Monday, December 31, 2007
here’s to 2007!
It's been a magnificent year for us. We're wishing for more of the same in 2008. I hope the year has been good to you as well!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Blingo rocks
My sister just won a prize for me again on Blingo. It's so awesome. I just looked at my profile on there again and I've won three prizes total from Blingo since I joined December 23, last year. Not bad for just searching the internet.
So go join. No strings attached; just search the web to win. Every time you win, I win. And then we can get prizes and be happy together. Yay!
So go join. No strings attached; just search the web to win. Every time you win, I win. And then we can get prizes and be happy together. Yay!
potty report
Days 4 and 5 of Big Girl Underwear
Number of accidents: 1 (during nap - my fault for not diapering beforehand)
Number of accidents: 1 (during nap - my fault for not diapering beforehand)
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
grrrr
I can't find my camera battery charger. I hve no one to blame it on but myself.
I'm having a hard time getting back on my diet. Must. Throw. Away. Christmas. Leftovers.
The husband has the week off. He's spending the entire time working outside on our deck.
It's potty training Day 2.
It's cold.
I'm having a bad day.
I'm having a hard time getting back on my diet. Must. Throw. Away. Christmas. Leftovers.
The husband has the week off. He's spending the entire time working outside on our deck.
It's potty training Day 2.
It's cold.
I'm having a bad day.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
21 months
Dear Julianna,
Whew! It’s been a whirlwind of a month! You’re growing in leaps and bounds and I can hardly remember what all you’ve experienced this month. In just three more months you’ll already be two. Hard to believe, but its true!
So where to begin?
Jules, I’m amazed that you can say the entire blessing at dinner now without any help. The one you say goes like this:
You can also say your prayers before bed every night. As you sit on Daddy’s lap and hold your hands together you nod your head vigorously with each word you say. Your father and I sit there stifling laughs because you look so overly dramatic, but apparently the rhythm of the nodding helps you say the words to the prayer, so we try not to laugh. Every night when we go to bed, Daddy sneaks in and checks on you and then when he comes out I always ask, “Is she cute?” and he always answers, “Of course!”
Somewhere along the way you learned to count to 13 all by yourself. You know all the basic colors and you’re well on your way to saying the entire alphabet. You can get through most of it now, but occasionally need a little prompting. It’s been so funny listening to you sing Christmas carols this month. We’ve had the Christmas stations playing non-stop and you’ll jabber along with the Bing Crosby (or whoever happens to be singing) ‘til you get to the end of each line and you’ll say the last word of each line loudly and enthusiastically.
You’re exploring more vocabulary these days. You’ve gone from calling Nanna, “Nanna” to “Yanna” to “Nanny.” I expect one day you’ll go back to calling her “Nanna” again. You used to call me “Mama”, but now you say “Mommy”. You string two or three words together at a time now to tell us what you want or need. This has drastically cut down on the number of temper tantrums we’ve experienced, for which your daddy and I are thankful.
Your favorite words this week have been “nutcracker”, “Jesus”, and “Frosty”. You call every snowman you see “Frosty.” You ask for more “Frosty” and more “Jesus” all the time. Sometimes when we’re in the car you’ll say the same word over and over and over again – sometimes for more than 15 MINUTES STRAIGHT. It can get so aggravating that we consider CUTTING OUR EARS OFF, but it’s life with a toddler I suppose and we wouldn’t trade it for the world.
This month your mama has been pretty sad, Julianna. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself and been down on myself for gaining so much weight – just pretty whiney in general. You’ve been such a trooper to learn to entertain yourself for extended periods of time and then as I’ve gradually gotten back to exercising again, you’ve been awesome at playing in the nursery at the Y or hanging out in the stroller on walks. You truly are the sweetest little girl ever.
We took you to the Festival of Lights a week or so ago and you had an absolute blast! You got to ride out of your car seat and sit on the arm rests so you could narrate all the light displays for us. I’ve been to see those lights more times than I can remember and one thing’s for sure, I’ve never enjoyed it as much as I did this year! You bring joy to my life in so many ways, ways I’d never expect to find joy again, but that’s what you do. I love you, Julianna. Happy 21 months!
Love,
Mama
Whew! It’s been a whirlwind of a month! You’re growing in leaps and bounds and I can hardly remember what all you’ve experienced this month. In just three more months you’ll already be two. Hard to believe, but its true!
So where to begin?
Jules, I’m amazed that you can say the entire blessing at dinner now without any help. The one you say goes like this:
God is great; God is great.
Let us thank Him for our food.
Amen
You can also say your prayers before bed every night. As you sit on Daddy’s lap and hold your hands together you nod your head vigorously with each word you say. Your father and I sit there stifling laughs because you look so overly dramatic, but apparently the rhythm of the nodding helps you say the words to the prayer, so we try not to laugh. Every night when we go to bed, Daddy sneaks in and checks on you and then when he comes out I always ask, “Is she cute?” and he always answers, “Of course!”
Somewhere along the way you learned to count to 13 all by yourself. You know all the basic colors and you’re well on your way to saying the entire alphabet. You can get through most of it now, but occasionally need a little prompting. It’s been so funny listening to you sing Christmas carols this month. We’ve had the Christmas stations playing non-stop and you’ll jabber along with the Bing Crosby (or whoever happens to be singing) ‘til you get to the end of each line and you’ll say the last word of each line loudly and enthusiastically.
You’re exploring more vocabulary these days. You’ve gone from calling Nanna, “Nanna” to “Yanna” to “Nanny.” I expect one day you’ll go back to calling her “Nanna” again. You used to call me “Mama”, but now you say “Mommy”. You string two or three words together at a time now to tell us what you want or need. This has drastically cut down on the number of temper tantrums we’ve experienced, for which your daddy and I are thankful.
Your favorite words this week have been “nutcracker”, “Jesus”, and “Frosty”. You call every snowman you see “Frosty.” You ask for more “Frosty” and more “Jesus” all the time. Sometimes when we’re in the car you’ll say the same word over and over and over again – sometimes for more than 15 MINUTES STRAIGHT. It can get so aggravating that we consider CUTTING OUR EARS OFF, but it’s life with a toddler I suppose and we wouldn’t trade it for the world.
This month your mama has been pretty sad, Julianna. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself and been down on myself for gaining so much weight – just pretty whiney in general. You’ve been such a trooper to learn to entertain yourself for extended periods of time and then as I’ve gradually gotten back to exercising again, you’ve been awesome at playing in the nursery at the Y or hanging out in the stroller on walks. You truly are the sweetest little girl ever.
We took you to the Festival of Lights a week or so ago and you had an absolute blast! You got to ride out of your car seat and sit on the arm rests so you could narrate all the light displays for us. I’ve been to see those lights more times than I can remember and one thing’s for sure, I’ve never enjoyed it as much as I did this year! You bring joy to my life in so many ways, ways I’d never expect to find joy again, but that’s what you do. I love you, Julianna. Happy 21 months!
Love,
Mama
Sunday, December 23, 2007
she also looks like an elephant
The little one may have a touch of pneumonia. She's been on round after round of antibiotics and albuterol for cough since early October. The latest round ended Thursday and she started running a fever (103 degrees) again on Saturday. By late last night she was having difficulty breathing and her little chest was rising and falling very rapidly. The triage nurse said we may need to go to the emergency room if the motrin didn't get her fever down soon and slow her breathing. It helped. We went in for an office visit today and they gave her steriods and a nebulizer/breathing treatment machine. It dramatically helps her breathing and the steriods make her hyper. With the face mask on we tell her she looks like an elephant and she half-grins. But she is patient and very tough. It took her over an hour to fall asleep tonight, but she's still such a sweet little girl.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Merry Christmas everyone!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
the kindness of strangers*
Someone stumbled upon A is for beautiful this past weekend and left me a kind comment out of the blue. It made me so thankful once again to have this blog. I actually stopped to reply to the comment and started thinking about how I should blog more regularly. It is so nice to have encouragement from total strangers who stop by briefly and get a small glimpse of your life. It makes me very grateful to have my own little corner of the internet where I can not only jot down my thoughts and feelings for documentation purposes, but also where I can gain friendship and reassurance, strengthen my courage and self-worth, and save a little bit of my sanity.
Each time I get bored with the things on A is for beautiful something happens like this to keep me going and remind me why I write here. I need this space and all of you people out there in the big wide world.
Plus it's nice to get a comment every now and then that's not spam.
*I may have mentioned this already, but I recently read the book with this same title by Katrina Kittle. It was a very good read. It gave me lots to think about for days. I would highly recommend it. However (and this is a big however), it made me think about books being a lot like music albums with the explicit lyrics warning on the front or video games with the giant "Rated M" sticker. It's my opinion that books about sexual abuse, whether fiction or not, should come with some kind of warning label on the front of them. Because this is the third book that I have read since becoming a parent that has been about the sexual abuse of children without having one clue that that was what the book would be about. Third. That just turns my stomach a little bit. I read many a similar book before I had Julianna, but it's just a little different now. I just wish they would warn us. That's all. OK. Getting off my soapbox now.
Each time I get bored with the things on A is for beautiful something happens like this to keep me going and remind me why I write here. I need this space and all of you people out there in the big wide world.
Plus it's nice to get a comment every now and then that's not spam.
*I may have mentioned this already, but I recently read the book with this same title by Katrina Kittle. It was a very good read. It gave me lots to think about for days. I would highly recommend it. However (and this is a big however), it made me think about books being a lot like music albums with the explicit lyrics warning on the front or video games with the giant "Rated M" sticker. It's my opinion that books about sexual abuse, whether fiction or not, should come with some kind of warning label on the front of them. Because this is the third book that I have read since becoming a parent that has been about the sexual abuse of children without having one clue that that was what the book would be about. Third. That just turns my stomach a little bit. I read many a similar book before I had Julianna, but it's just a little different now. I just wish they would warn us. That's all. OK. Getting off my soapbox now.
Monday, December 10, 2007
i’m a copycat
I thought this idea was one of the most fabulous crafty ideas I'd ever heard of. So I copied it.
Jules is a little too young to be drawing her own monsters just yet so I just took a look at Esbee's photograph and free-formed my own little creature on some scrap fabric I had laying around. It took a little while to do because I'm an idiot and I stitched him up around the outside before I remembered to attach the button eyes and bright read mouth so I had to do that through the side hole. Anyway, Julianna seems to love him and I happen to think he's adorable. I asked her what we should call him and she told me, "Thomas." Where that came from I have no idea.
So without further ado...
Meet Thomas.
Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture with his bow still on so just imagine him with a friendly red ribbon tied lovingly around his neck.
Jules is a little too young to be drawing her own monsters just yet so I just took a look at Esbee's photograph and free-formed my own little creature on some scrap fabric I had laying around. It took a little while to do because I'm an idiot and I stitched him up around the outside before I remembered to attach the button eyes and bright read mouth so I had to do that through the side hole. Anyway, Julianna seems to love him and I happen to think he's adorable. I asked her what we should call him and she told me, "Thomas." Where that came from I have no idea.
So without further ado...
Meet Thomas.
Unfortunately, I forgot to get a picture with his bow still on so just imagine him with a friendly red ribbon tied lovingly around his neck.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
bibs
My friend makes these really awesome bibs (baby bibs and toddler bibs). I got a few a couple of weeks ago and got another one last week because they are just that awesome! Very cool patterns and very well made. If you're in the market for new bibs (or a nice baby gift) you should check out both of her online store(s).
Toddler Bib w/ Pocket - Airplane Fabric
Baby Bib - Christmas Stocking Fabric
More Toddler Bibs w/ Pockets - Gingerbread Men and Paisley Fabric
Toddler Bib w/ Pocket - Airplane Fabric
Baby Bib - Christmas Stocking Fabric
More Toddler Bibs w/ Pockets - Gingerbread Men and Paisley Fabric
Sunday, December 2, 2007
my favorite sister
I have the most wonderful sister a girl could ever ask for. She's kind and compassionate, healthy and strong and while she may be just a *tad* impatient at times, she makes up for it with the size of her heart and the way she consistently gives selflessly to others. Today is her birthday. Happy 27th, Tommy Tinker Rinker Stinker! Hope the next year is a great one for you!
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