++Home Again++

We're back in action. I totally feel like I have a trip hangover though. Yesterday was a long day. About 12 hours of traveling capped off by a misplaced suitcase at the airport. I guess they forgot to deliver the last cart of luggage and about ten of us were lucky enough to get to wait around for an hour while they searched the airport for it. Lovely.
Wyatt was as good as could be expected considering the circumstances. We had a fun trip and lucked out with great weather. Not tropical but pretty much no rain...almost unheard of for the Pacific Northwest. I took way too many photos of the boys. Once I finish my four loads of laundry and putting away everything else, I'll get to posting some.
I will have to say. This is the second time I have left Memphis since we moved here and both times it was kind of depressing to get on a plane to go home. While waiting to board in Seattle they were calling for boarding to other cities: Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago. It's funny because both Mark and I independently thought to ourselves "I wish I was going there." That aside, walking in the door of our house felt pretty good. At least it finally feels like "home."

++Headin' Out++

We're off for our week-long journey to the west. I have been dreading this flight since we booked it. We connect through MSP on the way there (just long enough to reacquaint ourselves with the smell of God's Country...ha ha). We're spending a couple of days with Susan and then heading up North to the coast for a few days with the whole crew.
I have spent the last month hoarding goodies to occupy the little one during the trek. At least this time he is old enough to be excited about the prospect of flying on the airplane. He has let me know that he wants to sit with Daddy. I will be more than happy to oblige.

++School's Out++

We had a great time with Aunt Phyllis during her long weekend in M-town (so cheesy---did I write that?) We mostly stayed close to home and showed her the sights of our daily life. We enjoyed a trip to the park and feeding the ducks (check out the white ones---this flies right in the face of a comment I made to Mark a year ago while reading kids books "why are ducks always white in these books--who has ever seen a white duck?" Guess you need to move to Memphis to see them).


We also took a walk to the Wolf River. We live off of Wolf River Boulevard but in five months had never seen the river. Since we had an extra set of hands, we actually got a shot of the whole crew.
Wyatt loves reading stories (especially if they involve trucks). I think Aunt Phyllis got to read him this one about three times...consecutively.
Finally, Wyatt had his last day of school on Tuesday. I tried to take a shot in his classroom upon picking him up but he was a little hot to trot. That's his teacher "Miss Ci Ci" in the background.
Now that school's out my freedom is over. Wyatt's a good grocery shopper but that's about where it ends. Back to the days of night and weekend errand running for myself. This should be very good for our finances. Good thing "summer school" starts again in July!

++Socks++

Here's what's new around these parts: Wyatt is really into socks. It started with requesting "blue" socks from the drawer. Then he started wanting to change socks throughout the day. He especially likes socks with pictures on them. It's not easy to find boys socks with stuff on them. I scored the jackpot with these firetruck socks. I also found a BLUE pair with diggers on them. Too bad we're totally not in sock season here. Also too bad none of the fun socks have the grippers on the bottom and they have caused some major whipe outs.

We had a great weekend. Fabulous weather and a fun visit from my Aunt Phyllis ("pip pip" to Wyatt). More on that to come.

++Testing, testing++

Bear with me. I'm practicing. I wanted to make the header for our blog look better. I have no idea what I am doing in photoshop. Before I spend hours making a banner, I decided to see if I could actually get something to post right into the blog space. It sort of worked (if you look closely it's outside of the lines on the one side). I'll keep practicing. It's a better way to pass nap time than cleaning house.
More later.

++Happiness is...++

...a breakfast of pancakes prepared by my little chef (photo taken by Dad as I was "sleeping" in bed)......a trip to the zoo and getting surprised by the train during our photo shoot...

...a fabulous new pan (and a beautiful hydrangea plant)...

...getting to pass my days with this little guy--his Dad isn't too shabby either! (Check out the shiner on his forehead. He reached too far between his legs for a ball and face planted on the driveway. You would have thought he fell from two stories up with the mark it left)....

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in my life!

++More random jottings++

The latest baby I have been awaiting was born on Tuesday. It wasn't much of a surprise since it was a scheduled C-Section. Lucky for Tiffany, she will never know what labor feels like! Maybe next time. Baby Deacon Patrick wasn't quite as big as they thought he would be either...ONLY 9 lbs. 13 oz (ok, so almost two full pounds bigger than W). Congrats Tiffany and Patrick!

No new photos to share. There hasn't been much photo-worthy activity here recently. Wyatt has been GRUMPY (which in turn makes me grumpy). I think we went teeth-cold-teeth over the last two weeks. Hopefully he will be done with this soon as we have a busy stretch of visitors and travel ahead of us. All he wants to do is watch "Narney" on tv (which could possibly be the most painful for parents kid's show ever made). That, and this live-action train documentary I got from the library.

More rain today. Half of my flowers in my back garden are dead already. I am so defeated. I know what to do when your flowers don't get enough water but I'm not sure what to do if they get too much. The good news is that I dug them up and returned them at Home Depot and got new ones. Hopefully these will fare better. I miss the great midwestern soil.

I finally finished putting all the photos from the first year of Wyatt's life in an album. It bums me out that I didn't get the new camera until he was 9 months old. It's amazing the difference in the pictures. For those of you who are mislead and think I am so on top of things because I post photos regularly on this blog here is a little secret: the album ends in July because that was the last time I had photos printed. I want to get better at photoshop so I can make them look a little better before I pay to print them all. Maybe by the time Wyatt is five? We did, however, make some generalizations on babies after looking through the progression. Basically the first 3 months is not so fun. Months 5 and 6 are great for photos because they can sit up and they smile a lot but they can't go anywhere. His ninth month is full of photos of him climbing on all sorts of things he shouldn't be on. That was officially when my freedom ended. Now I am lucky if I can get a picture of anything but the back of his head. Thank goodness for digital cameras.

++Fast Food Nation?++

This picture is here just because I like it. The real stuff starts below.

I don't think I have alluded to this in the past, but I have a new guilty pleasure: garage sales. They make it pretty easy down here. All the neighborhoods only allow garage sales twice a year on predetermined days so it's not like you have to drive all over for one garage sale, there are like 15 of them all in the same neighborhood on the same day. Most of it is junk. I only shop for one thing: toys. I figure that really it is the one true thing that could still be perfectly good but the kids are just too old for it. I've seen this happen with Wyatt already. So, I drive around and look for brightly colored plastic stuff and if I can see it from the street, I stop. If not, I go on. Here are a few of my recent finds (all of which Wyatt seems to like better than toys purchased at full-priced fancy toy stores).
--Fisher Price Little People Airplane (to supplement is Little People bus passion)

--Plastic Lawnmower. Super cheapy. I paid 50 cents for it. He and the neighbor kid, Alex, are constantly vying for it.
--Plastic toolbox and tools.

--Various Thomas and Bob books.

--A Wiggles CD (I had to see what all the fuss is about...still not quite sure)

The problem with garage sales is that you have to make spur-of-the-moment decisions. No time to think about it and come back later, you snooze, you lose. I made one of those decisions on Friday and spent the rest of the day wondering what I got myself into. Meet Wyatt's new toy:

Do you see the smile on his face? How could I resist? Did I mention it makes all sorts of fabulously appetizing sounds like grease frying and burgers sizzling?

It also came with an extra cash register with a scanner (never seen them scan anything at McDonald's but Wyatt thinks it's great).

Finally, it's not just the kids that get to have fun with these toys! (Sadly, this event happened after Wyatt was in bed...hey, I need to keep my job skills up somehow!)

So here was my dilemma---yes, the thing is fun and I would have LOVED it as a kid (there's a drive-through--or should I say "thru") window and everything---but what am I teaching my kid? It violates a lot of my parenting principals on so many levels, yet I bought the thing! It didn't come with any food or cups or accessories. I looked online and I can get a whole bag of stuff for about $10. Should I stock it with authentic food or should our McDonald's sell fruit? Ok, so I am over thinking it. I would never have bought it if we didn't have a big room upstairs fully devoted to play. If Wyatt has a weight problem or never aspires to be more than a fast food worker, I can only blame myself :)

On another note, today was Collierville's annual "Fair on the Square." Now that we have Wyatt we are all about any free event with lots of people and stuff to look at. It was a really nice day and we had a good time. He went to the petting zoo with dad (I stayed out to "take pictures" a.k.a. "animals like that scare the crap out of me"). He loved them all and fed them right out of his hands.

Here's a close encounter with a goat.

We had lunch there as well. Here's Wyatt telling me all about what he saw.

We also hung some more pictures today. One step closer to finally being done with that task. Phew.