If a picture is worth 1,000 words then you guys can't complain that this is all I'm writing! I'll fill in explanations and all the juicy stuff later, but I couldn't WAIT to get these up. These first 4 pictures are of Aiden sleeping in the cradle Grandpa Ray (Randal's Dad) made. Yup, made. It's beautiful. I just made a nifty little red, white and blue canopy over it, too. Awww.
More soon, I promise! For now. sleeeeeeeep.....
Pictures:
1) Chubby cheeks!
2) Cute little Aiden (5 months)
3) Randal & Aiden at Gebby's 3rd Birthday party
4) Tobin and his newfound snail pet, Lucky. (Named after another teeny snail he & Gabby found)
5) Lucky (found when cleaning out his outdoor toys at Grandma's- I almost PASSED OUT when a big snail climbed on me. Seriously. I had no idea I didn't like snails so much!)
6) Tobin looking out a window when we went to breakfast at Hank's Creekside where my lifelong friend Scotty works, and where they have the BEST blueberry pankcakes and OJ. Yum! :)
7) My little sitter-upper! (well, he still needs a *little* help, but that's okay)
8) Chewing in a jelly bracelet. Tasty.
... cont'd
MAN! I just finished writing, and it didn't save. Jerks. I was reading over my old (like, elementary school) journal, and I called my dad a dweeb. Dweeb. The only thing funnier than that in there was twerp. Niiiiice. It would sure be nice if those were the standard names to be called instead of the more colorful ones heard on playgrounds these days- am I really talking about the good ol' days at 23? Geez. I am getting old.
I'm getting Aiden's pictures taken soon- maybe even today, if I get enough stuff done first. Then you can ALLLLLL bask in the cuteness. You can order any print you see in my journal for 29 cents through AOL Pictures, though. I just did it for the first time, actually. Some aren't that clear, since they were taken with my phone (I got a new one!) which can't quite handle as many pixels (that's little color dots per square inch. Maybe it's centemeter or something... whatever. You get my drift.) But there are some really great ones, too.
Well, I just got Aiden to sleep (while typing, thankyouverymuch) and the sun outside is teasing me. I have GOT to get out in it (though I wear sunscreen everyday- cancer and wrinkles aren't too high on my list, thanks) so really I have GOT to get my house clean, or my Outer Mommy will take away my Inner Child's playtime, and we can't let THAT happen!
May your Outer Mommies (& Daddies!) let your Inner Childs out to play today, too. :) (Damn, I'm a hippy!)
quote for the day: "I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." Helen Keller
... cont'd
THREE MORE WEEKS 'TILL HAWAIIIII!!!! SweeetsweetsweetsweetSUPERsweet. I'm excited, if you can't tell. I can't IMAGINE having nothing to do but lay on a beach with Randal for a week. I can't even wrap my mind around it, seriously. Nothing. No laundry, no dishes, no diapers. Sweeeeeet. (in case you forgot)
I house-sat for Amber last weekend- that was fun. I LOVE her dog, Ruth. She looks kind of pitbull/mastiff-ish- I think sh'es a mutt, but she's SO awesome. The lets the kids just roll on her and pull on her and she LOVES at and just wants to lick you to death. You've actually got to be a *little* careful with her- if you lay or sit in her proximity, she will knock you over, pin you with her Buddha belly and do exactly that. She's only go me good one time, but man- that was enough.
The pictures are of Tobin and Ruth last Thursday. He loves dogs SO much. Maybe I'll just have to get "him" a bulldog. (insert huge cheesy grin here) Yesterday, we were over at my parents' house (pictures of that on the next cont'd) and he had so much fun playing with their dogs. Of course, Brandy (their Golden Retreiver) is an old lady and isn't much for 2 year old boys, but she's fairly tolerant. Fairly.
AJ is their other dog, who used to belong to my Auntie Gail (remember the one who let us crash her house in Sacramento?) and is a Corgi, (sp?) but Gail & David have another Corgi who thinks he should be the ONLY one, and now is. AJ is very protective of Aiden, actually. Whenever he sees him, he has to check him out, smell him, and then he will just sit by wherever he is, and if Brandy or someone unfamiliar comes near, he starts growling. Aww.
I'm resigning myself to get the house clean today. I'm just going to use the sun as a bribe for myself- I can only go frolick in it if I get the HEAP of laundry in my room put away and the upstairs bathroom clean. I've already cleaned what I could in the kitchen, but that sink... I don't want to talk about it.
Tidings from sunny Ca! Man- it has been SO nice here. My perfect weather- mid-80s with a breeze. LOVE LOVE LOVE. And, on that all-caps note: AIDEN IS SO CUTE! (nice segway, don't you think?) OH my goodness. I could eat him for breakfast. Lucky for him, I already had a bagel and soy yogurt. (Mmm. :) The last week-ish, he has just mellowed out (from being Mister Paticular) and started making all the Gerber Baby noises and smiling and having big cheeks... okay, the checks he already had, but they carry so much more when there's a smile between them. :)
I miss Randal like crazy. This partol is going fairly quickly though, which is good. Even he thinks so. When they first left, they had to go over HORRIBLE waters three times because the anchor wouldn't go down, two guys missed their plane back to the boat, one guy broke his knee, two guys threatened suicide and one guy went AWOL *AND* they hit a whale. I don't know what to say when the Coast Guard hits a whale, man. Sheesh.
But- now they're in Canada. (Eh?) Maybe he can practice saying Hoosier. How do you say that word, anyhow? Right now, Aiden is singing in his chair, cooing and gooing. He really likes music, especially Cat Stevens, Outkast and *ahem* me. (Of course!) My garbage disposal threw up this morning- GROSS. Hopefully my landlord can fix it today, otherwise YUCK. Everything I have put down there since some...time... is in a beautiful paste, covering my usual bleach-clean sink. (I *hate* cluttered or stained sinks. The kitchen can't look clean if the sink's not.)
Consequently, the nastiness in my kitchen is motivating me to get the rest of the house clean, so that paste of death doesn't look quite as gross. I'd LOVE to rinse it down to sink, but since it drains at about an inch an hour, I think I'll wait. I have Aiden in his massage chair, and he is SO happy and vocal right now. Siiiingin' and singin'. SO. CUTE.
I don't have much time because both kids are up, but I HAD to get these pictures up from today- SO CUTE of Aiden, and also of the kids and "Poppa" (otherwise known as "Sean" to us big-folk) who is Gabby's, well, Poppa. (Daddy) Tobin calls him Poppa, too. And "Honey" sometimes. So cute. Okay. So here are the pictures, and a quote for the day, even though this entry barely counts. I also am sporting my first sunburn for the season (go, me!) and everyone in the world had a very frustrating day today. I managed to escape most of it, thankfully. Okay- back to the kids. :)
quote for the day: "The first half of our lives is run by our parents, and the second half by our children." Clarence Darrow
Man, I'm tired.
I feel bad, because pretty much every time Randal gets home, I am extra exhausted from trying to clean the house and manage the kids, bills, groceries, laundry, bathing and every other little thing that when he gets home, it's kind of like a relay where I just hand him the stick and collapse for awhile. I'm sure he's excited to be home and understands why I'm so tired all the time, but I'm also sure it would be SO great to come home to a nice clean house and clean, well behaved children and organized, paid bills... yeah. And then I woke up.
I had to read the hardest thing I've ever had to read the other day- the articles about what happened with my friend Topper. (http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/07rader.html & http://www.pressdemocrat.com/local/news/07killer_a1empirea.html) It's so shocking and tragic and frustrating... the article came out Randal's last day here, and I left him in the morning with the kids so I could go to a coffee shop and read it alone so I could just have time to read and process.
I didn't think it would have a huge picture of his mother on the front page (who lived, and is expected to fully recover, despite 6 gunshot wounds including two in the head, and one in the neck) and his picture from the year we graduated. I started reading right over the newsstand, and the tears just came. I stopped reading at the end of the page and went inside to order some tea.
They wouldn't stop coming when I had to order, though it was just tears, no sobd or anything. In fact, it was a totally different version of crying than I've ever felt before... just so, so many tears. Not much else. A big black lady in purple gave me a hug in line, and a lady I could hear sniffing from the table to my left slid a napkin under my hand. I hadn't even though to grab kleenex or anything. But, two strangers came to my aid, which was refreshing despite the heavy, heavy news I was reading.
There was a lot of failure which led up to what happened, and I just hope that people can learn from it. Well, Aiden's up. Off I go!
quote for the day: "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death." Anne Frank
Me- I'm content with a long bath reading Jane, a nice red and some dark chocolate, or sushi and... well, anything. :)
Tomorrow night, I will be happily in the arms of my love, which will suffice more than anything mentioned above. Well, unless I'm REALLLY hungry or PMSing. :) Then, it's every man for himself- and for me, too. :)
Anyhow- the boys are stirring, and Tobin just shoved Aiden pacifier up his nose. Lovely. Back to my small joys. :)
quote for the day:
"Symptoms of Inner Peace
Well, here I am again.
It seems like when things get kinda tough, I end up writing less, though I always really feel like writing more. Like I'M GOING TO HAWAII!!! and RANDAL WILL BE HOME IN *ONE* DAY!! and AIDEN FINALLY WENT TO SLEEP!!
Okay, that last one might be not *as* exciting for you guys, but it's pretty much all on the same level for me. :) I just made burritos for dinner (have I mentioned I think burritos are great? A complete food, doesn't matter what it looks like, all wrapped up in a tortilla. Genious.) and since Tobin's hands are occupied, mine are free. Mmm. Time for a second burrito.
*Ahh*. Geez. Lucky me, I'm the girl you guys all love to hate who can eat seconds and thirds at dinner and as much chocolate as I want (THAT'S the real beauty) right before I have to be in a bikini in HAWAII (hooray hooray!!) for a week. If I wanted to go for full loathing, I'd bring up the fact that I just had a baby- but I think karma might smite me, make me pregnant again (dear God, no!) and give me irreversible baby weight gain. YEEP! So I'll just hush while I'm ahead. :)
HAWAII HAWAII HAWAIII!!!! MEEEEEEEE IN HAWAIII!!!!!
Um, if you can't tell, I'm kinda excited. About going to HAWAII. :) Hoorrrayyy!! You know, actually a LOT of really tough stuff is going on for me right now, in the overall sense of my life and on a day-to-day basis. Today was great, though. FINALLY. It was sunny- Amy came with me to work, and we just walked around outside with the kids and had fun. My broken phone camera actually saved ONE picture, so I'll post it on here as soon as I get the chance.
Speaking of pictures- the picture on here of Aiden and Linda (Randal's ever-lovin' Momma) just breathes love to me- I think it's SO great. She's probably going to say "Ooh! I wish my eyes weren't shut" or some other thing we're all programmed to do, so we can never really see how beautiful we look to other people. What a lame habit to be in, too. I'm not just or even really talking about Linda at all- I'm talking about everyone in general. It's sad the the gift to just look and be able to see the wonder, beauty and joy of the small things is so rare. I'm glad I feel like I have it.
That's why I think being around children is SO great. They think that rolly-pollies and rainboots are the best things EVER. (fair enough) I mean- the look on their faces when they see a firetruck- that is joy at it's best.
