Commando

I fear Alyssa going to college. Not just because I'm going to miss her terribly, but if I can't keep underwear on the girl at 3 1/2 what the heck is going to happen when she's introduced to liquor and her "inhibitions" are lost?!

I cannot keep panties on the girl to save my life. She's quite the little nudist, but I try to at least keep panties on her. Or some sort of "bottom covering" article of clothing. I stress that no one needs to/wants to/should see her "pee parts". She's been trying to get away with wearing dress up clothes instead of regular clothes lately to get as naked as possible and sometimes I don't notice her lack of clothing, but when she strips every thing off but a tulle tutu you can't help but notice her in all her naked little tushy cuteness.

Travel

Booking airline tickets makes me want to throw up. Its not the thought of traveling/flying that makes my stomach upset, its just the actual booking of the trip and dealing with scheduling. I need a personal assistant for this kind of stuff.

Mamma Mia

Amy and I went to see Mamma Mia yesterday afternoon. What a great movie ~ it gets two thumbs up from both of us. Amy rushed out immediately after the movie to Target and bought the soundtrack and I bought it off of iTunes last night and put it on my iPod this morning before heading to the gym. I didn't really know the story line behind the musical before seeing previews for the movie even though I was very familiar with the title and I also didn't realize how many songs I would recognize while watching it. Although now I wonder if I'll really appreciate seeing the musical live ... I was always so glad that I saw "Rent" with a live touring group before seeing the movie.

I was watching the bride-to-be welcome her two best friends to her wedding preparations and the mother of the bride-to-be do the same and I started daydreaming about Alyssa's future. I wondered if Amy and I would be preparing for our daughters' wedding days together like we prepared for their other firsts like their first day of dance or upcoming first days of preschool. I wonder if Alyssa and Sophie will be as close then as they are now or if time will draw them apart. And then I started thinking back to my childhood best friend and wondering what it would have been like if we would have continued to grow up practically next door to each other. Distance is hard on a friendship when you're 10. We have several kids right around Alyssa's age in our neighborhood; I'm looking forward to seeing how they/if they play a role in each other's lives as they get older. But I'm willing to be patient; they don't need to grow up too quickly.

A new kind of motherhood

This morning I had the great honor of becoming a Godmother for the first time. Our friends Eric and Angie, who are Alyssa's Godparents, asked me to be their daughter Janika's Godmother and I am so, so excited. I told Adam that I can rest easy now because I reached my goal of having 3 kids ... 2 girls and a boy, doesn't get much better than that. :) Isn't Janika stinking adorable? Thank you to Eric and Angie for allowing me to be an official part of their family ~ and thanks to Boomer for taking pictures today!

Gas

As in gasoline, not as in "offending odor coming from Adam's side of the bed". ;)

I spent less that $3.50 per gallon of gas today. I'm beside myself with excitement!!!

How did I accomplish such feat? For some reason instead of the usual $.03 off per gallon with a receipt from Hy-Vee, I got a receipt that offered $.10 off per gallon. And then an additional coupon for an extra $.05 off per gallon. AND I paid cash, so that saved me ANOTHER $.05 per gallon! So that was $.20 saved per gallon for a per gallon price of $3.49. Nice.

Jackpot twice in one weekend ~ I should go pick up Angie and we should hit the boats!

Jackpot!

My shopping trip to JCPenney's today in a nutshell:

Number of items purchased: 13
Amount Paid: $22.05
(for you non-math whizzes, that's $1.69 per piece)
now that I think about it, 2 of the shirts I bought included 2 layered shirts, so I actually got 15 items, which brings my total to less that $1.50 per piece.

But anyway ... I SAVED ... drum roll please ... over $135! Awesome, huh?

They had a ton of infant - 4T stuff marked down to $.97 or $1.97 and a bunch of the size 4-6 stuff marked $1.97 or $2.97. I got some new clothes for Alyssa for school that I feel okay about getting destroyed by paint or whatnot when I only paid a couple bucks for each of them. I know that she's going to a very "hands on" preschool, which I love that she's going to get to experience so much "muck", but I also dread spending money on new clothes that are just going to get stained, etc.

So that's my great find for the day ... fellow moms, go check it out!

Holiday Goals

I've been inspired/motivated/challenged by the fantastic job that the adult Dwights are doing losing weight lately, so I decided to sit down and put some goals into writing. I've found that small goals are the easiest for me to achieve. When I think "hey I want to lose this much total weight", that seems really overwhelming, but if I break it down into 5 - 10 lb increments, its easier to swallow. Today I figured out that I want to lose about 30% of my total current weight, so I broke my goals down into 5% mini-goals and assigned a holiday to each of them. Here's my schedule.

5% - September 1st (Labor Day)
10% - October 12th (Columbus Day ~ actually Alyssa's birthday was my original goal, but then I realized that I could keep with the national holiday theme because she shares her b-day with Columbus day! Convenient, eh?)
15% - November 27th (Thanksgiving ~ although I'm hoping that I hit this goal closer to Halloween for my trip to Raleigh, but I'm trying to make these pretty "easy" goals ... the weight didn't come on overnight, so its not going to come off overnight, either)
20% - January 1st (New Years Day)
25% - February 14th (Valentine's Day)
30% - May 5th (Cinco de Mayo ~ closest holiday that I could think of to my birthday)

Fancy Alyssa

Idon't really remember who first told me about the "Fancy Nancy" line of books, but they are really adorable books for little girls. We recently added "Bonjour Butterfly" to our library and "Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy" is tucked away in the closet as an upcoming "Staying dry all night" reward. But I think the Fancy Nancy books are backfiring a bit because Alyssa is convinced she needs to be "fancy" every day. Which involves wearing a dress every day. But she is awfully gorgeous, isn't she? Too bad 80% of her wardrobe is currently in retirement.

No Cavity Club

Alyssa and I are both proud members of the "no cavity club" after having our check ups with the "tooth doctor" today. She does such a great job at the dentist; so much better than I expect. I'm always waiting for the fits to be thrown with refusing to open her mouth or attempting to bite Dr. F, but she gladly opens up. And I think she tolerate the "spit sucker" better than me because I always freak out slightly because I feel like my tonsils are going to get sucked out. Maybe they use a lower power suckage on her, huh? ;)

Today she turned to me as we were sitting in the chair after having our teeth cleaned and were waiting for the dentist to come in and said "I'm proud of you, Mommy". Thanks, baby.

Weekend Entertainment

Saturday night our family was invited over to our friend/neighbors for a "Lightening Bug Catching" Party. Complete with special guest appearances by "Adam the Amazing Fire Juggler" and the Sleep Fairy. All in all it was a pretty cute evening. They served s'mores and milk for the kids (had a keg and wine coolers for the adults) and the kids could make their own lightening bug craft or play tag while waiting for it to get dark enough for the fireflies to come out. Adam was quite the hit with our neighbors ~ I wouldn't be surprised if he starts getting booked up quickly! ;) Amy's niece Samantha dressed up as the sleep fairy to read the sleep fairy book to the kids as the party "closer". She looked beautiful and I loved the picture of the kids all sitting around listening to story time with their glow bracelets.

Dear Joel

I realize you're "fairly" new to this planet, but you should know that 5AM is NOT an acceptable time to wake up in the morning. I'll let it slide this time, but do NOT let this happen again. I may have to tender my resignation if these working conditions continue.

Love,
Mommy

PS ~ Although you were awfully cute cuddling up next to me in the big chair and pulling the blanket up over your lap all cozy-like. And you did let me catch up on a couple TiVoed shows, so it could have been worse.

Say What?

Today on the way home from my parents I found myself trying to count up all the words that Joel is saying lately (that we can understand). It seems like they have kind of come pouring out of him in the past couple weeks. And it also seems like he only has one volume ~ LOUD ~ when he says them.

Mama
Dada
Grandma (ra-ma)
Poppa
See (new today ~ he said it in the car when he had gotten Alyssa's shoe on his foot by himself, when I found him sitting in the toy shopping cart, and when he got applesauce on his spoon at supper)
Tickle (usually said three times fast and sounds like tiki-tiki-tiki)
Cracker
Grape
Cheese
Ball
Nee (trying to figure out if he calls his binky his nee or if he's trying to say "need" in reference to a binky and/or blanket)
Bye-bye
Uh oh
Me
go
bird

I feel like I'm forgetting some, so this may be a work in progress.

I'm in trouble

Alyssa enjoys the "celebration" I throw when she wakes up in the morning and still has pumpkins or flowers on her pull up (a sign that she hasn't peed during the night). So much so that she's started taking off her wet pull up and putting a new, dry one on before coming out of her room. If she can figure that out at 3 1/2 what the heck is she going to come up with when she's a teenager!?

Today Joel moved a kitchen chair across the kitchen and over to the counter where a bowl of grapes were. Evidently the boy wanted some grapes. He came around the corner squealing "mama! mama!" and looked pleased as punch as he held out a bunch of grapes for me. 17 months old.

I'm glad I'm a young mommy ... I think I'm going to need all the help/energy I can get to raise these two.

4th of July pictures part 3

Joel ... for the first time in his life, I think I took more pictures of him than of Alyssa. But he was completely hamming it up yesterday, so maybe that was part of it. Adam was playing around at supper trying to balance his spoon on his nose. Joel thought that was a pretty cool trick, so he started trying it, too. He thought he was HILARIOUS (of course all the laughing adults might have encouraged him a little bit). I was really surprised/impressed that he wasn't scared of the firecrackers that Craig would sneak away to set off when no one was looking. Honestly, I almost cried a couple times because they surprised me. Overall, I think he had a great time taking in all the people, food, and new things to see.

4th of July pictures part 2

Alyssa ... she was in her element yesterday at Craig and Judi's annual 4th of July party. She was having a "slumber party" in Sarah's bed with Sarah and Amelia. While they read books to her, she conked out on Sarah's shoulder. So Sarah took advantage of the downtime to catch up on some phone calls. One of my favorite pictures of the day. She also got to paint her beloved Anna's fingers nails, which she thought was awesome. And I thought was awfully brave of Anna to allow. :) She and Becca started singing "oooh! ah! oh, what's next" at the fireworks last night, which went along well with the "Firecracker, Firecracker, boom, boom, BOOM!" chant that Amy and I taught the girls the night before.

4th of July pictures part 1

Tell me these aren't two of the cutest kids you've ever seen. Although they aren't that great at being photographed together. Alyssa kept trying to "hold" Joel in her lap (aka had a death grip on his neck), so I kept telling her to put her arms up and wave them around saying "Happy 4th of July!". Then Joel started playing peek-a-boo back to Adam and my mom who were trying to get him to look/smile at the camera and Alyssa decided to get in on the action, too. These are the moments that make my heart melt.