First they're sour....

Jenna is a Sour Patch Kid this weekend. I hope I always remember this awesome phase - no matter that it's driving me crazy! I don't know where the attitude is stemming from, but she's especially sassy this weekend.

A normal routine:

Waddle into living room, climb up on her PBK 'Jenna' chair, stand up and start jumping. "Jenna! Sit down on your bottom, baby." Jump, Jump, staring me directly in the eyes, Jump. "Jenna! SIT DOWN!" Jump, Jump, pointing finger at me and yelling (eerily similar to how i yell at the dogs). So I have to go over and pull her off, flip the chair upside down and ignore her protests.

Another scenario that is happening at least twice a day:
Waddle (very quickly) into the laundry room the second she notices I have forgotten to close the door, squat down and flip the dog's water bowl completely over, and then start tossing dog food like she's rolling dice in Vegas. "Jenna! No dogfood!!!!" I yell from across the house as soon as I hear the bang, splash, tossing. By the time I get there, she has emptied both food bowls and often she has eaten a piece or two herself. "Jenna! That is VERY BAD!" And as I pull her up by the arm to avoid either of us wiping out in the now disaster area, she hits me and yells "bad dog". To me.

But then they're sweet....

The most amazing part of the last few days, however, has been Jenna consistently saying "thank you". You hand her a sippy..."ta ta". You put her dress on..."ta ta". You hand her Baby Michelle..."ta ta". It's so amazing. Add to that - - Jenna loves to give hugs this week.

So that means that after every chair-flip-cussing, after every dogfood-beating, even after throwing a sippy dangerously close to my head when I told her to stop feeding the dogs her cheese......I get a hug around the neck and a "ta ta".

It doesn't get any better than this.

I thought you said you'd never forget?

9/11/09.....I woke up extra early to sneak upstairs with coffee and turn on the news. I need to watch them replaying the horrific scenes over and over again. I need to hear the stories of what the wives, kids, brothers, mothers of those lost are doing now. I cry - every year- like it just happened. And I WANT to cry - every year- like it just happened.

So imagine how annoyed I was this morning when the news acted like it was just a sad date. I finally lost it when Matt did a cheery little story on a girl swallowing her engagement ring in a Wendy's frosty! How charming! A little feel-good, "proposal-gone-sitcom" ditty for this Friday morning. I yelled some choice words that I only wish NBC program managers could hear...and then turned off the TV for the day.

I said two prayers. One for 9/11 - the people lost, the people fighting, the people protecting us from it happening again, the people who still have trouble getting out of bed in the morning because they lost their wives or husbands that day. And one for me ---I have a terrible temper sometimes!

Since Fridays are a Funday - Jenna and I headed downtown to the Houston Museum to meet Sarah and Cole at the "TotSpot". We also met some new friends - Becki and Reagan - who were fun. Jenna loved the tot-spot and was much more at home here than at the mall playland. I couldn't even get a good picture of her because she was moving too fast! I love the tot-spot, too, but was overwhelmed with the amount of tots. I'm serious that there were at least 100 babies in there playing. That's a whole lotta germs come flu season. Luckily, Sarah feels the same way I do and we concurred that this may be the last trip to the wonderful spot until Spring.

"24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence? I think not."

Stephen Wright

Labor Day weekend was wonderful. Monica, BJ and their boys came in Friday night...and the beer drinking began! Saturday was spent doing more of the same - with a BU football game (WIN) and some boating mixed in.

Aunt Jo and Uncle Ant were in town, also....and we all spent Sunday boating, tubing, swimming, grilling, drinking, ...the boys even decided to go hot-tubbing! Spin the bottle anyone?

And perhaps my favorite picture of all time ---

Thank you Strothers, Serises and Jensens for a beautiful weekend, free of labor~

PLAYDATE; per Wikipedia:

...a social medium that connects kids and families, to meet with other kids and families in the community or neighborhood by the way of having playdates at a nearby location.

Last week, a darling girl at Gymboree, Sarah, asked for my email address. Sarah and I had a special bond - - of course we had babies the exact same age---but it was deeper than that. She was talking about the sad fact that she had to move her 2 dogs to her parent's house because her baby Cole was allergic. That alone grabbed me as a dog lover. But wait. "What kind of dogs do you have?"
"2 Boston Terriers".

Ahhhhh, a match made in heaven. Not only does she have her own Chan and Ed, she loves them so much that it was breaking her heart to move them for her baby. I knew I had made a friend.

The next week, I was invited to my first official "Jenna Playdate". We met at The Woodlands Mall - - may sound lame to some.....some of you have never been to our mall.
We went to PBK, grabbed a drink at Starbucks, cruised to the indoor playground, went on an old-fashioned carousel ride, and topped it off with Chik-Fil-A.

Things I realized on the date:
I really like Sarah and adore sweet Cole.
Jenna needs to get out more.

She stood in the same place, the entire time, just confused!

does fort worth ever cross your mind?

Thanks to my fabulous brother-in-law, Anfroni, I get to see my sister a lot lately. When they got married in January, he made a promise to bring Jo down to Conroe often. I'm talking like once a month. Assuming everyone reading this blog is a dear friend or family, and not an internet stalker, you all know that once a month is still not nearly enough for Jodi and I. We must still email at least 10 times a day and talk on the phone at least once a day.
I'm always looking for an excuse to go up to FW, and when Kev had a couple tint requests I jumped at the chance. The seesters can always have fun together. Throw a bald little 1 year old in to the mix - and you have 3 very happy Jensen gals!

It was a wonderful weekend.

A stroll to the Cupcake Cottage for JKR's first babycake,








then the hike to the sweet Simpson's house for a day of relaxing on the lawn,







A date night for K and I ......and all wrapped up with a family lunch outside on Sunday.