The spring/summer session of our CSA ended today, and we're not going to do the fall/winter one since Coach no longer works just down the street from the pick-up. The B-man and I have been making the hourlong round-trip journey each week since the big guy has been back at work, and we decided it just didn't make sense to keep doing that...especially since there's now a working farm just a few miles from our house that has a great farmstand open until the first freeze. So I look forward to heading over there each week and picking out the veggies that I want! We're on the waiting list there for their CSA season next summer since that will just be so much more convenient.

Alas, we have LOVED our experience over the last year. Behold the contents of the final box:

I am not going to name names or anything, but SOMEONE just got back from Italy and pointed out that my child had gotten all hippie while she was gone! The nerve of some people!

kidding.

I did decide, however, that it was time to just grab some scissors and do a little snip-snip to take care of the craziness over B's ears. The scraggly before:

The after:

And the after-after, which involved me getting out a hairbrush for the first time! (Jenn D--I'm pretty sure this was the set you gave me almost 2 years ago at the shower! Thanks for helping B look sharp....all these months later!)

FALL!

(The big guy was home all day yesterday because the schools were closed for Yom Kippur, and all I have to show for it is this picture. Of a tree. Not really sure where the day went but someone was VERY happy his daddy was around all day!)

PS-- Not sure if you're reading this, Barrett, but if you are: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!

Kathy and Joel invited the B-man and me to accompany them to a local county fair on Saturday. Since the big guy was going to be gone all day with a Saturday-scheduled game (and I'm not kidding-- he left at 6:45 AM and got back after 7 PM), I took them up on the fun invite!

FUNcle Joel sure lived up to his name on this adventure! He pushed B around most of the time and tried to keep it interesting:

He also tried really hard to entice B with the longhorns, but animals were pretty much a no-go with the little guy:

Every exhibition hall we entered was quickly met with a forceful string of "NO NO NO NO NO!" complete with back-arching. (I will grant that the halls were very loud and very stinky, however, so perhaps it was just sensory overload.)

BUT...there was one animal exhibit he just couldn't get enough of: the chicks!

Joel tried to get him excited about a gigantic tractor:

But this camo-Kawasaki was BY FAR his fave! Want to guess what we heard when we finally dragged him away? If you guessed "NO NO NO NO NO NO!!", you win!

Before we left the animals behind for good, Joel gave him a quick lecture on the value of brisket:

And speaking of.... B apparently was just in utter shock about the size of the BBQ beef sandwich!

Thanks for such a fun morning, K&J!! Can't wait to go next year with BABY P (who surely is going to have brown hair and blue eyes, right? I mean, look at you guys in this pic-- too cute!)!!!!

Oh, and thanks to them also for hooking me up with the delicious pies sold at the fair. Coach's prize for being 4-0 (WHOO-HOO!):

The wee boy who lives here has not been blazing any trails with language development. I mean, he can rattle off the animal sounds with great speed, but he's not battling his Uncle Geoff's record for verbal genius-ness at this age. (Have we talked in these pages about how my brother could name all the Astros players at age 18 months? Nice. My child's parlor trick is saying "HONEY" when asked what a bear eats. But I digress....)

I can now proclaim without hesitation that the B-man has his first official 2-word phrase and it is..........."Get Down." I'm going to say that his Auntie Ro is rubbing off on him from afar and the rest of the sentence is "and Boogie." But that remains to be seen. (Correction: the big guy informs me that B says "Daddy's truck" but I haven't heard it.)

The crazy thing is that he didn't stop there. He then looked up at me and uttered something so shocking that the only reaction I could have was to have him join Ralphie with the LifeBuoy:

(Totally kidding. He just really likes the taste of soap, apparently!)

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Seriously. I have no idea what color his eyes are.

The B-man is so very blessed to have 3 Wise Men in his life:
Two of the three grandfather-types have already climbed to the top (and fallen down) one particular hill, but the youngest of the bunch--one of this blog's most loyal readers although he refuses to leave comments--is hitting that pinnacle TODAY!!

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY, GRAND BIG DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We raise our glass of 43 to you and wish you the happiest of birthday celebrations!!

It's Test Time, folks. Have you studied?

One of these toddler activities elicits PRAISE and one causes STRESS!!!

Can you guess which one is which??

a)

b)


Hope you can make it to the head of the class!

congested. spent large parts of yesterday lying on couch with box of tissues.

yuck.

at least these guys had some fun together:


hopefully today will be a better day!

Coach Big Guy had a game last night since the school district observes Jewish holidays and Rosh Hashanah starts today at sundown. We have a lot of cold-weather orange gear ready to go, but since we're kinda in the in-between time, the (admittedly blurry) B-man opted for some hippity-hoppity frogs!

While he was not content to sit on the bleachers like last week, he was still decently well-behaved. It's funny to watch people interact with him-- they all get the giggles at how fast he takes off and runs. I had to scoop him up at one point to prevent a collision with some marching band members! (And, in case anyone is wondering, I vote "VERY COOL" on the subject of high school marching band members! I know several of you have my back on that one, right?!)

And the Rams won 34-14. Whoo-hoo!

In other news....

I would like to give a HUGE Kentobean shout-out to Opa's cousin Billy. Thanks so much for leading the pack on my late-to-the party caption contest! I love hearing from you!

Unfortunately, however, none of the guessers was able to read my mind. I had literature on the brain, people-- and with a nod to Judy Blume, the picture could be captioned, "Are you there, God? It's me, Brooksie."

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Editor's note-- I've now heard from 3 people that the comments aren't showing up on this entry. I am utterly mystified. They show up on my screen, in two different browsers, and several of you have been able to leave a comment. Sigh. I guess the internet hates me today. Keep trying!

People have asked me if I'm bored staying at home rather than being back in the working world. While I have enjoyed every job I've ever had, I always ended up stressed. My personality is such that, if I'm gonna get a "grade," I'm gonna go way above and beyond the proverbial call of duty. And it used to make me really upset when colleagues wouldn't show the same kind of behavior....like, the kind of upset where I'd wake up at night worried to death that a project would fall through no matter how many hours I'd put into it, and then have trouble going back to sleep. I can assure you I never got paid enough to make that kind of stress worth it.

Soooo....... I'm pretty much the epitome of content these days since I can just do my own thing on my own time. Whether or not this "thing" is of much value could probably be put up for a debate, but it's a good day (as it was yesterday) when I can skype with Sheils, email back and forth with Annie Kate so much it seems like she's in the next room not across the country, engage in witty banter with both of the above--and others--in the photo comments section of Facebook, get electronic updates about Grant's ear infection, see a picture of the new purse that Sara bought with help from our birthday gift card, catch up on my gossip through a bunch of blogs, and take the opportunity to do some cooking. Behold:

Appetizer/Snack-- Parmesan Zucchini Sticks with Smoked Roasted Romesco Sauce

Dinner-- "Shrimp" Pad Thai (used chicken instead)

Dessert-- Peach-Nectarine Cornmeal Cobbler (with blueberries instead of nectarines)

What's that you say? Oh yes! I do indeed have a little munchkin who needs my attention, too! We managed to have all kinds of adventures, from swinging to checking out the neighborhood ducks, from knocking down blocks to reading lots of books, from going on a produce-picking-up adventure to singing silly songs. Speaking of which...I leave you with this video for a Thursday giggle. I wish I could tell you to just mute it, but then you'd miss all the fun. So just know that I'm really making clear exactly why I wasn't in the select singing group in high school!! But how could staying home with this guy and his facial expressions NOT be the best job ever?


PS-Congrats to Jen, Chad, and Molly on the arrival late last night of Leah Rose!

PPS-- Updated caption contest below!

Okay, a much more interesting caption for the photo below came to me later today. (My creative juices just weren't flowing when it was posted.)

SO....here's the game: I'll send a really good prize your way if you can guess the caption that I recently realized I should have written! It's totally possible-- if you are on my wavelength!

????????????????????????????????????????????

...we all found the sky so enchanting:

Let's revisit an earlier topic-- the Case of the Mysterious Veggie.

Gabe, Diana, and my aunt Margaret WIN THE (nonexistent!) PRIZE!! They were indeed Lima Beans!!!!

(A whole lot of packaging for not very many beans, no? Oh well-- Stumpy's earthworm farm appreciated all those pods!)

I could not decide whether we should make the trek to the big guy's home opener Friday night. It had been raining ALL day and didn't appear to be letting up as we had thought it might. After B took a 3+ hour nap, however, I realized that I was going to need some sort of activity to fill the early evening time--since he probably wasn't going to be sleepy again anytime soon!--and determined that we were going on an ADVENTURE!

It's a pretty big change to have the football games be on Friday evenings. I mean, I know that's the standard time for high school pigskin, but I've spent the last 6 seasons enjoying Saturday morning JV games so it's a bit of a shock to the system. With traffic in this area, especially on a Friday evening, and it being 16 miles to the new school (which, even without traffic, takes at least 30+ minutes), it's a bit more complicated than if, say, we lived in the community where he taught and knew people. But again-- this was an ADVENTURE!

So we trekked out there--surprisingly only taking us 40 minutes in the rain and the rush-hour--and snapped a pic of our orange-ness before getting out of the car:

Really, the biggest apprehension I had about going to the game was how B would behave. If you know my little street urchin, you know he's a bit....active. And, sure enough, he L.O.V.E.D walking along the stands (sporting his first item from the fall line of Carter's Closet-- thanks, Susan!):

No, Brooksie, the cheerleaders are BEHIND YOU!
I think I love this "little" (relatively speaking) school where the big guy is now. How cool that the football team comes out to the tunes of the Pipe Band?! (I know, I know-- "cool" may not be the word for it-- but it is sure unique!)

After walking around for awhile, we put down our towel and sat on the bleachers. I was a bit dismayed when I realized there were still 20 minutes left in the pre-game warmup time. But, amazingly enough, the little guy sat quietly for that entire time plus almost all of the first quarter! I really think he would've stayed longer but I ran out of snacks (rookie mom mistake!). If it hadn't been raining, we could've walked to to the concession stand and come back, but at that point, I decided we might as well just go home...but not before a self-portrait:

Since the school is in a completely different area from where we live, I've been doing research on other fun ADVENTURES! to have while we're over there. I had discovered there was a well-regarded bubble tea place not too far away so we made a stop there before heading home for good. Someone really liked the sips he got:

All in all, I'd say the evening was a success! And, oh yeah, the Rams won 21-6! Whoo-hoo!

(Look! It's a weekend blog-posting bonanza! How do you like THAT, Miss Purcell?!)

Christy and Eric came over last night for some frivolity. She quickly got down to the business of trying out some of B's latest toys:

Then we took a break for some pizza and gourmet chocolate. Yes, that is a chocolate bar with mushrooms!

There may also have been some spirited limeade. Next thing I knew, FAC was inside the tunnel:

And the big guy was wearing it. (I would normally crop the heck out of myself but the quasi-stinkeye I'm giving him in this shot makes me laugh--ah, ten years of love):

And....then he and his sock tan totally fell asleep. Complete with snoring. Nice.

Thanks for coming to play, E&C!

I found out rather last-minute about a community yard sale in a little burg not too far away. Unlike other such sales which might all be in a parking lot or on one street, this one was advertised to be "on 35 streets marked by yellow balloons." Sounds easy enough. So B and I headed over this morning; we don't really need anything but I figured I could get some exercise and he could have a stroller ride, and maybe we'd find some deals.

I took the exit off the road and didn't really see any yellow balloons. I did notice a few "yard sale" signs so I just took the first couple of right turns and ended up in a parking lot where I could see there were a few tables set up. I was a little bummed that I hadn't seen any other sales close enough to enact my stroller-plan, but I figured I might as well check it out.

Oh.my.goodness. I think we've covered before in these pages my recent understanding of the secondhand hierarchy: children's consignment stores often being the most "expensive" down through children's consignment sales, thrift stores, and yard sales. Well, now I've really realized that there's a subset of yard sales that screams COME FIND MY BARGAINS! even louder in my ear: the sales that are put on by schools as a fundraiser. See, it's a) mostly kid stuff, b) not necessarily their own stuff (because I'm sure they get parents to volunteer during shifts of the sale), and c) they just want whatever money they can get since it's going to help the school rather than line their own pockets.

(And, in this case, a lot of the items weren't marked with prices so I'd ask one of the volunteers and they'd say something like, "I don't know-- $1?" and I would try not to have my eyes bug out because it would totally be a steal at 3 times that amount! Or, items would be marked, but I'd select enough of them that they'd just say, "How about $2 for all of those?" and again with the buggy-eyed-ness!)

Sooooo......I ended up not even bothering to go find any other yellow balloons because the deals were just too good. Think I'm kidding?? Check it out:

The "big stuff":

Total price for all this wonderment? (That I paid for in 3 batches because I kept going to the car and then realizing that I just had to go back for more!!)

$17.

Seriously.

Ten years ago, before this date had such sadness attached, Baylor played a home football game against UNLV. I bet many of you were there. I'm pretty sure that I went for maybe half of it, and then am 95% sure I went to eat at Jason's Deli with Lindsay and Jill before going back to the apartment. To wait. And get really nervous.

You see, a recent alumnus was returning to Waco for the game. Said alum had just started teaching biology in Smithville, TX, not too long after Sandra Bullock & Co. set up camp there for the filming of Hope Floats. We had gotten to know each other a bit the previous semester, when he was still hanging around for a 5th year in order to do his student teaching. (In those days, he spent most of his time scaring young Chamber pledges and darting around campus at night in his black Metallica t-shirt.) He used to go to the Student Center and get a raspberry smoothie on the mornings that I gossiped volunteered in the Student Involvement Board information booth, and he would saunter on over to chat with me, Heather, and Barrett as we "worked." We'd even had a nice moment right before he graduated, with dinner at Chili's on a rainy night.

(The following spring, he'd take me to Chili's again and then propose behind the SIB booth, but that's another story...)

After he graduated, I didn't really expect to see him again. I spent the summer working at Nerd Camp in Pennsylvania (where, admittedly, I found it a bit agonizing that one of my colleagues drove a car with his last name smack on the license plate, since it was a county name in her state). When his birthday rolled around in August of that year, I decided to be oh-so-daring and send an email message. Methinks someone was lonely in his new town (and internet communication was still pretty darn exciting then) and electronic correspondence commenced. A month later, when the Bears hosted their first home game of the season, he decided not only to make the 2-hour drive to come to the game but said that he'd stop by afterward.

Hence the anxiety that night post-Jason's Deli. I had recently gotten my hair cut pretty short and I remember worrying that he would think it looked funny. I also know exactly what I was wearing--navy shorts and a 3/4 -sleeved navy and red striped boatneck shirt--and I'm sure it will surprise no one that the shorts and the shirt were just recently given away in the Closet Purge of 2009! (Ah, if only I could still fit in those clothes...!)

I'm pretty certain that, when I answered the door after he knocked, he had turned around as if he were about to go back down the stairs. I'm sure glad he didn't. We ended up having plenty to chat about, and he crashed on our downstairs couch instead of driving all the way back home. (And I'm sure Linds and Rach felt like he never left...)

I think most Baylor fans feel a twinge of pain when they think of the UNLV game, as it was but one in a long string of wins-that-could-have-been. For me, however, there wasn't just a game that day; there was a real game-changer.

The B-man loved this car that we found on a local playground:

But NO passengers wanted, thankyouverymuch:

Get thee to your local Trader Joe's (sorry, Texans!) and buy some of this chocolatey goodness. (Also comes in milk chocolate.) YUM YUM YUM:

Oh, and goopy kiddos are pretty great, too:

And look! The two come together!

Play around in a makeshift ball pit, of course!

And now that you know what that looks like, let me show you what that sounds like:

Thanks for coming to visit, Big D, Sarah, and Rachel!!!!

I am so glad the Austin fam came to visit for so many reasons-- but the big one yesterday was that it was the perfect occasion to check out a local attraction we had not yet explored.

So off we went.....to a storybook wonderland!





In addition to all these great representations of various nursery rhymes (the above being only a tiny portion of what is there), they also have lots of animals to check out. B was excited to see the "Baaa"s:

And he gamely fed them with PawPaw's help...for a few seconds at least:

And then he shocked me by jumping right up on his first horse. When Grand Big Daddy sprung for "pony ride" tickets, Sarah and I both thought they'd be wee little horses. When I saw it was full-size, I really didn't think he'd go for it. Shows you what I know:

After such a fun morning and long naps, this cute little thing went with her mother and grandfather to cheer for Coach Big Guy in his debut as Varsity Defensive Coordinator:

I just didn't have it in me to chase around the Brookster all evening, so we sat this one out at home. I got very regular updates, however, and was verrrry nervous when we were down 10-0 at halftime. BUT....I'm thrilled to report the Rams ended up with a 26-10 victory! We look forward to venturing out to the home opener next Friday!