This Old House

I often say that we cannot move from Memphis unless we move our house with us. I know that could imply that I have a lot of stuff, which I do, but mainly it's just that we love our house so much. It has a basement! A full basement! With lots of stuff in it! I sometimes think that when our house was built, a young Moses was frolicking around the neighborhood. So, when they put the tile in the kitchen, Moses was about to enter high school. So, they just went ahead and put in that same tile that is in every high school cafeteria in America. I am sure it is great tile if you have a janitor with a buffer that comes by once a week but in a kitchen, not so great.

I have bought stripper and worked on this floor, I have scrubbed on my hands and knees with a Brillo pad, but it always still looks dirty. I want to put ceramic tile down, but then there is the stove and the cabinets are built around the stove. So, when it goes out, which with my luck, should happen next week, I will have to totally remodel the kitchen anyway so there is no point putting ceramic tile down now only to have to get it up later. Because I cannot deal with that floor anymore (seriously, when everyone was here for Daddy's birthday, I just shut the kitchen door and said it was off limits), I went the peel 'em and stick 'em route. I have tried this before and it looked awful but Tara did it in her kitchen and it looks great. So, we I got the exact same tile and we I put it down starting Saturday. The key is to buy the most expensive one and to get the darkest color out there. I might never mop again as this floor is looking fabulous. Emmy was very helpful.

First, I took all the stuff off the floor in the pantry and in the midst of this, was when I screamed, "get in the car, we are going to Home Depot!" and started the project. After I finished, I realized that I could not put all that stuff back in the pantry so I decided to just clean it out. I woke up around 330 Friday morning not able to go back to sleep so I figured that was a great time to start. Among the random things I found in the pantry so far:

4 crock pots. Four. I don't cook but I make a mean Rotel.

A sickle, yes a sickle (it was here when we bought the house, honest!), a sledgehammer, and a key to turn off the water at the meter. A box of grout, two orange extensions cords and a drill that John swears I never gave him.

A tub of soap. And a ziplock bag of guitar picks. This is when I thought it would be brilliant to make little soaps with guitar picks inside them for all of our friends for Christmas a few years ago. Who doesn't just put that stuff in the pantry???

Rock salt, lots of rock salt. And about ten packages of ice cream mix. Sunday we made strawberry ice cream and a gallon of vanilla.And now the pantry is neat and amazingly, there is food in there. Who would have thought???

Some light weekend reading

Here we go with step one of studying for the CPA Exam.

Bonding

Emmy and Rudy had a long talk last night. It almost looks like they were discussing how dirty our carpet is.

What a cute little boy!

This morning, Emmy and I had to run in Wal-Mart to get formula for Missy's. I figured now was the perfect time to try her out sitting in the shopping cart instead of putting her infant car seat in the buggy. She seemed to love it but she did hold on tightly the whole time just in case. When we left, this woman walked by and said, "oh what a pretty little boy!" Boy! Boy! This is exactly why the girl wears nothing but pink; I test the waters in blue one time and this is what we get.

Beware... they are mobile

Emmy is officially crawling and Lucas is trying to stand. Heaven help the Taras.

The Girls

Gabby has always been so very special to me and I hope she will forever let me be a part of her life. I always tell her about how we went out to eat when she was only a week old and I am sure she rolls her eyes at me now that she is so grown up and entering the 3rd grade. But, seeing her grow up has just blown me away. Last night, Emmy and I stopped by and the girls (with Gabby's sister Grace) played but little brother Coen was a little under the weather. Gabby looks at me and says, "Ms. Tara, I just can't believe you are a MOM". Yeah, me either kiddo.

Beating the Heat

Poor Tiny Tot had her shots yesterday and today her babysitter called to let me know the girl had fever. I called the doctor's office and they said if the fever stayed below 104 to not worry. 104! 104!!! If it goes to 104, we are going straight to the ER. So, the girl is stripped down and has a cool, wet cloth on her head trying to get her fever down from the 102 degrees where it was earlier today. I really, really miss Momma on days like this. I need her on days like this...

Ten things I love about Emmy

1. The way that she breathes in deeply when you play with a shirt or a burp cloth over her face, like it is really taking her breath away.
2. The way that she cuddles up at night in our bed.
3. The way that she and her daddy look lying together in bed in the mornings, both of them sleeping on their tummies.
4. The way that her little shoulders are just so tiny and how her little shoulder blades are just adorable.
5. The way that she blows bubbles without actually blowing bubbles—really just making propeller noises.
6. The way that she smiles when I kiss her little feet.
7. The way that she grins sometimes at just nothing.
8. The way that she chuckles when Aunt Becca feeds her squash.
9. The way that she growls at her toys when she is playing in the floor.
10. The way that she looks in shades.

Just your typical 6 month birthday party

Carrots, a goofy hat and mango flavored fruit puffs. Can it get any better???And Emmy can sit all by herself now! It's quite adorable.

Six Months Old

Today is our sweet girl’s six month birthday. I can’t believe it. This time last year, I was carrying beef sticks and crackers in my purse to fend off hunger and nausea strikes at any point during the day. I was going home at lunch to get quick catnaps in so that I could work for the rest of the afternoon. And look at us now. Here is our sweet Emmy. For the longest time, I wondered what in the world we were doing and if we could even do this. I still do sometimes, but now, I can't believe that we ever lived before we had her. She smiles and it just absolutely melts me. I can actually feel my knees going limp. We went to eat lunch yesterday at El Mezcal and there was a family across the aisle from us with two daughters. The dad kept staring at Emmy and I know he was thinking, yeah, my girls were that small once. I kept staring at his daughters thinking, yeah, my girl is going to be that age soon, so soon. But in an effort to keep things entertaining, Emmy promptly reached up and spilled my large coke all over the table. That's my girl... Trying to snap Mama back into reality and telling me to quit worrying about all the things that could happen and just sit here and enjoy the absolute wonder that is right now.

The poor girl apparently has no toys and is forced to play with solicitations that Mama gets in the mail...I love this photo where she seems to be staring lovingly at Daddy. I took this with my cell phone so it is kind of grainy...

Our latest favorite thing to do is to stroll up to Do's to eat sushi. Emmy seems to enjoy sitting on the patio with Mama and Daddy. I think she likes it to so much since everyone that walks by tells her how beautiful she is...

Little Miss Sunshine

Seriously. This kid has to sleep. As in all night. I am exhausted! John is exhausted! Bill and Rudy are tired. We are tired folks around here!!! I think she must be trying to get her top teeth in now as she keeps waking up around 2 am and is just grumpy. Not really crying but just whiney so we put her in our bed. We tried a bottle and she didn’t want it so I put it in the fridge and then we did a new bottle at 3 and she had some of it. Finally, at 430 this morning, I just put her in her bed and let her whimper. Then, mean Mama that I am, I turned the baby monitor off! Off! After my full hour of sleep, I got ready and then went to get Little Miss Sunshine up and she was terribly annoyed that I had woken her. Are you kidding ME??? I told her that was how I felt last night when I was begging her to sleep with the rest of us. By the time we got to Wal-Mart, Emmy was completely conked out. Every morning we drop John off at work but I hate to get her to the baby sitter’s too early so we go to Wal-Mart or Walgreens’ or something. I usually have fifteen minutes or so and I get a little bit of my shopping done without having to make a big trip in the evenings or on the weekends. It is kind of nice. And there is no one there that early! But, the workers at Wal-Mart all know us now and wave and say hello when they see us. So funny! Check out those fat thighs!!! She is looking more and more like me everyday!

Games I Play

I just love our DVR, love it, and I record Oprah every day. Sometimes, I like to see what strange expression I can get on Oprah's face when I pause it. Yeah, we are really boring.

Random Mommy Thought

This morning on the way out the door, Emmy spit up all over me. I was lucky enough to twist her just right so that she didn't get it on herself but only on the carpet and on my skirt. I wiped it off with a burpcloth and headed out. All day, I can smell it and think of her and wish I was home with her right now.

At The Drive In

We went to our first movie with Emmy, The Simpsons. Momma hated the Simpsons and would just about vomit every time Neall and Daddy watched it so it was quite funny to me to take Emmy there for her first movie. A few years ago, John and I dressed up as Marge and Homer for Halloween so I took the wig with us to get some good shots but Lucas was the only one that was an active participant and he (well, you know...) put it on backwards...

Favor

As you all know, Neall and Becca are expecting little Solomon Clark in only five short weeks! I can hardly believe that the time is almost here for him to arrive. We are all so very excited.

I have a very personal favor to ask of you and I completely understand if you can’t or would prefer not to do it, but I thought I would ask anyway. It is so important to me to have Emmy and Sol know about Momma and what kind of person she was and is, and the fun that they would have had with her and the love that she would have given them both. I worry sometimes that when the time comes, I am not going to be able to adequately explain these things to Emmy. So, I am asking for your help. I would like to make a book for them of letters from those that knew mom the best. If you could write one letter to both Sol and Emmy and send it to me, I would greatly appreciate it. It can be anything you want: describing mom, telling a funny story about mom, what mom was like with us, what mom might have been like with them, whatever. It can be handwritten (which will be really neat if I can scan the handwritten note and have that extra personal touch) or typed. Photos would be great—either you with mom or you now or you with your family… just whatever.

When Momma was sick, I heard so many things about her that I might have never known. I want to make sure Sol and Emmy know all those wonderful things and give them a chance to know her, even if they can’t see her. If you can think of anyone that might want to do this, please forward it to them. I look forward to hearing back from you!! My email is taradburton@comcast.net

Keep them in your prayers...

Please keep the Berry family in your prayers. Michelle (Countz) graduated with Neall and the family is at St. Jude's with their son, Garrett. They discovered on Monday that he has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. We are all thinking of them...

Emmy loves LuLu

Has a child ever loved a toy so much?? Emmy loves this stuffed LuLu like there is no tomorrow. Her Aunt Pat got it for her a few months ago and we do not leave home without it. Last night we walked up to Do’s, a great sushi restaurant in our neighborhood, and we brought LuLu along for the ride. John and I were cracking up because Emmy would just start chuckling every now and then. I stuck LuLu in the cup holder of her stroller in hopes that we didn’t lose her along the ride and Emmy kept reaching up and holding her hand. Seeing as LuLu has eight arms, Emmy would occasionally pick a different hand to hold.

I told you we had teeth!

That's it! I am done!

Teresa Haynes Lee is probably one of my oldest friends and she was in town to visit her parents. It was wonderful to see her and her kids again, and of course, meet her youngest daughter, Kennedy. Her oldest, Lawson, is the spitting image of Teresa when we were young and Garrett, well, all he cared about were trains. Teresa is a photographer now and is absolutely amazing. If you ever hear that she is available in your area, I urge you to take advantage of it and book her. Immediately. She did the photos today and already sent me these two photos. I can't believe my sweet Emmy's little precious face. By the way, Teresa told me I could put it on my MySpace page, but I figure that applies to my little blog too....

Five Months Old

Oh the month we have had! Emmy is trying so very hard to crawl. She wants to so very badly and you can see in her eyes that she really knows how to do it , she just can’t quite get the hang of it yet. She will get up on her hands and knees and then her little arms just collapse under the immense weight and pressure of her little tiny body! I immediately sigh a huge sigh of relief and John says, “oh, Baby, you will get it next time” or gets on the floor with her and tries to encourage her to crawl to him. I can’t stand the thought of her growing up so quickly and he can’t wait to see every little miraculous thing she has in store for us.

When I dropped her off at the babysitter this morning, I kissed her fat little belly and told her not to do anything precious or adorable until I got back to pick her up. I am sure she paid me no mind and went on about her day with her absolute adorableness and precious-hood. She is trying to blow little bubbles with her mouth, it cracks me up to see! I bought a thing of bubbles the other day for us to play with together. We went to eat lunch with John’s dad and John pulls out her bubbles and starts blowing them to her at the table! In the restaurant! Of course, she was thrilled. Last night it was really stormy and instead of being frightened by the thunder, she would just laugh every time she heard it. This child is not right, I tell you, just not right! Of course, we have relented on making her sleep in her crib and she has been in our bed almost every night this week. It is just so cozy to wake up with her. Even if she does turn completely sideways and poke us in the ribs. Every day is just amazing. I cannot believe how lucky we are that we have our sweet Emmy.