WHO CARES?

Just wondering who cares enough to actually read this Blog. If you read this will you do me a favor and post a comment? You don't have to say anything nice or thoughtful, just that you were here. Ok - thanks... just wondering who is reading (if anyone).....

Three Years Ago Today...

It was a beautiful, warm day at Carondelet Park. The wind was blowing just enough and the sun was shining on the lake.

Friends and Family had come from far and wide to see the glorious union of two of the most wonderful people they knew. The ceremony was perfect (except for the fact that the bridal parties were standing on the wrong sides - but maybe nobody noticed). The food was great (or so I heard, I don't remember). And the bathrooms - well, that could be a whole other post... Oh the bathrooms.... if you were there, you know.

But the first dance was so nice (and only lasted for an hour or so...)

And the cake cutting was so sweet (especially when the groom ate his own piece without knowing the tradition of feeding his new bride first).

But all in all it was a wonderful day (hopefully no one noticed the cigarette burn in my veil that was there even before the ceremony started!)

And three years later I am still happily married to the man I love. Maybe next year, on our anniversary, I WON'T be pregnant! Won't that be different!?! (2 out of 3 so far I have been knocked up)

Happy Anniversary Day to you all.

International Cuisine

Today was International Cuisine Day here at my house.
Since I have been trying to gather new recipes and reading blogs on foods kids will eat (see a couple of the blogs to the side if you want to read more) I thought it would be a good idea to try some international flavor out on Nola and the Mister.

So today for lunch we had the following:
Mexican Cuisine: Taquitos (the frozen variety, only the best for my family)
Italian Cuisine: Pizza Rolls (again, from the freezer)
Greek Cuisine: Gyros (leftovers from the Greek Festival we went to yesterday)

Ok - so maybe the name International Cuisine Day should be changed to Clean out the Fridge Day! Tomorrow is Grocery Shopping Day, can you tell?

Sorry, Weirdo!

I was at the grocery store with Nola and we just needed a few things... I'm pregnant you see, so we needed chips, cheese, ice cream, sunflower seeds, and a few other non-essentials like baby wipes and juice. So in the chip isle I was pacing back and forth trying to best judge my future taste buds. I had a big night ahead of me (Grey's Anatomy 2 hour Season Finale, which was SUPER FABULOUS by the way).

I heard a creepy voice say, "Hey Little Cutie." Once I figured out he wasn't talking to me (oh - just kidding!)... I turned around to see this really creepy looking guy talking to Nola. He was older, maybe 60's, and had REALLY thick glasses on that were falling off the end of his nose. He was round. You know the type... like a woman really, but round right in the middle like the blueberry girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I've always thought that was an odd body type for a man - where do they buy their pants? Anyway - his hair was messy and slicked down at the same time and his voice was high and raspy.... Pretty much all around creepy.

"Hey, blue eyes! What a cutie you are!" getting closer and closer. Obviously I abandoned my quest for the perfect chip to come between this man and my daughter - who by the way, looked like a deer in headlights.

"Can you say 'Hi'?" I asked her this obligatory question as if I thought for one second she would speak to this man.... she NEVER talks to strangers, or even our neighbors for that matter.

"Nope, I guess not" I said to him as he stood there waiting for his 'hello'. And he just stood there.... Nola looking from him to me, him looking at her only, and me just wondering what the hell he was doing. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't scared, nor did I feel we were in any danger at all.... he was probably a lonely old man who has never molested anyone in his life.... but you never know.

So then I said what I guess offended him, "She'll probably talk to you as soon as you walk away."
He looked at me like I slapped him in the face and he just looked down and walked away down the isle, pushing his cart. I meant that she says 'hi' and 'bye' to strangers as soon as they walk away... I guess he thought I was telling him to 'Walk Away, Jerk!' I felt really bad all of a sudden....

Then Nola said, "Hi, Man." I called after him and said, "See, as soon as you walked away... she does it every time..." Nothing. He didn't look back, didn't say anything... just kept walking away.

Well, SORRY! (you WEIRDO!)

Monochrome

I found a new setting on my camera (well - I knew it was there but I hadn't really used it much until today). It takes pictures in black and white. True black and white, no changing over in PhotoShop from color. I still haven't been able to really sit down and learn the ins and outs of what manual photography can do for me, but this is a start.... Maybe in a few years when the kids are in school I might have a second to learn something for real.... until then it's trial and error....



Here are a few I shot today in Monochrome:

Baby Genius!

Well - okay - so maybe that's exaggerating just a little bit.... but not much! Nola had her 18month check-up yesterday and she's doing great. She's in the 80% for her weight and 90% for her height.... and 95% for her head! Cause she's packin a GIANT BRAIN! Her doctor said she is really advanced on her speech, at or beyond a 2 year old level. And while she's shy and couldn't show off her skills, the Dr. was really impressed with my stories of what she knows and does.

And just to show you what a Baby Genius I have I will share some with you now:

Letters:
She knows A, B, C, O, I, L, N, sometimes D, and she's working on G. So she had all the letters to spell her name, now we just have to work on the order and meaning behind it. If I write out letters she will say which ones they are (in any order). Also she reads the letters off her wall that spell her name. And she picks them out on the keyboard while sitting in my lap. Baby Genius!

Potty Training:
I bought her a potty seat a while ago and set it right outside our bathroom. I wasn't going to force anything on her yet since she is still so young. (They say 2 is the time to start, or once you see cues, whatever those are.) So I just let her go 'pretend potty' this whole time... which means open it up, sit down, say "pee-pees", stand up, close the lid and say "bye bye, pee-pees." Well the other day she told me she had to go poo-poos and pointed to her potty, which she calls her seat, and went there to sit down! Baby Genius!

Speech:
Her Dr. asked if she was putting more than one word together yet in her speech. I told her that she had been doing that for a long time. She has a million 2-word phrases. She actually now uses 3 and 4 word strings. Her Dr. was amazed!
Here are some of her Nola-isms:
Papa's Foffee (kirk's coffee) - or Mama's or Cee-Cee's or anyone
Outside Play?
More Cracker, Plees? (or any other food she wants)
Boo-Boo Fine (see the whole post for that story!)
Maw Maw Go? (Where did Grandma go?) - or anyone else who has left
No Noon-els More (No more Noodles - aka Mac and Cheese) - or anything else
Cee-Cee n Sal-Son's Howse (Cayce and Allyson's House)
I could go on - but you get the point - Baby Genius!

My Planter Box!

This weekend I actually started AND FINISHED a project! I'm truly in shock! I saw these raised garden beds online and they were from $150 to $350 dollars... well, obviously I'm not spending that on something I don't "need". But I thought to my self, I could make that! Especially if I got someone else to do it for me! Because I really couldn't make them myself... but my brother in law Scott could! So Kirk and I went out to buy the wood and supplies, I drew up the plan and we went to Cayce and Scott's on Saturday. Cayce and I played outside with the girls while Kirk and Scott built my box in Scott's basement wood shop..... Isn't it beautiful?

So I took it home and layered chicken wire, then lava rocks (for drainage) and then dirt. By then it was almost dark out and we had to get Nola to bed. But it was almost finished!

Then this morning (Sunday) Cayce and Allyson came over for coffee and planting time! I planted all of our little seedlings while the girls played in the backyard and Cayce sat and had coffee. LOOK!

Now we have Peppers! (Jalapeno and Red Bell)...

and Green Beans (Kentucky Pole Beans)...

and Tomatoes! (Big Red Beef Eaters!)

Now, unless we start to see 3 foot bunnies in the backyard, our veggies will be safe!

Grow Grow Grow!

And now my window sills are clear for my next science project.... Starting Rose clippings from my climbing rose bush out front..... That will be a small miracle if it works!

Happy Gardening Everyone!

I've Been Bashed on YouTube!

So I put a new video up on YouTube this morning.... (click on the link in the sidebar to go to my YouTube page). It is Nola making a presidential prediction.... It's about 30 seconds long and SO SUPER CUTE! You should go see it....



Within 30 minutes there were 2 hate messages for me! I am going to delete them from YouTube because it's just stupid to leave such ignorant crap up there for people to read when they are simply trying to look at my cute baby.... But for the sake of showing you how crazy people out there really are, I am going to put it here for you to see....

"If you read those books by James Hal Cone, Jeremiah Wright keeps blathering on about, you will discover that the point of his "liberation theology" is the extermination of white people. That means YOU and it means your baby. Obama is intimately involved with that.For you to indoctrinate your child into his fascist cult of personality, to attempt to put a white skinned, blue eyed face on this evil, is sick beyond belief.You are a bad parent and a bad person."

Ok - correct me if I'm wrong but do we not live in America? Freedom of speech, religion and all that jazz? So the escaped mental patient is telling me that if I am not raising my kids to be a close minded, ill-informed, racist jerkoffs, I'M a bad parent? Obama's mother is a white lady! And he has discounted his relationship with Rev. Wright.... And do we really (and I mean REALLY) think that if anyone with the intentions of exterminating all white people was put into the position of presidential chair that they would actually succeed???? The person really needs to just take a deep breath, relax, maybe have a beer (or stop drinking so much beer) and just lay off the YouTube. Seriously people.... get a hobby!

The second one wasn't as dramatic but none the less still a pretty pointed comment:

"This is sick, these Obamaphiliacs will brain wash their own children. Why would you do this to an innocent child? This is child abuse plain and simple!"

Child Abuse? Again - really? Ok - just thought I would share the insane world of YouTube politics with you.... now I am off to delete them from my page.....

Oh - and here is a picture from today of my little "...white skinned, blue eyed..." pretty little Democrat:

Testing Testing...123

Allyson - trying out for Lynyrd Skynyrd

Nola - Yearning to get out of the backyard

I just wanted to test out what it looked like to pictures in the posts.... Hope you didn't have your hopes up for a new story or anything.....

Picture of the Week

Here is the post that will stay for any future comments, suggestions or feed back on the pictures.

If you have any suggestions of what specifically you want to see - leave a comment here.

If you want to see the voting options change - leave a comment here.

If you have anything at all to say about this or anything else - leave a comment here.

I hope this will inspire me to get out my camera and take pictures... Feel free to challenge me with picture suggestions. Ok - Thanks for playing!

**UPDATE**
Friday 16th
I think I will be moving the Picture of the Week stuff to the bottom of the page.... mainly due to the size of picture the side bar allows. I will move it now and see how it works out...

Get Your Head Down!

I think that little Logan has been flipping around lately.... First he was breech and I complained about only feeling his kicking very low. Which, by the way, is strange. To feel yourself being kicked in the crotch from the inside out is quite an odd sensation... Anyway... So then he turned over and was head down. I had a few days of peace... maybe a week or so. I could feel the kicks but the little feet were pointed up and mostly made contact with my belly towards the outside. Pretty normal and not painful.
Well, the little monster turned over again and is now breech once more. And now that he's that much bigger it's even more uncomfortable. Instead of having feet in my ribs and pushing on my lungs, I have a skull. Which makes breathing slightly challenging! I feel like I've run a marathon after just getting dressed! I can't wait until he drops and I can breath again.... but he better get back into a head-down position first! I don't know how women can stand to have a full term breech baby in there! It would be like someone standing up inside you!

By the way - I have 101 days to go until my due date of August 23rd. That's roughly 3 months and 10 days..... Anyone else freaking out? Oh - it's just me then? Cool.

"Boo-Boo, Fine!"

A few weeks ago my little family decided to take a day trip to the Zoo. Since it was one of the first warm days in a while I put Nola in shorts. Well, before we even left the house she fell in the driveway and skinned her knee. One of her first major boo-boo's so far. I wiped it off and we went about getting ready to go. Then! as we were getting in the car she fell AGAIN! And skinned both her knees, the first one in the exact same spot! Well - this time blood started coming out - dripping out onto her shoes and the sidewalk... then onto my living room floor. I grabbed both girls and came BACK inside to preform my magical healing practices (Neosporin and a My Little Pony Band-Aid*) and then we were back on the road again.

This experience taught Nola the word "Boo-Boo" which she used as she pointed it out on her knee (because of the My Little Pony band-aid) every time I changed her band-aid, her diaper, her clothes, her pants rose above the knee, every time she had a bath, got into her jammies, every time she remotely thought of her knee.... So eventually I started telling her that her boo-boo was, "Just fine..." In other words, "ENOUGH ALREADY with the Boo-Boo crap!" Well - it back fired.

Now (and I think we are about three weeks into this boo-boo fest) she still points it out. It's gone by the way! No more boo-boo! But now, she points to her knee and says, "Boo-Boo,... Fine!"

Ok - well - at least I know she listens.


*don't fall for the My Little Pony band-aids.... they are big and colorful... I think there may be 10 to a box and enough sticky power for only one between them! What a rip off! Try regular band-aids and sharpies! Much Cheaper!

House of Fools!

Ok - first I would like to say that I am no delicate flower.... I can take a lot of gross before I get offeneded. I don't shy away from blood and guts, cussing or dirty jokes... Obviously I'm female but I'm certainly no 'Lady.' Well, at this particular lunchtime, I met my match!



We sit in this order: Papa, then Allsyon, then Mama, then Nola... in a circle around the table, adult/child/adult/child. In other words, I'm surrounded.



So we were eating, I think we were almost finished and Nola (the beautiful little lady that she is) farted. I would like to have used the word 'tooted' or even 'pooted' because they seem like the more appropriate words to use for a little girl doing such things... but what Nola did doesn't fit into the perameters of those words. She farted. Like a grown man with no social qualms at all.... it was gross. And even though we were at home with no one else to witness this, I was embarassed. I think I actually gasped. Kirk asked, "Was that HER?" And, as if to answer him, she let out a peal of squealing laughter.



This made Allyson laugh so hard that she burped up some food. Now, mind you, we are all getting over colds so both girls are already little snot monsters who have no concern with what is lurking on their faces. But when you go into fits of laughter, coughing and burping... well, lets just say, "it all comes out". The Kirk started laughing at the girls and making disgusting noises as well (we'll just leave it at that since he's a grown man with a job and somewhat of a reputation to uphold outside our lovely home).



I really couldn't believe how appalled I was. Ok - so I'm pregnant and things do get to me a little quicker these days, but I was really grossed out. They were all being repulsive and cracking up about it.... I wanted to scream.

Finally I had had enough... "OKAY - STOP! You are all acting like little boys! What is wrong with you people?! These are little girls - not Monkeys!"



For a brief moment there was glorious silence.....



Then it started... "Oooh Ooooh Ooh, Haaa Haaa Ha! OOh Haa Haa!" and more laughing. (those were monkey noises in case my spelling didn't convey the sounds) I just got up and walked away. A House of Fools I tell you - FOOLS!

Dedication: to Lucy

The creation of this Blog is mainly due to Lucy. She suggested it more than once so I thought, What the heck... so here goes: a Blog about my life.... I sure hope it's not too terribly boring!
I assume it will end up being divided into a few sections.... What I'm Up To and The Kids. But who knows - I may just end up with a very exciting, creative, Can't-Wait-To-Read-It kind of blog.... Ok- don't hold your breath!