That Neck

I have always loved Alex's little neck. It is so cute! He's always had a small head (always in the 25%), so it only makes sense that he would have a small neck.

Here are some pictures showing off that cute neck that I love to kiss so much!

Had enough pictures yet? See what a cute little chicken neck he has? I love it!

Anatomy of a tantrum

This had to have been one of the funnier tantrums Alex has ever thrown.
Usually he just does a little yell/scream and then lays on the floor quietly. Those tantrums make me laugh too. And it does take a part in this one.
But this one was so much more!

You can see that he starts out with plopping himself down on the floor. But instead of the lay down I was expecting (he's very careful about when he's on a hard surface to not throw himself on the floor), he looked at me and did this:














Apparently, he just wanted to get to the soft surface so that he could do the laying down thing in comfort.




Well, that wasn't enough. After laying for a few seconds, he decided to go on the move again.








Don't you love that expression on his face in the previous picture?
The next picture is the final destination folks. This is where he ended up.





After I took that picture of him and kind of laughed/looked at him with a humored look on my face, he kind of laughed a little. And then caught himself and started crying.
So I distracted and asked if he wanted to take some pictures too.

He initially said no, but what 2 year old can resist when I tell him to push the button on mommy's special camera.
We got a couple blurry shots and he couldn't really hold the big camera and push the button, so I just pulled out our point and shoot camera for him.

And as a special bonus-
I took a picture of my now uniform hair color. Jon (!) helped my dye it on Tuesday. I figured that my blonde had grown out past the point where I could still pass it off as okay.

It actually turned out a nice color with a hint of red to it, which was totally unexpected since I picked out a color with a cool base (I figured it would work better with the old blonde dye in my hair. AND better to have blue hair than orange).
It's not the greatest picture of my hair and the lighting in that bathroom stinks (it's supposed to be intimate), but that's all I've got.

Dear Mom, When you retire, ...

I want to go through all of your books in your classroom and stake claims on the ones I want. I just know there are some in there from my childhood that I would LOVE to be able to have in my house.

And not that I'm glad that you're retiring in the coming years, but I'm glad that you're retiring in the coming years. :)

Hmm... do you think a childhood book claim can be done while I am there? Please let me know your thoughts on this matter.

Love,
Your I'm-Feeling-Sentimental Daughter

You should read these blogs

In my last post, I got off on a tangent about a couple of blogs I love. I decided to just take them out and put them in their own post, so here it is.


Craft: is one of my favorite favorite places for inspiration. They scour the web for fun and creative handmade things and ideas on everything from electronics to food and recipes and bring them all together in one place. It is truly awesome and if you haven't subscribed to their blog yet, you need to.

And on the note of reusing things and living a simpler life and NOT buying more stuff, Simplemom is another wonderful blog to subscribe to. Some days I just quickly run through what she's written, but other days I totally suck it in. I love her posts about taking time for the little stuff... spending time with family... budgeting and saving... not feeling like you have to compete with others in the way of possesions etc. What a wonderful mentality. I like having that constant reminder in my life. So next time I whine about not being able to go on a big vacation I can remind myself that our family vacation time is spent doing what matters most - being with our family who we don't get to see that often.

Caught in a re-purpose vortex

I am a big fan of repurposing. That is, finding a way to reuse things in a way they weren't created for. Granted, I am not always the best at doing this because sometimes I just can't think of WHAT to possible do with something and it ends up in the trash or being donated after a while.

I have a hard time throwing out the clothes that don't fit me any more, because I just KNOW that I can find a way to reuse those things. Turning them into kids clothes or a bag or cutting out the design from one things and appliqueing it onto a shirt that does fit and other such things. Example, Jon just went through his clothes and got rid of a bunch of button down shirts that he doesn't wear. They are now sitting in my sewing room, waiting to be turned into these.

Yesterday I was reading a blog post on Craft: magazine's blog about a lady that does a LOT of repurposing (aka recycling). (see link here).
I don't know if I'm ready to have a soda bottle soap dish, but I like that people are thinking creatively to recycle one thing into another functional thing. It is a great mentality to adopt.


I've been soaking in these shipping container homes/living spaces etc. that was on my Yahoo homepage today. This particular link shows some pictures of some great uses of shipping containers turned into functional spaces. There are about 8 pictures or so to go through.
If there is one thing I LOVE, it is creative and functional uses for old things, which often create a less expensive way to do things. I love that people actually sat down and thought, hey, I can find a different use for this item that will serve a totally new function and will do it in a cost effective way. Oh how I wish I had the ability to think of such things. I think somewhere inside of me, I have that potential. It's like I can feel it. I know it's there, but I'm still exploring and uncovering it. It's actually a really cool feeling to have- I'm sure most people are familiar with it.

I think that if you're passionate enough about something, you have the potential to be great in that area. That concept is something that I was taught on numerous occasions while going to school for interior design. It's all about passion for something.


BTW, you should also check out more stuff on that WebUrbanist site. It's a really cool site! I've spent many hours in amazement at the things that people come up with in green and urban design.

Who knows... maybe one day we'll be living in a house constructed of shipping containers with solar panels on top and growing and nice big garden and maybe even a natural well. I still chuckle that such a thing is my dream.

Hail Storm Video

Texas Hail Storm - 3/25/09 from Jon M on Vimeo.

Hail Storm!

This is the first time in the nearly 3 years that we've been here that we've experienced full on good sized hail storm.
It only lasted a few minutes but it was crazy!
Alex was a little freaked out by it.

Jon will be by shortly with a video, but for now here are some pictures.

and another Cars thing...

Yesterday Alex decided to get in the tub with Jon (Jon was sick and needed a warm soak). Alex was playing with some of his rubber duckies and said to the ducks, "Stay focused!"

Jon had no clue where the stay focused came from but when he was telling me about it I told him that it was from Cars and it all made sense. It's from the part before the race when just Lightning McQueen's voice is in the background.

Can you tell what the movie of the week at our house is?

OH! That's what he was saying!

For Christmas, Alex got a set of cars from Cars. Among them was this guy.

When Alex drives cars, they talk to each other, typically saying, "hi, I'm ______" and then the other one replies "hi ______, I'm _______".
Well when Alex would drive this car, he's say, "hi, I'm Tussis". We were so confused and asked him to say it over and over again trying to figure out what he was trying to say. We had no idea the Car was even in the movie and had a name.

And then I was trying to take a nap while Alex was watching Cars. I happened to open my eyes and watch for a minute during the opening race scene and one of the announcers names is Bob Cutlass! Tussis = Cutlass!!! I finally figured it out!!!

I thought it was funny that he had actually picked up his name in the limited time he's on the movie.

Cookie Monster

I made some chocolate chip cookies on Friday night and left them on the cooling racks.

I failed to realize that Alex usually has free reign in the mornings as we just turn on the TV for him and go back to sleep (we so don't wake up at 8 am) for another hour or hour and a half.

Some time after he had been awake, he came up to our room and he had stuff on his face. I proceeded to ask him what was on his face and wiped some off and smelled it... chocolate.
That boy had been in the cookies.
At that point we had no idea how much he had eaten.
Yet, we still stayed in bed and let him do whatever.

When we came down we found that he had gone to the extra effort of pulling his bulky potty seat stool over to the kitchen counter from the bathroom to be able to reach the cookies. We think he only ate about 4, but 4 is a lot for a 2 year old!


We thought the problem was solved when we put the cookies in plastic baggies. Yesterday morning (while he had his free reign) he brought me up a bag and asked me to open it. I gave him a cookie and then hid the bag under Jon's pillow (don't ask me how he doesn't figure that out, but he has no idea where the cookies or whatever I may hide under there go).

And then there was this morning. No cookie demands. And I was pretty sure he had stayed upstairs.
And then we came downstairs.
And the baggie that had about 4 cookies left in it was on the floor, empty.

We still have one baggie full left. We'll see what becomes of it this week.

No Body and Miss You

Yesterday I told Alex that we needed to go to sleep so that we could rest our bodies.
His reply: "I don't have a body".

Right.

Today I had to run outside for a minute to let a friend use our fertilizer spreader. When I came back in Alex was at the bottom of the stairs sniffling and said, "Mama, I miss you".
Awww! That about melted my heart!


Other not as funny stuff... Alex has taken it upon himself to be a picky eater. And we were totally playing into it with bribes and what not, so now we're trying the eat whatever you want at dinner route. But if you don't eat a good part of your dinner, then you don't get any other food at night.
It's still a struggle and it really drives me crazy.

He's also become very insistent on continuing to play or whatnot when we ask him to come and eat. Okay... he's just insistent on doing what he wants all the time and not listening to what we ask him to do. I totally sound like my mom and dad counting to 3 to get us to do something. This usually works for Alex, but sometimes, like tonight, it doesn't.
He cried pretty much all through dinner because he wanted to be outside running.
It was a bit wearing.
But I do have to admit, it was pretty funny that he would only take bites of his food when we weren't looking. The little stinker.


If any of you have heard of the 6 month terribleness, I think we're getting to that point. The theory is that the closer a child gets to 6 months after his birthday, the crappier their behavior is. Alex's 6 month half way point is April 19th. I'm hoping that it will get better. Or at the very least the screaming of NO and the crying whenever he doesn't want to do something will stop.

But until then, I'll be reading all sorts of parenting articles and trying to figure out how to fix the problem and what I can do to improve my parenting. Sounds fun huh?

My mom is probably reading this going, oh yes... this is where the fun starts. I am SO glad I don't have to do that anymore!

Sickness runneth amuk

I'm downstairs listening to cough after cough from Alex, who is upstairs trying to take a nap. He was sleeping before he was so rudely awakened by those darn coughs.

I can handle the running noses, but it kills me when a cough is involved and it interrupts sleep. I'm hoping the coughing will go away in the next couple of days.
And since I'm feeling a bit of a sore throat today, I'm hoping to avoid getting anything more.

Oh, and no worries, Alex will not be in nursery on Sunday to pass the yuckies on. His minimum of 5 days of contagiousness won't hit until Monday.

Off I go to administer another spoonful of honey.

Bragging about my Homemakey-ness

Tonight, for the first time ever, I made bread.

I thought I would fail horribly.

All was going well until the dough failed to rise to the proper height in the set time. Thank goodness for my mom, who I kept on the phone for nearly the whole process!
She confirmed that I could turn my oven onto 170 and then off and let the bread rise in there.

Worked perfectly!

The loaves looked pretty good when I took them out.
I was so nervous that they would be bricks or taste horrible or something, but as soon as they cooled enough, I sliced a piece for Jon and myself, slathered mine with butter (and a smidge on Jon's) and took a bite.

AMAZING!!!

My bread tasted good!
So I had another piece.

It was soft, fluffy, and not overly wheaty. The crust wasn't even crip! On a down side, they were *slightly* doughy... but only enough that you could *barely*barely* tell. Granted, we're not to the middle yet, but close enough after 4 slices.

The bread making is soon to be a weekly (or so) thing in our house. I'm excited for the snacking and sandwiches to come. And I'm hoping that Alex will eat a slice with lunch or dinner or whatever easier than he will if we give him a slice of bread now.

Thanks for letting me revel in my bread making glory.


Oh and another note- those pictures were taken on my camera without a flash and just lights on. That's freaking awesome.

Of Bedtimes and Wake-ups

We have a fairly easy bedtime routine. Go potty, jammas on, say prayers, big hugs and kisses (and now tight squeezes) for Mama, night-night bye-bye I love you, chase Daddy up the stairs (yes, Jon puts Alex to bed every night. He chases me for naps.), read a story, brush teeth, and in bed night-night I-love-you.
And then Alex decided he wanted a song.
So now after the brushing teeth part, he says, "sing a song?"
and we ask, "what song?"
"woody and buzz" or "dr. seuss" or "to infinity and beyond" or "froggy" etc...
All not really songs. Just whatever is in his head that Alex wants a song about.

Jon and I have gotten pretty good at improvising. We usually work in Alex or a little boy who was so tired and wanted to go to sleep in there.

Good times.

As for waking up, going to get Alex up from his nap is one of the highlights of my day.
He used to wake up crying and that wasn't so happy for me, but now he yells, "MAMA! I WAKE UP MAMA! MAMA!" until I come and get him.
And the second I open his door he says, "I get out, mama? I wake up!"
Then he usually lets me carry him down the stairs with his arms around my neck.
I love it.

An OWL!

Jon and I are sitting here internetting (of course) and every 10 seconds or so hear a loud "hoo-hoo hooo hoo".
That my friends, is an owl.
Somewhere near our house.
And that is cool.

When it all comes down to it, do you actually return food you find yucky?

So there was this one time where I bought a $6 bag of chicken breasts... 2 of them actually.
I cooked a few up and they were NASTY. Thinking it was just a chance thing, I cooked some more another night. My sister was here, so we used the rest from the 1st bag and started in on the 2nd. More grossness.
That is the first time I ever toted a half empty bag of anything back to the customer service desk at a grocery store and asked for a refund. They thought it was a little weird... but it was honestly sick tasting chicken and $12 is a lot in the way of food!

Funny thing is, once the 1st bag was gone, I was willing to let that $6 go. But the 2nd bag and that it was $12 pushed me over the edge. There was no way I was going to suffer through eating another bag of gross chicken.


I've also experienced an old bag of Nestle Caramel Treasures. I had every intention to call up their customer service and tell them about it. But I never did and the bag got thrown away (I still ate all of the Treasures... they just weren't as good as they should have been).


Last week at Target I picked up some of their Archer Farms Organic fruit strips (in apricot of course).
The first bite was good. And then things went all bitter tasting. And there is a weird bit of oil mixed in there too. Add to the fact that it's more jelly than fruit leather like I was expecting and when I looked at the box, the top ingredient is actually apple juice. Which made perfect sense because they didn't really taste as apricoty as I had expected.
So now I have to decide- do I take the time to return the $3 box of fruit strips that I hate back to the store for a refund? Is it really worth the effort of remembering to take the strips out of my pantry, put them in my car, remember to bring them in to the store (and if it weren't Target, hunt down my receipt), and then take the extra time at customer service to return them?

$3 is a whole bag of caramel Treasures after all...

Two Minutes

This is one of Alex's common sayings. It always makes me smile. because he uses it for almost anything he wants to do/is doing when in actual circumstances we use it to tell him that he can only do something for 2 more minutes before we do something else.

Here are some funny examples from this week.

"I go owside; 2 minutes mama"
"I eeing (eating); 2 minutes"
"I pay (play); 2 minutes"
"Go a docka's (dr.'s); 2 minutes"
"I colwing (coloring); 2 minutes mama"
"Go in a van; 2 minutes"
"Watch a movie, 2 minutes"

I am a weirdo

Today Jon surprised me with this book:

and I'm actually excited to read it. I think it sounds so interesting!
Seriously, how many people want to read about how Hobby Lobby came to be?
(and really, for a few dollars, why not?)

Fox in the Box

=

On Saturday we stopped at Jack in the Box to eat lunch. As we were waiting to turn at the light I pointed it out to Alex and told him that it's Jack in the Box.
He replied, "Fox in the box!"

And if he see's the logo or if we ask where we ate, he'll say, "fox in the box".


Today we're watching The Fox and the Hound.
When I asked him what we were watching.... "fox in the box".

Okay. Fox in the box it is.

Winners!

okay, so I'm doing 7 winners cause I'm nice like that. :) And because I'm informing Jenni that I want to be one of her winners. I can't win 3 of these things and just send stuff to 5 people! So 7 it is!

So we've got
Erin
Sherry
Crystal
Heidi
Jacob
Jenni
and Annie

If I don't know where you live, please email me your address. Sherry and Jenni- you can expect your loot in April when I come to visit!

Pictures of the work in progress

Hmm... I had to try hard to not include "bush removal" in the title. Don't want anybody looking for that stuff to happen upon our blog!

Anyway...

Here are some pictures of the progress that we made yesterday.

Here's a before picture to start things out.
This was actually taken last year.
And the bushes were even bigger/out of control this year.

Here is what we're left with.

Those big tall bushes on either side are going in the backyard as well.

These are some of the bushes from the front now in the back.
I'm trying to decide if we want to buy more like it to finish the length of the fence or not...

Here are the bushes that we moved over to hide our big boxes in the front of our house (not right in front... on the property line between us and our neighbors). We had 2 there already and added 3 more.

Here are our newly mulched trees. They may be getting another layer tomorrow. Oh and the staked tree as well.

here is alex sitting in one of the holes. He thought it was so fun!

and me with my work face on. (Jon just wanted a picture of my stylish hair)

and Jon working on the last bit of the playscape.

AND COMMENT ON MY BLOG!

If you comment, you're pretty much guaranteed to get something at this point seeing as there are only 4 comments.

Remember, you only have until 1:37 pm tomorrow!

Saturdays are for yard work

Anyone else have memories of doing yard work on Saturdays?
I know that many of my Saturdays were spent doing yard work before I could play with my friends.

It was one of those days for us. A long day of work in the yard- and still more work to do. But we got an excellent amount done today. It helps that the weather was absolutely perfect (warm with a cool breeze).

So here is what we did today:
Dug out and transplanted six big bushes. We really hope they don't die because they look fabulous in their new locations. (I'll have to take a picture tomorrow)
Staked our tree that was having issues.
Dug out some grass that was encroaching on the trees.
Put new dirt and mulch around the trees.

Still left to do is transplanting 3-4 more bushes, planting a lot of new bushes and plants (we're doing a total revamp of our front planter area), putting in edging to keep the crazy St. Augustine grass from encroaching in the planting/tree areas, and of course watering the transplants like crazy in hopes that they won't die. Oh and we still need to stain the swing set too.


We also got our van worked on. If you have a Honda or Toyota that ever needs work- we have a great place for you to go.
Our van saga of the check engine light has been long and mildly frustrating. We just didn't take it to the right place the first time, so the problem came back.
We're pretty sure that this time it was taken care of and it was less than we paid initially for more work.
And no check engine light yet. Yay!

Another exciting tid-bit...
Super Target is OPEN!!!

Carseat Awesomeness!

Remember how much we love woot.com?
The love fest continues.

We scored this AWESOME carseat for Alex for oh... $100 (our other carseat was about $70). Normal price on this guy? $260-$290. Oh! or $170 here.
And he can ride in it FOREVER.
Seriously. He could stay in this thing until he's 8.

It's a Recaro Como Convertible. It's one of the best rated carseats out there (it's up there with Britax). Recaro actually makes racecar seats.
I am in love with it. Alex is in love with it.
It's super nice and plushy. There are lots of great extra little features that his other carseat doesn't have.

My favorite thing by far though is the latches. The LATCH system is the absolute safest way to install your carseat. I was quite spoiled with our infant seat (a BabyTrend) which had press button releases and THICK metal like a seat belt buckle that just clipped on. Even though the handling on that carseat wasn't always easy, the ease of hooking/unhooking it was worth it.

I've had many a battle with hooking/unhooking the little clips on his current carseat. If you have a Graco, Eddie Bauer, or Cosco carseat, you should be familiar with the LATCH clips I'm talking about.

I was thrilled that the clips on the Recaro are like the ones on the infant seat that I loved!
To see what exactly I'm talking about, go here and watch the video of the lady installing the carseat. (at about 2o-25 seconds is where it shows the clip).

Oh and Jon would want me to mention the woot stats by state. Here's the image from woot of which states had the most people buying the carseat. Is anyone surprised?

Pay if Forward-ness

So I've "won" a couple of these from friends. I was dreading having to make and send out 6 things, so I decided to just do 5 so that it's more than 3 but not the whole six.

Your odds are fairly good here people.
All you need to do is comment.
And you can get a special little something in the mail from me. I don't promise it to be earth shattering or huge. But hopefully something fun - and hey, getting a special little thing in the mail is ALWAYS fun.

So this is the scary part...
if you win, you have to do the same thing on your blog.

BUT DON'T BE SCARED!!!
There is no need.
This doesn't mean crafty skills are required. Or cooking skills. Or any skills really. Well maybe ninja skills.
Here are some ideas to get your mind to see how easy this can be.
You can send some chocolate or a treat to whoever may win on your blog (umm... cadbury mini eggs may just be what I will send you). Or a freaking drawing made by your artistic child. Or something you have laying around that you don't appreciate anymore but maybe one of your winners would. Or just a nice note would suffice.

These things can be sent out anytime in the next year (I promise I will not make you wait a year to get something from me- however if I decide to fabulously make you something it could be longer than 2 weeks).

AND you don't have to have a blog to win!
If you do have a blog, just commit to the paying it forward and post it on your blog.
If you don't have a blog, just commit to it in your mind and take the time to do something special for at least 3 people.


SOOOO.... click on the little link down there to the right to add a comment and enter to win a special treat from me. Or email me. Or facebook me. Or call me. Whatever.
Just do it before Sunday at exactly 1:37 (that is an excellent time) as I will be choosing my winners then.

"Be so good!"

Alex usually tells me this as he's eating.
It's usually accomponied by a very cute MMMM!

I made some good rice and beans for dinner the other night (an accomplishment for me!) and Alex ate them in about 10 minutes flat. We heard a lot of mmm's and be so good's and a chorus of likes... "I like... beans!" "I like... meat!" "I like... peppers!" "I like... rice!".

Alex was so intent on each of his beans and was putting them into his mouth one by one as fast as he could. It was quite entertaining!

I think rice and beans are going to become more of a staple at our house!

Just added some photos...

...to this post about our trip to the Children's Museum and Texas State History Museum back in January.
Go check them out. You won't be disappointed.

Building things

Here is our swingset/fort in it's finished glory!

I told Jon that I want a little bench swing like I used to have on my swingset.
Like the one in this picture (far right)

We had our first fall from the ladder today. And it just had to be when he was on the top rung. Great. I think we're going to figure out handles of some sort to make it a bit easier.

Here are some more pictures of Alex enjoying his new toy!

And in the way of other things we built today- this sprawling and quite impressive train track!

This is Alex with the set while still in the box. He's been waiting all day to build with it and I told him we had to wait for Daddy to get home. So this is after Daddy brought him downstairs after his bath and he of course ran right to the box to get started on the train track.

And so you don't leave with that image in your mind (even though it's pretty darn cute!), I have to sing praises to my wonderful husband who found a great utility for unzipping folders. I have a TON of digital scrapbooking folders that I hadn't unzipped and then it was just too big of a task to sit down and do it. Jon found me something that will unzip many, (aka all) at once. So my digital scrapbooking stuff is all unzipped.
And I downloaded about 15 more kits today from one of my favorite designers, Summer Driggs, whose stuff is all free (but seriously... for all the amazing stuff she has, donate a few dollars) and ADORABLE!

Anyway, now that I have all of my stuff unzipped I can get my blog redesign in gear and also not feel so bad about downloading massive amounts of new stuff.

My one tip- only download stuff that you really love and think you will use. Otherwise, it's just crap sitting on your hard drive.