Oh, the Tragedy!

Poor, poor Olivia! Yesterday when I picked her up from school, she was running to go get her scooter from the bike rack, and a minute later she came back bawling her eyes out. I thought someone had stolen her scooter, but no... she had tripped and fallen right on her face on the sidewalk! She scraped her nose pretty good on the top and underneath, as well as her upper lip. The swelling has gone down this morning, but the scabs are turning darker...

A Good Laugh

Here's the video I like to watch the give me a good laugh when I'm feeling kind of "blah". I thought I'd share with each of you, because it never, NEVER gets old.

Anita Needs...

My neighbor just did this on her blog, and it was so cute I'm going to copy - thanks Amber! You go to Google and type in your name, followed by the word "needs" and see what comes up. This is what I found:

Anita needs...
...me
...to eat more
...your help
...another drink on Flickr
...a waxing
...a bus!
...more hours in the day
...more state subsidized grist for her temp mill (HUH?)
...revision
...your vote!
...a holiday

My Angels Again

Since I just did a whole post on Connor and my sister's family, I thought it would be nice to show you my girls sleeping again. This picture was from about a week ago. When Ben and I went to bed, this is what we found in Kelsey's bed. No, they did not have permission. I love it that they are close enough to go crawling into each other's beds, but they really don't sleep as well when they do and Kelsey in particular gets a mite crabby the next day.

I could post a funny picture several times a week because they sleep so crazy. Last night Ben went into Olivia's room and she was had the covers over her entire body from the waist up - and everything else uncovered. This is why I try to get her to leave her covers tucked in on the bottom...

I Love New York!

I guess in my heart, I will always be a Yankee. I can't help it. I love the hills and the snow and the country up there...

Connor and I went to New York this past week to visit my sister, Dorothy, and her family. She had come to South Carolina to visit and paint a mural for Connor's nursery a few weeks before Connor was born, but had never gotten to meet him. So, I planned a short trip during her winter break. (In places where they actually HAVE a winter, I guess they have to celebrate it with an extra week off of school. They still get a spring break, too.)

So anyway, Connor and I flew out this past Tuesday. Connor was so cute in his traveling outfit! We flew out of Oklahoma City to Albany, switching planes in Dulles (Washington DC). Connor was so well-behaved on all the flights! He slept part of the time, and flirted with the passengers around him. In fact, on one flight there was no one sitting close to him that was making a big deal over him, and I got a kick out of watching him look anxiously around waiting for someone to notice him. Poor thing!

When we got to Albany, Dorothy & Gwendolyn (who is 2 1/2) picked us up we got started on the 90 minute drive to her house. It was about 6:30 and I hadn't eaten since a very early lunch, so we decided to stop for dinner at a Friendly's off the interstate. For those of you who don't know, Friendly's is usually a nice little sit-down restaurant (probably like a Denny's). Well, apparently we stopped at a Friendly's CAFE, which is part of the same chain, but is really a hole-in-the wall fried chicken joint in a gas station. Appetizing, I know. However, Connor was crying so we made the best of it and got back on the road.

About half-way between Dorothy's house and the airport is a little town called Cobleskill that has a Super Wal-Mart. Since this would be the easiest place to stop for groceries, we decided to pull off and do some quick shopping. Then, rather than getting back on the interstate, Dorothy decided to drive the back roads home. The only problem with this is that you're passing through a number of small towns with small-town cops that will pull you over for a broken headlight. Dorothy had JUST found out on the way back from the airport at a toll booth that she had one of those, and of course the small-town cop in the next town over pulled her to give her a ticket for it. She explained the situation, and since it wasn't a big deal he was just going to give her a special kind of ticket that gave her 24 hours to get the problem fixed and inspected and she could send in the form and have the charges dropped. No big deal, right? So we sat in the car waiting and waiting for him to come back. After what seemed like an eternity, the other policeman came to the window. He asked Dorothy if she knew that her car registration had been suspended for an insurance lapse. Not only was it news to her, but to top it off Dorothy hadn't been able to locate her registration and insurance information in the glove box. We even had to borrow the policeman's flashlight, but it just was not there! So there we were at 10:00 p.m. at night in the middle of nowhere with 2 babies (one crying - mine of course) and 2 policemen trying to figure out what to do because it was about 10 degrees and technically they were supposed to confiscate the plates and have the car towed. And Dorothy's house was still about 45 minutes away. So the ever-so-kind cops took pity on us and wrote a second ticket for driving an unregistered car and let us go.

Early the next morning Dorothy went to the DMV to clear the whole thing up, and basically just had a $16 fine to pay from 2 months ago that she hadn't known about. We decided that it was a good thing I was with her, because the ONLY reason they let us go was because of the babies. I'm sure they didn't have room in their patrol car for all of us, and it was late and cold. If it had just been her or Jimmy in the car, they would have had to pay for the tow, impounding, AND the $16 fine.

Fortunately, the drama on our trip didn't continue, and the rest of the week was relatively uneventful. It did involve several late nights of talking, however, and one GLORIOUS 2 1/2 hour nap for me!! It snowed every day except the day I flew in and the day I flew out - which I loved of course! And we had a great time visiting and playing with the kids. Connor enjoyed playing with his cousins and eating the cheese puffs Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jimmy fed him. And Uncle Jimmy especially loved snuggling with Connor. Here's a few more pics I took. (I think Jimmy hid whenever I had the camera out... somehow I missed him.)

Tristian in coke-bottle glasses and "handwarmers" Dorothy knitted

Gwendolyn in the coke-bottle glasses

Gwendolyn and Connor in their sleepers - so cute!

The kids playing horsey on Dorothy!

Gwendolyn's up-do

Connor & Tristian

A Joke From Danny

My brother Danny sent me this joke, and it gave me a good laugh so I thought I'd share with you all!

DADDY'S GONNA EAT YOUR FINGERS

I was packing for my business trip and my three year old daughter was having a wonderful time playing on the bed. At one point she said, 'Daddy, look at this' , and stuck out two of her fingers.
Trying to keep her entertained, I reached out and stuck her tiny fingers in my mouth and said, 'Daddy's gonna eat your fingers,'pretending to eat them.

I went back to packing, looked up again and my daughter was standing on the bed staring at her fingers with a devastated look on her face.

I said,'What's wrong, honey?'

She replied, 'What happened to my booger?'

My Sleeping Angels

Last night as I went upstairs to put Connor to bed, I noticed Kelsey's sleeping sprawl on the bed and decided to take a picture. She sleeps like this most nights, and Ben and I find it hilarious. We thought we'd share the fun.

And then, to be fair, we took a picture of Olivia, too. It's very unflattering (sorry Olivia!) but it shows how she sleeps with her mouth open and that giant stuffed animal she's so attached to. It's like a leopard or something, but she calls it "Big Kitty". Thanks a lot, Grandma Crews. Now we can't get her to go anywhere without it!

Welcome to Tornado Alley!

Apparently, people in Oklahoma have something every year called "Tornado Season." I Googled "Tornado season in Oklahoma" to see when it actually officially started, and this is what I found on About.com:

"In truth, all year is pretty much tornado season in Oklahoma. But the prime conditions begin around late March and go through August in a typical year. Oklahoma City, in fact, has more tornado strikes than any other city in the United States."

I swear I didn't know anything about this when I moved!! Not sure it would have changed our decision anyway, but it would have been nice to know. So this afternoon, around 1:30 my new friend, Debbie, and I were going for a nice walk on UCO campus in the breezy sunshine. Within 30 minutes, the wind was howling, thunder was rumbling, and the sky was darkening quickly on the west. We hurried back to my house and turned on the news. And then it started to hail (see picture). Debbie decided to go pick up the kids early from school (hers and mine both!) and by the time she got back the tornado sirens were going off. Debbie pulled in my driveway, and she and all the kids came hurrying inside to get shelter from the storm. We spent the next hour glued to the TV watching all the "wall clouds" and "storm hooks" to see where the tornadoes were developing. We also got to watch some live footage taken a couple miles from here in north Edmond where a structure of some sort (barn, house?) was taken up and blown around. I felt like I was watching the Wizard of Oz! But more nervous. However, we all survived and Ben got home safe and no damage was done. It was an exciting afternoon!

Lemons

Connor definitely takes after the Ervin side of the family in some things. This week in our co-op we got a few lemons, and the girls love to slice them up and eat them. So of course, like any good mommy, I gave a slice to the baby so we could all laugh at his funny faces. The trick, however, was getting it away from him. The lemon wedge he has in this video is actually his second. He cried like his heart was broken when I threw away the first one that I just had to give him another...

Just Call Me Molly

It would seem that I have lately been bit by the sewing bug. This might not seem unusual unless you realize that I don't really like to sew. It all started last month when my sister Gwen asked me to make her an apron for her birthday. This is a picture of my work in progress. It was a reversable apron, with one side being the big checks, and the other having a pocket, red belt, and solid black on top. It took me all day to make it, but I was very proud of the finished product. And since Gwen is one of those people that wears a lot of earthy tones (and yes, they do look good on her!) I wanted to pick something that she wouldn't normally wear and add a little flair to her life! Daring, I know... and though you can't see it, the fabric pattern is a bunch of black and white cats, and Gwen is one of the biggest, cheesiest cat lovers I know. They're her "babies". She's the kind of person that tries to sneak the cat into the bed with her against her husband's wishes. This fabric pattern just screamed her name.

Well, then I decided to go back to the fabric store and pick up some random fabrics to do an apron for my sister Dorothy. We'll say this was her LATE birthday present so the rest of my family doesn't feel bad. Well, Dorothy has unique taste. She likes things that clash. She likes things that are ugly individually, and then they somehow make a harmonious whole. Or, at least they do make a whole though it's probably not harmonious. So I'm walking around the fabric store looking for the absolute ugliest fabrics I can find. I wish you could see some of these up close. They are some zingers. I got a headache just sewing all the pieces together for the front - no lie. I was also using lime green thread. And because sewing the straps takes too dang long I bought the cotton straps and sewed them on. Took much less time and I was in a much better mood when I finished. And oddly enough, I really like the finished look. In fact, I only used half the fabric I bought... maybe I should make another for me! Except that I really don't like to sew...