the one where i talk about when i got married

K and I got married in September 2009. We were living together and had talked about getting married on 10-10-10. Then around the middle to end of July 2009, I found out I was pregnant. K asked if I wanted to get married before the baby was born so we would all three have the same last name, and I did. That's the pragmatic reason. I was crazy in love with him too. We decided to get married in September so we could tell that baby we didn't get married just because of him. It was two separate events, me finding out I was pregnant and us getting hitched. I don't know how much that will matter to S. I'll get back to you in a decade or two.

At the beginning of August, we told my parents and grandmother, who was visiting from California, we were getting married in the middle of September. We had planned to go to the courthouse with our immediate family members and then go out to eat someplace we didn't typically eat, like The Cheesecake Factory, with everyone to celebrate. My parents said no. I got scared for a second, even though I was 29 years old. My mom said that they had paid for my sister to have a lovely wedding and they would like to do the same for me. No pressure on venue or style, but we would go someplace better than The Cheesecake Factory, and wouldn't I like a new dress?

Before we let them pay for anything, we told them I was pregnant and that was the motivation behind getting married then, but not the motivation behind us getting married. They weren't thrilled, but by the end of that conversation, I think my mom was excited for a new grandbaby.

I went dress shopping with my mom, grandmother, and one of my friends and we found a lovely dress. I had a personal shopper for the day and got the perfect shoes, earrings, and necklace to match perfectly with the dress. It was so much fun!

We decided to stick with the courthouse wedding because that's what we really wanted, and my mom looked into a few restaurants. She asked how we felt about eating at The Palm because we could get a private room and choose a menu for everyone. That was basically amazing and we were very excited about it.

I still love our wedding. We were in the judge's chambers and it was packed but it still felt like it was just me, K, and the judge. Our vows were good and the judge said "You may now kiss your wife" which I'd never heard before at a wedding and made me melt. Our moms cried. We took pictures and got to ride in a limo to take pictures at various spots before meeting everyone at The Palm for dinner.

It was a nice dinner and a fun time with our families. That night, K and I decided that every year for our anniversary, we'd go back to eat at The Palm, even if it took us months to save up to do so. And that's what we've done!

This is going to be our third year, and our first anniversary date that will go over night. I am very excited. We have been stashing money away a tiny bit at a time and will have enough for dinner. Our hotel stay is courtesy of a fabulous Groupon deal and literally the first time we've used a credit card as a married couple. And it's just a few weeks away, so it's pretty much time to pour over the menu online and think about what I get to order!

the one where i mention i messed up a little bit with my son

When S was closer to an itty bitty than toddler, I taught him how to fist pump and high five and forgot about teaching him how to give kisses. Not because he's a boy, because fist pumping while chanting "Fresh new diaper!" was hysterical to me. Luckily, later on, he picked up on blowing kisses by himself and then a little after that suddenly started giving us kisses on the cheek. I hug and kiss that little guy several times a day because he's a great kid and also because he has these adorable velvet chubby cheeks that are just begging to be kissed. I figure I've got to get it in now before he gets all embarrassed that his mom is kissing him again!

Every night as I get him ready for bed, I ask him for a kiss and turn my cheek towards him. I keep turning my head back and forth asking for kisses until he starts laughing. I love it. I love that he'll give me fifty kisses and that he thinks it's funny that I keep asking for another one.

The other night I was just tired and not feeling well and wanting to get him in bed so I could just get in bed myself. I just asked for one kiss on each cheek and then went to give him a kiss. He looked crestfallen for a split second. And I asked for more kisses. I honestly had no idea that he liked giving me those kisses as much as I liked getting them. I thought that was my own weird mama thing, but it turns out he thinks it's cool too.

I love that kid. I love being a mom.

how wonderful life is when you're in the world

S woke up for an early morning feeding, so I happened to get to see Kate Middleton arrive at Westminster Abbey live. I had set up my DVR to record both the Today Show coverage and the BBC coverage so I could watch later and fast forward through the boring parts. I have to admit though, I was thrilled to see her driving through the streets and arrive live and I gasped with delight when she stepped out of the car and I saw her full dress.

I think the wedding was beautiful and they looked so happy and in love it made me tear up a little bit. I don't know them and our paths will never cross. But I was glad for the chance to be unabashedly happy about something that was covered extensively in the news. It's been awhile since there has been an event to just be happy about.

My wedding was very very small and very simple. K and I got new clothes and honestly my dress ended up being much fancier than I had originally pictured. When we decided to get married, we wanted to get some new clothes, have our immediate family with us at the court house, and all go out to dinner to celebrate and some place we didn't normally eat like The Cheesecake Factory. My mom kind of said no to this plan, but in a good way. My parents told us they had planned on paying for a wedding celebration for me like they did my sister so we should live it up a little bit. Hence the fancier than intended dress (that I got to shopping for with a friend, my mom, and my grandmother who lives out of state so that was a really special afternoon), the flowers, the limo, the photographer, and the meal at The Palm.

I remember being absolutely elated. There was so much family drama in the week before that K and I really made a lot of effort to have a wedding ceremony just for the two of us without worrying about where anyone else was or what they were doing or what they were thinking. We were all in this tiny room (the judge's chambers) but it still felt like it was just me, K, and the judge. I didn't cry because I knew that if I let one tear slip, it would be hard to get it under control. K was very handsome and I felt beautiful. I'm thankful my photographer friend offered to take some pictures for us because I love my little album. And when K and I took our marriage certificate straight downstairs to file it with the county and we got that little bit of time as a brand newly married couple doing something together, well, it was just lovely to have start to sink in and it just be the two of us.

I know that we are not as good looking people as William and Kate and we didn't have nearly the money they did for the ceremony  and we had 16 guests. But I felt as happy and beautiful and giddy on my wedding day as they looked on theirs. And that's why I think it's so lovely that they shared so much with the whole world. I hope they are very happy and in love for the rest of their lives.

let it snow let it snow let it snow

San Antonio just had 65 straight hours of freezing temperatures. I realize that in many parts of the country that's not particularly a big deal, but it kind of is here in south central Texas. Last night we had freezing drizzle that turned into a layer of ice everywhere and after a few hours of that, it actually snowed. The official measurement was 0.4", which again, is not much compared to maybe most of the country, but is a big deal here! The last time it snowed was seven years ago. But about four years ago, there was a big ice storm that similarly shut the city down because things like this happen so rarely that San Antonio just doesn't have the equipment to deal with it.

When S woke up this morning, we bundled him up and went outside for pictures. This kid has had an amazing life already. He's been to another state, been on an airplane, and been in snow in Texas all before turning one year old!

Most of the snow melted by about 2 pm today, but there's still a few patches on our lawn that were sheltered by shadows all day. And part of our little sidewalk up to our house is icy tonight. We're back in the midst of a 12 hour freeze, but tomorrow's forecast of 60 is going to feel downright balmy.

christmas memories

I have this lovely relative that I grew up thinking of as a cousin but I don't know if that's actually accurate. I get confused trying to figure out actual relationships sometimes because there were so many "aunts" and "uncles" and then of course their kids were my "cousins". We're related somehow or another but in any case, she is a really cool person. I wanted to be like her when I was a kid and as an adult, probably even more so. In any case, she's been posting Christmas memories in her blog and it has been fun to read. They of course stand on their own quite nicely but I can't ever hear someone else's memories of something like a holiday and not think of my own.

When I was a kid, we always did Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family and Christmas Day with my dad's side.

Christmas Eve was ALWAYS a big hubub of a to do with my mom's siblings, my grandmother's siblings, great-grandparents, my mom's cousins, and a ton of kids. The tradition for the meal was to pick a theme of some sort and everyone contributed something. There is always a ridiculous amount of food when my family gets together, not necessarily for the need of having that much but to have that many choices of things. I remember Mexican food, Asian-ish food (my dad sat and made wonton until no one wanted to eat anymore), tritip and all the fixings, breakfast, and baked potatoes with every kind of topping you could ever imagine. Tons of people, tons of food, and a pretty much all day affair.

The pile of Christmas presents by the tree was more than any of us kids could bear to see without at least mentally sorting out in our heads. I never knew of an official time line for everything to happen. It seemed as if the adults knew precisely when the kids wouldn't be able to bear another minute of not being in the same room with all those glorious wrapped packages, and then it would be about another hour before any of them were opened. See, first everyone had to gather in the same room. Next was the reading and passing on of The Fish, Stella, and Santa Claus. Each of these is rotated every year to someone knew and that person must write a recap of the year and then read it Christmas Eve. The Fish is supposed to rhyme but the other two don't have to. I think The Fish is the oldest and it spans back to pages that are barely readable now. It's kind of a cool thing that everyone enjoys but everyone dreads having to write. After all three have been read and passed on to the next person, we would listen to Silent Night. It's a time to pause and reflect on the day, the past year, and the fact that you are literally surrounded by loving people. Christmas isn't supposed to be about the presents. When I was a teenager, my aunt added in the candles. Everyone gets a candle and the flame is passed around the circle until the room is lit up by candles alone. Several adults always cried and us kids tried to impress everyone by knowing every single word to every single verse of Silent Night. Then, presents! Hugs of gratitude, laughter, and just a generally loud good time. And, the first day rule. On the first day of a new present, you don't have to share with ANYONE. We have passed this rule on to many other families and still adhere to it this day.

Christmas Day varied a little more than Christmas Eve. We always spent it with my dad's parents and just depending on the year, my dad's brothers and families would be there as well. From my perspective, the relationships between my dad and his brothers and then all three of them with their parents are complicated enough that I stopped trying to understand when I was about twelve. Usually the food would be much more traditional Christmas fare like ham and green bean casserole and the like. My grandmother usually told the story about how one Christmas morning she made eggs benedict for everyone and used the scissors to mark the page and then completely forgot about them. She blamed my dad, the youngest of the three kids, for misplacing her scissors for an entire year until she went to make eggs benedict the next Christmas and found the missing scissors. We'd eat and do presents and have dessert. My grandmother made several kinds of cookies every year. I remember my favorite ones she ever made where biscotti and as I was on my third one she proclaimed she'd never make those boogers again because they were so labor intensive.

Inbetween, my parents and sister and I had our own little things we did. Santa Claus still comes for us even after the year when I was about 13 that my parents said Santa wasn't coming any more because the jig was so thoroughly up. I think it was that sometimes my sister and I would guess what we were getting from my parents but we never guessed what Santa was bringing. I think it's just kind of fun to do little presents like that too. Santa never brought us big stuff. My mom explained to me much later on that there was no way a mythical being was getting credit for the big stuff! For a few years, we had cream of wheat for breakfast which is kind of funny because my dad HATES it and I had no idea for the longest time.

One year, my sister and I had the idea to do Santa for my parents. We had gone to an evening church service that Christmas Eve and when my parents were in their room getting ready for bed, we quietly snuck back out to the living room and set up their stockings. We put fruit in their stockings the same way they always did for us and had a little pile of small gifts and candy for each of them. I think this was about 10 years ago and my mom only recently stopped talking about it. She cried when she saw their filled stockings and then cried in the morning when we woke up and cried every time she talked about it that year.

My dad's father died when I was 13 and we missed him when we went to spend the day with my grandmother. When she died several years later, I suggested we start a brand new family tradition. I thought it would be easier if it was just something completely different. That's how my parents, sister, and I started going to the movies on Christmas Day. We'd go to one of the first showings and then pretty much go home after that but it was a really fantastic way to spend part of the day.

This year is going to be great too, but in kind of a different way. Christmas Eve will be with my parents, sister and her family. Christmas Day will be with Ki's mom and his sister and her family. Ki and I decided that we want to go to the movies on Christmas Day before we go to his mom's house. We're brand new at this married thing and want to have our own little family traditions. I bet one of the grandmas will take care of Baby C next year if we decide to go to a morning movie again. :)

It's a lot of fun to think about how we're going to be creating memories like these for our kid. I would like to have some intentional things we do every year during the holiday season but I am also looking forward to hearing what Adult C remembers most of all later on.