3-6 mafia

happy birthday chris!

we spent the late morning at the mall getting maria's picture taken with santa. it was an ok experience. maria did really well- only one short meltdown. 

chris's 3-6 mafia cake with gold pimpin' candles for the 6. i know- it isn't a snoopy m&m lined cake but i did the best i could.

cheerio belt

maria is now eating/ playing with melt away cheerios. she ate a few but they mostly ended up around her waistline. i even found a few in her diaper. i have no idea how that happened.

tears and no napping

today was a day that i wish i had kept my job at txdot.

em-eye-ess-ess-eye-ess-ess-eye-pee-pee-eye part 3

today was the day we buried my grandmother. it was terribly cold and windy this morning. the internment service was short. we mostly huddled together to stay warm but also for support. it didn't really hit me until this morning that this was it. after the internment we went to the church for another service. i did a reading from revelation. i was super nervous because i hate public speaking. i told myself to get it together- this was for granna. i don't really remember the reading but i didn't stumble over any words or trip while walking to and from the podium. my uncle melvin gave a really nice speech about my grandmother. i think he gave us a new family phrase- i love you and there is nothing you can do about it.

after the church service we had a lite lunch in the parish hall. we were able to take a few family photos. the kids threw ice chunks at the building. maria was super chill and fun to be with. we went back to the hotel for about an hour. we changed clothes and gave maria a bottle. we looked at some old family photos. we said our good-byes and drove away from starkville around 3pm. we got to jackson a little after 5pm. the jackson airport is pretty small so it was super easy getting checked in and getting through security. we had an overpriced dinner at a cruddy airport restaurant. it wasn't totally bad- it just wasn't very good. the flight left jackson shortly after 7pm. i left mississippi with a heavy heart.

the kid cousins were pretty rowdy on the flight from jackson to houston. i'm sure many people were annoyed but oh well. since our flight was late leaving jackson we weren't sure if we would make the flight from houston to austin. i guess southwest held the plane for us because we made it. we were all split up. a really nice guy gave up his seat so chris and i could sit together with maria. i offered him my last drink coupon since i wasn't going to use it- he said no. i think he was relieved to not have to sit next to a baby! maria did great again- until the very end. she had a poop diaper that could have been classified as a low level biological attack. then edie threw up. fortunately both bodily functions were mostly well contained. the landing was pretty hard in austin. the southwest crew had a funny line- 'now that we've hit austin we'd like to thank you for flying southwest. . .' everyone on the plane laughed.

maria did a great job on this trip. she had a lot of tears on the ride home from the airport but i'd rather her have a meltdown in our car instead of a plane. i'm happy we all went to starkville for the funeral. i got to meet some relatives that i had never met before and some that i hadn't seen in many, many years. i'm sorry that it was my grandmother's funeral that brought us together but at least we were together. a big thanks goes out to my brother for arranging the flight and rental car and driving. in the end your family are really the ones that go above and beyond.

i love you and there is nothing you can do about it.

em-eye-ess-ess-eye-ess-ess-eye-pee-pee-eye part 2

today was super duper cold and super duper windy. i don't have many pictures because we were too cold to take any. the highlights of the day were my dad driving us to the house he grew up in, around campus (including eckie's pond) and around starkville. the house he grew up in is no longer the house he grew up in. my grandmother sold it to the university and it is now the 'student life center'. i'm not sure what the inside looks like but the outside has been extensively remodeled- i would have to say not for the better. we made a quick stop at eckie's pond. it was a lot smaller than i remember. all of the trees and thick vegetation around it had been removed. it didn't look horrible but i liked it better when it was a little overgrown. campus has grown by leaps and bounds. there were a lot of new buildings. fortunately miss. state has done a really nice job of keeping a uniform and consistent look to the campus. you can tell the original buildings from the old ones but only because the new ones are really clean. we drove by the first house my grandparents lived in when they first got to starkville. it was very, very tiny. kind of romantic and cozy when you think of it in nostaligic terms but highly impractical for today!

after seeing the sites we went back to the hotel and took a little afternoon nap. at 3:30pm we went to the family viewing and the public visitation for my grandmother. i'm not saying the funeral home did a bad job but she didn't really look like herself. death really changes how a person looks. after the viewing we had a big family dinner at the veranda. it was really nice to have a formal meal with everyone. my grandmother was always all about formalities.

we kind of turned in early but i did hang out in the lobby to wait my sister and her family to arrive. the gray unit felt complete once they arrived.

 

em-eye-ess-ess-eye-ess-ess-eye-pee-pee-eye part 1

i'm not even sure how to begin this entry so i guess i will just dive right in. today we flew from austin to houston to jackson, mississippi and then drove to starkville. i can't put into to words exactly how much i was dreading flying with maria but omg she was absolutely amazing! she was such a great little trooper today!

our first stop was dropping daisy off at the vet. we decided for her health and our neighbor's sanity we should have a professional tend to her wounds while we are gone. i know that right now she is a pathetic pile of fur and sad eyes because she isn't at home but her bite wounds are taking a loooooooong time to heal. poor thing. chris took her into the vet while i stayed in the car. i have to say- he has gone above and beyond the call of being a beagle parent to her these past several days.

the next stop was ABIA. here is a shoutout to the fine ticket agent folks at the southwest airlines counter. not only were they super friendly to us but they gave us a little certificate for maria to commemorate her first flight. thanks to the business select ticket purchase we breezed through security. we got to skip to the front of the line. if you are flying southwest it is totally worth the extra money to do this. plus you will get drink tickets for the flight! speaking of security. . . it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be but i forgot a lot of things- like taking off my shoes, leaving my cell phone in my pocket, struggling to get maria out of the car seat. i think i was just so happy about skipping the long line that my brain ceased to function. yes- i was that person. sorry to all hundreds of people behind us. . .  after we got through security we got our picture taken with santa. it was free! i'll post the pix when i get home and can check email.

now for the dreaded take off and ears popping. we gave maria a bottle and she was happy as a clam. she fell asleep before we reached altitude. she was such a great little baby. chris did a wonderful job holding onto her so naylor, laura and i could enjoy a quick drink! the layover in houston was shorter than expected and take off went just as smooth as the first one. this time we added some cousins to the flight. oh yeah- my grandmother was with us too- just in a different part of the plane. . . .we turned in another drink coupon and before i knew it we were landing in jackson. my brother and cousin kelly picked out rental cars and my niece and nephew ran off some energy. chris and i ended up driving with my cousin kelly and fiancée, kara. maria mostly slept the whole way. she was awesome. i love my little traveler.

we got checked into the starkville hampton inn and went out to dinner at mugshots. we cut the after dinner talk short because we really needed to get maria back to hotel and put to bed. she was still awake after we got her bathed and fed so we joined the rest of the gray's in the lobby. we looked at a bunch of pictures and news articles that my grandmother had saved through out the years. some of the news briefs were kind of funny- like my uncle had a party at the house- there were 18 teenagers in attendance for informal games and dancing. i didn't know that my grandmother had a masters in journalism from the university of iowa.

well, this was a long entry but today was long day. i'm really happy we made the trip out here.

Bug Life: Month 7

OMG maria bug! it feels like i just wrote your 6 month entry yesterday! you are growing and exploring and learning and doing new things everyday! your biggest accomplishment is crawling. you have totally mastered crawling. you are a crawling machine. when you aren't crawling you are pulling up on everything! it doesn't matter if it is my legs, the sofa, your crib, the fireplace, the french door. sometimes the more dangerous the surroundings the more likely you are to really want to pull up on it! you are also walking/ scooting along the sofa and fireplace. your other accomplishments include sleeping in your own room at night. we moved you from the pack and play in our room to your very own crib in your room. you really like your crib. you have been doing a great job of sleeping at night. you are having 2 solid meals a day- a fruit in the morning and a veggie at night. you mostly like everything so far. you don't really like squash or zucchini anymore since the all night barfing incident at thanksgiving. you and your tongue are pretty funny. you love sticking out your tongue and flopping it around. you also really like getting the mail. last week you spent about 30 minutes playing with the junk mail. you were scooting it around, flipping it over, holding onto a certain envelope that had our first christmas card. all the while you had a very serious expression. it was really cute. you still love going outside. you love petting daisy in the morning when we are all in bed. you cry when daddy goes to work. you make funny little screechy, grunty noises. sometimes i think you really are talking to me. we call it bug language. you like the christmas lights we put on the house.

today you woke up in such a quiet mood. i fed you and you played with daddy while i took a shower and ate breakfast. we played in the living room until close 10am then you got solid breakfast. we drove up to north austin to pick up some sandals for aunt laura. i got a chocolate shake at mighty fine burgers. when we got home i started packing for our big trip to mississippi. tomorrow we are getting on a plane to fly to jackson, ms. when we get to starkville, that will be the furthest you have been from your house in austin!


we love you maria bug!
mommy and daddy