Catching up--Chapter 2: The Month of Birthday Bashes

Apparently, February is when all the cool kids give birth (okay, so maybe just my my seester-in-law Erin and myself). So, this February brought a 2nd birthday bash for the little Bit, followed a week later by the celebration of sweet Parker Dugan's 1st birthday. We celebrated in style at the Promiseland play area at our church, full of Yo Gabba Gabba fare and friends. I'm pretty certain that Laurel didn't understand much of it, she just loved the cookies and the Gabba. I must say, I'm pretty okay with that. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the day...


So, I made my best effort on the cake, but let's be honest....I'm way better at making it taste good than look pretty:). I added the picture with Kevin mostly because I think his facial expression is hilarious, and so you can get the full affect, her shirt says "I'm the Birthday Girl...now give me some cake". The irony of this shirt is that she refused to eat cake until the NEXT Saturday when she saw cousin Parker eating his and decided it wouldn't be so bad after all.

A couple of weeks later, we had Laurel's 2-year-old pictures taken. I was honestly pretty hesitant, because, well...she had been acting very "2" in the days prior. However, when we walked into the photo studio, her inner diva exploded. It was almost troubling. She threw her shoulders back and worked that camera. Again...not really sure how I feel about this. But, for now, we have some fun pictures to show for it.
Confession: I only added the last picture (and made it bigger) so you could see the nice big green bruise on my child's forehead. "What's that from?", you ask....Well, you see, a few short days before this little photo shoot, my little darling threw one of the grandest 2-year-old fits of all times. In her anger (don't ask me at what...who knows) she decided it would be a good idea to bang her forehead onto our ceramic tile (that has concrete underneath). I had a few moms ask if I was going to put concealer on this bruise (to which I inwardly replied, "do you know me?...I mean REALLY...this is NOT Toddlers in Tiaras"). It will just serve as an reminder when one day this little darling has a 2-year-old and I can smile and remind her of her own antics:).

Alright...now that I have you on the edge of your seats.....the next chapter in my update saga... Chapter 3: March...Honestly, the most stressful month I can remember. Dying to read it, aren't you;)?

Without further ado...

So as a feeble attempt to motivate myself to actually write on this thing, my good friend Danielle gussied up my blog. And now, I must attempt to catch my faithful few readers on what has happened throughout this first of half of 2010. Rather than send you on a blog-binge (as I'm sure you are so hungry for details of our life), I will break this into a few short chapters to summarize the happenings and (hopefully) catch us up.

Here goes nothing...January:

Happy New Decade! This one was way less painful than the ringing in of the last decade (ie Y2K). Not only were we thinking that the world was going to end (well, not me...but there were some), I, genius that I am, decided to have my wisdom teeth out days before. So, I spent the beginning of Y2K looking like Mrs. Potato Head. Not so, with 2010! In fact, I can't even remember what we did, it was so exciting. I'm pretty sure we rang in the new year with Dick Clark, and may not have actually made it to midnight Central Standard Time. I guess that what happens when you are old and 30:).
The most noteworthy event of January 2010 was a fun-filled trip to see Grandma and Grand-dad Ray on the farm in Missouri. The toddler and I flew up by ourselves (always an adventure), and spent a week with my family. It was freezing cold. I guess after 7 years, my blood has officially grown unaccustomed to winter. Who am I kidding? I hated winter when I lived there. In fact, spent about 5 months out of the year unable to feel my fingers because they were always so cold. So, in good humor, the Lord gave us a major snowstorm while we were there. A total of 8-10 inches (depending on who was doing the measuring). Laurel loved it! She built her first snow-thing (I would say man, but it was more blob-like), and watched Grand-dad shoveling all the snow on the tractor. It all melted just in time for us to board our plane back to Texas.
To this day, any time Laurel sees a tractor, she thinks it belongs to Grand-dad Ray.


...And on the way home...looking out above the clouds.

Next up...Chapter 2...February (the month of birthday bashes).