Pretzel Baby

I really have no idea how that can be even remotely comfortable.  I moved her legs down, she put them back up.  Silly girl!

‘Mommy’s Little Piggy’

Remember this scene from “A Christmas Story?”

It’s even more fun with a see-through plate :)

Have you ever…

Have you ever cleaned out your dryer vent?  Yeah, me either.

Pepsi can added for reference purposes only, it wasn’t in my dryer vent :)

According to FlyLady, the lint trap on your dryer traps about 75% of the lint.  The rest collects in the dryer and vent.  This reduces the efficiency of the dryer and poses a fire hazard!  We have lived in our home for 7 years, and have never cleaned out the venting.  I have cleaned out the dryer though.  Usually when the lint screen won’t go in all the way.  I will be doing this more often.  I purchased a vent brush from Walmart.  FlyLady has a kit on her site (The FlyLady link above).  She recommends cleaning the vents out twice a year.

Sleep troubles…

We had a terrible time with Emma and sleep for the first 9 months of her life.  Then things leveled out and she got to be a pretty good sleeper with occasional troubles here and there.  The last month or so she’s gotten worse again.  Twice this week she didn’t nap at all. 

Tonight she didn’t go to sleep until after 10 pm.  It’s craziness.  I refuse to entertain the thought that she might be ready to give up her nap. For now I’m going to say it’s a phase.

It’s seriously frustrating though!  She gets mad and throws everything out of her crib.  Then she can’t go to sleep because she doesn’t have the things that comfort her to sleep.  If I go in there she expects me to get her up, so it makes her mad all over again. It’s just a phase. It’s just a phase.  It’s just a phase.

Gary

Emma jabbers away all the time.  I don’t always know what she’s saying, but there are more and more things I understand each day.  For the last week or so she’s been saying what really sounds like “Gary.”  Mark has at least a couple of uncles named Gary.  But we rarely see them, and don’t talk about them enough for her to overhear and learn their names.  I know she’s seen a couple of minutes of SpongeBob, and he has a pet snail named Gary.  But we don’t watch SpongeBob on a regular basis, and we haven’t had cable since May. So I certainly know she hasn’t seen it recently. She watches Veggie Tales more than anything.  But when she says Larry it’s clearly Larry. So, I have no idea where she might have learned Gary, or if it’s another word entirely.

I’ve been wanting to get Emma a pet fish for awhile.  I’ve always liked fish, but got rid of our big aquarium several years ago.  Emma always likes to stop and look at the fish at Wal-Mart.  So I got her a little 1 gallon aquarium and a beta.  I also got 2 little neon tetras.  She doesn’t really notice the tetras.  But the beta is her new friend. 

So what do you think she named her new friend?  You guessed it.  Gary.  She has to say good morning to Gary first thing in the morning.  And she says goodnight to him before bed every night.  It’s so sweet (and a great reminder to me to feed the fish…)

Appliance troubles

We have an electric “fireplace” (in other words a pretty space heater that ads some nice ambiance—I know it’s not a real FIREplace, but we’re still going to call it one) in the living room.  I love to use it in cooler weather.  It looks nice, and makes the living room warm and cozy.  We’ve had some cool rainy weather this week.  It was 64 in the house when I woke up, so I thought today would be a great time to turn on the fireplace.  The pretty part of the fireplace turned on, but not the heat . I pulled it away from the wall, and noticed it really needed vacuuming behind there.  While using my beloved Dyson, I remembered the last couple of times I’ve tried to use the hose and attachments, it hasn’t sucked very well.

Since the vacuum is operating  fine for cleaning the floors, and Emma and I are home a vast majority of the time these days, my cold feet quickly prioritized the fireplace repair above the vacuum.   I’m pretty sure the switch needs replaced, so I took the fireplace insert out of the mantle surround and took it to an appliance repair shop before lunch.  The repairman agreed that it is probably the switch, and it should be an easy fix, and likely be around $20.  That makes me happy.

Now that we’re back home, and Emma is down for a nap, I turned my attention back to the Dyson.  When I was trying to use it earlier, I noticed that it would suck normal for about 2 seconds, and then would sound like it sucked up something huge and the sucking sound moved.  Upon further investigation, the suction was happening here at the top of the canister in a little little opening, instead of the hose?  Weird.

I checked the filters and everything was in place.  I did a quick google search to help me troubleshoot what could be the problem.  If the fireplace repair is only $20, we may be able to take the vacuum somewhere, but I’d rather fix it myself if I can. 

About 2 minutes later, with no tools other than my hand, this is found to be the root of the problem.  The gray elbow is part of the vacuum.  The ink pen, petrified french fry, and huge wad of hair were all inside that elbow, plugging things up.

Sure glad I didn’t have to pay someone to figure that out for me!!  How embarrassing.  Now to keep a super busy two year old out of this for a couple of days until the fireplace is fixed and back in place.

Duck, Duck, Goose

{For anyone who may still be looking at my blog, are you proud of me?  This is 4 blog posts in a week!!}

The other night we went out to dinner as a family.  I brought along the camera and a few dinner rolls so we could stop at a park and feed the birds.  There were a bunch of ducks and geese.  I was surprised at how much Emma enjoyed it.  I’ve been to this park before {which is actually a park on the edge of a cemetery}.  But I’ve never taken Emma.  I hope we can make it there a few more times before the weather turns.

Emma stood on the table for a little bit.  I wouldn’t normally want her to stand on the table.  But we didn’t want her touching the poo covered wall—and I don’t think anyone is going to be eating at that table, if you know what I mean.  Not to mention we didn’t want her to get too close to the slightly aggressive birdies.



Daddy helped Emma get close to the wall to throw the bread over.  She did great throwing it, and would LAUGH and laugh. (Can I just say looking at these pictures again, I’m loving the evening colors).



We shared our rolls with another family that was there.






I love seeing my girl so happy.


This little guy was happy too :)



The happiness didn’t last though.  The birds were annoyed when we ran out of food, and Emma was just plain mad when we said it was time to go.  We’re going to have to work on that.  She’s two and needs to make sure everyone knows it.

We did take a few minutes to play with some seriously old playground equipment.  That slide must have been 7 or 8 feet high.  Emma climbed the ladder like it was nothing though.  I think I liked it better when she had a healthy fear of heights.

Fun with Friends

There is nothing like a little outdoor summer fun with friends!  The warm summer days will soon be coming to an end.  We had to squeeze in a little more fun with our friends from next door.  A few weeks ago I stopped at the dollar store to pick up supplies for Em’s birthday party, and I picked up a few cans of shaving cream for finger painting.  I don’t remember where I read that suggestion {most likely from HP/PAI friends} but it was so fun.  I brought out my camera, but was making quite the mess myself, so Kristy was kind enough to take pictures while we all played.

The kids were all a little unsure with the idea at first, and poked at it with one finger, but the warmed up quickly.

Lilly wanted to finger paint too.  But she bounced on the horse instead. :)

Tate (I think?) decided to move from finger painting on the table to finger painting on himself.

And Hudson decided to finger paint on himself too.

Then there’s Em.  I’m not sure what she was doing, or how she got the shaving cream on her forehead.

They all smelled manly fresh when they were done.  I’d say it was successful summer fun with friends!  We’ll have to do it again sometime.

So, what is your favorite thing to do with toddler and pre-school age kids?  I’d love more ideas.

Guilty…

I’m guilty.  I will be the first to admit I do things that make my life easier that probably aren’t the best for my daughter.  For instance I over child proof.  Emma has clear boundaries in our house.  There are three baby gates and a fence inside our house to keep Emma in those boundaries.  She’s just such a busy kid that I would never get anything done for all of the no-no’s.  It’s easier for her, and best for my relationship with her to keep her within an area that is safe for her.  I built a cabinet to house her multi-part toys, and put child locks on them it, so that we can get one or two of them out at a time.  She has other toys that she can get to all the time.  I just got sick of sorting little people and building blocks and musical instruments, and legos, etc, after they had been dumped all over the living room floor.  She would probably be better served to learn these boundaries without child locks and baby gates, but for now, we  will keep them in place, and we’ll work on it when I can reason with her a bit more.

So this morning I got to thinking…  I know she can drink out of a cup without a lid.  She does a pretty good job of it when she wants to.  She’s often rather drink out of my cup than her own.  Sometimes that is because I have something different to drink (pop).  But other times I’m drinking water just like her, and she’d still rather drink from my cup.   She’s had a touch of a cold, and was having trouble drinking from her sippy cup so I took the lid off of it and gave it back to her to finish her milk.  It took all of 30 seconds for this to happen…

I give up.  We’re keeping the lid on for now.

On Second Thought…

On second thought, purchasing a toy called “Gripper Blocks” may not have been the best choice for my curly haired girl.  She figured this out all on her own.  She’s actually quite proud of herself.

Two Years? How is that possible?

I have several blog posts started.  I’m going to finish them up and get them posted… eventually But first, PICTURES!!!  No, wait, let me back up.

When we first moved into our home, we got to know our neighbors.  But people have come and gone since then, and I didn’t make an effort to meet the new ones.  Through our years of infertility, I managed to isolate myself quite well.  It was hard watching happy little families, when we had a family of two, and I got tired of explaining repeatedly why we didn’t have kids.  Then we did have a baby, but I had already built my lonely little walls—that and I was SO stinking tired.

Fast-forward to about May of this year.  I was out working on pulling some weeds when the next door neighbor and her adorable twin boys were walking across the street to check the mail and they stopped to say hi.  We had a great conversation and made friends.    She later sealed the deal by bringing over the most amazing cup-cakes I have ever tasted, and we’ve been friends ever since.  What does this have to do with pictures you ask?  I’m getting there!  Kristy is an amazing photographer!

I asked Kristy if she would take some family pictures for us this last weekend.  She did that, and Emma’s 2 year old pictures.  It’s true, in just a few days Emma will be two years old!!!  It seems impossible, but it’s true.  So here are the amazing little gems.

Thank you again Kristy.  These pictures are truly more than I could have hoped for!  You are truly gifted, and I am blessed!!