Busy Bees Part 3

Continuing our recap of our time in Tulsa (I believe the proper term is Tulsey Time)...

Saturday

After waking up still thinking about the best pizza we've ever had (eaten for dinner Friday night), we headed out for the Tulsa Zoo where we saw dinosaurs...

discovered a love of all things playground...

and rode the train!

Here's Grandpa waiting in line with Jo.  Jonah looks huge to me here!  Like the size of a 2 year old!  I know one thing's for sure.  I buy the next size up in shoes about every week!  Not really - but close enough.

We came home and crashed and took it easy.  I discovered the addictiveness that is QuizUp...

And we feasted on burgers and watermelon, and Nonni gave Jonah his first chocolate milk.  It was love at first sip.

Sunday 

Jonah was teething pretty badly so Howard ran out and bought him Sophie the Giraffe.  What a lifesaver!  Jonah loves her! (Is that emphatic enough or am I supposed to say "love, love, loves her?" ; )

We said bye to Uncle Greg...

and Howard and I left that afternoon to go on a date!!

We started with a macadamia nut café latte (that was Europe-worthy) and some reading time

I love love loved this Bible verse in my Louis Markos book:

"It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter" (Proverbs 25:2).  What a great affirmation that searching is ok,  honored in fact, even when the complete answer may not be discoverable.  

I wish Howard and I had more time to go get coffee and read together.  It was one of my favorite moments of the trip.  The above picture is from the café we sat in - it's called Nordaggio's.  All their artwork is done in espresso!!  

After coffee we ate at Charleston's and had dessert at Freckles Frozen Custard.  It was such a wonderful evening.  

Monday

Howard, Nonni, and I took Jonah to LaFortune Park and Jonah was BESIDE himself with intense excitement.  It was serious business!!

Then Nonni and Jonah and I shopped and then took Jonah to Barnes and Noble where he could get some work done.

Tuesday

We had to head back home.  It was bittersweet because we love our home but we're having such a good time.  Also, home is a 12 hour car ride away. UGH.

Stopping to crawl (hotels are great for that) and play helped a lot.

We finally made it.  It was great to be home and see our sweet Cotton girl

What a great trip!

Busy Bees Part 2

We had non-stop BIG fun while in Tulsa.  

Wednesday

Stories from Nonni

A visit to the duck pond

Thursday 

My beanie baby obsession from the 90s was revived

My precious fourth grade teacher came to say hi to Jo and brought him a football!

We listened to jazz in the park and Jonah LOVED it.  There were dogs, blues, and dancing...outside!  What more could the boy need?!

Playing with a fun new toy Nonni and Grandpa brought back from London:

Friday

One of my closest friends is Stephanie and we got to meet her new baby, Chapman!  He is such a doll and Jonah was obsessed!!

After we ate Jonah played while Stephanie (and Chappy) and I talked.  It was the first time I could do that!  Jonah kept looking back at me and smiling.  He loved making friends and exploring.

He crashed in Nonni's arms when we got home

And woke up to Uncle Greg being here, which terrified him

Those Gingers.  Fear-inducing folk they are.

Stay tuned for Part 3!

Busy Bees Part 1

I just settled in for the night by washing my face with Jonah's Burt's Bees Baby Wash and not only does it smell amazing, but I think it's the best face wash I've ever used.  This post is not sponsored. I'm just really excited about my face's smell right now.

We've spent the weekend in Tulsa visiting my parents (Nonni and Grandpa) and my brother (Uncle Greg).  It's been jam packed with fun and even before we left we had exciting times!

We left for Tulsa on Wednesday, and unlike previous trips I packed the day before.  This was by far the easiest traveling we've done with Jonah!!  Well, let me rephrase that: this was the easiest PACKING we've done with him.  The 12 hour road trip was exhausting, as he is old enough to get bored but too young for movies.

I even had a 'helper' whilst packing.  He took my shoes out:

Climbed in:

And covered himself back up with my shoes.  You know...so as not to be noticed:

And yes, thank you for noticing my awesome packing skills.  I rolled up each day's outfit and secured with a hair tie.  I can't believe how much room it saved!  Interwebnets for the win!

My MIL also sent me tips for painting nails from the Interwebnets.  I loved them.  These are my results after following several of the tips:

I did that during nap time, people!  And you know that's not long in my house!  (By the way - that ring is from Walmart.  $8!  It's my I-don't-care-what-happens-to-this-ring ring.  I bought it for white water rafting in Washington state a few summers ago but it comes in awfully handy when you gain weight to grow a baby and then also care for said baby.)

Start to finish, ready-to-touch-stuff-dry my at-home manicure was about a 10 minute process.  Here are the tips I tried and loved.  It sounds like a lot but it actually made the whole process much faster:

1. Line skin around nail bed with Vaseline.

2. Paint base coat on too half of nails only, then again over whole nail.

3. Paint one thin layer of colored paint.

4. Dip nails in ice water to set and dry (it doesn't mess them up at all - it's a quick-dry tip and it works!!)

5. Spray with non-stick cooking spray

DONE!  

Aren't those kind of crazy tips?!  But they work!  Here's the original link my MIL sent:

http://beautyhigh.com/nail-hacks/

 Annnnnd now I feel like a valley girl for talking about nails for so long.  (Please see my last post on the book I'm reading.  It may help balance out this picture.  Like, seriously...K?!)

The night before we left we attended an Greg Abbott fundraiser and got to hang with 'the other Greg' (my brother):

And then we embarked on our trek to tour the play places of Texas and Oklahoma...

Or create our own in the back of the truck...

and spend the time in between pulling out Dollar Store prizes...

some of which were surprisingly challenging:

But what can you expect from a Valley Girl (or a pachycephalosaurus)?

Stay tuned for Busy Bees Part 2 on our adventures in Tulsa!

Friday Favorites!!

I'm linking up today with Andrea, Narci, and Erika for Friday Favorites!  And hopefully my link up is not just in spirit but I can can actually link up with them from my phone. We'll see...

I only have one favorite right now and it's most definitely positively this:

It's been so very hard lately to make time to study, or read anything for that matter, but quitting the psychosis that is Facebook has helped.  I'm learning to engage myself one paragraph at a time.  It's more difficult than sitting down in a lovely cozy spot with hot tea and snuggling in for some well developed thoughts...but it's a Mom life and if I don't do it this way than I'm not learning anything beyond which diaper rash cream is best for this moment in time and temperature (also a proud learning moment...but I still need the other kind).

The author, Professor Markos, spoke at our school's commencement this past spring and was excellent.  His book does not disappoint either.  I only wish I had read it sooner, before I taught the humanities course on ancient literature and history.  He has so many wonderful insights and is making me fall in love all over again with the ancient tales, and in turn, the current one we live as we await the return of our King.

It's phenomenal, and a great read whether you are already familiar or not with the pagan classics.  

(I especially like the part where he talks about the Geek camp hehehe :-)

Sorry Dr. Markos...I couldn't resist.  That's the best typo EVER.

Happy Friday everyone!

Catching Up

I have a sweet little one asleep on me so let's go through iPhone photos and catch you up on what's been happenin' round these parts!

We celebrated Howard's oldest friend (hehe- I mean 'longtime') Elizabeth and her 40th birthday!  She lives a life worth celebrating!

This is Elizabeth's mom, Phyllis.  She used to watch Howard when he was a baby!

Jonah was in full on party mode.  It's hard to top any affair where you ride goats.  (In case you were wondering that expression is excitement.  Apparently goats are absolutely thrilling.)

And of course plenty of left-arm directions were followed by Opa.  He's the only person who will spend the time just walking Jonah around wherever he wants to go.

Howard and I had a 3-day inservice this week and on Wednesday Jonah went to his first day at his new 'school.'  (He's going to daycare this year while I teach part time.)

He always loves it when we visit there and was so excited to go.

He wasn't thrilled when we picked him up...

BUT he had a great day and did really really well.  The teachers were wonderful with him too. His little sheet that told me what he learned and did said he loved outside and the food at lunch - and that he had seconds. :-) Even though he'll only be there a few hours each afternoon they still might lose money on us!

We've had some hard days recently and I firmly believe the healthiest way to deal with emotions is unhealthy eating. :-). Blue Bell's seasonal Lemon Bliss was the perfect cure!

Howard has been cutting Jonah's hair at home and it's going great!!  This neat little device is also so much safer than the hair salon's sharp scissors that were so close to his eyes!

And as much as I love Jonah's hair, it sure is sweet to see him with it covered up sometimes.  He just looks more like a baby!  Preciousness.

Well that's about it!  We're getting into school mode and finishing up the summer to-do list, soaking up pool time, and I'm enjoying shopping and cooking from my Stocked Kitchen book.  It's a simple, wonderful life!

POD Syndrome and other illnesses

If you hang with me on Facebook you know that our poor Jo threw up all Friday night.  It was the saddest little sight to see his pale face and heaving and inability to crawl.  It was our first virus with him and we hated it! 

Howard googled and learned pedialyte was needed (I could have told him that but I guess the google powers that be carry a bit more gravitas), so he ran out at some horrible hour of the night to get some.  What a devoted Papa.

Now Howard has the bug.  We were looking forward to a respite tomorrow from the overloaded summer we've had, but it looks like I'll be playing nurse.  

My newest patient started to ask me if I had any idea what it felt like to be nauseous and get sick...but he couldn't keep a straight face (a sure sign he's not feeling himself).  I guess he also wanted to live past today.

So far I'm ok on the tummy front but I have actually been suffering from  POD Syndrome.  This disease is becoming more common among my age group, and largely targets females.  It's very difficult to live with and really has become a daily struggle.  

POD stands for Pinterest Overload Syndrome and yes, I made it up.  Scratch that.  I discovered it, and you heard it here first at The Joy!

I kid, but kind of not really so much maybe not.  It's exhausting to try and make a birthday party look spectacular, and it's even exhausting to take a stand and say I'm not going to make it spectacular because then I start gauging how much Jonah's childhood will be ruined if I don't fix my printer so I can label the bowl of Oreos with a super cute sign that says "Oreos."

And after several hours of intermittent party planning I decide I should have read a book and using my spare 3 minutes in that way would have benefitted everyone far more than me having a conversation with myself wherein I go round and round but inevitably talk myself out of making Jonah's cake.  Because I want to live past that day.

Well that's all for now.  Jonah turns 11 months old tomorrow.  I don't have a chalkboard that says that and am not even very far in filling out his baby book, so I that may be all the documentation that happens.  And you know what?  I feel like we need to forget some things once in a while just to balance out The Great Documentation.

Happy 11 months, son.  We love you with our whole Pinterest-less hearts!