Well, he did it! No pressure for me now or anything....

For Christmas, Kyle bought me a new camera and lens. I'm so excited and am sitting at the computer typing this with the camera sitting in my lap - kind of like a new baby. Although, I think Bryton's hospital bill was probably less than the camera and lens cost...but that's another story. (Granted - I loved my now 'old' camera..but just couldn't get it to perform in all lighting situations to my standards).

Anyway, I'm so excited and can't wait to build up my portfolio! If you live in the New Bern/Cherry Point area and want some pictures for homecomings, birthday parties, newborns, pregnancy, family pictures, etc...just let me know -and tell your friends, too. Also, I'll be in Birmingham for a week for Christmas and would very much like to include some familiar faces in my portfolio...so here's your warning - I'll have my camera with me every chance I get. :-)

So yes, Kyle just got back from Arizona yesterday - yipee! I'll post some of our 'mini-homecoming' pics on dropshots probably later today (taken one handed, holding a baby, with the 'old' camera). Well, I must leave you now to spend some quality time with my new camera - thanks, Kyle, for believing in and encouraging my photography! (Oh - and don't worry - the kids are asleep while I'm spending time with my new camera...I promise I won't forget the priorities!)

Oh - and if you have any recipes with rice and beans as the main ingredients - please send. Looks like we'll be eating a lot of that for a couple of months... :-)

Fun Story

So, within 10 minutes of arriving at home one night last week, we had no functional toilets. Here's how. Earlier in the day, Vivi had put too much toilet paper in her potty. I tried flushing it once, but it didn't go all the way. So, not wanting to plunge the potty, I figured I'd just let it soak for a few hours and hopefully dissolve a bunch of the paper. After arriving at home, I tried flushing again and no dice. It didn't overflow, but it did fill up. Anyway, after we got home that night, Vivi went to the potty (in our potty...the functional one) while I was getting Bryton cleaned up and pajamaed. I didn't hear from her for several minutes (usually means trouble) so I went into our potty to check on her to see several grapefruit sized tight wads of toilet paper in the potty. Not good. I pushed the lever a little to let some water into the potty to see if by some chance any water could go down. No such luck. Apparently I let too much water in and absolutely NONE was going down, and it was starting to come out the top. So, I grabbed towels and threw them on the floor and tried to turn the water off at the base, but couldn't turn it - too tight. So, I went to get a bowl (used a mixing bowl from the kitchen) and started getting water from the toilet and putting it in the tub. When I finally got enough water out of the toilet so that the plunger would fit, I sat Vivi down (not on the potty) and we had a talk about the logistics of the potty and how using too much paper breaks the potty. (Oh - and don't worry - I threw the mixing bowl away - it took one for the team). Needless to say, I quickly put the kids in bed and spent the next hour or so unstopping the toilets. I would plunge, then add water...the when it wouldn't go down, I'd start plunging some more. Anyway, it seemed to take forever. But, finally we had 2 working potties again. Then, I was finally free to clean up the dog's vomit from our bedroom floor. What a fun night :-)

That was several days ago. So Vivi's been very conscientious about how much toilet paper she actually needs. I figured we were over that set of possible disasters. Until today. I walked in our bathroom to find Vivi pulling her pants up after going potty. I saw another huge amount of toilet paper in the potty and asked her why she used so much because "remember, using that much toilet paper breaks the potty". She said that she needed to find the treasure. ? She told me that she was a pirate and needed a parascope (aka empty toilet paper roll) to find the treasure. So what's the best way to get a parascope when you really need one? Pull all the paper off and put it in the potty I guess. Thankfully we were able to get a successful flush. After that, I took the toilet paper from the dispensers and put it up out of her reach. I'm going to have to ration it out I guess.

Hope all is well - I'm watching the Army/Navy game - have about another hour of 'free watching' before B gets up from his nap. He'll need to join the Navy cheering section.

Have a great weekend!