Happy Family

Men, Women, and Unborn Baby Luaus

We recently were invited to a Hawaiian-themed couples baby shower. One afternoon while we were running errands, I coerced Stephen into accompanying me to Target to buy the baby gift.

We printed the gift registry from the little kiosk and set off for the baby section. Stephen glanced at the rows of baby paraphernalia. "How much are you planning to spend on this kid?"

I named the amount, and justified it by emphasizing the importance of the relationship that I have with the baby's maternal grandmother. Besides, my mom had agreed to go in for half.

"Okay," said Stephen, and skimmed the pages of the registry. "That means that we can get the Bumbo Baby Sitter Blue...and a Boppy slipcover. Oh, and one pack of assorted wash cloths. That will be just the right amount."

"No, no," I tried to explain. "We want to pick one semi-large gift to set the theme, but we want to have enough money left to buy a few other items that relate to the theme. Those things you said don't have anything to do with each other."

Stephen tried to look patient and understanding as it dawned on him that this would be no quick in-and-out trip. I prowled up and down the baby aisles in search of inspiration. My initial idea was a bath-themed gift, with a baby tub full of shampoos, lotions, and towels. But washcloths and shampoo were the only thing on the registry, and I wasn't going to go out on a limb for the most expensive part of the gift.

After much agonizing, I decided to go with a diaper-themed gift. We bought diapers and wipes, and a travel changing pad, some diaper rash cream, baby powder, and Purel hand sanitizer.

Stephen mentally totaled the items in our basket. "So, we're set, right? A basket full of themed baby stuff. Now we can get a big gift bag and go?"

"No, no," I contradicted, and proceeded to instruct him in phase two of the gift buying: Themed baby stuff is a good gift. But good is not good enough- we want to give the best gift. And the line between good and best is all in the presentation. "We need to find a cute container that fits our theme that we can put all this stuff in."

Stephen eyed the pile of diaper accessories. "Maybe a laundry basket?"

"You can't put diapers in a laundry basket!" Stephen knows my paranoia about mixing clean and dirty.

"Well, they're unused diapers in a brand new basket," he reasoned.

I was off to investigate what seemed like the only logical possibility for a container in keeping with my theme: a trash can. Voila! There was a perfect one, in a lovely hue of baby green, and for a very reasonable price. Stephen was skeptical, but willing to go along with anything at this point.

I got home, played with my ribbons and scissors and clear cellophane, and even Stephen had to admire my final product:

Yay

Lydia Asked for It

Here...watch this until I get something new put up. I'm planning to be inspired tomorrow.

Long Awaited Easter Pictures

Outside Pei Wei

On the way home

Photo shoot- coldest bluebonnet pic ever

Close up of the snowy "blubes"

Harrises come over for games and fun

Back yard snow

Alan marks his territory

La Mesa Mas Fantastica

Every year, my school puts on a Grandparents' Dinner and Silent Auction. Each class is asked to contribute something to the auction, and conventional wisdom suggests that items that represent the creative efforts of the students sell for the most money. I stumbled upon inspiration in the form of a black wire table frame at Laverty's a few weeks ago, and Stephen was given the mighty task of attaching a table top to the frame so that I could do a tiling project on top of it.

I took my seventeen students to Practically Pikasso, where they each painted a tile with one of their initials. The color choices were strictly limited, so the resulting tabletop was nicely coordinated. KarenD and I went back to the studio and painted three more tiles (our masterpieces are the d, H, and W in the third row) so that we'd have an even twenty to make a grid. We used small matching tiles to fill in the border when my measurements turned out to be a little on the small side.

I did the decorative arranging, and Stephen did the hard work of spreading the mortar and grout, and the result was a personalized, yet quite attractive tabletop.

The students each brought money to pay for their own tiles, and the rest of the materials cost about $100 or a little less, but it was worth the investment when the table was auctioned off for a whopping

one thousand dollars.

He Rocks My Face Off

I'm off to see Josh! Yippee!

Hips Don't Lie

We went and saw Music and Lyrics today. I'm not predicting any Oscar nominations for it, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's predictable and at times, corny, but it's a good flick. And, my favorite part: more footage of Hugh Grant dancing!

Stephen does not understand my fascination. He has tried all sorts of tactics to make me feel guilty for enjoying movies for this reason, but to no avail. I don't completely understand it myself, but the little hip-shakes make me laugh.

And since I am all about sharing the love on this blog, I am providing a clip for you to enjoy first-hand.

Extreme January

One of the joys of non-digital photography is unearthing and developing a long-lost roll of film. It's often a fun and unexpected trip down memory lane (followed always by a resolution to be more faithful to clean the desk drawer, or under the couch cushion, or wherever the stowaway film had been located for all those months...or years). On the rare occasion where I even take a picture, I use my digital camera, and so I never expected the joy of finding forgotten pictures.

Well today I plugged in my camera to unload some of our snow day pictures, and discovered photos from my trip to Florida (most taken by Leslie, which explains why I "forgot" about them so easily).

So here is our hotel, followed by me lounging in the pool:

(I'm lounging, not dead. This weird picture is here to prove how hot it was!)

And, ten days later, back in Texas...

Some TSO for You

Country Folk

Here's the latest family picture!

This is for you, Grandma!

My last several posts have been very long, despite my best intentions at the start of each post. I've decided to give all of my nice readers a break by showing some pictures. So allow me to pull out my metaphorical wallet in a tribute to whoever thinks they are my grandma. Want to see my pics?



Here is our new house! We're moving in TOMORROW!



This is Stephen and I in our Christmas card runner-up picture. It's actually quite warm outside; we are just trying to look festive in front of Truett Seminary.



This is our dog, Callie (short for California). She is my favorite of our two because she is SO needy! She follows me around the house and every time I stop, she sits up and begs for me to pick her up and hold her. (Stephen says I have to add that I have trained her to want to be held on her back like a baby).



This is the senior dog, Phoebe. She is Stephen's favorite because he had her before we got married, and also because she is aloof and independent. My funniest memory of Phoebe was at Stephen's graduation party when she went around begging for food frome everyone and got potato salad dropped on her head.