Unconventional Gratitude Month

This November on Facebook, many people posted one thing every day that they were grateful for. Here is a copy of all my posts:

Okay, I'm jumping on the November gratitude bandwagon. I, too, will be listing one thing every day that I'm grateful for. I'm pretty good about being grateful for the big things, so my self-challenge is to make my list more unexpected. Here goes...I am grateful:
-Day 1: that Barnes & Noble is always packed full of people reading books on a Sunday afternoon
-Day 2: that my brother is marrying someone I have so much in common with (cooking, yoga, little girls!). xoxo Marra

-Day 3: that no matter how often I call her, Joie Hauschild always takes my call when she's at work
-Day 4: that I married a man awesome enough to ask me for my ring size on our first date
-Day 5: that my oldest daughter is the type who says things like, "Mommy, is it okay that I think rainbows are alive?"
-Day 6: that even though I was unfortunate enough to be born with the thinnest, ugliest hair ever, at least as was I fortunate enough to be born with the ability to rock short hair.

-Day 7: I am grateful that Chris & I love the same beverages. Sounds silly, I know, but there are so many couples where one likes coffee & the other doesn't; one likes beer &; the other doesn't. So I am grateful for all the shared pots of coffee while reading the newspaper, shared flutes of champagne while celebrating, and shared pitchers of beer while eating pizza & wings. Cheers!

-Day 8: 2 days ago I was recognized by a complete stranger who had seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith the night before. So, on the most superficial of gratitude levels, I am grateful that 10 years and 2 kids have not altered my physical appearance as much as I thought they most assuredly had.

-Day 9: I am grateful for my husband's terrible memory. Picture it: Huntey's Subaru on one of our first dates...
me: What song is this?
Huntley: 'Round Midnight...Miles Davis.
Two weeks later in Huntley's Subaru:
me: This is 'Round Midnight, right?
Huntley in shock: Yes!
And I realize that he has completely forgotten the conversation from 2 wks earlier and that he now thinks I'm the coolest girl ever b/c I know a 1950's Miles Davis cover of a Thelonius Monk song. I did not 'fess up. Deceitful? Perhaps... :)

-Day 10: I am grateful that a version of this conversation between Kurt Hauschild and Chelsey Crisp happened almost 10 years ago:
Chels: How are rehearsals going?
Kurt: Great. But that new girl Rachael is in the play. She's pretty annoying. Such a know-it-all.
Chels: Rachael Huntley? She's awesome. Everybody I know loves Rachael. Give her another chance.
Kurt: If you say so...

I am now godmother to Kurt's daughter. He is one of my best friends and my life would be significantly different without him in it. Thank you for sticking up for me, Chelsey! (And for the record, we all know Kurt wasn't incorrect in his assessment of me...he just had to be patient to get to some of my more redeeming qualities!)

-Day 11: Grateful for that beautiful combination of things that is a glass of wine while making dinner in a warm kitchen on a cold night
-Day 12: Grateful for someone I've never met. Thank you Johnny Manziell! That game sparked so many texts, phonecalls, and facebook posts...we are the Aggies, the Aggies are we!!!
-Day 13: I'm grateful nobody was with me in Target on Sunday when I realized that I can no longer shop for Delilah in the toddler section and had to go to the big girl section. At least my silent tears of nostalgia could roll down my cheeks in peace.

-Day 15: I am having a rough day, so I am going to be unconventionally conventional with my gratitude today. I am grateful for these three precious souls. I snapped this pic at the zoo while they were watching happy seals playing with the falling leaves. I've never seen the inside of my heart, but I'm pretty sure it looks like this:

-Day 16: I am grateful that I was having so much fun on Day 14 that I forgot to make a post. :) My dear friend Laura flew in from Texas for 2 days with her daughter and we had a blast!
-The lost Day 14: I am grateful that my 4 year old knows her way around a Nikon. She took this pic of me & Laura in Times Square...perhaps this is the start of a new era where I am actually IN some of the photos of my life!

-Day 17: I am soooo grateful that my fiercely independent, going-on-sixteen, how-can-a-2-yr-old-know-her-own-mind-this-well?!, precious Noelle still comes up to me at least 3 times a day with a blankie in her hand, blinking her big blue eyes and asking, "Cuddle?" We snuggle on the couch and if it's just the right time of day, this happens:

-Day 18: I am grateful for white noise machines. Both Noelle & I would be awake all night without them. I think it means I need to live by the ocean. :)
-Day 19: I am grateful for movies that can be watched over & over. Many fall into this category for me, but there are three that make me stop every time I notice they're on tv: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Almost Famous, & Good Will Hunting.

-Day 20: I am grateful my dad always assumed I could be as good at math & science as my brothers, and he treated me as such. Because of him, I have never walked into a classroom thinking that something might be too hard to learn. Because of him, I was never the quiet girl who always let the boys answer the hard questions.

-Day 21: I am grateful for balloons!!! Ordinary ones make all children so happy, and giant ones make me happy! Spent all day at the Natural History Museum, then walked along the streets where they are inflating all the balloons for tomorrow's parade. Here we are in front of a giant candycane being inflated. The look on Delilah's face is pure joy.

-Day 22: I am grateful for all of it! Picture perfect weather days in NYC. A little blonde and a little redhead who like to kick up leaves as they walk across Central Park. Friends and family who celebrate with me via text & phone & FB since we can't be together in person. People who take pics of my family in front of the spiderman balloon at the parade. All of it...I am grateful!

 

-Day 23: I am grateful for lazy days that don't make you feel guilty b/c you were so active the previous days!
-Day 24: I am grateful for a babysitter so awesome that my girls want to wait in the lobby for her.
-Day 25: Every Sunday I lead the the junior high youth group at church. Today I had the middle schoolers instead. I am grateful I normally have the junior high kids...those middle-schoolers were a hot mess!

-Day 26: I am grateful for the dozen or so times every day that I catch Delilah teaching Noelle something new. Good Lord, those two love each other.
-Day 27: I am grateful for Noelle's ability to play on her own. I just spent two hours this morning doing school work while she played with her trains, worked on puzzles, and colored. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to join a tea party that I wasn't even invited to...I've gone from grateful to feeling ignored. :)

-Day 28: I think I must have missed this day...oops!

-Day 29: I am so very grateful that Cheryl Dye Clifton has ALWAYS referred to me as her daughter. I still remember the first time she did it, almost 25 years ago. We were in a store and while talking to a saleperson, she called me her daughter. She quickly looked at me, and I just smiled. And you can see how wild Delilah is about her...this look of adoration speaks for itself:

 

-Day 30: I am grateful that it was never a struggle to come up with something to be thankful for. And I'm grateful that so many of you seemed to be entertained by my more unconventional posts. :)

Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving break was so lovely. Chris's sister and her family were planning on coming, but their oldest daughter is a burgeoning actress and artistic conflicts developed. We were heartbroken that they couldn't make it, but figured we might as well make the most of it as a family by ourselves. Chris took Wednesday off, so we pulled Delilah out of school and had plans for a great family day. We finally settled on going to the American Museum of Natural History. Chris & I were so excited about a fabulous outing, but in the interest of recording things accurately, I have to mention that Delilah was completely raining on our parade. She was horribly behaved all morning, and announced that the museum sounded like a TERRIBLE idea. Chris & I thought about just letting it go, but we just couldn't. We were by ourselves as a family and we were going to make this a memorable day, dammit!! :)  So we convinced Red to get on board, and we took the bus ride over to the museum.  Delilah was quickly back to her usual fun self and Noelle was just happy to have everyone around.

Riding the bus there. Happy sisters!

Entry to the museum

She looks so cute and grown up in this pic!

"Hi, Rhino"

Sweet, curious little girls

Delilah took this picture. She froze in front of him and sighed. Then she looked at me and Chris and said, "That's God."

In the space center of the museum. This was BY FAR the girls' favorite area. They really didn't care as much about the dinosaurs and everything else as we thought they would. But the space center was a HIT. We could not get them out of there.



On the day before the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, all the balloons get inflated on all the streets that surround the museum. It's become quite a spectacle and we were warned that we shouldn't go b/c it would be too crazy and crowded for the girls. The inflating was supposed to start at 3pm, and the girls were ready to leave the museum shortly after 2pm, so we figured we would just miss the inflating. Luckily for us, all the inflating had started early,so we were able to see all of it without any crowds! Hooray!! Here is Delilah in front of a giant candy cane and the elf on the shelf being inflated...it was SOOOOO cool.

 The next day was Thanksgiving and the weather was beyond perfect. Just enough chill in the air to feel festive, but barely even cold enough to need a coat. We walked across Central Park and staked out the perfect spot to watch the parade.

Here's a shot Delilah took while we were walking.

I love that I was quick enough with the camera to capture this moment. This is Delilah when she was close enough to see the balloons...the first one she saw was Hello, Kitty...perfect!!

Delilah took this pic of sad Noelle. We had been there for about an hour and little pumpkin was getting tired. Decided to include it for the aforementioned reason of wanting to be fairly accurate with my posts. It's not always smiles and giant balloons around here!

And I end with this great family shot that a fellow parade go-er took for us. That's Spiderman in the background. :)

We came back and I made Thanksgiving dinner while everyone played and napped. I think this is the first Thanksgiving we've spent alone since Chris and I got married. We really missed spending time with family and friends, but we certainly made the most of it. For the record, it was my best turkey yet...and for those of you who've had my turkey, you know that's quite a statement. :) Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Bighams in NYC!

In Austin, Laura, Makinley, Delilah and I were inseparable. We still miss them soooo much. So you can imagine how excited I was to get a text from Laura saying that she & 'kinley would be joining Scott on a business trip to NYC!!!!  It was a very quick trip, but we packed in as much fun as we could. Laura & 'kinley came over in the morning while Red was at school. (Btw, 'kinley is all Delilah will call Makinley; if you say Makinley, Delilah corrects you and says "No! It's 'kinley!").  Luckily, it happened to be a day that school got out early, so we all got to walk over and pick Red up at 11:30! We came back to the apt, ate pizza, and hung out while Noelle napped. The girls picked up right where they left off...just like they always do.

Then we headed to Central Park! It's across the street from Red's school, and Chris & I had our first parent/teacher conference, so Laura watched all 3 girls while we had our conference. When I first asked Laura to watch the girls, I apologized for being so rude to leave her with the girls when she was visiting for such a short time. She said that it wasn't rude at all and that she actually thought it was sweet...that it was just like when we lived around the corner from each other. Melted my heart...you are so dear to me, Laura! (and side note about the parent/teacher conference: it was glowing! The teacher said Delilah was ready to be pushed more. She said that Red was a fabulous student and that if her whole class was full of Delilahs, her job would be unbelievably easy. Delilah stays on task, is curious, participates, plays well with others, and helps kids who are struggling. An exact quote was: "If I had to think of something negative to say about Delilah, I would be here for days".  Great job, little Red!!!)

We also made our way to Times Square and the Disney Store!!!

Finally, we finished with dinner at Shake Shack. Not the trendiest of NYC dinner destinations, but it was close and it had no wait and it's one of Delilah's favorite places (the milkshakes!). Scott met us for dinner and brought some Longhorn cupcakes. This may be the only time you see burnt orange around my kids. :)

And we end with a pic Delilah snapped of Laura and me in Times Square. I love you, precious friend.

Thank you for coming to play!!!!!