Mommy's Room

I spent every waking momement and every dime we had in October remodeling our bedroom. We finally have some bedroom furniture. Dad sponsored the project by buying me a miter saw and a nail gun. Here are a few photos of the finished product.

Recital

Emmylou had her first violin recital on Oct 25, 2007. Luckily it was on an odd day so I was able to attend. I've never been so proud. She was fantastic, radiant, some violinist! We recently finished reading Charlotte's Web. Here's a link to the video of the recital.

Variation B.wmv

Where are the seagulls?

We're in the thick of the annual cricket plague in Central Texas. Crickets are everywhere in alarming numbers. If not for two year's previous experience we might be watching for someone to lead an exodus out of Temple. The other night Caleb woke up screaming; Jennie ran in to see what was wrong. Panting in hysterics he said, "There was a cricket on my head, so then I wacked him, then he was on Clifford's head!" We've also found a large number of geckos in our house lately. Were gekos one of the 10 plagues? The little lizards are really cute, but they have a tendency to run around spastically then try to hide in the shadows under your feet. This makes them very hard not to step on. Just yesterday Caleb stepped on one and its tail came off. He looked at Jennie with remorse in his eyes and said, "I broke him."

Girl's Room

We've spent every waking hour for the last few weeks working on Emmylou's room. It is now the "girl's room", as we've moved Sally out of our bed into her own next to Emmylou's. Jennie made some fun shadow boxes with one of each of the girl's dresses. The furniture is frog green, but it goes nicely with the pink. Here are a few pictures of the finished product.

Blue Bell & Vanilla Coke

I've gotten in the habit of drinking some Vanilla Coke while I'm on call at the hospital. Though it keeps me from falling asleep in the operating room at 0300, it also keeps me from falling asleep on the rare occasions that nothing is going on and I might otherwise get in a short nap. The other night was one such occasion, so while I wasn't operating or sleeping, I sat up and thought about Emmylou and hummed an original tune. Tonight I found a program (Mazzika) that let me record the tune and I've posted it with this entry.

I have brought the kids up to the hospital on several occasions and taken them to the cafeteria to eat ice cream. One day when Jennie and the kids drove past, Emmylou pointed and said, "there's the hospital where daddy eats ice cream." It's no wonder she tells me that she wants to be a doctor.

Beginning

We just got back from Houston where we spent a fun weekend with our close friends the Handy's. Jennie and Jamie were freshmen roommates at BYU and Trent and I became good friends soon after our wives introduced us. I suppose few people are so blessed to have both spouses enjoy the company of another couple as much as Jennie and I enjoy being with the Handy's. We've sure missed the snow cones and the heated competition of the card and board games we once played. I used to invite ourselves over to dinner on almost a weekly basis when we lived in Houston. When you're comfortable pillaging from the fridge or changing the TV-channel mid-program when visiting a friend's home, it speaks volumes about the depth of that friendship. Jamie introduced us to blogger.com and we felt like this was the perfect forum to let our loved ones keep in touch with the goings-on in our lives. Work keeps me busy, tired and cranky, but the kids and Jennie seem to like me anyway. If this first entry is not grammatical, or even coherent, I'll blame it on not having slept last night. I've been at the hospital for 27hrs and can't wait to get home to see my little ones.