Turkey Day

Our little Thanksgiving getaway was great.

Living nowhere near family, and not close enough to drive, we're working on starting our own new traditions. We're planning on trying to do a Thanksgiving at the beach every year. This year we were kind of poor, so instead of going to one of the restaurants serving a full Turkey Day buffet - I just couldn't see paying $60 or more to eat a bunch of food we don't really like that well anyway - this is what our feast looked like:

Notice the biggest part of the meal seems to be the apple pie! We had turkey and ham (lunch meat), whole grain (store bought) bread, two kinds of (pre-sliced) cheese, chicken strips, Cheetos, a bag of fruit, and that weird thing on the left is a potato wedge. Oh, yeah, and some beer and wine!

(Forgive the Wal-Mart. Not many options on South Padre, and we needed non-grocery things too, that could only be found at Evil Central)

I have to admit, I enjoyed this much, much more than a traditional turkey, ham, veggies-covered-with-fat and fruit-covered-with-sugar family dinner. And there was NO STRESS!!! Slap some meat, cheese and mayo (and mustard for Max), between some bread, grab an orange and some apple pie, and down it with some beer, and there you go!

I think I'm going to like Thanksgiving from now on.

We went to the sea turtle rescue center on the Island too. This was really amazing for me. As we were walking around, waiting for it to be feeding time, Eric was talking about how sad it was, and how disturbing it is. I mentioned that with all the reports about seafood lately - both the mercury content and, even moreso, the overfishing problem, I was having a hard time eating any fish at all lately, and didn't think I could anymore. Eric looked at me and said something about what difference does one person make, which felt really discouraging to me.

As we were listening to the presentation, the man mentioned that one of the species of sea turtles had been down to a population of about 300 on the Island, but now is up to over 9,000. The organization is almost entirely volunteer, and consists of very few people. I looked at him and said, "What was that about one person not making a difference?"

Here's our little sea turtle:

And with Jerry, a famous old sea turtle. I love the way Guthrie is looking up at him, like, "Dude, you're kind of big. Don't eat me."

Guthrie running to the beach:





How's this for a way to spend the fourth Thursday in November?



And, my cute little boys, together. Guthrie grabbed Turner and said, "Take a picture!"

Good news

Eric's book was named one of the top 100 books of the year by the Kansas City Star. Not bad. Not bad company to keep either - Cormac McCarthy, Pynchon, Richard Powers. Congrats, also, to Wayne Miller, whose book of poetry was on the list, as well as the list of the top 10 books. Not bad for a first book of poetry.

The other, better news though - Eric doesn't have cancer.

What? you ask. Well, see, Eric has had a mole on his back for, well, ever. In the last week or so, he noticed it seemed to have gotten bigger. We were both freaking out - he worked for years in construction, going shirtless in sun and heat, making him a prime candidate for skin cancer.

After calling every dermatologist in the Valley, and being told repeatedly that they couldn't get anyone in until January, sometimes March, we finally found someone who, by chance, had an opening yesterday, and Eric got right in.

Fortunately, no cancer. Doctor did a thorough check of the mole, and Eric's entire upper body, and he's fine. But that was very, very scary. Strangely, while Eric was at the doctor, I dealt with my fear and nervousness by cleaning. Don't know where that came from.

And, so, when he came home, he asked if I'd like to spend Thanksgiving on the beach. That might be one of the dumber questions I've ever been asked. I'd like to spend every day on the beach, so yes, of course I'll spend Thanksgiving there. I'm getting ready to reserve us a room, for Wednesday and Thursday nights.

The funny part of that, is knowing our little Guthrie, who has been begging since we got back from Victoria to "go to 5 hotels," we have to stay in a lesser hotel (we'd thought of the Holiday Inn resort that's right on the beach), because what he wants is the continental breakfast. Yep, he wants sugary cereal and little cups of yogurt, and a full restaurant breakfast would likely disappoint him. Funny kid.

A weekly recap

Haven't been on much this week. Oh, I've been online, just not on here. The boys have both this week been rather, well, difficult. I think Turner is about to cut his first tooth, and Guthrie is going through some weird stage I don't know what to do with. He's been waking up with nightmares at 3 a.m., screaming about ladybugs and not wanting to be flushed down the toilet and begging for glasses of soy milk. I've been exhausted.

On top of this, we had our friend, poet Kevin Prufer here visiting since Wednesday. It's been a lot of fun, and I guess Kevin did amazingly on his various lectures and readings around campus and town, but it was strangely hard on Guthrie. He had a good time with Kevin, but Guthrie can be unpredictable and will react to some things in the exact opposite way you'd expect. So, for example, when Kevin was showing him magic tricks and pretending to eat one of Guthrie's toys, Guthrie freaked out. Total meltdown. He was upset about it for the whole day, telling me, "Kevin will not eat my tree. Kevin must eat food," with tears streaming down his face. *sigh*

Oh, yeah, and Kevin got in Wednesday night. I was informed of his visit on ... Monday evening. Yep. Somehow, I didn't get that memo. I vaguely remember Eric asking me if those days would be okay, but I don't remember any confirmation that he was indeed coming. Words of wisdom: If you have company coming, tell your spouse/partner/roommates in advance, and 2 days does not count as in advance.

The weather here lately has been perfect. Absolutely what you would order if you would ask for your perfect day (well, at least I would). 80 degrees during the day, 50s at night. Bee-you-tee-full.

So, now that we've been having this great weather, I've been making a point of trying to talk a walk with the boys to the park every day. The park is a little under a mile from our house, so the walk to and from is at least a mile and a half, pushing 50 pounds of kid in a stroller. When we get there, if it's not busy (most of the time during the day we're the only ones there), Guthrie gets out and plays on the playground while I push Turner, who usually falls asleep, around in laps on the sidewalk around the playground. I can see Guthrie the whole time, I'm never really any further from him than if I was sitting on the benches by the playground, and this way I can get some additional exercise. I even bought a digital pedometer, so I can keep track of myself. It tells me my total steps, aerobic steps, time spent in aerobic exercise, and how far I went. I'm getting a solid half hour or more of aerobic exercise every day now, and have gotten as much as an hour and a half. I feel great, too.

We also paid a whopping $15 and bought an exercise machine from our neighbor's garage sale. I don't know exactly what to call it - an Airstride or something. I figure for $15, if I only use it a little bit, it won't be a huge waste of money. We're leaving it in a corner of the living room so I can sneak on it while the boys are playing. Well, that was my plan, but every time I try to step on it, Guthrie does too, and that doesn't work. So it might have been a waste after all.

It's only 5:45, but I'm already starting to nod off at the computer. I'll try to give a little more tomorrow, as it has been an interesting week. For now, though, I need coffee. I'll sign off with pictures:

Wild parrots, less than a block from our house. I could hear them out our window. They're beautiful.





The tree in front of our house is flowering. It's a butterfly magnet, and this morning I lay on the floor of the boys' room and watched dozens of butterflies flutter around they tree while they played. I've also seen hummingbirds on it. The butterflies are very pretty, and come in all colors. Eric almost cut this tree down to put up an oak, but I'm glad he didn't. Now I won't let him. ;)





And blogger still won't let me embed video, so click here to see a video of Guthrie singing his ABCs.

Guthrie is not a word

He's a cute kid. Smart kid. Loving, sweet, great kid.

But he's about to drive me bonkers.

It's the same thing, every night, when we're reading.

I'll be going along, reading his bedtime stories (all 5 thousand of them), when I have to look over to see how Turner is doing if he's not yet asleep, or look at Guthrie to see his reaction, or ... whatever. You know, you can read a sentence and then reading it out loud takes longer, and so you look around while you're reading? Yeah. But then Guthrie's reaction, if I'm looking at him:

"I'm not a word."

Looking at Turner: "Turner's not a word."

Or sometimes he quotes the exact words: "Turner is not the Ugly Duckling." (See, he could be telling me Turner is the ugly duckling, so it could be worse.)

"The clock is not the big, big bridge."

You get the picture.

At first it was kind of cute. And it's a good sign of pre-reading skills, too, I think, on at least some level.

But it makes reading time rather difficult for me, and I want to pull my hair out. Sometimes Turner takes off crawling, and Guthrie is constantly giving me, "Turner is not a word. Turner is not Topham Hatt. I am not Celeste."

To the point where it takes forever to read one story, and neither one of us can concentrate.

I don't think he's old enough to understand how it works. I've tried. I'm at a loss.

Home again

We got back from Victoria yesterday early evening, and I have to say, although we were only gone 2 days, I feel like I've needed all of today to recover. I've felt just "off" all day today and couldn't quite figure out why. I've been unnaturally exhausted, jittery, and a little nauseas. I'm fairly certain it's from 2 days of junk food. It occurred to me that I ate like that for years and years (even worse, actually), and never did feel quite right. I used to have headaches all the time, get stomach aches for no real reason, and feel tired when I shouldn't. What a difference diet makes.

Poor little Guthrie needs to get caught up on sleep, but getting him to nap is a nightmare, and he's overtired so took forever to fall asleep tonight. I think I'm going to try to move bedtime a little earlier for a few days and see if that helps.

We had a great time. Victoria was beautiful. It is apparently a very old town, and once we got to the older areas, we realized we were no longer in Texas but instead were in the South. There was a huge area with beautiful old mansions, and the courthouse was gorgeous. The park - an enormous old park next to the Guadalupe River - had a small zoo, which we visited, a duck pond, a huge playground, and tons and tons of pecan trees.

I should mention here that Guthrie did not enjoy the zoo, due to his overactive sense of smell. I need to write a separate post about this issue. He didn't like the restaurant on the way home either and the smell of seafood.

On our way home, we drove along the coast and down through Corpus Christi. We stopped at a little restaurant in a coastal town and had a nice lunch - I had crab and shrimp fettuccine alfredo. (Another observation - portion size is out of control! My meal was probably about 8 servings of pasta. It was crazy huge.)

Eric did very well and enjoyed his time at UHV. He was on the local TV station (although I missed it) and in the local paper, too.

Guthrie keeps asking to go back to a hotel. Apparently he enjoyed eating Apple Jacks and watching the Food Network, since that was about all we watched. I think he's in love with Rachael Ray.

Took this picture along the coast on the way home.

ETA:

I should add that it has been the cutest thing in the world to watch Turner playing with the other little baby in the room, the little tiny one who is stuck on the other side of the full-length mirror, and to mention that later we are planning on all taking a nice little swim in the hotel pool. The outdoor hotel pool. Because it's 90 degrees, and so we can do that here.

Notes from a hotel

We're currently sitting in a hotel room in Victoria, Texas. By "we" I mean me, Guthrie, and Turner. And I will confess to being total bums and having brought along not only the laptop, but also the portable DVD player and a few of Guthrie's movies. The drive was only 4-ish hours, but we didn't get out of town until close to dark, and I figured what the heck, it might make it an easier drive for Guthrie. It wasn't bad, though - I actually had fun sitting between the boys, teaching Guthrie about nocturnal animals, making Turner's little teddy bear do crazy dances to Rush songs, and generally feeling like a Total Mom.

Eric is currently off at the University of Houston-Victoria, where he's doing lectures and readings and all kinds of fancy-pants stuff like that. There was no need for me and the boys to come, but to be honest, I was ready to get out of the Valley for a little while. Seriously.

We're going to go hunt up a park in a little while, after Turner wakes up from his nap and Guthrie finishes watching his Cars DVD.

In the meantime, I have to admit there are things I love about staying in hotels. We're total crunchy freaks (yeah, right) in that we don't have a TV (technically, we do - we own one, but it's sitting in our garage, where it will stay). We also eat a mainly healthy diet at home, and don't allow a lot of the normal average "Standard American Diet" foods into our home at all - sugary breakfast cereals, white bread, and the like.

On road trips, and in hotels, we relax most of our rules. No, the boys still may not have any soda, and we don't ever eat conventionally grown beef, but other than that, just about anything goes. On the drive home, Guthrie's going to get a bag of Cheetos, and I've already had two bottles of Pepsi. As rarely as we take road trips, and as well as we eat most of the time, I figure for a trip we should just relax and let the whole thing be seen as a treat. We also gorge ourselves on TV. Last night I kept trying to go to sleep, but it was almost 1 a.m. before I finally crashed, after watching South Park, "Iron Chef America," Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. I just couldn't stop watching.

The good thing about all of this is that it reinforces to me why we do things the way we do at home. Aside from the gems of Stewart and Colbert, and the 5 million channels to feed me bizarre news addiction, TV today is CRAP. It was darn near impossible to find anything other than some form of "reality TV." And the constant barrage of advertisements, whether it obvious commercials or in the form of interviews and features on talk shows, was also inescapable.

I tried to find something decent for Guthrie to watch on TV. While I don't think (or even care) whether SpongeBob is gay, I don't like him. And it seemed like SB was on 24/7.

The commercials during the shows Eric and I were watching were scary too - "Ultimate Fighting DVDs," violent war games for your Playstation, or how about some sex, sex or more sex.

The hotel breakfast? Between the sweetened yogurt (but it's low-fat!), the maple-flavored pancake syrup (the secret, I believe, is fenugreek - I know when I took it I couldn't figure out why I had such a craving for pancakes all the time, because I smelled like freaking syrup), the 4 cups of sugared, creamed coffeine, and the toast with grape jelly (I loves me some grape jelly), I have a sugar rush to end all sugar rushes. Why can't hotel breakfasts have any substantial protein?

I guess I could have eaten a tub of peanut butter flavored trans fat.

So, off we will go soon to explore Victoria, eat us some junk food (I saw an Arby's last night - I'm having me a Roast Turkey Reuben. And when we get home - no TV, no crap food, no soda.

But I must admit, there was something addictive about Iron Chef. When it first came on, I couldn't quit laughing, and Eric just stared at me. It seemed like America had finally lost it, and this was proof of our impending doom: A food contest reality TV game show whatever the hell you want to call it. But I would be so addicted to this show if we had cable. A bunch of chefs, making venison taquitos, and rack of venison, and running around like crazy people throwing dried blueberries and pureeing apricots and avocados and who knows what else, in some crazy American competition to please a bunch of snooty pretentious judges. I LOVE IT! Makes me want to go eat some freedom fries.

Tagged!

I've been tagged to Know Thyself by Jill, but every time I've tried to do it I've been interrupted, so here goes:
What is/are YOUR:
Easy how-to ways to beat a bad mood? When Guthrie tells me to "chill-out Mom," a glass of wine, a bath and a book.
Never-fail lip color? Cover Girl ColorSlicks.
Personality type (via myersbriggs)? ISFJ
Greatest strengths and weaknesses (like in a job interview)? Friendly, warm, smile a lot, easily trusted, but sometimes not confident enough to trust that I can do something
Names of the trees in your yard? A pretty flowering tree of some sort.
Mother-in-law's favorite flower? Hah! Black roses? Those nasty smelling ones? Something poisonous?
Names of 4 friends whom you're going to tag? Abby, Callie, Karrie and Amanda, to remind her.

From Jill, again

So, the idea behind this meme is that you bold every one of these things that you've done and leave the rest in standard typeface.


01. bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. swam with wild dolphins
03. climbed a mountain
04. taken a ferrari for a test drive
05. been inside the great pyramid
06. held a tarantula
07. taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. said "i love you" and meant it
09. hugged a tree
10. bungee jumped
11. visited paris
12. watched a lightning storm at sea
13. stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. seen the northern lights
15. gone to a huge sports game
16. walked the stairs to the top of the leaning tower of pisa
17. grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. touched an iceberg
19. slept under the stars
20. changed a baby's diaper
21. taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. watched a meteor shower
23. gotten drunk on champagne (cheap champagne)
24. given more than you can afford to charity
25. looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. had a food fight
28. bet on a winning horse
29. asked out a stranger
30. had a snowball fight
31. screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. held a lamb
33. seen a total eclipse
34. ridden a roller coaster
35. hit a home run
36. danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. adopted an accent for an entire day
38. actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. had two hard drives for your computer
40. visited all 50 states
41. taken care of someone who was drunk
42. had amazing friends
43. danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. watched whales
45. stolen a sign
46. backpacked in europe
47. taken a road-trip
48. gone rock climbing
49. midnight walk on the beach
50. gone sky diving
51. visited ireland
52. been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. in a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. visited japan
55. milked a cow
56. alphabetized your cds
57. pretended to be a superhero
58. sung karaoke
59. lounged around in bed all day
60. played touch football
61. gone scuba diving
62. kissed in the rain
63. played in the mud
64. played in the rain
65. gone to a drive-in theater
66. visited the great wall of china
67. started a business
68. fallen in love and not had your heart broken (so far, so good)
69. toured ancient sites
70. taken a martial arts class
71. played d&d for more than 6 hours straight
72. gotten married
73. been in a movie
74. crashed a party
75. gotten divorced
76. gone without food for 5 days
77. made cookies from scratch
78. won first prize in a costume contest
79. ridden a gondola in venice
80. gotten a tattoo
81. rafted the snake river
82. been on television news programs as an "expert"
83. gotten flowers for no reason
84. performed on stage
85. been to las vegas
86. recorded music
87. eaten shark
88. kissed on the first date
89. gone to thailand
90. bought a house
91. been in a combat zone
92. buried one/both of your parents
93. been on a cruise ship
94. spoken more than one language fluently
95. performed in rocky horror
96. raised children
97. followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. passed out cold
99. taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. walked the golden gate bridge
102. sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. had plastic surgery
104. survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
105. wrote articles for a large publication
106. lost over 100 pounds
107. held someone while they were having a flashback
108. piloted an airplane
109. touched a stingray
110. broken someone's heart
111. helped an animal give birth
112. won money on a t.v. game show
113. broken a bone
114. gone on an african photo safari
115. had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
119. had major surgery
120. had a snake as a pet
121. hiked to the bottom of the grand canyon
122. slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. visited more foreign countries than u.s. states
124. visited all 7 continents
125. taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. eaten kangaroo meat
127. eaten sushi (yummy!)
128. had your picture in the newspaper
129. changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. gone back to school
131. parasailed
132. touched a cockroach
133. eaten fried green tomatoes
134. read The iliad
135. selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read
136. killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. skipped all your school reunions
138. communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. been elected to public office
140. written your own computer language
141. thought to yourself that you're living your dream
142. had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. built your own PC from parts
144. sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
145. had a booth at a street fair
146. dyed your hair (umm, monthly!)
147. been a dj
148. shaved your head
149. caused a car accident
150. saved someone's life

That was fun. Leave me a comment if you do it too!!!

Sleepless baby redux

Turner has definitely started following in the footsteps of his brother. When he was tiny and new, he was such a good sleeper, that I was certain we weren't going to have the problems we had with Guthrie. Even just a few weeks ago, he was taking 3 hour naps all by himself and sleeping for 2-3 hours, at least to start the night.

Now, though, I'm starting to get nervous. He has taken to waking up after 20 minutes for a nap unless someone is laying right there with him, and is waking up about a gazillion times every night.

Eric is convinced he is teething. I may try some Tylenol tonight before bed to see if it helps. I just don't want to keep him constantly on the Tylenol, but I really need him to have at least some short stretches of sleep where I can be a human being without holding him!

I have the No Cry Sleep Solution but those solutions certainly aren't for a baby with a toddler in the house as well. I can't just sit by the door and wait for him to stir, and then go in and lay back down with him until he goes back to sleep, and I sure can't do this every nap, every day, for an extended period of time. Not without Guthrie coming in to "help" or insisting at that moment that he needs a glass of soy milk.

Eric assured me that this will pass. And I know it will - it did with Guthrie. It just took 2 1/2 years for it to pass with Guthrie, and I have such a fear that it will with Turner too.

It's not that I'm sleep-deprived, because on that end I'm doing okay. It's that I'm ME-deprived. I need to have some time alone, or time alone with my husband, and I can't do that with a baby who refuses to sleep alone.

I voted!

We found out, last Wednesday when we (Eric went with us) took the boys to Story Hour at the library, that we were indeed registered to vote. We thought we'd missed the deadline, but found out that in fact we got registered when we got our Texas driver's licenses. I thought I remembered something about getting registered, but we never got a card in the mail, so I was thoroughly confused.

And so, since we were there, at the library and community center, which was our polling place, and they were doing early voting, we went ahead and voted! Yeah!

I'm not going to tell you who I voted for, but let's just say I'm BLUE! Well, actually, I voted for quite a few Libertarians, because in several races the only options were vote for Darth's minions, or vote for Libertarians. I will admit I was hopelessly uninformed about some of the races, because I didn't think I was registered. Shame, shame, shame on Judy.

It was my first time voting on a touch screen. Yeah, um, I have tons of faith in that system. It didn't even feel like I was voting, and who knows whether or not the thing counted at all. I just feel like elections could soon be decided by hackers racing each other to beat some clock. Call me a cynic, but it just doesn't seem right.

I did my part, though. We, sadly, didn't take either of the boys in with us while we voted, as we took turns, and one of us stayed in the library with them while the other voted. Guthrie's baby book has an "I Voted" sticker from the '04 elections, but I don't think they even gave them out this time. :(

And we won't even talk about the ridiculousness of the redistricting down here, and how they worked it all out so that the districts contain enough white people to keep white people in office. Makes it feel like none of it even matters.

From One Weird Mother

to another.



Thank you to Karrie. I got my package yesterday, but Blogger didn't like me and wouldn't let me post this. :(

Had a barbecue to go to yesterday, but I know what I'm having for lunch today! These look awesome. But, the spices (I've looked everywhere for the Garam Masala and couldn't find any anywhere) mean I now have to attempt to cook something more creative than Barilla Plus (Drink!) and veggies. And I've already started the book - I had it on my wish list, too.

BB Image of the Day

I forgot to post the link, and show that Samantha and Guthrie were featured as part of Blogging Baby's Image of the Day for Halloween. They did a little collage of pictures. They are the devil/angel and choo-choo train on the left in the middle.

http://www.bloggingbaby.com/2006/10/31/image-of-the-day-special-happy-halloween/

Talking Turkey(less)

Now that Halloween is over, we've been starting to think about Thanksgiving. A little early, I know, but I like to know ahead of time what we're going to do for these kinds of things.

Eric suggested maybe getting Cornish Game Hens, which actually sounded like a fun idea, but the way Guthrie freaked out in the grocery store yesterday seeing whole dead fish, I think that might send him into a panic.

I was thinking about it, too, and I think part of the reason Thanksgiving is such a big deal to lots of people is because so many people don't really cook anymore, and then on Thanksgiving they go all out and cook a huge feast. We, on the other hand, cook all the time. There is constantly the smell of some food in our house - beans on the stove, bread in the machine, cookies in the oven, or bacon in the frying pan. (Let's not talk about our recent bacon fetish. That combined with the candy and I've actually managed to gain 3 pounds!)

My suggestion, which Eric seems to like, is that we take a lesson from A Christmas Story and go out to eat for this holiday. (Yeah, in the movie it was Christmas, I know) Chinese, American buffet, Mexican food, the Indian restaurant if it's open - but something so we don't have to cook. How completely untraditional of us, I know, but a nice way to start our own tradition. Eating out, in a restaurant, is a real rarity around here, so that would be a treat for us, and something I think these boys would remember.

And I'd like to start the habit of spending New Year's Eve on the beach. Hotel rooms, from what I hear, are super-cheap that time of year, and I love nothing more than hearing the waves crash outside my window. Christmas we'll be in Missouri, for a visit, and we'll do that in the traditional way, probably at my mom's.

Real Men Cook

Because there are women out there whose husbands don't regularly cook for them, and I really want them to be jealous of the amazing cook I married, I thought I'd share this picture. Okay, that, and it's just really cute.

They were making Eric's famous cookies (which he really must stop making on such a regular basis, or I'm never going to lose those last 5 baby pounds - although we froze most of them, and right now any weight must be blamed on the Halloween candy). Tell me - this boy is beautiful, has blonde hair and blue eyes, is a little genius of course, and is already learning how to cook. Is he going to have more girlfriends than Hugh Hefner?

Happy Birthday!

My beautiful precious (not so) little girl turned 11 years old today.

I can't say much, except Happy Birthday to my little angel. I can't even begin to say how much I miss Samantha, and wish we could all be together for her birthday. And I can't believe she's 11.