Clayton's Greatest Hits

A few candid shots of Mr. Photogenic:

Wednesday Weigh-In

I've lost 3.2 lb! This was a good week.

Weight Watchers saying: "When you kinda follow the program, it kinda works. When you really follow the program, it really works."

Total lost so far: 22.8 lb

Dory says Hi

Had to show this cute video of Dory to her grandparents. And anyone else who isn't sick of our blog yet.

She is such a sweet, happy baby. We love our Dory-girl!

Memorial Day

We celebrated Memorial Day by watching the B-1 flyover this morning, and taking a picnic lunch up to a nearby lake. We had such a nice time. I love my family.

The boys spent a good hour throwing rocks in the lake. I can't think of too many things they enjoy more than playing with water, rocks and dirt.

The quality of the picture taken is directly and inversely proportioned to the number of children in the picture. In other words, trying to take a picture with three small children is like herding housecats.

Clayton did great staying on shore for about half the time . . . but eventually bolted for the water. Here he is sitting down and chillin'.

Here is Mommy fishing Clayton out.

Our soggy-bottom boy.

We tried to point out the seashells to the boys, but it was not too successful. Brian just thought they were additional rocks to throw. Clayton thought they were little hats:

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe Memorial Day. Our love and prayers go out to all the current and former service members and their families.

Birthday Buddies

My good friend Lily and I seem to have lives that are eerily in synch. We met in Oklahoma, both got assigned the B-1, and moved to Abilene. On the same street. We both moved here expecting our first little girls. Here we are with our friends Kelly (left) and Laura (right) last November at the Abilene Zoo. Our friends Laura and Megan threw us a baby shower in February- here we are, ready to pop!It was a couple's shower, which was SO fun! Especially because our amazing hostesses hired a baby-sitter, so there were no kids! Above are Andrew and Matt learning how to play the 'Candy Bar Diaper' game. Below left to right is Abe, Matt, Lily, me, Megan, Andrew (background) and Scott.

Lily was due Feb. 23rd, and I was due March 4th. Well, Lily's daughter Claire arrived on her due date, around 5:00 am. Then Dory made her appearance at 10:42 pm that night!

So Dory and Claire have the same birthdate! Interesting side notes: Lily has had BOTH of her kids ON the due date! No inductions or C-sections either. Pretty cool. Also, her son Merritt was born the same day as our little friend Kaylee. The picture above was taken on Feb. 25th, right before we both left the hospital.

Claire and Dory just turned three months old (where does the time go??). Here are our little birthday buddies now; Claire then Dory in the bouncy seat.

The force is strong with my younglings

I had such a blast garage saleing yesterday. I got a Yoda costume for the boys. Not sure how much I paid for it- not much! I filled a bag of stuff for $5, so I would guess this cost about $0.50. I got the light sabers at different garage sales for $0.25 each. I'm thinking about having our whole family in Star Wars costumes for Halloween . . . Dory would be a cute Ewok, no? And as you'll recall, we had some rain this weekend (happily NOT on Saturday morning). It was not too cold so we let the boys play in the backyard.

At Least it Doesn't Rain in Caves

So Memorial Day Weekend - a four day weekend for us at Dyess - was supposed to be the big camping trip with Matt and Abe. The plans were to drive about 5 hours west of here and enjoy three days of roughing it. We were going to:

-Camp out under some of the darkest skies in the Southwest
-See Carlsbad Caverns
-Hike Guadalupe Peak - the highest in Texas.

Well, after getting in late and getting to sleep, the rain started. Astronomy was right out - I didn't see a single star, including our own. So was hiking; we trekked out on a whim and found the trail closed for flash flooding. They say there's a spectacular mountain up in those clouds:

We did however make it to Carlsbad Caverns early Friday, so that kind of made the trip worth it. Here are some pics - and apologies to my caving buddies for making what should have been a 2 hour expedition a 5 hour one. And to all the other visitors who had to squeeze around me on the trail when I stopped to setup up the camera equipment and tripod every 10 yards.

We opted for the "natural entrance" instead of the elevator down into the main cavern. A mile hike down through the gaping entrance - all paved, thankfully.

On the descent, the passage opened into a HUGE room with the ceiling reaching perhaps 300 hundred feet - it was like a sports arena. Here's a 180 degree vertical panorama - which doesn't do the vastness justice:


As we went deeper, the details increased.


The main cavern "Big Room":


And my 360 degree Panoramic shot of the main areas of the caverns (you gotta click on this one to get the full effect):


We got home in time for Lisa and the wives to go yard saleing; Um yeah, I think Lisa was happy - in fact we suspect she turned to Voodoo to bring the rain. But all in all, it was a fun trip - we'll have to go to the caves as a family some day.

Wednesday Weigh-In

I lost 0.6 lb this week- not a spectacular loss, but that's okay. Some weeks will be slower than others. See you next week!

"The only person who can stop me is ME . . . and I can take her". -Unknown

Total lost so far: 19.6 lbs

Dream of Flight, Part 9 - Born to Fly

Lisa's right when she says if any of our kids end up as pilots it'll be Clayton. The kid's transfixed by anything that flies!

The next best thing to actually having talent . . .

. . . is having friends who are talented!!
This post is to show off some of the incredible hand-made things my friends have made for Dory. Unbelieveable. You've already seen the blessing dress my mom made; above is a sweater she made. And below are some quilts she made for the boys. Here are two of at least 4 blankets my mom crocheted for the boys. We had so many blankets for the boys that I made her promise not to make any more blankets for Dory! She also crocheted Brian's white blankie, which he cannot live without.

My friend Natalee made this dress below. Gorgeous. I can't wait til Dory grows into it! Natalee is an amazing seamtress, who graciously helped hold my hand and get me going on my sewing machine that I bought at a garage sale. Not to mention, Natalee is an awesome garage-saler. Not to mention she is also Brian's wonderful, sweet and endlessly patient Sunbeam teacher.My friend Jen made Dory these three beautiful dresses- oh, and she made a DOLL with MATCHING DRESSES. Jen also made Dory this duckie hooded towel. And she made Brian a dog, Clayton a frog. See, Jen is just this Macguyver kinda seamtress, who can take a burlap sack and make it into a wedding dress. Is it even legal to be this talented?Here is Dory ready for church today, wearing another dress Jen made. Speaking of talent, my husband is a gifted photographer (as you may have noticed before). Proof? I took the two pictures just below, and Andrew took the rest.

I could eat this picture up. I am blessed to have so many friends who share their talents with me.

Wednesday Weigh-In

I've lost 2.8 lbs! Yay!

"A wish changes nothing. A decision changes everything." - Anonymous

Total lost so far: 19.0 lbs

Glowing with Pride

I have to say, everything is more fun when Daddy's in charge. Mommy would never think of including a glowstick with bathtime. Here is a picture with the glowstick waving around:

Good times. And today we played with the bounce house again, with our friends Lizzie, Alex and Garrett.
And now I'm wondering how many times Clayton's bum crack has appeared on our blog (above picture, on the left)?? Hmm. Here he is, still having fun in the bounce house even after it's deflated.


EDIT: I told Lisa I wouldn't post this video, but I think it's cute - especially Brian:



-Andrew

Okay, and this is just for my Mom. We used to watch the TV show Rhoda every day together when I was in college; we LOVE that show! And the first season just barely got released on DVD (finally) and I got it for my birthday. It's a spin-off from Mary Tyler Moore, and in my opinion, ten times funnier. Below is Valerie Harper, the star of the show. The only reason I write about this is because Dory and I went to Wal-Mart tonight, and when I pulled her out of the car she'd dragged her hairbow off to the side, and she looked just like Rhoda with her signature scarf!! I thought it was hilarious. Hiya Ma!

"You sure have your hands full!"

That (the title) is a phrase I hear a lot lately. When people see me shopping/walking/sitting or basically doing ANYthing with three kids under 4 years old. I'm not sure what they expect me to say in response- "Yes, you're right!" or "No kidding, Sherlock". Whatever. I'm usually not in a tip-top mood when I hear that phrase, because sweet merciful crap . . . I'm alone with three kids!!

Anyway. Here are some new pictures of what's keeping my 'hands full'.

We got out some toys for Dory- she is getting interested in them lately. Below is her toy mat with the arches overhead . . . however the boys got hold of it and made it into a tent instead.

But Dory didn't mind; we put up the toy bar on her bouncy seat and she loved it.

Here she is today in a cute blouse, pinkie out- what a cutie.

So, yes I have my hands full. Having three kids means going from a one-on-one to a zone defense. Anyone have a playbook I can borrow?

Is she bigger than herself?

Dory had her 2-month checkup today. She weighs 14 lb exactly and is 25.5 inches long. I forgot her head circumference. Well, the nurse wrote down on all three measurements that she is in the 100th percentile! I thought that was impossible. But I guess not for this girl.

Here is my new favorite picture of her, taken by her Aunt Mary Anne over the weekend.

Wednesday Weigh-In

I've lost another 1.8! Seems to be my magic number. It must definitely be magic this week, because after hearing about my grandma and eating half my kitchen, and then taking my trip to CA I was sure I'd gain something. I wasn't too terrible in CA, but I did eat at In N' Out and some great Mexican-food places. YUM. And I had a cookie on the flight home that was TEN points all by itself. And cost $3. Sheesh.

But I came back and did really good the last couple days, so I guess I got away with it. Or maybe it'll all catch up with me next week. Whatever!

Total lost so far: 16.2 lbs

Dream of Flight, Part 8 - Superman

Childhood memories are funny things. I probably don't remember 98% of the advice or guidance my parents gave me growing up, but the bits I do remember are crystal clear. One such memory has stuck in my mind for over 20 years now: it was 1988 maybe 89 and I was riding somewhere in the car with Dad. He was talking about someone he knew who had flown jets and had compared the sensation of soaring through the skies to "being like Superman". I guess I must have been born with flying on the brain since memories like that seemed to get filed away for later use long before I ever seriously thought I would end up a pilot myself.

Anyway, I thought about that conversation a few days ago on a flight. It's funny that for the past couple years I hadn't really thought much about how great flying is - pilot training was pretty good at sucking the fun out of flying. When you're always only three flights from failing out of training, every flight is an exercise in solemn focus. It was mental yoga; "Don't suck" was the mantra and 'zen' was not getting so far "behind the jet" that the fire trucks would beat you to the scene of your own crash. There was no time to enjoy flying. Well OK, there were a couple times where I could look out the canopy and say "this is pretty cool". Once, on a 'freebie' sort of flight with Aaron Duffin, an instructor and church-member. We went out 'cloud-chasing' - pulling loops and rolls around puffy clouds. Another was on my solo cross-county flight. Even though I'd probably flown over Oklahoma City dozens of times in training, for the first time I actually looked down on the sprawling city laid out all around me and said "wow".

But it seems like a funny thing happened after graduating training and beginning to fly the B-1; Flying is fun again. It was as if pinning wings on my uniform suddenly made me a pilot. I suddenly know how to fly and now I can free up brain-bytes to enjoy it. So jetting through the clouds at 500 mph on Wednesday, for the first time I leaned back and said to myself "wow, this is like being Superman". Only I bet Superman couldn't sip on a Coke Zero on the way to take care of the bad guys.

All this led me to think about another aspect of my life in which I've yet to feel super-heroic: parenting. I don't know how my parents did it; and still do. I'm still learning, and not very well. If I were in Undergraduate Parent Training, I'd have washed out by now . . . "Here's a dog, practice on this for a while before we make you a parent." I kind of worry if I'm good enough for Brian, Clayton, and Dory. The only thing that the kids have going for them is Lisa I think. She's a pro - a First Assignment Instructor Parent, if you will - I learn things from her all the time. One thing that she said was that this weekend would be good for the boys (including me, I'm sure). It'd be good for her to go away and leave us to bond. So we've been trying - with mixed results.

We made it to the Air Show in town this morning. First parenting lesson learned: when it's 50 degrees and raining, don't dress your kids in shorts, sandals, and Air Force tee-shirts. Even if you want everyone to know that their "Daddy is a pilot". So after coming home to change we went back.



The weather stunk but that didn't get Clayton down. Second parenting lesson: it doesn't matter what you do with your kids, just do something to spend time with them. Even if it's sitting in an Army truck at an Air Show.


Despite the weather, the B-1 did manage to do a couple LOUD passes beneath the clouds. Clayton - exhilarated. Brian - terrified. "Let's go now! Let's go now!" Third parenting lesson: as much as you want your kid to do or like something, they're their own person. Maybe Clayton will grow up to be the pilot.


Brian did have a brief moment of fun looking at, in his words, the "Skeery Airplane".


Coming home, it was clear both boys were worn out, but for different reasons.


So I don't know, this parenting thing is harder than people make it look. I'm certainly no Superman. I hope one day my kids can look back and have good memories of spending time with their Dad, like I can. I hope I can master fatherhood, the way I've (mostly) mastered flying.