"I Want My Two Dollars!"

The Spirit of San Antonio. Maybe he needed a churro. I have this charge from our debit card for two dollars. I have no clue where it came from. First of all, I have to tell you, I'm meticulous about our checking account. I've always beent this way. Last year we had a friend staying with us who, in conversation, said, "With debit cards and online banking, who writes down anything in a check book anymore?"
"I do," I answered.
"No. I mean writes down every single purchase they make."
"So do I. As crazy as it sounds, I do."
I like knowing exactly how much is available at any given time. I don't care if it doesn't make much sense, even to my husband. It makes sense to me. I like to keep track.
So, when we got back from our trip and I was comparing what I had in my checkbook with my online banking, there was one purchase that I didn't have written down. It was for two dollars on the first day we were there and said it was from the "Spirit of San Antonio". Jake and I googled the phrase and can't for the life of us figure out the charge. We're okay to go ahead and eat this two bucks, but I'm hoping the Spirit of San Antonio doesn't get the urge to buy a big screen television.

Effortless Environmentalism

Reader's Digest is one of my favorite magazines to read. I believe it's an old person magazine. I know many of you like it too, but let's be honest. Read the ad inserts and see who these companies believe the audience to largely be. I have always liked picking up RD at the dentist or doctor's office, even when I was a teenager, which is why when I had a gift certificate to Amazon.com for my last birthday, I used part of it for an RD subscription. I like the magazine for its inspiring stories, humorous even if only slightly anectdotes, interviews, health articles, and general lack of Cosmoesqueness. But sometimes.....I see that it's just as caught up in pop mainstream as any other magazine. I just read an article about how to be "green" while saving money. Great. I'm all for being smart about our natural resources, and I'm certainly all for saving money. They called it "effortless environmentalism".
The first piece of advice was to "Skip a Trip". It read, "Sitting in your La-Z-Boy instead of in an airplane seat is the easiest way to make a big difference in greenhouse emissions. Forgoing a single international trip might offset all the carbon dioxide you produce through your home and car during the entire year....." Pthththththth! I don't care. If I get a chance to go to some far off foreign land I've never seen, I'm going -and I'm not taking a year to go in a boat. Sit in your La-Z-Boy and never see Ireland, Cambodia, Egypt, Italy, Argentina, Japan...... People, when the time and money is available, I'm gone --with my family. Take that! It's not like I'm taking my own private jet to accept a Nobel Prize in Norway or anything. I'll cram on a commercial plane with everyone else. I don't litter. I recycle. I use fancy twirly lightbulbs. I don't use Aquanet. I try to do my part to not be a consumer pig and keep things as pretty as possible. But don't tell me not to see and experience the very cool things this world has to offer. AND...I'll probably ride in a gas fueled car/bus when I get there.
Not all the ideas were that off center for me, but that number one "do" really bugged.
I thought it was funny that number 10 was to "Stay Married" -"staying together is better for the earth." Forget better for your kids. :)
The article also said to consider purchasing carbon offsets. I can plant my own tree, thank you, and not out of guilt.

Mom

First of all, that was a mad, crazy Tuesday. Rain, rain, and more rain. Partly because of this rain, Mom's flight was delayed on Wednesday night, and she finally came rollin' into our part of town sometime after midnight (after waiting standby all day). .....but she got here safe, so we were very grateful.

Tessa had a rough time after we got back from San Antonio with some kind of an allergic break out (I have no idea what caused it) and four big teeth coming through at the same time. She wouldn't eat much and was just not herself. Can't blame the kid. Anyway, by the time Grandma L. got here, things had settled down for Tess and she was all smiles with an occasional high pitched scream.

We took Mom/Grandma to the Dallas Aboretum on Thursday. Wow, that's a pretty place. The red tulips were my favorite. My mom was in gardening heaven and was naming just about every plant before she saw the plaque in front of it. We enjoyed bare feet on the soft, soft grass (a first in Texas for me, since I'm usually afraid some devil bug will eat me) and the brilliant flower colors.

Tessa and I took Mom/Grandma to downtown McKinney for a stroll on Friday morning. I love that place. I think I enjoy the architecture and ambiance the most, but I think my mom loved all the antique stores on top of that. We enjoyed time and pizza with some of Mom's in laws a couple of towns away when Jake could finally join us after school and law review responsibilities. That night after baby bedtime, we dyed Easter eggs.

Saturday we celebrated Easter. We all took off for the Dallas Zoo (Jake and I hadn't been there before). Last year we started the tradition of going to the zoo every year during Easter weekend, so this fit right in with Mom here. We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. I saw a few animals/birds I'd never seen before, which is a strange thing to realize when you've been to plenty of zoos and act like you've seen it all. We had a picnic/barbeque in the park in the evening, and Tessa hunted for eggs. She loved toting that basket around and filling it. I hid the 12 hard boiled eggs we'd dyed the night before and Grandma took her around to find them for half the time, Jake the other half. Her favorite thing to do was to sit down and survey what was in the basket so far and then grab two eggs and beat them together. Some animal enjoyed all the hard boiled eggs chunks that ended up in the garbage last night, I'm sure. Grandma L. gave Tessa a lovely bubble bath when we got home and read some stories before saying goodbye. Jake took Mom to the airport at about 5AM this morning. I reluctantly yeah, right stayed in bed.

Games, chocolate, movies, playing, chatting..... we filled up Mom's time here. I'm really glad she was able to come.

March has been a lot of fun.

Happy Easter to all of you.

I'm copying Rosemary and including a picture of Tessa last Easter. I chose this one because of the awesome drool drip making its way to my face.

Finally some videos -Easter and Sea World

Road Trip

We got back from our vacation last night. Fun times, fun times. Tessa did better than we thought with the 5+ hours in the car to and from San Antonio. What a beautiful city. So much to see.

We arrived at the KOA on Wednesday evening and set up camp. While driving through town to get there, I got a little antsy with the neighborhood and prayed we wouldn't have to camp next to a lumberyard and the railroad, but it turned out just fine (despite the 6 cop cars looking for some guy on our last night --they found him). The next morning, the three of us decided to scope out down town San Antonio. There are some really cool buildings in that city. We went to the Riverwalk mall and proceeded to see as much as we could in the area -St. Joseph's church, the Riverwalk, Tower of the Americas, the Marketplace, etc. with a break in between for Tessa's nap in the car. We had a lovely time sharing icecream on some stairs by the riverwalk while listening/dancing to a live South American band.
Our friends made their way to the campground that night and the next morning. So, Friday we set out for Sea World. We saw every show we could possibly see there and had a great time in the 90 degree weather. Tessa really liked the sea lions and the shark aquarium. Jake and I had an opportunity to feed dolphins. Very cool. We all had dinner on the Riverwalk that night and took a boat ride. Tessa was beyond tired at this point. (I don't think that vacations are really vacations for babies. She's trying to catch up on her sleep now that she's home.) So, after putting her to bed, we had a campfire all together with smores and dutch oven cobbler. Besides the tents, I'm pretty sure those two desserts make camping official.
Our last day in SA, we went to see the Alamo (which does not have a basement). We caught part of a St. Patrick's day parade while downtown and got our fill of grown men in mini vehicles. We made our way back to Sea World with our two day pass, rode a couple of the rides, and saw whatever else we wanted to see before taking off for home.
We had a blast. Good memories with good friends. However, it's always nice to be back in your own bed --with the baby back in hers.

It snowed, ya'll!

Two times this week. It snowed two times and got warm enough to comfortably play outside as well. Jake built a snowballman and wanted to let everyone know that not everything is bigger in Texas.

This is my neglected child. Yes, she had a stinky diaper. Yes, she was starved for attention. But I was sooooo close to being done with her skirt. Terrible mom.

I said I would show it to you. It resembles a skirt, so here it is. Leftover material skirt. Made it up as I went along. It kinda hoops out on its own. Oh well if it ends up looking like a pioneer skirt gone wrong. I just wanted to try. It turned out all right, and she's happy with it. It's a good thing, because I'm making her wear it. Now we have to find a top. I'm thinking a brown onesie.....but I don't know where to find one. I'm also thinking onesie so I don't have to just have her diaper under there...and I don't have to spend time making up bloomers.

I gave her a nice bubble bath after this and played played played so she didn't feel so neglected. There's nothing like bubbles to brighten the day.We voted in the presidential primaries. Ugh. That's all I can say. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I can't get political on this blog. Not the right place. But if anyone wants to chat...

This week, I spent a lot of time mixing dough. The young women fundraiser for camp was selling and making bread, so that was our activity. We were bread making machines. I love getting into robotic task mode. I also love my Kitchenaid. I don't use it or give it credit often enough, but when I do pull it out once a month or whatever --it never fails to impress me, and it rocked in this case too. Since I had the recipe memorized, we made the bread here at home one night. Yum. If you want a good and easy French bread recipe, just ask.

Jake helped his friend give a presentation/fireside last night about internet predators and internet safety for the youth and their parents. Creepy but important information. I went to the youth part, while Jake gave the presentation to the adults. It was really interesting to see reactions. There were a few who didn't listen, some who are just smart and aware and sponged up the info, and some who were terrified. I really worry about the ones who don't listen. Please let me have teenagers who will at least listen. As for me, between this and our identity theft enrichment presentation, there are definitely a few things I'm going to be more careful about.

I realize I shouldn't give my child a lemon to suck on. But I did. She was curious about it, so I let her have it. She started eating the peel, but wasn't about to give it back. Finally when she was crying because it tasted gross and crying because I was trying to take it way, I wrenched it from her, helped her spit it out, and gave her some water and trusty Teddy Grahams.

"It is the sound of a fish!" -Grover

Monsterpiece Theater. If you're in the mood...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB2u_wjdyCI

"Oh you can tell by the way I use my walk...."

.

I got this brochure in my mail the other day. I found it amusing. What a wonderful lesson to teach your children. "Leave the mess! Life's too short. Let's watch Deal or No Deal so I can teach you some REAL life skills".

Something else I find amusing: names from spammers. I hate email spam, but the names some of them use to get you to open the emails crack me up. I steer clear of looking at the subject line, but it's like they want to catch you off guard and make you think you recognize a name so you'll open it. My favorites this week: Coleman Mayo and Bertie Whitlock. "Bertie Whitlock, Bertie Whitlock. That sounds familiar. Honey? Do we know a Bertie Whitlock? No? Are you sure?"

*If your dad's name is Bertie Whitlock, I apologize. I have inserted foot in mouth while laughing about names before.

This last week wasn't massively eventful, but there was something going on every night. We did get to go to a park a couple times as a family. Tessa recognizes playgrounds now and gets the shakes when she sees them. She's not as excited about slides as she used to be. It's the climbing. She wants to climb, and there aren't a lot of options for that at our house. She makes due (like climbing inside the toy basket) until we can get to a real climbing spot.

Jake made the Dean's List for last semester! Yay! Also, he was elected president of his law review group at the school for next year. Really makes you wonder about that group. Just kidding. I'm really proud of him.

Here are the pillows I made for Tessa's room. It's the same material from her crib bumper and the quilt her Gma McBride made her. Tessa knows they are her pillows, so when she sees them in place, she takes them off the futon and wanders around with them until she finds a place suitable to lie down. Tonight it was in front of the refrigerator.

It's just been a good week (parks, lawn maintenance, young women, baptism, paper writing, cleaning, temple, sewing, cooking, talking, visiting, reading, deep thinking, planning, errands, family dancing, sunshine, and more). A happy, busy week.

And the last picture for the week: Tessa has her hat, purse, dog, and cell phone (in the purse). She just needs a few credit cards and she'll fit right in with the SMU sororities. :)