12.31.2009

top ten of the oh-oh's: #10

ok so this is a little daunting. i am attempting to put together a top ten list of events/moments/things in my life from the entire decade. brace yourselves.
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the decade started out rather inauspiciously. i was on a snowboarding trip my senior year of high school in crested butte, colorado and managed to break my wrist the 7th time down the mountain on the very first day of the trip. so my friend lacy and i watched a "crocodile hunter marathon (RIP)" and worked on her little sister's pokemon puzzle while we counted down to the millennium. party like it's 1999, people.
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ok this is not from the colorado trip, but this is right around the turn of the millennium (we didn't have digital cameras back then so the photographic record is spotty)
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from there things really picked up. i defy time to hand me a better decade in my life ever (though i wouldn't mind it trying). i got to shake off the dregs of high school life to attend my dream college, meet almost all of my best friends in the entire world, stumble across the meaning of life, meet my dream guy and start a family with him all before the buzzer rang on this ten year span. here we go.
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10. georgia tech august 2000-july 2004 and forever in my heart! ok this one almost doesn't even need to be on here because it's the portal for pretty much every other item on the list. every single day of 7th through 12th grade i drove right by tech (coming within yards of the volleyball gym and CCF) on my way to school. never did it occur to me that i would end up there.
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tech was my "safety school" when i started applying to colleges. the one i knew i would get into just in case all the other ones rejected me. the academics were a little less than what we were aspiring to for my college education (we had be searching and going on college tours all over the nation since my 8th grade year...but never visited tech...IRONY!) but mainly it wasn't a top choice because i could never play volleyball at a D1 school in a major conference like the ACC. even though i was very good in high school and highly recruited it was only by nerdy schools that definitely didn't give athletic scholarships and whose teams were about the level of a california high school team.
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celebrating the centennial olympiad at the bronze medal baseball game just before starting high school (yikes). i have already visited several colleges at this point in life. (hopefully not looking like this: a patriotic beagle).
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i was too short (only 5'7) to play my best position of outside hitter and i wasn't a good enough setter to play that position that normally goes to shorter girls. this is funny to me because tech wasn't even good at volleyball at this time, not even ranked in the top 30, and yet we knew it was too lofty to even hope to play there. so tech was the "if all else fails" route.
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my junior or senior year of high school. i see now that god didn't want me to date until college. thus he smote my face and hid the knowledge of mascara from my eyes.
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i remember one time i got a deficiency in calculus my senior year at woodward because i had a C average and my mom was sitting in the study in a high-backed, winged reading chair when i told her and she said, "you keep that up and you'll end up at georgia tech like some of your other friends!" i don't know if it was loyalty to my defamed "other friends" or some foresight planted deep in my heart, but a flame was fanned within me that made this a grievous insult. i stormed at my mom at a full sprint and plowed into her chair, just intending to give her a bump. i then watched with glee and horror as she went tipping slowly, slowly over while still in the chair and squealing for my dad to get me in major trouble. ahhhh the golden years.

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this little anecdote is also ironic because my mom, a former UGA cheerleader (she used to run uga the bulldog out right before the team came storming on the field also), would become the most ravenous georgia tech fan to ever prowl techwood drive. her die-hard superfandom even got her in a fistfight with and elderly nebraska-fan gentleman during my senior season at tech. sweet, sweet irony.
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notice my mom's embroidered GT novelty vest. worn with pride after a tournament our freshman year at colorado state. my hair is a weird color because i had recently dyed it red (which came out purple) and then black to fix THAT. and then i had to spent 6 hours getting it stripped and re colored professionally so that i wouldn't look like a freak at my cousin's wedding and for the 3 years it would've taken to grow out.
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i came to tech right when they were starting to renovate the entire campus and bring it out of the dark ages of architecture and design. i would come to appreciate the rarity of our beautiful, spacious, green campus that was somehow also nestled right downtown in the largest city in the southeast. so cool! i mean where else is like that?

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i stupidly attempted to major in mechanical engineering while (spoiler alert) playing volleyball full time. note to incoming freshman: if you attend only two calc II lectures and one physics lecture the entire semester at tech you will get a D and an F, no matter how smart you were in high school or what you got on your SAT's. so i waved the white flag of surrender and switched to management after losing my academic HOPE scholarship (for in state students) for falling below a 3.0. this was the major for me. i literally attended maybe 5% of my classes in my 3 remaining years there and managed (pun) to get dean's list every semester. FUN! this is not bragging, it's really that easy. but hey a tech degree is a tech degree. especially if you have no professional aspirations.
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i don't know if i would have enjoyed tech as much if i hadn't played sports. i definitely think to go there and have a good time you need to have something besides academics to be involved in whether that's a fraternity, a campus ministry, a service group or a club. i do know that i have the best friends in the world, the perfect husband for me, a flawless little 7 month old and eternity with jesus to look forward to because god decided to play the ultimate joke on me and send me to a school that was closer to my parents than even my high school had been.
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something to get involved in: just a normal weeknight in our dorm my freshman year.
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dear god, i hope you enjoyed laughing at me all those time i talked about moving far, far away. p.s. thanks a million.

12.28.2009

holidazed

some snapshots from our little family's first christmas break that you won't see in next year's christmas card.

jesse getting a much needed nap and dreaming of me after taking the 5:30 am-9 am judah shift during diarrhea week


jesse singing and dancing (not part of the game) to a camp rock song on elena's new wii


judah getting double smooched by his sweet cousins... and diaper-checked by bella.



judah getting fresh with aunt jackie



baby goat just wanted to chew on wrapping paper all day.
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"i'm HOW old?!?!"
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the wildlife converges upon the bug while he's restrained.
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fell asleep during his upper body circuit workout


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jesse's christmas present was a new toilet for his bathroom. here he is riding his old porcelain nemesis into the sunset straight through our kitchen

12.25.2009

christmas classics

i saw mommy kissing santa claus rudolph



the night before christmas



santa claus is coming to town (via arrivals terminal)



little drummer boy
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chestnuts roasting on an open fire
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all i want for christmas is you (two)

12.23.2009

a few of my (new) favorite things

this is my best buddy benjamin braden. he is 47 hours younger than me. he is a crawler extraordinaire. since i don't know how to crawl yet, he lets me ride on his back. in return, i do for him my only "trick" which is giving five. his bald little head looks a lot like an inviting palm, so i give it five while i ride him around our living room.

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this is my new nativity set. my godparents elliot and lena gave it to me. its way better than our old one that only had 3 pieces. it has 2 asses!
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the angel plays music and the donkey has a wagon he can pull. but my favorite items are the 3 wise men
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this is the asian wise man (chairman mao). he's my favorite. tastes like sesame chicken. (offensive?)

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little did godparents lukas and danielle know when they gave me this drum that giving five/banging my hand on flat surfaces is my favorite most activity. they live in chile and lukas is a master drummer so this gift that teaches the alphabet in english and spanish (the white surface lights up with the letter every time you bang it) was perfect enough already. i am in love with this present and is doesn't leave my side. when our food came at the restaurant, mom and dad put me on the floor in the corner with my new drum and i was perfectly happy.

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shall i play for you?
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pa rum pum pum pum. on my drum

12.22.2009

don corleone would be proud

so here's an announcement: judah has godparents. but not the traditional type like "if we die you take our child and raise him" godparents. i stole this idea from favorite friend and mentor (frientor) angie stryker, and the deal is we gave judah people who commit to be in his life, encourage him, love him and pray faithfully for him. so who are these lovely people? well, in the tradition of grandparents we gave judah 2 sets: danielle and lukas fortunato and lena and elliot hunt! yay! as if you couldn't have guessed that.
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we never even intended to do godparents, even this informal version, but since we have been around these people and seen them interact with, seek out, and adore our son, we have been just floored by how much they truly love him and are interested in him, independent of the fact that he is the baby of a pair of their best friends. seriously, the ridiculous love they showed judah from day one is what came first and made me even remember the whole idea of godparents. they pretty much loved their way straight into these positions. this is also a wonderful way of tricking them into having to be friends with us for life. even if we turn lame, they still have to come around because they committed to judah. checkmate, suckaz.
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we have many amazing friends who have their own kids and love judah like he is theirs, but we thought it would be cool to make these newlyweds who don't have any kids of their own yet the godparents. this way they can practice loving a kid and still not be too responsible for him, plus with no kids of their own, they'll be more available to babysit! (too bad we would just want to hang out with them rather than whatever our other plans were as soon as we tried to drop him off).
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also, when you hit a new "stage" in life, sometimes your friends who aren't at that same stage feel less involved, or you start to feel a separation because your experiences become so different. we have had this happen with some of our single friends since we got married, and have seen it happen with couples who have kids versus not. so this was also our way of saying "oh hell naw" to the idea that being in different places in our family lives would keep us apart. we just made them new places in our family!
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the godfather, part 1, at our family dinner/triple date last night
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lena, the godmother, with jesse in a tiny chair. somehow there aren't any pics of lena and judah from yesterday, but if you have read this blog before, you know there are about 236 others you can refer to.
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godparents danielle and lukas at lunch yesterday with their godson. they are also about to become traditional godparents as well as aunt and uncle to lukas' sister christine's baby girl, violet, in february. huzzah for tons of love to go around!


we gave them all little prints of judah's picture to put places and remind them to pray for him. check out the sweet prime placement (one of those wallets is mine, p.s., jesse and elliot weren't around when we did this. didn't want you thinking one of the godfathers carried a lady wallet)


bonus coverage: playing pictionary man, boys versus girls. here i am thinking of a way better way to draw whatever it is that lukas was attempting and figuring ways to steal crucial seconds from his time.

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hahaha jesse went nuts on this one. i don't even remember the clue, but he was passionate about it.
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my favorite was when jesse was trying to get the other boys to guess "tweak," which is a stupidly hard clue by the way. he did great and got elliot and lukas to say "to weaken," but they couldn't translate that into the actual word. so over and over again they just kept saying "to weaken, to weaken" and it was freaking hilarious how close they were to the actual word without getting it at all.

12.18.2009

i'd like to buy a consonant

judah FINALLY started babbling beyond the level of an infant pterodactyl this month. his first word that he has chosen to grace us with millions of times in a row is, "guh." these can range from "guh-guh" as in, "i love you so much mommy and daddy listen to how pleased i am with your parenting," to "guh-guh" as in, "i am using this one syllable to cuss you to the best of my ability for you have insulted me and my heritage by wiping my butt in that offensive manner." we gather meaning from his context clues. like whether or not he's laughing with us when he says it versus, say, growling at us...which is often.
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the bug has been pretty zombie-like these last few days as he gets over his sickness(es). the antibiotics have given him heinous 6 times a day diarrhea and therefore raging diaper rash so we are dealing with that too. but all in all he just sleeps more, eats less, drinks more and smiles less. dear santa, we want our baby's personality back for christmas, please!
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speaking of which, i am off work until the 28th so i am probably going to chill on the blogging a bit too. this post-every-weekday routine is HARD to keep up. we are NOT that interesting i have discovered. but we will be busy from now until 2010 (which i am going to call oh-ten and so forth for the rest of the decade) so who knows what will strike my fancy to post about.
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some notable upcoming events: our second ever night without the bug tomorrow while he's with my parents and we are at a wedding followed by judah's first ever meeting of his uncle tripp (my little brother) who is in from seattle next wednesday! we can't wait for all the families' fun times to begin.
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12.17.2009

more 6 month pics

the shadow makes it look like i have one fat(ter) leg rather than 2 with one in the foreground and one behind, slightly staggered.


i LOVE this picture...of jesse and judah. i am gonna crop myself out of iut and frame it. looks like he got bit in the shoulder by a venomous snake.


we are wrapping his feet up and giving them to him for christmas


so in love with this. (someone told us it looks like a campaign ad)



ahhhhh.

12.16.2009

still sick

we are still sick. so we're not finding time to blog like we should be. here are some pictures.


judah first meeting with static

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the teethies. and some leftover squash residue up the nose.

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we have said before that having a baby is pretty much like having a really advanced puppy. case in point


feel better soon, angel pup.

12.15.2009

surprise!

yesterday when judah and jesse got home from preschool/work we noticed that the bug had a runny nose. then a few minutes later he started coughing just a little. something was funny about the cough. i went in the other room and he coughed again. it definitely sounded barky. something tickled the back of my mommy brain that a barking kind of cough meant something was going on. so we decided to take advantage of the fact that our pediatrician, while 20 minutes away from our house (its near both of our works), is open until 9 on weeknights.
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i was a little stressed because it was rush hour and raining and dark and i was pretty sure my baby was sick for the first time ever. i kept thinking "i need a special sign or something to alert the other drivers that i really AM more important than them this time. fayette county: YIELD! i have a sick baby! and sorry for all those other times when i was just on my way to lunch"
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right when i checked in i smelled a poop so i went to use the changing table in the bathroom. what ensued was the biggest diaper changing nightmare in all of my experience with judah. the table was like a miniature doctor's table with vinyl-covered, rounded padding on top and a paper roll covering the surface. so i laid judah down and took off the diaper. i knew it was bad when there was no visible poop in hammock portion of the diaper. it was an up-and-out-the-back one.
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his shirt was brown so i couldn't really see where baby gap ended and baby crap began. my diaper bag was on the ground and the table was precarious with no edges (in fact it was rounded as if to help him roll off). so keeping him on the table, out of his poop while trying to grab a new diaper, wipes and clothes out of the bag as i needed them was really challenging. it proved more so when judah decided to start wildly flailing around with the now soiled paper that was under him. he was pretty much making himself into a nutella crepe by doing violent origami with the paper.
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it was nightmarish. i was trying to pick him up and roll out new paper and not smear any more poo on him or the actual table or, god forbid, me. then the freaking roll of paper runs out. by now judah's clothes are off and he has poo all the way up to his neck and on the back of both arms and the remaining clean portion of paper under him was the size of a napkin. praying against all manner of pediatrician bathroom germ monsters i put his bare bottom down on the actual table and finished giving him a wipes-bath. somehow i got him dressed in a spare outfit and a clean diaper without going all stress-hulk on the office and exploding the door off its hinges in flustered rage. by this point i am sweating like a competitive hot dog eating champion with one bun to go. i gathered all the poop flake shrapnel that had been scattered all over the room and lysol-ed the heck out of that place. (i also found a stack of stamped, sealed, addressed christmas cards on the bottom shelf of the table....wtf?)

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it took a while to get called back and then of course an eternity for the doctor to actually come in. our pediatricians are supposed to be some of the best doctors available but their facility is really old and ghetto-furnished/decorated. there aren't many toys or distractions for sick and bored babies and the ones they have look like plastic ringworm bed and breakfasts of joy, the wallpaper is the pastel smear of 70's interior design that makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a rubber-coated spoon. to come up with a color scheme that is of zero visual interest to a 6 month old takes skill. hideous skill.

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so the moral of the story is that judah has full blown croup, a fever and 2 ear infections! we had no CLUE about the ears. he has been his normal happy self the last week during which the hoards of evil bacteria were setting up shop in his eustachian tubes like a gypsy carnival. i felt like such a failure to bring him to the doctor for a cough and be told that as a bonus that he had these going on too and i never even noticed. i guess i will just sit on that failure and be glad that we have a child whose ear infection are not torture to him.
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we got 2 antibiotics and a cough/congestion medicine and i was told "not to freak out if the fever gets to 105 or 106 tonight." hahaha, the doctor knows me so well. i am the LAST person to ever freak out, overreact or worry needlessly. especially about something like brain damage-inducing fever and my infant son.
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after another hour-long stop in the purgatory i fondly call my local rite aid we had our medicine. i have almost become a homicidal maniac 2 or 3 times in my life and they are all while waiting for a prescription while suffering from peruvian death flu. i understand pharmacist is a very important job that requires lots of schooling but when i am the ONLY person waiting and i have a very uncomfortable yet adorable baby and its pouring rain outside and i look like a frazzled blond werewolf of almighty impatience you'd think there would be a little hustle up in there. like okay, maybe i couldn't do your job better than you, but i could damn well move it with a quickness between all the unfamiliar ingredients. my favorite was when i had to call the doctor back because they had sent thye RX to the wrong store. i asked the pharmacist what the address of this one was and he didn't know!
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so we are on all manner and flavor of meds, including the crown jewel of hoped-for medicine when visiting the pediatrician: bubblegum amoxicillan! and of course you wouldn't know anything was even wrong with the bug because this is him in the middle of it all:


p.s. one year ago today we found out that the bug was a boy. happy Y-chromosomes to you all!

12.14.2009

it's crimus!

i get a new pair of my favorite shoes from target every winter. i have a brown pair and a tan pair and i alternate which pair gets updated every year. i was pleasantly surprise that they redesigned them a little by shortening the toe bulb (official term) this year to make them more feminine looking.

we did not get our tree this night. they were out of the $25 reject specials at pike

but we had to make the most of the reindeer outfit by taking some pics in front of other families' future trees


bleating



our (first...never have been motivated to do one of just us 2) christmas card! i picked out the second 2 pictures before i read the little tag line underneath...it's perfect! if you didn't get this in the mail, sorry, we're poor and ignorant that you wanted one! accept these as our glad tidings
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while we decorated the house and tree (that we bought 3 days later) we watched the nativity story. we first got this on netflix in 2007 and were VERY skeptical, as we are about most live action bible movies because they mostly are awful and make jesus seem like a sissy dork wizard. or they're all casted with such glaringly aryan actors supposedly portraying palestinians that i get so distracted i can't focus. but it was really good, minimally corny and very little license was taken. i highly recommend it. we bought it (which we rarely do) and will have a tradition of watching it every year to get in the mood while we decorate.