We had a wonderful first Christmas with our baby boy. He wasn't much interested in opening presents, but he could tell we were happy-giddy about something, so he was, too. There were a few toys he got that he really seemed interested in, but for the most part it was all sort of confusing for him, understandably. I had a wonderful Christmas, and got lots of really neat toys of my own to play with, including a copy of EQ4. EQ4 is only the coolest-ever quilt design software. I'm having loads of fun designing and redesigning future quilts. It's so nice to see what a design will look like before actually putting in the hard work of making it first. :) I'm sure the fruits of my (cough) labor will show up here sooner or later. No plans for Christmas Eve, really. I guess we'll probably stay up til midnight, say a quick toast, and collapse into bed.
I haven't been posting much lately on this website. That's mostly because I've been so busy trying to get my other site ready to launch. It's called QuiltIndex. It took me 2 1/2 months to get ready, but I'm pleased with it. Mike and I have been working together lately to make it better - adding searching, questionnaires, and other cool stuff. It's fun working on a project with him. Maybe we'll get to do it more. We sort of complement each other - he does most of the technical design stuff, then I dress it up. I'm learning some HTML in the process, too, and I think he's learning (and remembering) some HTML and VBSCRIPT, as well. If you're a quilter, you should check it out. If you know a quilter, please have THEM check it out. The more the merrier!
Other than that, it's just been the usual pre-Christmas crunch. It hasn't been so bad this year, although I'm not sure whether I'm going to have Adam's stocking done in time or not (I'm cross-stitching it). I'm trying, but it's really tedious and time-consuming. Oh, well; if I'm not done with it, I'll just pin what I have done onto the front of a plain stocking and finish it for next year. Who knows; there could be a NEW baby by then. (No, that's not a hint.)
If you keep up with Mike's journal then you already know my grandfather died. It happened last Wednesday, November 30th. He was 82. It was either a heart attack or a stroke; they don't know for sure, and because of his age no autopsy was ordered. Adam and I went back to Texas for the funeral. We left Thursday at 9:30AM. We flew from Spokane to Pasco to Salt Lake City to Dallas. The getting there was pretty uneventful. Adam cried some along the way, but for the most part he was content to play or sleep or nurse. I only changed planes once, in Salt Lake City where I also had a 2-hour layover. On the first plane, we were seated next to a nice woman named Judy who helped me with Adam. She held him and played with him and talked to me. We exchanged phone numbers, as she has an antique quilt her grandmother started that she'd like to have finished and I told her I'd talk to some people I know who do quilting and piecing by hand (it was all started by hand).
By the time we got into Dallas at 6:30, I was pretty tired. Even a happy baby is a handful on a plane. I got the rental car with no trouble (thanks in large part to help with a few random businessmen who took pity on a lady with a baby by carrying bags) and promptly took the wrong highway away from the airport. It seems they've built an entire highway while I was gone, and like a doofus I took it. I ended up calling my sister (Donna) for emergency what-do-I-do directions. I got going the right direction and headed out to Donna's house. When I was about 15 miles away from her house, I almost got run off the road by two crazy drivers. I ate some spaghetti at Donna's house and let her play with Adam. She even changed a couple of diapers!!! Just as I was about to leave (still had a 2 hour drive ahead of me) she told me I was supposed to go to Canton to pick up my aunt/step-mom (same person) and take her to my grandmother's house. I bitched and moaned - didn't they realize how tired I'd be? - but did it anyway. I picked up my aunt and drove on to Linden to drop her off. My mom was staying there, and she had a nice time playing with the baby, too. I finally drove on the rest of the way to our motel in Atlanta, 15 minutes away from my grandmother's. By the time I bought some water (had to stay hydrated!), checked in, and went to bed, it was 4 AM.
We slept in til 11AM Friday, then we left and picked up some lunch at Wendy's before heading to my grandmother's house. Buying food was foolish; as is typical for southern funerals, tons of friends brought over tons of food - we didn't even make a dent in it. We sort of socialized and reminisced with family all day Friday (it was this day that Adam chose to first roll over, from his tummy to his back), then went into town for the viewing that evening. It was very hard to do. My grandmother had requested photographs be taken of my grandfather, so guess who got volunteered. We got all that taken care of, then sat and received friends for the rest of the wake. I was sort of in charge of amusing my second-cousin, Joshua, who instantly fell in love with Adam (he wants a baby brother/sister) and ended the evening by telling his mother, "I don't want to live with you, I want to live with the lady with the baby." Fun.
Donna and her boys shared the motel room with Adam and me Friday night. Lots of family members were staying in the same motel, so we sort of room-hopped until bed (1 AM) catching up on each others' news. The funeral was the next morning at 10AM (Donna, the boys, and I had McDonald's before). It was very emotional, and a beautiful service. Afterwards, we went back to my grandmother's house and socialized and hung out and played dominoes to pass the time. My friend Nancy had driven all the way out there from her house (3 hours away) and brought her daughter Megan along. Megan's 7 months old, and this was the first chance we'd had to see each other's kids. It was nice. They played together, when Adam wasn't being passed around the family. Around 3PM, we decided to take off and head for Dallas. Nancy followed me, and I checked into a different motel near my sister's house. The babies played together until we went to go have dinner at Chili's. Adam slept through dinner, Megan munched on some crackers, Nancy and I chatted. Then we went back to the room to talk and take pictures of the kids. Around midnight Adam got crabby-sleepy, so Megan and Nancy left. It was around 1:30AM before Adam finally fell asleep.
The next day was Sunday. My cousin was having a surprise party for her husband's 40th birthday, so Donna came over around 11AM and we went shopping for his present. Before the party, we stopped at El Chico for lunch. We went to the party, then I drove Donna back to the motel to get her car. She went home, and Adam and I took a nap. I ordered in some Italian food, then drove to Donna's house again to visit. I left at a reasonable hour, around 10PM, and Adam and I sat up and watched TV for awhile and played, then went to bed. It was tonight Adam decided to roll over from his back to his tummy.
The next day, my mom stayed home from work because she was having car trouble. I had Indian food for lunch and a banana split from Braum's, then drove over to mom's house. We hung out for awhile, in between her going to pick up the van, then drove all of us (including my niece & nephew) over to Seven Points to get dinner. We ended up picking up Taco Bell for the kids and Schlotsky's for us. I left not long after dinner and drove back to Dallas (my mom lives about an hour away). I stopped first at the grocery store and bought some of the things I can't buy here. More TV, then bed.
Tuesday, Donna and I met up at mom's work and we all went to lunch at the Spaghetti Warehouse downtown. The service sucked, the food was great, so it was pretty much par for the course. After I left there, I drove down to Ennis to my dad's house. We stayed there all night, visiting with him, my step-mom, my aunt (different person - Dad's sister), and my cousin. We left around 9PM and drove back to the motel. I wanted to get an early night since our plane was leaving the next day. Of course, it didn't work out that way. Adam was trying to come down with a cold, so he was crabby and clingy and nursy all night. He never went more than an hour without nursing. At 7:15 the next morning I was so tired, I called Mike and complained to him about the whole thing. He said there was nothing he could do, but I told him to tell his son to go to sleep, then held the phone up to the baby's ear. The baby got quiet, and, amazingly enough, fell asleep not long after the phone was hung up. I took it off the hook, and went back to sleep.
At 8:45, my cellphone started ringing. I crawled out of bed to turn it off, then went back to sleep. At 9AM, Donna knocked on the door and said Let's go to breakfast. I gave her the baby, a diaper, and a change of clothes, then stumbled into the shower. By the time I was dressed, Adam was, too, so we went to breakfast at Denny's. Then I went back to the motel and packed and checked out. I called Nancy, and we met at her mom's work (she wanted to see the baby). Then we went to where her husband works (ditto), then went to have lunch at Spring Creek Barbeque. It was pretty good. Then I drove to the airport to start the plane trip home from hell. He was still sort of congested and cranky, and neither of us was really well-rested. We took the same route (in reverse, of course) home that we had taken to Dallas. He cried some on every leg of the flight, but from Pasco to Spokane he cried non-stop for 25 minutes. I was worn out. Mike had a hard drive from home to the airport, so we didn't see him when we de-planed. He caught up with us at baggage claim. It was a yucky, snowy, long drive home, but it was better than being on a plane. Within 5 minutes of arriving home, I collapsed into bed, exhausted. To see pictures taken during this trip, click here.