To My Sister On Her Wedding Day

This is the speech I made at my sister's wedding......

Good Evening,

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Cari's older sister Amanda or Mandy depending on what point in life you met me. As Cari wrote almost 6 yrs ago on my wedding date, I will ALWAYS be Mandy to her, she will ALWAYS be Cari or Carebear to our family, everything in those names brings back our childhood and what having a sibling means.

While Cari and I were growing up, we experienced our toughest and happiest times and we have always been there for each others most shining moments, such as today.

The tone of our sisterly love was set early on, about 28 yrs ago this month in fact. Imagine two sisters, joyfully playing with blocks on a summer day. I think I must have decided to 'improve' the structure by taking a block from Cari's pile, BIG mistake. The next thing I knew my forehead was meeting a metal trash can powered by a toddlers wrath. Four stitches and a bag of jelly beans later, we were friends again. It is only appropriate that this is my EARLIEST memory in life and you were there.

Beyond this early negotiation, Cari and I have given each other everything we could over the years, or not, but then we'd just take it out of the others closet when she wasn't looking. We have been each others courage, support, comfort, enemy, playmate, roommate, and have never failed to make each other laugh. You with your sense of humor and me with my never ending lack of balance.

As children we dream of our wedding day and hope to marry the perfect man that is our best friend, the love of our lives, a true partner. I think our family and extended friends can see that Pat has fulfilled all of your hopes for a husband. Pat, welcome to the family and the friends that are as close as family. As dad said to Rich on our wedding weekend, 'This is a cash and carry deal, there are no returns.'

Tonight we celebrate everything you have found in each other and all your dreams for the future, so I would like everyone to raise their glasses in a toast to Pat and Cari.

Congratulations and love to you both.

We were classy flyers!

My day started with Nora deciding to wake up at 6am! This is an unheard of time in our house and a good 2 hrs before we normally get up...

Coffee, lots and lots of coffee.

Pick up the house, pack the little stuff, clean up the cat barf, take out the trash, pay the bills, and off we went......

To the little airport kiosk that tells you what 'friend' you get to have on the 2 hr flight that can be endless with a toddler.

SURPRISE, surprise, surprise. We got upgraded to first class, for FREE! Rich came back after two seconds and said,

'Did we buy first class tickets'....
Me: 'NO'
Him: Well that's where we are!

The luggage steward at the ticket counter couldn't figure it out either, we bought regular tickets, never upgraded them and there we are the Class 'A' flyers today.

Get through the terminal, get through security, feed toddler lots of french fries, get on the plane, pray toddler sleeps, toddler bounces around, get smush, pushed, pray toddler sleeps, realize toddler is NOT going to sleep today.

Say ever so grateful prayer to the traveling god that made First Class yours today.

Leavin' on an Airplane!

Leaving tomorrow for Cari's wedding. check back for photo updates on all the festivities.

Conversations by Nora

Conversation Nora had with herself in the carseat pretending to talk on the phone

" Hell -whoa"

"Fine, I fine"

"How you?"


I'm glad I wasn't trying to stop I would have rear ended someone! Laughed so hard I was crying....

ETA: This one is from this evening...

"I back!" (means I'll be back)

Nora comes around the corner

"Mommy, daddeeeee. I can't find it jabber,jabberjabber"

Us: what can't you find

" I can't find it, jabber, jabber, da ball?"
_________________

Split Hairs.

I hope Rich gets to read this post.

Last night I found my 2nd gray hair!!!!! GASP!

Apparently the one my forehead hairline decided it needed a friend on my temple. As any woman would do I pulled the offending strand out!

Guess the kid finally aged me a little, hon.

Of course, this still only puts me at one gray hair you caused and one gray hair Nora caused. This is FAR below your count. I take full responsibility for your graying head. I know I can cause many a stress, worry, irritation, or sleepless night.

I know, "I love you too"!

I figure I'll get all my gray hair when the kids are teenagers from them running me ragged, stressing me out, etc...then again you'll have gone completely gray.

What's after gray hair? Wrinkles? Your oily skin may save ya on that one.

8x8 - because I was tagged

Holly tagged me...

8 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO:
- my sister's wedding on June 20th
- TTC #2
- Our trip to the beach in July
-Nora getting over her current virus.
- Having time to actually garden after clients tomorrow.
- Rich being done with this project so I can stopped being a single but married mom
- Finding a church this summer, it's about time I got back to that.
- Tennis practice on Thursday nights

8 THINGS I DID YESTERDAY:
-woke up at 5:45 because Nora had a 103.8 fever
- went to the Grocery store
- took a nap
- had the in-laws over for dinner
- finished booking stuff for the trip to KC
- did 2 loads of laundry
- Said a silent 'thank you' prayer when Nora went to bed after a long, sick, fussy toddler day
- Told Rich to come to bed at 2:30 in the morning

8 THINGS I WISH I COULD DO:
- Afford to finish the house renovations so I could stop looking at them!
- find a stay at home mommy group over here in East Cobb.
- Sleep in during the week
- Make sure that Nora doesn't inherit the infertility that runs in my family
- Appreciated more of the small stuff before it happens
- Be a better mom and wife, there are days when I know I'm lacking
- Lose the last 10 lbs, gain 2, lose 2, gain 2, lose 2
- Figure out how to pass by licensure exam

8 SHOWS I WATCH:
-How I Met Your Mother
- Big Bang Theory
-Biggest Loser
-Oprah
-Project Runway
-Grey's Anatomy
- House

8 FAVORITE FOODS:
Chocolate
Steak
Salmon
Fruit - almost any kind
Pickles
Cheetos - didn't have them alot growing up, guilty adult pleasure
Tangerine Beef chinese
Wings

8 PLACES I'VE TRAVELED:
-Cozumel, Mexico
-France
-England
-Switzerland
-Belgium
-Germany
-NYC
-San Francisco

8 PLACES I'D LIKE TO TRAVEL:
-Lochness in Scotland
-Washington State - there's some cool plant life/ecosystems
-Ireland
-New Zealand
-Mayan Pyramids
-Egypt
-Hawaii
- Grand Canyon

Recycled Thoughts

Guilt, guilt, guilt over ALL the diapers we are sending into the landfill! It sent me over the edge into the recycling world last month.

Of course, the recycling increased our quarterly trash bill by $18 BUT I also got the trash portion of the bill reduced by $4 a quarter. Almost 1 quarter of recycling free!

Back story on the price reduction.....Bunch of us neighborhood ladies were talking about the economy, price cutting, and what bills we had 'cut'. It came out that people were paying 2 different rates for trash, I think it had to do with when you signed on. So hooray for Liberty Trash being nice and reducing my rate!

The trashcan that all the recycling goes in is about 3/4 the size of the Bigger trash container. To my utter amazement we actually FILLED the thing the 2 wks before they picked it up. When you REALLY start realizing how many things have the little triangle of recycling it does start to embarrass you.

Because this is cutting down on trash, I figure we might actually cut down on the # of trashbags we use every month. So I did some simple math.

Previous bags/wk - 5, which is 260/yr
Current - 3, which is 156

Math:
260-156 = 104 fewer bags a trash a year!

The box of trash bags we buy is always in counts of 80 from BJ's for $9 or less if I have a coupon. (FYI, for people with club memberships, BJ's takes coupons!) This means I'm going through $12 less in trashbags per year! Not a huge savings but it almost makes up for another quarter of recycling cost.

BUT, here's one I had to laugh at.

We buy Nora these organic ravioli's at BJ's because she LOVES them and doesn't like tomato sauce. Organic product, hard plastic packaging, NOT recyclable?

Ironic isn't it?

Swimming with the Alligators.

I don't even know where to begin this one!

We had a playdate over at a friends house. The kiddos(nora and andrew) LOVE the little pool and it keeps them entertained for a LONG TIME.(keep this in mind for later)

Kathy and I are just chatting along watching the kids play. Nora stands up, having been seated for 30 mins. or so. Ummmm, the entire back of her swimmer is hanging LOW.

Me thinking, Oh my land!

What I said, " Uh, Kathy Nora's pants are looking pretty heavy I better check that out"

Get to the pool, murky water! EWWWWWWWW!

"Kathy, you might want to remove Andrew, we have little swimmer failure"

Kathy, the germaphobe, gets Andrew out. ONLY to discover that he has also poooood!

Double the swimming in poo! Might as well have been swimming in the sewer with the alligators.....it's gonna take a long time to TOP this one in the mommyhood.