The Rednecks Strike Again...

Got another redneck game..."Jeff Foxworthy's You Might Be a Redneck If..." board game.

Mom, Mark & I played it tonight. Guess who lost? Mark. I told him there was nothin' but pride in losin' a game like this. The "object" of the game is to be the first to "collect" a flyswatter (a.k.a. a cast iron skillet, newspaper, etc), a "recliner" (a.k.a a lounging lawn chair), some beef jerky, a satellite dish, a hound and a t.v. (from the flea market) and make it back to your trailer. You do this by correctly identifying the "right" finish to a "you might be a redneck if..." statement. I was sort of excited at first because I thought it would be similar to Balderdash where you get to make up your own (trust me, I'm *great* at making crap up) but then I discovered that Jeff Foxworthy did all the hard work and gave you multiple choice options. Needless to say, when I got the question about what heaven looks like to a redneck, everyone knew the answer was Daytona Beach, FL. duh.

I ended up winning but my mama, she was hot on my tail. Oh, and as a result of a bad flip of a coin, we had to call Mark "Vern" the whole game. Poor Vern.

Are YOU smarter than a 5th grader?

The Christmas festivities began at our house this morning with Mark, Grandma Faye and I playing the "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?" board game. Here's how it went:

Mary (asking Faye a 4th grade science question): "Which of the following is the best conductor of electricity: silver, rubber or wood?" Oh man, this oughta be good.

Faye: "Well...I know that when you put a stick on an electric fence and then grab on to someone else, they get the jolt. And when you're in your car with rubber tires, lightning can't gitcha."

Mary (between peeing my pants and wiping away the tears): "Mom, this is for $300,000. If you don't know, you can drop out of school with $175,000."

Faye: "I'm saying wood."

Mary: "Um, no. It's silver. They don't make electric wires out of wood, do they?"

Faye: "Well, no but they make telephone poles out of wood."

Thanks, Mom for your wisdom.

Following that question, Mark got this 5th grade science question (which was pretty much child's play for him): What element is a diamond made out of? Mom perks up and says "OHH! I know it!" Mark promptly says "carbon". Mom goes "No, it's coal." Ahhhh, yes. Coal, one of the lesser known elements on the periodic table.

Oh man, this game is going to be fun.

Merry Christmas! :)

Musical Toilets

Yes, I said "musical toilets". That's what we've been playing at our house this week. First wave: Bailey and Mark. Second wave: Grandma Faye and Mary (who both also had a cold, btw). I took Bailey to the doctor and Dr. Gyerko said "he has gastroenteritis". It must have been the deer in the headlights look in my eye because he quickly followed that up with "he has the stomach flu". Whew. Poor little Punkin...he had lost over a pound since his one year check up the week before. By far the most stressful part of the parenting gig so far.

Everyone's on the mend now though, which is great. I don't know that I've ever been so thankful for two bathrooms in my whole life.

Bathtime

Hey All,

Most of you know that Bailey loves bath time. Well one of his birthday presents was a bunch of rubber ducky's. We used them for the first time tonight and below is the result of that endevour. As Mary pointed out first present he laughed out loud for.

Enjoy the sound of laughter. :-)

This was the high point of the day and we'll tell you about the rest of the day when we actually get to the next one.

:-)

Happy (almost) 1st Birthday, Bailey!

Oh man! Look how much he's changed in just 12 short months...

Coming home from the hospital:

Such a little man!

I *heart* hunting season!

Usually when I was a kid, deer hunting season opened on my birthday (December 15) so being the good rednecks we are, we went hunting. Even as a little girl, I can remember tromping through the snow scouting our next meal. My brothers probably remember it as them dragging or carrying me whining through the forest trying to shoosh me so I didn't scare off the deer but I'm sure I was quiet as a church mouse and if I spoke it was to help give them directions so we didn't get lost...yes, I'm quite sure that's how it went. :) Here's a great picture of my brother Marty and his boys (Josh-17 and Cody-10) with Marty's deer this year. Not bad for an old guy! Click here for Cody's best quote ever.

Aloha!

I'm in sunny Honolulu and enjoying every minute! At the airport on the way here, I stopped at Wendy's and ordered "The Baconater, no onions"...what I got? A baconater with no bacon and extra onions...

Standing up can be hard on the Knees

Okay so Bailey is developing so fast!!!

All of us were at home last night when Bailey stood up for the first time without using help. I just heard from Mary that he did it again this morning! So now he's not only been walking for over a month now and it is a day under a month from his 1 yr old birthday he now can stand up from a sitting position without using help by grabbing something. He really is amazing and is so much fun to play with.

As an aside the best thing so far is he is happy and very expressive. He started scowling a couple of weeks ago and seriously, I mean seriously, his scowl is beyond adorable. He scowls with his eyebrows and his lips, seriously cute.

Okay you all know that Mary and I can go on and on, for any given day at how overjoyed we are at having Bailey in our lives. I look forward to adding more in the near future when I get so much time with him all to myself! :-) Especially with his awesome sleepy faces and incredible bed head.

Stupid computers...

For some reason, when you try to comment on my blog, it sort of tweaks out. Many of you have reported this problem. Just for the record, it's not me secretly forbidding you not to leave a comment (in fact, it's a bright spot in my day when someone leaves a comment because then I know at least one person is reading my blog!). When the box pops up and asks you if you want to display the nonsecure items, say YES. If you click to leave a comment and it freaks out and doesn't give you that box, close the comment thing and click it again.

Who would've ever thought in a million years, I'd be giving computer advice? Hmmm...

Chili "Cheese" Nachos Bell Grande

The other day we ate Taco Bell and I ordered the Chili Cheese Nachos Bell Grande minus tomatoes (in the drive through, of course) and when I sat down to eat it at home, they had forgotten the cheese...but they left the tomatoes on, which was nice of them.

Happy 1st Halloween, Bailey!

Bailey trick-or-treated to Auntie Erika's house on Halloween...so did Mommy & Grandma but they got grown up treats called "margaritas"... :)

Check this guy out...

Don't you just want to squeeze him??!

Or how about this one?

Or how about Baby McSteamy?

Parenting 101

Today, I handed Bailey my bottle of Vicodin because it made a cool noise when he shook it. At one point I looked at him and said to Mark, "Hmm...probably not a good idea to let your 10-month-old walk around (literally) with a bottle of pills..."

P.S. He's going to be a chicken for Halloween...

At home and doing okay...

Well, yesterday was the worst day but everything went okay. Mark & I are doing alright. I don't know that we'll ever be the same again because something like this changes who you are but we're getting used to the situation, I suppose. During this procedure they gave me drugs through my I.V., for which I was grateful but it won't come as a shock to anyone who knows me that apparently (according to my nurse), I carried on a running commentary throughout the whole thing. I have no recollection of any of it but apparently I talked about Christmas and burst out in hysterical laughter when my doctor mentioned that she had a grandson. I guess I laughed out loud and told her she was definitely not old enough to have a grandbaby and then I just stopped laughing and conked out. What a crack up. I told the nurse later that I don't have much of a filter anyway, let alone giving me drugs and wiping out the filter all together. They're lucky it wasn't worse than all that. I decided it was okay to laugh because that's the gift God has given me to heal.

Thanks to everyone for your emails, cards, phone calls, visits, flowers and words of encouragement. You'll never know how deeply you've touched us and how loved we feel.

Warning: Sad blog ahead

Yesterday was a no-good-very-bad day...to put it mildly. Mark and I were so excited that we had our first OB appointment for our new baby; he didn't go with me to my first appointment with Bailey so this was particularly exciting for him. I knew that my doctor would do a vaginal ultrasound (dear God, my first experience with that is a funny story for another blog) so we could get the best view of the baby. It started out just fine and I made sure to first find out that there was only one baby in there (people think it's funny to tease you about having twins but it really is a little scary). She said that everything looked really normal except that she was having a problem finding the heartbeat. She pointed to where it should be and said "it should be fluttering right here". She took us down the hall to the "good" ultrasound machine and said she just wanted to be sure. With this ultrasound machine, it uses doppler (which I thought was only for the weatherman) to detect bloodflow. We could clearly see the bloodflowing all around the baby, just not in it. When the guy said "Guys, I'm so sorry, there's just no heartbeat." I was devastated. All I could think was "but this was supposed to be a happy day! This is not supposed to be happening." We cried and cried, of course. Then all I could think was "Get me home to Bailey."

We love our son so much and we were *so* excited for this baby. I know that God secretly prepares us sometimes for things that we don't know about or understand and for things we can't get our minds around. This was one of those times. I think that in my heart of hearts, I knew something wasn't right with this pregnancy from the beginning but decided that I was just being paranoid and silly. As my surrogate dad Lou told us yesterday, "Sometimes when a baby gets to a certain developmental state where the genetics won't support life long, nature stops the process... I guess God does.... we will always love this baby, as will you." That touched my heart more than anything.

In God's secret preparation of my heart, I had a conversation the other day with a friend at work about people who go through miscarriages without telling anyone. I said to her: "I can't imagine ever going through the pain and trauma of that without my family and friends to support us." I have the best family and friends out there. Some friends of ours sent us flowerst today and simply said "Thinking of You." The best part, they are Gerber daisies which are the happiest flowers out there. We are happy because we know that our baby is perfect and happy in Heaven with Jesus.

Baseball

Okay so while I have never been very good at the game of baseball I have always loved it. Thankfully Gramps, and Myra in their latest escapades across the country they have gotten a toy Bailey loves.

It's this super cute bear with the Chicago Cubs emblem on it. Of course being a correct NW baseball fan I keep informing Bailey about the correct way of the way to sing the song, which if you squeeze the bear it sings, "Take me Out to the Ball Game".

I thoroughly enjoy singing "so root, root for the Mar- in- ers." Rather than "home team" because we will be going to baseball games together soon enough! Like when he was still in Mary's tummy!

here's the photo of him appreciating this necessary piece of his indoctrination.

Finally!

After more than 11 years of living in Portland, I woke up this morning and realized that I was really looking forward to the rain. Weird.

She's having a...

B-A-B-Y

May 18, 2008 (and not a minute later)

Bailey is stoked to be a big brother...

Clowns...

are pretty scary. Today, I saw a clown in the passenger side of a van talking on a cell phone. That wasn't scary. That was crazy.

Leave a comment about your experience and thoughts on the clown subject...

Feeding babies...

...lemons never ceases to be hilarious. Poor sweet little Bailey, he just kept going back for more and Mommy and Grandma just kept giving it to him and laughing hysterically. Even other people in Red Robin were partaking in the entertainment...

Freeway Off-ramps

I have always known that I rate pretty low on the scale of compassion. This last Saturday, I realized why. Since I've lived in Portland (because you know I had hardly ever driven on the freeway before that), I have NEVER, not once, given money or anything else to any of the people you see with the signs on freeway on- and off-ramps telling their sad story about why I should part with my money on their behalf. I felt very vindicated on Saturday when I pulled off the freeway and spotted a guy, sitting on a crate holding a sign that simply said "homeless". The first thing I noticed was how average he looked with an Old Navy type button up plaid shirt, jeans and tennis shoes...pretty much how my husband dresses. The second (and final) thing I noticed was that as he was sitting there, begging for handouts from people, at least he had his iPod to keep him company.

Buttons

Mary bought this Pooh cart, you know the type that is supposed to help kids learn to walk?

It has a bunch of buttons and an octave worth of a keyboard.

Anyways, Bailey hasn't done much with hitting buttons until today. He now slaps them with his hands and thoroughly enjoys making the sounds, to our great joy. :-)

We thoroughly enjoy having Bailey learn and develop so quickly. He really does try all the time to become more mobile and more capable by the day. He's also become quite a bit more vocal about how he feels, like today when he was actually cranky.

I know that some of you have heard that Bailey isn't cranky but for him he was. I needed to learn today how to readjust to a baby that could be fussy. How weird is that! :-)

Today I was reminded...

...of the time I went to Burger King at LAX and they were out of burgers...

Redneckin'

So, I know many of you have been waiting in anticipation for my blog about our family camping trip and I'm a little nervous--hoping I live up to the expectations. :)

I can't even write this blog without starting with a confession: about 8 years ago, my sister-in-law Wendi (shout out, Wendi!) shocked our entire family by showing up to the family camping trip dragging along a U-Haul trailer. I thought I was going to laugh myself silly when I saw my big, bad, redneck brother pull up to a totally rustic (and I mean R-U-S-T-I-C) "campground" (a.k.a. some mostly flat spot in the middle of the forest by a lake) pulling a U-Haul. I thought Wendi was the citiest city girl I had ever met and this just solidified it. Imagine my humiliation when I realized this summer that there wasn't room in our SUV for Mark, Mary, Bailey, Grandma Faye AND Sasha along with all of our stuff. This is what I said to myself: "Holy crap. THIS is why Wendi had to rent a U-Haul! I owe her a MAJOR apology for all the years of mocking and scorn." So, Wendi, may my deepest and sincerest apology live on eternally entombed in the internet! :)

Okay, moving on. The funnest game ever invented: The Redneck Game of Life. http://www.rednecklife.us/ The whole point of this game is to finish the game with the most teeth. True story. Mark & I have played this game several times with several different groups of people but I knew deep in my heart that nothing could have prepared him for playing it with my family. Here are three direct quotes from the game:

Monty (p.s. he had a mullet until not that long ago): (upon turning over the card that would reveal the "house" he would be buying) "Hey Julie, come look at this! This looks just like our trailer!"

Marty (p.s. he lives in BFE Montana): (Upon review of nearly EVERY "Go Redneckin'" card he turned over) "Okay, that one hits just a little to close to home."

Cody (Marty's 10-year-old son): (After Marty got a card that made him lose a tooth because his bat riquocheted while playing mailbox baseball) "Hey Dad! Is that what happened to our frog mailbox?" Yep.

There is a card in the game that requires all the players to engage in a pig calling contest (seriously). Dusty got that card and, for the record, I won. Thank you very much. Later on Dusty got a card that caused Marty to lose his job (which required a 5th grade education, mind you) as the Ciggy Shack Attendent because he was doing donuts in the parking lot and flattened the Ciggy Shack.

My mom landed on a square right at the end of the game where she had "one last roll in the hay" and ended up with a young'un named...wait for it...Mary Jane. Awesome.

I could go on all night recapping that game because it was the funniest thing that has happened in a really long time.

Poor Mark, he's still twitching.

First posting

My first addition to the blog...

It will be largely unspectacular but at least I've started! :-) Bailey was totally awesome today. He more or less screams when he's excited and when we went out to get food for our upcoming camping trip, he was screaming almost all the time. For a little while it made Mary and I uncomfortable, well probably mostly just me. Anyways, eventually I started getting into it and helping everyone get into his excitement too like commenting about what he's excited over the cereal boxes or the lady passing out jelly fruit snacks.

He was just kicking and trying so hard to pull Mommy to the next thing. Apparently he thinks he doesn't get out often enough... :-)

Anyways, he's super cute and plenty of other funny stories to come! (from both of us, even thought they will be funnier if Mary tells them)

Parenting

I think I'm parenting challenged already because as soon as I got home from D.C. (which is another blog for another day that I don't have time to type right now), I discovered that Bailey has a favorite commercial. Yep, that's right: my seven-month-old has a favorite television commercial. When the Sleep Country USA commercial comes on, he immediately stops what he's doing and finds the TV and just smiles and laughs all through that commercial. When it's over, he just goes back to doing whatever he was doing. It's the craziest thing I have ever seen.

Oregon is a big state!

Why is it that when you're on the other side of the country that people from here think that because they know someone who lives in (or has visited at some point in time) Oregon (or "Oreeeegone") thinks that you would know them? I can't believe people still say stuff like "Oh! You're from Oreeegone??! My husband's second cousin Linda lives in Salem...do you know her?" Yep. I do. Weird, huh? UGH.

Our Nation's Capital...

...is SO freaking HOT! And I don't mean that in the Paris Hilton sense of the word! I mean it in a fat girl walking her backside down the street in Washington, D.C. sweating her brains out because it's 95 degrees with freaking THUNDERSTORMS. How do you spell "humidity"??!?!? UGH. Well, this is my second day here and nothing too crazy has happened. I think I'm the only white girl here but other than that. I did see the funniest thing today though...I was walking back to the Metro train (4 stories underground but I'll save that for another day) and I saw this family that were clearly not from around these parts. For one thing, they were white. For another, as I walked by, dad and brother were looking at separate maps and mom and dad were (literally) holding their arms out and pointing in opposite directions. Daughter was so pissed and annoyed with all of them, she just sat on the bench and sweated quietly while letting the other three argue about either where they were or where they wanted to be. Funniest dang thing. The funniest part was that even though you could tell they were arguing, they weren't yelling or cursing at each other. If you picked four of my family members at random (including the children), there would be much shouting and gesturing and certainly more cursing. We would still love each other at the end but if we got lost, boy there would be hell to pay. :)

Can't wait to see what funny thing happens tomorrow...stay tuned! :)

Teething...

Who would have ever thought I, the bratiest child on earth, would get a baby who doesn't like to cry (seriously, he cries with his mouth closed or puts his hands in his mouth so he doesn't cry) AND doesn't fuss AT ALL when he gets teeth. Just realized about 20 minutes ago that he got a second tooth sometime this morning and didn't make a peep. WHO DOES THAT??! Kind of scary to think about having another one...we all know this is a fluke and my luck isn't going to hold out for a second angel baby!

Kissing Cousins

Okay, so I went home (NE Washington) this weekend because my niece was getting married...to my dad's cousin's son. You do the math. It was interesting (for *so* many reasons) but mostly because you would think with two people in the same family getting married, I would have known more of the people that were there. So many funny things happened that I don't even know where to start. I'll start with the fact that I was 10 minutes late getting to the wedding because we got lost twice. Once was my fault (it's amazing how roads you once knew like the back of your hand aren't quite so familiar after being gone for 11 years), the second time was my mom's fault--her's was just a 20 year old memory that wasn't accurate (go figure...this is Faye we're talking about). We finally had to stop at the town "store" and ask directions...it should tell you what size town we were in that my mom could walk in and give the wrong name and some pot headed girl (I'm pretty sure she had been smoking pot her whole life) gave us directions and against my better judgment, I followed them. Imagine my surprise when they were right. Just as I was hustling to unload Bailey from the car, this big Suburban comes flying up the driveway and as I'm jumping out of the road, I see my sister behind the wheel with her daughter (yes, the bride) in the passenger seat. I felt better about being 10 minutes late since the bride wasn't even ready yet. What a crack up. The wedding started about 45 minutes late, the minister forgot to tell them to kiss then he introduced them as Mr. & Mrs. Wrong Name. I asked my neice, Jami, later what the story was on the big delay...she said it was because all the guys decided they wanted to go golfing that morning (I'm not even joking) and left the girls there to do all the work and they ended up being late getting to town to get her hair done. Then she proceeded to tell me the caterers were nowhere to be found...they ended up being about 3 hours late. What a hoot. And that's just the beginning of their marriage...

Here's a cute Bailey...he has a tooth now...it popped up at the wedding while we were just sittin' there waitin' for the caterers...

I can't think...

of any funny stories to tell or clever things to say (which is pretty unusual for me) so I'll just post a cute picture of Bailey...I know that's why anyone is even remotely interested in my blog anyhow...

Apparently, I'm officially O-L-D

In short, the highlight of my week was the season finale of "Dancing With the Stars". Yep, that's right. I set the DVR to record the season finales of "24" and "Heroes" on Monday so that I could watch the stupid "Dancing with the Stars" finale part 1 and THEN, I DVRed (is that even a word??!) "American Idol" so I could watch the stupid finale part 2. GEEZ. I'm totally and completely blaming it on the fact that my mom lives here now and loves that show (as do all old people). Good LORD. What's my life coming to??!

But, just to make myself feel better, I'm going to share a new picture of Bailey 'cuz he's *so* gosh darn CUTE.

Faye...

Until Bailey learns to talk and say funny things (it's my kid so God only knows what will come out of his mouth), we'll all have to suffice to be entertained by the crazy and hilarious things that my mom says.

This morning as I was preparing to leave for work, Mark was rocking Bailey trying to get him to go back to sleep (Bailey always wakes up happy, yaks at us for about an hour and then takes another nap-then he wakes up for real and eats...he's a little peculiar). I was trying to talk quietly to my mom, so as to not disturb Bailey, but the problem with Faye is that she's deaf as a doorknob. So I'm trying to whisper to her that there is a load of sheets that she can wash. She couldn't hear (I could tell by the blank look in her eye) so she follows me to the kitchen and says "WHAT??! I couldn't hear you!" I laughed and said "There is a load of sheets in the hallway! I thought you could read my lips so I wasn't talking loud." She goes "well, NO I couldn't read your lips, I don't have my glasses on!" :) Oh, Faye. What am I going to do with her?? What a hoot.

My First Mother's Day

Wow! You know, there are some things in life that you look forward to about being an adult and then when you finally get there, it's amazing...that's how I'm feeling about celebrating my first Mother's Day. I have the most amazing little boy who just makes my heart happy. I am so looking forward to a lifetime of Mother's Day celebrations with him. Okay, enough sappiness. Here's what I got for Mother's Day: a strainer (yep, a strainer), a ginormous picture frame from Bailey to put his picture in (that sounds like something my child would do..."here Mom! I bought you a beautiful picture frame so you can proudly display a HUGE picture of ME!"), and a really pretty necklace from my husband. I've taken to telling him what I expect of him so that he can feel good about knowing he got me something I wanted and that I'm not disappointed so he didn't miraculously read my mind and "just know" what I was expecting. I love my husband.

To all my friends reading this (that's you Mel, since I think you're the only one who reads my blog), Happy Mother's Day. Even if you're not a mom, you still have one. Call her. :)

Bailey meets...

...RICE CEREAL for the first time...

The Bumbo Chair

I love the Bumbo Chair. The Bumbo Chair even has a flying elephant picture on the front like they ripped the idea off from Dumbo (in case you didn't connect the dots). This is a funny little picture of my fat little man sittin' in the Bumbo Chair.

Moving My Mom

So, this last weekend, Mark and I spent a very unromantic 2nd anniversary moving my mom from Colville, Washington (north of Spokane) down to Portland and into our house. We are very excited to have her here as it helps us out tremendously to have her helping us take care of Bailey since we both work full-time. Okay, that all said...what a friggin' nightmare!! All the years I was in college, every time my mom would move, I would tell her "Mom! Don't get rid of that! It was my favorite Trapper Keeper from 7th grade! Have a heart, for the love of God!" In case anyone wants to see any of my grade school report cards, I guilted her into saving all of them over the years...it won't come as any kind of shock that all my teachers said "Mary is so smart and such a joy to have in class...BUT she needs to not talk so much." HAHA!! At any rate, we filled a 10' U-Haul truck as well as a 5'x8' U-Haul trailer full of her stuff and had to fit all of it into a 5'x7' storage unit. By the grace of God, we managed it but HOLY CRAP. At one point, I said to Mark, "If I see one more box labeled 'Knick Knacks', I'm going to scream!" Wouldn't you know that the very next box I picked up said "Trinkets" as if that was somehow less annoying than "knick knacks". What a hoot. Happy Anniversary to us. After working our buns off all day, we decided we had to "celebrate" somehow so we drove to Clackamas (we live in Troutdale) and had dinner at the new Claim Jumper restaurant there. We loved the food but we were so exhausted that we just sat and stared at each other...and not in the romantic way you might think.

Here's a picture of Bailey chewing on a tater tot wrapper when we stopped for lunch on Sunday in the booming metropolis of Ritzville, Washington. This was right after he puked all over Grandma...haha...he was feeling good then! :) I will blog some other time about Bailey's version of the road trip...

Dumbest Thing...

I just did the dumbest thing I've done in quite some time. The best thing about it is that a) I'm now telling everyone else about it and b) that I was home by myself with no one to laugh with me. Okay, so here's what happened:

If you know me even a little bit, you know that I love to drink Diet Coke, it's definitely my favorite drink. Since I drink it so much, I buy it at Costco in the 32 pack. Well, if you've ever purchased the 32 pack of Diet Coke at Costco, you know that it comes shrink wrapped. Not usually a big deal except that today, I had something else (a Costco muffin, if you must know) in my other hand and I was trying to get the shrink wrap off a new case of Diet Coke. Since I only had one hand free, it was more difficult than normal to get the wrap off so I, being the resourceful moron that I am, look around my garage (which doubles as our "pantry") for the nearest tool to use to rip off the shrink wrap. Suddenly, my eyes land on a screwdriver--HARK! A sharp object! Some of you already know where this is going...for the rest of you that don't have experience with a sharp object and a beer-I mean, soda- can...you might be surprised when I tell you that when I stuck the screwdriver into the plastic wrap, I wasn't as accurate as I thought I was with my positioning of the screwdriver BETWEEN the soda cans. Keeping in mind that I had a muffin in one hand and I'm standing in my stocking feet in my garage, let's just say that when my screwdriver connected with the Diet Coke can, it was quite an explosion. So here I am, trying to find a place in the garage to set my muffin down while Diet Coke is spraying me, literally, from head to toe. I was laughing so hard at myself but then I suddenly quit laughing when I realized I had wasted a perfectly good Diet Coke. Crap.

Blogging Rookie

Okay, so after much pressure from several people in my life, I have succumbed and created a blog. Once I figure out what a blog is, I'm sure I'll really catch on to what I'm supposed to do.

I always think I'm funnier than other people think I am but I guess there are a few closet Mary fans out there who are remotely interested in reading whatever random things I might have to say.

This is the most pressure I've been under in quite a while...well, since last time I got pulled over for something! :) Since having a blog seems like a good excuse to post pictures of my cute baby, I will take advantage of the opportunity!