Halloween

Okay. OKAY!! I know, I haven't posted anything like weeks. Whatever. I've been working on something big. =) Tee hee. Anyhoo, here you go - updates! Yay! I'm going to do this one post at a time. So here are the Halloween pics - Blayne was Superman (aka MeeMan), Sean was Indiana Jones (obviously!) and I was a witch. No comments allowed about how I didn't have to try too hard for that one. We went over to Michael and Amy's house and walked around their neighborhood - they have a great place for trick or treating! Blayne was a little sketched out at first about walking up to other people's houses and he was not too sure about what he was supposed to say but he got the hang of it pretty quickly. His trick or treat was more like "iiiccck and eeeaatt!" but still very effective as we came home with enough candy to last all of us till 2009. Enjoy the pics!!

It's a well known fact that Superman is completely ineffective without his binky. =)

Superman, Wonder Woman and a Princess. Evil-doers beware!!

Princess Awwawwa (Aurora) aka Sleeping Beauty

MinerMan!!This was the best group shot I took. Geez, these kids would NOT stand still, all look at the camera and smile for the life of me!! =)
Blayne in the bounce house - he loves to jumpeee jumpeeee!!
Superman and a Super-Awesome-Fighting Ninja (aka Ethan)
Villains, Nazis and Aliens had better look out!!

My weird gene pool

A comment from my cousin Angie (hi Ang!) got me thinking last week about about our strange family. I mean strange in a good way though! Many of my childhood memories have to do with my cousins and the games we would play together. When I was a kid, most of my summers and after school days were spent with my cousins under the watchful eyes of my Aunt Jacque. I don't know what she did to her sisters as a child to earn the right to watch all of us on a regular basis but it must've been something horrible!! =) Anyhoo, there were 7 of us that pretty much grew up together: me and my older bro, Michael, and my cousins Ryan, Angie, Maria, Chet and Carrie. The boys were all roughly the same ages (except for poor youngest, picked on cousin Chet) and the girls were too. We were all at least within a couple years of each other. So mostly us girls stayed together playing in our "house" under the tree because everyone knows that boys are gross and loud and disgusting and the boys would all be building a tree fort or shooting bb guns at birds or some other nonsense. Anyhoo, what I started remembering were the games that we used to play as children. This is where the weird gene pool stuff came up - I mean how on earth did we think of these things?!?! One that springs to mind is something that Carrie and I used to do. Let me give you a few details about the nature of our relationship first though. Carrie and I were 5 months apart - I was (obviously) the oldest and most mature of the two. Nearly every day, from the ages of 4-10 (roughly) we would get in a fight. Not just a good old-fashioned name calling exchange (although those sorts of things were prevalent) but an actual fist fight. Or more accurately, a slapping fight. A good example is this: one day we were outside playing on the swing set in Aunt Jacque's backyard. I was maybe 5 or 6. Carrie was doing tricks on the monkey bars (we were perfecting a REALLY impressive routine that ended with a back flip off of a moving swing) and I was swinging. Apparently I was swinging too hard though because I was shaking the whole swing set. Carrie was quite unhappy about this and after screaming at me to stop for a few minutes (which of course only made me swing harder) she actually got off the monkey bars and came over and slapped me across the face. Naturally I smacked her back. I must've gotten her pretty good because she then went running inside to tell on me. So I smugly sat there, glorying in my supremacy and fully enjoying the swing set all to myself until it occurred to me that if Carrie was inside crying and I was still outside swinging with a grin on my face I was gonna be the ONLY one that got into trouble. So I began to cry as loudly as I possibly could and went running inside to tell on Carrie for hitting ME first. As soon as I got in the backdoor, Carrie immediately ceased her crying and began to yell, "She wasn't crying! I didn't hurt her! She's only faking so she won't get into trouble!" and on and on. I sobbingly explained that she did, in fact, hurt me, it just took me a minute or two to feel it. So we BOTH got punished. And then we were best friends again after about 5 minutes. This is pretty much how things went for about 5+ years of our lives. We were 10 before we spent a day together without hitting each other. Or threatening not to be each others cousins anymore. =) So anyways, we would play this game called "Leeches." Here's the gist... Aunt Jacque's house was on Little Lake Jackson so we would take out ONE inner tube and swim out as far as we possibly could (practically to the middle of the lake!) and then one of us would yell "Queen Leech!" or "Leeches!" or something like that and then we would both attempt to get all of our bodies out of the water and onto the ONE inner tube without falling off or impaling ourselves on the metal pump that stuck out so as not to be eaten by the leeches. I should probably mention that there were no leeches in the lake. At least no real ones anyways. This was all in our heads and we would stay out there for what seemed like hours trying to avoid the leeches. Weird, huh? Then there was another game that we all played together. It was kind of like Hide 'N Seek but not really. We called it Seek 'n Hide. A subtle, but distinct, difference. I think the main thing that set it apart was that the Hiders would go and try to find the most awesome hiding spot ever and then the Seeker would come and look for them BUT once you were in a hiding spot you didn't leave until you got found. So there was no racing for "base" unless the Seeker spotted you and you wanted to try and outrun them. The goal was to obviously to have the best hiding spot. Some notable spots were: the dryer (Angie hid in there. Once.) which turned out not to be too effective because Aunt Jacque walked by and shut her in it and then she started screaming at the top of her lungs and we all knew exactly where she was, the top of a cabinet in the main bathroom which required you to squinch yourself into about 6 inches of space, getting in the mirrored closet in Aunt Jacque's room, or climbing into a toy chest or under a bed. But by far the pinnacle of our weirdness came in the form of a game that we called "Follow the Yellow Brick Road." We would all shut ourselves in the middle room, and pile all the pillows in the house into a big pile in the middle of the floor and then turn out the lights, and stuff blankets and towels into the cracks of the door so that absolutely NO light got into the room. Then we would break into two groups on either side of the room and each group would hold hands as we would starting singing, "Oooohhhhhh, weeeee'rrreeeeee off to see the Wizard! The wonderful Wizard of Oz!!!!" at the top of our lungs while running as fast as we could toward the middle of the room. This always ended in a violent collision (well, duh) in which someone inevitably would get injured (cough, Carrie, cough). So we would tend our wounds, pile all the pillows back up and do it all over again!! And while, yes, it was a LOT of fun, it was also very, very strange. And don't even get me started on the madness that occurred down at the Lease. I'm surprised we all made it to adulthood with all of our limbs.

So now many of us kids that used to play together have kids and I'm just sitting here thinking that they certainly have some strange genes coming to them! They are probably gonna make up some crazy games or do weird things on a regular basis but at least we'll know where they get it!! From that crazy Heston side of the family. =)

Kids, kids and more kids!

So I watched Michael and Amy's kids this past weekend so they could go to a marriage conference... I know, I know - I'm an awesome sister. And sister-in-law. It wasn't technically a weekend, just one night but it worked out to be over 24 hours of me & Sean (but mostly me!) being responsible for the care, maintenance and feeding of 5 children. I may never fully recover. Here is a little taste of just SOME of what we got to experience over the weekend. Enjoy!! You may want to turn your speakers down before enjoying the following clips though. But don't turn them off or you won't be able to fully understand what I went through.

I'm sure you noticed how Hannah, once she noticed that I was filming her, began to pose for this!! =) And then there were the drums....

Just so you know, Blayne's NOT grabbing Hannah's booty but rather trying to get her to get up so he can have a turn sitting on the stool. He's saying "tee-turn" which means "it's Blayne's turn." So we spent a good hour or so jamming out in Ethan's room. At least that's all the time I spent in there - Blayne absolutely loves Ethan's drums so he sneaks up there whenever he can.

For reals, though, we had a good time! We played video games, watched movies, ate junk food, played outside... It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I'm not saying I would be able to do it everyday but for one night, it was fun. I was glad to be able to spend some QT with my nieces and nephews and Blayne LOVES his cousins so he had a blast. The kids were pretty cute about it too. They were actually excited that we were having a sleepover! Ely ended up in bed with me, Sean and Blayne (ha!) and he snuggled me all night. Blayne was NOT happy about that. And then Hannah told me on Sunday, that she wished we could stay longer. Awww!

Bath Crayons & Superman

First up, let me say that the inventor of the bath crayon, while brilliant, was obviously a man. Or a woman who never cleans the bathtub. Blayne received some bath crayons as a gift awhile back but we kept them away from him for a long time because he preferred to eat them rather than color with them. That all changed about two weeks ago - he found the crayons and we let him go crazy. Then Sean had the great idea to draw some of Blayne's favorite things on the walls of our bathtub...

So this is what our shower looks like pretty much all the time now:

These are just some of his favorite things: SpongeBob, Winnie the Pooh, balloons, flags, the moon and sunshine (aka shunshine). I don't know if you can see it but he likes "sparkles" too (that would be stars - cause they go "sparkle, sparkle"!). Missing from these pictures is Wall-E and Eve who are normally up there next to SpongeBob. So now instead of cleaning the shower every week, I get to clean it every day. And it's still not really clean because the colors sorta stick to the grout and are impossible to remove with regular cleaning methods. On the plus side though, Blayne is entertained for hours and he LOVES taking baths with all of his fav characters and things to keep him company!

Another recent discovery is the Superman cape that Sean got for Blayne a few months ago. He wasn't really interested at first but he found that the other day and has been running around in a diaper and Superman cape ever since. And in case you were wondering Superman is pronounced "Mee Man." =) We tried to get a few pics of him "flying" but failed miserably...

These are just some funny pictures of him watching TV... I just had to include them 'cause he's so stinking cute!!

Oh and one last pic of Blayne with his PopPop and Gramma - taken at his baby dedication last weekend!!

Catching Up

Welp, it's been a busy couple of weeks! First of all, my amazing hubby graduated from Radiography school!! Yay!! And then, he passed the registry (which makes him totally official) with flying colors!! I'm so proud of him. Now all that's left is to find him a job! =) Here are a few pics from his graduation...

Then last weekend, we went out and got a bike seat for Blayne. We've been talking about it for months now and finally got one! We got him a helmet too - it has Elmo, Cookie Monster, Grover and other Sesame Street characters all over it and Blayne would sleep in it if we let him. He wouldn't take it off in the store and then once we got it home, he kept in on the whole afternoon. It was pretty cute! I love that he does that now, when we get him something that he really likes, and he keeps it on for days. The first thing he did that with was a pair of sandals that have Cars on them (from the movie) and they light up when you walk. He's still pretty infatuated with those but for the first few days, they were attached to him at all times! So anyhoo, we got him the bike seat, put it together while he napped and then went for a bike ride Saturday afternoon. We got a little carried away though and went like 8 miles. Which was about 2-3 miles too much for me and Blayne. Sean could probably ride to FL and not get tired (jerk) but me & Blayne got a little worn out. By the end, Blayne was kicking Sean in the back to get him off the bike so he could get out. =) There's a really awesome bike trail near our apt though, it's called the Silver Comet trail and it used to be a train track but they paved it over so now it's a bike/jogging/walking trail. It goes all the way from just outside Atlanta to Alabama or something. But anyways, there are no cars on it so it's much safer than riding or jogging on the street. And it's all shaded and goes through some pretty neighborhoods. And we did have fun, Blayne LOVED the seat (for most of the ride) and we've gone on at least a short bike ride every day this week. Here's a few pics of the boys on their bike and us on the ride...

Getting ready to go!

I tried to get a pic of me and Blayne but he was WAY to interested in the flowers and his snacks to look at the camera...

And then, as you can tell from the above pics, my kid was in desperate need of a haircut. So Sean and I gave him one!! I know, it was a bit ambitious but Sean has a good hair clipper thing with different combs for different lengths and we figured we could totally do it! Plus Blayne sat so still for his first haircut, we figured he's be fine for this one! Wrong. He was heartbroken that we were cutting his hair. He cried the whole time. With tears and everything. He was being very dramatic about the whole thing actually (which took all of 10 minutes btw). It didn't hurt him at ALL either. The worst thing that happened to him was that he got hair all over the candy we gave him because he kept thrashing all over the place. But we got it done! And it looks pretty good if I do say so myself! See??

Before...

After!!

Is he cute or what?!?!

A week in the life...

So here's what a typical week with my son might look like....

Day 1 - Breakfast, consisting of neenaa (banana) and jooo (juice, which means any drink) and a caffle (waffle) on the couch


Find sunglasses, wear them for a few hours. Do NOT attempt to remove the binky...











Day 2 - wear Easter basket as a hat most of the morning...


Go bike riding that afternoon.
But to make the ride interesting, first place a large bouncy ball on the seat and then sit on that. Once you get on the bike, start yelling "Bye! See you later!" and head for the door.




Day 3 - Start off the day watching Peeeww Peeeww (Winnie the Pooh) surrounded by your favorite toys.
Later that afternoon, find a suitable ensemble for hanging out around the house... I believe the inspiration for this came from Pete' (he had a sock on his foot - don't ask why...) and Blayne felt the need to dress up too! If Pete' can look cool, so can Blayne by golly! So he's had me get him a hat, socks for his hands and lion slippers for his feet. Pretty sweet huh??


Day 4 - Spend the day hanging out with Mom and Dad and do a little shopping. Model my awesome new outfit that night
.


Day 5 - Go for a spin on my cruiser...

Later on work on my new 'do, this'll impress the ladies for sure!



And Day 6 (today) -
Amuse myself for a looonngg time by doing this!

Fire Alarms and Autoclaves...

So as many of you know, I work in a lab. Maybe you didn't know that but now you do. This is my lab...

I'm a scientist, a microbiologist actually and I work with some pretty gross stuff. A little known or thought about fact is that our "trash" is disgusting. I have used petri plates with lots of little buggers in them and pipettes and gloves and all sorts of gross stuff that needs to be disposed of when I'm done with it. And I can't just throw this stuff out with the rest of the trash cause people would DIE. Not really, but they could get sick and it would be gross and most importantly it's illegal. So there are these things called autoclaves that sterilize stuff using a combination of pressure, steam and high temperature. People in the medical field use them all the time to sterilize their surgical tools before use and we use the autoclave here to sterilize any solutions that we make or glassware or what have you. When you sterilize clean stuff, it kills off any bacteria that may have been living on it and keeps it clean until you open or touch whatever it is. And when you sterilize dirty stuff (like trash) it also kills off the bacteria so that we can then throw our trash away in a regular garbage can. As a little side note, dead bacteria smell even worse than live bacteria so it's really my least favorite part of my job. And I'm sure the people who have to carry it out hate it even worse. There's a dr. here who has an office on the same floor as me and the first time he smelled the trash being autoclaved he came out looking like he was going to vomit. And he went home shortly after that. This is a dr who has seen (and probably smelled) all sorts of stuff!! So needless to say, it's really gross. Here's what our autoclave looks like - scary, huh?

Anyhoo - back to my story! So tonight, I'm at work, I started a bag of trash in the autoclave and then went to get in out an hour or so later. When you open the autoclave, sometimes the steam will sort of billow out of the top (which just makes the whole room, your clothes, hair, everything smell bad) and that's what happened tonight. Only this particular steam must have been pretty potent cause it set of the smoke detector. I almost peed my pants. I work late at night (obviously, I'm still here!) and am in this building by myself for the most part so any loud noise is a little frightening but this smoke alarm is like ear-splitting! There are no carpets, just tile and bare floors so the screech echoes and it feels like it rattles your brain. There I am with a bag of disgusting trash in one hand, gloves on, lab coat on really wanting to drop everything and plug my ears but I can't so I put the nasty trash in the garbage can, run back to my room, take off gloves and lab coat wash my hands THEN plug my ears, grab my purse and head downstairs. From previous fire drills, I knew that my building and the building right next to mine are on the same "system" so when an alarm goes off in either building, it goes off in both. I also know from previous experience that once the alarm goes off, the fire department will definitely come. Even if we call to tell them it's a false alarm. So I went downstairs to find our handy security guard thinking he would know just what to do. I was wrong. He had no idea what to do. Luckily the hospital security heard the alarm - from a parking deck across the street mind you, it's that freakin' loud - and came over to investigate. I told him what happened and he asked me to go back up to the earsplittingly loud hallway and show him where the alarm went off and what exactly an autoclave was. So we go traipsing back up there, he walks in the room and almost throws up in his mouth I think. As I may have mentioned, it stinks. It was actually pretty funny to see a security guard trying to act tough but almost gagging from the smell. =) So we confirmed that there really wasn't a fire anywhere and when back downstairs and outside to wait for the fire department. They pulled up right as we were walking out and he made ME go and tell them what happened. The fireman just sorta rolled his eyes, chuckled and drove off. He did not however, turn the fire alarm off in the buildings. So there we are, sitting outside... did I mention that all the people still working in the other building had to evacuate as well?? And that there was a class going on?? Well they did and there was. Luckily it was kinda late and there weren't very many of them but I didn't go anywhere near them. I stayed on my little bit of sidewalk on the other side of the street trying to pretend like I had nothing to do with it. I failed miserably though because different people kept coming up to me and asking me for my name and phone number and asking me what, exactly, happened again? Sheesh. So much for layin' low. After about oh 20 min or so the alarm got turned off. We had to wait for maintenance to come from main campus to deactivate it or whatever. I slunk back into my building and up the stairs thinking it was all over. Wrong again. Our security guard AND the maintenance guy were both waiting for me, wanted a full account, my name, phone #, etc, etc. I was beginning to feel like a criminal! And all I did was open a d@mn autoclave!! And it's not over yet... they get their info and head off on their merry way, I sit down to TRY and finish up and then I get a phone call... it's the hospital security guard and he needs a bit more information to put on his report. "OK" I say, "what do you need?" "Well for starters, can you give me your height, weight, hair color, home phone # and home address?" What the!?!?! Are you kidding me?!? Am I being PUNK'd?!??! Why in the world would you need all of that information?? And why do you think I would just tell you that?? I don't even tell the dr my REAL weight, I lie on government forms about that one, why would I just give that out to an almost stranger?? I mean, we did sorta bond over the nasty smell and shrieking alarm but we're definitely not that close. So I tell him that I really don't understand why he would need that information, I'm happy to give him all of my work contact information, but I don't think he needs my home address, etc, etc. He says OK and we finish up. Jeez. I definitely felt like a criminal after all that! These could be my last words as a free person! =) So the lesson that I have learned: Empty the autoclave last thing at night and if the alarm goes off, turn off all the lights, sneak out of the building and go home.

My Little Brother

So my cousin beat me to it... she's a more experienced blogger I guess and it didn't take her as long as me to get organized and write everything down. But go here and check out her story of my little bro Jordan.. (and yes, he'll always be my little bro even though he's bigger than me now!)

http://spencer-girl.blogspot.com/2008/08/yes-bible-has-superheroes-but-weve-got.html

I can't really beat that! She summed it up perfectly. A modern day hero. Someone I can look up to. And a good role model for my son. I'd be pleased as punch if Blayne turned out like him -better like Jordan than like me! =) And the cool thing is that I love hanging out with him! And I sorta think he likes chillin' with his sis a little. When he was younger and I was a teenager (translation: when I was a punk all the time) he told mom one day that I wasn't in his love chain anymore. Or his love circle. Or something like that. But then as I got older (and less punk-like) and he got older we had this cool relationship. We could talk all the time. He liked hanging out with me again. I got put back on the love chain (or circle) and at one point was at the very top! We would stay up late chatting about school and girls and friends and whatever. When I went off to college of course things changed a little but we've managed to stay close. Despite me getting married too! He told me that the one thing he wasn't looking forward to after I got married was that we probably wouldn't chat as much and hang out anymore and that our relationship would change. But I tried really hard not to let that happen and I don't think it has. I mean, we don't talk all the time but that's mostly cause he's always doing stuff! He's been a busy kid for the past couple of years what with all the music, voice, piano, school, girls, etc he had going on. And I don't expect things will slow down for him now. But we talk semi-regularly and whenever we do get together there's normally at least one late night chat.

So he's off to college now, officially. Mom and Dad left him in Virgina this morning! He'll be going to Liberty University and majoring in Contemporary Music (or something like that). I'm so proud of him and can't wait to see where he ends up!

Michael and I were able to be in Sebring for his farewell concert - he did SUCH a great job! He played beautifully, sang beautifully and I was especially impressed with the song that he wrote. He's totally gonna be famous one day!! =) Here are a few pics:

Random

Yes, it's been ahwhile. I know, I know. I'm slacking. But I just haven't come up with any bloggable material lately... And I've still got nothing really. So I just thought that instead I'd put some of my fav pics of Blayne from the past few months.... Enjoy!!

So this is him eating Mac n' Cheese. Looks pretty good huh?? Especially since you can see practially down his throat!! At least he's happy about it though!

Me & Blayners at a cabin in N. Georgia. We went on a little retreat with our small group (which was awesome!) and our cabin was by a lake. We went for a little walk one morning (to get him out of the house while every one was sleeping) and Sean snapped this pic.





This one's kinda funny - I don't know why he was smiling like this! I kept trying to get a pic and I would tell him to say "cheese!" and this is the face I got. =)

After his first haircut, at Disney World! How cute is he?!?!?!

What a Rock Star!! He was playing Guitar Hero (and kicking booty too) and he HAD to have his glasses on and he just looked so stinkin' cute! He's totally gonna be in a band one day - he's got the look down. Plus I love the binky. =)

Mother's Day Morning - Sean took Blayne so I could sleep in (I love him!) and then after a couple hours, they came in to wake me up and this is what I saw! Sean said they were coloring with Blayne's markers and then he decided to draw a monster on Blayne's belly. And then Blayne tried to help. But then he gave up and just ate the markers instead. =)

Pretty self explanatory... Blayne LOVES being thrown up in the air and Sean LOVES throwing him around! =) You can't really see it but he's laughing hysterically.

He also loves yogurt, obviously. He doesn't believe in spoons when eating yogurt however. So he just tips the whole container or bowl or whatever up and slurps it down. This is the result.

Blayne and Ely pickin up chicks. =)