Hired Help

I used to think that if I could hire one person to help out in one aspect of my life it would be a housekeeper. Then I realized how much I really hate planning meals. I love to cook, but I just hate the whole "what should we have" conversation that I have with the voices in my head. So I decided that the perfect "hired hand" for me would be a chef. One that would let me cook occasionally and would make super yummy fancy food that was actually quite weight watchers friendly so that I would lose weight in the process. Not too much to ask, right?

Today I have changed my mind again. I want someone who can pretend to be me and deal with the mind-numbing crap that is insurance companies. I swear that our healthy insurance people have 1 person working that can answer calls. They make you jump through so many automated selections when you call in that you either a) get your question answered by a generic number or b) kill yourself because its just a heck of a lot easier than trying to figure out where you're going and what you need to do c) happen to slip through the cracks and stumble upon the one person who works there who's name is "Jermone" and does NOT sound like he wants to be talking about vaginal deliveries. And then there's the geniuses that work at the home insurance company, but I'm not even going to go there. Jeff ~ I miss you!!! Couldn't you just do insurance on the side? Please? I'll let you claim to live with us so that you don't actually have to take up residency here . . .

Mommy stuff

I haven't updated in a long time, so here's my attempt . . . boring as it is.

I'm trying to get Alyssa's birthday party invitations made before the weekend in case we decide to go to Colorado. I have a cute theme and some good coordination going on, but I'm just not getting "IT". I put a lot of pressure on msyelf to have "perfect" invitations. People have come to expect it from me, and frankly, I enjoy the praise . . . makes me feel good about myself. Everyone needs a little pick me up/pat on the back, right?

I've been feeling really down lately about not feeling like I'm doing "enough" with Alyssa. I had visions when I thought about being a stay at home mom of play dates and going to Mommy and Me classes and having coffee with all my SAHM friends. As they say, reality BITES! Not that I don't LOVE being a SAHM and I'm soo thankful that I'm able to spend my days with her, I just feel like sometimes we just sit around and stare at each other. I feel like I should be spending the entire day teaching her things or doing activites with her and it just doesn't happen. I blame Dora and her gang. When I was a kid the only kids show on during the day was Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers. Now you've got ALL these choices of kids shows and so kids are knowing how to count, write, identify colors/numbers/shapes, speak multiple languages, ect by age 2. I don't think I knew that until at least 4 or 5. Its a lot of pressure to be the mommy to an almost 2 year old.

Anyway, to make a long story short (and to get to bed relatively soon), I've decided to sign Alyssa and I up for a gymnastics/tumbling type class at MyGym for 8 weeks. She'll have her regular class for an hour each week and then we can go for 2 "Free Play" sessions a week. I'm hoping that maybe it'll work out that Adam could take her to one of these on the weekend or in the evening for some daddy/daughter time. I'm also going to sign her up for "Shrimp" swimming lessons at the YMCA. I mentioned something to Angie about this today and it sounds like she and Eric may be interested in taking Lenka, too, which would be a great time! We don't get to hang out with the Dwights NEARLY enough anymore. Now we just need Chad and Jenn to bring Gabe and Alyssa's boyfriend Noah and we could have "Margarita night ~ family style"!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day to you! Arrrr!

My pirate name is:

Dirty Charity Rackham

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Prelude to fall

We're doing a "jungle animals" theme for Alyssa's 2nd birthday next month, so yesterday we dressed her in her best animal print and headed to the lake to take some "jungle-ish" pics of our little animal, hoping to get a good one for her b-day invite. I'm not going to share the one we decided on for her invite so that it can be a surprise for those of you coming to the PAR-TAY, but here's a few of my other faves. She's such the photogenic little cheeseball ~ if only she would have left the super cute lion's mane/ears headband I bought her on.

on the prowl . . .

excuse the tree growing out of her head . . . nature at its best
and one to show that we actually WERE at the lake

Just a country girl at heart!

Yesterday morning Alyssa and I were on our way to jazzercise and just as we turned onto the street that runs by the park that's about a block and a half from our house I noticed about 1/2 dozen *Canadian Geese wandering the street. I was soooooooo excited. I stopped the car and I was bouncing around in the drivers seat saying, "Look Alyssa! Look at the geese! Say 'Hi Geese'! Aren't they pretty?!". And Alyssa is sitting calmly in her carseat giving me the "yeah, whatever Mom" look. I wish I had my camera because they were seriously about 2 feet away from us and I think they are just beautiful.

I get so excited when I see "wildlife" nowadays. I get excited at seeing squirrels for crying out loud. Its sad that the most exciting thing we see in our yard is a rabbit ~ or maybe if we're lucky a bird!!! I want more animals. The kind that come and go as they please, not the kind that live in our house and EAT OUR BAGS OF DORITOS like SOME animals I know. Damn you, Lexi.

** Disclaimer**I was telling this story to Angie yesterday and she wanted to know how I knew that the geese were from Canada. I should have asked them to make sure I was getting all my story facts right, but they LOOKed like Canadian Geese. They may have been immigrants, though.

Oh Alyssa . . .

I just want to bottle up her sweetness some days.

This afternoon Joey was chewing on her bone and Lexi started "making a move" on her. Alyssa rushed over to protect her best bud Joey and shooed Lexi away from her. But THEN my little sweetheart went into the living, dug through the dog's toy box until she found Lexi's bone, and then brought Lexi's bone into the family room and gave it to her. HOW SWEET IS THAT?!?! Then a little while later Lexi stole Joey's bone (evidently the bigger the dog the smaller the bone needs to be), so Alyssa found the other bone and gave it to Joey so that everyone could be happy. How do they learn/comprehend this stuff at such a young age? I'm so stinkin' proud of her.

A not so proud moment to even things out ~ it finally stopped raining enough so that we could go out and play. It was Alyssa's first time playing in the backyard since the fence got put up. Within 5 minutes of being outside (I wasn't completely paying attention to Alyssa because I was planting some mums that my mom bought us on Friday) I heard this little "mama, mama, MAMA!" coming from behind me. I turned around and couldn't see Alyssa anywhere. Little stinker had figured out how to get the gate open and was standing on the other side of the fence wanting to get back in. I think her Daddy the engineer is going to have to rig something up to make sure that she (and the dogs) stay in the yard.

Okay, I have to admit, I am a little bit proud of her for figuring out the gate . . . she's such a smart little cookie!

He's home ~ hooray!

Adam arrived home safe and sound around 1 PM this afternoon. Its so nice to have him home. I knew that I missed him, but didn't really realize how much until I was "dual-parenting" again. Although I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed doing the single parent thing (for a couple days) at least. It was kind of nice to be fun mom and hard ass mom instead of just hard ass mom to Adam's fun dad. ;)

And he brought us home presents! Alyssa is now the proud owner of her very first Penn State t-shirt (but I have to point out that she had an Iowa State one first . . . so :P. Not that I *went* to Iowa State, but I wouldn't be bragging about a Midland t-shirt)

We're going to see the ladies!!!

Barenaked ones, that is! I got tickets today for us to see BNL in November and we're in the 18th row. Not as good as Jen's 2nd row ones, but I'm still pretty excited!

16 week appointment

My mom, Alyssa, and I went to my 16 week appointment today with my midwife. Pretty boring "show", so that's good news. Blood pressure was normal (I give complete credit to the fence guys for this!), heartbeat was strong at 144, I gained my first pound so far, and we scheduled the BIG ultrasound!



Hooray!

Halleluiah!

After 4 months and 10 days of being "open yarded" we are proud owners of a brand, new FENCE! I swear my stress level/blood pressure has dropped waaaay down and its such a relief to be able to just open the back door and let the dogs run out. I feel like a good 100 lbs has been lifted off my shoulders . . . hmmm, that's how much Lexi weighs. Coincidence?!

Say what?

Adam started a post on his blog of words that he could think of that Alyssa is saying. I added a few to his list, and then started a list of my own earlier this week. So here is a list of Alyssa's understandable/consistent vocabulary 1 month and 4 days shy of her 2nd birthday:

Mama/Mommy
Dada/Daddy
Joe
Lexi
Mine
Shoe
Go
Done
Ouch/Ouchie
Uh oh
Please
Bite
More
Elmo
Up
Down
Cheese
Cheers
Change
Baby
No
Fish
Pooh
Trash
Bumblebee (umblebee)
Hi
Bye/Bye-bye
Bubbles
See

And sentances:
Where go?
Here you go.

She's pretty good about repeating things if you ask her to, but those are the ones that she'll say pretty consistently or on her own. Man, she says more things than I thought.

Time for . . . Arts and Crafts with Mommy

I was looking through the office closet this morning for something fun to do with Alyssa and stumbled across some canvases that I had bought on sale several months ago. I decided to just give Alyssa a brush and some paint and let her "creative juices flow". I'm pretty impressed with the end result. Definitely hang-worthy, I would say!

Emotional stuff!

This mommy stuff is emotional stuff! (I'm sure the pregnant hormones don't help any)

This afternoon I put Alyssa down for a nap, per usual, and then settled down in the bedroom with my lunch and my Adam to watch some TiVo. After about 30 minutes we got up so that Adam could let Lexi out and I could go get some more water, but when I opened the door, I heard some whining/crying from Alyssa's room. I immediately looked towards the damn baby monitor sure that it went stupid again and wasn't picking up her cries, but it wasn't on. Whoops! So, I went in expecting to do a little rocking chair session with her until she settled down. As soon as I opened the door I smelled POOP, so I thought maybe she just needed a diaper change and she would be fine. Evidently I wasn't quick enough because as I walked in the room, I saw her pants hanging over the side of the crib and a diaper (indeed poopy) on the floor.
I got her cleaned up and luckily there was no poop to be found in/on the crib or its inhabitants, but now I'm feeling all guilty because she was crying that she needed her diaper changed and I didn't come and didn't come and so she had to suck it up and take matters into her own hands. I know I'm being waaaay too sensitive about this . . . chances are she probably enjoyed the fact that she could pull down her own pants and take off her diaper (Happy Labor Day, Alyssa!), but I still feel like I should be fired now. Or at least written up. ;)

Sick, mowing, and cards ~ oh my!

Sick: Adam and I have been trading off being sick for the past few days. Started out as allergies for both of us (I had been fighting allergies for at least a week or so), but I think mine moved on to a sinus infection or just a really, really bad cold. My saint of a child took a SUPER LONG nap on Thursday or I don't think I would have made it through the day and my saint of a mommy came down to take care of both of her girls. She's the best! Today I think I'm feeling better "stuffy" wise, but for some reason the smell of the Chinese we had last night has been making me dry heave all morning and my throat is starting to really hurt. Drainage, maybe? Maybe I'll blame my sickness on the fact that I went to visit Christy, Evan, and Charlie after school on Wednesday. Damn those elementary school germs!

Mowing: Adam mowed the jungle that is our yard today (it needed to be mowed yesterday as it was just a yard yesterday, but then it rained all day and the grass shot up about 3 feet). Its funny, it seems like whenever he mows on the weekend all our other neighbors end up following suit. He's such a trend setter ~ keeping up with the K's, I guess.

A good rainy day/I feel like crap weekend activity for me is scrapbooking. I have a card swap coming up, so I decided to try to get my cards made for that. Before Adam leaves me *SOB* and I'm a single mom for 4, count 'em 4, days. (But its okay because my mom and Julai are already fighting to see when they each get to take care of Alyssa and I, so we'll be in good hands). Anyway, I wasn't feel very creative, but I'm really happy with the way they turrned out, so thought I would share. I don't share my scrapping/stamping stuff on here very often. I should do more of that. Anyway . . . for your viewing pleasure . . .