Archive for April, 2007

While we were trying to get to New York, Jill and Robbie were busy trying to have a baby. Hannah Emily Armstrong was born Sunday night, weighing in at 7 pounds, 2 ounces, and 19 inches long. It was not an easy labor, but mom and baby are doing very well. She already has a webpage with info and pictures. She is such a cutie, with a head full of black hair. I can't wait to see her in person, but we have to wait until we get back from New York before we plan a visit. James was excited about knowing her name; the other night we had been talking about our "new baby cousin", and I had left James in the bed to go to sleep. A few minutes later he came running in, all excited: "Mama! I don't know what I'm going to call my new baby cousin!"

We were looking at pictures of Hannah tonight, but Eliza got distracted and wandered off. A little while later, though, I was sitting at the computer and Eliza came up to me, saying, "I look baby cousin. I look baby cousin." She loves babies, and she was delighted to see pictures of her new cousin! I'm sure she will be even happier to meet her in person. We are so happy for Jill and Robbie!

Well, we made it to New York Saturday, but only barely. Storms in Dallas caused Jay's Friday night flight to be rerouted to St. Louis for a while. He still had time to make his flight to Little Rock when he arrived in Dallas, but there were no gates open at the airport to get off the plane, so he was still sitting on the same plane hours later when his flight left. He spent the night at the airport, trying to sleep on the floor and get an early flight out to Little Rock, to hopefully get there in time to meet me and the kids at the airport so we could all fly together to Chicago. He did get a seat on a plane leaving early enough, but he was made to get off because the plane was apparently over the weight limit. (The storms had caused freight shipments to be delayed, and they were making the plane too heavy. So even though there were empty seats, they wouldn't let Jay stay on!) There was one more flight that could have gotten him to Little Rock just in time to meet us at the gate for our flight to Chicago, but it was delayed enough that it was very unlikely that he would have made it. We were about ready to give up, but I decided that I could manage the flight to Chicago by myself with the kids, if Jay could meet us there. He was fairly certain he could get there, so he took the next flight to Chicago, and I braved the first flight by myself.

My parents met us at the airport, and they helped us get our bags in and get our tickets. The lines were very long; there were a lot of military guys that had just finished a training at Camp Robinson and were going back to their home bases. Thankfully, my flight was delayed just enough to give me time to get through security, reassemble after security, buy drinks for the kids, change Eliza's diaper, and take James to the bathroom. I was glad to finally be on the plane! I did have to take James to the bathroom once on the plane, and that was an adventure! I just had to stand outside the open door and hold him up so that he was high enough to go, and let Eliza run free in the meantime. Our seats just happened to be right in front of the bathroom, so she just climbed back in our seats, but I didn't know where she was until James was finished. I was so frazzled about losing Eliza that I forgot to pull up James' pants before looking for her, so he was standing in the aisle with his pants down for a second before I turned around and pulled them up. But we made it to Chicago without too much hassle!

Jay's plane apparently landed at almost the same time as ours, and we had no trouble finding each other because we had arrived at adjacent terminals. I was so glad to see him! The rest of our trip went very smoothly; we had time to sit down and eat lunch, and the kids slept the entire flight to New York City. It was a good end to a crazy day!

We stayed at home for Easter this year, mainly so Jay could do yard work over the weekend. We also wanted some time to spend as a family, since it had been 2 weeks since we were last all together. I enjoyed getting to sing in the choir in both of the Easter services, because I'm usually out of town and miss out. We had little goodies for the kids, so they have been eating a lot of candy lately. I hid plastic eggs in the backyard and let the kids find them—they had so much fun! We also took some pictures of our Easter activities, including a few in our Easter finery. :)

We are headed to New York this Saturday for another 3-week adventure. Hopefully it will be a little warmer and we will be able to do more outdoors. I am excited that we might get to go to some zoos up there (forget about the kids!) I think they would enjoy it, too. Ready or not, here we go again!

James and Eliza are both hilarious at times; I wish I could remember half the stuff they say, because it is so funny! Here are a few things I have managed to remember:

James has apparently been having interesting dreams lately. One morning he woke up and told me, "I had a dream, and my dream taught me a new word!" "Oh, really?" I asked, "What was the word?" Then he said some nonsense word like, "Flabegaberous." I was telling Mammy about it later, and I asked him if he remembered what it was. "No," he said, "I guess I need to learn it again." Only James!

The next morning he had another dream: "I heard myself singing a song. It was 'Fear not, Daniel…' (from VeggieTales). I also heard myself singing, 'I'm a mess, I'm a mess…' (from the Laurie Berkner band)." Okay, James, whatever!

Eliza is a bit of a mess herself. Lately, everything is "mine". Today I did something (I don't remember what), and I said, "That was my fault." Eliza didn't miss a beat: "No, my fault!"

We had a good weekend traveling around to see people we haven't seen in a while, but one person we didn't get to see was Daddy. Jay got sick with a stomach bug Tuesday night, and was still too sick to travel to Nashville for his conference over the weekend. I was really looking forward to seeing him, so it was disappointing, but I decided to go to Nashville for Suzanne's shower anyway. The kids and I drove to Memphis Wednesday night, stayed and visited people there until Friday, then drove over to Jackson, Tennessee, to visit with Jill and give her some baby clothes (her due date is less than a month away!) Then we kept going through Nashville and on to Smyrna, where we stayed with Joseph and Nicole in their cozy one-bedroom apartment. We had a good visit with them, and they kept the kids while I went to the shower Saturday. It was so good to see all my old college friends, and especially to show off my kids.

Staying with Joseph and Nicole was fun; James played video games while Eliza chased Tino, their frisky cat. James' idea of playing the games was to start a level and then hand the controller to Joseph or Nicole, saying, "Can you do it? I'm not very good at this." Tino was mildly interested in the "little people". Once he was sitting on the back of their chair, and Eliza walked up and put her hand up to pet him. He swatted at it a few times, which made her laugh, so she did it again. They had a good time there, and Joseph even took them to a park while I was at the shower. We all went out to eat with my friends Saturday night, which was also fun.

It was a little crazy traveling by myself with the kids, but we made it. I didn't even get lost once! We did have to stop a few times to let James go to the bathroom, and that was an ordeal. Once when Eliza was asleep, I just stopped along the side of the road and made James go in the grass, because I didn't want to wake her up to go in a gas station to use their restroom. I thought James was going to wet his pants another time, because I got everybody out of the car only to find out that the bathroom at that place was out of order! I had to buckle everyone back in and drive down the road to another gas station, where the women's bathroom was out of order, so we just went to the men's. Ah, the joys of traveling with kids!