No pressure, Aunt Jess, Uncle Josh, Aunt Kelly & Uncle Kory

The only cousins my kids have are third cousins. And we are soooooooooooo thankful they at least have that. The fun part is that the third cousins on both sides of the family are around and about Grant and Rhett's ages, so it's always fun to get the distant cousins together.

We recently met my cousin Boone and his sweet family (Kate, Jackson and Everett) at one of our favorite Mexican food restaurants in the Houston area: Lupe Tortilla. And what is so perfect about Lupe's? Could it be their amazing fajitas? This is possible. Could it be their awesome tortillas? Perhaps. OR - could it be their CHILDREN'S SAND PLAY AREA?? It certainly does sweeten the pot!! What a rare and perfect place for families with young children to eat! Can I get an "Amen" from the Houston crowd? Boone is currently in med school in Galveston, and sadly enough, despite how "close" we live to one another, we hardly ever see each other. Hurricane Ike did not help that problem either. Boone and Kate were FINALLY able to move back into their home four months ago and are very happy to get their lives back. During dinner I asked them if they were nervous that hurricane season was upon us again, and Boone said with a go-get-'em attitude, "I think it's Florida's turn to take one for the team!" CRACK ME UP!!! So anyway, getting to see them often involves meeting half-way due to Kerry's and Boone's busy schedules. This time was extra special because Boone's sister, Sommer, was with them. I always enjoy getting to see my sweet cousin and her sweet face and share in some sweet girly chats. How precious she is!

On to the night's events:

Rhett spent the entire dinner standing next to Everett's high chair whilst he took EVERY. LITTLE. THING. out of his diaper bag and made sure to hold each item up to Everett and annouced in a stern two-year-old voice, "MINE!" I suppose Everett looked shady - I mean, one must be sure to mark his territory when other children are around. As you can see, Everett really cared...

"Do you see this book, Everett? It's MINE!"

"Do you see this airplane, Everett? It's MINE, too!"

"Do you see this marker, Everett? It is also MINE!"


Kerry holding Everett after dinner.
As you can see, Rhett wants to make sure Everett knows that is HIS sand!

I wonder if poor Everett got tired of Rhett that night...

Jackson and Aunt Sommer

One thing I love about Sommer is that she always has room for something sweet after dinner. That's a Martin for ya!

"Do you see my Popsicle, Rhett? I plan to get sand all over it."

"Yes, but do you see my bucket of sand, Jackson? It is MINE!"

Second cousins: Sommer and Grant

Sommer was the recipient of one of Grant's verrrrrrrry long gerbil stories.

I mean, the gerbil story really is L O N G! (right, Uncle Josh?) Bless Sommer's heart. She was such an attentive listener.

First cousins: Me and Sommer

Third cousins: Jackson and Grant decided to make "fireworks" by throwing sand up in the air. And you can bet your bottom dollar they made loud firework noises to go along with the display.

Who else wants to go for a seesaw ride?

Rhett, Jackson and Grant

Sommer is always up for some fun!

But all good things must come to an end; especially when there is church the next morning and Kate and I had the daunting task of cleaning all the dust off of our boys before the morning came. Perhaps better wording would be "cleaning all the dust OUT of our boys". How is it that their little crevices and rolls and nooks and crannies can fill up with enough dirt to cover the entire country of Egypt?

Boone, Kate, Jackson and Everett, we can't wait to see you guys again. Maybe this next time we can meet at your house and play at the beach! We'll bring our dump trucks!

Try #5

Third time may be a charm, but not this time. Looks like the closest I'm getting to my slide show goal is on try #5.

You can view my slide show of our trip by clicking here. Why it is freaking out every time I try to actually post the slide show in my blog is beyond me. I didn't have any trouble posting my slide show of my trip to Europe.

Anyway, we had a great time on our trip. Kerry and Uncle Josh played golf twice while the girls enjoyed our spa treatments. Ahhhhhh - heaven! So to answer your question, Heather, YES, we plan on going back again!!!! I was sooo sad to leave and come back home. It's been hard to get back in the mood to do dishes and laundry and all that other JUNK!

Computer Trouble

We're back from our trip, so I decided to make a slide-show of our fun. But when I tried to add the slide-show to my blog, the computer flipped out. I get the idea that it thought I was a virus or something just as evil, so it has pretty much blocked me from doing anything on my blog - except for typing(boring). Anyway, not only will it not let me post pictures, it won't even let me post my "AKB" signature at the bottom of each post. :(

So until I can figure out how to fix it, I leave you with a funny conversation Grant and Kerry had the other day=

Kerry: How would you like to ride in an airplane? Maybe you and Daddy could take a short trip on an airplane this summer.
Grant: I'd rather go to the moon in a spaceship.

Sun and Fun, Here We Come!

Vacation time has finally come! We are packed up and ready to go to Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa. We are soooooooo excited. Grant had a hard time falling asleep last night, and I was surprised that I, too, had trouble calming down from the packing excitement. It took a little longer to get to sleep than I would've liked. It was as if I was a five-year-old at Christmas. That's a pretty good summary of what a vacation is in the summer though, wouldn't you agree? I mean, winter has Christmas, and summer has vacations! And man-oh-man, this is the GRANDADDY of all vacation spots for families, and it has made its way into this family's heart. The fun list goes on forever and ever: the many pools, the river and its fishing and boating, the lazy river that connects the pools, the water park, the horses and longhorns that they bring out in the morning and evenings (you can ride the horses), the spa, the golf course, the kid activities (bike rides, nightly movies on the lawn, evening wilderness trek, the playgrounds, the bounce house inside the hotel), the nightly fire-side storytelling and S'mores roasting, the great food and incredible buffets: there's even a kid buffet with short countertops and kiddie food like mac and cheese, nuggets, pancakes in fun shapes chubby individual sized ketchup bottles; the fireworks show on the 4th of July (my second favorite holiday)......... you get the idea.

I can't wait to post all the pictures upon our return. I have a feeling many will be pool shots as it is supposed to be in the triple digits during our stay. I will make every effort to keep any swimsuit shots of me out of the camera's view! I think that's my one complaint about this place. Everyone has such beautiful (sure- many are that way because of surgery) and tan bodies. I mean, there are women walking around who have had at least three children who look GREAT in their bikinis. I think surgery is the only explanation here. I mean, you don't' have three kids and look "good" naturally anymore. You can have one kid and possibly still look okay. But three??? Perhaps some hard bodies were formed with lots of hard working out and dieting. That's sure not an "Amanda" thing as I don't care to sweat (although I don't mind dieting with Weight Watchers). Whatever the reason behind their looking good, I am jealous. And although I am also jealous of their tanness, I could never go back to tanning beds. I can live with my white, cancer-free honkeyness (thank goodness).

Grant's Quote of the Day

"I love Rhett more than frogs!"

It was supposed to be a compliment, I am assuming, because he said it with "love" in his voice. However, the comparison is confusing because Grant does not like frogs in any way, shape or form. So the literal meaning of his "love" statement is not very loving, is it? ha ha

Spoonfuls of Sugar - Literally

It's late. Really late, and Grant should be in bed asleep right now. And actually, he WAS in bed. I put him to bed at 8:00 p.m. and laid there with him for two hours just praying he would fall asleep as he was in a FOUL mood today and I was doing all I could to protect tomorrow's mood. I should've known it would all go wrong as most of my plans that involve Grant do: The child was still wide awake after those two hours, and since I had not yet had dinner and was starving, I let him get back up while I ate. No, this is not normal for him, but today was not normal. The main problem is that he fell asleep on the way home from Tomball this evening as I loaded up the boys and went to see my x co-teaching partner, Angie's, new baby. You don't have to know much about kids to know that a nap at 6:00 p.m. is NOT good for bedtime - thus the reason why he did not sleep at 8:00 p.m. and why he is STILL not asleep.

Moving on to my story - so I'm sitting at the computer going over emails and blogs that I follow when he comes up to me and says in his guilty voice that he gets from his Aunt Jessica, "Is it bad to eat a lot of sugar?"

My immediate thought: WHY is he asking me this at 11:00 p.m. when he is supposed to be on the couch watching "Curious George"?

My immediate gut feeling: CRAP!

You guessed it - he got the bag of sugar from the pantry and according to him, he ate three spoonfuls of it. (Who knows. It could have been MUCH more than that. He probably lied to protect his own hide.)

So, I'm off to put him to bed for the second time tonight - with three spoonfuls of sugar going through his system.

Why me? All I wanted to do was put him in bed early tonight so that tomorrow would be a better day, eat a No Pudge Brownie and watch an old black and white movie. And thus the saga of my life with Grant continues... I love the boy, but he's gonna cause me to go gray waaaaaaaaaay too soon! That's okay. Someday when he's a successful lawyer or doctor, or even president, he WILL be buying me a five carat diamond ring as a thanks-for-putting-up-with-me-and-not-selling-me-to-Gypsies gift. And folks, I sure have earned it! ;)

Sewing Splendor and Monogramming Mehem

**WARNING: Whitney K. = if you are reading this - - -STOP.

You can not read it until Sunday afternoon...

I've been as busy as a bee sewing and monogramming this summer. It truly gives me peace and makes me feel like I'm home, ALONE, enjoying being ME. Reality is that the kids are chasing one another as they run the circular path from the office to the kitchen to the living room to the front hall over and over again while laughing hysterically and throwing in an occasional high pitch scream that only the neighborhood dogs could hear. But thanks to my mom and dad, all I have to do is turn on my machine, and I am immediately whisked away to Happy Sewing World where somehow all loud noises and stresses seem to dissipate and all I hear is the perfect hum of my sewing machine.

I have a customer that just boosted herself to the top of my happy list. She needed gifts for one of her friends whose daughter is due with her first grand babies. And to make it ever more fun - they are twins: one boy and one girl. She wasn't in the mood to do any shopping yet wanted something extra special for these babies. She gave me a few guidelines, but after that, I was allowed to run free with the order. One guideline was that she wanted them to have corresponding outfits with their names monogrammed on them. The other guideline was that she also wanted coordinating hooded towels. And that was it - the rest was up to me, and cost was not an issue. ROCK ON!

Leave it to Janie and Jack to have the perfect outfits, and leave it to Joann's to have the perfect fabrics - let's get started!

Talk about perfect outfits for twins! I think my favorite part is that the girl's outfit is monogrammed in blue, and the boy's outfit is monogrammed in red. I think it helps to give it an extra finished look.

These are the parts of the hooded towels. There are not put together yet, but you get the idea.

Closer view of what will be the hood parts of the towels.

I made this pillow for a special two-year-old little girl, Ingrid, in Texas Children's Hospital here in Houston. She is awaiting a bone marrow transplant, but until that day comes, she continues to be a very sick little girl as she struggles to deal with her disease. My special friend, Alicia, who is one of Ingrid's nurses, (I mean - one can only imagine what Alicia has seen. She rarely discusses work and her patients: It is too painful for her to go back over her day, and she tends to change the subject quickly. But, every now and then she opens up and gives you a small and heartbreaking glimpse into her job. She has seen lots of children and babies die. She has seen insurmountable suffering. She has seen parents struggling for answers as their hearts were breaking over their dying children. May the Lord bless her as she tends to these special patients.) asked that our small group's summer Bible study to pray for Baby Ingrid (you know it has to be extra bad for Alicia to talk about it, so I awaited anxiously to find out this little girl's story). Ingrid is so ill as she lies in her hospital bed. She has extreme diarrhea, which has given her the worst diaper rash Alicia has "ever seen" - and that's saying a lot because you know she's seen a lot. Ingrid is too ill to play or sit up for that matter. To quote Alicia, "She has zero quality of life right now!" After hearing Alicia talk, I felt the Lord pulling at my heart. I wanted to do something for this poor baby girl - SOMETHING. But what?? After further exploration, Alicia told me that Ingrid is a big fan of Dora, which led to a lightning bolt of ideas racing through my brain. I thought about making her a Dora blanket or shirt, but Alicia said that both would probably be ruined due to the diarrhea, so that idea was out. Then I decided that perhaps something that could stay at the top of her bed would be best, hence the idea of the Dora pillow was born. Alicia also shared that Ingrid's room has a T.V., but it can only play VHS and the hospital does not have any VHS copies of Dora. They have DVDs, but no VHS. No prob! Amazon has LOTS of Dora VHS to choose from, and Grant and I had a good time going through the list as we placed the videos we thought she might like the most in our virtual shopping cart. Since she can't play and basically lies around feeling horrible all day, we are hoping the Dora tapes will help her pass the time... The most recent update I received was about two days. Alicia told me Ingrid has been moved to the ICU, but that we could still bring the pillow and the tapes. All that's holding me back is the tapes haven't arrived yet. HURRY UP, UPS! As soon as they do, we are off to the hospital with goodies in tow.

Lastly, I made these shirts for a brother and sister that attend our church. It hit me that I never bought a baby gift for the little girl, Ella, so I decided to make coordinating shirts that she and her big brother could wear to try to make up for my slight oversight...

Do you get it?? Their names are the exhaust coming out the back of the vehicles... And of course there are three Swaravski crystals in the middle of Ella's wheels. A girl needs a little bling, ya know?