Stupid People

The Elementary School I went to has been in the news lately...seems there are people in this world with WAAAAAAYYY too much time on their hands. Protests over kindergartners in pilgrim costumes? Ugh. I remember dressing up as an indian for this annual tradition and I had a great time. When people dress up as Mormon pioneers to commemorate the trek and other historical events in Mormon history, I don't get all bent out of shape or feel it is "stereotypical." It's how people dressed back then...deal with it. Aren't there bigger issues these parents should be focusing their time on??

Click here to read the story in the LA Times.

Cousin Christmas Hoedown!

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Happy Holidays from the FRUGES!!

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Birthdays and a Happy Halloween!

This last week was another busy one! Court turned the big 3-0 on the 28th! I wanted to take him to dinner and then have cake with family, but he had a work crisis and ended up working 13 hours on his birthday! Not fun. Then he worked 14 hour days for the following two days. Needless to say, we never got to go out for his birthday. Court didn't seem to mind too much. I think he was glad the day just went by without too much hoopla. His sister Caryn and her kids did come by for cake on the night of his birthday. I was glad we got to do at least that much. Here's a couple pictures:

I've been watching that show "Amazing Wedding Cakes" and I thought I could make an amazing birthday cake. Not so much...but it did taste good.

We had a bonfire on top of the cake.

Happy Birthday Court! I love You!!

On Friday, Court, Meredith and I flew out to Utah for my brother John's surprise 30th birthday party. It's our family tradition to throw a big surprise party for each person's 30th...John's isn't technically until November 12th, but we wanted it to be a total surprise, which it was. We had all the nieces and nephews trick or treat to his house. It took him a minute to figure out what the heck was going on. It was a fun party...the cousins got to trick or treat together, we ate tons of food, played Guitar Hero, watched a video tribute to John, and just enjoyed being together. Here's some pictures:

Time Out for Women

This past weekend the Fruge women drove to San Antonio to attend the annual Time Out for Women conference. It's sort of like a mini women's conference. The theme was "Joyful Life", so most of the talks focused on finding joy in the everyday.

On our way to San Antonio, we stopped for lunch at the Katy Mills Mall...Katy, TX in on the Northwestern edge of Houston. It's a huge, HUGE mall with every store you can think of. When we walked past the Books-A-Million store, I decided to go in just to see if they had any of Kristyn's books there. Well, not only did they have a few copies of "Bedtime at the Swamp", but it was on a shelf that said "Books-A-Million Recommends". It was cool! I had to snap a picture!





Once we got to San Antonio, we checked into our Hotel and then headed over to the venue for the Friday Night event. They had musical performance from Hillary Weeks and Michael McClean and Sister Cheiko Okasaki spoke. Her presentation was really funny. The next day we ran into her at the book store and got to talk to her for a bit. She is so tiny! And such a sweet woman! After she left, we realized that we didn't get a picture! Darn it! I think most agreed that the Friday night concerts and presentation were the highlight of the trip. We really enjoyed Michael McClean especially.

The next day, we attended the morning presentations, then skipped the second session so we could grab some lunch and walk around the River Walk a little bit. Since it was about a 5 hour drive to San Antonio, we knew weren't going to have much time after Time Out for Women was over to see the sights. So we went to the mall that was right there on the Walk and had lunch and then went on a boat ride. The tour guide on the boat told us all kinds of interesting historical facts about the area. It was fun, and the River Walk has some really beautiful scenery!


This is a photo of all the presenters giving a little introduction to what they will be talking about during their presentations.




All the girls together. Don't know what that white orb on Sarah is? And I should mention that our good friend Sunshine Seekins was also with us, but was inside watching a presentation when we took this picture. So, sadly, she didn't get in on the pic.

We ran into one of the speakers on our way to the mall. He was funny. He spoke about the lost art of letter writing and encouraged us all to write a letter to someone we love.


This soda can sculpture was hanging in one of the buildings. I thought it was cool, so I took a picture.

This is a picture of the girls on the boat tour. I thought it was a pretty fun and interesting ride. I love historical tours like that. The following pictures are just a few that I snapped while on the boat tour...






I really had a great time on this trip. It was a much needed getaway and the messages of the conference were just what I needed to hear. I've been a bit blue the past few weeks, so it was nice to get a spiritual boost and to be reminded that I need to make an effort to find some joy in this life. With the state of the world and the economy and all that, it's easy to lose hope and to feel depressed, so I will try each day to find something joyful!

Words Meredith Can Say

I was just sitting here trying to think of all the words that Meredith can say now. There are quite a few. She can say:

baby, color, hat, daddy, mama, this (she will point at something she wants and say, "This?"), sun, sunshine, good girl, all done, walk, Elmo, Big Bird, Mickey [Mouse], no, OK, duck, moon, eyes, nose, hair, mouth, teeth, water, cookie, cupcake, cheese (she says this whenever she sees a camera), bye bye, who's that?, book, apple, shoe, pretty, hot, bubbles, bath, hello, ball, shoe, Jesus, amen, bottle, night night, Meredith (well, she said it once, but I haven't been able to get her to say it again), one, two (yes, she can count to two), Boom! (this is a new word...we've been reading Aunt Kristyn's book "Bedtime at the Swamp" which Meredith LOVES and she has learned to say Boom! at all the right places), go, outside, sock (she loves wearing socks, especially mommy's socks), car, ouch

That's all I can think of right now. Not too bad for a 16 month old! She's at that stage where if you tell her to say something, she'll usually at least try. I'm trying to get her to say "Happy Birthday!" because Court's birthday is on Tuesday, and we've been trying to get her to say "Trick or Treat!"...she's tried a few times, but hasn't mastered those words yet; now she just makes a face and says, "No!" when I ask her to say either of them. LOL!

Walking Hazard

I was so excited about Meredith's new found walking skills. But, now, I think I'd rather she just crawl. Last night she was walking around the house and got going too fast and did a complete face plant. I didn't see exactly what happened...first she was walking around, I looked away, and then next thing I know she is on her stomach with her face on the floor. I picked her up and discovered that her nose was bleeding. She didn't want me to touch it, or even look at it. So, by the time I got her cleaned up, there was blood all over me and her. Court came home for work just as I was getting her calmed down. I'm sure it was a site to walk in and find your wife and daughter with blood on them and your daughter crying her eyeballs out. Fortunately, he took her and was able to settle her down. Court has a gift that way...he can always get her calmed down. Then, this morning, I was just about to put Meredith down for her morning nap. She was walking excitedly toward me, got going too fast, and face planted again! This time, when I picked her up, she had blood on her face and inside her mouth. Again, she didn't want me to look at or touch it. She kept trying to bury her face in my shoulder, which resulted in me getting blood all over me again. It was frustrating because I couldn't tell where the blood was coming from. I didn't know if it was her nose, lip, teeth, or what? We struggled for a bit and I was able to finally see that she was bleeding from her upper lip. I cleaned her up and gave her a little Tylenol for the pain. I tried to get her to suck on a popsicle to help with the pain and swelling...she tried it a couple of times, but then didn't want any part of the popsicle. After crying her head off for at least 30 minutes, she finally got exhausted and fell asleep. I wondered if it was okay to let her sleep? She hadn't hit her head, just bloodied her lip. I called my sister-in-law Caryn, since she has dealt with these types of things with her own kids, and she said it would be okay for Meredith to sleep. I put her in her bed and gave her her blanket, which she immediately snuggled up to and said..."Oooohh...nigh nigh..." Then she went back to sleep. She woke up three hours later with a puffy lip. She seems to be in an okay mood, but she looks like she's puckering her lips. Here's a few pictures....she doesn't like me to photograph her boo boos, I guess, because she wouldn't let me have a very good picture.

A Liquid Diet, Chick Fil-A, and Baby's First Head Injury

Last week was CRAZY, to say the least.

First, Court made me finally go to the doctor because I've had a lot of nausea and vomiting for the last month. The Dr. put me on a liquid diet and then scheduled me for an Upper G.I. The hospital called on Friday to give me my "estimated cost", which they said I would have to pay at the time of the procedure (scheduled for 8am today)... $1086.00! Are you kidding? I called this morning and canceled...I don't have $1086 dollars! I haven't thrown up since yesterday morning...so we'll see how it goes. I'm feeling okay today, so hopefully the liquid diet is helping. The Dr. thinks I may have had some swelling in my gastric bypass pouch and the liquid diet is intended to give my body a break and allow it to heal and to reduce the swelling. So, I'm going to stay on it for a while and see if it helps.

The next day Meredith and I went for our morning walk. About 30 minutes in to it, she suddenly leaned forward and rolled out of her stroller and on to the street! I'm pretty sure I buckled her into her stroller...but somehow she came unbuckled. It had been a bit chilly that morning, so I had a blanket over her arms and legs. Court says she knows how to unbuckle her stroller, so I'm thinking she must have done so while the blanket was on her. I feel like such a horrible mother! The poor child got a little owie on her forhead. I tried to get a good picture of it, but she wouldn't sit still and didn't want me touching it. So this is the best picture I could come up with...


This is her head today, after about 5 days healing time. She still won't let me take a decent picture of it!


Later that day, Court and I were doing some work around the house and we each thought the other was watching Meredith. When we realized neither one of us knew where she was, we looked around and found her in our room. There was a laundry basket at the foot of our bed with a couple of bathrobes in it. She climbed in and made herself comfortable and went to sleep! I must admit those are some soft robes! I was going to put her in her bed, but she seemed comfy and cozy, so we let her have her nap in the laundry basket....is that bad?


On Thursday, Meredith and I met up with my friend Caniele at Chick-Fil-A...she and I were college roommates and hadn't seen each other in 10 years. Turns out she grew up here, and her dad is my doctor! She was in town visiting with her kids for a few days. At Chick-Fil-A, there were a couple of women who would come around every so often and ask if we needed refills. At first we thought it was nice, but after being asked 10 times in 3 minutes if we needed a refill, it started to get annoying. After a while, they started coming every two seconds and asking if they could clear our trays for us. Finally, we let them take them! It was annoying. Then we went into the play area and visited for an hour while the kids played. She had two boys who took to Meredith and helped her go down the slide and climb around in the play area. It was really cute. I found myself wishing Meredith had some big brothers...it was cool to see them watching out for her. When it was time to leave, I gathered up Meredith and all our stuff and headed for the car. After digging around for a minute, I realized I didn't have my car keys. I sat Meredith and my cup of lemonade on the hood of my car while I dug around her diaper bag and my purse looking for my keys. Bad idea...it only took 30 seconds for Meredith to grab the lemonade and turn it upside down...dumping it all over her and the car! Ugh! After emptying my bag twice, it was clear I didn't have my keys. I went back into the restaurant and looked all over. I said a little prayer, and immediately I knew that I had left them on my tray...and they had been thrown away! Ugh! I called Court to come and get Meredith so I could dig through the trash. While waiting for him to arrive, I talked to the woman who had taken our tray and she just shrugged and said, "Honey, that trash was taken out already." I said, "I know, but I can't drive my car with out my key. So we're going to have to look through the trash and find it." Then she asked me which trash can I had thrown it in ... I said "I don't know...you're the one who threw it away." She was irritated, and I found a manager and explained to him what had happened...including the fact that I had been pestered so much to have my tray cleared that in flustered irritation I let her take my tray before I was done eating and as a result didn't get my keys off of it. The general manager came out and I told him what happened...he was VERY nice. He got 5 of his employees together and put gloves on and they each went through a garbage can. He told me not to worry about it...it happens at least once a week. I thought, "Well if those old ladies would take a chill pill and let people eat and clear thier own places, this might not happen so often." When I explained that it had been over an hour because we had let the kids play in the play area for a while before trying to leave, I could tell that some of the employees were annoyed... "She didn't notice her keys were missing for over an hour?" I overheard one employee say. LOL. They ended up having to go out to the dumpster and search there. Court showed up and took Meredith from me about 5 minutes before they finally found my keys. The General Manager cleaned them for me with a clorox wipe. He was very nice and I was very appreciative of that. If he hadn't been working that day, I probably wouldn't have gotten my keys back. Ugh! While we were there, they gave Meredith a paper Chick-Fil-A hat...today, I found her playing in her toy box with it on her head...



Oh, and Meredith has decided that she likes to wear my socks on her feet. She has tried to wear my walking shoes, but they are too heavy for her to walk in. So, she found a pair of my socks and cried until I put them on her. Now, if she ever sees me walking in socks, she pulls them off my feet and wants them on her. Crazy kid. Fortunately, her interest in my socks started BEFORE the head injury...so I know she's not just loopy from hitting her head! LOL! Here she is wearing my socks:



Oh, and I should mention that Meredith has started walking this week! She's still pretty wobbly, but she can stand up on her own and take a few steps. She already prefers walking to crawling...of course, her favorite is to whip around the house on her little rider car. She can seriously get around on that thing!

Forest Festival Fun!

Today we took Meredith to the Texas Forest Festival. She got to ride on the carousel and the Ferris wheel, pet a few goats (which she absolutely loved!), taste her first funnel cake (which she didn't like), and see a real zebra up close. Court won her a stuffed Elmo, which she immediately hugged tight and said... "Ooohhh...Melmo!" I got bamboozled by a carnie...seriously, I'm an idiot! It was at the "Throw-a-dart-and-pop-a-balloon" booth. She said it was so easy and she'd let me have the prize even if I missed. So I threw the darts and got all 3 balloons. Then she said "Ok, five more and you get that frog right there." It was a cute stuffed frog I thought Meredith would like...so I threw five more darts. No, she meant five more DOLLARS for THREE more darts. But I threw five more darts.... So we ended up spending 10 bucks to win the lame stuffed frog. Ugh! Court spent $2 to win the Elmo. I'm such a dork. Oh well, Meredith liked the frog...for a minute anyway...then she kept dangling it over the edge of her stroller like she was going to drop it on the ground and looking up at me and Court to see what we'd say. We finally had to take it away and put it in the stroller basket so it wouldn't get dropped. For dinner we got a smoked turkey leg, which was delicious. Of course, Meredith ate 5 times more than I did. That girl can put away some turkey! Anyway...we had a lot of fun. Here's some pictures...







Here's some video of Meredith on the Ferris Wheel. When the ride started she kept saying, "Whee!" It was so cute, I wanted to get it on video. Of course, as soon as I started recording, she wouldn't say "Whee!" anymore. As soon as I stopped recording, she started saying it again. Such a stinker!

Cupcakes!

We had cupcakes for Family Home Evening tonight. Meredith went to town on hers. When she was done, she pushed her chair back and put her foot on the table and started babbling. I guess it was a good cupcake. I've been trying to teach her to not put her feet on the table, but this time was so funny I had to take a picture.

An Itsy Bitsy, Teenie Weenie Thing They Call Love Bugs

These dang bugs are EVERYWHERE in Texas! Ugh...I keep finding them in my car, my house, on my clothes...I even found a pair frozen in the freezer! And today, Meredith was holding a dead set in her hand! Ugh! What if she had put that in her mouth?! ICK! For those of you that don't know...these are called Love Bugs. They fly around attached at the rear like this, which means they are always flying low and slow and getting into your hair, eyes, etc. Court and I were joking that their little bug intercourse must be really good because they won't even move out of the way before getting squashed. They just sit there, crawl around slowly, or fly low and slow. If anyone had told me there'd be bugs like this in Texas, I may have had a second thought about moving here. They are so annoying! Their dead carcasses are embedded in the front end of my car - the car wash couldn't get them out! Even after a hurricane, they are still all over the place! I'm told they will go away "soon"... in the meantime, they are making me CRAZY!

Finally! A New Post!

Hello Everybody! I'm finally starting to feel human again, so I thought I'd do a post and give an update on what's been going on. It's been a crazy month. We started our move, waited out hurricane Gustavo, finished our moved, lived through hurricane Ike and lived without power for four days, all while I have been deathly ill. It was nutty.

After we moved the 1st half of our stuff to the new house and waited out Gustavo, I got sick. It started as a really bad sore throat...I thought I was coming down with strep...then it moved into my chest, giving me a really painful cough. I went to the Dr. a week ago Monday and he prescribed me the antibiotic Keflex. The day after I took the Keflex, I started having difficulty breathing...I had had bronchitis before, but I'd never had the wheezing and difficulty breathing. The next day, the fevers started and by that night, I was dealing with some pretty bad diarrhea. I dealt with that and the fevers for about 24 hours and then the vomiting started. I spent an entire night getting up every 20 to 30 minutes to vomit and/or have diarrhea. The next day I looked up Keflex on the internet because I was getting sicker and sicker and wondered if it had to do with the antibiotic, rather than the bug. The website I found said that if you are allergic to Penicillin, which I am, you probably shouldn't take Keflex. I looked at the symptoms of an allergy to the drug, and I had everything that fell under the category of "Severe allergic Reaction" except for the impaired vision and rash. So I stopped taking the antibiotic and called the Dr. His nurse was less than sympathetic. She said to take some immodium and "if you still feel bad tomorrow, you can come in and see the doctor. But we might not be open tomorrow because of the hurricane." So, I asked her what to do if they weren't open? She said, "Well, you could go to the ER if you want. Or just try us again after the hurricane." Great...hopefully I wouldn't be dead by the time "after the hurricane" got here. When Ike hit, I spent most of it in bed, getting up a few times to look outside, simply because I didn't want to spend my first hurricane in bed. I was stressed because I didn't want to deal with the vomiting and diarrhea with no power or running water. Fortunately, we never lost the water. Court is from Beaumont, which was very close to where the eye of the hurricane was headed. So, his family had to evacuate indefinitely from the area. We housed some of them at our place and Court's sister, Caryn, had some at hers. Fortunately, the stint without power wasn't too bad because we have a generator. So we could have light at night, watch TV and keep the refrigerator cold.

Today, I'm feeling better, but still having bouts of nausea and diarrhea. Especially when I try to eat anything. I've lost about 7 pounds so far. This morning, Court went down to Beaumont...our church has asked the wards in our area to assemble teams of able-bodied men to head down and help with the hurricane clean up. I'm glad Court can go, but also a bit bummed because we still have a lot to get done at our house and I need his help. But, I guess that can wait. And, since I still don't feel well, I was looking forward to the weekend when he'd be here to help with Meredith a little bit. Oh well. I have to admit that the last couple of days I have been wishing we lived in Utah again. It's hard to move to a place where you know hardly anyone and then to be sick and have to go through a natural disaster all while taking care of an active 15 month old. I've been missing my family and friends a lot.

Anyway....here's a few pictures of the new house. We have video of the hurricane hoopla, but I don't know how to get it off the video camera and onto my computer. So, I'll have to wait for Court to help me. Whenever he'll have time to do that.

I love, love, love our back yard. It is so pretty!

Notice the beautiful 70's light fixture? We took that down and put up a ceiling fan. And, once we own the house, I'm going to paint over the blue. Not my favorite choice for that room.

The living room with our stuff in it...we're still trying to unpack and get organized!

I love this fireplace too. Although I'm not sure how often we'll use it?


The Kitchen - I love the tile work, although keeping the grout clean and all that will be a challenge. And, yes, you can see the kitchen from the front door. Not my favorite thing, but for the price, I'll live with it. Notice the beautiful stove/oven. It's original to the house. We'll be replacing that eventually. Right now we are renting the house, so we don't want to put too much money into it. We wouldn't want to up the value before we've had a chance to buy it.


Meredith's Room Before



Meredith's Room After

We call this the "Time Warp Hallway" because once you step through, you are transported back to the 70's with the wood paneling and all. The bathrooms have hideous gold and brown wallpaper and light fixtures. We still have some work to do on the house. But I'm excited to be able to work on it and make it look the way we want it to. Of course, we're so broke after having to rent a moving truck twice and the hurricanes, that it will be years before we'll be able to do much. Anyone want to make a donation to the cause?? ;)