Christmas 2007

We had a fun-filled Christmas this year. Instead of packing up and driving to Houston, we made everyone come see us. It was nice to have the first Christmas in our new house. That's Jenna cooking in her new kitchen on Christmas morning. (And it's a Little Tikes kitchen that's made in the USA! American-made toys are out there; you just have to look.)

"This present is tiny. I wonder what it is?"

"Oh my goodness! Could it be..."

"Yay! It's an iPod Shuffle!"













Yes, I asked for, and received, this Hello Kitty waffle maker. (Julia doesn't even like Hello Kitty.) I just thought it was cute, and we'll be eating waffles shaped like Hello Kitty's head for years to come!

I have more pictures of the fun we've had the last couple of weeks, but it will have to wait because the coffee cake (made from one of the two cookbooks I got for Christmas) is ready to come out of the oven.

Benazir Bhutto

There are things worth living for. And then there are the things worth dying for. She knew the difference.
Benazir Bhutto
June 21, 1953 -- December 27, 2007

How to Get New Clothes at Target

1) Be a three-year-old with a mommy who has to be somewhere in ten minutes.
2) Tee-tee on the floor.

Yep, we were in the toy section today when Jenna said, "I have to go tee-tee. Oh, no, I don't." That's when I saw the yellow puddle forming near her Strawberry Shortcake tennis shoes. So I went to one of those red phones and paged a Target associate to meet me. A guy who couldn't have been older than 18 walked up. "I'm afraid my daughter had an accident and I just didn't want anyone to slip in it." He asked, "Is it a spill?" I answered, "You could call it that." His eyes got very wide. I could tell he's not used to cleaning up other people's bodily fluids. I apologized and herded Jenna over to get her some pants, socks and panties so we could do a quick change in the bathroom before picking up Julia from school.

As aggravated as I was, it got me thinking. I imagined this conversation:

Chad: Where did you get that outfit?

Me: At Target today. I had to. I peed on myself.

Hmmm...this could be promising. Thanks, Jen!

More Miley!

Because you just can't have too much of this stuff, here are more pics from the Hannah Montana show Dec. 1.

Julia painstakingly made this sign and then had to leave it outside Alltel because it was too big. The only downer of the day.


Some Jonas Brothers. (I still don't know which one is which.) Look at what great seats we had!


Another Jonas Brother.


Rock Star! Hannah opened the show with this song, which was cool because it's Julia's favorite.



Julia and Elizabeth pumpin' up the party.



"I'm gonna put on my old blue jeans..."





One of the bajillion mom/daughter pairs at the concert.


"I Miss You," a song Miley wrote for her grandpa who died. It made for a very sweet encore.


Back over the Arkansas River on the Little Rock streetcar after the show.

December Excitement

Yesterday after both girls were home from school, Julia went bike-riding while Jenna and I worked on getting the rest of our tulip bulbs in the flower bed. Julia had been gone from the house for a few minutes when I heard a distant "Mom!" I looked down the street and there she was, crumpled under her bike in someone's front yard. I ran down the street to her, expecting the worst, but she wasn't hurt at all. The shoelaces on one shoe had wrapped around the pedal, so she had steered over to some grass and fallen over on purpose. (This brought back a flashback of my brother Brian, who broke his elbow the same way when we were kids.) Julia said the laces wrapped around the pedal in just a few seconds. They were so tight that I couldn't get them untied, so I ran back to our house to get my scissors out of my gardening bag. While I was extracting Julia's foot from her bike, a car pulled up. It was Julia's friend Elizabeth and her dad, wanting to know if everything was OK. It's always fun to explain why you are cutting your child out of her bike with a pair of scissors.

All that excitement was over, so we went back to the house. Jenna had to pee, and she's new enough to being potty-trained that we try to make sure she gets to the potty in plenty of time. But we got to the house to find all the doors locked. Our garage door was up, but the door going into the house was locked. (The neighbor kid from across the street said Jenna did it, but I think it may have been the neighbor kid.) So Chad raced home to rescue us, but not in time for Jenna. Fun times.

Another apostrophe abuse report. I'm trying to get Jenna into an MDO that's closer to our house. While I was there to meet the director and tour the place the other day, I passed a bulletin board in the hall that said "PARENT'S." I guess they mean the info on that board is for parents. The offending apostrophe was hanging up there by one staples and I'm telling you, if I didn't really want Jenna in this program -- and if the director hadn't been standing right next to me, I would have torn it off. It's time to fight back against apostrophe abuse! Who's with me?

Thanks for all the previous comments about the monkey shirt. I have read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves." It should be required reading in junior high/high school, and maybe our schools would produce more people who can function in the English language. Just my opinion.

Back to the flower bed. I'm stoked about our 40 daffodils and 40 tulips coming up in the spring!

Stolen questionnaire

I took this from Elizabeth's blog.

1. Name: Deana Carol
2. Birthday: Aug. 2
3. Birthplace: Hobbs, N.M.
4. Eye Color: Blue/Green
5. Hair Color: I forgot what the box said
6. Height: 5'6
7. Ethnicity: Caucasian
8. Weakness: shoes and the clearance racks at Target
9. Most missed memory: When Julia was a baby, when Jenna was a baby
10. Thoughts first waking up: What day is it?
11. Last time you cried: "Baby Story" got to me yesterday
12. Song title that currently says how you feel: "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer"
13. What is the perfect day for you: Day in the house by myself
14. Ever been asked for an autograph? Several times in Baytown when I was "famous"
15. How do you vent anger? probably not very well
16. Who do you talk to most on the phone? Chad, Carol, Mom, Lois
17. As a kid, were you a lego builder? No, I was a Fisher Price Little People person myself.
18. Do you chew on your straws? No, but my children chew on my straws
19. Do you sing in the shower? I never think about singing in there
20. Who's the last person you stayed up late talking to on the phone to? I don't talk on the phone late at night
21. The last place you went to in a plane? Little Rock, to see if we wanted to move here
22. Do you cry at weddings? depends on who it is
23. Are you afraid of the dark? If I've watched "Ghosthunters" lately
24. What are you addicted to? Coffee, chocolate, The Hills
25. Crunchy or creamy peanut butter? Both make me feel kinda icky. Unless it's in a Reese's.
26. Who do you fight with the most? I don't really fight
27. Who can you tell anything to? Chad, Carol
28. Who can't you get enough of? My family and a few friends
29. Who makes you laugh the most? Me
30. What is the worst feeling ever? When I find out I hurt someone's feelings accidentally
31. How many pillows do you sleep with? two regular ones plus a body pillow Chad calls my "other husband."
32. How many rings before you answer your phone? Answering the phone isn't a huge priority with me
33. How many times do you press the "snooze" button? twice
34. How do you sleep? side or stomach
35. Last time you laughed: yesterday when Chad ordered a Pibb at the movies and I thought he said "pimp"
36. Ever looked at someone ugly and said EWWWW? That happened to me several times in junior high
37. What is your favorite color? blue
38. What is your favorite state? well, that's kind of complicated now, isn't it?

Apostrophe abuse report!

Just got the Justice catalog. It's a store with cute clothes, etc., for tween-age girls. There's a shirt that I thought was cute with monkeys on it. Then I looked down the sleeve and saw "I LOVE MONKEY'S."

AGGGHHHH!!!! This drives me crazy!!

Lets Go! G.N.O.!

What a FUN G.N.O. we had Saturday. ("G.N.O. is Hannah Montana lingo for "Girls' Night Out," for those of you whose households have not been swept up in this mania.) Julia, her friend Elizabeth and Elizabeth's mom and I got to downtown Little Rock around 1:30, where we had lunch at the River Market. Hannah fans and their moms were EVERYWHERE. Then we caught the streetcar which took us over the Arkansas River to Alltel Arena, which is in North Little Rock. (I highly recommend the streetcar if you're ever catching a show at Alltel, especially right now while the streets around the arena are under construction.) Once inside, we stood in crazy long lines for T-shirts and glow sticks for the girls. Then we went to our seats, which were GREAT. They were one level up from the floor on the first row. Better than floor seats, if you ask me. (When I first got tickets in Sept., we got nosebleed seats, but we didn't care because we just happy to have tickets at all -- seeing as how the Little Rock show sold out in eight minutes. Then when more tickets went on sale a couple of weeks ago, Elizabeth's mom happened to get much better seats, so we sold our old tickets.)

*I do want to state very clearly that we paid face value for the tickets. We were not those crazy moms who traded in their daughters' college funds to get into the concert.*

Then the show started with the Jonas Brothers, then Hannah, then the Jonas Brothers came back while Hannah changed into Miley Cyrus, then Miley came out and performed for the rest of the show. (If the Hannah/Miley thing is confusing to you, ask any girl between the ages of six and 14 to explain it to you. When Julia first got into HM, it took her explaining it to me several times before I got it.)

The Hannah/Miley part of the show was choreographed by Kenny Ortega, the mastermind behind the High School Musical phenomenon. It was complete with pyrotechnics and streamers and confetti that shot over the crowd. It was a lot of fun. Julia jumped up and down and screamed a little, but she and Elizabeth mostly stared at the stage with their mouths open.

As a mom, it's hard to watch something like Miley-mania and not worry about Miley Cyrus. She's been on tour since October and is in a different city almost every night. During the day, she's doing sound checks and studying with a tutor, since she can't be in school right now. And she just turned 15. She even admitted onstage Saturday night that she wasn't feeling well. I just hope she survives the craziness that is her life right now. A song from her first album says "It's a crazy life, but I'm all right." I hope so.

Back to the outrageous ticket prices some people paid to get their kids in the door. If I had that much money, I would take my child to Europe or Africa and provide some kind of life-enriching experience. Something that would make her a better person and help shape her character.

The Hannah Montana show was not that. But it was a lot of fun.