Saying of the Week

When Madeline can't find the words or word she needs, she furrows her brow and thinks really hard. Sometimes a wrong or similar sounding word comes out (like bottle, when she means pillow), which once she says it she knows it's wrong but thinks she's funny, but when she really can't find the word she says frustratingly, "Mommy, I can't say!"


Word of the week- "Sidewards": a direction other than forward or backward.

Pretty girl

Oooops...

Oh, wait, here she is...

Little Things

Today I pulled all of the patio toys into the grass to give them a hose down. It seems that the spiders in the neighborhood thought we had moved out completely while on vacation and they decided to make our patio their family compound (anyone have any suggestions for keeping spiders/webs off patio toys and furniture??)

It's funny how little changes with Madeline's toys catch her attention. Just having her house in the grass got her to play in it all morning. She even had her lunch in it. Well, she was served and then refused to eat most of her lunch in it.

Maison just keeps getting cuter and cuter. Last night he was super tired at bedtime. He had a short car-nap for his morning nap so we could have a play/picnic date with Jenn and her kids at Town Square. And took a shorter than usual afternoon nap (he's having a tough time with one of his teethies). So was super pooped at bedtime. By the time I finished giving him his bottle, he was out, with all limbs completely limp. But, he was just awake enough to open his mouth super wide and sit like that until I realized he was waiting for me to put his binki in it. I was cracking up. Already spoiled!

Today I was feeding him with one of Madeline's bigger platic spoons that had some little pictures on the handle. His eyes went crossed with every bite as he tried to look at the pictures on the spoon handle. Silly boy.

More Babies Please

Thor and I are on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to having more kids. And, honestly I go back and forth with every minute of the day. But when I hear Madeline's little tiny voice counting as she walks down the hallway (1,2. 4,5. 6,8. 9,10) or naming all of the animals in a commercial softly to herself, or answering Dora the Explorer's questions of where they're supposed to go next, I just can't help but think how horrible life is going to be without all of this toddler cuteness in it.

Politically Incorrect

I looked up from my laptop last night and saw Marky Mark and 3 other guys sitting at a table talking about their mom, so I asked Thor: "is this that movie 3 Brothers?"

To which Thor answered: "Retard."


Nice. And now it's recorded for all of history. He's lucky I think my dorkiness is pretty hilarious.

Oh, and this was just a few hours after he told me I couldn't drive his truck because "I'd mess it up."

:)

It's all Uphill from Here

Maison started crawling while we were in San Diego. There's something about dirty hotel room floors that make my babies want to crawl, I guess. Madeline started crawing when we on vacation too. I considered putting socks on his hands, but figured they wouldn't last long anyways.

And he pulled himself up to standing yesterday on Madeline's crib and lots today on the dishwasher. I don't know who he thinks he is. The little turd will be walking before we know it. I better dust my running shoes off...

Saying of the Week

Maison: Waaaah! Waaaahhh!
Madeline: Shut up! Shut up!


Guess we have to nix the Spongebob watching.

So Now I'm 30

I'll never be 20 something again. I think I'm supposed to care, but I don't. I love my life and my family. I already have wrinkles and grey hair.

It was a really great day. Madeline and my mom made me a yummy cake decorated with m&m's, strawberries and whipped cream (or is it whip cream?).

Madeline joked all day by saying it was daddy's or grandma's birthday whenever I asked her who's birthday it was. And she survived the torchure of waiting all day until she could have a piece of the cake.

We had a great dinner at The Firehouse out on the patio. The kids were really good, we're usually lucky like that at restaurants.

I played a record breaking (my record, anyways) game of Yahtzee with 2 Yahtzees and kicked Thor's butt, which very rarely happens.

My parents got me a Le Creuset pot that I've wanted forever and Thor gave me the purse I wanted and tickets to go zip-lining in Boulder City which was a huge surprise and so, so awesome. My grandparents gave me a gift card to Town Square so I get to go do some shopping.
It was wonderful.

Now I'm on to my next ten years. Plans? Hmmm, maybe grown up kids and working again? Finally finishing school? Possibly a house move. It's going to be a good ten.

Today's Goals

1. See a dolphin jump.

2. Watch the tide go in and out.

3. Sit on the beach.

4. Collect sea shells with Madeline.

5. Play Mario Cart on Wii with Mom.

6. Eat Creme Brulee for lunch.

7. Watch the sunset from our balcony.


Ahhh, San Diego.

Double aahhhh, San Diego with free in-room wireless internet. How sad is that?

The Darbies

Today Madeline decided that her Barbie (previously known as Naked Dolly) was Mommy Darbie and her Baby Alice doll was Daddy Darbie and the two spent a lot of time holding hands.

Table Dancer

Always dancing to the music in her head.

By the way, we tried Crayola's window markers and they're really fun and super easy to clean from non-porous surfaces (windows, rubber polar bears, etc.).

Saying of the Week

By our lovely Madeline, of course. I just don't know where she gets all of her loveliness from. It's not from me, I swear.

Me: Hey Sweetie, why don't you put your shoes on?

Her: Nah

Me: You have to eat more of your sandwich.

Her: Nah

Me: Are you ready for your bath?

Her: Nah

Coming in a close second this week, her wonderful and sometimes irritating "in a minute."

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I seriously lost sleep over this and have not been able to think about anything else. I lost almost 300 pictures and any other month it would be sad, but really it'd just have been lots of pics of Madeline running around partially dressed in the backyard. Even then I would have been heartbroken. But August actually had events- Mom's 50th birthday, Max's 8th birthday, Maison's first mohawk, our new swing set, and lots of nice pictures taken up at Mt. Charleston while my parents were rv parked up there for a few weeks.

What I think happened was I had to use the windows downloader to get the pics onto my computer and the pics came from 2 different memory cards. The downloader gave the 2 sets of pics the same names. So when I dragged them all into the same folder, the newer files wrote over the older files without asking or any warning to me (which is weird, since my computer makes me double verify nearly everything I do).

Lesley, please thank your awesome computer geek husband for me. I wasn't able to get my find function to work the way I wanted it to, but while I was looking for a different way to see any hidden files in empty folders that used to house my files, I found this absolutely wonderful little tab that was called, get this, PREVIOUS VERSIONS. I nearly fainted. Holy freakin crap, no way. And inside, the tab looked like this:


Hmmm, it asked, would I like to restore the file to it's condition as of yesterday morning, to before I decided to get all organized? Sure, I suppose I probably do.

And just like that, it was all fixed.

My new mantra- "back up, back up, back up, back up"

I heart Windows Vista.

Seriously, where could they have gone??

Freaking out here.

I use PS Elements to "organize" my pictures and I highlighted a bunch and tried to drag them to a different folder, I got an error message about not enough space or something (which didn't make sense), and now they are GONE. I have looked everywhere. They can't just disappear, right? They have to be here somewhere. They're not in the recycle bin. I don't even know how many. more than 100, I'm sure. Maybe 400? I don't know, but really, they have to be here somewhere, right??????????

I'll cry if they're gone...

Eight Month Maison

Well, Eight months, two weeks, and three days Maison.

Specs:

- 18.5 pounds

- Nearly out of his 6-9 month clothes

- About this tall:

- Fuzzy light brown hair

- Size 3 diaper, 4 for nighttime

- All done with nursing

- A little soon to tell, but possibly sleeping through the night consistently

- Has only his 2 bottom teeth so far

Accomplishments:

- Can eat a Rice Crispy without gagging and throwing up

- Can almost eat a Cheerio without gagging and throwing up

- Goes from belly to sitting up on his own

- Turns and scootches around on his butt

- Often falls asleep in his crib, on his own, without too much fuss

- Sits well in a restaurant highchair (but likes to suck on the table, yuck)

Finds Hilarious:

- Anything his sister does

- Being bonked on the head with a balloon

- Mommy kissing his belly all over

Likes:

- Mostly Mommy, but anyone with boobs will usually do

- Bananas

- Drinking water out of a cup and letting it all dribble out of his mouth

- Banging things

- Standing up

- Puting things in his mouth

- Being carried around

- Yo Gabba Gabba

- His swingset

Hates:

- Having his face wiped

- People walking away from him

- Green Vegetables

- Having things taken out of his hands

- Waiting patiently

- Yo Gabba Gabba... Oh wait, that's me...

Finds Interesting:

- The cats

- Taking Legos out of their bucket

- People on TV who talk to him

Not Quite There Yet:

- Crawling

- Sitting up in a grocery cart

- Drinking from his sippy cup

- Eating a Cheerio without gagging and throwing up all over himself

I wish I could rock him while he sleeps more often, but whenever I do, he wakes up soon after I put him down, and gets pissed that I'm gone. He rarely sits still, always moving and touching. I kiss his hand when I rock him for bed to stop him from grabbing and twisting/ clawing at my face.

(hanging out in the Moby Wrap- camera was upside down, not the baby)

Oh Lordy...

Where do you suppose she gets this from?

Silly girl. I don't even know what she was doing. Deciding between a crayon or a marker, maybe? Whatever it was, it must have been pretty high stress.

Saying of the Week

Submitted by...

Me!

"If you don't do it right now, I'm going to do it for you."

Examples:
"If you don't get in your car seat right now, I'm going to put you in it."
"If you don't get out of the bath right now, I'm going to take you out."
"If you don't shut that door right now, I'm going to shut it for you."

Works like a charm every single time...

:)

Candy Season

has begun. They're already selling candy corn at Walgreens.