he walked down, he gave me a kiss, I grabbed my things and started walking upstairs as I told him to "please get Addie out for me...and you might want to take her directly to the shower".

Sure it was mean...but oh, so funny

and

yes

I did ignore his pleas for help as I continued on up the stairs.

The picture makes it look harmless enough

until you realize that it really was glue-like and had her hands virtually stuck together. 

It wasn't anything that 20 minutes in the shower and a bar of Goat's Milk Soap didn't cure.