thanksgiving in the fire swamp.

geocaching with isaac and edie

well, we survived thanksgiving- that is all i have to say about that. i don't know why we still think it is ok to go to my grandparents old ranch house for more than just a few hours much less overnight. nobody lives there anymore and the house is kind of falling into disrepair.

the fun thing that happened was i took my niece and nephew geocaching on wednesday. they seemed to really enjoy it. my nephew had a really good eye for finding caches and my niece loved looking through all the swag to trade.

thanksgiving started at midnight with maria waking up crying and then emptying the contents of her stomach for the next 2 hours. yeah- we were covered in it. unlike the popping sounds made in the fire swap to warn trespassers of impending spouts of fire, maria spewed out with no warning what so ever. if i had more than 2 gallons of gas in my car, i think i would have packed up and driven home in the middle of the night.

the morning started at 7am with my niece and nephew waking up. then maria waking up. then we found out that sometime during the middle of the night (the 2 or 3 hours that everyone was asleep) something had chewed off the cord to the coffee pot. the coffee pot!!!! given that the cord was just gone- and i mean gone- it was chewed off at the base of the coffee pot- i suspect it was a r.o.u.s. chris thought it was getting a little lord of the flies- esque so he drove 10 miles into town to fill my car with gas and to get everyone coffee. he single handedly saved thanksgiving. the situation calmed down after coffee was consumed. maria was doing fine and the cold front we'd heard about all week finally blew through and cooled off the house. my mom did a really superb job of getting all the food prepared and put out for consumption. maria slept through her first thanksgiving lunch. the meal was great and so was the company and conversation but it lacked my grandmother. thanksgiving was always her holiday. we shared a lot of really great memories of her.

chris took off about 2pm-ish. he had to borrow a pair of pants from my brother because all of our clothes had been blessed by maria. the plan was that i would stay until friday but i ended up leaving shortly after chris. i could not have another night of maria barf. plus, none of us had any (clean) clothes left. i got back to austin and chris was still home. he helped me get everything unpacked and in the washing machine before he went to the texas- a&m game. i watched some of the game but zonked out before it was over. friday was a very quiet, sleepy day at the tyler household.

where's maria?

where's maria?

there she is!!! standing in her crib grabbing for the curtains! ohhhhhhh boy!

cuteness

hello kitty

today maria and i went to target and to the lady bird johnson wildflower center. we had a lot of fun getting out of the house. we spent a long time at target picking out some new jammies for maria and looking at toys and sunglasses. the wildflower center has a special exhibit of yard art. i had forgotten how pretty the center is. we had a nice time strolling around and enjoying being outside. 

mini cathedral of junk

maria at the mini cathedral of junk

ipod instagram

if anyone has been wondering where the square shaped, color enhanced pictures are coming from that i post on twitter/ facebook then wonder no more- they come from my new ipod touch and the instagram app.

here are my most favorite pictures:

got overalls?

beware the cuteness following these words!

tunnel of crazy

maria has grown out of playing with her play mat. she doesn't want to just lay on her back and swat at toys anymore. good thing the play mat converts to a mysterious tunnel of crazy fish!!!

big news!!!

ok, so it isn't that big but we have started putting maria in her crib in her room to sleep. i'm kind of missing her being right next to me at night but i think we are all sleeping better. our room feels a little empty without the pack and play next to the bed but i will finally- finally- finally have a table next to the bed to put stuff on. (mostly just a book and my glasses)

ps maybe i should be a little more diligent in taking pix for the blog. i thought i had a pic of our room without the pack and play and then with the table next to the bed. oh well. i would show the table now but there is a bunch of junk on it!

cute maria pix

here are some cute maria pix taken on my birthday.

well it's my birthday too!

today i turned 35. omg- where has the time gone??? for the first time i'm no longer feeling so young and spry! don't get me wrong- i'm not feeling old but i'm not exactly in the prime of my youth anymore. to mark this magical passing of time, i convinced chris to take the day off from work and go geocaching. we spent the better part of the day solving the clues for gc2b034. it was a lot of fun and i really appreciate everyone who worked to build this cache. so the other big present was chris and maria gave me the new ipod touch! i totally love have a forward and backward camera and all the other apps! i'm sure that over the next few days i will be bombarding my facebook/ twitter account with easily taken and uploaded maria pix! as if my day of birth couldn't get any happier- chris made me a snoopy cake. he used a cake pan from my grandmother's collection. i totally love him. this was the first time in a long time that i really felt like celebrating a birthday. i really had a wonderful day. i think maria might have had a little bit to do with it. . . . :)