And the winner is...

ME!

Maria was so sweet to give me another award! I've been really enjoying keeping up with her blog and reading about her family.



I'm supposed to give this award to ten people, but I honestly don't know ten people well enough to give it out to that many people! I'm going to give it to my friend Kristina over at "Confusaled". She just recently posted the scrapbook pages she did of her wedding pictures, and if you look at the pictures closely, you'll see yours truly, and Emily (at 15 months old!).

Thanks again Maria! And Kristina, enjoy the award! (And Happy Birthday for tomorrow!)

Poor Connor

Dan was heading out the front door to check the mail earlier today, and Connor ran to the window next to the door so he could watch Dan. Dan didn't see that his right ring finger was in the space between the door and the frame while the door was open, so when he shut it, Connor's finger got smashed pretty good. I heard a weird scream that was definately not his usual "mad" sound, so went running. Dan got back inside and got to Connor a split second before I did. Connor was flailing around in Dan's arms and screaming pretty good and I knew his finger(s) had been smashed, but he was in so much pain, he was shaking and flailing and it was hard to assess the damage. After a few seconds (which seemed like FOREVER) I could see that the tip of his finger was all smushed up and the nail had been ripped away from the skin, and was only hanging on by a tiny bit. We got a band-aid loosely around it to keep him from pulling at it and to keep blood from getting everywhere (it actually wasn't bleeding much at all at the time, but I worried it would suddenly start up!). Dan took him to the prompt care building in our area and they x-rayed it to make sure the bone wasn't broken (it wasn't), then put a ton of meds on the open wound, pressed the nail back into place and then wrapped it up BIG TIME. The doctor said they've discovered lately that the nail actually has a pretty good chance of reattaching if left flapped in place, as opposed to just cutting it off like they used to do in the past, and the doctor also said the chances of infection go way down if they leave the nail attached and pressed into place.

It's pretty heart-breaking, though, to see his little hand all wrapped up!


We're supposed to leave it that way 4-6 days. I halfway expected Connor to be biting at it trying to get it off, but so far he's left it alone. And I'm amazed at how quickly he's adapted to having his hand all wrapped up!

One foot in the grave

Yep, you heard it straight from the source. I was no match for the germs taking over my house, despite Lysol spray, Clorox wipes, and lots and lot and LOTS of hand sanitizer. I feel like I've been hit by a truck. My whole body aches, I have a cough, I have a headache (face ache?), I have crud draining down my throat, and I'm positive I have one foot in the grave. RIP Leah, RIP...

On a good note, Jare-bear woke feeling quite himself, has no fever, has plenty of appetite and energy, and his boundless energy is almost more than I can handle feeling the way I feel and I'm tempted to stick the other foot in the grave and put myself out of my misery. LOL

On another bad note, Em's taken a huge turn for the worse and won't stop crying and nothing is helping soothe her.

GO AWAY GERMS, GO AWAY!!

Where has the time gone?!?

I have no idea where today went. Just a minute ago, I was waking up this morning in a "still really exhausted" haze and now it's time to get dinner ready. I just don't understand it.

Or maybe I do.

Jared woke up sick Sunday morning (HIGH fever, BAD cough). We spent the day battling his fever, keeping Em and CJ away from him, and I was taking over Sunday chores for Dan (because, oh yeah, he's sick, too!).

Today has been nothing but temp taking, Motrin dosing, water/juice refills, nose blowing, hand sanitizing, keeping Connor away from Jared, cleaning up the DISASTERS Connor would create while I was busy with Jared...

And...UM...I was busy with facebook.com!! My friend nagged and nagged me to get a facebook page and I caved. I'm ADDICTED. It's pure nonsense and an utter waste of time, and it's fabulous! I've been playing Oregon Trail, playing quiz games (challenging friends and being challenged BY friends), etc. Whoever invented facebook should be shot (figuratively, of course), because I certainly didn't need another excuse to avoid housework! HA!

And whoever invented GERMS should be shot as well... UGH Em got off the bus with a fever today, so mine and Connor's chances of staying well aren't looking good AT ALL.

Quote of the Week

It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Wheeeee!

Apparently it pays to pay closer attention to when your toddler is wandering onto a patch of ice in your driveway... The original intent of the video was to show off him running around all bundled up (I thought he looked really cute!)


BTW, he's totally fine. Just a little ticked off, for two seconds! And then he kept wanting to run back over there to slide his feet around some more. ha ha!

Raspberries, anyone?

Connor's figured out how to serve them up, and it's completely HILARIOUS! He generally sneak attacks you as you bend over to do something, then suddenly, up goes your shirt and he's doing raspberries. He just seems way too little to know how to do them... LOL! (Please ignore Jared's dirty socks! Little stinker took a tour of the garage "looking for something" without shoes on...)


His other passion in life is buckling any buckles we have in the house. I'm going a little batty having to then UNbuckle things, just so he can buckle them again (and again).


Did you notice how huge his chubby fingers are???

It pays to have contacts...

My FIL called me up several months ago and said he got a practically brand new dishwasher off a jobsite, that was otherwise labeled for the dump and wanted to know if I wanted it. I agreed, and it's been sitting out in my garage ever since. The existing dishwasher was functional, but outdated, so there wasn't much rush to deal with putting the newer one in.

UNTIL YESTERDAY.

Tuesday night, I started the dishwasher and partway into the cycle, it started making some really horrible sounds, so Dan opened it up and discovered that the soap was still all in the soap slots, the bottom was full of water, but the dishes weren't getting wet AT ALL.

We thanked our lucky stars there was another dishwasher out in the garage, because let's just say a dishwasher is NOT in our budget at this time (not without credit card help).

We unloaded all the dirty dishes into the sink to be dealt with later


Then I called my FIL yesterday morning to ask him to come down and install the "new" dishwasher for us after work. He showed up right about 3pm and got straight to work taking out the old one.


He decided it was really a two person job, so went back home and then returned once Dan was home and they got to work on it together




Looks weird with a big hole in the line of cupboards with the dishwasher out!


And wait, what's that in the corner? A MOUSE NEST? AUGHHHH!!!! Thank goodness the best kitty in the world, Bella, caught the mouse already before Christmas... (doesn't it make you wonder what might be living under YOUR dishwasher??)



In comes the "new" dishwasher!


Connor learns a little bit about the innerworkings of the dishwasher while daddy's off buying a part we needed


After running it once through as a test, then loading it with dishes and running it through again, I now have an empty sink and clean dishes! YIPPEE!!

Ice Castle

We've had a bit of cold weather the last few days and the lovely puddle next to the driveway froze over. What's weird, is that the water underneath disappeared, but the frozen top was still there (with about a two inch hollow area between the layer of ice and the ground). The kids cracked up the ice layer one night and the next morning, we discovered something pretty neat. Delicate little ice "fingers" had grown down from the chunks of broken ice to connect to the ground overnight. This is one section I picked up and turned upright to share:


And then I tried to get close-ups of the ice "fingers" because they were REALLY neat looking, but my photography abilities have a lot of room for growth still, unfortunately, and I didn't even come close to capturing how neat this looked. Em piped up that it looked like a miniature ice castle








Anyway, sorry they aren't the greatest pictures, but hopefully you get the main idea anyway...

And the Winner is...Connor!

Final Score: 8,053,871 (Connor) to 0 (mommy)

He's one step ahead of me every single time.

The child wouldn't take a binky, or a thumb (or anything else that would have been helpful) to save his life as a baby, but I can't keep the stinkin' baby DOLL binky out of his mouth these days!

Monster Jam

Dan and my FIL took Jared to see Monster Jam yesterday. From what I hear, he had a pretty darn good time!!

This was the view from their seats, with no zooming in. Not bad!


Jared was just as excited for the Monster Trucks as he was for the popcorn (that's all he talked about for weeks beforehand, was getting popcorn!)




J's favorite trucks were the Batman one, the Donkey Kong one, and Gravedigger (the first and last are pictured here)


Donkey Kong:


The Batman one had flame throwers out the back; J thought that was pretty cool


And it did wheelies!


Gravedigger rolled over... (not sure why it's so blurry, talk to Dan about that; he's the photographer for this post)


Jared says he had a great time, and Dan said he was a really good boy the whole time, so it sounds like a successful outing!

Another Award!

I'm starting to feel rather special around here! LOL Thanks Jen !! She gave me this award:

She's so sweet. And has adorable kids. And she's helped me save many a messed up picture, AND is patient and kind with all my photography questions. Among other things... Thanks again Jen!

I now pass the award on to Valarie, who is HILARIOUS. And has adorable kids. And leaves me lots of comments!

Quote of the Week

The number of people watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action.

"MAMA! I STUUUUUCK!"

Long, long ago (3 1/2 years ago, to be exact), there was a 2 1/4 year old little girl named Emily. She was currently going through a phase where she wouldn't stay in bed at naptime; she'd get some toys, she'd get her dolls, she'd wander out of her room to find her mommy, and so on and so forth. She also had this habit of saying she needed help with random things in order to get her parents to come back to her room, thus successfully avoiding naptime a little longer. On one particular day, Emily's mommy had been having a rough day with her baby brother, and her mommy was feeling very frustrated with the antics of the little girl. When Emily began yelling, "MAMA! I STUUUUUCK!" the mommy fully assumed it was just Emily delaying naptime again, because the voice was very sing-song, and there was no sound of fear or pain, or anything. The mommy decided to ignore Emily after hollering down the hall "It's naptime! GO TO SLEEP!" A few minutes later, the mommy hears, "MAMA! I STUUUUUUCK!" The mommy didn't react one way or another. Several minutes after THAT, the mommy hears little footsteps, and when she turns around intending on reprimanding Emily for being out of bed, this is what she saw:

The mommy thought it was about the most hysterical thing she'd ever seen, promptly began laughing, and Emily successfully avoided a punishment and delayed her naptime. She IS the princess afterall, you know!

OPINIONS PLEASE!!

All non-commenters come out of the closet and help me make a decision PLEASE!!!

Should this little baby hat be left as is:


Or should it have a pompom: (the pom pom is just resting there for now, so it would be tighter to the hat and not AS tall looking as it appears right now)


And just for fun, here's the little coordinating mittens:


I dearly wish I'd known how to knit when my kids were babies!!!

Baby gift

Emily's dance teacher is having a baby boy at the end of February, so I started working on a blanket/hat/mitten set to give her as a gift. We only see her on Fridays, so I wanted to make sure I had it done in PLENTY of time so we could for sure give it all to her before the baby was born. I think we'll probably give it to her this Friday, just to be safe (safe that nothing happens to it in my house between now and the end of February, and safe that she for sure gets it before the baby comes...).

Here's the blanket. It's approx. 35X35 inches


Close-up of the pattern:


Here's the hat. I attempted to work the same pattern around the middle as the blanket so they were coordinated. It looks kind of messy, but once it's on, everything looks straight and even


here's the little mittens:


I use Em's "Boy Baby" as the model. His head's a little bigger than a newborn, so that hat may end up being a little tall, but I figure better tall than short (tall, you can cuff up)




I have to add, the yarn is sooooooo soft, too, and totally washable!

Fashion Emergency!

I'm pretty sure Emily's just broken every fashion rule on the planet, but seeing as I'm not the most fashionable person around, there's a slight (and I mean SLIGHT) possibility that I'm wrong...

Ever the diva...






Look at how long her hair is getting!!


Remember last February when she looked like this???:

My first award!!

Maria gave me my first award! Yay me! LOL It's a "spread the love" award:



I, in turn, give this award to ALL my readers (especially the ones that comment!!). My site is right-click protected, so you'll have to visit Maria's site to copy the picture.
_________________________________________________

I didn't want to have two "cop-out" blog entries in a row (quote, and award), so I thought I'd add in a little bit here about how my brother, his girlfriend, Alisa, and her daughter, Allie, came over yesterday afternoon for a visit. The adults played the game Eye to Eye (from the game company SimplyFun.com, if you're interested! Here's the link to Eye to Eye ). The kids played Play-Doh and dress-up and lots of this and that. We had a nice time!

Quote of the Week

Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

"First Year" scrap book

Emily and I are going to a baby shower for my cousin's girlfriend at my Aunt's house this afternoon. My friend Beth has been working on "first year" themed baby books and selling them recently, and she's been encouraging me to do some scrapping (which I've never done, but have been making my own cards for about a year now). After seeing her book, I was inspired to attempt one of my own. I kept it in all pink and brown themes because the mom-to-be is a self-proclaimed NON-girly-girl and the bedding they chose is pink and brown. I wanted to keep it on the simple side so it didn't end up being too frilly.

It's an 8X8 pink corderoy book, which up until YESTERDAY seemed like the textured material was enough "detail", but then I started to feel like it needed SOMETHING (this is what happens when you complete a project and then have two weeks to sit around nit-picking it!!), so then I added some ribbon and faux buttons:


Attached to the inside cover is the ultrasound picture they handed out, announcing the baby is a girl, and the very first page you see has a paper-crafted pregnant lady, and then a picture of the mom-to-be posing for a side-view belly picture. I don't have pictures of that because I thought I'd scanned them in, but I see now I haven't, but the book is already nicely wrapped, so it's too late! LOL

I included a small calendar on each of the monthly pages, for documentation of teeth, rolling over, sitting up, first visitors, first baths, first trips, etc etc etc etc... I've since hand-written in the name of the month and all the date numbers. There's also a spot on each page to attach a picture of baby at each given month old (there are clear photo corners to slide the picture in so they don't have to be glued or taped down).

Here's the newborn page:


Here's the one month page:


Here's the two month page:


Here's the three month page:


Here's the four month page:


Here's the five month page:


Here's the six month page:


Here's the seven month page:


Here's the eight month page:


Here's the nine month page:


Here's the 10 month page:


Here's the 11 month page:


Here's the 12 month page (it scanned as two different colors for each page, but it's really a shade of inbetween those two...LOL):


And the last page (one pay layout) is for a picture of baby covered in cake at her first birthday party: