I Will Carry You

Date Night

Tuesday afternoon Stuart and I were sitting at our computers when he busted out with a question that I haven't heard in about 4 years. (Ok, it hasn't really been 4 years but and it's mostly my fault that the question doesn't get asked since I usually make a big deal out of the preparation for it. Either way I was shocked.)

Stuart: Hon, do you want to go on a date tonight?

Me: What?? {as I pick myself up off the ground}

Stuart: Yeah, it's Tuesday so we could get in and out of a restaurant no problem.

Me: Well sure.

Stuart: Do you want to call the babysitter?

Me: Absolutely!

**********

Stuart: What do you want to do?

Me: Umm

Stuart: I was thinking that we could go to the range then dinner.

Me: Ahh, so the real reason as to why you want to go out comes thru.

Stuart: Well yeah. See, I get to shoot and you get to eat dinner.

Me: Sounds like a perfect compromise if I ever heard one.

And that's what we did. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of me shooting. Now there's a picture!

Daddy/Mommy

Daddy

Mommy

Daddy

Mommy

Daddy

Mommy

Daddy

Mommy

Burn

It's no surprise that I am a bit of a klutz. Ok, ok. More than a bit. Either way it's a miracle that I can walk and talk and fold laundry at the same time. A trait that I have gotten particularly good at while also writing a list. Any list will do. But hey, I'm not bragging.

So, me. And having retarded hands and feet.

Last night I was getting ready for work; something that I rather enjoy because it's one of the few times that I actually get ready for anything and I know that I am about to hang out with other adults. Albeit some certified wackos but I'm not complaining (at least not right at this minute).

I'm having a grand 'ole time drying my hair, putting on makeup (it's the small luxuries really) and then curling my hair.

It's during this last scene that something tragic happens.

Something horrific.

Something down right wrong.

I dropped my curling iron.

But this dropping didn't occur just anywhere.

Nope.

I dropped it on me.

On a very specific and sensitive part of me.

My boob.

That's right. I dropped my curling iron on one of my "bumps." And boy-howdy did I almost bring the house down from sheer pain. You would think that I would have learned my lessen when it comes to getting ready and being clothed here. But no. I am stubborn and set in my ways.

And now?

Now I have a burned boob to show for it.

Pleading

Me: Tucker, do you want to go pee-pee in the potty?

Tucker: No.

Me: Do you want to try?

Tucker: No.

Me: Do you want to be a big boy like Tyson?

Tucker: No.

Me: If you go pee-pee in the potty, you can have some gum.

Tucker: No.

Me: You can have some candy.

Tucker: No.

Me: You can have some ice cream.

Tucker: No.

Me: Please Tucker. Will you just sit and try?

Tucker: No.

Me: Is there ANYTHING that you want?

Tucker: No.

Me: How 'bout we just take your diaper off and try?

Tucker: No.

Me: Please Tucker...

Tucker: No.

Me: We'll go to Chili's and have macaroni and cheese.

Tucker: No.

Tyson: Mom, Tucker is just going to be a baby forever.

Me: Yeah, I know.

Food Box

So I am so not a person who only eats organically or reads all labels before I buy items or shops at non-commercial stores only {just a disclaimer} but Stuart and I just watched this on PBS and I found it fascinating.

Boys

I know Tyson is going to be humiliated when he gets older and I bust out this picture, but I just had to laugh when I was taking it. Oh boys!

Sometimes

you

just

have

to

play

in

the

mud

Trouble

They started at an early age...

Amazing

This morning

Tucker: Mommy, we had migos!

Me: Huh?

Tucker: We eat lo migos!

Me: ... {starting to put two and two together} You ate Los Tres Amigos? (restaurant in town)

Tucker: Yeah, yeah!

Stuart: Shhh! You weren't supposed to tell your mother that.

Apparently having mom work the entire weekend is not all that bad for Stuart and the boys.

Grand

One of our many trips to the Grand Canyon

You would never know that I am TERRIFIED of heights

I had to literally crawl out to the ledge

I was shaking

But it makes for a good picture

Bars

I know, I know. Ever since we went to our well child appointments, you have been anxiously awaiting my graphs. Well, wait no more.

Weight in pounds

Height in inches

Aren't they things of beauty?

Unrelated

so i've lost my voice. again. this is very frustrating. my allergies decided to completely flare up in a matter of hours on wednesday night. i went from talking on the phone (to a lot of people actually) to scratchy-i-know-i'm-about-to-loose-my-voice voice. not good. but this time i also have this horrid cough. i honestly sound like a black tar heroine user. not good. work is going to be an interesting venture this weekend.

speaking of work, this is my weekend to work. three 12 hour shifts in a row. it's not that it's exceptionally demanding; it's just that i literally get to see the boys and stu for approximately 2 hours each day. not good. and by the time monday morning rolls around, stu is so ready to not be a "single" dad he practically somersaults out the door to get to school, leaving me with the path of destruction known as "dad watches the boys for three days."

one of my neighbors has a chicken. an honest to goodness, cock-a-doodle-do chicken. i'm 99% sure that's not legal within the city limits. i just can't figure out which neighbor it is that has it. beyond that, i can't figure out WHY they have it. it is outside all day (having a chicken inside the house is an even more dumbfounding thought) and seriously cock-a-doodle-dos all day long. just bizarre.

yesterday marked 90 days since stuart started working on the boys bathroom. key word: started. note that i did not say completed anywhere in that sentence. 90 DAYS.

after a least two weeks of silence from our uninvited guest, he decided to make an appearance. of course i have yet to actually see the vile creature but his evidence was left none-the-less. and since i am absolutely petrified to go upstairs for fear of finding something stuck to one of the glue pads or worse, snapped inside the spring, i make stuart do that dirty job. of course there was nothing but one of the traps was tripped. sneaky little rascal. just die already!

we really need to buy a weed eater/trimmer. i can mow the lawn five million times but it still doesn't look done with everything hanging out over the sidewalks. oh but our flowers that we planted in the fall have bloomed like crazy and totally give off the impression that we care. and that i don't have a black thumb. what others don't know won't hurt them.

today is my niece's birthday. she's 12. holy cow! happy birthday gracie!!

i have my rescheduled-three-times eye appointment this morning. i think i am going to make it!

that's all.

Today

Today is April 15.

Also known as Tax Day.

Also known as the day after my SIL's birthday.

Also known as the day before my niece's birthday.

Also known as the day I shoot allergies in the head and thus completely obliterating them from the face of the earth.

Yeah, I said it.

**feel free to take a gander at Luke's page. His mom wrote a new note on Luke's health and added some new 11 month old pictures**

Blueberry

So I got a new phone.

By accident.

True story.

Stuart is an amazing man. He can fix practically anything that he touches. He can recite Office Space and The Big Lebowski. He knows more about fashion than I do. He even knows how to put the toilet seat down. (Yes you can drool about that one.) But a decisive man he is NOT.

It's not so much that Stuart doesn't know what he wants. In fact, he very much knows what he wants. He just wants several (and I do mean several) of kinds of a single item.

Stuart's absolutely amazed and awed at the internet and what you can find. So as soon as he gets on a kick about something (current item: guns), he researches it the point of becoming an adjunct expert on it and then can't narrow down his list to just ONE or even TWO kinds of that single item. (This is why that fact that he actually settled on a degree plan AND is slated to graduate this summer astounds me. He actually picked ONE thing. Don't be bothered with the fact that he has gone back and changed his mind about going to grad school, getting a second bachelors, going to law school...)

It was no surprise to me then when last Wednesday Stuart announced that he was getting a new phone. He makes pronouncements like this often enough that I am learning to roll with it. (Again another feat that I am so not got at but after 7.5 years of marriage am learning is going to be part of our lives forever.) Two years ago we both got HTC Touch Pros (mine with a full qwerty). Considering that phones have a life equaled to that of dogs, it's amazing we kept our phones for more than a year (well that and the simple fact that this is Stuart and electronics). Sometime in January Stuart decided he was done with touch screens and traded someone for a Samsung phone that had "actual keys." He loved the keys but disliked the internet interface so has been hounding me to consider trading in my phone with him. Why he thinks I even care is beyond me but he asks all the same.

Unbenownced to me, Stuart used my phone upgrade to get his new phone. No biggie, like I said, I really don't care.

He was like a little school boy when the box came Friday. His eyes lit up and he ripped threw the packaging to start playing. Boys and their toys. After a few minutes of pure glee, Stuart picks up his old phone to call and make the connection on the new phone.

His face went limp.

He looked like he had been hit with a truck.

A few sad and tense minutes later Stuart hangs up and says, "here."

"Why are you handing this phone to me?"

"Because it's yours."

"But I don't want it. You got it."

"It's yours."

Apparently the new phone had a rebate. And the rebate could only be used if the new phone was activated under the account that was due for the upgrade. MY account to be exact.

So now I have a new blackberry, or blueberry as one of my co-workers calls it. The same co-worker that refers to the iphone as a g-phone.

And Stuart is beyond envious of this accident.

We Could Take This Act on the Road

I love how Tyson throws the microphone down when Colby (Shane's littlest brother) turns on the music.

And of course, we have to show a little bit 'o Kate. :)

We now can call him Uncle Shane

This weekend my littlest sister, Jordana got engaged!

E-N-G-A-G-E-D.

Is she old enough to be engaged? Shoot, is she old enough to have a boyfriend?

Shane, her fiance (man that sounds funny) emailed the family a couple of weeks ago and let us all know that he was planning on proposing and wanted us all to be there to surprise Jordana and celebrate in their good news. Oh course we said yes!

My parents, my middle sister and her family and us all drove to Abilene and hid in Shane's parents' house until Shane and Jordana arrived (a feat not easily done when dealing with three little ones). Shane whisked Jordana off to the dock behind their house where rose petals (spread by his and my mom) lined the walk way. Shane had made a book with photos and events from their dating and showed it to George (her nickname since birth) when they sat down. Everyone was anxiously watching from the Haught's bedroom and bathroom windows for the tell-tale getting onto one knee.

And he did.

They kissed.

Kate said, "no kissing."

And they kissed some more.

Then we all ran downstairs to meet them.

It was grand!!

We then ate a fantastic dinner that Mrs. Haught prepared and watched as the little ones played.

Congrats to Jordana and Shane! We love you so much!

Funny side note: all the Chisholm girls have husbands (or soon to be husbands) with "S" names. Stuart and Clarissa, Scott and Marci, Shane and Jordana. :)

We took a little trip

and met our cousin.

She's just too cute for words.

My Sunshine

A Little Pick-Me-Up

Top 5

Today's top five quotes:

1) Stop that now!

2) I really don't care.

3) Wow, that's a gigantic booger!

4) Stop with the strangling!

5) Stop, stop, stop!

It's just been one of those mornings.

Cancelation

I think we all know by now how important schedules and order and consistency and planning are to me. If you don't, let me just assure you that these things are right up there with Coca Cola, breathing, eating and my family. Really.

So then you will also understand my extreme frustration and almost tantrum when my husband alerted me to the fact that I would have to cancel my eye appointment today because he had a lecture at school that he needed to attend for extra credit. Extra credit.

I know, I know. What's wrong with me? Why wouldn't I want my husband to get the most out of school? Do I want him to do badly and possibly not graduate this summer? Is canceling an eye appointment really that big of an issue?

Yes.

And here's why.

1) I have already had to cancel and remake this appointment.

2) I really need to have this eye appointment so that my eye doctor can determine if I need to go back to Tylock and have a little more Lasik done.

3) I wouldn't have been so rattled if Stuart would have mentioned this when he got home from school (and right before I passed out from being awake for 23 hours) instead of mentioning this at 10:30 pm last night.

4) This throws a kink in my schedule.

5) The universe might turn around and start hounding me for exact times and dates for everything on my schedule in the next week and I wouldn't be prefect and thus everything would crumble and fall around me; all because I DIDN'T KNOW.

I personally prefer reason 5.

This is the day that the bunny has...

...brought candy and chocolate and made all the boys sick.

Well, not really sick, but definitely hyper.

At least the little boys enjoyed all their prizes from "the best Easter bunny in the whole Earth."

And my big boy?

He kinda sulked all day since this was my weekend to work and thus he had to play single dad.

It's ok, he'll get over it.

For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15

Happy Birthday to My Little Sister!

Stuart's Never Gonna Hear the End of This

Another Letter

Dear Allergies,

I rarely say the word "hate" but I'm afraid I'm going to have to use it here. I hate you. We hate you. Can you please just go away?

Yesterday, you turned our day into a no good, very bad, horrible day!

Because of you (or maybe the shots but either way I'm going to blame you first), Tyson had a fever ranging from 99-101 all day that Tylenol didn't really bring down. He also didn't eat anything till dinner telling us repeatedly that he "didn't want to eat because he just didn't feel very good." Do you know how sad it is to hear your child say that to you? I doubt it.

And while I did get to snuggle with my biggest boy all day (he only wanted to sit in mommy's lap, a luxury that I never get to revel in), I had a hard time tending to my baby since he too was feeling the affects of your misery.

Thanks to you, I am also the bearer of a sinus infection (I'm pretty sure) complete with no voice (this is going to make for an interesting time at work tonight), clogged ears, runny nose, sneezing, chest congestion and overall yuckiness. Thank you very much!

The glue that is holding this family together: Zyrtec, Flonase, Pseudoephedrine, Benadryl, Tylenol, Saline spray, and last but certainly not least, Stuart. Poor man was taking care of everything for us yesterday, which I might add was a day off from school that also coincided with a day that I didn't have to work and be asleep most of the day from having to work the night previous.

So allergies, we really wish you would leave this house. You are not welcome here. And while you are leaving, do you think you could take our other unwelcome guest with you?

You quit absence would be greatly appreciated.

Respectfully,

Clarissa

April

We are not having a very good start for the month of April. Yesterday both the boys woke up with runny noses and some sneezing. No big deal. I know that since the weather is getting warmer, things are blooming and all are allergies are bound to kick in.

We did have a little visit with the pediatrician yesterday for well child appointments.

Tyson: 42.5 lbs, 43 in, 49.6 cm head circumference

Tucker: 42 lbs, 40.5 in, 50.2 cm head circumference

Yes, the boys are half a pound difference in weight and Tucker's head is bigger than Tyson's.

As the day/night progressed both boys started getting worse. Tucker's snot was turning green and Tyson could stop sniffing. As bed time rolled around, it was apparent that Tyson was just not able to breath very well laying down. He was up till 11:30 pm trying to blow his little nose and having us use the "snot sucker" to clear out his nose. Not fun. Finally after crashing, he woke up again at 2:30 am, 3 am, 6:15 am and then finally for good at 7:10 am. Not a good night at all.

After his final rousing of me out of bed, I noticed that he was burning up. Took his temperature and sure enough it was 99.7. Now this could be due to the 5 shots he got yesterday or to allergies or both. Who knows.

And me? Yeah, I can totally feel my ears starting to ache/throb, I have a tickle in my throat and my nose is starting to run.

Fantastic.