Yesterday was John's 4 month birthday. Today we went to the doctor and he got another round of shots. Oh, the pain....and I mean for me too. It was hard to see his little pudgster face, usually beaming with that toothless smile, wrinkle up in pain and emit the dreaded silent scream...followed by the siren scream. He pretty much slept all day. However this evening Kyle discovered a noise that John thought was hilarious. And that put him in a good mood despite his achy thighs (where they injected the vaccines)....

I don't have much to post today but I decided if I ever have a bad day all I have to do is go to YouTube and search for "baby laughing" for tons of instant pick-me-up videos. You can't watch a baby laugh hysterically without laughing yourself. I think it's impossible. I found this one video which made me laugh so hard it brought tears to my eyes. John doesn't yet laugh this heartily but I can't wait until he does!!

It's all about the little things in life....if only we as adults could laugh like this I think we'd all be a lot healthier!
Baby Laughing

I'm not sure if I blogged about this but about 2 weeks ago Kyle encountered a dead rat in our backyard. We were traumatized upon this discovery and wondered if this was an isolated incident or if rats were terrorizing our neighborhood by night. Well, that day Kyle bought some rat poison packets to spread around our shed, the garage, & the attic. He checked the packets every day for signs of disturbance until a week later we noticed the packets in the garage didn't have little bite marks in them, no.......they had been ferociously ripped open and all the poison pellets had been eaten.

"Something's going to die" Kyle declared.

5 days later.......

Yesterday as the sun greeted our eyes, the smell of death greeted our noses. This was it....we knew it was coming. At lunch time Kyle and his friend Kevin scoured the backyard, under all the bushes, in the shed...nothing. In the evening Kyle returned to investigate some more and decided something had died under our shed.....EEEEEKS! Yucky. barf. disgusting.

Kyle visited the neighbor behind us, Julie, who said she too had scoured her backyard and had smelled the same stench. They discovered a hole leading from her backyard to under our shed. Bingo. Something was down there. But what? The unknown is the most scary part. So Kyle had to figure out a way to lift the shed and retract said animal (gag). I humbly called our friend, Chris, who lives nearby to come help Kyle because there was no way I could lift that shed.


God bless Chris & Kyle. The heroes of the story. They attacked the shed with the fierceness of 2 animal pest control ninjas.


1st issue: In order to lift the shed, they had to remove a whole LOAD of flattened moving boxes that we had stored in there.

2nd issue: As they removed the boxes, hundreds (and I mean hundreds) of huge, flying, 1 1/2" cockroaches swarmed out of the boxes where they were hiding. Chris and Kyle were in the thick of it and sprayed RAID like crazy, while Julie the neighbor and I screamed like crazy at the size and magnitude of these roaches. (No better way to bond with your neighbors than over dead rodents, huh?)

3rd issue: Lifting the shed...not so easy. We (more like Chris & Kyle) used lots of boards, shovels, and various tools to lever it up.

4th issue: The STANK! Man, there it was.....a stinky, stanky, skanky skunk! (While Julie the neighbor had retreated to the safety of her home and would not come out, I stood there panicked, horrified, yet strangely intrigued at the sight)

5th issue: Getting it out. Kyle had to roll the nasty skunk out with a pitchfork and wrap it up in 2 trash bags. (more gags)

The deed is done. The skunk is gone and, man, was it NAAAAS-tay.....

Question: Where did this skunk come from? We live in the middle of the city, not the boondocks? Makes you think....what in the world is crawling around YOUR house in the middle of the night...

Nothing new to report...It's been quite a mundane week. John and I have made various & routine outings but nothing special.

I've decided to participate in the new Beth Moore bible study at church--which I am way excited about. It's a 10 week study on the book of Esther. However, I must confess I was a bit distracted at the onset of this week's session. Beth was wearing this adorable red boxy cropped jacket and I instantly focused in on it like a laser. Girls, you know what it's like when you've been looking for that certain article of clothing and then you actually see the fulfillment of that image in reality....the mind can go cookoo.

"Wonder where she got that?"...."That jacket is exactly what I've been looking for"...."How cute would that look on ME!"...."I must find this jacket!!"

This was my thought process for the first 10 minutes and I actually said a prayer that I would LET GO of the dern jacket so I could focus on the lesson! So as she continues the lesson, she reaches to the back of her neck and pulls out the price tag that she intentionally left attached to this jacket ("because you'll never believe the price, y'all" she says) and asks a person in the front row to read the price....$19.99! Well, shoot me in the foot! After all my efforts to block out my covetous thoughts she has to purposely bring it to my attention and ALSO tell me it's a bargain?!?! The nerve....she never said where she got it either.....

Here's John posing for me during tummy time today. Ain't he just a ball of munchy-wunchy goodness? gonna seriously eat me some of those arms and cheeks....git over here, you plump confection of wonderously blubbery love! :)

John's no 2-percenter. I thought we would have to leave at some point in the 3rd quarter but he sure surprised me and didn't make a fuss. He did see that we were winning so he fell asleep in the 4th quarter.

Today I've been running around trying to figure out how to get a passport for John. We're going international in January so I had to collect his birth certificate and all the necessary paperwork. Why is it so complicated to get a birth certificate? You'd think they would send you one in the mail automatically but nooooooo....you have to go pick it up, of course.

Let me just say...what was that all about?

The hurricane that blew in out of nowhere, that media went nutso about, and that spewed not a drop of rain in Houston....that's the craziest build up for nothing if I ever saw one.

I know Humberto hit some part of Texas hard but yesterday they sounded like Houston was going to blow off the map in a matter of 12 hours....

Anyways, moving on to more important things....since we weren't blown away in a sea of destruction last night, John and I went to the Galleria to meet up with my friend, Kim, and her little guy (and John's bud), Logan.

While we were there we spotted someone very famous who looked like he was going incognito, attempting to fend off his fans and the flashing bulbs of the papparazzi.

Click here to see the celebrity in question.

Here's John and Papaw in their Aggie gear ready to yell loud for the Ags.

Ok, here we go....here's some video (are you surprised?) of John getting ready for the game Saturday morning (I told you this video feature was going to be your worst nightmare...oh, and please excuse my singing voice...yikes)

As you are well aware, yesterday was a real dud of a day according to John's video blog. As promised, today was much more exciting and fraught with adventures in girls, games, and grub.

Kendall & John (below)

Then, John received a package in the mail! His quarterly new toy from Ebeanstalk, courtesy of Kyle's company. When John was born the company bought us a one year gift series from Ebeanstalk. So every 3 months he gets a new toy based on his development at that age...newborn, 3 mo, 6 mo..etc...

THEN, John and I went to deliver a meal to his new pal Rusty & his family. Rusty was born about one month ago.

So there you go, Mr. John.....today was waaaay more exciting. No more picking on mommy!

John was very opinionated today. This is his own personal video blog recounting the day's events to all his fans. Apparently, he took issue with today's activities. I promised that tomorrow would hold more exciting and adventurous opportunities for him.

Note: As I played this video back for John, he watched very intently and smiled satisfactorily as he watched himself protest---"that is exactly what I meant to say", he seemed to be thinking....