Don't Mess with Me

You probably can't read the caption on Andrew's shirt in this picture, but it reads "Don't Mess with Texas" (the shirt is courtesy of Laurie and Booty). We figured Andrew looked appropriately untouchable in this picture.

What to say about this week? It's been a good one, by and large. As we've already posted about Monday's excursion, we'll start a little later in the week. Tuesday I managed to spend quite a bit of money through the simple expedient of going to Target for groceries and prescriptions, and then later going to a fabric store . . . . You see, I somehow got this brainstorm that I needed to make Andrew an "Eeyore" quilt (he's currently going through a bit of a Winnie-the-Pooh fascination) for his new bed (the bed he doesn't have yet but will need to have before the baby comes). I think it's likely that I'm nesting, because the only other time I've had any urge to quilt anything was just before Andrew was born, when I made approximately four or five "I spy" quilts for Andrew and his cousins. At any rate, I discovered that when you're dealing with trademarked characters, it's *not* actually cheaper to make a quilt than buy one . . . . Most of the experienced quilters in our audience are probably smiling a bit at my naivety--quilting (like scrapbooking and other crafty hobbies) is clearly not a hobby for the indigent. With any luck, I won't actually lose my drive to quilt before the quilt is finished and I'll be able to display a picture of the finished product here.

On Wednesday we drove up to Salt Lake for the third time in six days to take Andrew to a doctor's appointment at the Primary Children's Hospital. Don't worry--this sounds much more serious than it is. Andrew has a very mild heart condition, and before we left PA the cardiologist recommended that we bring him in again for a six month checkup. The doctor at Primary Children's (a very nice lady who was visibly pregnant herself) told us that Andrew looked and sounded great and won't need another check-up for a year. The visit took much less time than we'd anticipated, so we used the extra time to drop by Sarah and kids. Unfortunately, they had an appointment with the school book fair, so we didn't stay long, but Andrew had fun running around with Katie and indulging in their mutual love for dollies and shiny princess shoes.

On Friday, since Andrew was going through some Jacob withdrawals (it had been nearly a week since he saw his Tolley cousins), I called Jeni to see what they were up to. We ended up meeting them at Sam's Club where we had fun wandering around (well, aside from Andrew trying to strangle/hug Jacob in the cart--we had to separate them) for a while before taking the kids back to Jeni's house to feed them lunch. After Andrew went to bed, Dan and I took advantage of some alone time to finish watching "Meet the Robinson's" and start watching "No Reservations." We really enjoyed "Meet the Robinson's" (our favorite sequence was where the villain--not exactly the smartest bulb in the bunch--is looking for evidence of the hero's movements. He finds a stick, and his AI bowler hat comes back to report what he has found. The villain says wisely, "yes, the time-travel residue near Wilbur Robinson's DNA . . . plus my stick . . . must mean that . . ."). "No Reservations" was okay, but nowhere nearly as good as the German original (translated title "Mostly Martha").

Saturday, of course, was our big adventure day. Dan and I took Andrew grocery shopping in the morning to get ingredients for Pepe salad (also known as "Frog-eye salad") and an oriental salad, since we were assigned to bring salads to a family gathering that afternoon. It was after naps (Andrews and mine) that things got interesting. We piled into the car and drove up to Jared's house. Just as we were pulling down the street, my mom called and asked "where are you?" I explained that we were almost there, and she said, "Jared's at our house. We don't know where Jeni is." There wasn't much to do but turn around and head back to Provo (this after 40 minutes in the car). The worst part about the drive back was Andrew's incessant repetition of "I want to go to Joshie's house." "We were just at Joshie's house. Joshie's not there. He's at grandma's house." "I want to go in Joshie's house." And so on, ad infinitum, until we finally got to grandma's house and he got distracted by the presence of cousins. It turns out that Jeni, too, was at grandma's house, having gotten the memo that my mom and I apparently missed. What happened? Well, Jared emailed everyone about the possibility of getting together, and then he and Jeni apparently decided it was time to get together at my mom's house, but somehow neglected to tell either mom or I about this development, so we (not too unnaturally) assumed that, since Jared had instigated the get-together, and since the last time was also at Jared's house, that his house was the destination for the current shindig. At any rate, everyone eventually ended up at the same place (with the somewhat sarcastic suggestion that next time we should just let everyone pick a place at random and see who ends up where) and seemed to have a good time, if the noise level from the children was any indication.

Jeni and Samuel had to leave early because of other obligations and my parents went to ward temple night (since we were thus sans babysitters, we opted to go another time), so Jared and Mitcee and Dan and I attempted to play a game. Even though we didn't do anything more complicated than the Lake game (also known as the "Expletive game" or "Oh heck"), we had plenty of distractions in the form of Andrew and Joshua, who were struggling to figure out how to share Andrew's toys. It was still nice to get to spend some time with them. And Andrew, as you can tell from the picture below, was particularly enamored of Brielle. He gave her several hugs as they were leaving (that's what he's trying to do below, although it looks more like he's trying to pull her head off). It was pretty sweet--if vaguely alarming about the level of affection we can expect for our new arrival, when she gets here.