Just some pics.

Do you ever walk outside at night in the summer and think, it smells like high school?

Not in the weird cafeteria smell way, but in the "ah, memories of hanging out at night as a kid" way. I walked outside a couple of nights ago right after sundown, and felt a sense of nostalgia as a stood on the front porch. It made me long for the days when things were less complicated, filled with storybook emotions, free and not stressful. Not that I'm really stressed out right now, but I once was. Just brought me back.

Anyway, speaking on not stressful ... Mexico! Sorry it's been so long since I've done a follow up post. I do feel like I need to clear up the "Jay in women's pants" comment. See below. You can also find more detail on Ally's blog.

Luke and I, Jay and Ally recently got back from Mexico SANS KIDS for five nights. It was a great trip - relaxing, almost too quiet at times, and much needed for me. Cooper and I were about to start tearing each other's hair out. I think we both needed a break.

Oh, and to get into the restaurants at our Playa resort, guys HAD to wear pants. Not shorts, pants. Jay didn't pack a single pair of pants, and Luke only brought one pair of jeans. So, Jay did what any secure man would do, and wore my pants. They didn't look that bad, actually, you really couldn't tell. I think Jay could though ... What a team player!

We sat by the pool, read, ate lots of great food, brushed up on our Spanish (esp. in Isla - no one speaks English there, at all), rented a golf cart for a day on Isla, and had some fantastic Mexican beverages. The beaches were immaculate, and, well, I can't say anything bad about it. We were SUPER ready to see Cooper after seven days without him though. So glad we all had safe travels! Here are some pics.


I just realized, I need to take more pictures of Cooper! We're going to swimming lessons this week and next, so maybe I'll get some pool pictures. He's also singing a lot more - I need to figure out how to post video from our camera. Another day ...

Here's where I was all week ...

(actual picture)

Don't be jealous. Well, maybe you should be. We just got back from a week long vacation to Playa and Isla Mujeres, Mexico. It was AMAZING. Just what we needed. Jay and Ally were great vacation buddies. More pictures and funny stories later. Let's just say that Jay had to wear women's jeans at one point, and a few days later, we ended up locked IN our room at Isla.

Pics from the past few weeks

Here are the much sought-after pictures from weeks past.

The "all edge" brownie pan from Jackson to his momma.
Cooper at his last day of school water day. These three were like the Three Amigos this year.

Cooper looking tired at Lake LBJ in Marble Falls.
Have fun at the lake weekend with friends.
THe best picture of the bunch. Camden did NOT like to have Cooper's arm around her. Already playing hard to get.
Trying to light the grill in the wind. It's apparently a three man job.
Colt, wondering why it's picture time so early in the morning! They have such a great porch there at the Coleman/Dishman house on the golf course.
Thought this was pretty of Camden.
Here's a pic of Coop all dressed up for church last Sunday. What a good day it was!

Ironman and the City

We have a new record: Two movies in one weekend without children. This is amazing people. Few ever attain this.

Sex and the City was super-duper good. Eye candy with the AMAZING clothes and ridiculous accessories, but still a pretty good plot. I'm a huge fan, only so through the reruns, and I think it did justice to the characters. It could have been longer, they could have done more with Charlotte, it was way over hyped, but still fantastic. You just get so IN to the characters in the series; a movie just doesn't bring everything to fruition. Worth going to see. The Ultimate Chick Flick.

Tonight, we went to see Ironman, which also was amazing. Robert Downey, Jr. has always been a secret fave of mine, and he does extremely well in this role. Perfect for him. Funny, smart, great villain, helpless assistant with really high heels running ... It was great.

I still need to post pictures, I know. I'll get to it!

Lake Weekend - pics to come

For now, see Sara W.'s blog for Marble Falls pics. I'll post some very soon.

It is true: Some of us DID spend an unusual amount of time on crossword puzzles, and everyone did end up getting sick on this trip. One by one, we all dropped like flies. Good thing it wasn't a very long bug. All seems to be well today, except I think Preston is still sick. More to come ...

Post for my own sake.

Cooper's been doing several amazing things lately (and in the past few months - I'm behind writing things down) that I should be writing down somewhere. Since I'm not a very good scrapbooker, ( he has a baby book, but it's easier to type than write) I need to make a list. I'm good at those.

Cooper, at 2 1/2:
- loves to watch Little Einsteins, and loves to watch the "giant" one with Beethoven's Fifth. He also loves Dora and The Backyardigans. Also likes to watch all of the videos on sesameworkshop.org.
- is beginning to sing on key, and sing loud to all of the songs he knows. "Oh God, You Are My God" is his favorite.
- loves to talk about Barack Obama, and notices him on television every time he comes on. We don't talk about politics much, so it's pretty funny.
- can type his name on the keyboard of a computer. Slowly but surely.
- starting to recognize letters and knows a song ("The Apple Song") for their sounds.
- got his first bike last week (May 13) and is riding it pretty well. Has a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse helmet that he doesn't like to wear.
- can recognize his name, my name and dad's name on paper.
- Here's a normal dinner conversation: Me - "Cooper, sit down and finish eating your dinner." Cooper - "No, I will NOT sit down and finish eating my dinner!" Me - "Do not argue with me." Cooper - "YES, I WILL argue with you!" Then a warning, and time out ... regular occurrence. He loves to argue, just like his momma.
- says Genesis 1:1 - his first memory verse.
- every night, lies in bed with dad and asks how his day was, and if he had lots of meetings.
- loves to know the schedule for the day. This, then this, then this, etc.
- still takes a three hour nap.
- likes to eat pizza, hamburgers, chicken burgers, and spaghetti with meat sauce. Will also eat lots of broccoli, grapes, strawberries, green peas, and melons.
- is tons of fun.

Whew. I feel better!

We've made it very clear that he can do whatever he wants when he grows up.

I was tagged.

Thanks Andrea, for the tag. Hope I'm interesting enough to think of seven random things. Here goes.

Seven Random Things About Me

1. I've never been called a "laid back" person. I wish I was more laid back, but of the time I'm pretty high strung when it comes to certain things. Hope this doesn't rub off to much on Cooper.

2. We're finally seriously looking into new wood floors downstairs and new carpet upstairs. This is fantastic.

3. I'm a pretty stinkin' good cook. I can whip up anything in a flash if need be (thanks mom). Doesn't mean I LOVE to cook, just means that I can. I'm obsessed with the Food Network.

4. I love to layout. I can't WAIT until summertime. Even if I'm wearing 60+ sunscreen, I love how the hot sun feels on my skin.

5. Having experienced both sides, I appreciate working moms and stay-at-home moms equally. They both contribute amazing knowledge to their kids and our culture.

6. I love the History Channel. I have to watch it at night in secret because Luke would never have that. :)

7. Unlike Andrea, I love a good biography. I'd rather read about real life happenings. Usually they are crazier than any nonfiction book, but nonfiction's cool too. :)

I tag Julie Thu, the newest blogger of the group.

Where's the beef?

I'll tell you where the beef is. Right here. And I don't think I'll be eating any for a while anyway.

Let's just say that our Sunday was not a day of rest. Our affair with the beef in our freezer began on Saturday afternoon, right before we were leaving for the Thu's house to, of all things, barbecue some burgers. At about 2:15 p.m., Luke comes up the stairs and says, "I have some bad news. Really bad news." I'm thinking, this can't be good.

"The deep freeze went out. Everything's thawed out. Everything. I'm not sure we can save anything." The breaker blew.

Oh man. NOT good news considering my parents (thanks mom and dad, by the way) had recently given us one-fourth (not quite, because we didn't take it all with us, thank goodness) of a cow. Basically, pounds and pounds of different cuts of beef - steaks, roasts, ground beef, cutlets, ribs, etc. I run down the stairs and open the freezer, and yes, everything was thawed. I have no idea when I looked in the freezer last. Might have been five days ago, but who's counting now? We immediately call my mom, and Rachel informs me that between 40 and 140 degrees, meat starts to grow bacteria. So, if anything is above 40 or 45 degrees, we had to throw it out. Yuk.

I run to Wal-Mart to get a better meat thermometer, and I start stabbing, for lack of a better term, each piece of meat to see what it's internal temperature was. A lot of the stuff on top was a goner. But, we did save about 3/4 of the ground beef, a lot of roasts, some ribs, cutlets, and a couple of steaks. It wasn't a total loss.

The worst parts of all of this: Cleaning the freezer out and COOKING ALL OF THE BEEF.

You would think that we had a dead, decaying body in the freezer if you would have seen all of the "blood" from the meat in the bottom. We we're ELBOW DEEP in it. We dumped it out and cleaned it all vigorously on Saturday night after we got home. Whew, that part was done.

Yesterday, Luke and I spent ALL DAY and most of the night cooking every last bit of the meat so we could refreeze it cooked and use it later. We're not talking about a few pounds of meat and a couple of steaks, ladies and gentlemen. We're talking THIRTY POUNDS of ground beef, FOUR roasts ... I could go on. I made a vat of spaghetti sauce, we browned a ton of beef with onions and garlic, Luke made a million of some pretty awesome meatballs (thanks Eli), Luke grilled the ribs, and I cooked all of the roasts in the oven. At 11 p.m. last night, all of the greasy cleaning was done. We cooked for eight hours straight with a slight pause to eat what else, spaghetti. Our house smelled (and still sorta smells) like a Burger King. After all of that, I'm not sure when we will eat beef again. But when we want to by goodness, it'll be ready!

Ah Abilene ...

Cooper and I ventured west to Abilene last week for a couple of days to see my dear friend and college roommate Leslie and her THREE daughters (Kaitlyn 4, Cora 15 mo. and Claire 3 months). It was quite a houseful! Sara and Chase came down as well, so we just had a good ol' time talking about college days and what's new in our lives. It's great how we can always just pick up where we left off with these two, and never miss a beat. The kids got a long great too!

"Maverick, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

"I feel the need ... the need, for SPEED!"

Yeah, I know I'm a bad blogger.

I've been busy. Get over it!

I've yet to blog about my trip with my mom and Rachel to Fredericksburg. It was so nice and relaxing! I'd never been there before, so I didn't really know what to expect. We did a lot of eating (of course) walking around, visiting wildseed farms, eating samples, and going to Lukenbach. All very interesting, and fun! Here are a few pics:

What could be more fascinating than a potty training update?

His "big boys" sum it up. We are now on week FOUR of no diapers for the Coop. Luke and I could not be more proud of him (and of me, for I was the major trooper in this saga) for being such a big boy. It's SUCH a relief to not have to deal with diapers anymore. And, he's getting really good at telling us when he needs to go, as opposed to us constantly asking him. It was surprisingly painless, after the first week or so. Hang in there, those who are trying to accomplish this daunting task, and never, NEVER revert back to diapers or pull-ups. (Although we do pull-ups at night sometimes ...)

Oh, and here he is all dressed up for Easter. What a cutie!

An AOK 10K

Luke, Luke's sister Kelley and I ran the Capitol 10K this morning in downtown Austin. It was actually a lot of fun, even though it rained the entire time, and the whole running 6.4 miles thing. I think around 17,000 people ran the race, and I finished 4,685th. Luke finished in like 50 minutes and got 1061st or something. Haha. Only took about an hour, and my goal was just to run the whole time. It's fun stuff like this that makes me LOVE living in this city! (If you squint really hard you can see me in this picture.)

Witty, that Cooper.

Cooper: Mom, my tooth hurts!

Me: Oh no! Which one?

Cooper: The bluetooth.

Wonder what daddy's been talking about lately.

I have so many good pictures I need to post - Easter, the Waco Zoo, Fredericksburg with my mom and sister. I'll get to it, I promise. Here are a couple: One from the Zoo with Coop, and another of an egg. I love how my camera can make an egg picture so pretty!

There's a Fountain Free

We are now in day THREE of no diapers for Cooper. He's doing pretty well, despite a few mishaps here and there. Key is, preempting the accident. Hopefully, we'll have it by the end of his spring break. Go Cooper go!

Watching "Sicko."

I don't know what your political beliefs are, or what you think of health care in America, nor does it matter. You should watch this movie. It's not new, but it sure is timely. It made me laugh and cry all at once. You will rethink what you think you think ... about America.

Coop's class

Here are pics of the day the firemen came to preschool. Cooper is looking at me like, mom, what are you doing? Pretty ho hum about the class picture as well. I think he wishes mom would get out of his face with the camera for once!

Press

Hey all - take a look at some of the press Photo Card Cafe' has been given in the past couple of weeks. We're famous! We've taken Oklahoma by storm. What's next ... Oprah?

The Edmond Sun

The Oklahoman

Best Valentine's Day Date, Ever

Elmo Live seemed to be Cooper's idea of a great Valentine's Day date. It was actually pretty entertaining, to at least the two below. (This picture was taken in complete darkness, without a flash. It's hard to sit that still to "La la la la, la la la la, Elmo's world ...")

Words of Wisdom

We got to spend some much-needed time with Ty, Charis and Baby Colt last week. Cooper has already put Colt under his wing. "Colt, this is a cell phone ... guard it with your life!"

The closest to political activism I've ever gotten.

This is about how far away we were last night, so the picture isn't that cool. Luke, Cooper and I (and a couple of friends) went to the Barack Obama rally last night at the Capitol. Not that I proclaim any alliance with one political party ... we really wanted to go just to say we'd gone, and to tell Cooper that he went later in life. He is an amazingly moving speaker, that I can certainly give him credit for. It was wonderful to see that many people standing on Congress, totally quiet, listening to his speech. He named just about every issue he could think of, said he could fix it, talked about CHANGE. All we could think about is, if he wins, he has a TON of stuff to do.

Park

This is what happens when you take three cousins and their friend to the park, and eat lunch together. This is all totally normal.

Dinner

Cooper and Luke cooked breakfast for dinner the other night. It was totally cute.
Luke actually doing the dishes. He's laughing because I'm taking a picture of him doing the dishes. He knows it's getting posted.

Coop owning the see-saw.