Baby, It's Cold Outside!

After nap today we needed to run through the drive-thru to get Parker's medicine so I decided to make it fun. At 4pm it was still in the low 30s so I thought treating Parker to ice cream and a drive around a few neighborhoods to look at Christmas decorations was in store:

Parker loved the special treat and we actually had fun looking at all the the decorations while it was daylight out. I think sometimes it's hard for him to see or make out what the decorations are while it's dark outside. Anyway, just a special time staying warm, listening to Christmas music and getting excited over all of the nice yard art.

Fergie Sounds Like Froggy :)

Parker and Bryan like "getting down" {white boy style} to the Will.i.am and Sesame Street song, which Parker refers to as "Stronger" but is really called "What I Am". Parker also LOVES "I Got a Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas so today while it was playing in the car, our conversation went a little like this:

Me: "Parker, did you know the guy singing this song also sings Stronger?"
Parker: "His name?"
Me: "His name is Will.i.am"
Parker: {as Fergie started singing} "Girls name?"
Me: "Her name is Fergie."
Parker: "Hmmm, like froggy?"

{{{pain-in-your-side-laughing}}}

 

P.S. - And for those of you that have not heard the sweet song, "What I Am", please listen to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVzjoj96vs :)

Bedtime Songs

Currently, Parker has some favorite songs that he request before bedtime:

-"Ocean" (read: "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" but we take Bonnie out and replace it with the names of family and friends)

-"Jesus Loves Me"

-"Night, Night Parker" (which has previously been explained)

-And a new hit, by yours truly, that should be hitting the airwaves soon:

Hammer, hammer, hammer,
Hammer, hammer, hammer,
That is what we do all day,
We hammer, hammer, hammer.
(I replace hammer with: drill, screw, saw, clean, sweep, laugh, etc.)

The Fruits of Our Labor

Some we will enjoy here on Earth.

Some we will enjoy once we walk through the gates of Heaven.

Some we will enjoy today....

In 2006, the Friday before Labor Day weekend to be exact, I received a call from a helpless and very desperate lady, Ms. L. I was an immigration paralegal at the time and she was calling on behalf of her husband, Mr. L, who by all accounts, was very desperate for some immigration help, fast! As the "gate keeper", it was my job to ultimately make the decisions whether we had the time, resources and expertise to help people. So as I listened to a condensed version but my answer was, "I am sorry, we just cannot help you at this time". It was a Friday afternoon, they had an important deadline the following Tuesday and I had company in town that needed to be entertained {I only mention this because it's how I remember when all this went down}. Ms. L accepted my answer but I could tell that she was very sad.

An hour later, Ms. L called back. She was again asking me to consider taking their case. She was referred to us by one of our previous clients and had heard we were the best {not denying this but I was a little biased} They were, at that moment, sitting outside of their hired, well paid attorneys office and even though he was in the office, he would not meet with them. As I mentioned, they had a deadline and needed to see if he had their "papers" ready to send to immigration. Not only did he not have the work done, but refused to meet with them AND refused to refund their money.

I asked Ms. L to come to our office immediately! As a paralegal, nothing infuriated me more than these type of shenanigans created by attorneys and their staff!!!

We accepted the case. The attorney I worked for at the time worked the entire weekend to get these "papers" ready to send to immigration. As our house guests helped us lay the floors in our kitchen, I was back and forth from the computer helping get these "papers" ready as well. As I read the history of what has happened to Mr. L since entering the US, not only was I happy that we took the case but it also renewed my passion for helping our voiceless immigrants!

You may assume that when I say "immigrants" I am referring to those that swim a river and sneak into the US but, these clients were NOT illegal immigrants. Yes, they were from Mexico but you see, Mr. L was educated and a highly trained tile designer. He came to our country and opened his own company {read: putting money into the US economy} The only problem was that he picked the wrong attorney. One that did not care. One that was probably over committed. One that did not care what happened to immigrants in our country! Feel my passion??? Even to this day, this case still rattles me!

To make this very long, exhausting, emotional-roller-coaster-of-a-case, story short, just in the last couple months, Mr. and Ms. L, along with their precious kids, have become permanent residents {aka: green card holders}. That's right, five long years, thousands and thousands of dollars and now they can rest easy knowing they are closer to becoming citizens of this great country!

Soooo, why did I bore you with all of these details....one because this is MY blog and I might not remember all of these details one day AND two, because those same two lovely immigrants that we helped five long years ago, custom made tiles for our patio and the preparations to put them down started this morning :) More to come....

P.S. - My use of { } are in lieu of ( ) because I think they are more appealing to the eye! Thank you Bryan for suggesting that I use ( ) instead of { }!!! :)

It's Jersey Day, Y'all!

Since we live in Cow-girls :) country, a Texan jersey is hard to find or just does not exist! So I put our family on notice that we were in search of a Texans jersey for Jersey Day at school and to keep a look out for one. We had success at the Target in Pearland and while it wasn't a #90, the #8 jersey did the job!

Parker was very excited this morning to tell his teachers what team he roots for on Sundays. Before we could leave for school though, Bryan and Parker played a little 1-on-1 in the front yard :)

Upon arriving at school, Parker did not miss a beat....

Ms. Susan, "Parker, what team do you like?"

Parker, "Astros play baseball and Texans play football."

Ms. Susan, "You have a number 8 on your shirt."

Parker, "9-10-11..."

Love that little boy :)

Sick.Sad.Sick.

My sweet boy woke last night (really it was very early this morning) sounding like this:

As you can hear, he was having a hard time breathing! Watching this makes me glad that we took him to the ER!!! Yep, after calling the on-call nurse and letting my mother-in-law listen to him, we loaded up at 1am and headed to the Medical Center of Plano. Thankfully we did not have to wait long before seeing a doctor! They swabbed Parker for the flu and RSV, which were both negative. We had a chest xray done....

....and after an hour, Dr. Kim diagnosed Parker with croup and bronchitis! We received a steroid (by mouth) and a prescription for antibiotics. We were instructed to continue with breathing treatments as needed. We were home by 4am and Bryan and I were asleep before Parker was. After 2 days of restless sleep, we were not even making sense :) More info to come once I catch up on my sleep and my boy starts feeling better....

Orange Day @ CDC

We've been looking forward to orange day at school for a couple weeks now and it finally arrived! However, before the fun could begin, we had to prop our eyelids open with toothpicks. Parker was up a lot last night and so his parents were moving very slow AND the boy decided to sleep in. A little bit after 8am, Bryan woke Parker so that he could eat breakfast and get ready for school.
{Sorry this picture is blurry} So with a shirt like Daddy and some orange hair-spikes, Parker was ready for school. And this Momma went back to bed :)

I love these sheets that are posted outside of Parker's room! We do get a calendar for each month but these sheets have a little more detail about their daily doings.

And the "black cat" artwork...which Parker said that he used sponges to paint the cat black.

Hmmm, fun with jello??!!?? I guess we will be buying some soon :) When Bryan picked Parker up from school, Ms. Teresa told Bryan that Parker wasn't really into napping today so they "toured" the sanctuary. Someone was in there playing the organ so Parker danced while listening to the organ. Love that!
Here is the pumpkin that Parker painted and glittered. I think it's just beautiful and he is very proud of it :)