an unexpected retrieval

Just taking a short break from the joy of moving to share a quick funny with you.  

 

I was working upstairs while Little Lamb napped and Little Bear played downstairs.  He had just gotten a dumb-dumb sucker when he announced that he needed to go potty.  I heard an unusual clinking sound followed by crying.  I rushed downstairs to find his sucker down at the bottom of the bowl full of little boy pee-pee.  Ugh!  I scrubbed my hands extra hard with soap and hot water after that one.

 

Yes, I threw it away.  Yes, I got him a new one.

 

And it’s back to work for me!  I’m beginning to think we will NEVER get all this crap out of the house.

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day 23: a break

I’m going to have to take a break for a few days.  Life is going to be a jumble for the next few days and I have no idea how much computer access I will have.  I’ll be back as soon as I can.

day 21: one last idea

So I’m finally getting to my last teacher gift idea.  This is an especially easy one for your last minute gift needs.  

 

Here’s what you need: 

1.  Some lovely flower or landscape photos taken on a digital camera

2.  A photo printer or other method for printing photos

3.  Solid color cardstock, cut to  7″ x 10″ (assuming photos are 4″ x 6″)

 

For the photos, I recommend using the macro function on your camera to capture blossoms up close.  It’s that setting with the picture of a flower that allows the camera to focus very closely on an object while blurring the surrounding area.  (I’m amazing you with my technical skilz, aren’t I?)  

 

Print your photos (or order them online or go to CVS/Walgreens/wherever) and try to print them with a white border if you are going to use colored card stock.  Otherwise just use white or black paper.  

 

Carefully fold your papers in half, then affix your photos to the paper.  Wrap 5 or so in a stack with appropriately sized envelopes and tie with ribbon.  

 

Here’s examples of some of my cards:

(Click on the photo for a larger version of the picture)

day 20: proud mama

Today was Belle’s Kindergarten play, Bugz.  They did a performance for the whole school this afternoon and then for parents this evening.  They were so cute singing songs and dancing.  It was great to see them all participating so happily.  No one was too cool for it yet.  Belle said her lines perfectly and I even really heard her in the second performance.  I took lots of pictures, but I haven’t downloaded them yet.  My favorite part of the performance was at the very end, when everyone was clapping away, and Belle was so visibly happy as she bounced up and down, waved her arm, and smiled her biggest smile.  As a reward for her hard work and good attitude today, she is sleeping away in my bed right now.  I think it’s time to go join her…

day 19: procrastination

It’s 10pm and I’ve accomplished very little since dinner.  Aside from bathing the kids and getting them to bed, that is.  I need to pack.  I need to bake cookies for tomorrow’s reception following the Kindergarten play.  I need to sleep.  

 

Instead, I have been studying flickr photos of stitchettes from Wee Wonderfuls.  I’ve got a cute little plan in mind for the kids’ bedrooms involving little flag banners and various combinations of her stitchette patterns.  Yes, I’m plotting and planning the decor of my children’s bedrooms, when I haven’t even managed to pack all the stuff in this house yet!  Ugh.

 

I’m headed to the kitchen to bake a quick batch of the world’s tiniest cookies.  How else am I going to get 4 dozen cookies out of one little pack of cookie mix?  I bought the mix on a super sale & coupon combo just in case I needed a quick batch of cookies.  Look’s like tonight is just that case!

day 18: failed memory

My mother called early Friday morning.  I got a little worried when I heard the ring (we have the phone set to ring a different pitch when one of our parents calls) so early, esp. considering it’s an hour earlier in TX than here in VA.

 

It turns out she was calling to tell me the New Kids on the Block where performing on the Today Show.  She and my Dad both seemed to remember that I liked them.  I quickly corrected her, explaining that I was WAY too cool for NKOTB (because I was sooo cool back then, HA!) and scoffed anyone who showed an interest in their music, their dancing, or their looks.  Jennifer-how could their memories be that off???  Even after my Dad took us to the Depeche Mode Violator concert!  I was sooo disappointed in them!

 

[When I first went to the DM homepage, the banner was the cover photo from the Broken Frame album.  I’ve always loved that photo, but I have no idea why.]

day 16- a miss, day 17- a recap

Sorry about missing Friday.  We’re in a flurry of activity around here.  Yesterday morning was the Kindergarten Author Share.  Each child in the class writes a book of their own, the teachers have them typed and hard bound, the kids draw in the illustrations, and then read them over a  microphone to the whole class.  Belle’s book, entitled “The Beach”, was fantastic!  Full of details and complex sentences.  I’m very proud of the progress she has made this year.  

 

Then, last night we had the Fun Fair at her school.  There was face painting, spray hair color, tatoos, games, food, a bounce house…which all pretty well explains why I didn’t have the energy to post last night.  It was 10:00 before I got them all in bed and I decided it was best if just crawled in bed myself.  I curled up next to my sweet girl, Belle, who is allowed to sleep in our bed on occasion when J is on nights.  Its a special treat she has to work hard to earn.  

 

Today has been no less full-lots of packing, a trip to the library, and possibly a little strawberry picking-IF I can J to wake up.  He’s off tonight, but continues his crazy schedule tomorrow night and the rest of the week.  It will be so nice to have him next to me in bed tonight…

day 15: Today I…

Today I went in a store for a swim suit.  I came out with a new pair of running shoes.

 

Need I say more?

 

PS: If I don’t post tomorrow, it’s because I can’t lift my arms to the keyboard.

day 14: a little of this and a little of that

Wow life is getting crazy around here.  I guess I never finished telling the wild tale of our upcoming move.  The lease on our current place is up on May 31.  With J’s ridiculous schedule and complete inability to just take a day off, we have to move our stuff out over Memorial Day weekend.  The problem is…our new place isn’t available until mid June.  That leaves us 3-4 weeks with no place to live.  Enter Little Bear’s preschool director.  I mentioned our predicament to her yesterday at pick up and she offered us their 2 bedroom house that they rent out as needed.  I saw it this morning and it is such a blessing.  We thought we were going to have to take everything to a storage area and live in a hotel during that time.  There’s enough basement storage in this house that we might not even need a storage area!  It doesn’t completely remove the sting of having to move twice in one month, but it certainly helps.

 

*******

 

We were listening to this Sharon, Lois and Bram cd last night at dinner.  We got to the song “The Smile Was On The Crocodile” and I tried to relay the story of the song to the kids and how my dad sang that song with us as kids.  

 

She sailed away on a sunny summer day
On the back of a crocodile
“You see,” said she, “he’s as tame as tame can be,
I’ll ride him down the Nile.”

The croc winked his eye as she bade them all goodbye
Wearing a happy smile
At the end of the ride, the lady was inside,
And the smile was on the crocodile!

 

It seems Little Bear misunderstood the story a bit, because a few minutes later he asked me, “Why did Grandad eat that girl?”

 

*******

 

We all have some kind of guilty pleasure, right?  For some it’s Oprah, others it’s American Idol, for me it’s Super Nanny.  Maybe it’s some kind of confidence builder.  Because I may not be perfect, but I’m not as bad as those folks!  And at the end, I always say a prayer that what Jo has taught them will stick.

day 13: rethinking things

I’ve been keeping my eye out for sales, coupons, free shipping codes, etc for booster seats for Little Bear.  He is almost 30 pounds-the lower limit on many boosters, but in truth he is nowhere near the upper limits for his current car seat.  I was doing my usual research-checking out reviews and such-when I ran across this article on About.com.  The whole piece is here, but this sentence alone has convinced me to wait a while longer:

“Any step up in car seats – from rear-facing to forward-facing, from harness to booster – is actually a step down in safety.”

A little convenience for me is absolutely not worth the loss in safety for my little guy.  I love his car seat-it has a great buckling system which, with the tether in place, keeps the seat from budging the tiniest bit even on the leather seats.

 

In other news, he let go of his pull-up fairly easily this morning.  He’d have kept it on if I let him, but he didn’t fight me on it.  He did, however, wake at 2:30 this morning to go potty.  It figures that I decide to put him in a pull-up and NOW he wakes up.  Anyway, the poor guy couldn’t get back to sleep for two hours.  He’d try for a while and then he’d be back at the top of the stairs calling for me.  At 4:30, I gave up and threw him in bed with me.  He fell right asleep, and so did I!

 

I suppose I’ll keep putting the pull-ups on him for a while.  The thought of him lying in a wet bed and pjs for hours until he wakes for the morning us just too much for me to stand.