HALLELUJAH!!!

Cole finally slept in his bed all night last night!!! He came crawling in our bed at about 7:30, but we were already waking up at that point (Chris didn't go to work until 10 today), so it was all good. I can't tell you how much better I slept last night!!!

So did I tell y'all about the Gann Weight Loss Challenge? Well, we started yesterday. We have challenged each other to see who can lose the most weight (safely) from now until the end of March. The prize is $500 of Chris' bonus money to do whatever we want. The last weigh-in is my birthday. For the record, I will weigh-in and walk straight to the cake. LOL. So, we did what we jokingly called "fat-loading" all weekend. We ate whatever we wanted and didn't feel guilty about it. Okay, so the bacon cheeseburgers and homemade french fries *tasted* good, but I was pretty miserable afterwards. Anyway. Challenge Day #1 was pretty successful. I won't post our numbers here because it's pretty embarrassing. We both got our exercise in and ate healthy, though. The only problem is I don't think we got *enough* calories. How logical is that? You try to lose weight, but need to eat more??? HUH? We have three more big hurdles this week - Olive Garden Thursday night for Petrash's birthday, Saturday night on the town for Stefan's birthday and then SuperBowl Sunday. Wish me luck...

30 Years in 30 Weeks - edition 20

The picture above is me and my stepmom, Sandy. She and Dad took me to the George Strait Team Roping Classic in the summer of 1997. It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet George, but it was probably the closest I'll ever be to him.

My first year of college was definitely an interesting one. Like I mentioned in my last 30 in 30 post, I learned a lot that year. Yes, knowledge was definitely gained in the 17 and 15 hour semesters that I took, but most of what I learned was outside of the classroom. Roommates are interesting...even if you are related to them. That's all I'm saying about that. DALLAS was a pretty good show (we watched a lot of reruns of it)! Studying = good grades, procrastination is bad. Shortly after going home for the summer, I got my very first job. But, the biggest lesson I learned was about relationships...friends, family and the boyfriend kind. Early in the Fall semester, I met James. He was a little older than me and in the Army. I might also mention that he was from Baltimore, Maryland. (That should have been the first red flag...how were a boy from Maryland and a Texas girl ever gonna get along?) Things were pretty good at first. He said all the right things and we talked all the time. We usually ended up meeting in Austin once a week. It was pretty cool to have a boyfriend that actually paid attention to me. Well, at some point, things turned a different direction...he became really jealous, I was always doing something wrong, blah blah blah. But, I was convinced that I was "in love" and stuck around. Everyone else saw it but me...of course. Amy got tired of it and pretty much gave me an ultimatum...her or James. My parents and I had several fights over him...especially when I came home for the summer. You guessed it - James and I were still together. I drove home at the end of the semester minus one best friend. Several weeks, a few phone calls and fights later, we finally broke up. I'd like to tell you that I finally "saw the light" and broke up with James myself, but then I'd be lying. It took him going home to Maryland for a week and meeting someone else to do it. It took me a long time to finally get back to the "old me"...a lot longer than I'm willing to admit to the blog-world. Mom even tried to get me to "stay home" the next year and transfer to Sam Houston. Obviously, I didn't. Looking back at the big picture, that was a very good thing (how would I have met Chris if I never went back?). At the time - a stupid decision...I'm sure you can guess why I thought I NEEDED to go back to San Marcos. Dumb me. Anyway. In the end, it all worked out okay. I definitely learned what NOT to look for in a relationship. Even though Amy and I never fully made-up, we are friends still. And I'll be the FIRST tell you that my parents were definitely right and I was VERY WRONG. I just wish I could see James one more time...to tell him that I *did* find better...MUCH better as a matter of fact. :)

**end of Kristi's Soap Opera Life**

A moment of bliss...

The past few weeks have been stressful when it comes to peace and sleep around our house. No one around here really likes the cold or the rain, so it's been a challenge to get outside and do anything. Result? Momma and two boys going stir-crazy. Sleep has been another issue. Evidently, Cole is going through some major separation anxiety issues right now. He absolutely CAN NOT stand being away from me. Fun, no? Seriously, you try peeing with a toddler crawling on your lap. Sorry for that visual, but I'm just sayin'. We took the crib down for fear that Cole would break something since he decided to climb out every night anyways. Sounds a little redneck-ish, but until we save up a little more money to buy another bed, Cole's crib mattress is on the floor. Once we wrestle him down and get him to sleep, he'll stay there for four to five hours before he runs down the hallway to our bed. Even naps have been a struggle this week. He literally wouldn't take one unless I was holding him. I keep trying to remind myself that these days are numbered. This is just a phase. Plus, he's my last baby...I should cherish these moments when he wants nothing more than to curl up in my lap, right? Sometimes it's hard to remember that.

Okay, so long story to lead up to my few moments of bliss yesterday. Remember my little line from last week, "shopping always makes everything better"? Well, that's exactly what we did ALL DAY yesterday. Okay, so it was for normal stuff like groceries and picking up some more supplies for the scrapbook I'm making right now, but we were gone all day. We went home, unloaded groceries, and headed back out again. Finally, after Caleb had the melt-down in Target because I wouldn't buy him a $7 ColorWonder book that he'd already finished before, I decided maybe we should go home for good. Within thirty minutes, things were peaceful and quiet and wonderful....

Caleb was on the computer, playing games...


Cole miraculously fell asleep (on his own!) on the floor...


and I scrapped away! (this is a "sneak peek" of the baby girl album I'm working on)


Bliss I tell 'ya!

Baby book

Baby Book for Tessie and Jamie

So, I delivered the baby book to Tessie and Jamie this weekend. I even got a chance to stay and visit for a few hours with them and their cutie Ayden, as well as her sister Amanda and new husband Joe. It was so much fun! Probably because I made the trip sans-children...

Anyway, above is a slide-show of the book I made for her. She called it "scrapbooking for dummies" because I added the sizes for the pictures and other helpful hints throughout. She and Jamie both seemed to love it. I can't wait to meet their new baby boy, Seth! Three weeks to go...I know she's counting the days!!!

30 Years in 30 Weeks - edition 19

That's me and my BFF, Amy, at our high school graduation. I swear, we were pretty much inseperable at the time. We did EVERYTHING together. Movies all the time. Plays in downtown Houston. Baseball games and snowcones. Leaving campus for lunch at the park - even though we weren't supposed to (we came back though!) Hanging out with "the crew" - Tessie, Sam, Leif and Ernie (good times, I tell ya! But some of those stories are better left between us, right?). Shopping whenever we felt like it...because shopping ALWAYS makes you feel better.

During our Senior year, Amy and I decided we needed to adopt some "pet Freshmen". They would do cool stuff for us like clean our cars, and we would take them to do cool stuff like hang out at the mall. Yes. It paid off. See, we had this grand idea of taking a road trip to New Orleans. We were going to fund it by collecting spare change accumulated from the floorboards and seats of our cars and cars of our friends (since neither of us had a job). We even had a big pink plastic piggy bank for said change. We even wrote our slogan on it..."Porking our way to New Orleans" - LOL! Our plan was to do a business-style presentation to our parents to convince them to let us go. Needless to say, the road trip never happened. But I will tell you that the new Taco Bell in town HATED us that summer. We would go through the drive through, make our order and then pay in change...being sure to add "it's all there - really."

We also tried really hard to be the "bat girls" for our baseball team. We petitioned Coach Turner every day. Every day, he gave us the same answer - "only if you wear hot pants and tube tops." That meant "no" from Coach Turner. Since both of our moms worked at the school and we had known Coach Turner for most of our lives, that was okay coming from him. Just kinda like your smartass uncle or something. We still went to every game, snowcones in hand, and heckled the other team. If we couldn't be real bat girls, we would just be the obnoxious fans!

That fall, we went off to college. But, we weren't far from each other. Amy went to UT in Austin and I was just down the road in San Marcos at Southwest Texas. We got together at least once a week to go out or shop or eat. We usually rode home together, too. Four hour drives are much more fun with friends. Yeah, I could have gone to a bigger school, but SWT was the only school I applied to and I think it fit me pretty well. I had some major adjustments that fall...like realizing that I probably wasn't as smart as I thought I was. I had to learn how to really study. Something I'd never really done before. I learned a lot more during my first year of college, but I'll save that for next week...

I {heart} Kelci!

Look at this adorable t-shirt and card my wonderful friend Kelci sent me! Don't you love it when mail is *fun* rather than bills??? Muchas gracias amiga!

Blah Blah Blah...

Well, my eye is looking better. The mystery spot is still there, but appears to be fading some. It's not bothering me, getting bigger or anything abnormal, so I haven't had it looked at. My nurse step-mom seemed to agree that is was a blood vessel and that it would take a while to go away. Just thought I would update since several people have asked me about it now.

I got Tessie's baby book done yesterday. I feel a lot better having that checked off of my list. Hopefully I can see her this weekend and deliver it to her.

In other news, Cole is finally back to his normal 148%. That kid just doesn't understand how to chill. We are definitely looking into purchasing a new bed as Cole has decided he much rather sleep in between Mommy and Daddy - sideways. So, we are looking at getting a new bed for ourselves and letting the boys share the bed we currently sleep in. Caleb's twin bed can move back to Cole's room which I plan on converting to the "play room". But, really, who am I kidding? There will still be toys scattered across every square inch of our little house...

We got Caleb signed up for little league this past weekend. Looks like FWLL will be a pretty competitive league. He's playing "mini tee-ball" since he's never participated in organized sports before. They will learn the fundamentals and everyone gets to play every game. Regular tee-ball has try-outs (!) and is full-on competitive. I think we made the better choice for right now. We will find out after the first of February what team he's on and then games start on March 8. Of course, he has his heart set on playing for the "Astros". LOL. One of the coaches we talked to at registration has already sized him up for fall football. Caleb is VERY excited about that and now talks about it more than baseball. One sport at a time, kid...

Crafty Friday

Not too much of my own scrapbooking going on lately. I just finished up an anniversary album for Mrs. Jett and am currently working on a baby album for Tessie. I'm also waiting on a phone call back for a diaper cake order. Between all of this and general mommy-ness, I decided to make this little ole page for me this week. My house looks so bare with all of the Christmas decor down, so I'm in the middle of creating some Valentine's/lovey related stuff to put out...this is in a brown frame on the mantle now. (Gotta express my girlness somehow, right?)

PS - big thanks to Kelci for the ginormous red flower I used on this page!

Is there a doctor in the house?

So, the "winter bug" has passed through our house. Everyone except Caleb seems to have a touch of it. Actually, this is the first time Cole has been really sick. Pretty good since we are closing in on 19 months. I took him to the doctor last Friday and he had the "beginnings" of all sorts - bronchitis, sinus infection and ear infections in each ear. After enduring the craziness of tracking down medications for him (that's a whole 'nother story in itself), he finally seems to be doing better. Chris and I are feeling good, but we all just have that nasty cough that seems to be hanging on.

Monday night, I went out to get the rest of Cole's prescriptions (the pharmacy was running low on Friday so they only gave us enough to make it through the weekend before their next shipment came in). Chris stayed at home with the boys. Of course, that meant that Cole got to watch his daddy and brother play Wii. I guess he got pretty tired...



Okay, so I thought about it and figured I would just go ahead and show the world my freak-ness. Maybe someone has an idea as to what this is. Don't make fun of me, 'mm-kay? So, Tuesday morning, I'm brushing my teeth and glance in the mirror. I have this blackish spot under my eye and pretty much assume that I didn't take my mascara off well the night before. I walk away rubbing my eye and don't think about it again. Yesterday, I get up and the spot is still there (obviously I don't look at myself in the mirror very often, huh?). I decide to actually make an attempt at scrubbing it off...it won't come off. After closer examination, it's kinda brownish-red. There's no swelling, no texture, exponential growth or foul smell to it. ;) It really doesn't bother me until I start talking to someone and realize that they are staring at me like I'm a walking freak of nature. Chris thinks it's a bruise or busted blood vessel or something. Sarah told me that I'm just a freak. And my mom tells me that she thinks I should seek medical attention. I think I'll give it a few days and see what happens. Any ideas?

30 Years in 30 Weeks - editions 16, 17 & 18

Okay, so technically, I skipped a year somewhere. Even though I have pictures from 7th and 8th grade, they were at ages 12 and 14. But you get the idea. That's what I get for falling behind on these posts. And, yet, here I am again...making up for lost time..


Okay, so here I am celebrating my 16th birthday. Anything look familiar? Go back and look at my 2nd birthday picture. Yep. Same table. Same chairs. Same shot of me blowing out the candles. Heck, I just went with it and kept the same haircut, too. Mmmmm....German Chocolate Cake....
I'm pretty sure those roses were from Mom and Ben because I seem to remember being upset because my boyfriend at the time barely spoke to me that day. Jerk.


I'm still 16 in this picture, but I told you I messed up, right? This was the summer between my Sophomore and Junior years. We took a family trip to DisneyWorld. (Sarah will probably kill me for this picture...) We drove, of course, and I seem to remember a lot of road construction. Somewhere along the way, we had our first encounter with automatic flushing toilets. I'm pretty sure it freaked Sarah out. In other toilet-related talk...we stayed at one of the Disney resorts (the Dixieland something or other, I think) and the toilet in our room was so amazing that Ben actually took it apart to figure out how it worked. Thankfully, he also put it back together.

During my Junior year, I finally got to join FHA (which is now FCCLA) and ran for Regional Officer. I made it and part of the fun was attending the National Conference that summer in Washington DC. It was my first time ever riding in an airplane. Mom and I had so much fun! It was incredibly hot while we were there, but it's an experience I'll never forget. We took some whirl-wind tours of the Smithsonian Institution museums, but we saw it! The seat-belt safety event at the Capitol and our tour of Arlington Cemetary were the hottest. And, of course, I had to wear my uniform which conveniently consisted of a fully-lined jacket. Mom was a silly girl and wore pantyhose under her dress that day. I won't tell you what she did in order to cool off. Oh, I guess I should mention that this picture was taken of us at the "gala" the last night we were there. Aren't we cute?

New cousins!!!

Big congratulations to the Ingersoll family! Jason sent out an email this morning that Jan had the twins last night! They missed Caleb's birthday by just one day...but we'll take it! (See, Jan and Cole share a birthday and I share one with her dad - my Uncle John) Jason said they are all doing well, but they still haven't decided on names. Can't wait to meet you, babies!

How many men does it take? (AKA Happy Birthday Caleb!)

This toy was clearly labeled "Ages 5+", but after it took the guys most of the party to transform Optimus Prime from "Attack Mode" to "Robot Mode", we have a different idea for it. See, we are going to put it away until Caleb graduates from high school and then, if he can successfully complete the transformation in less than 5 minutes, he doesn't have to go to college. Sound fair? Seriously...the guys actually resorted to looking at the instructions...all 13 easy steps.

So Sunday was Caleb's big day - turning 5 and celebrating at Chuck E. Cheese. (Can you believe he's already FIVE???) It was a ton of fun. The real question is, why didn't we do this sooner? It was great - we just walked in the door with presents and a cake and everything else was taken care of. No pre-party, during-party or after-party cleaning. No cooking. No planning games to keep the kids entertained. No assembling goodie-bags. Fantastic! Pop couldn't make it because he was feeling bad - hope you're better today, Pop! We definitely missed seeing Stefan, Nancy and the girls. We also wish Jan could have enjoyed the fun, but she's busy keeping babies in the womb right now, so we understand. Hopefully JR shared some of his Chuck E. Cheese goodies with her when he got home. I know he had lots of stories to tell her! And, yes, I'm still awake and typing this at 1:00 AM because I stupidly drank a caffeine-laden beverage this afternoon and now I can't sleep.

Caleb so enjoyed it all. We had a lot of great family/friends there to celebrate - Nana, Jason and JR, Chris and Sharon, Alain and Sabrina and Andrew, Marc and Teresa and Hayden, & Kathy and Johnna and Memphis. They played games and ate pizza and cake until they just couldn't stand it any longer! We are now the proud owners of 7,000 Transformer toys, several hundred Power Rangers and a few dozen crime fighters and/or superheroes...or at least that's what it feels like. Oh yeah, and the Cars Wii game. I personally think these are some of the most hideous toys ever created, but I can't admit that in my house - both Caleb and Chris would think I was crazy. But, I swear, I might have nightmares of men wearing Transformers masks and yelling, "Autobots, roll out." Whatever makes the kid happy, right?

Enjoy the pics (there are a LOT!) And be sure to scroll all the way to the end...the last picture is my favorite - I've been laughing over it all night!:

Enjoying the pizza:

Cole chillin' with Barney:

Memphis sliding:

Jason and JR:

Blowing out the candles:

Hayden with Chuck:

Caleb with Chuck:

Caleb as Optimus Prime

Presents galore:





JR, what a cutie!:


And just because Marc is such a good sport...LOL!!!

Christmas Morning 2007

More Christmas...

Christmas morning brought more fun and gifts. Santa (as well as Nana and Pop) were pretty darn good to us this year! As I mentioned in my previous post, Caleb really got into the Christmas spirit this year. He opened each gift with such enthusiasm - "Oh, it's what I've ALWAYS wanted" was heard many times from him. Of course, we enjoyed a great breakfast including Ben's famous Mexican Sweet Rolls and then Mom made us an amazing late lunch. We are still enjoying the "newness" of our gifts and having so much fun! I hope all of you had a fabulous Christmas as well! Oh...and I'm sorry I never got around to sending out my Christmas cards this year...Bad Kristi! It doesn't mean I don't love you...I guess it means I just procrastinated too long and then it became too late. Sorry.

Here's to a GREAT 2008!!!

PS - adding Christmas morning picture slideshow momentarily