Cookie Monster

The cookie monster has invaded our house, leaving a gigantic, beautiful pile of cookies on our counter last night. This is only disastrous, because, well, I love cookies. I want to eat the whole plate today and then make more for tomorrow. Poor baby will probably come out with ADHD because of all this sugar! I promise I will stop... tomorrow!

Today my little niece Maia was born! Only a short 24 hours of labor and she popped out... So now I have a nephew and a niece! My little boy is one lucky cousin!

Shakin' Snakes

Dave and I were relaxing after lunch when our doorbell rang. Repeatedly. Incessantly.

Before we could get to the door, I hear some lady stomping down the stairs saying, "It don't seem like anybody's home!" I look out the window and there's a woman wondering the streets, clearly agitated, talking to our neighbor and other passerby.

Dave and I go outside to see what all the fuss is about. Getting down our walkway, we see three women and our neighbors talking together on the street (on the other side of our garden). For a second I get worried about a cat being dead, a child hurt, a tree fallen over... our cats are inside though, so we're not sure what could be the matter that involves us.

It's a huge snake in our garden! A type of snake the lady has never seen before, and she wants to borrow a shovel to kill it... but alas, it's only a rubber snake! Ha! Dave put it there to scare away the birds from our strawberry patch. I hope it scares them as much humans.

There is not a better strawberry than from your own garden.

The Carpet Devil

Some people might know this, but most people probably don't. There is such a thing as the carpet devil, and he installed the carpet on our stairs.

Now, I don't like carpet on stairs. It doesn't look as good as the nice wood underneath. It is hard to clean. Who can hold a vacuum, the extension cleaner, get into all the crevices, and not fall down the stairs at the same time? Thus, our carpet has looked awful for the past couple years (since I've been in charge of cleaning). Even though the kittens think of the stairs as an alternative scratching post, it had to go. And the time was last night.

It took Dave about 20 minutes to yank the carpet off the stairs. What remains is about one billion staples in the wood. We counted, got tired at one million, and we were only on step one. So far there is not a single step sans staples. And the old carpet is so cheap, it was falling apart and the dust got everywhere.

Thank you, carpet devil. We will remember you for years to come.

It's a boy!

It's amazing what technology can tell us these days... Just a little sound bouncing around my uterus and out pops an image... of our healthy baby boy at 21 weeks!

I am so excited I could start crying at any moment... oh wait, that's been the whole pregnancy so far. He was moving around a lot so it took the ultrasound tech a while to measure everything she needed. I suppose we have ourselves a handful already. Dave's dad kept talking about payback? But wait, I was an angelic child!

Do you see his sweet little hand near his eyes? We're convinced he has some of Shogo's genes in him as well. We're just hoping he won't be quite as lazy and fat as our wonderful Shogo was.

Now don't be asking us to tell you the name. Just call him Scooter. But please, any suggestions will be appreciated!

Making Jam

There is nothing worse than a traffic jam. What about a red alert on I-75 South, 90 miles from home? Luckily, I and my trusty Android came to the rescue. I got us off the highway onto a beautiful scenic route minutes before the outbreak of stopped cars reached us. A tractor trailer had overturned, caught on fire, started a brush fire, and closed all lanes on 75S. There were twenty miles of stopped cars. I'm not sure we'd even be home now. But luckily, our bellies are full of ropa vieja leftovers (old clothes only get better with time), and the kittens have been cuddled, among other small welcome-home chores.

Our reason for our travels? A Marine Corps reunion in Cincinnati, Ohio. Three of Dave's groomsmen were his Marine Corps buddies that have kept in touch and actually continue to like each other. Cool thing is, they all are either married or in long-term relationships, so the girls enjoy getting together too (though I did like hanging out with them even when I was the only girl... they're an extremely fun group). They'll be the ones who'll have our three-year-old reciting gun laws and out on the range learning all the rules. It was a weekend of games and laughter, and I miss them already. I love the fact that our country is so big and has such wonderful and different geography, but it also means that best friends can live very far away!

Tomorrow we find out if our baby is a boy or girl. We were thinking of baby names on the drive up; what about Marathon Johnston? For either gender, of course...

It's better than Christmas. I have that same feeling of wanting to go to sleep just so I can open my present in the morning!

Cats vs Kids

Now, I know that kittens and children are not the same. But we all know that they both like to be as cute as possible.

I just hope none of our kids look like this:

You'd think living in the city would prevent confrontation with wildlife, but alas, this picture was taken in our neighbor's backyard. The deer was trying to rescue a dead squirrel from Frances' clutches.

Children don't come with claws, do they?

If our children cause us half as much trouble as these two, I think Dave and I will consider ourselves lucky.