Whoops!

Well, if I said my lack of blogging wasn't on purpose, I wouldn't totally be telling the truth. There have been many times when I have sat down at the computer to write an update of Little Miss' birthday, our trip to Florida, the Feathernester's visit at the beginning of May. Then I get tired. That's my excuse. I've been tired. We've been busy. Good busy, mostly. Next thing I knew, June was over and July was beginning.* Whoops! This weekend was supposed to be super good busy, but it turned out to be super bad busy because both the kiddos ended up being sick on Friday. J had strep, and Little Miss was also running a fever, so the assumption that she also had strep was made. This is the second time in a month that J has had strep, so that totally sucks, and it looks like he is following in my footsteps of being a major strep sufferer. I got strep along with him the first time, but this time (knock, knock) I appear to have been spared. Little Miss' infection has been a bit more dramatic, with a higher fever, some crazy crying jags, and some explosiveness that is just not fun to write about. But we will continue on and hopefully we will be able to celebrate our next weekend of super fun busy in a few days.

(The things we had to miss because of the simultaneous sickness included a baseball game and access to a room with food and drinks, and a birthday party at the children's museum.)

Other than that, what have we been up to? Well, let's back up a few months, shall we? We began the month of May with a visit from the Feathernesters for a week of non-stop cousin talking. Squealing. Squeaking. Giggling. Chasing. It was lots of fun. We also had a visit from B's mom in time for Mother's Day. She graciously played the part of babysitter and allowed the four parents to go out and have some fun. For Mother's Day, B arranged for the three ladies to go downtown to the Ballet. He chauffered us down so we could enjoy imbibing before and after the show without worry. One of the many reasons B and I love going to the ballet is because they pour a hefty drink that doesn't do complete damage to your wallet. We also had a lovely Mother's Day brunch with K, C, Z, and J.



The Hawaiian troubadors

Two cuties in the park

J made me some bling bling for Mother's Day. He told me so.

About a week after that, we headed east to Florida for a week. This trip coincided with Little Miss' birthday. We spent a few days at the retirement village (aka summer camp for the 55 and over crowd) with my parents. J and S had multiple carousel rides at various places. The boys played some golf. J got a 7 iron from my dad (his first real golf club!). B headed back to TX to work and the rest of us headed north three hours to Disney World for a couple of days. We were in Disney for S's actual birthday, so we had a mini celebration there with cupcakes. Both kids ended up with a faceful of frosting, which was lovely. As for visiting Disney itself, we did it in a very laid back way. Since my parents live three hours away, there was no pressure to do everything all at once for fear of never returning. This made it so much easier. We spent the morning at The Magic Kingdom, where J and S rode another carousel and my mom got to ride It's a Small World with someone who actually enjoyed it. I have to admit it was much more fun riding it this time with little kids on board because it was fun to see it through their eyes, and it was worth having the song stuck in my head for a few hours. J also rode the race cars, went on the Jungle Cruise, saw the bear country jamboree, and a couple of other things. The wait to meet Mickey was an hour long, so we decided to skip that and try again later when we didn't have LM in tow.

I love this picture.



Get. This. Thing. Off. Of. Me!

Face dive into icing

After a little naptime and pool time (we stayed at Port Orleans) J, my mom and I headed back to Disney to meet the Mouse. We waited patiently for 45 minutes, checking in every once in awhile to make sure that J did indeed want to meet Mickey Mouse, and that he wasn't going to be afraid once we got to the front of the line. J's had a lukewarm relationship with other life-sized characters so far, and I really didn't want to stand around waiting for nothing. As you can tell by the picture, it ended up being worth the wait. Lots of fun. We rounded out the night by riding a roller coaster, getting some popcorn and frozen lemonade, and heading back to the hotel. It was a great first visit. I'm sure Grandma will take him back anytime he wants.

I love how the Hawaiian shirt clashes with Minnie's dress!

After we got back from Disney (my first solo flight with two kids, I might add), we had one day before we had LM's birthday party. It was a fun-filled day. Since there were going to be just as many big kids as there were little ones, we decided to spring for some outdoor entertainment in the form of a bouncy castle. This ended up being one of the best party investments ever. I paid for four hours of fun and the guy was supposed to pick it up after the party ended around 2. He called me at 1 and asked if it would be okay if he didn't pick it up until 6. J had a blast. His buddy that lives down the street even came back later on so that they could both jump some more together.

Birthday outfit.

Owl cupcakes.

Unfortunately, two days later, we had our first bout of strep. We were blaming the bouncy castle.

Let's see... what came next? Ah. Father's Day. We went to a "meat and mustaches" barbecue and K/C's house. The men dined on some pork stuffed with bacon, wrapped in bacon thing while the rest of us spared our arteries and had other BBQ fare.

All that's missing are the cigars

I think I also forgot to mention that we have had a birthday party every weekend since LM's birthday party on May 30. It's been exhausting. We still have three more to go and then I think we are going to be done for a bit. Other than that, LM has been walking all over the place. She started shortly after her birthday, and she has been almost running since. She's talking a bit, too. Some of her favorite things to say are owl, bye bye, and bub bub (blueberry), and burp. She says other stuff here and there, but those are pretty consistent.

In other news, I'm a bit irate at Home Depot. I'm sure some of you are saying, "Duh!". We ordered some patio furniture on June 23 from them. It was on sale, free shipping, so we were excited. We hemmed and hawwed about whether to get a table that had some glass in the top, or if we should go with the tile top. Either way, we were concerned with breakage. We went with the partial glass one. It arrived about 2 weeks after ordering just in time for July 4th. Super. We put the chairs and table together and went to put in the glass. The glass was in the box and was shattered in a million little pieces. Yeah, we forgot that rule about checking things before assembly. So, we called HD and told them and they apologized and said they would send us a replacement, but it would take 10-14 days. At 14 days, we called them to find out where it was, only to learn that it had never been ordered. The customer service rep apologized again, said it would be ordered, and also gave us a gift card for $50 for our trouble. That was 12 days ago, so I called today to find out the status of this glass so that my table would no longer have a giant hole in it. The lady told me that this set is on backorder and would not be available until August 27 at the earliest. I tried to keep calm and expressed how this was extremely frustrating, and how a little bit of communication on their part would have done a lot of good here since I have had useless furniture for a month. She offered to have someone come and pick up the furniture if I wanted to return it, or she said she would match the price to something comparable that is in stock.

Those words comparable and in stock are the tricky ones. B and I spent months looking for furniture that we didn't think was too ornate and that was also reasonably priced. I'm not satisfied with any of the options, so unfortunately it looks like I will be returning things and starting from scratch. I can't decide if that's better than waiting a month for the glass to come in or not. My concern with waiting is that it will end up being shattered again anyway.

Sigh. This is the stressful life I live, people.

Well, I think I'll leave you here for now. Hope you like the pictures even if they are a few months old. I really wish uploading to blogger were faster, or I really would do it more.**

*clearly July is now ending and August is beginning. I started this post weeks ago!

**It took literally all day for me to get all of these pictures uploaded. My computer does not like blogger one bit!