bugaboo

dear monkey,
i was going to tell the story of your birth this afternoon, but once again beautiful weather beckoned me outside. dad landscaped for 2 hours while i listened to casting crowns on pandora and finished "the first month" chapter in what to expect the first year. oh glorious day.

your room is slowing coming together, thank you hobby lobby. i bought letters to spell p-a-r-k-e-r and some pretty blue acrylic paint to jazz them up. interior decorating is not exactly my biggest strength, but i've been watching home decorating shows to get some tips ("less is more" i.e. get rid of the clutter).

we got a thank you letter yesterday from a girl who went on a mexico mission trip. she emphasized how the trip was "seriously life changing," and i couldn't help but chuckle at how cliche her story was. maybe someday we will get a letter saying "thanks for your gift, but i had an awful time on the trip and got the swine flu" (okay that's not funny, but i would still like someone to confess a negative experience).

i have no room to talk, though, because my thank you notes for your baby gifts are generic as can be. "dear ___, thank you for your generous gift. parker loves it and wears it every day, blah blah..." maybe i should change it up. "dear ____, thank you for your generous gift. i used the giftcard to buy myself a new bikini from target!"

okay i'm going to do it. not sure who the unsuspecting gift giver will be, and i might have to include a "haha j/k," but i will write that thank you. blah, i've written more thank yous this year than my whole life combined. can't complain because of others' generosity, but if someone would like to write some for me, that would be wonderful.

sunday is our one year anniversary!! babysitter here we come.

love ya lots,
momma

i dropped out of high school and now i have to dance like a monkey...aloha!

parks,

hello! you are such a great little sleeper. thanks for giving me free time from 11am-2pm every day to get things done around the house. we had a lovely weekend together. friday you turned 3 weeks! our friens brought over dinner from the bentonville butcher--delicious! love their brisket!! you went through a mini growth spurt, demanding more food than ever before. we were forced to give you formula because you were starving and mom had nothing left to offer :(. luckily you were satisfied after 2 ounces and mom's breastfeeding efforts were not sabotaged as you went back to exclusively nursing on saturday. phew!

dad attended the emt academy saturday and spent time at a few fires and in the e.r. you should be proud of him--he brought a woman back to life by doing cpr chest compressions, cracked ribs and all!

we also went to two bbqs (see picture above) and mom pumped a lot of milk. now we have "emergency milk" in the freezer in preparation for your next growth spurt and always take a bottle with us whenever we go to friends' homes just in case you get hungry. slowly but surely we are figuring this parenting thing out.

mom went to target on sunday, got sucked into the swimsuit section and had the genius idea to try some on (hey she's lost 25 pounds already). note to mom: if your chest did not fit in bikinis before you had a baby, it sure as heck is not going to fit now that you are breastfeeding. why you keeping trying on the same kind of swimsuits thinking that this time they will fit is crazy. instead she came home with ingredients to make a chocolate caramel pecan cheesecake (thank you jenna for the recipe!) further delaying any future swimsuit shopping.

we continue to go on walks every day and dad is benching more and more at the gym. life is good. until tomorrow, muah! muah! muah!

love,
momma

p.s. props to jasmine for noticing how long your fingers are. although you can't tell in most of the pictures, the most common comment we get about you IRL is how long your fingers (and toes) are. dad is really excited that you will be able to palm a basketball. watch out lebron! love!

another beautiful day

parks,
apparently the weather has an inverse affect on the quality of my blog posts. i've got nothing tonight except a few pictures of your backside. it's hard to find cute boy clothes, but luckily carter's makes some adorable outfits (thanks sis for the gifts!). we broke down and gave you the pacifier this week (rather have you suck it than your fingers and thumb). parker, you are the sweetest little baby ever. dad and i love you so, so much! muah!

love,
momma

and it's a great day to be alive...

Parks,
Today dad, you and I accidently walked over 4 miles at the Bentonville Bark Park. We (I) thought the trail looped, but no. Oh well, it was nice to get some sun.
Then we had dinner with some old JBU friends. Good times for sure!

You had your very first girlfriend, Miss Melindi Olander.
And then you hit her in the face. Tomorrow's life lesson: how to treat a lady.
The end. Mom's tired. Hopefully more tomorrow.

Love,
Momma

on meeting your husband on xanga & the office

i've said it before, but james and i have no clue when or where we met. we knew of each other for 3 years before we started dating, but never really talked...EXCEPT...through random xanga comments. technically we didn't meet on xanga, but did it facilitate interaction? sure. i think aim helped a litte, too. we are nerds.

today i decided to go back and read parts of my old site (oh xanga how i love you--we had some good times in college). this made me laugh, a lot. little did either of us have any idea that we would marry each other 3 years later.

July 7, 2005 (when I was living in Kansas for the summer and James was in Ecuador):

Top 5 Places I Do Not Want To Meet My Future Husband:
5. airport. some guy from california definitely asked for my number during my terrible 6 hour stint in the denver airport. who does that?
4. demolation derby. trust me, it's just a bad idea.
3. Elimidate (or the afterparty--Lisa! ).
2. myspace.com got a message titled "silvylicious" last week. are you kidding me?!?
1. bar. in the words of a dear friend, "any guy who buys you a long island ice tea is trouble."
(honorable mention: chapel. boys should go to chapel to worship God, not meet girls.)

"HAHA, that post was halarious. I guess I gotta re-think why I go to chapel, nah just playin. My summer is goin pretty well, nice and chilled out right now. Sounds and looks like you are having a blast, but still entirely too much time on your hands to make your Xanga look this nice, I like it. I am pretty bummed out about not being able to play flag football next year. I am stoked that I don't have to ref it though. But I will miss seeing you run over all those little girls that have no clue what they are doing...hahaha, good times. Take it easy"
Posted 7/12/2005 10:43 AM by Jkurly10 - delete - block user - fix language - reply

can't you see the love brewing in james' comment? riiight.

in other news, we got about 5 emails today to say that our wedding pictures were used in a video clip for the office. i don't really watch the show, but it's still kinda cool. check it out (our pictures start about 30 seconds into the clip):

http://www.hulu.com/watch/68403/the-office-here-comes-treble-limited-time-only

love!!