Busy Bees

Whew, it's been busy around here, lately. I need to catch up on my blog, there are so many things I don't want to forget!

The kids have been keeping us on our toes, they are busier than ever! Baby Girl is walking a bit, but she still seems to prefer to crawl most of the time. She's climbing on all the furniture, the stairs, up Little Man's step stools, pretty much everything she can get to. She and Little Man have a new game, they like to take all the toy bins and dump them in the den floor. Every single last one of them. It makes for some interesting clean up before bed.

Little Man has really blossomed over the past few weeks, he is more and more a big boy vs. a baby. How did it happen so fast?! He has an amazing memory, last night he read The Husband and I one of his bedtime stories, My Lucky Day, and remembered almost every word! It isn't a short book, either! The Husband and I were so proud! He also, and this is big, gave up his paci! He's only been using it during naptime and bedtime for the last year or so, but we've been unable to wean it away from him during sleepytime. I had read about the trick where you cut just the tip of the paci away, so that it loses suction, and decided to try it. Little Man noticed right away, of course, but he still wanted to use it. He asked, "what's wrong with paci?" I told him that he was getting to be a big boy, and his paci's were getting old, too, and that after a while they just break. Then I said, "when you're pacis break that means it's time to throw them away and not use pacis anymore." Little Man agreed! The next morning he threw them all in the trash and hasn't looked back! He is getting to be so big!

On another note, I've been making lots of cakes. A few friends and I threw a baby shower here at the house, and I made the petit fours, cake, and diaper cake. It was a lot of fun, but wow, also a lot of work!

I also made a cake for mom's office Christmas party. It was my first square cake, it surprised me how difficult corners are! There was definitely a "back" to this cake! I also ran out of red and green fondant, I would have liked to have had a few more decorative touches, but since it's impossible to match colors once they're made, I just left the cake as is.

I can't forget to mention the Christmas shopping! I shopped on Black Friday for the first time ever! I was planning on getting up and hitting the stores when they opened at 5:00, but Baby Girl was up half the night, so I didn't get out until 6:30. I didn't find any major deals, but I did manage to find several little ones. Every little bit helps, right!? Plus, it was a lot of fun, I think it will be a new tradition for me.

13 Months

Baby Girl is 13 months old! Yes, I realize that I still haven't posted about her first birthday, time on the computer is a rare treat these days.


She is taking steps here and there, she mainly only walks to her momma or daddy, but she can do it!


She has a few new words: nana (banana), nite-nite, and Moo-moo (a nickname for one of our dogs.)


She's doing all sorts of cute things, the points to our noses and goes, "Ahh?" with an occasional attempt at "nose."


She copies everything her big brother does, especially giving zerberts, which is one of his favorite things to do right now.


She's a dancing queen, my parents have started calling her boogie-baby! Anytime any music comes on, from the tv, radio, or a toy, she starts dancing and waving her arms - it's so cute!


She's still not the best sleeper, oh how I can't wait until she regularly sleeps through the night. She's in her crib during the night, although if she's waking up frequently I'll bring her downstairs so she won't wake up Little Man.


She is such a flirt! My mom goes to the same grocery store as I do, and when she goes to the store the employees will say, "your granddaughter was in here earlier, she was just talking and laughing with everyone!"


She's very sweet and gives out lots of hugs and kisses, she likes to hug her baby dolls, too. She's most definitely a girly-girl {complete with attitude ;) }.

Happy 13 months, Sweet Baby Girl!

Today's soapbox...

Why don't people RSVP anymore?

I've been guilty of not rsvp'ing a few times myself, but since reaching adulthood I'm almost always curteous enough to do it. I always, always intend to do it.

I'm throwing a baby shower this weekend, along with a few friends. It's at my house (stress!).

Out of the 31 people invited, only 13 rsvp'd.

My phone number and email address were clearly printed on the invite, along with a request to let us know if you would be attending. We do have to feed you, you know.

I'm making the cake. A cute little cake that will feed about 15.

Do I need to make a whole second cake? A few cupcakes, cookies? Who knows, 13 people could show up, or 31. It's a guess.

Why, people, why??

Just call me already, aaaahhhh!!

One Year :)

Baby Girl had her one year checkup today.

She was deemed just fine and healthy, as I expected.

What a blessing!

She weighs 21 lbs 5 oz

Edit : I wrote this intending to add onto it, but of course forgot. So now I don't really remember what Baby Girl was up to on her first birthday. :( Oh well, I wrote a post about her at 13 months, guess that will have to do! Here is a little bit about her birthday, though...

After a small birthday celebration with just the four of us on Baby Girl's real birthday, we had a small family/close friends party at the house the next day. By now anyone reading this has probably noticed that I don't really post pics of the kids, so a few pics of the decorations will have to do. Everyone had a great time, including Baby Girl, who LOVED her smash cake, which was mostly whipped cream. She dug right in, smashed it around, and said, "ohhhh!" She wore a cute brown little sweater dress with stockings and a bow for the occasion. Very chic. ;)

We all enjoyed celebrating the day Baby Girl came into our lives.

We love you bunches, Sweet Girl!

Ramblings

Not a lot has been happening around here. Except that Baby Girl had her birthday - she's one! The Husband had gone back to his crazy work schedule, which means I'm alone with the kids for about 12 hours a day. We are focusing on surviving with our sanity, and trying to have a little fun while doing so, and that is taking up pretty much all of our time. Now on to the ramblings...

I witnessed my first facebook catfight last night. Oh, it was ugly. It was between two of my "friends," one of whom is actually a good friend. The other participant, who was the instigator, is more of a friend of a friend. Without going into details, the friend of a friend, whom I now call The Bully, jumped down the throat of my good friend for an innocent comment. The Bully was obviously just waiting for someone to make a comment on her status, and my poor friend was the first to take the bait. It was painful to watch it unfold, and just so unnecessary. Some people need to get a little perspective on things. Needless to say, I don't think these two are friends anymore.

I've gotten into couponing. Not just a coupon here, a coupon there like I used to, but REAL couponing! There's a blog I recently stumbled upon, My St. Louis Mommy, and she sums up all the coupon deals, and tells you how to match them up with store sales and store coupons. It's all the benefit without all the work, I love it! She gives a weekly update for Target (with links to coupons), which is where a lot of my money goes, so it's really saved us some cash. However, there is a dark cloud in my bright sky. My grocery store will no longer take internet coupons. This really stinks, because almost all the coupons SLM shares are from the internet. I had all my grocery coupons printed out, my list made, I shopped, checked out, bagged the items, and only then was I told that my coupons were not acceptable at the store. What?! Turns out they just had a rash of people forging coupons and could no longer accept anything but coupons from the paper. They wouldn't even take internet coupons from me, and the grocery store is my family's business. Frustration! Thanks, general public, for breaking the rules for your own gain and ruining it for the rest of us.

On a brighter note, I have booked a maid service to come deep clean my house! Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy!!! I've always wanted to do this, but have always been too cheap to go through with it. However, I'm throwing a fancy baby shower for one of my good friends in a few weeks, and Little Man has a school program the day before, which means I will be at the school half the day and he will come home early. Not good when I'm making/decorating a cake and hosting. I mean, the cleaning is the hardest part of hosting an event at your house. So I found a locally-owned, independent business, which uses all natural, chemical-free products, and who gave me the best price! I'm in heaven, I can't wait for them to come!

Well, I'm out of ramblings for now. :)

Why I'm always cleaning and yet it's always a mess.

First off, let's state the obvious:

1 husband, 2 small children, 2 dogs - enough said.

Now for the rest:

I've just finished scrubbing the kitchen spotless and Little Man wants a snack. He requests yogurt. Ok. Yogurt dispensed. Yogurt spilled on counter. Yogurt mistaken for finger paint.

I wash walls. With the above mentioned beings living in this house, it has to be done on occasion. Here is one reason why: Little Man was caught with his hands in his dirty, just-worked-in-the-yard shoes, "walking" them up the wall.

That's all I have for now, these incidences both happened yesterday, but I'm sure I'll have more very soon.

A lot can happen in seven years....

Seven years ago,

Me= somewhat newly single, fresh out of grad school, a few months into my first roommate-less apartment, a few months into my first real job. Life was great, I felt empowered, successful, basically on top of the world. I had been dating here and there, and truly, I was a bit disappointed in the pickings. I had actually just decided not to date for awhile, as it just seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I remember that I was going to visit my one of my old college roommates, she lived about three hours away. She and her boyfriend were having a party and had invited me to stay, so I went. I was supposed to come home early, because my sister was having her second annual pumpkin carving party, and, honestly, I was having such a good time at my friend's house that I almost stayed for one more day. But in the back of my mind I remembered that my sister said that one of my brother-in-law's friends was planning on going to the pumpkin party. I kind of liked him. We hadn't seen each other in several months, but the few times we met had made an impression. At the time, he was also somewhat newly single, we were both several months out of long-term, very serious (as in making plans to take the plunge) relationships, and I just felt it would be a good idea to go and see what happened.

So I went.

The rest is history. The brother-in-law's friend asked me out, and a few days later we had our first date, which was my last first date. Today is the anniversary of our first date, seven years ago.

Happy Dativersary, sweetie!