It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

... A beautiful day for a neighbor.

Beware, I am currently BUI, blogging under the influence (of pain killers). The past few weeks have been nonstop. I've had lots of things I've thought about blogging about but never a spare moment to actually type.

First of all let me just say I live in an unreal neighborhood. I mean we had at least four different neighbors bring over goodies and introduce themselves. One neighbor even made a huge coffee cake but was then concerned we were allergic to nuts and made about 2 dozen sugar cookies to go with it. There was even a little welcome wagon woman (I honestly didn't think those really existed). I think this means I'm going to have to be a good neighbor now.

Thanks to lots of family (we consider the Kelly's family) we've been pulling this house together. Over Memorial Day weekend my mom came up and helped me scrape wallpaper off the walls of the hall bathroom and Br spent an entire day unpacking the garage. What a mess. I also finished my first nesting project -- appropriately it was a bird mobile for the baby's room (pics to follow once I get it hung up).

Wallpaper AHHHHHH!

That week I fit in more than double my hours for work and got a lot more help around the house when Kelly and her fam came up to visit. She cleaned my house, made me freezer meals that will last us months, played with my poor neglected son, helped me finish getting wallpaper off my bathroom (I say mine because the master bedroom has two bathrooms in it one for me and one for Br), taped trim to prepare rooms for painting, and gave me much needed girl talk and adult female contact. She even forgave me for my freak out when I finally hit my stress breaking point the last night she was staying with us. I know, I don't deserve to have such a great friend, but I'm sure grateful I do. Thanks to all Kelly's hard work (since it definitely had nothing to do with me) my house was put together enough to welcome a few of Br's uncles and aunt who flew up from Houston to help us paint. Thanks to all of them for their help. The house looks great.

A previously wallpapered bathroom-- now just a clean blue

The second day I was in the hospital Br's mom came to help watch E. By the time I came home my house was perfectly clean again.

Thank you Thank you Thank you to all my neighbors (friends, family, loved ones) old and new for helping me pull things together.

The calm before the storm

Yes this is old news, but I've started and stopped this post about a billion times over the past two months and I've decided it deserves to be finished.

So before all this finding a house, selling a house, moving, crashing a car, getting ready to have a baby stress, our family had the nicest get a way to our favorite place-- Disney World (Yes, we've been there A LOT in the last year and a half. We're not in denial-- we know we have a problem.) This trip's focus was E. After E's birthday party in Feb. I asked Br if he had fun and he said, "yeah but if you would have asked me to plan his birthday party we would have just gone to Disney World." So, even though it was a couple weeks late we still used his birthday as our excuse to celebrate. Here are some highlights and as usual, if for some reason you want to see more pics you can check out the slide show to the right.

Despite most kids his age being weirded out by meeting their full sized friends (after only knowing them as 2 inch tall cartoons characters), E loved meeting so many of his friends.

We knew E liked the more adventurous rides made for all ages, Malstrom, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the tea cups, we decided to let him try out his first roller coaster since he was finally tall enough. He had the funniest look on his face the whole time that said "I'm not scared but I don't know how I feel about going this fast." He at one point even let out a weak "Weeee?" (yes it was in the form of a question). We only rode it once.

Overall this kid was a good sport about waking up early, taking really short naps, going to bed late and standing in line but he did have a few moments where he demonstrated he's 2. This was my favorite. It was as we were waiting for out table to be called for our lunch with Pooh and friends. Yes he is on the ground, and no he wouldn't get up, and yes I was too tired to fight with him so I left him there right in the middle of the crowd.

We ate a lot while we were there. We took JoJo to one of our favorites, the SciFi drive in which is just that, and in door drive in where you eat in little cars and watch old drive in clips. E's staple while we were there was popcorn. I'm pretty sure he ate an entire box every day.

One of the biggest highlight on this particular trip was meeting up with my Aunt and cousin who live in FL. I'm so glad we connected up. We went out to the beach where we saw an actual rocket out on the launch pad, E played in the sand and chased seagulls, and down a little ways we say actual manatees in their habitat.

Another nice addition was that JoJo joined us for a few days. It was nice to have another set of adult arms (even if E demanded I be the one that held him the whole time). She was also kind enough to watch E a few nights in a row so Br and I could go on some Disney dates. One night we ate at Chefs de France at a table that overlooked the lagoon at Epcot during the fireworks show (that's as close to romantic as we get). The next night we just had a relaxed night of window shopping at Downtown Disney after eating at my favorite Sandwich place Earl of Sandwich (I have to go all the way to Orlando to get an All American now that we don't live in Houston anymore.)

A quick note about this picture. This was the beginning of E's current obsession with pirates. I'm not sure where he became familiar with pirates since the only pirate movie he's watched is Peter Pan (which ranks high on his list of favorites right now). He thought the Vikings at the Norway pavilion were pirates. I'm pretty sure if you asked him which ride was the pirate ride he'd say that one even though he did ride Pirates of the Caribbean. To be honest he thinks that any big boat or man with a beard is a pirate. When ever he sees either he repeats very loudly "Arrrr pirate, arrrrr, arrrr, arrrr, pirate". That gets a little a little embarrassing when its the latter that he identifies.

In any event I'm glad we took this nice break from reality. I'm pretty sure if we hadn't I would have kept my sanity this long. Thanks Br for the good idea.

Almost settled

After a whole lot of drama over appraisals, and a few meltdowns over the many rescheduling of the closing, we finally closed on a house in OK on the 1st. Unfortunately the people living in the house didn't want to really move their stuff, or pack for that matter, until they knew for sure we would close, they weren't able to get out of the house until late last Sunday. Being overly hormonal and desperately wanting to get settled in my new place (I'm pretty sure I'm on the verge of nesting if I'm not already) I thought not having that weekend to unpack was going to kill me. I was also a little (okay, a lot) peeved that we got rid of our tickets for the DMB concert in Dallas because we thought we'd be moving in and instead spent my Saturday just trying to find ways to keep my mind off the fact that I was homeowner with no home.

Turns out I survived long enough for the movers to bring our stuff on Monday. Although we are still partially buried in boxes we've managed to unpack the kitchen, bathrooms, playroom, and living room over the past few days. I even squeezed in waiting around for the cable guy, working, signing E up for Gymboree (I miss the $11 classes at the Rec center and weekly playgroup at the park), going to music time at the library, and taking a little break to do something creative by making some cupcakes for Br's work bake sale to raise money for the food bank. This weekend I also made chocolate dipped rice crispy treats for our church Cinco de Mayo party (on Nueve de Mayo). It's sure nice to have all my kitchen stuff unpacked.

So in short, despite a lot of crying while uttering words like "I never wanted to move here", "I'm never going to find a house I like", "All this stress would maybe be worth it if I loved the house, but I don't", now that the dust is settling (not completely settled... but settling), I'm glad we are here to have some new experiences and I do like my house (I think I might love it once I'm finally unpacked and I finish the projects I want to do to make it "mine"). I have to admit that I'm pretty excited about it's great potential as a party house. It's definitely build for entertaining. I just need to find some friends here. I'll take some pictures soon as soon as I'm either over the emotional trauma of living in a house that isn't together or I actually get the house together.

A bright spot in my day

Not that my day was bad or anything, but this link of "peeps in places" I got from my Aunt Angie was the highlight of my day. I love peeps (preferably stale) or toasted in a peeping s'more (thanks to my friend Matt for introducing me to that little beauty). I think even if you don't like peeps you'll enjoy these pics.

Update

There hasn't been a dull moment since the last post. We didn't even take a day off once we got to Oklahoma after the exciting rollover. By noon the next day E and I met up with our realtor to continue the home looking process. No luck that day. The next day we saw a few more homes (still none I liked) between conference sessions and ended the night at a car dealership where we waited for 4 hours to finalize buying me a new car (well new to me at least). The exciting news was that although our house in DFW had only been on the market for three days we ended up with two offers that afternoon, one of which was for more than we were asking. Needless to say we went with it. Despite the fact that I had no desire to do anything after such a long week we saw one house the following day and put an offer in on it. After just a little bit of countering we came to an agreement and if the appraiser ever decides to give us the report he started five days ago we are on our way to closing on it by the end of the month. That will give me about a month to unpack, let the dust settle and then have a baby (AHHHH!).

I started the new week keeping busy trying to catch up on all the work I didn't do while I was rolling cars, buying new cars and finding a house. At the end of the week Br ended up having Thurs and Fri off so we randomly decided to jump in the car (my panic attack about being on the road again after the accident only lasted for a little over an hour-- there is no way I would have emotionally survived my original plan for the weekend to go to UT by myself) and went to Albuquerque to visit most of the fam for Easter. My mom just happened to be in town visiting my sister too. We had a nice visit eating BBQ, Yen Ching, Dions, donuts, the range cafe (even if Br and Chris ended up with food poisoning on Easter morning), and really really yummy french toast my sister made. I think we did things other than eating. Oh yeah, we had a little egg hunt for E and my nephew before we headed right back for OK.

This last week was pretty uneventful other than finding and going to a new doctor, going over to the new house during the inspections and appraisal to try to visualize what we will need to do to it after we close and before the baby gets here, and then driving to DFW (that little trip made our total miles driving over less than a month 2595 miles) so we could watch the movers pack and load our stuff, then clean the house in time for it to close on Friday (yes that was just barely over two weeks from the day we put it on the market until someone else owned it). We were blessed.

Despite a few bumps over the last few weeks, things are falling into place. Hopefully in just a few more weeks this whole moving thing will finally wrap up. I'm tired.

All signs said go North...

...yet I insisted on going south. That is until I ended up upside down in a ditch.

So Br has been working in OK for a couple weeks now and E and I have been hanging out in DFW. Midway through last week after HOURS of cleaning and decluttering I finally got our house on the market. The second it was ready to been seen I wanted to get out of it so that E didn't undo my hard work. Late Wed afternoon E, Duchess (our dog) and I loaded up and decided to head down to Houston to stay with JoJo and visit friends for a couple weeks to pass some of the time between putting our house on the market and moving up to OK for real. Mostly I've just been trying to put off moving despite my boss's wise advice that E and I just needed to be with Br as soon as possible (that was sign number 1 that I should have gone north). I even paid the $39 the day before to get a new safety inspection so that I could keep my car in TX for another two weeks without getting a ticket. I'm pretty sure nobody in OK would have cared if I was driving around with an expired TX sticker.

The trip started as I pulled out of our neighborhood going South to try to get on the freeway. The major road that leads to the on ramp was backup up all the way to my street (I've never seen that road back up in the year we've lived there). Seeing the backup and deciding I didn't want to wait I turned around and exited my neighborhood to the north (sign number 2). Once I was finally on the freeway in the southbound direction traffic soon slowed until it was pretty much to a standstill. Of course the Northbound direction leading to OK was moving just fine (sign 3). What should have taken me about 15 minutes to get to the next interchange going towards Houston took over an hour but I kept going.

I kept going until I got to I-45 and then kept going down that a ways until a coyote ran out into the road. My natural impulse was to not hit it even though in my mind I thought, okay if you swerve don't over correct. I swerved and thought, okay try a little less this time, and then swerved like two or three more times until I thought, "Oh great now I'm going sideways and sort of spinning, and now going off the road, and now rolling." As I sat upside down I looked right at my dog now sitting in front of me on the shattered windshield wanting to get out of the car as much as I wanted to. I immediately asked E if he was okay since he wasn't crying and he said calmly "O hey". That's when I knew everything was "O hey". My only other panic was when the truckers who came to my rescue opened the door and Duchess went running straight for the highway. Luckily another trucker grabber her at the top of the hill right before she made it to the road.

E and I both got out of the car easily and aside from the tiniest little sliver of glass in my hand both of us were completely untouched. Poor Duchess who went from the back seat to the front has a cut on her paw that only bled for a minute. I know we were blessed. There were no other cars around me on the road when I started to swerve and spin. We stopped rolling only because we didn't have momentum because where we came to rest was flat not sloped. Just up the road a little the drop off was really steep so we were lucky our "ditch" was relatively flat in comparison. As I sat there looking at my upside down smashed car I realized it came to rest pointing North (the final sign).

I let the EMTs check us out even though we both felt fine and then we caught a ride with the tow truck to the Love's truck stop in Fairfield, TX. We were a sad sight sitting there outside the gas station up against the wall next to the pay phone. We must have looked a little odd considering I had my dog attached to a rope yet had real luggage and a laptop we watched a movie on while we waited. Kelly (the most amazing and selfless person in the world) came to our rescue in the middle of the night. (THANK YOU Amy for watching a few of her kids so she could come to our aid! and thanks for watching E the next day while Br and I tied up all the loose ends). I am eternally grateful. (As a quick side note, just to show you what a great person she is, as she was driving she thought, "how on earth am I supposed to find them at a truck stop I've never been to." Just then she looked up and saw a huge billboard that said "Love's truck stop Fairfield 28 miles". What she didn't realize was that that sign was directly below a sign that said something like "Nothing is too hard for God". Indeed, nothing is too hard for God. He'll protect a family trying to avoid hitting an animal and he'll be sure a sign appears for the person driving in the middle of the night coming to their rescue.

Br arrived in DFW a little before we got back home. I was so good to be with him. I realized I should have just been with him the whole time. At that point I decided it was better for us all to be together, no matter where it was.

The next day I decided that I should go get my baby checked out even though I knew she was "O hey" too. After a couple hours at the hospital and every test coming back normal Br and I got in the car and headed back to Fairfield to get everything out of my car before the insurance company hauled it away. We rolled back to town about 9 pm. Br then got to fix out fence that had blown down that day while I went and picked up E. When I got back to the house with E he refused to get out of the car so Br, Duchess and I got in and we all finally headed north--together.

In the end the morals are:
I know the Lord protected us.
I know that the best thing for our family is to be together as a family
and when a coyote runs into the road in front of you, just hit it!

Pretty in pink...

Those are probably words you'd never think you'd use in describing something in my life but it was the theme of my most fantastic baby shower. The hostesses decided that what was best for me was to just be immersed in everything girly and pink and you know what, not only did I survive being girly, I really really liked it.

They kept all the details of the shower a secret from me. They'd rented out a suite at a local hotel and spent all afternoon decking it out (with like 7 kids running around "helping"). It was amazing-- streamers, balloons, signs, candles, pink bedspread, flowers, tulle, and many other details that took careful thought and planning. I mean look at the details people, this is my toilet!There was a huge buffet of fantastic food including a super cute pink cake (thanks to Amy). We had manicures, made hair bows, decorated "designer" diapers, made me some scrapbook pages, and just chatted.

Games included trying to guess the flavors of various pink drinks and correctly identifying outlined baby items. Thank you ladies for not making me identify baby food flavors or sniff unknown things in diapers. These ladies really out did themselves. Thank you for everyone who joined us for the fun evening and thank you Amy, Lorelei and Kelly for providing such a great evening. To top everything off they left me the key to the room for the evening. It was EXACTLY what I needed!

I'm surrounded by the greatest people ever

So it's going to be hard for me (the stressed out hormonal woman) not to end up balling by the end of this post, but I have to do it because I have such fabulous people in my life right now who have gone above and beyond to show me their fantasticness and love and they all deserve a shout out.

It started last Sunday when my overly creative and inspiring friend Loralee featured E's birthday party on her fantastic site No Fuss Fabulous. If you haven't checked her site out yet you really really really should. As she has inspired me to get the creative juices flowing and I felt overly honored that she would consider putting my party on her site. Thank you Loralee!

Midway through the week when I was contemplating whether to eat a sandwich, bowl of cereal or heat up one of the bags of frozen broccoli (I'm in the process of trying to clear out the fridge) for dinner my friend Amy called to see if I had dinner plans. She had made a pot roast and decided to that maybe I'd like some. Boy did I ever! Not only did she bring roast but she included mashed potatoes, carrots and rolls MMMMMMMM. It was just the thing I needed for dinner (and lunch the next day). I know my baby was grateful too since it was actually nourishing in comparison with all the candy and junk I've been stress eating all week. Thank you Amy!

By Friday I was overly spoiled and the generosity of my friends was only beginning. Despite the fact that I'd concealed my secret until only about two weeks ago, my friends here immediately put together a baby shower for me. I heard Lorelei was the brains behind it all but I know that Amy and Kelly also had a lot to do with how fantastic it was. I'm going to save the detail for a later post after I get some pictures but I wanted to say something now because I was overwhelmed with how wonderful it was. For now let me just say it was awesome! Thank you for everyone who came-- you all made for wonderful company and thank you hostesses for going above and beyond (and I mean it people, just you wait for the details).

A great bonus on top of the shower was that Kelly sent over tons of leftovers from the shower that served as our dinner Saturday night.

After being gone all week Br got Friday off and came home to help me finish the projects I deemed necessary to put the house on the market. Br was amazing. He worked the whole weekend straight and I mean no stop! He finished all the projects that I'd started and never finished. He made sure before the weekend was over that he'd done everything necessary for me to feel comfortable about putting the house up for sale. Br even made me a gourmet Sunday dinner out of the things left in the freezer-- a little surf (shrimp) and turf (Omaha steaks) over a potato cake sitting on top of Kelly's artichoke spinach dips with a side of grilled corn on the cob and sparkling grape juice to drink (there is officially little left in my fridge). THANK YOU BR!!!! My belly is filled with yummy food and a great stress has been lifted off my shoulders.

Thank you to E too for being a good boy this week and keeping yourself entertained so that I could get the long "to do" list done.

This week was also filled with lots of calls from family and friends that I hadn't talked to in a long time. I just have to say that this week could have horrible for me since I'm SO stressed about moving but it ended up being really good. It was because of all of you and your kindness. I know the Lord blessed me with such fabulous people in my life to help me get through this time. Thank you to him and to all of you!

A long time coming

This week my sister got around to posting pictures of our sister and Mom trip to CA in October. I'd like to say that even if it did take her a while to post the pics, she was the only one out of all four of us on the ball enough to bring a camera to take pictures in the first place.

We met up in Sonoma to attend my Grandma's fantastic birthday celebration.

A couple years ago Br, my mom and my brother and I all took a trip to Disneyland for their 50th birthday. While we were there I said that we should all come back again to celebrate my mom's 50th there. Although it was a few months late while we were in the great state of CA we decided to have a belated 50th Disneyland birthday for my Mom. Since my bro was on a mission and Br was in Paris that weekend, it ended up being a girl's weekend (with the exception of my nephew who was only weeks old at that time).

When were were there a couple years ago my mom got some gold 50th anniversary ears with her name embroidered on the back. Her favorite story to tell is how we were sitting at breakfast and the Fairy Godmother came up behind her and said "Tori, it's so nice to have you hear". She was shocked and started tearing up with the excitement of a beloved Disney character knowing her name through the magic of Disney. It took her a second to figure out while the rest of us were cracking up because it was obvious the Fairy Godmother just read her hat. Anyway I thought it would be fitting to make her a "birthday" cake in the shape of her hat (excuse how sloppy it looks, it is hard to travel with sugar mickey ears).

Here are some highlights (there's more pics in the slide show)-- Thanks Jess for being our photographer.

Oh, and I finally got to eat at Blue Bayou -- the restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Releasing the felines beyond the confines of a satchel...

...In other words letting some cats out of the bag.

So a little over an hour ago I walked back into my house after a much needed and much enjoyed week long vacation. AHHHHHH! It was a nice way to destress. I think that in order to completely destress (at least until my new week starts and the reality of life hits me again) I need to take a load off by divulging things I haven't blogged about yet.

First is that there are some rumors going around that we might be moving. Unfortunately, right before we left town we sort of decided that we are. Br got a job offer that will give him experience he can't pass up. It's just too bad that the job is in OK. Yes this means that I get to have the pleasure of selling a house in this market after only owning it for a year. I'm really not looking forward to it but I'll survive. Although the time line is still being figured out (which is driving me crazy) it looks like he'll start working there before the end of the month. I'm not sure what the means for the rest of us since I wasn't really planning on changing my routine here until June.

Now you may ask yourself why did she say June? The other little thing that I don't know if there are rumors floating around about or not since I haven't mentioned this to really anyone yet is that we'll be having a little girl in the first half of June. I figured that since I hit my 3rd trimester today that it was probably past time to tell people. Why did it take me so long to tell anyone (except Br of course)? Well it's mostly due to my horrible body image issues and my paranoia that as soon as someone announces that they are pregnant everyone is constantly looking at her to see if she is "showing" and I just can't handle that scrutiny (whether real or imagined). In any event I'm giving in and this weekend I decided that I was going to try to pass off the billion pounds (that is the actual measurement) I gained by eating dessert at pretty much every meal while I was on vacation as me just getting pudgy because I'm having a baby in a couple months.

So with all that, things are sure being mixed up a bit in the Melton pot. There shall be more details on all mentioned topics (vacation, moving, and baby Melton) but for now I think I'm going to get some sleep in my own bed and try to stay in relaxed mode at least for a few more hours.

Still busy busy busy

When I said I'd post more pictures of E's birthday party as soon as I got through my busy week I wasn't expected the busy week to turn into busy weeks.

Days after the party I had to go to Saint Louis for a work meeting for a couple days. At that meeting we decided on what everyone needed to do before the next draft of our materials needed to be pulled together. What we pretty much decided was that it was all going to end up in my lap within days of getting home from MO. Needless to say work has kept me busy this past week since the deadline to get things to the printer is tomorrow.

I got to take a little break from work to put on a primary (the kid's Sunday school at church) activity at my house Saturday. I'm not going to lie, it was very lively in my house for that 2 hours, but it was fun. We had a little family reunion-- played some games, make family trees and then decorated cupcakes to look like a member of our family tree. I made a few right before the activity started. They aren't my finest work, but it was a nice creative release right before the excitement started.

So now that I've rambled on about why I was too busy to blog, I'll finally post some pictures of the party (sorry they are the same ones on Amy's blog, for those of you who are her fans). Thanks to Ian for being our photographer. Some more pics are on their way. At some point I'll load them all onto my computer and put a little slide show together on my side bar. Until then, this will do.

The birthday boysI was really excited about this party because it was the first time my vision honestly and fully came to life. I had so much fun dreaming it up and making it happen. The living room was outdoor Paris with a city scape, a couple bistros to sit and eat at and some trees and clouds.

The breakfast nook is where we kept all the little chefs (decked out in aprons and chefs hats) busy playing in a bunch of play kitchens I borrowed. We also had pin the hat over Remmy and had the kids count all the little rats that I had hidden around the house. The kitchen was the kitchen of Gusteau's and the dinning room was the dinning of Gusteau's.
We had a fun little "French" buffet because you can't have a Ratatouille party without fine food. By french I pretty much mean we had normal 2-year-old food and labeled everything with their names in French. We had gold fish, grapes, pears, eclairs (thanks Amy), crackers and bread, cheese for the kids, cheese for the adults (Br and I had a really fun date the night before at Central Market picking out fine cheeses and bread), french lemonade, and Perrier.

This is the adult's cake. I learned a few lessons making it. The main one was that if you just sort of wing making sugar paste you will be dealing with something much to soft to hold a shape and so your little rat friend will not look like what you want him to and then will sort of sink into himself as the day goes on. I should have kept the Remmy I made for Br's birthday. Oh well, lesson learned.

The kids got cupcakes and E and Liam got their own Eiffel tower cakes so they didn't have to fight over who got to blow out the candles.

Everyone who came submitted some really fun kid friendly recipes so that we could put together a little cook book. Thanks to Amy for making the cutest/classiest gift bags ever for us to put all the fun take home stuff in!

Thank you again Br, Amy, Ian, and Mom for helping pull this off. I had the time of my life doing it and couldn't have done it without you all!

Busy celebrating

So this post is going to be a little lame but I promise at the conclusion of this upcoming busy week I'll sit down and type up a quality post. The last week or so has been busy with celebrating so at least it was fun chaos.

Wed was our little man E's birthday. I was really excited to send some birthday treats (cupcakes decorated to look like his favorite treat crockcorn-- by the way I love the way he says "popcorn") with him to preschool. He was really excited to be bringing treats too. It made me happy that he was so happy.

E showed that he was ready to be one year older. In fact earlier this week he was cracking me up when I turned to see him sitting on the couch reading the cliff's notes for the Grapes of Wrath. The TV was on but he was honestly focusing on his "book". The kid carried it around with him and periodically stopped to read for over an hour. Granted he was only reading the cliff's notes and not the actual book, I'm still going to give him props since I'm pretty sure that I never actually read more than that either.

On to the end of the week. Grandma Tori arrived in town for our big birthday party Saturday. Br picked the theme of Ratatouille because it is one of his and E's favorite movies. I'll post more about the party later with some actual pictures but let me say it was really really fun to plan and attend. What made it more fun was that we joined forces with Amy, Ian and Liam so we could celebrate Liam's 2nd birthday as well. Thank you to them, my mom, and Brad for helping make it happen!