Lawton is OK by me.

Good friends of ours from our Salt Lake days have ended up in Oklahoma. Yay! That's a manageable visit! We took off last weekend to go see them for a long needed change of scenery.
We left on Friday evening. Is this a tangent story? Yes. I'm VERY good at those. It was dark, we were somewhere near the northern Texas border, and we needed gasoline. We pulled into a gas station so the gals could use the restroom and Jake could fillerup. No gas. A gas station out of gas. So, we went along to the next one. A couple of the pumps were covered up, and I began to believe I was in the middle of a horror movie. No offense, small town Texas, but something about you creeped me out.....and then a chance of being stranded.... One of the papers over the pump read, "Regular Don't Work". I had a good laugh and wished we would have taken a picture, but remembered we seriously needed fuel. Tessa kept informing us that we were lost. Don't worry. The next gas station had some, and we safely arrived at our destination. There's your anticlimactic story for the day.
Okay, so, back to our trip:
On Saturday morning we went driving around on a nearby wildlife preserve to see buffalo, Texas longhorn cattle, and the lakes and mountains. Prairie dogs were also on the agenda.
Here is Gabe trying to coerce one back out of his hole. No idea why this approach didn't work. :)
We drove through a town called Medicine Park. Weeeeeeird. Any place settle by hippies is going to have, ahem, ....personality. I loved it. It needs a blog post all on its own. (Next time, Melissa, next time.)
We drove over to Meers, OK to a very famous burger joint. We were warned about the "ambiance" ahead of time, but a place doesn't stay open for a hundred years unless the food is worthy of it, even if the dog and cat kennels are what greet you on the way into a place. (Leaving your pets in the car while you eat = not an option!) The place raises their own Longhorn beef, and it has had the same owner for about 50+ years. I believe that owner started decorating/leaving garage sale purchases around when he moved in and has never stopped. Featured below would be the "Seismic Buger". One pound of meat. Yes, we shared with spouses, and yes, we still packed away a half a pound of hamburger apeice. Yum.

This is the inviting entryway to the restaurant:

And then in the next picture, behind us the stairs lead up to the cashier. Past that is where the actual eating takes place.

We had such a great and fun weekend. Good company is the best.

gaining momentum

on the weight thing. That's good news! Cole gained 6 oz. in two weeks. ....or if we go from what the pediatrician had, he's gained 11oz in the last two weeks. We think we can, we think we can, we think we can....

He gives awesomely slobbery kisses, clicks his tongue, is amused when he pats/smacks surfaces, and is starting to sit up for several seconds before he gets tired and slumps his long self over like in the above picture. And now, as I watch her climb onto his walker while he is in it, he also puts up with his sister way better than I would.

Speaking of the sister, Tessa started her dance class last week. Talk about excited. She is the smallest one in there. I'm certainly not used to that. She marched right into class and started chatting right away about her leotard. She is not shy.

She took the directions to stand on the star very seriously.

Today was her second class. I had to keep moving away from the window because she would turn and start performing for me. She dances in between the teaching, which makes me laugh. She flits and hops around like a little bird the whole time.

It COULD have been a crummy past few days....

but it wasn't. I could chalk it up to keeping a fairly positive attutide, but it certainly wasn't all me. So, thanks to everyone out there who kept it happy.
(This blog draft has been 5/6 of the way ready to publish for a few days now...so it's a little late.)

I'll explain.

First. My boy. So sweet. He had his 6 month appointment. He is not gaining weight like he should. Get fat, Cole! Nothing to freak out about yet, but he has gone from the 95 percentile in weight when he was born to..... the 16th percentile. He has remained in the 90th percentile for height. He weighed in last week at 15lbs 9oz. The doc was going through a range of what could happen. She said that she wanted me to talk to a lactation consultant first, but that we might end up trying this: not feeding Cole until he has no choice but to take a bottle (since he WILL NOT take one and apparently I'm not putting enough junk in his trunk). The thought of starving my 6 month old until he either starved or took a bottle, and not having any chance to wean had me in tears on the way home. I called the lactation consultant.

I went in to see Vicki the LC rockstar the next morning to weigh Cole and to have a chat. Her scale is right on with the hospital's regulated scale and Cole was 5oz heavier than he had been at the pediatrician. Unusually big jump from the day before, but she said hers was on and sounded better. 15lbs 14 oz. After some advice on different things to try, I left feeling hopeful with my stomach in less of a guilt wad about the situation. We'll see Vicki again next week. I'm feeling good about it. Jake and I are pretty sure baby boy's diet went wrong with the soy. We have both been doing better since I ran the other direction from it. He's happy and likes to eat a lot, so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Second. Yesterday I had to get over to UTD to pick up some textbooks for my job. I had both kids with me. We were almost there when CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK --the memory of a woman pulled up next to me the day before popped in my head. "Your back tire is really low on air," she said.

"Thanks!" I replied, fully intending to tell the husband to help me take care of it that night. Turns out it takes more than intention to get a job done.

photo c/o shortpumpretty.com
I immediately pulled over across from the UTD campus. A truck was pulling out right as I got out of the car. The man inside rolled down his window and asked if i needed help. "Yes. I do." He got out and starting changing the tire. A friend of his pulled up a minute later and said he had a better jack. They had the donut tire on in minutes. They told me that the donut looked low and made sure I had a plan as to what I was going to do. They told me where the closest tire place was and left.

I drove across the street to pick up the books before heading to the tire store. I could feel that my donut tire was flat before I even saw it. (Tessa made sure to tell the girl we picked books up from that she was hungry. She then asked for a doughnut. Little confused after all this talk about a donut.) So, emergency lights on, we slowly went on our way toward Discount Tires. A guy pulled up next to me at one of the stop lights and honked for my attention. "Do you need any help?" he asked. I told him I was on my way to Discount Tires. He made sure I knew the way and even made sure I got there okay before he sped off.

They helped me out at the tire store, and after a little over an hour at the nearby McDonald's (nothing like trying to figure out what your 6 month old is okay to eat at Micky D's) and having Jake join us after work, I was on my home. Before I left, though, the tire guy made sure my donut was fixed for any future use.

I felt so taken care of.

Third. I went in to get a crown done on Thursday. That can be an unpleasant and expensive visit. My dentist and staff took such good care of me. I went with a dentist who came highly recommended. I know why. Dr. Pollard likes his patients to know what is going on with their teeth. I appreciate that.

photo c/o brucefongsblog

Although still expensive, they made the whole experience as positive as possible. It's never fun to have your mouth wrenched open for a couple of hours so a drill can grind down your tooth. However, when they make sure you are comfortable with a pillow, warm enough with a blanket, adequately lip moisturized, in control regarding how much nasty nitro you inhale, skip the temporary crown and make and bond the permanent tooth right there in the office, it makes it easier. They also injected some stuff where I'd been numbed to make it de-numb faster.

Then to top it all off, they gave me a strawberry shake on the way out. And a flower. I briefly wondered if I should hug everyone in the office and thank them for the date.

And now I have one crown that looks like it belongs in my mouth and was worth the expense......and one crown that doesn't from about 7 years ago. Your days are numbered, Terrible Crown o mine.

Bowling for charity...

is a lot of fun. Even if you have no bowling skills to speak of. I joined the Costa Vida Divas and debonair for an afternoon to benefit the New Beginnings Center for battered women

I bowled a whopping 87. Oooooh, watch out! I even got a bowling trophy. I had to leave before they handed them out, so the trophy I was given later says another team's name. I don't care. It's still a trophy.....with a plastic bowling ball...and a wooden pin on top of that. Awesome.

It's always fun to spend time with and meet good people you wouldn't normally get a chance to hang out with.

The Suzies

Making the world a better place one cookie at a time.

Leftovers

I've got to get these pictures cleared off my camera, and, well, it's too late in my mind to blog separately about any of it. Lazy, you say? Whaddareyou gonna do about it?

Some kiddos at the Ward Christmas Party:
Tessa's first visit with Santa. He gave her a mini candy cane. It doesn't take much to win her over.
(One thing I do remember about this night is that there were orange slices on the dessert table. Tessa would walk up and get one at a time, eat it, and then she would put the leftover peel on the closest dessert plate to her so she could go get another orange slice. These plates were often in the hands of the owners. These owners were often grossed out. Should I have taught her not to do this? Yes. But I didn't. I stayed in the shadows and laughed instead.)

We went to the Fort Worth Zoo:

The sibbies:

Listening to her play...

is one of my favorite things. This morning Tessa was playing with her Groovy Girls. I heard one say to the other, "Oh, are these your toes? I thought they were mine!" The other Groovy Girl responded with, "Noooo. These are MY toes!"
Poor Groovy Girl #1. So embarrassing. Can't say I've ever been in any mistaken toe situation, but I can imagine.