Abbie turned FOUR! (I should have posted this yesterday)

How is it possible that my "baby" is four years old? That's just RIDICULOUS.
Short Abbie birthday story: After 2 prior (unplanned) c-sections, we decided to schedule one for Abbie rather than roll the dice again. So we registered to come into the hospital at 5:30 AM on the 16th. All our plans were in place; we had childcare for the bigs lined up and everything. Then, about 4:00 PM on the 15th, I got a call from the OBX Hospital that they were "full". (It doesn't take much; there are only 17 beds in the whole hospital, and 4 of them are labor/delivery rooms.) They told me I'd have to come in the following day. I reluctantly agreed, because, really, what else could I do? I called all the people who needed to know this information and settled in to wait another day.
Abbie, however, had other plans. I was woken up by a STRONG contraction at exactly 5:30 AM on the 16th (right when we'd been scheduled!). I labored all day, and by about 6:30 PM I could no longer talk through them, and Jon made me call the hospital. I remember crying to him, "But they're FULL!" and him replying, "Well, they're going to have to make someone move over."
When I got there, it was controlled chaos. They really WERE full. I was in triage for a little while, with contractions coming about 2 minutes apart. I was REALLY upset because my doctor was not on call that night, nor was ANYONE from my practice. I knew I was having a c-section (I never progressed past 2 cm with any of my kids), and it was going to be performed by someone I'd never met! It ended up being a great experience, though; Dr. Kling was very nice and extremely competent. Abbie was born at 10:30 that night.
Abbie is (as my dad would say) "a pistol". She is funny, and sassy, very bright and loving, and also the one who's going to be TOUGH when she's a teenager! She loves to sing (especially her own songs) and play dress-up. She is 900% girl. She's also messy, klutzy and prone to fits of temper. She's still attached (very much so) to her "bee" (blanket) and sucks her thumb. She just switched to panties at bedtime instead of PullUps (thank you God!) and thinks she can read. When she writes her name, the "i" looks like a big fat lollipop. She told me last night when I was laying with her at bedtime, "Mommy, I just fell in love with you!"
Here are some pictures:

In the triage room, about 2 hours before her birth.

Grandad and Micah, waiting for the announcement!



About 2 minutes old.


Daddy, sharing the news with Katie.


Baby footprints.


Meeting Grammy, 1 day old.


First family picture, one day old.


First smile (I don't care what you say, it was a SMILE!)


The day before we went home.

First birthday cake.


Turning two.


Turning three, with pink-streaked hair.


Funny picture with Nanny's glasses, just because.


Almost four, my little princess!

Katie's blog

Check it out: Katie's Blog

She's been bugging me about it for days. So there ya go.

Knock, knock.

It's a known fact that knock-knock jokes will amuse a three-year-old for indefinite amounts of time. Seriously, the more incomprehensible the punchline, the harder they cackle. (Overheard in my van, between Micah and Julie when they were three: Micah: Knock, knock. Julie: Who's there? Micah: Tree. Julie: Tree who? Micah: TREE THAT LOOKS LIKE A HOUSE bwahahahahaha! They both dissolve in giggles. Then they repeat the same one, only switching roles. Repeat, ad nauseum, world without end, amen and amen. You get the picture.)
BUT DID YOU KNOW that a THIRTY-three year old (namely me) will laugh OUT loud, many times at a knock-knock joke? Only if it's this one, though:


Truly? If you don't laugh at that joke you may not have a soul. Check on that.

This is the part of the show where Gretchen says, "Pot? This is kettle. You're black."

...because I'm about to call out a BUNCH of y'all for being sorry-ass bloggers like me. Ahem...Shelley (your personal one, not the food one), Melody, Mom, NEIL (you jerk; I've been waiting for that one!), Jen S., Becka (and Becka...the "well I'm a missionary and I'm on the road" excuse? Not working for me anymore. I neeeeeed more!)
Yes, my loyal four readers, I'm a hypocrite. And a sucky updater. I'm going through a "downswing" recently with regard to depression, sloth, laziness and general malaise. ('Tis the season.)
But I do have a funny to share. Last week, Jon and I shuttled the kids off to a playdate and tackled Micah's room. We had planned to do both his and the girls', but realized that not only could we not do that in three hours, but we likely couldn't do it in three DAYS. Anyway, I was in major purge mode. We got rid of an entire trash bag of junk (shhhh, he doesn't know that, because I put it in the outside trash before he got home). The "good stuff", though, we decided to send to Evie. The "good stuff" consists of a very nice easel that my mom and dad bought for him when he turned two (and which saw a lot of use back in the day but hasn't been used recently for probably eight-ish months) and a shopping bag full of Little People stuff (Noah's Ark, a school bus, a tow truck w/ people, etc.). When Micah saw the easel in the hallway, awaiting transportation to its new home (thank you, Shelley!), he immediately went into full drama-queen mode: "I don't waaaaant to give away my easel! I loooooove it! I uuuuse it alll the tiiiiiime!" (Note: True. True. FALSE.) I basically (nicely) told him to suck it up. So, later, when I go past the easel in the hall, here's the message he's written on the chalkboard. TO THE EASEL.

Dictionary.com....or, "Bible study FAIL"

im⋅mo⋅late

–verb (used with object), -lat⋅ed, -lat⋅ing.

1.	to sacrifice.

2.	to kill as a sacrificial victim, as by fire; offer in sacrifice.

3.	to destroy by fire.
	em⋅u⋅late verb (used with object) 1. to try to equal or excel; imitate with effort to equal or surpass: to emulate one's father as a concert violinist. 2. to rival with some degree of success: Some smaller cities now emulate the major capitals in their cultural offerings.

Can we see that these two words are NOT the same word? Tee-hee. This is a flyer for a Bible study starting locally. Words cannot describe the mirth that occurred upon discovering this vocabulary error. So if you hear me say to any of my kids, "Hey, do you ever want to light me on fire?", it's not because I'm completely crazy. Well, I am, but that's not why.

Here's a picture of said flyer:



Oh, and if you double-click on the image, it'll make it bigger so you can get the full effect. Snaps to Jan Culpepper for being such a good sport when having it brought to her attention.

JULY 11!!!

That is when I'm going with Neil and Holly (and don't know who else) to see these guys. And these guys. And THESE guys.
This is the soundtrack of my childhood, y'all. Oh, wait, I already said that about the Magic Garden.
OK, so let's call this the soundtrack of my angsty adolescence.

The great kitchen re-model!

OK, so it wasn't a re-model. Actually, not even close. We (and by "we", I mean Neil) just replaced the vinyl floor tiles. Have you ever used the stick-on vinyl floor squares? They TOTALLY rock. Seriously, you just line them up, peel off the backing like a Band-Aid, and stick them on. The only cutting you have to do is along the edges. It took a total of about 3 hours, including moving furniture and appliances to do it.
I decided on Wednesday morning that I just. couldn't. stand. the current floor. I don't know how long it'd been there, but it was a) light-colored - so showed dirt a LOT and b) so scratched up that even though I might mop it every day (which of course I don't), it NEVER looked clean. Neil had stayed over the night before because we were up watching a movie, so as we were enjoying our coffee, I blurted out, "I can't stand this floor! You've done vinyl tile before; how much do you think it would cost to replace this?" We did a bit of figuring and took a trip to Home Depot. We bought 4 boxes of vinyl tile for a grand total of $130 including tax. I bought Neil beer and cigarettes for his labor payment (bad, bad, I know, but hey...it's cheaper than paying him $20 an hour, which he deserves. And he didn't even want a carton of cigarettes, just a pack, because, as he said, "I'll just smoke more if I have more").
Oh, yeah, another cool thing about these tiles: you don't have to peel up the old flooring. You just make sure it's clean (which it IS, although you can't tell it from the pictures! :) and put the new down over the old.
All in all, a job VERY well done and VERY appreciated!


The old floor. Gross.

Up-close. Grosser.

My Neil with his pre-payment.
Hard at work, as you can tell.

Katie "helped", too.
The juxtaposition of new and old makes the old look worse, if possible.


Done! Isn't it purty?


The obligatory Neil-being-creepy pose.


I didn't sleep there that night, although I considered it.