Dino Diet and Bathtime mischief.

It looks like Davers' dino prefers chips of the Baked variety. After a run-in with his applesauce, my shirtless rascal got into some mischief before bathtime tonight.

Look at that hair!

More mischief after bath. It's hard keeping him away from the laptop. If I leave it next to the recliner, he makes a bee-line, laughing and looking behind him to see if I'm running after. Most of the time, I am.

He multi-tasked while brushing his teeth and found his way back into the chip box. I love those plaid pajama pants and that soft combed-over hair.

Davis, you are so very rascally... in a precious, irresistable kinda way.

Better belated than never?

On July 14th of 2009, we had a small gathering at Aunt Mel's house for Davis' first birthday. It was sort of a combo party with Jack since Uncle Greg and Aunt Sharon were in town from Missouri and would miss Jack's big party.

To prepare for the party, Jack helped decorate by coloring these banners. Hope made this cake in honor of Jack getting ready to go to Kindergarten. (Then we had to tell him he could't eat any of it. Poor guy.)

The man of the hour! He was doing his best to climb out of those straps and/or pull down that tablecloth, so this was a bit of a short-lived scene.

See what I mean about that tablecloth?

Aw, some brotherly love for the birthday song. Davis REALLY looks like Jeff's Dad Jarrell to me in the picture on the left. He used to make that same face with his eyes wide open. Aw, we miss Papa!

But, we did have the next best thing! We were very blessed with a surprise visit from Jarrell's little brother, Robbie Griffin from Salado. It made us get teary-eyed seeing Davis with Uncle Robbie because he reminds us so much of Jarrell.

Davis read his puppy card over and over while Jack opened a ton of gifts.

Love this pic of me and my boy. We've both gotten bigger since last year.

The fave gift of the evening was Davis' new sports field. Once Jack showed him how to use it, he spent the next year shoving EVERYTHING BUT those orange basketballs down that plastic chute as the crowd cheered him on.

Happy (belated) First Birthday, Davers!

Rapid ramblings of a working party planner.

It really is amazing how time has flown. I just completed my sixth month on the job. I know. Crazy. I now really GET what they mean when they say, "Well, that's Healthcare for ya." or when I talk about how fast-paced everything is and get the usual response of, "Welcome to Healthcare." There are four of us (CORPORATE recruiters) who started at the same time, and we're still having a hard time keeping up with the crazy-fast pace, crazy-heavy workload, and "do it right now" expectations.

I do feel like I recognize people and acronyms a little better, I don't get lost as often driving in the Medical Center, and my multi-tasking skills are sharpening. I am about to get an iPhone (thanks to Dad) from which I can Facebook and Tweet more effectively, so that's exciting. I have been warned that it will take all I have not to bury my head in it, but we'll have to wait and see.

In the midst of making another to-do list and contemplating summer vacation, it just hit me. Davis will turn two in, well, two weeks. Meaning, I have a party to plan and if Miss Manners were the hostess, her guests would have received the invites by... yesterday!

So, Jack agreed to have their parties together with one condition... Davis has his own party theme, and Jack has his own. He wants to decorate the room down the middle so "his friends would know which side of the party is his." So, we're going with it. I called Party City last night to see when they closed. It was 8:20pm, and they closed at 9:00pm. Perfect. I work best under pressure. I threw Jack in the car (excited about a post-bedtime excursion) and we were on a 30-minute mission.

Half Hot Wheels, half Jungle Animals, half the expense. And, it has all the makings of another "only the Griffins..." type experience for our guests.

It's interesting how differently I am approaching the party planning now that I am working. No on-line comparison shopping and overthinking, no custom printed invites with 3-d embellishments. No hand-made banners, elaborate menus... not even a Gigantic pinata. And, it will be just as much fun. The extra costs for convenience? Add it in. See it at Party City? Buy it. What if Walmart has it at better price? Oh well. Left the coupon at home? Forget it.

I remind myself that the Mom whose party decorations look like this...

...loves her child no more than the Mom whose party decorations look like this...

I was also reminded this week that I still have not blogged about their LAST year's parties. Yes, that would be Davis' FIRST BIRTHDAY. Oh, which reminded me... we ended up cancelling his party the night before because our air conditioning went out. Poor second-borns.

So, all the time I just saved with my streamlined party-supply purchasing, I have decided to spend finally blogging about last year's b-day events. Makes perfect sense. It will be much more productive than, oh, the pile of laundry waiting for me behind the pantry door. I am sure when Jeff says, "Honey, did WE wash any of my underwear?" (And by WE, he means ME.) I will say, "No, but I did do something WAY BETTER... I finally got last year's birthday party posts done."

He'll be so excited.

Schmethics?

I am working at home today. I am in the middle of (well, it's running in the background) an "Ethics Refresher Course" which takes about 90 minutes.

I decided I'd take a few seconds to write a quick blog post... but thought better of it.

Before he turns two...

... I figured I better get Davers' 21-month picture posted. (I actually remembered to take it when he turned 21-months old...)

Here he is holding his beloved woobie....the magic sleep blankie. We have six of them.

Jack Everett's funny streak...

Jack says funny things all the time, but lately some extra silly things have come out of that gappy grin. I posted some of these on Facebook as they happened, but wanted to chronicle them here (since Blogger will be around FOREVER, heh.)

After making the "Monster truck engine roar" sound for about ten solid minutes, I ask Jack, "Honey, doesn't that hurt your throat??". He stops just long enough to say, "Yes, but it's totally worth it!" and races down the hallway...
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Jack: "But I don't LIKE pineapples."
Me: "Honey, you need to eat more fruit. You used to eat tons of fruit."
J: "I eat Fritos! Fritos is Spanish for fruit!"
M: "Nice try, buddy."
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I surprised Jack with a box of chocolate milk when I picked him up from his first day at the new daycare. Later that evening, we had this funny conversation:
Jack: "Mom, that was the best shake I have EVER had! Please bring me one of those kind of shakes every single day!"
Me: "Shake?! Do you mean the chocolate milk I brought you from work?"
J: "Yeah, the "Shake Well."
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After being asleep for quite some time, Jack comes stumbling into the living room with squinty eyes, and is TOTALLY sweaty. He holds up a toy motorcycle, and says to us - dead serious - "Mom. Dad. HOW can I be SO sweaty?! All I have on is this SHORT-sleeve pajama shirt, these SHORT shorts, and the only thing I am holding is this ONE light-weight object!"

Jeff and I cracked up.

What 5-year-old says "light-weight object" ... half-asleep no less... and what's he doing holding a motorcycle in bed anyway?

Man, I LOVE this kid.

Blogstacles.

One of the hardest things about working full-time has been my inability to keep up with the blog. I love this thing... not only does it keep me connected with people I don't otherwise see, it is an reminder to me that we really do a lot together as a family.

The fact that I have not posted anything lately is not what bothers me most. What bothers me, is that I feel like we haven't been able to find time to do anything worth posting, either. Our together time seems to consist of laundry, a shopping cart, or singing the "clean up" song trying to pull the house back together.

Jack has finished his last day of Kindergarten and thanks to a storm blowing out the power at the daycare, I was able to take an unexpected day off to enjoy the festivities. I cried when I said "goodbye" to Mrs. Brockman. I cried because I feel so grateful for how amazing she has been. I also cried because I know something Jack doesn't know. She will not be at Scobee next year.... which means he is NOT going to see her after the summer... which means he will NOT likely get to see her big pregnant... and will NOT likely get to meet the baby. It breaks my heart. She just didn't have the heart to tell the kids and I am glad she didn't. Jack talks about Mrs. Brockman every single day and his writing about her (and there is a lot of it) is precious. (And to think I was so worried about getting a new teacher at the beginning of the year...)

Jeff sat down in front of the laptop today at lunch and Davis looked over from his highchair and said, "Mommy's chair! Mommy's Chair!" OUCH. Guess I haven't been staying off the work laptop as much as I thought.

Luckily, things are looking up for us in the "family time" department. Jeff was finally granted Saturdays off. I am so relieved. I feel like I've worked full-time for six days a week for the past five months, and it wears on me. I feel bad because by the time he came home on Saturday nights, I was ready to hand them over and lock myself in the closet for some quiet time. It will be great to have two days home together and will free me up to grocery shop on Saturday mornings while they are all sleeping. (That's the plan anyway... who knows.)

So, it is clear to me that I have two choices. I can moan about working full-time or find a way to make it work and be happy. I am trying to find a balance but am so disappointed that we're five months in and I still feel as harried as I did Week One. I have never worked at ANY job, (even Kinko's when I was 16) where at some point I didn't receive feedback that I have trouble staying focused. Every boss I have ever had has given me this feedback, to which I want to reply, "You don't say!?" So, it was almost comforting when it was the first "area of improvement" on my 90-day appraisal at Methodist. Gwen was so sweet about it. I mean, she's raising two boys too. It's sort of reassuring when she drives me to an important meeting and I have to move a Transformer and a blue swim shoe off her passenger seat before sitting down.

I am still working on a "system" for staying focused and organized. With each new job, I try lists, calendars, flags on my Outlook, etc. until something works, but this job proposes challenges I have never faced. Not only have I never juggled so many things at once, I have never before had to support people who work at different facilities all over town, and haven't had to balance a work cell phone. Now people can send me to-do's via cell phone, e-mail, voicemail, and text and I might be at lunch, at home, or at a remote facility when I receive them. It's multi-tasking to the max and those of you who know me don't need me to explain how hard that is for me. On top of that, Smart Phones are NOT in the budget after all, so we are doing this without remote computer access. (I know...)

But, there are parts of this job that are right up my alley and I love to do. For one, I got the chance to create from scratch the new "JoinMEthodist" recruitment logo and pitch it to marketing for approval. After much deliberation, here is what I came up with:

It will soon be seen on thousands of mugs, bags, shirts, and pens, and that's pretty exciting. I'll also be rolling out the website soon if I can just (you guessed it) stay focused on the minutia required to get it all done.

The boys start tomorrow at the Humble Creek Ranch Youth Enrichment and Sports Academy. Sounds expensive. That's because it is. While Jeff is still reeling a bit with sticker shock, he understands that if I am worried about the kids at daycare all day, I will never be able to (you guessed it again) focus on my work. I think he is also tired of hearing me talk about the things that I don't like about our old place. (If the top three ingredients are Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and Citric Acid, it's not juice, it's a melted snow cone.) Jack loves the old daycare, but Davis is happy to take his "listening problem" with him to a bigger room with more space and newer toys. So, my fingers are crossed that Monday goes okay.

Better run before Jack, Davis, and Jeff finish their naps. The final blogstacle is that my digital camera is broken. Ugh. Thankfully Husband-o-the-year bought the four-year warranty, so I turned it over to the Geek Squad at Best Buy for the two-week repair.

Wouldn't you know the boys were posing in collared shirts and combed-over hair this morning and Jack said, "Mommy, take our picture!!" Wishing I had a smart phone or something, I remembered the words of my wise big bro Trey "Just because you didn't get a picture of it doesn't mean it didn't happen." So, I soaked in their handsomeness for a few moments and we left for church. I would have loved to post a pic for everyone, but here's one from Easter instead.



Easter Sunday 2010. The day it was officially decided that Jack is too old to match his little brother.