You get me?

wow. i don't think i've ever had so many comments. i guess my rant hit a nerve! :)

the majority of you know me well enough to get i was not being totally serious...i hope y'all do anyway! i don't love texas as a state, but i do love it for what it is; where i live with my husband and my three beautiful children. but i do think that texas is overrated. dan says i'm a texan anyway because i'm from shreveport. our family always lived in south shreveport and it only took about 5 minutes to get to waskom, the first texas town on I-20 W. when i'm around my family, or even the whitegrrl christy i get a bit of an accent. so anyway.

for the record:

i grew up loving the dallas cowboys, and like most girls i knew, really wanted to be a dallas cowboys cheerleader. and i really had no idea louisiana had a professional football team until i went to college -- yes, really. the saints did not get much air time in shreveport.

i grew up thinking the ford motor company's slogan was, ford -- built texas tough. i always wondered what "residency restrictions apply" meant.

until college i had never been south of alexandria, louisiana, but i'd been all over east and central texas. going to dallas to shop was extra cool.

tyler roses were far superior to the rose center that was in greenwood.

SO THERE!

Things that make me a terrible Texan

1. if i ever own a texas state flag, i'll NEVER fly it the same height as the US flag. sorry, but i don't care if texas was it's own country for about 15 minutes. have some respect for our flag people.

2. even though the pictures are cute, i don't think we'll ever make a yearly pilgrimage to a roadside field of lupinus texensis (texas bluebonnets). why worry unnecessarily about my beautiful fair-skinned children getting bit by a blue bonnet loving insect? or having them get their clothes stained? (i'm sure they would sit on a small blanket..) sorry, but if i want to take their pictures surrounded by a state flower, i can't think of a prettier picture than having them sit on the sprawling branches of a 100 year-old magnolia tree. i'm just sayin'. also, i ain't going an hour and a half away from home with three kids unless there is a vacation involved.

3. i'm not a fan of country music, and the only line dancing i'll EVER do is the freeze. by the way, i never even knew what that dance was until i went to a foot function at the BSU. i went to caddo magnet, and because we lacked a football team, we lacked serious dancing. i can really only remember going to one dance that was not homecoming/prom related. oh, and angie s. parker taught me how to do the freeze. thanks, ang. but anyway, why did texas have to re-name the fox trot the texas two step? how arrogant.

4. sorry, but i'm not going to start buying up all the aqua net at the CVS so i can have big texas hair. been there, done that in the 80's with the rest of the country. i've found the deeper in texas you go the bigger the hair gets.

5. HEB is okay, but give me Kroger any day. enough said.

6. i will NEVER have a humongous metal star decorating the front, side or inside of my house.

7. i will never shun a person for making a mistake like, "what are texas a & m colors, orange or maroon?" i recently had to clarify that because i was making a texas a & m mom a bag to take to her a & m mom's group meeting. the girl at hancock's thought i was kidding. nope, i just don't CARE what your school's colors are. --side note: i have a friend who is going to order something for a teacher-friend of hers who is having twins this may. she's ACTUALLY naming them Audrey (mabye it's abby, i can't remember) and Madeline -- get it, A & M. sad, very sad. let it go people, college is over.

8. i'm 35, almost 36. i've actually embraced my age, and i won't be having a botox party anytime soon.

9. i don't enjoy tejano music.

10. i'm offended when i hear people in my church say, "i'm a texas baptist." there's a difference between a texas baptist and a louisiana baptist? maybe it's the hair.

(i think my ear infection has made me a little crabby..)

Ramblings of a lurker

i'm a lurker. i love to lurk. i love to read the comments too.

my top 5 favorite sites to lurk are: (in no particular order..)

1. Rebekah
2. Elizabeth
3. Lauren
4. Kristi
5. Todd

why do i lurk? i've thought about it and really, i'm just a huge procrastinator. i can literally spend hours reading random blogs. do i know the author of the sites i lurk? not really. and what i mean by that is, i know them from college, but not at all well enough to comment. (i would comment on kristi's blog, but she's taken a vacation from blogging...) i also lurk to see pictures of your kids! and a lot of times i end up getting encouraged by your blog entries. the other day i ended up crying when i read something lauren posted about. so anyway, when i lurk, i thank God for your blogs. somehow i always seem to lurk on a day when i need to be encouraged. and thank you to shandra, because i get to all the blogs i lurk on from your blog! :)

so anyway, if you have some sort of site tracker, i may be the lurker in league city -- but be careful, jennifer k. pearce lives a couple of minutes from me, so it might be her! :) y'all encourage her to get a blog. her little benjamin is cute!

Happenings

i've got an ear infection -- OUCH. i seem to get them easily, and i'm very annoyed about that. i was in a ton of pain last night, but with the help of a little pain pill left over from my postpartum days with elliot, i managed to get through. :) i went to the doctor this afternoon and got some antibiotics, so i'm sure i'll be able to re-enter the world tomorrow or friday. i've had to put my cutesy cloths sewing on hold for a couple of days...so if you are waiting for a recent order, i'll get them out soon! i do have an order ready for you, shan. by the time blake is born he'll be a walking advertisement for cutesy cloths. and, yes, i'm shamelessly asking for people to order something off his registry! :)

we had ethan's dinosaur birthday party last weekend. we rented a moonwalk, and a few friends came over. it was cool and VERY windy, but the jumping kept them warm! he had a great time. dan found a cake at HEB that had dinosaurs that roared and lit up - it was very cool. but i am getting ready to hide all of his new dinosaurs that make noises...

emily excavating a dinosaur

Weekend Fun

we had a great weekend. dan's mom came in for a visit, ethan celebrated his 3rd birthday and we had our Easter egg hunt at the church.

i can't believe ethan is 3!! friday morning i held him in my lap and told him the story about the day he was born. he was all curled up on my lap and i could not help but get teary-eyed telling him about it. time really does fly. i can remember his birth like it was yesterday.

my blue-eyed baby boy!

we had the egg hunt saturday even though it was pouring down rain! there was no way i was going to reschedule it, so when it started sprinkling, i announced the egg hunt was starting - NOW! there were kids running everywhere. after the hunt we just took everything inside. it was not a big deal, the kids had a great time despite having to play indoors. i was a little bummed they could not bounce in the bounce house i rented. but the guy told me i could have it again for half price. i'll take that deal!

elliot had a great time at his first egg hunt. he's walking all over the place. it's hard to keep up with him. i was on the other side of the fellowship hall running an egg and spoon race and i caught a glimpse of elliot on the floor. i noticed he was chewing on something (which is sooo not unusual) so i watched him a little longer. then i saw a friend of ours grab a bottle of bubbles from him. some how he got into the bubbles and was chewing on the wand. yuck.

we did not get to take any pictures of the kids outside today because of the cold and wet, but we did take a few after church. dan tried taking several of them standing, but elliot just wanted to walk away...

then it was hard to get all of them to smile and not talk...

elliot kept trying to get away...

finally we gave up on getting them to take a group picture, so dan had emily and ethan stand uby the fireplace. dan asked emily to turn sideways and smile. ethan mimicked what she was doing...i'm afraid we've got america's next top preschool models here. i have no idea where they learned such a look!!

Busy, busy, busy

it's been pretty crazy around here lately. i've been doing a LOT of sewing!! thanks to all of you who have ordered something from me, passed my site along to others, and especially thank you for supporting me with words of encouragement. i truly love sewing, and i love sewing baby things -- and bridesmaid things! i've had a suggestion to have gift certificates -- hopefully dan and i can figure out how to do that too. i've even had my first expectant mom register at my site. in case you want to see what a registry looks like, you can search for "Landrum" -shandra has a registry for little blake! :)

we took the kids to the zoo friday. i brought the camera, but forgot the battery!! we all had fun; we went with two of the coolest home schooled kids we know -- they were GREAT tour guides! that morning i asked ethan what animal he was most excited about seeing. he said the wolves. now, how weird is that? i totally expected him to say a lion or a tiger, but not a wolf! he got to see one though! i had a good time, but i was a little sad to see all the big animals living in such a small area. the poor giraffes did not even have trees to eat from! most cages did not have any grass. i was bummed. not PETA bummed, but bummed nonetheless. kiki did remind me in other countries the animals in zoos are treated much worse. guess i have to be happy they are being taken care of here. :(

dan and the kids went off the see mae mae (dan's mom) this weekend. we had not been home since Christmas, so it was time for a visit. elliot and i stayed home so i could sew. it was nice to have just one kid to take care of, but i really did miss the other two. the house was eerily quiet most of the time. i just soaked it in! i had a good time with elliot. he's been walking a little -- next week he'll be 11 months old!! i was glad we got to spend some time together, just the two of us. he's growing up so fast.

well, it's almost time for dan to get home. i have to head off to the post office when he gets here; customers are waiting for their orders!! :)