Our Week Alone

Last week Brad went to a week-long Scout Camp and left Kallie and me to fend for ourselves. It was really just Mon through Sat but the camp was 8 hours away from Jax so they left a couple days early so they wouldn't have to travel on the Sabbath or miss church. Our friend Tony graciously offered to drive his own car alongside Brad as a second leader, even though he doesn't have a calling in scouts. Brad was really grateful to have him come, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tony regretted his decision before the first day came to an end. Why you ask? Well, when they were about 2 hours from camp Brad and Tony found themselves in a 3-car crash on the freeway. A fourth car was involved but only enough to cause the entire accident and run away. Our van (that we've only owned for a few months) was mildly smashed in around the front corner and door on the driver's side. Tony's car...was totaled. So that's really awesome for him and his wife. I feel so bad that the worst of this happened to the person that volunteered to go out of the goodness of his heart. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of Tony's car; just the other two cars:

Our van

The 3rd vehicle

Brad called me as they awaited the cop's arrival and all that came to mind was, "Huh. On the first day? Before you even got there? That really stinks." I hope it's obvious by my light-hearted description of this event that no one was hurt. On the contrary while Brad and Tony were sorting everything out with the cops the boys plopped down on the side of the freeway and started playing cards to pass the time.

Making the best out of the situation

They dropped off the vehicles at an auto shop, rented a couple more and continued right on up to camp. I was a little surprised at how casually they continued their trip. I thought they might at least consider the possibility of canceling the whole thing and coming home but what can I say? They are SCOUTS.

Brad had a productive week at camp

Actually Brad's pretty good at widdling (?) wood. He made a sword

And he made a Harry Potter wand

That same day our Relief Society had an Enrichment activity called "Christmas in July". They had five or six women teach a holiday craft (me being one of them). When the rep first asked me to choose and teach a craft I stared at her like she was from outer space. Don't get me wrong, I think crafts are awesome and cute but they do NOT come naturally to me. I can make one with someone by my side every step of the way but coming up with my OWN craft idea and teaching it? I accepted the task but gave that very sincere warning. With the help of Traci, the craftiest woman in our ward, I copied a craft found on Pinterest and figured out how to make it. It was probably the cheapest one ever made because Traci already had 90% of the materials.

Still, I was nervous to teach on the day of the event. Since Brad was gone I had to take Kallie with me (thankfully daycare was provided) and I was paranoid I didn't have enough material so I stopped on the way to pick some extra Spanish moss from a tree I saw. Turned out only 4 people ended up making my craft out of the 15 that signed up. I was a little disappointed. It turned out pretty cute though:

Baby Jesus ornament

The next day at church I was able to sit with our friends Wayne and Molly specifically so Kallie could play with their boy Sam and be distracted through sacrament meeting. It's getting exhausting to entertain her and let her climb all over my pregnant belly. As soon as the meeting ended I stood up to leave and noticed a big spot of something orange smashed into the bench...right in the spot I had been sitting. Oh no. I inspected my skirt and sure enough that same huge spot of melted CHEESE was all over my butt. Wayne offered to take Kallie to nursery so I could run to the bathroom. My wonderful friend Heather lives really close to the church and offered to run home to grab me a clean skirt. I was so grateful!

Kallie now repeats everything she says at least five times. As soon as I lift her out of the crib every morning she says, "Babble babble mock? (milk)." As she pats my leg to get my attention, "Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Babble babble walk (and point)." She ate "monko" (mango) for the first time tonight and loved it of course. What fruit does she not love? During the week Brad was gone I killed four cockroaches. Ever since then Kallie points to one of the spots in the house we spotted a cockroach and says "BUG! Ewww!" And every time she hugs one of us or her stuffed animals she says, "Awww!".

Kallie's knees are constantly scraped up and bleeding because she trips and falls so often they never get a chance to scab over and heal. I'm guessing they'll eventually get REALLY calloused. Poor thing. Every time she falls she says, "Okay?" cuz she's so used to hearing me ask if she's okay and every time she stands back up she bends down to inspect her knees and then looks at me and says/signs "Owie. Hurt."

Story time at the library. She LOVES chairs.

She eats the whole clementine...peel and all.

 Kallie found a random group of kids to play with at the beach

Brush teeth!

She loves water. What can I say? She's talented.

Happy 4th!

Every 4th of July our ward has a flag raising ceremony and a breakfast. We sang patriotic hymns and ate a tasty pot luck. Someone always brings Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which I look forward to the most but there are also good homemade dishes. The "productions" they attempt to put on are hilarious because they're never rehearsed or very well prepared for. At one point a couple young women brought out a CD player to accompany everyone singing more patriotic hymns. There were lyrics printed out on every table but the handout only included the first couple verses of each song so the CD would continue a few lines into the third verse before they stopped it mid-sentence, realizing everyone had stopped singing because their lyrics ran out.  Half the time the microphone wasn't working so most of the ward members didn't know what the heck was going on.

Later that evening we went to our friends' house for a small BBQ and fireworks in the street. A few minutes into setting up the camping chairs and stuff in the driveway it started raining, which no one expected. None of the news reports predicted rain on the 4th of July. Instead we grilled on the porch and played games inside. Let me tell you, playing Apples to Apples with six toddlers running all around us was an adventure. Luckily the hard rain didn't last all night so the boys were able to get their "Walmart special" firework fix and we lit sparklers to entertain the little ones. The fireworks scared the heck out of Kallie. She cried and clung to me the whole time. We've come to enjoy fireworks at home rather than watching the big public ones. No dealing with crowds or traffic. We had even put out a kiddie pool in the lawn thinking it would be blazing hot and a two-year-old named Rosie, who was NOT dressed for swimming but rather wearing a cute pink dress and white sandals, wandered into the pool and plopped right down on her bum.

We recently bought a new piece of living room furniture for Kallie: a bean bag chair! She hasn't quite warmed up to it yet but I need to take away her baby bouncer. She still sits on it all the time and I'm afraid she'll either break it or throw a HUGE fuss when her little sister is born and has the gull to use her chair.

Kallie found one of our CD holders and brought it up to me so I would unzip it for her. I didn't want her touching the CD's inside so instead I put the handle strap over her arm and she walked toward the door thinking it was a purse saying, "Babble babble GO! Car! Bye!". It was SO cute.

This week Kallie's friend Rosie celebrated her second birthday at a gymnastics area for toddlers called Gymboree. One of the employees carried out the "schedule" of the party by playing music when it was time for the kids to run around and have fun and then she rang a bell when it was time to gather the kids together for a short activity. I've never seen a birthday party like that before but it's a pretty neat idea for toddlers. Kallie's more comfortable spending a lot of time on a couple activities by herself rather than running around trying everything. When we brought her over to participate in the group activities she didn't always like it. As soon as we let her go she ran back to the slide she had already climbed up and down twenty times. When we sang "Happy Birthday" to Rosie and she was presented with her cake, instead of blowing out her candles she reached over to touch the flames. There was an audible "gasp" in the room as all the moms instinctively reached out their hands to push Rosie away from the candles. It was pretty funny.

Notice Kallie's onesie has a cupcake on it

Nowadays when a prayer is being offered not only does Kallie fold her arms but she says a prayer right along with the person actually offering it.  Kallie did this during the whole closing prayer in sacrament meeting today.

Kallie's cut is doing very well and the doctor said her glue should fall off within 5-7 days of the accident but it's going on day 10 and it's still on her forehead. I've been wanting to rip the thing off for days because the edges have peeled away and it looks gross and ridiculous. We've tried a couple times but Kallie always fussed and ran away so today we decided to pin her down and actually take a good look at it. Once I had Kallie still it peeled off fairly easily. Of course she screamed the whole time but we followed up the procedure with lots of hugs and kisses. Kallie was holding a teddy bear so we put the peeled piece of glue onto the bear's forehead and Kallie did the CUTEST thing. She talked to the bear, pulled off the glue and then gave the bear lots of hugs and kisses.

July in Florida has kicked off with deathly hot weather. My new "thing" is going out to start the car about 15 minutes before we plan to leave so it has a chance to cool down. Yay.

 We FINALLY remembered to take belly pictures today at 30 weeks

This is what Brad thought of it. Apparently Kallie didn't mind using him as a chair anyway...

Kallie and I having fun with the camera:

Bleeding Baby and Busy-ness

About a week ago I was smack in the middle of going to the bathroom when Kallie ran in all excited. She ran up to me, ran to the door, ran to the tub and danced her little legs side to side. She turned around to run to me again but went so fast that she instead ran her head right into the outward corner next to the toilet. I'm glad I was right there when it happened but I wasn't in the most convenient position to hold a baby with blood gushing out of her forehead as I try to figure out how to pull up my pants so I can get to the phone. Somehow I figured it out and called 911 because nothing like this had ever happened before. They said it didn't cost anything to send out paramedics so I gave them the go ahead. Kallie's bleeding started slowing down a lot so tried to clean up some blood.

 

 Kallie's such a trooper! She stopped crying and started smiling before the paramedics even arrived so when at least eight men came through the door I felt kind of ridiculous for the big scene. They said she definitely needed to go to the doctor, whether it be her pediatrician or the ER. I highly doubted I could get her into the pediatrician on such short notice so the question arose, should I drive her or should they? I was afraid if I drove her, she'd fall asleep or puke in the back seat. The paramedics reassured me their ride would be covered if we have insurance so I said, "Sure, why not"?

It was humorous to me that this all happened at this moment for a number of reasons. The previous night I had restless leg syndrome and got hardly any sleep. We had just come home from play group and I was about change her diaper and put her down for a nap. I was really excited to eat a quick lunch and take a nap myself while Kallie was napping. Instead it was time to head to the hospital.

We packed up and followed them out to the parking lot. They actually got out Kallie's car seat from our van and hooked it up in the fire truck. I was able to sit right next to her on the way there. When we arrived at the ER, they hooked up Kallie's car seat (with her in it) onto a stretcher and pushed her into the hospital like that. It was so funny! We definitely sat in the hospital for longer than I would have liked waiting for the doc to come in and glue her together but Kallie snacked on crackers, watched cartoons and explored the room while we waited. When the doc finally did come in he brought in another buff man just to hold down Kallie so she wouldn't move. I rubbed her legs and tried to reassure her because she couldn't see me but she went right on screaming the entire time. When they finally finished and sat her up her face was BEAT red from crying so much. She also clung to me like a cat stuck high in a tree but nevertheless was smiling and giggling in no time.

Kallie turned out fine and fell asleep on the way home. She also took a GOOD nap so I was able to sleep too :)

The weekend came and was VERY busy (in a good way). My friends Molly and Robin came over on Friday so we could help Molly prepare food for her husband's surprise 30th birthday party the next day. Then Brad came home early from work in the afternoon like he usually does on Fridays so we decided to go to the pool with those same friends and their husbands and order pizza while we were there.

On Saturday the festivities began. We babysat Molly & Wayne's boy Sam so they could go kayaking for his birthday. I was all excited because I had activities planned for Sam and Kallie but none of them really worked out. I wanted to take them on a walk to the gazebo to feed the ducks, fish and turtles but by the time we left at 9:30am it was SO hot. We got about halfway before Kallie had a tantrum because we took away her new favorite toy (an unopened can of pop that was slowing her down on our walk). For the first time she literally plopped down on the sidewalk and screamed.

Brad decided it was time to take her home while I kept walking with Sam. It wasn't long before I noticed five beads of sweat running down his face so I thought we might want to turn around and head home as well. I noticed during this walk that Sam is so much faster than Kallie! He takes off and stays ahead of us the whole time. Going on a walk with him is almost as good of exercise as going on a real walk by myself. I couldn't help but wish Kallie walked like him. When Brad and I decide to go for a walk we have to specify whether it's a real walk (with her in the stroller so we can actually go fast) or a "Kallie" walk.

 Wayne, Sam and Molly

When Molly & Wayne picked up Sam they took Kallie with them and put her down for a nap at their place so Brad and I could go to a movie. We saw the new Disney movie "Brave" and it was pretty good. I was not satisfied with the candy we bought to munch on during the movie. I realized I was craving salty food instead of sweet and I got a stomach ache. I realized we need to change how we choose our movie snacks next time. I'm excited to see if it works. The movie ended fairly early so we came home and took a nap before picking up Kallie :).

At this point we went to Molly & Wayne's to pick up Kallie but instead of going home, Brad and Wayne left to go rock climbing with our other friend Tony. I made it look like I was about to take Kallie home while they were gone but I moved the van to the visitor parking and stayed to help Molly prep for the surprise party. Two things ruined the surprise for Wayne. First, he noticed our van in the visitor spots as they came back into the complex (he is a very observant guy). Secondly, instead of dropping off Wayne and parking the car while he walked into his surprise party, Tony turned off the car and got out to walk in with Wayne. Brad new this wasn't the plan but Tony had already gotten out so he followed suit. Wayne realized it was weird that his friends were following him inside even though they hadn't been invited so as they walked up to the door he asked, "There's a surprise party for me, isn't there?

We put Kallie to bed at their house so we stay as late as we wanted and the party was a success.

This week I had another night of restless leg syndrome, which was absolutely wonderful. I only got four hours of sleep last night but I was happy to take Kallie to the beach today because she could get outside and have fun while I could relax a little in the sun. As we drove to the beach I was of course really tired but not enough to worry my driving. However as the highway was about to approach the beach and curve around to a perpendicular direction I passed a cop and had not yet slowed down because I hadn't reached the curve. As you can guess I got a speeding ticket and immediately broke down crying. I was tired, hormonal and emotional and I think I just needed a good cry. I've realized recently that I need one on a regular basis. At first I felt like such a girl and a little embarrassed about it but I think most girls just need that. I've come to accept it and be grateful that I have an awesome husband that's really good at balancing out my emotions and making me feel better.

With that said, a normal person probably would have gone home after having an emotional breakdown but I decided to continue to the beach after I was calm because it was a fun activity for Kallie and I must say, I have awesome friends that make me feel better and we always have fun.
Thankfully Kallie took a LONG nap when we got home from the beach which means I was able to take a long nap. The rest of the day went much better and we even went to a restaurant called Pei Wei for the first time and it was super tasty. We got lettuce wraps as an appetizer, (which Kallie actually loved and ate the whole time), I got Pad Thai and Brad got a coconut curry dish. At one point I think Kallie dipped the lettuce wrap filling into the sauce (which was a little spicy) and totally freaked out! She started crying, turning side to side and touching her hand to her mouth. I was finally able to convince her to drink cold water and as soon as she finished she went back to talking like normal. Brad and I couldn't stop laughing.

Tonight is "Guys Night", which means Brad is out with his buddies seeing the new Spider Man movie in the theater and I am at home updating our blog :)

Don't forget to click on the "Pictures" link above this post to see some new ones!

A Family Affair

Brad's oldest brother, Dustin and his family (wife Heather, kids Porter (15) McKayla (12) Ashley (8) and Madalyn (5)) stayed with us over the weekend on their way from their home in Arkansas to a family reunion in Orlando (If we lived in Orlando we could have tagged along and crashed their whole week-long reunion!).

 I stole this pic from Dustin's Facebook page so you all know who I'm talking about :)
I think it's a couple years old...

 Even though a tropical storm hovered over the entire weekend, the sun did us a favor and peeked out a couple of times. We got to do a little night swimming in the pool right when they arrived Saturday evening, and caught a little window of sunshine at the beach on Monday right before they left (complete with the breakfast of champions: Krispy Kreme doughnuts and chocolate milk).

We also celebrated TWO birthdays while they were here! Porter, turned 15 on Saturday and Brad turned 29 on Sunday. Ashley was able to join my Sunday School class. It was pretty neat having her there.  Kallie loved having them visit! She was so entertained with our little house full of people. They all adored Kallie and included her in their playing. Surprisingly most of the cousins were entertained with Kallie's toys (I guess it doesn't matter how old the kid is, as long as the toy is new to them).

Madalyn & Ashley walking Kallie into church

We really wish they could have stayed longer! I haven't been to their house in Arkansas yet so we want to plan a road trip to visit them.

Sorry, this was the only picture we took while they were here! Sad day.