Babies, Computers and More!!!

Bye Bye Baby Hair

2009-08-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

So it's a little uneven, but I think I did a decent job aside from that.

I saved her baby locks (or lock) in a baggie.

And so it begins...

Back From the Dead

2009-08-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

*Pictures are taking forever to upload so I'm going to post this now and get the pictures up soon*

Sooo...I'm noticing that my last few titles have had something to do with zombies or otherwise returning from an absent state. Well, what can I say. This is one busy little household!

I understand that I haven't updated in a while. It really does bother me. Occasionally I lose sleep at night but since I suffer from a degree of insomnia anyways, it doesn't effect me all that much. Well, it's come to my attention that some people have not heard anything about Lily since she was practically a baby and she is anything but! In my quest to pursue a Masters (what was I thinking?!) get my book review blog off the ground and rolling and chase the actual toddler around the house, this blog has fallen slightly by the wayside.

Hopefully I'll update this more, but I can't promise anything. I would love to say that you'll get at least weekly updates now but with school, that's going to be a hard promise to uphold. I will try though; that's a semi-mostly-kinda-hoping promise.

Okay, so Lily updates. I am attempting to see where we left off, but wouldn't you know, for whatever reason I can't access my own blog. We have the address routed through the server upstairs and apparently since my internet also goes through that server it's having issues with showing me webpages based off of halfzero.net. So, I'm going to wing it and just tell you everything Lily is doing now and you can figure out what's an update from May. It's like a fun game. Or something.

So my Lily bug is quite the handful now. She has a whole bunch of words now with her favorites being "No, no," and "Goggy" (doggy). She can tell Tweak to "Speak" although he doesn't listen and she calls for "Mama," "Mommy," "Dadda," and "Daddy" when we aren't within her line of sight. She also knows how to go dead silent when she's doing something that she's not supposed to. Lately one her favorite sayings is "Ih awww" which sounds a lot like "it's on" without the consonant sounds. Basically it means turns this off, turns this on, or turn this down. Rarely does she tell us to turn anything up. Usually this is in reference to the radio.

Speaking of the radio, Lily loves music. She will often sing along with me in the car. Pink's Ave Mary A is a big hit and Lily likes to sing along to the "Hellllp meeee" parts. Sometimes she gets the consonants, sometimes she doesn't. She always gets the tune and whichever vowels she feels like singing. She'll sing along with pretty much any song that has a repetitive sound that she can mimic but her latest favorite is Do You Wanna Date My Avatar featuring Felicia Day of The Guild. Lily will kind of mumble through most of the sounds while holding the tune, but in the chorus she belts out all of the "-ar" parts. It's really cute.

Songs that she likes to sing on her own include her ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle and Frarajaca. She'll sing along to London Bridges if we start it as well as Baa Baa Black Sheep.

Lately Lily has been doing quite a bit of dancing and she loves to jump. She can't jump very high (after all, she is our daughter) but her little hops are adorable. She loves to climb on everything. The chairs, the couch, the table. It doesn't matter if she's fallen off before, it does not detour her. Pretty much the only thing that detours her is...wait, nope, there's nothing that detours her. We pretty much spend all of her waking hours when she's with us chasing her around and watching to make sure that she doesn't get into anything she isn't supposed to. We have been using timeout for a few months, but really, it's pretty difficult to get a toddler to understand the concept and stay where you put them. Usually her one minute in timeout is preceded by a few minutes just trying to get her to stay there.

Another new developments include using the potty occasionally. She does have a potty seat that goes on the potty but in my opinion it isn't shaped very well and hurts Lily's rear end if she sits there for any length of time. Let's face it, kids sometimes end up sitting there for a while before going. Plus, she isn't able to get on and off the potty on her own. So we went out and bought her a potty seat. This has been working much better although I'm not a fan of emptying it. So far she has only gone pee in it and that is just fine with me. Most mornings I try to get her out of her crib and immediately strip her down for the potty. Usually if she has a dry diaper she will sit there for a while and then go. Often she just wants to walk around and play. She's only peed on the floor three times so far and ended up crying hysterically each time. We tell her it's okay and rush her to the potty, but I don't think she likes to make a mess of herself.

At the moment (and it's a 10:55 pm moment after I worked most of the day) that's about all that I can think of. Lily will be two next Saturday the fifth (a week from today) and I still have no clue what to do for her birthday or when to do it. I don't know what we're getting her because I don't know what she would want to play with. I know a little trike like thing with a big parent handle might be nice or more pretend toys (dolls with diapers and bottles, etc.). Perhaps I'll get her some more trucks or a Leap Frog something or other. Sigh. How did this rush up on me?

Questions? Comments? Leave them below!

Zombies!

2009-05-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

Whatever. No, I am not the walking dead. In fact I did not even die! I've just been...busy! With other typing. So I've been neglecting my duties updating all my loyal readers on the comings and goings of Us and our Bug.

Speaking of the Lily Bug. I'm sorry, but who told her she could grow up? Seriously! Today, while ending our Skype conversation with Alabama Grandma, Lily realizes that it's goodbye time and says "Bye" with perfect articulation and blows Grandma kisses goodbye.

What?!

Hyperventilating!

First it's using words. Then it's potty training. Next thing you know we're going to have some hormone driven teenage boy on our doorstep with Papa cleaning his rifle on the front porch. Ahhh! This is so not happening!

Deep breaths. Calm down. Eat another cupcake.

Phew. Okay. Where was I?

Along with finding new words all the time - "Bye" may seem simple and innocent, but I assure you it is not - Lily has been, how shall we put it, asserting herself and her opinions. Loudly. On the ground, kicking and generally flailing. In private and public. Seriously though, when you have dumb parents that refuse to give you a cookie or let you finish off their 16 oz smoothie, what's a girl to do? Oh yeah, and that awesome stretch of pavement in front of the driveway that cars like to do 50 mph on - parents won't let her play on that either. That really ticks her off. I suppose it is our fault. We don't let her do the "fun" stuff so she lets us know. And then reminds us of the injustices. Loudly.

Ahhh, temper tantrums. Comes with toddler territory, right? Well, she isn't a toddler! Sure, she just turned 20-months-old, but that child has not been toddling for months now. No, instead she climbs over the couch, up the stairs by herself while her parents close their eyes for a much needed blink or up onto the coffee table when they're watching, just to remind them who's really in charge. No toddling there. None whatsoever! Okay, dark chocolate time.

Aside from the temper tantrums, and oh are they plentiful, life has been going pretty well. Honestly, the tantrums don't even bother us that much because the only way to stop them is just to let her have them. If she's unwilling to cooperate, we leave her there and allow her to cry until she stops and gives us an "all done," indicating that she's ready to go on with life. Like blowing bubbles.

I guess that brings us back to words, doesn't it. Lily's words are stinking adorable and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mother and the adorable obviously transfers over...

*silence*

Okay, fine, maybe she gets it from her Papa's side. Whatever. Back to the point. Adorable. Over the past year we have gained words and then lost some again. Her first word was a very articulate "Kitty" before she could even walk. That went away for a few months while we learned "Ya," "No," "Nnnnooo," "Dadda," "Mamma," "Yum," "Yummyama," and "Mo" for more. We've occasionally played with "Gamma" for Grandma and have also added "Itty," "Apo" for apple, "A errr," for cracker, "Kitty" again, "Woof woof" for a time, "Woot Woot" with arms raised in the raise-the-roof motions much to my delight, "Shoooo" for shoes, "Hot," "Coe" for cold and "Thhppbbbtt" for Shut Up Parents And Leave Me Alone.

Quite the repertoire.

When Lily isn't talking, screaming or sleeping, she's having fun. This can be found in the form of playing in her toy box, pushing her stroller around with her baby, removing the baby and giving her sippy cup the seat of honor, taking all of our canned food out of the cupboard and lining it up on the floor, staring into Mama's book light as she contemplates the meaning of life or just being stinking cute. She loves it when we vacuum and thinks it's the most hilarious thing in the world. It's actually kind of difficult because she chases the darn thing trying to get in front of it. She loves to push buttons - even the ones on the remote and enjoys giving the dog's toys back to him. He's not actually supposed to put the toys down. At all. Or she'll come and stick them right back in his mouth. He spends a good deal of his time sleeping anymore. Coincidence?

Let's see, what else? Lily is ginormously huge now weighing in at 30lbs and 34 inches at her doc appointment mid April. My baby is almost three feet tall. When did that happen? Psh. She's now in 2T clothes and I imagine will grow out of those this summer. We've been extraordinarily fortunate to have inherited quite a bit of handmedowns from glorious friends. What would we do without you guys? Go broke I imagine.

Which moves us into the adult babies of the house. M and I are doing well. M is loving his job and has somehow made me be okay with him reserving on a weekly basis. He does half shifts, usually averaging 5-8 hours per night. Although it isn't a full shift, he still does see some action. Occasionally. On very rare instances. Okay, really, the guy's a softy. If you get pulled over, you want him to do it. Me? I'd be handing out tickets left and right, mainly in revenge at having been given two that I don't feel I deserved. Again - Psh.

Work has been going well for both of us. These are difficult economic times and it looks like that finally hit our county. We're looking at either potential layoffs this summer or being forced to take a day or more of unpaid time off each month. I would love to have the time off, but each day is close to $100 out of my pocket. I can't afford that. On the other hand, I don't want anyone fired because I only really know four girls here now and two of them would get fired because of seniority. And yes, I use "fired" incorrectly. Laid-off. I'm too lazy to go back and correct it. Either way, people may be out of a job.

M and I seem pretty secure. M is a very valuable member of his team and they couldn't function with one less person. I am one of two people in my three person department. Yep, you read that correctly. We need three people to run and we have two. Have had only two for about a year now. We got a person and then he got a better paying job. Put his two weeks notice in after working 2 days. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!

That's probably part of the reason why work is just blech for me. I'm burnt out I think. Proactively burnt out. I know that I'm the only person that's doing what I do and I have been for the majority of my time with the county. It's really hard to do something when you know that because you just physically don't have the manpower, there's no way you can get caught up. Almost makes you just want to quit trying. Almost.

Which leads me to my last bit of info for the night. Yes, it's all about me because M isn't here to update for himself. Mwahahahahahaha....

Huh? Right - me. So I start my new Masters program on Tuesday. I'm going for an MBA with an emphasis in accounting. I think I'll be much happier with this program and the university. I'm going with University of Phoenix because it is all online. The classes are going to be hard and it's going to be long and painful (one class at a time, but for the next 2 years straight with no breaks), but hopefully if I do end up having to look for a job, the degree will help. I just couldn't stay with teaching anymore. Feel free to email me and I'll explain.

Aside from that, I've been trying to find my sanity in my reading. I used to love to read. I guess I always did. Problem was that in college, I just didn't have the time! When you have 5 classes that all want you to read a chapter in their book each night, it becomes impossible to eat or sleep much less anything else! January I made it my resolution to go back and do something that I love. This was it and I am bound and determined to keep it up. Nothing makes me happier than taking a few minutes to relax with a good book. I really needed it!

On the subject of books; I decided to do something productive with all the time I spend reading. I usually read on the way to and from work and then 2 hours in the evening after Lily goes to bed. M plays video games. It's amazing how much we don't watch TV anymore and frankly, I don't really miss it. So, with all this time I've been spending reading, I decided to start up a new blog and use it to string out my thoughts about the various stories I've discovered, dived into and loved (or not loved). You're more than welcome to take a look and frankly I encourage it!

A Journey of Books

I'm very proud of my little baby and update it regularly. Hush! Don't give me stuff about not updating this. It's much easier to give my thoughts on something I'm reading than give my thoughts on my daily life. Somehow the book is a more concrete thing to discuss. That's my reasoning anyway.

The blog is a special place for me. It has daily themes and is full of other fun stuff like contests and author interviews. In addition, I put my reviews of the books I've read up there. Right now I have about half of the books I've read in 2009 up. Each book now as I read it gets it's review posted that night but a lot of the books I read before the blog started still need their reviews typed up. I'll get to it. In the meantime I've having tons of fun. I've got a couple contests for books going on right now as well as an Author Interview of Michelle Pillow on Friday the 8th. In June I'll be participating in Host The Host blog tour as a means of promoting Stephenie Meyer's The Host. More information can be found HERE. I encourage you to check in June as I'll be giving away three copies to some lucky readers! Also, I have a contest going on for a copy of Charlaine Harris's newest Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead and Gone and a great Mother's Day Contest sponsored by The Hatchette Book Group. I'm having great fun with the blog. I've got tons of books to read, both books that I bought and books that publishers have sent me. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Okay, I think that's about it. I'm going to head to bed here since I've been typing this for a few hours now. I'm going to randomly stick some adorableness in here. Don't worry if the pictures make no sense. They are just cute for cute's sake.

Sorry to interrupt this broadcast...

2009-03-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, it's been a while! What can I say, life has been busy busy busy!

What's new in the land of the Browns? Not much really. Well, maybe...who knows! You see my problem in updating!

Since I last posted I have quit the program of study that I was in and have switched to a different university (online so it will work with my schedule but the classes will be much tougher) and an entirely new course of study. Instead of Bilingual Education, I am now going to pursue my Masters in Business Administration with an emphasis in Accounting. There were many things that went into this very difficult decision, not the least of which were the attitudes at the university I was previously attending. Aside from losing the ability to utilize Evening Care (it's really nice to have a date night out), I won't miss anything from them. Don't get me wrong, they ROCK as a university especially for my undergrad degree - but as a graduate school? Yeah, not so much. Especially the education program. My new program starts in May and it's going to be tough but I think I'm really going to like it and hopefully it should help ensure that I'm able to get a job should that ever become a concern of mine.

Moving on...

In work news, all is well for me I suppose. Work is work. I love doing the office work, love creating new materials and helping to keep our information updated and easily accessible. I don't so much like the inspections. It's more that it's just hard to find the motivation to leave my climate controlled office and go out into the freezing sleet and rain. Oh yes, it is STILL snowing. Geez!

Mike's work seems to be going well for him as well. He's bumped up in the reserves so that he is now able to go out on his own. This works much better for our schedules as he can make his nights as short or long as he needs and doesn't have to rely on anyone else as far as to when he can go out. He absolutely loves it. One part of me hopes that he keeps his job with his IT guys and the other hopes that he gets a police job. He'd be quite happy with either although anyone that knows him knows what an adrenaline junky he is. Hard to get so worked up over computers...except when he's breaking them!

Lily is doing well. She continues to grow everyday. I'm worried that she's going to be taller than me in another week or two. Perhaps I should start feeding her coffee and junk food. ;) Her hair is getting quite long and now touches her shoulder in the long spots. We still pull it up on top of her head. We use her rather tall sprout to test the weather for us now.

She is currently wearing 2T clothes. She probably fits best in 3T for her tops and 24months to 2T for her bottoms (pants especially with her long legs). Someone tell my baby to stop growing!

She now says mamma, dadda, icky, keeee (kitty), dah (down), hup (up), mmmmooooe (moo), moe (more), ahh doe (all done), no, nnnooo, nooooo, nnnnnno, yeah, yah, nanna (banana), e e e e e (1 2 3 4 5), et (x), eyoeyoeee (l m n o p), E I E I O, yum, mommy and anything else that we can convince her is worth saying. She also signs please, more and all done although the last two are signed less and less now that she says them.

New things we've done recently: Gone to visit Grandma in Alabama and had a BLAST playing on the beach while eating shells and sand and visited our aunty Kelly, uncle Josh and their kiddos. We had cake and ice cream at a birthday party (or two) while Mom sat back and cringed. We heat most of our foods although we aren't fond of most meats unless it is expensive steak. We LOVE our fruits, veggies, bread and mashed taters though so momma and dadda don't complain too much.

I think that's about it. I've been down in the slumps at times but I will try to knock myself out of it and update more often. I've been reading a lot lately and that really helps. I discovered an awesome site - http://www.goodreads.com/ that helps me keep track of the books I'm reading, I've read and ones that I want to read. I've found some pretty amazing books through there as well. :) You should be able to look me up if you feel like friending me. *Since when did "friend" turn verb?*

Okay that's it for now. A certain someone is updating our server (read: he bought a new one and is trying to figure out how to turn a toaster into a mercedes in terms of what he wants it to do) so it might take a while until the gallery is uploaded. I'll let everyone know when it is though.

As always, sorry if I missed an important event, person, place or thing. :D

It's Christmas

2008-12-25T07:15:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas morning and as my gift to you, I am going to actually post! I know, right?! What could be better!

This won't be that long of a post but I figured there are at least a few things I could update you on, the first being that we made it to my in-laws'! Some of you might be thinking - ahhhh, the in-laws, it's always difficult to make it there, sometimes even impossible (nudge nudge wink wink). Naah, I like mine! When I say we made it here, I mean we survived the snow and managed to race ahead of the snow storm. Phew! It got a little dicey there though. I had to leave work early to go get my Lily bug and the dog. As many of you know, we now have a Trailblazer, which is a big step up from our 98 Saturn and 91 Escort. It has four wheel drive. Well, apparently that doesn't mean much when you haven't shoveled your driveway and there is 2.5 feet of snow built up with more coming. The Blazer only wanted to drive sideways into the driveway so I parked it (sideways) and me and my happy self plodded through the knee deep snow to the front door. See, our carport provides awesome shelter from the snow so we never have to worry about getting through the snow to get to the car. Plus - all the roads had been and were being plowed so we didn't have to worry about that either. It just didn't occur to me apparently, that we were going to have to be doing our own snow removal and that we would actually need to have a semi plowed driveway to come and go. Needless to say, when we get home we will be buying a shovel and shoveling our driveway. We will also be shoveling out our two other cars (which are currently non functional anyway) because they have been plowed in. So back to the story of getting over here! I did manage to get what I needed from home and kicked on the four wheel drive (high) to get out of the driveway. Picked up M and away we went! It was snowing when we left and at one point the roads were covered but eventually, once we crossed over the river (and through the woods) the snow stopped and it was bare roads, even through the pass, until we got here. Christmas Joy!

So that's our journey over. It's really not that fascinating. Lily did a great job of sleeping for the majority of the time. Normally we stop for fastfood on the way over but I always feel blech after eating it so this time I packed bread, peanut butter and strawberry jelly. I made a sandwhich on the road for all of us and Lily added some Cheese Nips and milk to the mix. Let me just say that I will DEFINITELY be doing that again! It was so nice to not have a bunch of fried food and the sandwhiches were so convenient! We didn't end up eating more than one a piece, but if anyone had gotten hungry throughout the rest of the trip I could have easily sat there and made another sandwhich for someone! Plus, we didn't really need to refrigerate anything like we normally would if we had brought stuff for meat sandwhiches. Great idea. I'm so proud of myself! Lily was too I think. She munched her sammy and then proceeded to pass out while I watched Ocean's 12 on the portable DVD player. Mike did a great manly job of chauferring me around...I mean, driving his family. Yeah whatever, I mean chauferring.

That gets us to Tuesday night (we pulled in around 11pm ish). Wednesday day was spent playing with Lily, playing Guitar Hero when she slept and doing some last minute Christmas shopping. We had to pick up a few things for the in-laws (thanks for not telling us what you want!) ;D and we had to pick up a few things for the Christmas Eve party that night. I thought we would only be gone an hour or so, but true to form (at least to my form), four plus hours we finally got home with gifts in tow. We laid Lily down for a short nap, I baked 6 dozen cookies (premade and formed sugar and chocolate chip from Pillsbury), we woke Lily up, got her dressed in her Christmas dress and off to the party we went!

The Christmas Eve party is fairly new for us. It is our second time going and man it is such a blast! I come from a very small family so huge catherings of sometimes 50 people is just so fascinating to me! The dynamics between all the family members is great to watch. The party is hosted by M's uncle's significant other and is a family tradition for her. They rent out the local grange for the evening, make stockings and gifts for the kids, play bingo for presents and eat a ton of great potluck food. SO MUCH FUN!!!

Aside from me having a ton of fun, I'm pretty sure Lily did too. She got to meet a lot of new people and had a huge floor to run around in. There was even another girl there about her age and Lily spent a lot of time following her around. We did have to do a lot of supervising, however, because Lily apparently has no issues with just poking eyes or mouths or noses if she's curious about them. :) She also got a little bossy at times and belly bumped the girl if she wanted her to go somewhere else. Hilarious. :D There were a couple touching moments where she wanted to hug the little girl and kept holding her arms out to her. We would see that and pick Lily up for a hug, but the girl had no clue what Lily wanted so didn't hug her. Lily didn't quite grasp that she could just wrap her arms around the other girl and hold on to her for a hug. Perhaps it's better that way. I'm not quite sure I'm ready to have a belly bumping pro wrestler baby just yet!

Aside from the cheeky shannanigans, Santa and Mrs. Claus came out to do presents which I thought Lily would enjoy. I think she was remembering the Santa at the mall that Momma made her sit with so she didn't quite get as close to Santa as I had thought. She did, however, go up to him and receive her present along with Dadda's help. There were some older girls that wouldn't come close (little did they realize what a close familial relationship they have to Santa) so I was proud that Lily at least walked up to him. Lily's stocking and gift were fantastic and I know she'll have fun continuing to dig into it today.

The rest of the evening went pretty smoothely. We did some more running around and spinning around. Lily loves it when you pick her up by her chest, hold her out in front of you and spin around so that her legs fly out behind her (sort of like Superman). We did that so many times that I'm getting dizzy justing thinking about it! After much spinning, running and chasing we finally sat down and played some Bingo. We all left with some great gifts and I am very happy to say that one of Lily's cousins (through M) left with one of the gifts we brought - a Sea Monkey set. Sea Monkies! Gotta love them!

We got home about 2.5 hours after Lily's bedtime. Needless to say, she laid down quite easily (which is actually pretty normal for her) and we wrapped a few more presents and stuck all of them under the tree before turning in ourselves. Sometime around 1 am I fell asleep and sometime around 5 I woke up. I can never sleep on Christmas Eve/Christmas morning so I finally gave in and just got up. Here is where you now find me - sitting on the couch, typing away with a slight headache, a very tired brain and a surprisingly large hunger pain in my stomach. Perhaps I shall finish up here and go scrounge some food up for myself.

Oh, and before I forget - congratulations to B, K and their son, M. They recently welcomed their newest little boy B! Also, congratulations to all the mommy's and daddy's (K & A and K & J!) who are celebrating their first Christmases with their little ones!

Merry Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like ...

2008-12-20T20:45:00.000-08:00

Oh, it's been ages...again...since I've posted. Let's cut out all of the excuses and get down to the good stuff.

Thanksgiving was fun. My little Turkey enjoyed her Turkey although she did sleep a tremendous amount at Grandma and Grandpa B's house.

The day after Thanksgiving we went Black Friday shopping (we being Grandma B and myself). I got some GREAT deals and even got some presents for M to wrap for me! :D Yes! The majority of our Christmas deals were, however, found on Amazon.com of all places. We started taking advantage of their great deals on the day after Thanksgiving and since then bought pretty much all of our Christmas presents from them. It is SO nice to get packages in the mail too! It's like Christmas, but twice!

Soon after coming back from Thanksgiving we decided to get off our rears and put up the Christmas tree. It was interesting because I was sick, Lily was sick and I'm pretty sure we had jut gotten our friends the W's sick while they were visiting. Below is the progression of the tree!

Of course Lily helped - she had lots of fun taking the branches and carrying them off to different parts of the house. She also had lots of fun watching slyly as we went back through the branches, wondering if we put the wrong sizes in the wrong sections because we just kept coming up short with the number of branches we should have for the current section. :D You can see in the finished picture that some of the ornaments look a little out of whack. We have had to move some away from curious fingers and when curious fingers are flying all over the tree, one tends to throw ornaments wherever they will stick. :D

With Christmas comes presents and who brings the presents? Why, Santa of course! To commemorate this momentous occasion, we had to take Lily to go meet the big man in red! Well, we thought she was meeting the big man in red - she thought she was meeting a serial killer! We managed to get a few...interesting shots.

What else, what else! Aside from working, working, working, I have also been coughing, coughing, coughing! I've been going on almost four weeks of coughing now. I've been through antibiotics and while they helped tremendously I still get occasional coughing fits (usually when I laugh) and then I can't breathe. Not so much fun. M has been doing well. He is currently being oblivious to the world, sucked into the video game he is playing. That's the nice thing about having a wonderful daughter that goes to bed at the same time without a fight every single night. We actually get evenings back! :D

Speaking of my wonderful little Lily bug, I think she's going to be something quite special when she grows up. Some days she likes to be a dentist and inspect each of my teeth for me, other days she is an artist and paints the most wonderful masterpiece on her face using tomato sauce, sometimes she is an animal imitator (usually cockatiels) and yet other days she is a mad scientist. We have the blackmail - I mean pictures - to prove it!

What else is in the news? We got a ton of snow this week. When I say a ton, I mean - holy moley! We had about a foot, where we work had about 18 inches and 30 minutes north of that had 24 inches with more snow the more northern you go. In my department, everyone not living in town was told that we didn't have to come in, but that we still had to take vacation for it. M had to go in anyway so I went. It was a nice, quiet day! This snow has meant two things - the first being that I am SO GRATEFUL that we now have a vehicle with four wheel drive. The second being that it means we can go sledding! We have not gone sledding the entire time we have lived here, but I figured we might as well go now so as to get Lily in the habit of totally loving it! We went today with some friends to a local playground with one killer hill. Lily had fun being drug around in the sled, M had fun going down the hill over and over and I had fun going down the hill once while praying that I would flip over and go rolling down the hill while my shirt flew up or my pants fell down. Luckily, neither of those happened! We did sled for about an hour, went inside to warm up for a bit and then decided to come home and watch The Truman Show with friends. Good fun times!

At one point Lily fell down and, like a turtle, got stuck and couldn't get up.

A Holiday Poll!

2008-12-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

Is/was Green Bean Casserole a staple in your holiday meals? ( polls)

Lily, Jobs, Car and Fun!

2008-11-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

Last published on September 23rd? Oh dear, that just won't do! No wonder we're losing readers and have family calling wondering if we're still alive!

My goodness, what on earth has happened since September 23rd? Last I left you I was dying of the plague. You know, now that I'm looking back, trying to figure out what I did in September, I'm pretty sure I updated for the beginning of October. I wonder what ever happened to that post. Oh well!

The last week in September was pretty much business as normal. More work and more cruising baby. We went to an awesome teppenyaki restaurant for my birthday along with two of Mike's coworkers and their wives and one of my coworkers and her husband. It was fabulous! For those of you that have not expereince teppenyaki, you need to! It's one of the restaurants where everyone in the party sits around the grill (built into the table) and the food is cooked in front of you. There's a lot of utensil flipping, flying food and fire. Totally good fun!

Speaking of that - can you imagine - I'm 25? I know I'm not, but man I feel old saying that! A whole quarter of a century...*cry*. It's just downhill from here as everyone keeps telling me.

Let's see, what else was interesting in October. During the first weekend of October we had the Hullabaloo in the town that I work in. I was asked to be a judge for the Karaoke contest and that was tons of fun! Those singers were fantastic! Lily didn't last the entire time so it was a good thing that the contest was held just a few blocks from work. M took her back to the office and let her snooze for a while in the stroller while I finished up. I brought back lunch, we ate, she woke up and we ran off to a birthday party. Lily did okay. She was angry that mom wouldn't let her have more than a bite of chocolate cake and it was cold out. We stayed until presents were opened and then high tailed it out of there so that she could go home and sleep. Speaking of sleep - that girl went to bed at like 5:30 and didn't get up until the next morning! Poor sleepy little bug.

I believe around that time Lily was also cutting her back molars and still cruising around the furniture. Now, however, she has a full mouth of teeth. I can still see some bare gum in there, but not very much. Sounds like it might be time for the dentist! When are we supposed to go see the dentist anyway? The other new part of Lily's life is that she is walking now! One day we noticed that she stood up and took a step toward the couch, which she usually cruises on. We were shocked and wanted to see if she could do it again so we played the "walk to Mamma," "walk to Dadda" game. Lo and behold she would take steps (2-3) between us. Later we found out that she'd been walking between the furniture at daycare for a couple of days, but since we didn't know we still felt like we got to see it for the first time!

Okay, what else happened in October? M had a department change in his office. Instead of IT and Financial continuing as one department, the split into two. This meant that M got bumped up in classification to an IT Specialist instead of an IT Tech. He'd been doing that work for a while (increased responsibility and accountability) so it was nice to see him actually get credit for the work. The additional $600 a month (before taxes) doesn't hurt either. In addition, he's doing some contract IT work, so that extra money helps as well. A few weeks later, my probation at work ended and I too got bumped up and reclassified as an EH Specialist instead of an EH Technician. My pay raise is only about $140 extra a month before taxes, but still, that's more than we had!

Along with the promotions and pay raises came the death of my Saturn. I know, it sounds like an odd mix - happy things and sad things in the same sentence, but trust me, it works. Nothing really changed about the Saturn; it was still leaking oil, refusing to shift out of park and had a cracked windshield. What did change was the fact that our increased take home pay meant that we could now afford to not have to sit in a car for 30 minutes praying and hoping that it would eventually shift out of park and allow us to drive away. One day, we took half of the day off, drove up to Spokane, took a look around and ended up coming home with a 2007 Trailblazer, power locks, windows, AC, four wheel drive and sunroof with what we think is a pretty good deal. The best part is that now we can fit both our dog and child in the car at the same time. Tweak likes this and is having fun getting to run around at the dog park now that we can take him.

Other news in our lives? We've been down to Idaho to visit our dear friends that abandoned us. Their new house is gorgeous! They have had quite a number of setbacks recently so we send lots of hope their way and wishes that it gets better soon. Just this past weekend they actually came up to visit us in our new duplex. It was fantastic getting to see them and I think they should come back. Now. J, the husband in this dynamic duo, actually has a little sister that is starting her first year in college nearby. I keep thinking that we really should have her over more often. Hmmmm, perhaps a Christmas Cookie Decorating Party would be the perfect reason!

Speaking of Christmas - I'm so excited! I hope to have a new, larger dining room table by then. I really want to get one on Black Friday, but I'm unsure if we can afford it right now. We really should save our money for Christmas. Sigh. We shall see.

Oh - Halloween. It was great fun! Mike wore a sign that said Nudist On Strike while wearing his street clothes, I had a foam #1 finger and a shirt that said - Go Ceilings! (think about it - answer at the end) and Lily was a bumble bee. We went to the local haunted houses before Halloween and went up to a coworkers house and neighborhood for trick or treating. Lily had a fantastic time! Our coworker, E, was so generous in allowing us to come spend time with her and her family. Their neighborhood was gorgeous as well. I love any sort of holiday decoration and those houses were decked out! Since Lily had just started walking, that's all she wanted to do. She cried anytime we picked her up, even if it was to go up stairs that were taller than she was. The only down side to the night was that M got a pretty significant gash on his head from the overhang on someone's roof. Guess he shouldn't be so tall!

Okay, I've been writing so much lately that my brain is just fried. I'm pretty sure that this blog is going to be rambly and full of poor grammar. Oh well.

Hey, if anyone is looking for something to get me for Christmas or wants to keep their eyes out for a good deal so I can get it myself, I am really wanting to get an embroidery sewing machine. Let me know if you see a great deal! In addition, I'm looking for good deals on picture frames (black, silver or dark cherry) for the wall and shelves to put on the wall. I also need a media organizing bookshelf thing for my collection of DVD. Preferably something that Lily can't pull over or that I can bolt to the wall. She wants any sort of sorting toy so let me know if there are any great deals on those. We also hope to get her a set of those magnetic refrigerator letters. I used to love those! M, well, you know him. He always wants techie stuff!

Okay, that's it for me. I'm sure there are things that I meant to mention and forgot about, but, that's how it goes.

Before you sign off your computer for the day, be sure to check out the website of one my favorite authors - Bess McBride. She has some fabulous stories out right now and although she's new, I'm hooked and I know many others are as well. bessmcbride.com. In addition, some of her books can be found on Amazon.com. Seriously, talk about hard to put down. Her books are impossible to put down!

Oh, one more thing I forgot to include. Lily is sick. Took her to the doctor and found that she has a really red throat with some other words that I didn't understand and the doctor didn't want to explain. She's on antibiotics now and actually slept through the night last night again for the first time in a few days. Hopefully she's on the mend in time for Turkey Day!

An update for most of September

2008-09-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

Alright, it has technically been "forever" since I posted. F.O.R.E.V.E.R. I have my reasons though!

This month has not been a good one (in general). The beginning of September found us greeted with some pretty horrifying news. We found that our dearest friends lost one of their baby boys to SIDS. Neither Mike and I knew how to function with this news and to date we still haven't really talked much about it to each other. I still can't admit to myself that it actually happened because it just hurts too much.

Shortly after getting that news we were in full swing for the fair. That meant lots of distraction thankfully. Lots of time helping to set up the department booth, processing temporary event applications and inspection vendors. After work Thursday night I gathered up my family and dragged them down to the fair. We got to see all the barnyard animals. One of the women from work even pulled out a baby bunny for Lily to pet. She had TONS of fun. Due to a change in our weekend plans, we weren't able to have a birthday party for her on her birthday (nor were we really in the mood for it) so it was fun to at least do a little something for her for her birthday.

The next day I spent the majority of the day manning the department booth. Later that evening the family met me as I was getting off my shift and we attempted to watch the rodeo but the sore throat that I had woken up with that morning had, over the course of an eight hour day, turned into a full blown cold. I was so miserable that I told the hubby that we needed to leave. We were meeting our friend's brother so that he could follow us most of the way toward the funeral location so, while we waited, I slept in hubby's office. We did end up getting there around 6 am and got up at 8 am.

The funeral (9/6) was...beautiful but horrible. That's not something that anyone should ever have to plan or witness. I was glad to be there for our friend's though. My only wish was that we could have taken the next couple months off of work and just stayed down there.

After we returned I went back to work. Oh wait, no I didn't! Remember that cold I had? Yeah, well, it got a lot worse. I ended up taking Monday and Tuesday off work and returned Wednesday through Friday. Thursday I was all better and felt fantastic but on Friday I started to cough. Ohhhhh the cough. The cough lasted all Friday and all Saturday. Saturday was, fortunately and unfortunately Lily's first birthday party. Gramma came down for the party and oh goodness was it fun. We had a decent turn out and good food. Lily got a lot of lovely gifts, all of which she needed and loves! After presents we had cake. All the non-babies had chocolate cake and all the babies...okay, just Lily, had angel food cake topped with lite cool whip and bananas. I think she liked it. She did eat a few chunks of it, but in order to even get her to touch it I had to take her hand and just smoosh it in the cake. She must have got some of the sugar because she got super excited and then just crashed. By crashed, I mean she went to sleep at 5 that evening and got up at 8 the next morning. Not a peep from her. It was crazy!

After the birthday party we had a PartyLite party with Gramma's friend that was nice enough to come down and do one for us. Overall the party turned out very well! I was quite pleased. Our friends from Richland also showed up and stayed nice and late for us. That was fun.

So, the rest of the weekend was spent coughing. Sunday my mom came to visit before heading back out on the road. She'll be on the east coast for a few years this time so that is a little difficult. I'm guessing that I'll probably have a sibling for Lily before she's back on this side of the country (if ever). She likes it though so I try to not give her too hard of a time.

She left Monday morning and I spent the rest of the day playing with Lily at home. I had originally taken the time off because of my mom but now spent the rest of the time at home because I was sick...still. The coughing never ends! Tuesday I called in sick because I just could not stop coughing. This time, however, I spent the day dying on couch babyless. Lily started a new daycare on Tuesday. Her previous daycare is taking classes and finally got to a point where her classes were not affording her enough time to watch Lily anymore. She will be DEARLY missed. I was super comfortable leaving Lily there. Lily's new daycare seems nice so far, but I'm always super nervous about looking for daycare so we'll see how it turns out.

Wednesday saw me back at work despite all the arguments that I shouldn't be there. By Thursday, rumors were going around (I was still coughing because of the drippage into my lungs) that I had bronchitis. If you didn't know, bronchitis just means that your lungs create extra phlegm. This needs to come out so the result is increased coughing. It's not like you have a separate disease and are going to give people "bronchitis." It's usually the result of a long cold and 90% of the time is viral which means that antibiotics don't work. Barring any previous breathing problems, all that is required for treatment is rest, fluids and possibly some Mucinex to help things move along. I discovered this from the doctor that I had to go see to prove that I COULD be at work. Even though she said I was not infectious and that even if I did have bronchitis she would still tell me to go to work, Friday found me still fighting to stay there. Seriously, what's the deal.

This weekend was pretty nice. I had one inspection on Saturday and then we spent the rest of the weekend lounging around the house. Oh it was glorious. Would have been even better if my poor baby girl hadn't been so cranky. The entire weekend was a cycle of a few minutes of happiness followed by hours of crying and hours of sleeping. We think she's getting her back teeth in because they are super swollen and she is obviously in a lot of pain.

Monday was business as usual at work as was today (plus a bit of drama).

And that, my dears, is the general idea of my month so far. I am still coughing and my nose is still running but I believe that it is now due to the poor air quality. Thanks for burning your fields stupid grass growers.

Oh, one last thing. My classes are STINKING hard core. Lord these suckers are hard!

Happy Birthday to My Baby

2008-09-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

One year ago right now I was probably sitting on that stupid birthing ball glaring at Mike and threatening to throw my pitocin machine at him. Yep, that's right, my little bug turned 1 today!

It hardly seems possible that she was once so tiny as her pictures prove she was. She's such a big girl now. For about the last 3 weeks Lily has consistently been sleeping through the night. She'll wake up and give a short cry sometimes in the middle of the night, but she always goes right back to sleep. I think having a routine with her has definitely helped. Dinner, play times, jammies, play time, rocking and pass out.

When Lily isn't sleeping she is one energetic little girl! Holy cow! I don't think I've ever met a baby that has as much get up and go as she does. She's cruising around on anything she can pull up on now. She'll stand on her own on occasion, but usually something catches her eye and she'll either cruise over to get it or she'll plop on her rear (she loves to do this) and will speed racer crawl over to whatever she wants. Speak of crawling, my baby girl crawls on her hands and knees! She's been doing it for a while - ever since she learned that she can go much faster on her hands and knees than on her belly like a zombie.

I'm in a bit of a hurry so I can't spend too much time updating right now. I'm also getting a cold (congestion and sore throat) so I don't feel much like updating. In a short summary, life is decent, my graduate classes are kicking my tail feathers, my baby isn't a baby anymore and her Birthday Part will be on September 13th if anyone is interested.

Also, on a less than happy note, please keep our friends K and J and their family in your thoughts. They lost one of their 5 month old twins Monday morning. We will be heading over tonight for the funeral tomorrow.

Away From My Bug

2008-08-14T07:12:00.001-07:00

Image via Wikipedia With the way this blog has been going, it makes perfect sense to whine and complain about something on the last day that it will be an issue. I could have whined about it before hand or from the get go, but I wouldn't want to disappoint my millions of readers. *snicker*

Down to the good stuff.

A while ago, I'd say a little over a month ago, I was given the opportunity to register for the FDA Pacific Region Retail Food Safety Seminar. Of course I jumped at the chance, having had such a wonderful time at the last Farm to Table conference I went to. My request was approved, travel arrangements and hotel stay made and I was on my way! It wasn't until a few days before the conference that I realized the gravity of the situation I had put myself in.

Lily isn't so much a Momma's girl, but Momma is definitely a Lily's girl. We only nurse a few times a day now and I don't always have to nurse her to sleep. Just as often as I do nurse her to sleep, Dadda rocks her to sleep. He's been a dear and since we started crib training has been getting up to stick her pacifier back in in the middle of the night. Sometimes around 2 am she will just not have it anymore and needs Momma to come and nurse her back to sleep. It's really the only time that I can appease her and Dadda can't. Doesn't happen all the time, but often enough for me to say, well crap, what was I thinking? You see, I've never spent a night away from my baby and now all of a sudden I will be spending 4 nights away from her!

After much pondering of where my brain went coupled with much worry and trying to figure out who would come with me to watch Lily in the hotel while I was in the conference, I finally decided that I had to just go for it. I really didn't want to but was extremely excited for the conference so I was hoping that the excitement would help me with the pain of leaving her. It helped that I was able to shave a night off my absence so that I was only leaving her for three nights. Eventually, it sank in that it would be harder on me than on my little bug. At least at home she would be able to stay in her normal routine, play at daycare and play with Dadda.

I dropped my bug off at daycare by myself the morning that I left and gave her much loves and kisses. It was hard not to cry as I left, but I didn't want to worry my little girl so I toughed up. Dadda was a great help because anytime in the evening that I wanted to visit my baby girl, we hooked up the video chat from our computers and I got to see her. We played, sang, clapped together and even ate together. I ate a bagel, she had cheerios and kept staring at the magic silver box, wondering why her momma was talking to her from there instead of at the table. Okay, well I guess I don't really know what she was wondering, but her look made it seem like she was wondering at my sanity.

She seems to be doing fine without me there. She has slept through the night the first two nights (I haven't spoken to them yet today so I'm unsure about last night) and has been eating well. I only have half a day here today and then will be heading home. I am SO excited to see my baby tonight.

In conference news, it has been a blast. The first evening I was here I went cruising around Seattle looking for food. I really only went 3 blocks away but it seemed so far because I was so terrified. I was scared of the people, scared that I would be pick pocketed or mugged even though I was out in full daylight along with many other travelers. I was scared that I would get lost as well. I never considered myself a country girl, but I'm starting to think that I now am. I can't see the sky here for the tall skyscrapers and it is very disconcerting. Since I can't see the sky, I have no sense of direction and have no idea where I am going. I refused to carry a map around because I felt it would make me more vulnerable. Eventually in my wanderings I came across the Westlake Center Mall and grabbed some Chinese at the food court.

Tuesday lunch went better. I tagged along with one person that I sort of know and more people that she knows. We went to the Tap House, which wasn't even a block away. The only picture frmo the trip I have is from here and when I get home I will post it. There has to be like 60 beers on tap right behind the bar. It was awesome! The food was decently priced and quite tasty.

That night I yet again had nobody to go eat with so I came back to my room, ate the rest of my bagel while video chatting with my baby and then went to see The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2. It was a very cute story although I felt kind of lame for going to a movie by myself. I never had before but I think I could do it again if I needed to.

Wednesday afternoon I tagged along with a group of State food safety people (talk about intimidating) and again had food court food. That is just about enough food court food for a while. Bleh. For Dinner I drove out to Renton and had dinner at Yankie's with my Mother-In-Law and then joined her at the movie theater to see WALL-E. Oh my lord that was stinking cute! Definitely a must have!

*I just about cried. My browser crashed in the middle of this blog and I thought I had lost the whole thing. Thank goodness for blogger and autosave!*

So that's what I've been doing with all of my free time. I could have visited Pike Place Market or the Space Needle, but without anyone to spend my time with I was afraid of coming back alone after dark. I think I had fun with my time though, so I won't worry too much.

Okay, I really need to start packing up and heading down to the rest of the conference. I'll update on the actual conference as soon as I can.

Moving, Cruising, Shampoo and Bats

2008-08-07T09:09:00.000-07:00

Since our last post things have been awfully hectic and more than a little crazy. Just recently (as in Friday the 1st) we moved yet again. The move was a little better this time because I was not pregnant, however, it was more interesting because although I could physically do more, I also had to worry about running after a rambunxious baby. Luckily we had some friends help on Saturday and family help on Sunday. Help included both manual labor and baby entertaining. Although the weekend was long and full of lots of time in the sun and in the backpack, I think a certain little girl still had a bit of fun. She looked like she enjoyed getting out and about and helping Grandma carry boxes to the u-haul.

Moving was not so great on hubby and I however. I sustained a badly bruised calf, a cut knee, a gouged knuckle and a smooshed and scraped finger. Hubby didn't hurt himself as much as I did but I think he came out with more longterm soreness than I did. My neck got tweaked and is still quite painful but his back, knees and arms have been killing him since the move. Doesn't really help that since we are now in a two story duplex we have to carry boxes upstairs to put them away. Oh well.

What else, ahhhh cruising. My little bug is such a big girl! She's just a cruising fool! She loves to see where she can go and what she can get into. You can imagine how awesome this is especially since we have boxes with who knows what stacked up to the ceiling.

You know what bugs me? When people pay crappy places to shampoo the carpets for the next tenants moving in and the landlord doesn't even check to see that the crappy place did a crappy job. Our carpets still smell like shampoo and have a moist, sticky feeling to them. Hubby's answer to is go back over the carpets and steam clean them. Who has the time for that?

In other news, our new rental place (Helene's Property Place) will not fix the screens that are missing and broken in our place because "if they did anything with screens they would be fixing them every year because the screens always get broken." No, really? When you have 100+ rentals, you are going to have to replace at least some screens each year! The other problems with the new place include a shelf in the fridge being cracked across and duct taped back together - yeah, bacteria city. The upstairs medicine cabinet is COVERED in rust and some of the outlets have no face plates meaning dear old Lily can just stick her hand right in there. How fantastic! The woman said they would look at fixing those things but never did a work order so I think another trip to the office is in order.

Our old rental place is a freaking joke. Campus Commons residents or residents-to-be beware! We paid a damage deposit of $500 and a pet deposit of $500. $250 of the pet deposit is nonrefundable as a "pet privilege fee." $250 from the damage deposit is also nonrefundable. We thought it was to clean the carpets, but we were WRONG! The $250 nonrefundable portion is an administrative fee that "goes to the district office so they can make a profit." Excuse me? You don't make enough of a profit off of the 4 bedroom apartments that go for $1100 per month? What a load. In addition, regardless of the fact that we spent 11.5 hours cleaning, they are still going to charge us $15 for a wipe down and $125 to clean the carpets. Even if we had the carpets cleaned they would still clean them. Sooooo stupid.

I think that's about it for now. I know there are no pictures on here. I don't have internet at home yet because we just moved. As soon as I can, however, I'll put up a little photo journal of the last few days.

Hasta!

Standing Up and Falling Down

2008-07-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

You know, I really should update more regularly. At work, every Monday we are supposed to complete our time cards and turn them in. Should be fairly easy because my department is supposed to record what we do daily in these little diaries. Yeah, well, I've been forgetting to do it until the following Monday when I'm doing my time card which means that I don't have that to do my time card from. That poses a bit of a problem and I usually end up sitting there for about an hour trying to figure out what in the world I did the previous week. I check my calendar, my email inbox and my sent messages trying to remember what I did for 40 hours. Just like my time card, by the time I get around to updating here, I no longer remember what has happened! I view my recent pictures in an attempt to job my memory and sometimes it helps.

So, what exactly has been going on since last we spoke. In Lilyland, she is one mobile little bug! Two Thursdays ago she learned how to pull up. As in, I saw her do it once before and then all of a sudden she was pulling up CONSTANTLY. I believe it is due to the fact that she was at a different daycare at that time. Her normal daycare was on vacation so Lily went to another daycare. This daycare had a younger child and a baby that is only a few days older than Lily. Something must have happened because she came home that first day and just pulled up on everything. With pulling up comes falling down so we've had to reorganize a little bit. This basically means moving the coffee table. We're moving in a week here so when we move I'll really reorganize to make things much safer for her.

First came the pulling up, then came the falling down and then came the falling down on purpose. This weekend, Lily decided that she was going to pull up on something and then let go, balance for as long as she could and fall with a pretty loud thud on her diapered rear. It looks like it must hurt, but she does it over and over and over again. She thinks it is the funniest thing ever. I'll try to catch it on camera here soon and post it.

What else...ahhh, her backup daycare got sick while Lily was with her so Lily went to the backup's sister-in-law (whose baby is Lily's age). Lily had lots of fun there. She learned how to get up and crawl on her knees (though this only lasts for a few steps and then she realizes that her tummy requires less work for her) and attempted to teach the other baby how to clap his hands. Apparently she would take his hands and try to make him clap. Needless to say, he didn't like that so much.

Lily might have another ear infection. She had a 102.7 fever when last I wrote. The fever went away Friday and then came back Saturday. She was also super cranky and didn't want to eat or sleep. We took her to the pediatrician who, after spending a while cleaning out her right ear, saw that her ear drum was moving okay but still suspects an infection. I'm not convinced but I guess he has his reasons. Either way, she's on antibiotics. I'm not thrilled about giving them to her when I'm not convinced she needs them but I'd hate not to and then for it to get worse.

So that's Lilyland. In other news, a couple weekends ago Grandma came to visit. We had fun. Had breakfast and dinner together, went to see Mamma Mia (Lily stayed home with a sleepy Dadda) and just generally had a good time. Hopefully they'll come back soon. *nudge nudge wink wink*

This past weekend we went to see our other Grandma and Grandpa. We went early and had a nice little vacation. Friday we took Lily to the zoo for the first time. We went to the Pt. Defiance Zoo and frankly I was a little disappointed. For being comparatively priced to the Woodland Park Zoo I thought that Pt. Defiance was not nearly as nice. The next time we go we'll definitely be going to the Woodland Park Zoo. Anyway, Lily didn't really care much about the animals. She liked the walruses because their huge bodies came right up to the window multiple times, but aside from that she could care less. Mamma and Dadda had fun though.

Sunday brought about more fun times. Hubby's cousin got married to her wonderful man in a gorgeous wedding. She was absolutely beautiful and looked like a Barbie doll. As soon as I get permission I'll post a picture or too.

I don't think anything else is really going on. Work is busy. Inspections, writing the newsletter, preparing for the fair and the car crushing event. Should be fun stuff.

Okay, I think I'll pop on some pictures and call it good. Hubby is working late tonight so I'm own my own which means that le babe is currently wreaking havoc on my living room.

Oh yeah, last thing. HELENE'S PROPERTY PLACE SUCKS! The current lease where we will be going is up on the 31st, however we cannot get in until the 4th. This is on a Monday meaning that we have nobody to help us move. No.bo.dy. Yeah, can't really watch a baby and help Mike load a uhaul with a couch and other large furniture. Ergh. Anyway, I called them today to see about getting in just 12 hours early - Sunday evening. I was told that they can't show tenant preference and they need 4 days to clean and do the carpets in all the units and thanks, bye, click. The woman HUNG UP ON ME! There are not many things that peeve me off, but a business hanging up on me is definitely one of them. Stupid B-word.

Teeth, Swimming, Sunburns and More!

2008-07-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

Wow has it been a while! I'm not sure that I can even remember everything that has happened since the 26th (our 4th anniversary by the way). I do know one thing that hasn't happened, however. We have not yet sent in our package to get our voucher for our new crib. Don't get me wrong, we want to participate in the recall, but with moving in two weeks and everything else going on we just haven't got there yet.

What else, what else. Right after my last post (well, that Saturday morning anyway) we left to go visit some friends that had moved away and abandoned us. It was their daughter's birthday party and seeing as how we hadn't missed one in years, we saw no reason why we should start. It was a wonderful surprise to my dear friend and her daughter - who also happened to be the only two people that didn't know we were coming. We had a wonderful weekend catching up and visiting.

A little later, Grandma and Grandpa came up for the Fourth of July for a visit. That was really nice. We hung out at the park, watched Lily eat some watermelon and marveled at the fact that she slept through the very loud band and fell asleep near the end of the fireworks. No joke, we were like RIGHT THERE in respect to the fireworks and the poor bug fell asleep. Silly girl.

That weekend was also a certain husband's birthday. While we hung out on Saturday watching movies I attempted to make a cake. Usually easy enough - rainbow chip cake with funfetti frosting. I decided to get fancy and attempted to make a raspberry preserve and jello filling for the two round layers. It was very messy and wasn't as easy as it should have been but the end product was still pretty and very very tasty. It was nice having family here because we did candles and had a little party. Yay parties!

During this whole time Lily had been cutting two top teeth. Her left front tooth and the little canine right to the left of it. Not too much after however, she cut her other front tooth and is now currently working on the right canine. She's such a toothy little girl! Be careful though, she loves to munch and anything that gets in that mouth is just something for her to gnaw on. Small teeth are sharp too!

As far as life around here, things have been...okay. It's kind of nice having a home routine where most nights we come home, play, make and eat dinner, play, change into jammies, play, nurse or rock to sleep and then sleep in our crib. Before, when that one set of friends was still here (and I wish they still were) we were over there ALL the time. Now that they aren't here, we've been forced to stay home more often. I think it's actually helped our little family. Lily is crib training much easier and the routine means that I actually get some time in the evenings to do things that I need to get done. Crib training itself is going okay. She's usually up 3 times during the night. Usually hubby gets up, shoves the binky back in and the bug goes to sleep. Sometimes, however, she needs me to get up (usually around 2 am) and nurse her back to sleep. I haven't had to do that in the last couple days though. It's crazy actually getting to stay in bed all night. I love it.

Before I get too far ahead of myself into present day, I have one more past thing to talk about. This past weekend we again went to visit our friends and accompanied them to the water park. It worked out fairly well because we were able to stagger it to where someone was always watching the kids while others got to ride the water slides. Admittedly some (*cough cough*) got to ride more than others and some hardly got to ride at all, but all in all it was fun. Playing with Lily in the water was fun too. She had an adorable fishy swimsuit and we got her a little green rain forest floaty. You can see from the pictures that she really liked it. We floated with her in the lazy river and then found another small pool with a waterfall and a fountain in the middle that we floated around for a while. I think she really had fun as did I. The only downer was that hubby and I tried an aerosol based sunscreen on ourselves - spf 50 - while she kept her regular waterbabies sunscreen. She didn't color, which is good, and we completely fried. Like, I'm still in pain as I type this.

So that's family life. Work life has been okay. A fair amount of drama and other inevitable things, but like I say, they are inevitable. Inspections have sort of lost their magic for me as I get more and more people that are upset and fairly rude to me. I'm also starting to learn just how the farmers around here view regulatory officials - even some from my own department - so that is hard. It really is not something that motivates you. *shrug*

In other workish news, I start my Masters of Education in English as a Second Language / Bilingual Education. I'm unsure if I ever want to go back into teaching kids, but I still love teaching and whatever I teach this will definitely help me. If I ever have to move and look for a new job I would LOVE to find something in Public Health Education. If not that then some other adult education. I'm nervous about starting classes but I'm only taking a half-time load so it shouldn't be horrible.

Current news involves Lily having a fever. Her daycare called today and said that she had a fever of 102.7. She had no other symptoms so they said she could stay there, but still, it's upsetting. When we got her home it was still 102.7. We gave her tylenol but only after an hour or so did she start to feel any cooler. We did our normal night-night routine but this time, instead of sleeping 2-3 hours she woke up after an hour and then again shortly thereafter. We gave her some more tylenol and she is now sleeping again. It could go two ways - she could sleep because she is sick or she could be awake since she has been sleeping all day apparently. We'll see which it is as the hours go by.

This weekend there is a huge event going on in one of the neighboring towns. Hubby is reserving Friday and Saturday night so that means I'm on my own for those two nights. I know I'll survive, but the thought is still hard. More power to you single moms. I am so spoiled by having hte help that I do. Also, tomorrow I have to go to the event and inspect the food vendors that are there. Sometimes they can be less than honest so with me luck. I wish everyone just realized the importance of food safety and made a concerted effort to keep their establishments safe.

Well, I think that's about it for now. It's past my bedtime and since sleep is a precious commodity around here I really want to take advantage of it.

Have a peachy day!!!

My poor crib, RIP

2008-06-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

News, news, news. I actually have a purpose to this post this time but not much time to write it in. I will try to update a little after I get out the main point to this post.

A bunch of Jardine cribs sold in Toys R Us and Babies R Us have been recalled due to slats breaking and trapping children. The recall website, http://www.jardinecribrecall.com/ lists the model numbers of the cribs and unfortunately ours happens to be one of them.

I love our crib. It is gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous! It's cherry wood, the short panels are solid, it has a sleigh type shape and it's GORGEOUS!!! I LOVE MY CRIB. :(

Jardine has said to stop using the crib immediately. Well, when you have just started to crib train your child, this is a problem. We will continue to use it until our voucher package arrives. When that comes, we have to pack up the hardware (bolts and screws) to ensure that we can no longer use the crib and within 2 weeks we should see our voucher for a new crib. We will be without a crib during that time and during the time it takes us to find out if we can get a crib online and find the extra money for shipping or find a way to get a crib down here from the Babies R Us in Spokane. Yeah, that's going to be interesting. We have a pack and play to use in the meantime, but I can't reach the bottom of it (yay for being short) so I don't know how I'm supposed to lay Lily down in it.

Lord I'm irritated. The only two cribs we can find online that are close to what we have and what I want are either $100 cheaper (and we don't get the difference back) or $100 more expensive. I don't have an extra $100 and we spent $250 on a crib - I don't want a $150 crib.

Anyway, that's that. I'm saddened.

Work is going okay. Lots of drama.

Lily has cut a top tooth and should cut the other top tooth soon. She's in pain and not sleeping well. Last night she was awake from 2-5am, asleep until 5:20am and then awake again. Needless to say, I'm exhausted!!!

Along with her teeth comes fun noises. We can now say "th" and "click click click." The clicking is her clicking her top tooth and bottom teeth across each other. Ugh - that is a horrible sound!!! ;)

I think that's about it for now. It's our anniversary today and it's been ... meh. Mike got me some gorgeous flowers but we were really too broke to do much aside from go out to dinner. No movie and no other gifts. Oh well - hopefully we'll always have the future! :D

Hasta manana iguana!

Sharp, pointy teeth part 2

2008-06-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

A certain little girl had an upper tooth popping through when we picked her up from daycare today. Yay for teeth!

Arboretum

2008-06-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

We visited the Arboretum the other day. We took a long walk with Lily in the stroller and stupid me decided to do this in flip flops. Needless to say my calves are still killing me.

It was absolutely gorgeous though and totally worth the pain!

The Joys of Parenthood

2008-06-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

So it's been heck at home lately because we've been trying to get Lily to sleep in her crib. What is supposed to be getting us more sleep is by far causing us to get less. My only hope is that it will get better in time. Until that happens however, I have to realize that their is a silver lining to the cloud we're hanging out on called, "parents of a baby."

Two awesome things happened since yesterday. The first is that Lily allowed me to put a pair of bloomers that go to some dress on her head. No whining or anything. She just wore them proudly like they were the prettiest hat ever. Oh lord it was hysterical. I was laughing so hard. I have to say though, if anyone could pull it off, she can.

The second thing that happened was this morning. For a while (weeks) I've been thinking that Lily understands what the word "kitty" means because she always seems to look toward Jynx when I say it. There are also kitties at daycare. Well today she proved that theory. Not only did she turn around and look at Jynx when I said kitty, but when I put her down, she scooted closer and distinctly said "kitty kitty" and clapped her hands. SO CUTE!!!!

So I guess that's really her first word. She went from papa to mama to baba to nana to pfff although I don't think she associates those with anything yet. "Kitty" though is definitely associated with the cat.

I love my bug!

Sleep? Haven't heard of it.

2008-06-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's been about 14 days. I know A LOT has happened in the last 14 days, but the chances of me remembering it all is slim. Lily is jumping around right now so I have a few minutes.

So, what has happened since June 1st? Hmmmm. Our dear friends Kelly and Josh left (last day in May). We miss them. That's all I'll say on that otherwise I'll be too teary eyed to keep typing.

Home life has been okay. Frankly, we haven't been used to being home every evening. I'm getting slightly sick of this apartment but without having anyone to go visit (*cough cough guilt trip*) we're kind of stuck. Lily's been doing great eating - she even tried some cottage cheese the other day. She hated it. ;D She loves her jarred food and her cereal as well as her puffs. These puffs come in various fruit and veggie flavors and are made from rice. They melt fairly well although she does munch them with her gums and her front two teeth. She loves to feed herself, but she isn't very good at it yet. She'll get a puff to her mouth and try to shove it in but more often than not it will just get stuck in her palm. It's fun to watch.

What else? We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa from Papa's side this last weekend. Lily had fun playing with the various toys that they found for her. She also LOVED it when Grandpa made funny noises. While there, on Saturday morning, Lily just put her hands together and started clapping! She hadn't done it for us before and her daycare says she hadn't done it there either. I'd been trying to get her to clap, but she always pulled her hands away from me. Must have wanted to do it on her own.

She had her pediatrician's appointment this past Wednesday. Holy cow she's a big girl. She's 30 inches long, 23 pounds and her head is 47.5 centimeters around. She's in the 100th percentile for all three and the doctor said she is basically the size of an 18 month old. I think she's going to be big like her Papa. While there she didn't have to get any shots, but she did have to get her finger pricked to check her iron levels. She did great with that and we got to find out that her iron levels are great. No anemic baby for us!

In other, less happy news with her - we've been trying to get her to sleep in her crib more. Unfortunately that has meant a fair amount of crying for us and her. We don't let her sit there and cry it out in her crib; instead, we have been sitting there and patting her back, occasionally putting her pacifier back in her mouth. She has been crying for about an hour before going back to sleep which upsets me, but I try to remember that we are there with her so she can't think that we've totally abandoned her. I don't know if we're going about this the right way however. She seems to be sleeping shorter amounts of time now before waking up and just screaming her head off (maybe an hour or so). She's apparently also crying now when she gets laid down at daycare. Ergh. Seems like we can't do anything right in that apartment. I would let her continue to cosleep, but anymore she's too hot, too squirmy and wants to nurse ALL NIGHT LONG. Which means that I'm uncomfortable and unable to sleep most of the night.

In work news, things have been going okay. There are growing pains with the old director leaving, but I have total confidence in the new director and think he will do just fine. I've been doing a lot more inspections on my own now. I thought that the more I did the more comfortable I would feel when I go in, but that hasn't happened yet. Every time I finish up an inspection and leave, I remember something that I missed. The next place I go to, I make a point to remember whatever it was and then I miss something else. There's just no saving me from myself. Oh well.

One awesome thing that happened this week actually is my ServSafe certification. My boss wanted me to take this ServSafe class online through the National Restaurant Association. It was expensive and very very detailed. It's designed for food service managers so it was interesting to see how things are discussed from that side of the clipboard. The point of taking the course and the exam was that if I scored high enough on the exam (75/80) then I could become a ServSafe proctor. Apparently my boss has been trying to get two ServSafe proctors for a while (he is one) so that we can start offering the class in the county instead of referring people to Spokane. I finished the course two weeks ago and took the test this past Wednesday. I got *drum roll please* 77/80. Woot! It was really tough and I was under a lot of pressure so I'm glad that I did so well. The certification will last for 5 years which is also awesome.

What else has happened in work? I got some angry phone calls and had the comissioners called on me, but that's all a part of the job (the solid waste part). Apparently people don't appreciate the suggestion being made that they have a solid waste problem on their property. Fair enough.

Okay, I think that's about it for now. Oh! I did forget something. We finally found a place to live! Tomorrow we are signing the lease on a lovely two story, 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath duplex with a decent sized living room, dining room, kitchen and washer/dryer hookups. There is also a sliding door to the backyard with grass we don't have to mow and a cute concrete patio. I was originally going to detail everything we're NOT going to do on Father's Day today because we have to put down around $1500 for the duplex tomorrow. Needless to say (again), we unfortunately won't be doing anything for Father's Day. *sigh* Double the income and still no money!

Also, we found out that we can't get a car anytime soon which is really depressing. My car has decided to stop shifting into reverse so we need something ASAP but because of our credit and our student loans, nobody will give us a loan. We have to consolidate our loans first which will take quite a while (or we can wait until this fall when I start my Master's and my loans go back into deferment).

Okay, I really think that might be it for now. I shall attempt to add some pictures and a video now. Let's see if Lily will let me!

Raw Milk: Benefits and Risks

2008-06-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

Image via WikipediaThe opinions expressed below are strictly mine and should in no way reflect on any other ties that I may have.

Recently I attended a really great food safety conference. The second half of the first day was full of presentations and discussions surrounding the production and consumption of raw milk. We heard from a producer, a retailers, a woman that gathered facts from the internet for us and a regulatory agency. The afternoon was so full of information and debate that it really got me thinking. I decided that I just had to come share my thoughts on the whole raw milk movement.

First, the "pros" of raw milk.

Both realmilk.com and raw-milk-facts.com list some pros and cons of drinking raw or "real" milk. They suggest that raw milk is healthier because it has intact enzymes, proteins and good bacteria. These good bacteria can help us digest milk better and the enzymes can help our digestive system and ensure that we use (and waste) less of our own digestive enzymes.

Raw milk means milk that isn't pasteurized. Pasteurization involves using a heat treatment to destroy the harmful bacteria that resides in milk.

Some say that grass fed cows shed a much smaller number of the E.coli 0157:H7 bacteria than grain fed cows. Therefore, if you have a pastured, grass fed cow, your raw milk will be bad bug free. Unfortunately, this line of thinking follows a study that was done by a prestigious university. This study consisted of looking at 3 cows. I'll leave it at that.

Another pro of raw milk is that the milk comes from family owned farms. There is a big push to help sustain family farms because supposedly drugs and hormones are less often used. Also, everyone likes to put money back into their local economy.

Now for the cons of raw milk.

I was told recently (by a man that eats 2 raw eggs a day and feeds his family raw meat and milk) that one really has to weigh the risks when deciding to drink raw milk. He said that he was making the choice for his family to be cancer free and live long happy lives.

Risk. It's a loaded word. Would I risk giving my child cancer when she's 70 because I will be feeding her pasteurized milk and therefore neglecting to give her precious enzymes and proteins? Probably if it would mean saving her from contracting E.coli. E.coli O157:H7 means abdominal cramping, bloody diarrhea and just general cruddiness. "You mean to say that you would risk your daughter getting cancer and dying at the young age of 70 because you want to save her from diarrhea?"

You see, so many people think this "little" diseases that they can catch from raw foods (milk especially) are harmless and will simply result in a case of the runs. Check out the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention's website to learn more out the complications that can arise from this little bugs.

When it comes to raw milk, there are two associated illnesses that I don't believe are worth the risk. The first is E. coli. This illness, along with cramping and diarrhea, can cause Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome. Basically the organs shut down and victims are left to survive on a dialysis machine until their kidneys can be replaced. Unfortunately, the usual victims of this disease are between the ages of 1-5. That means that you, as a mother or father, get to sit there and watch your child hooked up to a blood cleaning machine, hooked up to an IV while they recover from having their kidney removed and replaced (if they can find a replacement) or even die. Death isn't that uncommon.

My second huge concern with raw milk is the risk of Listeria monocytogenes - you know, that one bug that also causes cramping and diarrhea. Oh wait, I forgot one symptom. That's right - spontaneous abortion. I've recently spoken to two different women at two different times that have had friends or family members lose a number of children to Listeria. One woman miscarried 4 times before she was finally tested for Listeria. She tested positive, quit eating non aged raw milk cheese and now has three healthy children. Another woman, after eating a non aged raw milk product, was 5.5 months along in her pregnancy when she lost her twins.

So let's go back and look at the risks associated with milk. The greatest risks associated with pasteurized milk are the possibility that we are increasing our chances and that of our children of developing cancer in our later years because we are supposedly killing off the beneficial parts of the milk. I say supposedly because I am still waiting to see the scientific evidence. Also, even pasteurized milk can contain bacteria if it was not pasteurized properly.

Now let's look at the risks associated with drinking raw milk. Watching your children suffer while they lose their kidney or slowly die. Suffering miscarriage after miscarriage and mourning the loss of your unborn children.

My daughter dying of cancer when she's 70 or dying when she's 5 and hasn't even been able to experience life yet?

Is there really even a choice there?

Work and Visiting

2008-05-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

Where has the time gone? Looks like my last post was on May 11 - Mother's Day. I love looking at the digital picture frame that Lily and Dadda got for me. It's a lot of fun.

Work wise, things have been going okay. I went to my New Inspector Training and learned A LOT!!! Holy Cow Batman!! I did get confused at times because it was a lot of information and only 2.5 days, but I think I managed to retain most of it.

Since Lily still hasn't slept without me yet, she brought her Dadda up to stay with me in the hotel for Tuesday and Wednesday nights. They left Thursday morning. It was nice to share my lovely hotel room. I even took Mike out for a special dinner Wednesday night at P.F. Chengs. He'd been wanting to go forever and there just happened to be one 5 minutes from the hotel.

Let's see, what else, what else. Hmmm, more interesting work news I suppose. Within the last two weeks I got to do an inspection all by myself, did some more solid waste surveys, got an angry phone call from one of my solid waste folks that consisted of being told to stay out of the neighboring towns and got to attend an awesome conference. The conference that I went to was actually yesterday and today. One of the reasons that it was approved is that it was over in a local town, so no hotel costs. It was a Farm to Table conference put on by the universities around here. There were presentations from producers, regulatory agents and everyone in between. Man, it was totally awesome! I learned som much and got to meet so many interesting people! I even got a few compliments for a comment I made during the panel discussion. :D

Last bit of work news is that tomorrow is our director's last day. He's hilarious and extremely helpful. It will be sad to see him go.

In non work news we have Lily. Over the last 2 weeks, Lily has gained two new skills. The first is the ability to cry and make her parents feel like poop when we drop her off at daycare. The other is the ability to army crawl. She has been able to scoot backwards and roll around to get wherever she wants to go for a while, but just recently she realized that she can push off with her toes and get even more mobility.

Man are we exhausted! This child is definitely one that we get to chase after. She always has to be going going going!

The last bit of news is that this past weekend we got to visit Lily's maternal Grandma at the park she is staying at. We got to visit the gorgeous park and got to see a Drive In! That was awesome! As always, it was hard to leave my mom, but it had to be done. We have every intention of going back later this summer.

My Mother's Day, Vaccines and Raw Milk

2008-05-11T16:14:00.001-07:00

Alright, let's add a little more, shall we?

For a bit more on work - I am apparently, no longer fun to eat out with. I spend my time commenting that the ham is cold (Mother's Day Brunch) so it cannot possibly have been properly Hot Held to avoid the growth of bacteria. I also comment on ungloved hands and how high the ice comes up on salad and fruit bars. In addition, don't eat those dips in front of me - you know, the ones that have little pretzels with them. It's sitting out in a store, it isn't kept chilled and you have no idea how much double dipping or fingers are ending up in there. I just can't watch you kill yourself.

Before I continue on to the rest of Mother's Day, let me just say one little thing. VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN! I am sitting here scared for myself and my friend's twin boys because the measles outbreak in the US has spread to my state. In 2 weeks we popped up to 12 confirmed cases only hours from us. Last week there was one confirmed case an hour from us. It was suggested to me that it might not be entirely brilliant to travel with my baby right now because she can't get the measles shot until she is one year old. Unfortunately for my friend, she and her new boys didn't have much of a choice as they are going to a big family gathering for her mom today. Our children cannot physically get vaccinated at this point but you bet your buns that when they are old enough they will be. I shouldn't have to be worried about my bug catching the highly contagious airborne measles because YOUR ARE TOO MUCH OF AN ASS TO VACCINATE YOUR OWN CHILDREN! There, I've said it, I feel better. If people would vaccinate their children we wouldn't have a measles outbreak, now would we? No, and I wouldn't have to worry about taking my child out in public. It just so ticks me off. Your child is not going to turn autistic from vaccines. Guess what, if your autistic child gets a vaccine and then later you notice his/her autism more, it's because he/she was already autistic! Get over yourself! We got rid of all this crap and now because of people's stupidity it's all coming back.

I'm undecided on delayed vaccines, but I think that if you want to delay them but still make sure your kid gets them...fine. Except for the measles! Get the dang measles shot!!!

Speaking of shots, last Thursday I got my Hep A, Hep B and Tetanus shot at work. My arm, from the Tetanus shot, is still totally killing me. :(

In other news, by all means go organic. That does not, under any circumstances mean that you should drink unpasteurized milk from any animal. Raw milk has a huge chance of containing listeria - you know, that wonderful bug that causes sponataneous abortion among other things. If you must go organic, buy non hormone added milk from your local coop, but for the love of all that is good, make sure it is pasteurized!

Okay, Mother's Day. It was good. :) We went to a nice brunch where we laughed our selves silly watching Lily munch some watermelon and ice in her mesh food feeder. After brunch we walked around the mall for a bit before driving around Pullman, looking for a new place for us to live. We then came home where we failed at getting our bug to sleep. Mike and Lily got me a Kodak digital picture frame for my desk at work. It is muy pretty. :D

Okay, I'm done for now I think. Have a peachy keen day!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

Oops...it's been a while. Let's see. I don't have many pictures uploaded right now so I'm not going to include any cute ones of Lily, but I will make a separate post, probably later today and do that (unless I happen to find one on my hard drive - and I can already think of a good one).

Anyway, the quick and short of it. Work is awesome. I got a new desk - it's huge. I have business cards and feel all grown up now. I've been training on doing school health inspections and will do a restaurant or two (with my boss) on Monday. Tuesday through Thursday I have training 2.5 hours away where they will teach us more about doing food inspections. Ahhh, I love the county. They put me up in a large room with a king sized bed in the Marriot. Sweet!

What else. I'm doing food worker classes on my own now. It's nice to feel that trust in the office. I also made an educational brochure about junk cars and ways to get rid of them so my boss is now calling me the Educational Outreach Coordinator. ;) It was funny.

I think that's about it for work. In other news, we've been geocaching every weekend (weather permitting). We're finding it to be lots of fun. Lily's two teeth are now up quite a bit. I think they're bugging her but it's hard to tell because she has another cold which can't be fun for her or the fluid in her ears. She's big - wearing 12 month clothes now (she's only 8 months old). I even put her in a pair of 18 month jammies yesterday and they fit...quite nicely I might add. She's got such long legs that she has to get bigger pants so they don't look like capris. :D

Thanks Violet! Lily loves your clothes!

I think that's about it for now. I'm off to tend to my beautiful little cranky bug.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Sharp pointy teeth!

2008-04-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

This should be a relatively quick update.

We had a nice day outside today. Initially we were going to go out geocaching, but we grabbed some lunch and ate at the park to start so that Lily could finish napping. Once she woke up we played on the baby swings and then introduced her to grass. She did NOT like it, not one bit. :D

After the park we went out geocaching. We're really liking it because we are learning a lot about the area that we live in and are finding some really neat spots. We decided to head out to find some caches in the neighboring state today so that we could drop off a geocoin that we found here. The first cache we tried to find was by a creek and it looks like it probably got washed away with the flooding we had. The second cache was at this really cute park with a nature trail. Because I am just SO awesome, I found the cache at that one. :D

In other news, we bought steak at the store and broiled it for dinner. We had the butcher season it with a rub they had and it turned out phenomenally.

In other, other news, we ate dinner at Denny's with friends last night. I gave Lily bug her veggies, but I didn't have her baby spoons so I used my metal spoon. I was a little perturbed because it sounded like the metal was scratched and scratching her gums but each time I would feel it, I couldn't find any bumpy parts on the spoon. That's because, as I found out this morning, the bump is IN HER MOUTH! She has two teeth coming in! One is already poking through (just barely) and I can see the white bump of the other one.

My baby is getting teeth! Yaysobyaysobyaysob. I'm happy and sad, obviously. She's growing up!

Work, a bug and a big girl

2008-04-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, where to start. Work is going great. I am so happy and think that I have definitely found something that I could love and enjoy for quite a while. If we do move, I think I'll be looking into doing the same kind of work instead of teaching. We shall see.

So, Wednesday we drove out to a neighboring county that we contract with and I got to get some solid waste time in. The next day I drove out to the outskirts of the county and did more solid waste and the day after that I finished up the solid waste that I had to work on and began some more online training. That's work in a nutshell. Oh! I almost forgot! On Thursday evening I taught my first Food Worker Class. :D My reviews were all good too. :)

Okay, in other news, Lily had a pediatrician appointment on Wednesday night for her ears. They are still bugging her, but unfortunately there is no infection. I say unfortunately because if her ears were infected we could do something about it. Instead, there is no infection, but her ears are still filled with fluid. There's nothing we can do about it and not only does she feel like she constantly needs to pop her ears, but her hearing is most likely effected as well. Poor baby. Unless it gets drastically worse, we basically have to just live with it until her nine month checkup.

Her pediatrician appointment brought more bad news. We discovered that Lily has finally hit 22 lbs and 29 inches ... the exact weight and height limit for her carseat. WHAT?! Sigh. Thursday morning we got it in our brilliant heads to attempt to install her convertible toddler seat. Yeah, that didn't go well. We couldn't get it to work with our middle seat belt and eventually our current daycare's husband (a police officer) came to our place and helped us install it. Embarassing, but we got it in. We ended up being an hour late to work, which was awesome, but at least our baby was safe. To go along with that, today we went out and bought a sunshade for the back window since our bug no longer has a hood to keep the sun out of her eyes. We also got to take some pictures of her sitting in a highchair and shopping cart like a big girl. :) It was tons of fun.

I think the only other memorable things are that we went geocaching again today and found 3 caches! Go us! I even found one all on my own!

Bug is starting to whine and I'm feeling like this has been awfully rambly, so I'm going to go. If I think of more, I'll update!

P.S. Endangered orangutans are being slaughtered to make room for more area to grown and produce palm oil. Orangutans...those cute little red fuzzy faces. It's just wrong. http://www.orangutan.org.au/379.html