Happy Memorial Day!

We just got back from the Lake, so not much time to talk as I have to leave to watch Ali wear something yellow on The Bachelorette tonight. I'm sorry I'm not around for #ATFT, but watching with my IRL friends is fun too! And gives me some much needed girl time.

Anyway, Becks first time in the pool this year was a splashin' good time. Footage was shot at Nana & Papa M's pool earlier today. Hilarious. He was a little fish, and acted like he's been swimming forever! We were impressed. Anyway, here's our little jumper!

Videos

Whew... the past 3 weeks have been crazy!  We had Tripp's big party, then the next weekend was my sisters wedding in New Orleans (post and pictures to come!)  This weekend we are at Grammy's house.  Daddy wanted to go play golf over here on his day off, and then we are going to try and go to the Country Fest today in Baton Rouge (which we've had tickets to for the past 6 months) and Grammy is gonna watch him SO we figured it would be easier on everyone to stay the weekend.  Also, MeMe and PawPaw Carey bought a new house and are moving back to Ponchatoula this weekend, so we got to see their new house, too!  Tripp has been such a doll.  He is such a little monkey lately and doing so many new tricks, I thought I'd share them with you.

This is his laugh.  

Grammy was trying to show him how to "cough it up" through his trach.

He thought it was hilarious.  He was slightly delirious. 

Getting ready to get in the bathtub.  

Loves any naked time he has before that!

Mommy's little Monkey

Homemade McDonalds.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

Love,

Why I love my husband...

...reason #435:

Yes, they're really asleep :)

Tripp's Party!

OK, so I finally finished sorting through the "party pics."  There were about 500+ taken, so it was difficult to choose!  I decided to post a PAGE instead, so if you click on the tab that says "1st Birthday Photos" above, you can see them.

But first I want to give out my "Thank You's."  This party would not have been possible without the help of many people.

I want to thank the members of the Knights of Columbus for letting us use the hall at no charge.  And for taking care of the spacewalk.  Also, for your helping hand in getting ready for the party.  There was a wedding there the night before and when we went in that morning, the whole place was spotless!!

I want to thank Heather Boisclair, her wonderful mother, Pam Lanser, and all of the amazing ladies at her mother's work, who donated their money to take care of all of the food for the party.  Mrs. Pam cooked all of the hotdogs and hamburgers the morning of the party and delivered them to us right off of the grill!! Heather went to high school with Randy, then moved to Texas.  She found our blog through a friend and contacted me.  She offered to make the decorations for the party.  She made the cake banner and the table decorations.  Then when she got back in to the city, she called and wanted to do more.  So she and her mom offered to do the food for us!!  They not only did the hotdogs and burgers- but the drinks, and other kiddie snacks, too!  Isn't that amazing.  I cried like a little baby.  It was an unbelievable amount of stress lifted off of me.

I want to thank "Big E" (Erick St. Amant) for making the jambayla!  And Leanne Schexnaydre for making the potato salad, dips, and wraps :) They were all delicious! (when I finally go to eat!)

I want to thank everyone who came Saturday morning to help us set up.  My dad, Mrs. Pam, PawPaw Carey, my sister, Randy's friend, Nick, Mr. Sean Hymel.  And an extra "thank you" to my dad and PawPaw Carey for blowing up the balloons!! (the party wouldn't have been the same without all of those balloons... though your fingers were about to fall off!!)

A special thank you to my Mom, who stayed with Tripp (and his bo-bo eye!!) while we decorated.

Thank you to my Aunt Michele Ernst, who took the pictures for Tripp's party!  You did an AWESOME job of getting everything!! And also, thank you for burning me a cd because I had a hard time getting them off of the computer!  (that was A LOT of pictures :)

Thank you to my Nanny and Uncle Barry for letting us borrow their ginormous Mickey Mouse for all of the kids to take pictures on!!

I want to thank Mrs. Kristi Hymel for bringing the music (which we thought we had, but found out that morning that we didn't!).  She downloaded all Tripp's favorite songs that morning and had it ready for the party!

I want to thank my Aunt Mary Threeton (who makes the BEST cakes) for making Tripp's cake.  It was EXACTLY what I had drawn out- Perfect!!  I will never forget that gorgeous cake.  (But you will have a LOT of showing up to do for his future birthdays!) Ha.

I want to thank EVERYONE who stayed and helped us clean up!  We really appreciate it!!

And finally, I want to thank everyone who made it to Tripp's party.  I know that everyone has a busy schedule... but we truly appreciate you all taking the time to be there for this VERY special day!!
I'm sure all of you know from reading the blog, but the doctors told us that Tripp would not make it to a year old.  That made "this special day" one of the most important and memorable days in Randy and I's lives.  And those of you who were there to share it with us- we will never forget that.  We love you all.
Thank you for being a part of Tripp's special day!!  Hope you enjoy the pictures!

Love,

Bye Bye Bunny...

Stop. The. World. You are not even going to believe it. Today is a monumental day in the Babbling Household. Today, my friends, I will watch The Hills and The City in realtime. Today, my husband will plug into Animal Planet. Today, we will retire the bunny years.

Yes, today, WE GOT CABLE.

Shocking, I know, but this frugal mama thought that $15 extra a month added on to our cable internet bill wasn't that big of a deal. It's kind of like a rite of passage, right? After 4 years of marriage (yup, 4 years this coming Friday!), we can now have people over to watch sports games and not be embarrassed when the wind blows and our reception goes with it :)

In other news, we also had a $300 plumbing fiasco. But when the plumber initially thought it was going to be $2500 jack-hammer job in the basement, $300 seemed like pennies. Being a home owner is superfun.

Lastly, to recap our weekend quickly, we went to a totally fab housewarming party at Dr. B's. And with the amount of stress I'm experiencing these days, a night with some of our fav couples was just what the doctor ordered. Let me just tell you, that dog's name is Cassius Clay (nickname: Clay) and 100 points goes to the person that can tell me why. It's clever.

My cousin and her family also were in this weekend and stayed with us. Becks and Paisley got along great and we can't wait to see them at the cabin in a few weeks!

Grad Class numero uno ends on Friday, so I'll have a little less on my plate for a week before my summer courses kick in. School's out in seven days! Yippee!!!!!

That's it for now!

Love it.

We are on Day Four of dreary, gloominess and I am determined to not let my mood match. Because lately it kind of has. But I have a lot to be thankful and happy for, so today I will catch up on Ten Things I Love, which Gina tagged me for ages ago. Without further ado...

1. I love that my husband is handy. He can fix things and do stuff that I cannot. Like, for instance, repair our bed that suddenly capsized two weekends ago. With us in it. And, nooooooooo we weren't doing that. Beckham was with us, in fact. And it more so has to do with the fact that IKEA failed to include a support piece in our bed kit (that they told us was included. liars.) and we rigged up the old support beam from our Hollywood bed frame. So, while my husband crafted a [cheap] solution to the problem, we slept in the middle of the living room floor overnight. And it was like a camp-out and I kind of loved it. Mostly because I could watch SNL in bed (no TV in our room). Furthermore, I am a camp-out kind of gal that likes camping out indoors with plumbing and AC, so this suited me just fine.

2. I love thrift shopping. Craigslist, yard sales, consignment stores, rummage sales, Goodwills, etc. I couldn't even tell you the last time I bought clothing retail. That is the truth. I would guess before Christmas. And I recently picked up some darling tables on Craigslist for $5 a pop that I want to refinish and put in our dining room. And also a $2 nightstand that I'm going to paint black for my little sis whose getting her *own* townhouse next year. (It's called: being a SeNiOr. )

3. I love Diet Coke. I love it. When I don't have any, I crave it and/or wind up with a massive migraine the entire afternoon. It calms my nerves and generally makes my days more bearable.

4. I love weekend mornings. We get to enjoy each other in our jammies, eat breakfast together, read the paper, drink coffee, and, on occasion, have donuts. It's the life. {Note Beck's breakfast plate - PB for a quarter at Goodwill!}

Yes, that would be the Toys R Us ad he's browsing through.

5. I love to learn. I'm a huge education nerd and am totally eating up my coursework. While it's driving me crazy to spend so much time typing papers and writing annotated bibliographies, I loooooove the literature and research that proves we NEED EDUCATIONAL REFORM. Desperately. I have had some great conversations with my colleagues this past week and can't wait to implement my knowledge next year. And be principal down the line. This is where I've been spending time the past week...

This room hasn't made the blog before unless you recognize it as Beck's former nursery when our bedroom was still upstairs. It was quite cute and served it's purpose for over a year (it's right off the upstairs bedroom), and has mostly been filled with junk since September. So, I cleaned it out, set up our curbside treasure desk, and am now waiting for time and motivation to make it a full-functioning office. The verdict is out when I will take this project on, but I'm guessing summertime.

6. I love the color yellow. Currently. I want to paint everything yellow and gray. I will not win this battle (ahem, husband), but I will add pops of yellow where I can. I might even paint the wall that the window is on in the future office a pale yellow. With gray stripes. Maybe. That sounds kind of risky. But it's a small wall, right. I digress. I just love yellow.

7. I love children named Beckham that walk around in blue plastic aprons. He hasn't been able to play outside much lately, so I brought out the kitchen, added water, and voila! instant entertainment. Also, quite wet. We went through 6 towels or something like that.

Beckham is awake, so this will be quick:

8. I love freshly pedicured tootsies.

9. I love shiny kitchen/bathroom sink fixtures. (Thanks, mom.) That's not to say that our's are always shiny, but I'm happier when they are :)

10. I love that there are only 11 days of this school year left! Wahoo!

This and That.

Hiya.  Tripp had a pretty good day today.  He was a little moody this morning when he got up and it seemed like his eye was bothering him a good bit, but then he took a good 2 hour nap rocking on MeMe and when he woke up he felt much better.  I think he actually sat up on his mat and played for about an hour kicking his feet and watching Mickey (without reaching up for me to hold him every time I walked by.  What a good kid.  He is such a great baby.

For about the past 2 weeks, Tripp has started figuring out what "bath" means.  He gets the "vibe" when I'm getting everything ready for dressing change (which is a HUGE process and I'd like to video one day so you guys can see).  And when you sit him on the table to start taking the dressings off, he immediately breaks down... holding his arms out for me and making the saddest face I've ever seen.  It's really sad.  Then he still HATES the water part (of course) even with salt.  Some days are better then others.  But then when we put him back on the dressing table after we get him out of the tub, he is good.  We let him play naked just for a little while because he jumps and kicks around like crazy.  He loves being naked.  But he is SUCH a good boy for the "putting on the dressings" part.

Still waiting for a few more pics before I post the party ones.  But I wanted to post a few from today and this week that were cute.  He finally started rocking on his baseball rocker by his self!! It's so cute... I've been waiting for him to be able to get on it and actually like it!

Hey Mom, if you put batteries in my ball popper from Christmas, 

it's like a new toy!!

Check out my B-eautiful arms!!

Tripp got this frog from our cousin, Lindy, for his birthday.

I LOVE it!  It's SO soft and SO padded. 

Plus it's super CUTE.

The "G-raffe" MeMe bought him after his shots. 

Think he's rotten? Noooo. 

This is a book my cousins Jackie and Julie bought us for Mother's Day/Tripp's Bday.

It is TOO cute.  It's from Flattenme.com.

And it has my face super-imposed into every page. 

I know Tripp is thinking... "I see this woman every second of the day.. and now she's in my BOOKS?"

Haha. 

And my favorite... 

This is what I wake up to every morning. 

The King.

Learning to rock on Homer.

Love,

Would you believe that cute guy on the right would give me any trouble?

Beckham slept in until 7:50am this morning. That is late for him. I got him up, assumed he was hungry and offered him some breakfast. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Do you want some milk?
Becks: No!

Me: Do you want some juice?

Becks: No! Water!

Me: Okay. Here you go. Here's some water.

Becks: No! Juice!

Me: Okay. Here you go. Here's some juice.

Becks: No! Milk!

Argh. The rest of breakfast went on like that until his tray was crowded with three sippy cups, a variety of fruit, and soggy Coco Crisps. By the time he got around to requesting yogurt, I'd had my fill of his tangent and asked him if he got up on the wrong side of the bed. Yeaaaah, he politely admitted. At least he's honest.

Anyway, I am on Day 4 of a 4-day-weekend that I desperately needed not only for my personal sanity, but for the ominous piles of unfolded clothes and bare cabinets that were complaining to be restocked. Or was that my husband complaining? I've lost track {and probably brain cells} over the past week, since my nose has been in a book or my eyes straining to read through education text over the internet. I actually think I burst a blood vessel in my eye. Not even kidding.

My stress level has been through the roof as I've tried to balance it all - wife, mother, student, housekeeper, shopper, temper-tantrum manager, etc. How many hats can I wear? Obviously, the blogger one fell off because I simply couldn't devote any more time to the computer than I already was. PowerPoint 2007 and I have gotten very close.

{Sidenote: my son is driving in his cozy coupe wearing a blue plastic apron that he insisted we tie on him. Kids are great.}

Fortunately, my next set of classes are spread out over seven weeks instead of three. But I'm taking two, so we'll see how that goes. At least I won't be teaching, and will have the majority of my time to focus on school, yard sale-ing, sunning, and vacationing.

Also, hopefully I will be able to share exciting news on the school front as of next Monday. I'm just waiting to sign a contract before I go blabbing about it. Let's just say I'm very excited and I think my class next year will be wonderful ;)

I hope all of you are well! I'm sorry I haven't commented, but I've still been visiting my fav BFFs!

Alive and Well.

Still here. Becks is still cute. I'll be back with more substance in the near future.

Birthday pics.

Hey guys... I know you've been wondering how Tripp's birthday party was.  Well, the party was great... but Tripp- not so great.  On Friday (his actual birthday) he was great, we stayed around the house with my mom and sis and Randy's mom and PawPaw Carey.  But then Saturday morning, the day of his party, he woke up with another abrasion.  UGH.  I was SO upset.  He was miserable and barely opening his eyes.  I gave him some Tylenol with Codeine, but that didn't do much.  SO we brought our rocker to the party and that's pretty much where he stayed the whole time.  He opened his eyes for about 15 minutes to take a few pics with the big Mickey and that was about it.  I just know that if he hadn't been in so much pain, that he would have had SUCH a great time!!  We even sang Happy Birthday to him with his eyes closed.  I know..... I was crying.  Anyway, I am not going to do his "Party Post" yet because I am waiting for pictures from my aunt, who was kind enough to take pictures for us!  So when I get those, I will post about his party and everyone who helped make it AWESOME!

Right now, I want to post some pictures from his Birthday on Friday.  These are before the abrasion... and are SO cute :)

Cute... but didn't go over well.

Takes after his Momma... loooooves icing!

Ok, so here is just a preview of Tripp at his party... 

Post coming when I get the pics :)

He suffered the rest of the weekend with his eye until we could get him in to the doctor this morning to get another contact and now he is feeling a lot better- except that he had to get 3 shots today!! ugh.  

But he's a trooper!  I think from now on, maybe the doctors will believe me that he needs them in PREVENTATIVE.  They just hate putting the contacts in as much as I hate watching them put them in! O well... all is good for now.  Too bad he missed his party. He was a day late and a dollar short!  

Love,

Happy 1st Birthday.

My sweet Tripp, 

Today you turn ONE YEAR OLD.  I can't believe it.  Sometimes it feels like only yesterday when they placed you in my arms... and then other days it feels like you should be 5 years old!  You have been through SO much in one short year.  As I write this I am lying next to you while you sleep... and good thing I'm not writing it on paper because I can't hold back the tears.  I have tears of joy and tears of sadness... but mostly I just have tears of LOVE.  I LOVE you so much that I don't even know how to say it.  Every single second of the day I just want to hold you and squeeze you.  And if you could talk, I know you're first words would be "I love you" because I tell you that at least 100 times a day.  

You are so special, my little man.  I know that it will be really hard for you to understand at first, but because you have endured so much pain and suffering... God has a very very special plan for you.  I just know it.  I can look at you and tell that you are an angel here on Earth.  Mommy is so lucky and so blessed to have you for a baby.  You have made me a better person in every way possible.  I will never take another day for granted... especially a day that I have with YOU.  

You are overflowing with personality.  You have a mind of your own.  You are completely 100% spoiled rotten.  And I'm not going to lie... (almost) anything you want, you will get.  Because you deserve it.  Right now you are clapping, banging your toys, smiling like crazy, rolling your eyes (precious), pushing backwards in your walker, turning the pages of your books, and lots of other fun things.  You are getting to be so much fun and Mommy thinks you are such a smart little boy.  

Right now, my heart doesn't know what to feel.  I feel so proud of you for fighting this horrible disease for a whole year.  But my heart is aching to watch you suffer everyday.  I have so many mixed feelings.  I wish I could take every single bo-bo away from you... from your eyeballs to the tips of your toes.  But what I think I'm really trying to say, my angel, is that I wouldn't trade you for any other baby in the whole wide world.  Because YOU are the most special baby in the whole wide world.  

My goodness, I love you.  I love you so much that it hurts.  And I hope and pray that you are with me for many more years so that I can SHOW you how very much I love you.  Have a wonderful day, sweet boy.  Mommy is SO SO proud of you.   And I am honored to be your Mommy.  

I love you, 

Mommy

Eyes and Prayers.

This will be short because I am tired, frustrated, and honestly.... just ticked off.  I had a good first Mother's Day.  Tripp and I spent the day at my parents and my dad's side of the family came over.  Then yesterday he woke up with another swollen eye.  This time the left.  They just keep taking turns.  I don't know why.  I don't know if he rubbed it in the night, if it was from being outside all day, or if he just has some kind of infection.  Frankly, I am tired of trying to figure all of this out.  I'm SO over watching my baby suffer and not being able to do anything about it.  I'm tired of watching him try to play with his toys with his eyes closed.  It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.

The eye doctor didn't want to put the contacts back in because there wasn't an abrasion yet, but today was worse than yesterday so I have a feeling that we will be back at the doctor tomorrow putting the contacts in unless a miracle happens over night (feel free to pray for one...)  Tonight, I'm just sad.  About so many things.  I want my son to stop hurting.  I want him to live a normal life.  I want to take it all away.  It's so not fair and I'm just mad.  Sorry.  I will try to post again and let you know how we are, but I'm also stressing about his party and trying to plan for that.  So sorry if I'm slacking.  Please say some extra prayers for Tripp and if you want to slip in a few for me (because I'm at my wits end over SO many things), I'd appreciate :)  Thanks.

Love,   

B to the izzy

I am officially in pursuit of my Master's Degree in Education. Thus, I am terribly busy. I am taking an intercession course that is an intense study of school leadership over the next 12 days. So, basically, in two weeks I will accomplish what normally takes an entire semester to do. On top of working and being a mom and wife and such. Plate = full. Blog = not a priority. My nose has been in a book (or two!) for the past 8 hours. The good news is that my entire program is online through the university where I received my B.A. in Education, but obviously involves a lot of self-motivation and discussion on Blackboard.

The last online course I took my senior year in college at UK and literally didn't finish any of my assignments until the week before the semester ended. Wouldn't recommend that. Fortunately, it was a course I was taking pass/fail so I managed to pass despite my minimal effort :)

Anyway, I promise pics of Beck and more substantial posts, but you'll just have to wait until I get the bulk of this class out of the way! I have some great furniture redos in the near future and room redos too (all this schooling is making a home office sound rather appealing).

I know this was boring, but that's what going on and why I'm MIA.

PS. Is anyone planning to tweet during The Bachelorette for #ATFT? If you're in, I'm in! Let me know!

The Little Guy that Makes Me a Momma

I haven't written a post in a long time specifically dedicated to my ever-growing son, and his many accomplishments in his almost two years. Yes, please note, I can officially say that I will have a two-year-old next month. I cannot even believe how fast two years has gone by.

Becks is getting big (size 24mo-3t depending) and rather independent. While mostly compliant, his verbal defense is often a very beligerent No! No! No! Timeouts are few and far between, but there are certainly days where I warn him that I'm sending him to the moon.

He is obsessed with tractors. Obsessed. He loves watching them out our front window and willingly went into the arms of a construction worker the other day so that he could sit with him in the driver's seat of an excavator. (No worries, while we don't know them by name, Becks has essentially grown up with them the past year and they're pretty good guys. I think they would have taken him for a spin around the block, but I had to put my foot down somewhere.) After hours, I often find my boys doing something like this:

On that note, he also adores anything his daddy does - whether it be working in the yard, playing the guitar, or sipping coffee on the weekends (milk - just in a coffee mug that B pretends to pour real coffee in). When B's home, Becks is his pint-sized shadow.

He also loves makin' sumpin' with me, and we bake together weekly, as I'm sure you're fully aware.

He still has a pacifier, his G, and all The Guys that he insists on naming and sleeping with every night. Potty training is on the horizon, but something he is totally not interested in right now. We'll give it a go this summer, but fortunately his preschool doesn't have this as a requirement to attend.

(The collection of Guys has grown to include a polar bear from IKEA, a stuffed puppy, and the crew from Sesame Street - Snuffy, Bert, Ernie, Elmo, Grover, and Big Bird. He likes them around his head and usually won't move after I've arranged them that way!)

He's a big fan of the park and loves everything there is to do there - particularly the big boys kicking around soccer balls. It must be in the name ;) It's kind of heartbreaking to tell him he's too little to play with them.


He loves to be read to. His current favorites are: Say Daddy, Click Clack Moo, K is for Kick, all of the Gertie and Gossie collection, and Knuffle Bunny. In fact, the other night, he opted to cozy up in the nook of my arm instead of sit on my lap. It made me sad to think that this little peanut used to fit snuggly comfy on my chest and now barely fits in my lap. And then, to top it off, he wanted me to read him The Giving Tree and I couldn't even get through it without sniffling back tears because of the irony of the whole situation. (If you haven't read The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, go read it. A great story.)

{I should also add that this was the same night that Becks inaugurated me into the puked-on-mom club - an honor I'd been avoiding since baby spit up. Let's just say he followed up his pizza and fruit cup dinner with several gulps of bathwater that ultimately ended in vomit down my shirt, in my bra, in 3/4 of my hair and the demise of the rug in the bathroom. Blech.}

All in all, he's a cool little kid who brings infinite joy to our lives. And he's silly too.
I'm glad that this little boy gives me something to celebrate this weekend :)

Doctor's Appointments.

Yesterday Tripp had all of his doctor's appointments.  First we went in to check his hearing... and the nurse said she doesn't think he could hear any better.  He passed with flying colors, but we definitely KNEW he could hear well.  Nosey, nosey, nosey.  He sat on my lap in a little dark room and then little bears and animals light up and make nose and he's supposed to follow the noises.  It was cute.  He was excited and patting his legs.

Then we went to the ENT and she checked his ears.  She said his ears look better than they have his whole life and that the tubes were doing what they were supposed to.  His trach, on the other hand, still has the large ulcer on the bottom of it.  I'm going to do some nebulized steroids a couple times a day for a few weeks and see if that helps the sore shrink a little and also my try and use a smaller suction catheter hoping it will have less power... but then it doesn't get all of the "stuff" out, you know?  But we will see.  

Next, we went to the eye doctor.  (last Friday morning he rubbed his eye and his contact came out of his left eye).  So he only has a contact in his right eye right now.  They stained the left eye without the contact and said he didn't have any abrasions right now, so they are going to leave the contact out unless his eye gets bad again.  The other eye he just wanted to leave alone also because it looked fine.  He said the contact would be okay to stay in another month unless he rubs it out before.  So it was a non-dramatic experience this time.  The only thing they bothered him with was trying to get a picture of the skin-tag on his right eye because they wanted to "present" him in Grand Rounds next week.  Which means, I guess, that they will do a presentation on him in front of a bunch of different doctors/residents/etc... Which I though was great!  The doc said to give him a call next week to see if anyone had any new ideas/suggestions for his eyes.

Last, we went to see the dietician for the first time.  She was really nice and seemed very intelligent.  She also seemed very eager to help.  She took down some info on Tripp and was going to calculate some numbers and give me a call back at the end of the week.  She pretty much said that she wants to start him on a pediatric formula like Pediasure or something along those lines.  Also, she said that she wants him to start with a protein supplement.  She told us that weight-wise, he was doing great... but length-wise she thought he was a little behind.  But with all of his bandaging, I know his weight is inaccurate, so he may not be as far behind as they are writing down.  But I'm really happy about starting him on a higher calorie formula and some protein.    Bring on the height!

So I'm pretty sure our "Spring" is officially over.  It is too hot for Tripp to be outside already... even early in the morning.  We are talking about glassing in our front porch so that he will at least get to "feel" like he is outside this summer.  I just don't think people realize that we really REALLY are going to be stuck in the house ALL summer.  It is already just getting hotter INSIDE and the AC isn't keeping up.  We are in trouble.  And all I keep thinking about is how much he has just been loving outside lately.  Poor baby.  He starts sweating immediately.  Even yesterday from the car to the hospital was too hot.  UGH. Ugh. ugh.  So very frustrating.  Pray for a cool summer.... HA HA HA HA.

Digging in Mommy's purse...

"Hmmm.  What you got up in here good, Momma?"

Waiting for the doc banging his favorite plastic "doctor's office" cups.

Exciting, I know.

Best part is, I dressed him in blue... so not one person asked if he was a girl! ha.

Love,

       

48 more hours until my weekend begins!

Wednesdays are probably one of my favorite days of the week. I love that the work week is almost over, and, more importantly, that the lastest episodes of The Hills and The City will be on MTV.com for my viewing pleasure.

So, before I go further, let me say a quick couple of things about my guilty pleasures...

Just three things from The Hills today: Hs for Heidi, crystals, and "surgery hug." I really want to discuss how crazy H is for Heidi's husband is, but I'll refrain myself. I wouldn't want to send any negativity his way that those crystals couldn't ward off, you know?

And a couple more things from The City:

• Olivia kind of thinks she's a big deal (could she be any more self-important?)
• I looooooved the meeting where Erin gets to bat her lashes at Olivia, smiling sweetly over how pleased Joe Zee is with Whitney's collection - ha!!!!
• And I still love Kelly Cutrone and pretty much want to be BFFs with Whitney. True story.

I feel like I've been super lazy lately during Becks' naps, so I'm off to complete some chores around the house and try not to obsessively check my eBay listings or see if my financial aid has been posted to my account yet. Not that you would catch me refreshing either webpage on the half-hour to check for changes though...

Maybe more later!

Baseball Game, Zoo, and Outing

My sis and I took Tripp to his first baseball game.  Randy coaches an 11-12 year old baseball team.  He loves it and when I was pregnant last year I was out there every game.... I loved it, too.  And we had not had a chance to make one yet this year until last Tuesday.  Tripp was in heaven.  We sat down in the bleachers for about the first 5 minutes until the mosquitoes got too bad, then we went up in the press box.  Randy turned the AC on for us so it was cool up there... and mosquito free!  We also have to worry about the dust in his eyes/trach.  But he looooooved it.  I don't think he took his eyes off of the game. 

Daddy and Tripp playing peek-a-boo.  

I threw this one in because I thought it was cute. 

Ok... so the Zoo.  It wouldn't have been the perfect weather for ANYONE else, but it was pretty close to the perfect weather for Tripp.  It was humid, misting, and a little windy.  But what we didn't know was that it was like National Field Trip day or something.  What were we thinking going on a Friday at the end of the school year??  I wish I would have thought to take a picture of the buses.  There must have been 100.  Literally.  BUT we went in anyway because we were already there.  It was really really crowded, but it was okay.   It was me, my mom and dad, and my sis.  We had to take turns holding him because he couldn't see the animals from his stroller through the crowds of people.  But little did we know that Tripp would MUCH rather watch all of the people than the animals... we could have taken him to the grocery store up the street and he wouldn't have known the difference.  But it was nice for us to be able to get out... I love the Zoo.  So I was excited we finally got to go.  

So, of course there were TONS and TONS of stares.  But this was the FUNNIEST we've ever gotten. 

Right when we were walking out to go home a little boy spotted Tripp and said, "Ooooo, dat baby got ice cream ALL over his face!"  HAHA.  Gotta love kids.

Ok, so these pictures are mostly of the back of his head... but I tried to get him and the animals.  

Here are the camels.

The lions... look close.

The white tiger!!

Elephant butts...

The petting zoo... ew, don't touch.

This was his favorite.  

He could actually SEE it and follow it running around the cage.

The monkeys... see one little monkey?

Lunch at the Pita Pit... yummy.

Haha... I love these.  We went to see the place that my sister is going to get married.  And Tripp had a BIG stinky accident (if you know what I mean) so I stayed with him in the car after.  He looks like a little man.  

And finally passed out after a long long day! 

Randy and I finally got a day that he was off and we could spend some family time.  So we went to eat lunch at Applebee's.  Tripp was so good.  He ate about 10 bites of ice cream.  Which is more than he has ever taken by mouth.  Then we went to the Driving Range and let Daddy hit some golf balls... but he started getting fussy so we had to come home.  But it was really really nice to get out as a family, we haven't done that very often.... or ever.  

Ok, so that sums up the past week... we have a verrrrry busy month.  Mother's Day, Tripp's birthday,  my sister's wedding!!!  So there will be plenty more pictures to come!  Thanks for all of your love, prayers, and support!  I know that is why Tripp is thriving!! 

Love,