Archive for February 2011

Friday, February 25, 2011

New House Rules

We're pretty loosey goosey around here when it comes down to rules.

We abide by the Nacho Rule and that's about it. Why? Because you can't wake up feeling light on your feet after a late night nacho face stuffing (should all that be hyphenated?) has taken place.

It's time for a second rule to be added.

From here on out I may not watch any type of paranormal activity show when I'm all by myself, be it day or night.

No good can come from doing either. Trust me.




What are your house rules?

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Cheese

Today I will go about my business as normal, trying not to think about how last night at Vance's indoor soccer game that Vaughn ate a piece of cheese that had been on the ground.


Yes, Vaughn ate the cheese.


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Up and Over


It took Vaughn

2 years, 9 months, and 19 days

to learn that she can climb out of her crib.

***************

She scaled the crib wall yesterday afternoon during "nap" time. Funny, I'd always expect to hear a thud when she finally did climb out. Not the case. She appeared to stick the landing and what I heard was her door open, toys clanking together (tea pot & cups on a tray), and her footsteps.

Truth is, I'm ready to be done with the baby furniture. So is Justin. We thought about making the first step and take the side of her crib down so it turns into a toddler bed even before she tried crawling out. But then we sobered up and asked oursleves, "Why make things harder right now?" Seemed silly to do so.

I can handle her just having "rest" time in her room in lieu of naps. What would be tricky is the whole bedtime thing. I'm not ready for the fury to be unleashed.

So, we'll see. Maybe this was a one time fluke and she won't try it again. Maybe I'll be dismantling the crib later this week.

I'll keep you posted.

What's your story about kids and cribs?

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Happy Birthday Ryan!



My favorite niece turns 9 today!!! Happy Birthday Ryan Bray! Lots of love being sent your way!

Monday, February 21, 2011

Happy 1000th to Me!

I'm here to tell you today that this is my 1000th blog post. And that we're selling our house.

(No beating around bushes here.)

Funny that my 1000th post, a much celebrated happening in the big world o' bloggers, fell on the day that I actually had something exciting to talk about. How's that for content?!?

We've de-cluttered. We've Chaderized all couch pillows. We've buried St. Joseph. We're ready to sell, move, and buy a house that we'd like to be in for more than 3 years.

(For those keeping score, it seems that we move every 3 years.)

The sign is in the yard and I'm in freak out mode trying to keep the house clean in case we have a showing. (The kids may or may not have had a picnic lunch in our unfinished basement yesterday because we were getting ready for pictures to be taken of the house.)

So, there you go. A big day around here. And on President's Day nonetheless. We'll be celebrating by going to the library and possibly Chipotle afterwards. Guacamole for all!

Question of the day: What's your fave Mexican fast food? We're all about the Chipot to the le.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Lunch Lady

My mind has been elsewhere and I caught myself almost packing a soda in Vance's lunch this morning.


It made me remember the time that I did the same with Justin's lunch for work, but instead of a soda he almost got a can of beer.

Both doings would have definitely given the boys extra cool points in the cafeteria.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but TGIF! Have a great weekend!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

I downloaded the Mumford and Sons album for my Valentine. I love a good banjo.


And I downloaded Cee Lo for myself. The official video is great, but it's the uncensored version, so I put this one up so all you folks at work and with kiddos within earshot can listen.


**********************************************************************************

Vaughn and I took advantage of the warm weather and played outside yesterday. Our deck and a portion of a backyard still was covered in snow, so we had to put boots on. Really confusing to be in short sleeves and yet trudge through snow. I'm happy to report that the majority has finally melted.

Lots to do today! Have a good day!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Survivor & Surviving

Survivor: a new season starts tonight. Surviving: what we've been trying to do around here due to Vaughn phasing out of naps.

We're in that tough stage where she isn't taking a nap but she still really needs a nap. Without getting into details just know that from 4:00 on she's A Mess and I count down the hours until bedtime.

What's getting me through this is the simple fact that once we're finally over this hurdle I know I'm done. Just like potty training and other "milestones". Done, done, and done. I love checking them off my mental list. (The next ones for Vaughn are getting her into a booster style car seat and getting rid of sippy cups. Can't. Wait.)

Isn't it crazy that this one little tutu wearing, dirt digging, 2 year old can cause such a ruckus?

(Taken on a warm day, last fall.)

Enjoy the weather today and Survivor tonight! Wait! I know we just had pizza on Monday, but it seemed wrong to not have pizza on Survivor night, so we're making pizza's this time around. These, to be exact, using some of the sauce that I froze from summer. Have a good day!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Valentine's Day Recap



Saw the cute heart crafts on Meg Duerksen's site. Vance was able to cut his own hearts, but I helped Vaughn with hers. She arranged them and is very proud of her work. "I made that!" (Construction paper sandwiched between sheets of clear contact paper. Easy peasy.)

Heart shaped pizza for dinner (a la Papa John's & the kids could've cared less that it was heart shaped - bummer) and cupcakes for dessert. To top the cupcakes, I melted chocolate, put it into a baggie, sniped the tip, and piped out hearts and letters onto parchment paper. After they cool, only 15 minutes or so, they lift right off the paper. (My chocolate was still a little too warm and therefore runny when I piped the designs. Make sure you let it cool first!)

Goodbye Valentine's Day. Next up, "Little Green Man Holiday" or St. Patrick's Day, as Vance calls it.


Monday, February 14, 2011

My Funny Valentine's





I love a good fake moustache. There's many versions of the moustache sucker floating around, this is my spin.

I photoshopped Vance's picture, added the 'stache and the blurb, and printed them out. Vance signed his name and helped me cut them to size.

I drew a moustache, made a template, stenciled them onto foam sheets, cut and poked holes for the suckers to go through.

Viola! Silly moustache sucker valentine's!

FYI: 22 Blow Pops come in a bag. I needed 23 naturally.



Happy Valentine's Day!

Friday, February 11, 2011

It's Friday!



I'm currently working on Vance's Valentine's for school. I'm surprised that he chose my idea over the store bought ones. No pressure that they turn out well!

Today it seems that all my make-up brushes banded together and hopped on board the "Let's fall apart today!" boat. Yesterday they were fine. Today, they're molting, leaving stray hairs all over my face. Any tips on good brushes out there?

Speaking of boats (really stretching for a segue), I bought boat shoes yesterday in hopes of warmer weather getting here sooner. Maybe if we all band together and do something "springy" we can muscle winter outta here.

Lastly, I'll be venturing out of the confines of the house tonight. I couldn't volunteer to work an event Vance's school is having, but I checked the box on the handout for "able to volunteer from home". I thought I'd get a manilla packet of laminated shapes that I'd have to cut out. Wrong. Seems that the coordinator thought it would be fun to get together and do it. I was told to bring alcohol and scissors. I can do that and strangely, I'm looking forward to it too.

So, here's to valentine's turning out well, boat shoes, Justin's return tonight just in time for me to go do some drinking and cutting, and warm weather this weekend.

Cheers!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Vance's Laptop

This may or may not be the scene of many nights around here.


Justin with his laptop, me with mine. Exciting. I know.

Point is, the kids definitely take notice and want to join the fun. Or the not so fun...er, you know what I mean. They like pretending they're "checking their email" or "looking at the weather" on one of our old laptops and it was allowed as long as they played nicely. This ended the other day when Vaughn tried to dismantle the keyboard, in true pesky younger sister fashion. I saw Vance go to grab it today after school and I asked him to play with something else because I didn't want to deal with the loose keys.

Vance, taking matters into his own hands, created his own laptop. Except he was calling it a "blacktop" by mistake and I had no idea what he was talking about until I got a closer look.

I couldn't contain myself. I mean, he made his own laptop.


Wait. Did you see that? Look closer:



He even drew the arrow cursor.

The only thing I forgot to ask him was if it was a Mac like Mommy's or a PC like Daddy's.

My money is on the fruit.

Be creative and have a great day!

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Sad sewing machine



Is it me or does this sewing machine look sad?

This was a Christmas gift from my parents and look at it. Still sitting in the box. Sad, sad, sad.

I feel like I've been overexposed when it comes to handmade things. I need to stay off all design/project type blogs and websites to give my mind a break. Once I have an idea of what I want to make I end up seeing something else online that's even better and ditch the first idea. And it snowballs from there, ending with me having about 10 ideas a day for cute things but actually making nothing. Zilch. Nada. Zip.

This can't go on. Time to see an idea all the way through. I'm great at starting things, it's the finishing part I'm not so good at. Gotta commit.

With that said, the sad sewing machine will have to wait at least one more day. Today is all about finishing Valentine's Day cards before the mail comes.

How about you guys, do you have any sad appliances around the house? What haven't you had the time to get to?

Make it a good day!

Monday, February 07, 2011

Weekend Update: Mother Cupper

Oh, that's right. I have a blog! I should probably update it then, right? Right!

So Saturday we had a freak snowstorm and Vance's basketball game was cancelled. Bummer. We've really been enjoying watching him play.

I had my first experience with Traditional Chinese Medicine. I signed up for acupuncture and was given not only that, but was also scraped and cupped. My mind has still not wrapped itself around the situation that currently is happening on my back. (Of course I'm not going to post pictures, but Google for images of cupping marks if you feel the need.) Moving on...

We did a lot of house stuff over the weekend and of course ate too much during the Superbowl. Yes it's true that I'm not a sports fan but I did wear my Wisconsin shirt. In fact we all donned Wisconsin gear. Even Vaughn, but she paired hers with a lovely pink tutu.

The weather is predicted to get warm this weekend and I'm looking forward to it! I feel an early spring. My dad believes that the crazy amounts of robins that are out is a sign for early spring, which makes sense to me. I have seen a ton in my backyard, which reminds me that my feeder is empty. Gotta keep the birds happy!

Hope to be back to my normal blogging schedule now. Until tomorrow!

Friday, February 04, 2011

Shoveling poll: Do you or don't you?

Edited: Poll closed, thanks for voting! Looks like the majority shovels the sidewalks!

It's been awhile since we've taken a poll, so today's the day!

Question of the day: Do you shovel your sidewalks?

When we lived in Wisconsin we had to shovel our driveway and sidewalks or we'd get fined. We grew accustomed to that and carried on, Tim Gunn style, after moving here. Here, no one shovels their sidewalks. I don't have a dog to walk, but I do walk Vance to the bus stop and I have to carry him through the deep snow so that his shoes and pants don't get snowy and wet. I guess if you don't have to use the sidewalks it wouldn't even occur to you but for those who do it's a pain, annoying, and seems unneighborly.

To shovel or not is the question. What do you do?

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Sick of It


I love the "Sick of It" lines in this commercial.

It's exactly how I feel about this weather. I have cancelled and rescheduled more appointments this month than ever. There's one in particular that I have rescheduled 4 times. A warning to you all, I have rescheduled it yet again for this Saturday, so don't be surprised if a random snow storm rolls in late Friday night. Mother Nature has it out for me.

Vaughn's school is on today, so Vance and I are going to get out of the house and go somewhere. Anywhere. I'm so used to lazy mornings that it feels strange sitting here showered, dressed, and halfway ready to go.

Here's to getting over the Sick of It mentality. What are you sick of today?

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Happy Birthday to My Seester!




We may or may not be in the middle of a blizzard but one thing's fo sho: it's my sister's birthday!

Happy birthday you young thang! Hope it's over the top, kinda like this picture!

Love you!

 

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