Hall-o-weenie

Ryanna was supposed to be this for Halloween:

a photo of some expensive Pottery Barn cupcake costume.

However, before OCTOBER even arrived, some smart mom in New Jersey snatched up every last costume from Pottery Barn and has been selling them on ebay for over $300 a pop! However, I did find a great replica on etsy!

And, since she wanted to be a cupcake, I was going to have Owen be his speciality--a hamburger--again. However, my mom, Queen of Halloween Costumes, thought Owen should have a new food costume, so he became:

And Eli, he did get to use an old costume--Ryanna's first ever Halloween costume:

What a scrumptious buffet! (It was COLD last night, so Ryanna had to wear pants instead of just cute tights or leggings.)

And these are some random Halloween ghosts I made for a little treat!

Tina + Me = A Winning Combination

My friend Tina posted a picture of a skirt she had made for her daughter Maryn a little while ago. Of course, I don't know how to sew (I've sewn a few things, but not in many years and I've never sewn anything you can wear--successfully sewn anything you can wear that is.). So, I had to tell Tina that I was in love with the skirt she had made and told her I wish she lived closer, so she could help me to sew such a cute skirt for my own daughter.

Tina, being the amazing friend that she is, emailed me and told me if I'd pick out some fabric and mail it to her, she'd send me back a completed skirt.

How could I pass up such an offer?

The hardest part for me was picking out the material. The first fabric that caught my eye was red and it was so cute. I tried and tried to get a winning combination going on, but it was not happening. Once I switched to blue combos it all came together. Then, I was really on a roll, so I picked out enough fabric for another skirt as well. Doesn't that show you what a good friend Tina is?

Anyway, here they are! SOOOO CUTE!

Stop Making Me Fat!

(This is my favorite photo of me and some of my closest friends.)

(I'm pregnant in both of these photos, but they show a lot of happiness!)

The other day I was feeling a bit glum because I had been trying to reach a good friend and she hadn't returned any of my calls or emails. Sometimes stuff like that bothers me, but other times it's no big deal. I stewed on it a couple of days and kind of let it get to me. Then, I decided it was silly to let some unknown explanation cause me to be down. I don't know what it was exactly that helped me to feel better or to just "let it go," as the saying goes. However, I haven't felt down since.

Now, I may have the answer. It's here. To sum it up, ('cause it's a rather long, but well worth the read 'cause it's a fascinating article) it may not have been my fault that I was glum. Perhaps it was because my neighbor's daughter had a bad day that I was feeling a bit blue. No, I'm not joking. There's a theory called the "'three degrees of influence' rule about human behavior: We are tied not just to those around us, but to others in a web that stretches farther than we know." In other words, the effect we have on other people doesn't disappear until three people later. Kind of hard to understand in the abstract, but here's a good example:


"Smoking, they discovered, also appeared to spread socially — in fact, a friend taking up smoking increased your chance of lighting up by 36 percent, and if you had a three-degrees-removed friend who started smoking, you were 11 percent more likely to do the same. Drinking spread socially, as did happiness and even loneliness. And in each case one’s individual influence stretched out three degrees before it faded out. "


AND


"But how, exactly, could obesity or happiness spread through so many links? Between one immediate peer and another, some contagious behaviors — like smoking — seem pretty commonsensical. If lots of people around you are smoking, there’s going to be peer pressure for you to start, whereas if nobody’s smoking, you’ll be more likely to stop. But the simple peer-pressure explanation doesn’t work as well with happiness or obesity: we don’t often urge people around us to eat more or implore them to be happier. (In any case, simply telling someone to be happier or unhappier isn’t likely to work.) Instead, Christakis and Fowler hypothesize that these behaviors spread partly through the subconscious social signals that we pick up from those around us, which serve as cues to what is considered normal behavior. Scientists have been documenting this phenomenon; for example, experiments have shown that if a person is seated next to someone who’s eating more, he will eat more, too, unwittingly calibrating his sense of what constitutes a normal meal. Christakis and Fowler suspect that as friends around us become heavier, we gradually change our mental picture of what “obese” looks like and give ourselves tacit permission to add pounds. With happiness, the two argue that the contagion may be even more deeply subconscious: the spread of good or bad feelings, they say, might be driven partly by “mirror neurons” in the brain that automatically mimic what we see in the faces of those around us — which is why looking at photographs of smiling people can itself often lift your mood. "


Sure, you could say, oh just a coincidence. Or you could go a bit further and say what's the causation/correlation there? Do we gravitate toward people who share similar interests and that explains why we tend to spend time with people who share our views, our builds, our beliefs? I'm not quite sure myself that I'm sold on the whole idea, but it is fascinating to think about.


You might then say, "Well, I want to be thin, so I'll only hang out with skinny people," but according to the theory that may not be enough right? After all the people you're hanging out with are being influenced by their own three degrees of influence which may be putting pressure on them to eat more.


Another idea that was presented in the article that fascinated me dealt with friendship. I've always treasured friends because none of my siblings are close to my age, so I was raised as an only child. I would say I have a large group of friends that are important to me. I'm very intrigued by people and their decisions. I like to know everyone's story. So, what else did the study find?


"The subconscious nature of emotional mirroring might explain one of the more curious findings in their research: If you want to be happy, what’s most important is to have lots of friends. Historically, we have often thought that having a small cluster of tight, long-term friends is crucial to being happy. But Christakis and Fowler found that the happiest people in Framingham were those who had the most connections, even if the relationships weren’t necessarily deep ones.
The reason these people were the happiest, the duo theorize, is that happiness doesn’t come only from having deep, heart-to-heart talks. It also comes from having daily exposure to many small moments of contagious happiness. When you frequently see other people smile — at home, in the street, at your local bar — your spirits are repeatedly affected by your mirroring of their emotional state."


So, what I'm saying is, let's be friends. But please, watch what you eat, I'm trying to get thin!

What Happened?

Remember this?

Yes, just one year ago I had my third child. He was so cute and tiny! Now, he's grown and grown and grown some more (though he's still quite tiny for his age). I really can't believe he's a year old today. Yesterday I mourned the loss of my baby. Not that he's that different from yesterday to today, but reaching that year mark signifies a lot of changes that have occurred and will yet occur.

It's amazing how a person can grow and develop so much in only one year. We love you Eli.

Finding My Roots (the Finale!)

So, I don't know if you are all bored to tears about hearing about this story, but I really need to get some of these details down while I can.
So, you may remember in the story of my dad's adoption that his birth mom was married at the time she gave birth, but she wasn't married to my dad's biological father. Does that all make sense? This story is so clear in my mind and these people are so real to me now that I find myself feeling them and telling their story so easily that I forget not everyone is following as closely as I am. So, for convenience sake, I'm going to provide some code names to make the story more easy to follow.

Biological Mom: Marie
Biological Dad: Alex
Man Married to Biological Mom: Lyle

There, clear as mud? Okay, so on with the story...
Lyle is a 20 something year old truck driver living in Colorado. His route takes him to destinations in Memphis, Tennessee, and Dallas, Texas. However, his loading port is in Arkansas.
One day while Lyle is waiting to get his truck filled in Arkansas, he decides to get a limemade. He ventures over to the local pharmacy which has a soda fountain in the back. Working at the soda fountain is the most beautiful blonde he's ever seen (No, it's not me, I'm not even born yet! It's Marie). He buys his limemade and chats with the woman for a while.
From that point on, every time he's in town, he stops in and chats and pretty soon he begins to date Marie. At some point in their dating, Lyle encounters Alex who makes it quite clear to Lyle that he is infringing on his territory by dating Marie. Lyle is not deterred by this and continues to date Marie anyway.
After they date seriously for quite some time, Lyle decides to ask Marie to marry him. She agrees. He drives back to Colorado to get the ring and places it on her finger making the engagement official. They never get around to setting a date, but after dating for several months, something changes. On one trip to down to Arkansas, Marie gives Lyle back his ring and says she can't marry him. She offers no other explanation. Lyle is heartbroken. He is in love, he wants to be with Marie forever.
Luckily for Lyle, his route is changed right after this happens and he doesn't have to go to Arkansas anymore. He still thinks of Marie and what could have been, but he hears nothing more until about a year later when he gets a letter in the mail.
Marie writes that she's made a mistake. She loves Lyle. She still wants to marry him. Would it be possible? Lyle is thrilled! Of course he wants to be with Marie. His only condition is that they get married right away. Marie agrees. He drives his truck down, picks her up and brings her back to Colorado and within a short time (a couple of weeks?) they are married.
Married life is great for the young, happy couple. Lyle is still gone often because that's what truckers do, but he knows he gets to come home to his gorgeous wife. Then, only two months after they tie the knot Lyle gets the strangest impression that Marie is pregnant. Hmmmm... He knows that's not a nice thing to accuse a woman of. Besides, he's probably wrong. Maries eats hardly anything at all and since they've been married she's only had the very slightest of a bump show. Perhaps if there's something amiss he should give her the opportunity to talk to him when she's ready. So, Lyle says nothing.
Flash forward to a month later. The newlyweds have just enjoyed a great dinner and Marie heads to the bedroom to change for bed. All of a sudden she's back out in the kitchen, crying.

"What's wrong?" asks Lyle.

"My water has broke. We have to go to the hospital. I'm in labor." states Marie.

Without throwing a fit or passing out from shock, Lyle helps his new wife to the hosptial. As soon as they arrive she tells the staff that she is not keeping the baby. The staff ask if she wants to see or hold the baby.

"I don't want to see it. I don't want to even look at it," she says.

By the next morning, my dad makes his entrance into the world. Small, but completely healthy. He is whisked away never to be seen or touched by the woman who carried her secret for so many torturous months, never revealing to the father, to her parents, to even her own husband what she probably couldn't face herself.
As for the rest of the story. That's for me and my family to know. Who is this man Lyle? This man who had this wild and difficult situation thrust upon him as a new husband. This man who stayed with his wife for a week after the baby's birth to care for her. This man who forgave her and never brought it up again. This man who readily spoke with me about intimate details that mean more to me than he'll ever know. It has been life altering. I can't imagine someone who could be as quick to forgive as he was. Someone who is so sweet and kind.
Here he is, nearing 80 years of life and I walk into the picture and he not only provides a story, he provides friendship. Yes, he too wants to meet me and my dad. I can hardly wait to meet this man and give him a huge hug. He's a sweetheart.
This whole experience....It's been hard for me to put into words. Sure, I can tell the story without any problem, but the emotions that come with it are so deep. I don't know if I've ever had feelings like this before. I feel so blessed. I feel so loved. I feel so peaceful.
Oh and one last, tiny detail. Lyle said that I solved a huge problem for him. You see, he has these wedding photos of him and Marie and he didn't know what would become of them when he died. There are no children that would need them, so he figured they'd probably just be thrown away. Instead, he's sending them to me. Yes, I will have a wedding photo of my very own grandma. Amazing. Simply amazing. Call it a coincidence if you like that he's held onto that picture for 50 years and through two other marriages. I call it divine intervention. I can hardly wait. So peaceful? Yes, but still so excited!!!