“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon”

That is a quote from the incomparable Winnie the Pooh.  He loved balloons!  Come to think of it, I’ve had a few dogs that love balloons, too.  And all my kids seem to go crazy over them.  I distinctly remember Emma playing with her first balloon at about 10 months old.  Lara had one, too, but for some reason Emma’s reactions stick out in my mind.  But I digress.  All of that has nothing to do with my post today.  I got off on a tangent! Time to reign it back in…

This past weekend, Britt, Jake, Finn and I got to be a part of a very memorable time in some dear friends’ of ours lives.  (Emma and Lara were with their other dad at the time.)  Jenny and Brian are pregnant with their first child, and this weekend they had a little get together to see if “Baby B” as they were calling it would in fact be a boy or a girl.  You may recall that Britt and I had a similar gathering, and we cut a cake to reveal the batter color indicating if Shocker would be a girl or a boy.  Our friends too it to the next level – using BALLOONS filled with helium in a big cardboard box.  It was SO FUN to watch.  But first, I have to tell about the games we were subjected too.  She had a 3 stage “Daddy Olympics” of sorts that my fabulous husband got to participate in – and he survived the first 2 rounds!  Round one had 8 dads from the audience chugging water form a baby bottle (the first 6 finished moved on):

Notice Britt was the only man on team Pink.  Or at least the only one man enough to don a pink shirt!

Then, they had to CORRECTLY diaper and put a onsite on a baby doll.  There was some cheating going on here!  I knew Britt would excel at this one – he was the only dad with an infant on the panel!  He even cuddled and burped his baby when he was done!  The 4 fastest moved on…

Round 3 was a pacifier spitting contest.  (Think watermelon seeds…) This was pretty funny.  All 4 daddies had very different techniques, and I have to give my hubby props because he came in second!  And there are not any pictures of this event as my camera freaked out about this time, and really, what can possible be more attractive that the ones above from the bottle chugging… ;)

With our friend Darci (who was also on team PINK with me), I got to help MC a game of “Old Wives Tales” where Jenny was asked 15 questions related to old wives tales that “predicted” the gender of the baby.  As you can see from the board at the end of the game, it was VERY heavy on the “boy” side…

After everyone had voted pink or blue, cast a lot for the corresponding name they thought the parents had picked, consumed fun foods based on her cravings, cute blue and pink treats, and LOTS of bottled water to stave off the heat, and the games were all done, the time had FINALLY come.  A friend of Jenny’s had the dubious job of acquiring the balloons in the correct color and sealing them in the box.  The guests all gathered around Jenny’s mom’s side yard to watch the happy couple open the box.  Here is the video I took revealing the gender of Baby B:

It’s a BOY!  The look on Jenny’s face is priceless!  She has lots of little boys in her family, so I know she will get lots of good advice.  And of course, she can always ask me, too.  We are so excited for them and look forward to welcoming Braxton Wayne in November!  

Jenny and Brian – thanks for including us in your big day!  LOVE you guys!

And lastly, I have to mention the HEAT (previously alluded to in the party wrap-up)!  While it is oppressive, this week is the first week we’ve hit triple digits, and by this time last year, we had been in the thick of it for almost a month.  And, it still looks like this summer will be better than last summer.  I am trying to not complain about the heat, because NOTHING can compare to the misery I was in last summer with the record breaking heat, my complicated pregnancy, and an old home and air conditioner that simple could not keep up.  I am a million times better off this summer, and for that I HAVE to be grateful!  Thank you Lord, for providing!

Friday Musings

It’s Friday, and I have no drama to dwell on at the moment, so I thought I would post some end of the week fluff.  One of the common conversation starters in my house is the question “What was your favorite thing you did today?”  Hubby and I ask each other, we ask the kids, sometimes even the kids ask each other.  We don’t do it every day, and there is no rhyme or reason to it, it just started when he and I were dating, and it has grown from there.  I can honestly say, my favorite thing of the day happened early this morning!  (Get your head out of the gutter!)  My sweet, precious, 4 year old bundle of energy got out of bed a good half hour before he usually does.  I was in the living room sitting in my recliner, and I had just finished up my quiet time.  He climbed up on my lap, and I held him and we cuddled for about 45 minutes.  I had things I needed to be doing (Don’t mind my non-washed styled hair today), but this time was precious to me.  He wanted me to rub his back, and lightly tickle him.  He told me all about what he did at swim lessons last night, and he told me this: 

I just love him so much and he melts my heart when he does stuff like this!  Makes up for the CONSTANT chatter and questions from last night when I really just wanted him to go to bed early and leave me alone because it was 106 outside and 83 inside!  UGH!  

In other news, Oklahoma State Cowboy Football released the images of their new uniforms for this season from Nike.  My buddy Kyle Porter first blogged about it late Wednesday night.  He got so many hits, fans crashed his site during the day on Thursday.  He got a lot of local press Thursday, too!  Good job, Kyle!  The OSU Athletics site didn’t put them up until late Thursday evening, but I digress.  My point is, they have been THE TALK of Cowboys fans on both Facebook and Twitter (and message boards, too, I am sure!) for the past 36 hours or so.  In my best assessment of the posts I have seen, Guys LOVE them, Women are split down the middle! LOL!  My opinion (which if you follow me on Twitter or are a Facebook friend, you already know), is that gray is NOT an OSU color and it looks drab and dirty, I have never been a fan of all black, and I LOATHE Evil Phantom Pete.  My first choice would be white helmet, orange jersey, orange pants.  Second choice is white helmet (the gray and the black are both “flat” (not shiny) and I just don’t like ‘em), black jersey, orange pants.  Whatever they wear, it doesn’t matter.  It’s just going to be super fun to watch my ‘Boys have an AMAZING season and to see Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon (whom I helped recruit and was there for his signing day when I worked in football) leave it all out on the field and put some wins on the scoreboard.  GO POKES!  (and PLEASE leave Evil Phantom Pete to die off. So disturbing…)

 

And finally, the weather.  What. The. HEAT!!!!!  It’s gotten to the point where it doesn’t even matter.  It’s so hot, and there is nothing more to say about it, and DEFINITELY nothing we can do about it.  People posting pics of the thermometer in their car are completely ignored.  The fact that everyone we know is going into cardiac arrest when they open their electric bill is not even fazing us anymore.  Weather used to be the go-to topic when a conversation hit a lull, but it’s so hot and boring to talk about, people just stare at each other.  Our governor is asking up to pray for rain.  There are burn bans, water rationing schedules, and swimming pools across the state are closing because the water is too warm to safely swim in.  We are tying or breaking heat records every day.  AND THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT!  It's not even August yet.  My dad always talks about the summer of 1980 because it was so hot.  (I don’t remember, I was 5.)  Well, Dad, I think we may beat that one by quite a bit the way it looks.  We are actually CHEERING for tropical storm Don in the Gulf of Mexico to hit Texas and bring some moisture our way.  How sad is that?  When was the last time we BEGGED for a storm?

So, on that happy note, I will say – enjoy your weekend!  We are taking the Jakester back to school shopping a bit tomorrow, and enjoying a block party put on by a church near our neighborhood, and waiting patiently for our girls to come back home (they will be back Monday night).  Should be a good (hot) day.  Hope you have one, too!

Today is the day!

Just a few more hours! I am so excited to get going on this trip! So excited, I woke up 45 minutes before my alarm, and couldn’t go back to sleep! I don’t even have any trip details to take care of (besides packing the kids for their destinations, which is mostly done), and I can’t turn my mind off! I have some laundry to fold, and I need to get ready for work, but really, that’s about it! I am going to work a full day, and then we are off to Dallas for the night! Let the adventure begin!

In the meantime, we had a fun little adventure last night, too. Since Sunday evening, the Oklahoma news channels and weather men had been forecasting that Tuesday would be a severe tornado outbreak across the state. Monday, they reports got even more blown up, and a timeline we saw late Monday night indicated that the I-35 corridor (including our town) would be hit between 3 and 5 pm. So, we woke up Tuesday morning planning how to stay safe. My mom was picking the girls up from school, and my dad had been assigned to get Jake from daycare. At lunch, we put one of our cars in our garage, and carpooled back to campus for the afternoon. About 3, my boss told me to leave whenever I needed to do to gather kids and be safe – but at that point the storm wasn’t moving as fast as they first said, any everything was still west of us by a long way. I left my office about 4 and went to Britt’s. About 4:30, they closed campus and sent everyone home. So, we stopped by our house to put our dog in, gathered a few things, then went out to my parents’ house where our kids were. Felt there was safety in numbers, I guess.

The first hour was pretty uneventful. I had the most fun switching from news station to news station and comparing the panic level of the different weather men! They did not disappoint! But, as the rain started, and the skies got darker, and the sirens right outside my parents’ house went off, we decided it was time to duck and cover. In my parents’ neighborhood, there is a common area in the middle of the main circle. There is a building on the land that has a HUGE concrete storm cellar on one side. We, after putting my mom’s dogs in their cages, headed that way. We were some of the last neighbors to get there. There were at least 30 people and about 12 pets down there! And we still had room for more! Some folks came very prepared: flashlights, camp chairs, radios, blankets, snacks, video games… We just came with ourselves. We hoped not to stay long…

Luckily, the radios came in handy. We never heard an all clear from the sirens, but after about 30 minutes or so, the radio informed us that is was all east of where we were, so a few of the men ventured out the door at the top of the stairs. BLUE SKIES! So, we went back across the street to Nana’s house. Where the electricity (light-tricity according to my 4 year old @JakeWeaverSays) was out. We bared that for a bit, even lit all the candles we could find, decided we were hungry, and headed for town – with the rest of the population. We beat the crown to Mexico Joe’s by a few minutes, but it was still crazy busy! We did hear that there were some with significant damage in our town, but thankfully as a whole we fared very well here. Some areas of the state and region were not so fortunate.

When I last texted my mom about 9:30, they still did not have power. I am anxious to hear from them this morning to see when/if it ever came back on. That was a fun adventure, but I am hoping the next few days are full of much better surprises!