For all of the 18 months of her life we've been trying to do her baby dedication at church, and today it FINALLY happened! For one reason or another every time they had them (they do them 4 times a year), we couldn't do it. We'd sign up and then something would happen or come up to make it inconvenient and we'd cancel. So I finally decided a few weeks ago that we're going to do it, no matter what, before she's no longer in the "baby" category (she really isn't now, either, but some people would still call her a baby).
Before church she was running around in the hallway with her cousins, who had come to see the dedication, and was just crazy with excitement. I was so scared that she wouldn't stay still while we were up in front of the church with hundreds of eyes on us, wanting to get down, fussing, and causing a scene. Well, she couldn't have been better. She was quiet and stayed in our arms (in the middle of the prayer she wanted Mommy to hold her, and not Daddy, and reached for me, so I took her, but other than that she was just as sweet as she could be. We took her to the nursery after that and she did just great. I was so relieved!
Afterwards we had lots of fun having lunch at our house with family, along with her dear friend, Kaden, and his mom (my dear friend, Allecia, who surprised me by coming to the dedication!). They all played outside for the longest time, having fun in the leaves and on the swingset. It was a beautiful, fall day.
I have pictures, but they're not downloaded onto the computer yet. I'll put them on tomorrow.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
tag, you're it!
My friend, Emily, tagged me on her blog for a meme, so I'll try to follow through. (A meme is like a question or a theme to post about, and then you "tag" other bloggers to do the same thing.) This one asks you to list 6 habits of yours...
1) A habit I've gotten into since being a stay at home mom is to watch "Good Morning America" in the mornings. When my little one wakes up, I get up too, bring her downstairs, get her a cup of milk, which she inhales, and turn on Good Morning America. She sits on my lap drinking her milk and waking up, while I wake up watching the news. She then scrambles down to the floor and starts her day of playing and bringing me books with Good Morning America on in the background. We usually go eat breakfast and go back upstairs to get dressed while it's on, so it's not like I sit on the couch for two hours to watch it, but it's always on and I'm in and out, getting caught up on my news that way.
2) A VERY bad habit I have is to get on the computer a bazillion times a day. When we just had the desktop it was easier to avoid because it's upstairs in an extra bedroom, and I wasn't up there very often, but now that I have a laptop and it's readily available, I get on it way too much. It's nothing important....email, reading blogs, checking what good bargain toys I can find on Craig's List, or other equally unimportant tasks. Once I put my laptop away for a week and found I got a lot more done that week--and I know I should probably just keep it put away during the day, but I can't bring myself to do it. Now R has discovered it, too. Whenever I open it up, she wants to crawl in my lap and see the various sites I have bookmarked for her. She likes the Noggin.com site, where she watches music videos on the "Jack's Big Music Show" site. She especially loves Laurie Berkner's songs. Since she's discovered these, I've gotten several of Laurie Berkner's CDs out of the library and we listen to them in the car all of the time. They keep her much happier while we're out and about. She also likes to watch that little video clip I put on here a few weeks ago with her picture on it, participating in various "adventures." She asks to watch that over and over! Another site is an alphabet site where they say the letter and an animal that starts with that letter. My little girl is already a tech junkie and she's not even two years old....
3) When I put R in her high chair to eat breakfast, lunch, or a snack, I try and get some task done in the kitchen. Usually it's emptying or filling the dishwasher. In the afternoon when she has a snack I'm always getting something prepared for dinner. It's the only way I can make sure she's not going to be hanging on my legs while I'm busy.
4) Hmmm...I'm having trouble coming up with habits. I guess I'm not a creature of habit. Here's one: At 4:00 every day I start making dinner. My husband gets home around 4:45 and he likes to eat then. Otherwise, he snacks and then isn't hungry for dinner, so over the years that we've been married dinner has become earlier and earlier. We joke that we're just like the older couples who go to Bob Evans at 4:00 for dinner. Often someone will call around 5:30 or so and ask, "I'm not interrupting your dinner, am I?" and I've just finished up cleaning up the dinner dishes!! When we go to dinner with someone else or go visit someone, we're always starving by the time we have dinner around 6:00....a more "normal" dinner time!
5) I guess the TV shows we watch are habits....though right now now many of our shows aren't on. We watch Lost, which doesn't start until February, The Amazing Race, which starts in a few weeks, and recently have become hooked on 24, through watching them on DVD. We've been reserving them at the library, but they only give you 5 days to watch them. A whole season (24 episodes) in 5 days?!?! We actually did it once....it was insane. We were watching episodes non stop and got so sick of it that we were so relieved when we finished. That show is so intense. Last night we finished season 3. That one we were able to renew several times because no one else was waiting for it, so it was much more relaxing to watch an episode or two in the evenings (well, relaxing isn't really the right word for such an "on the edge of your seat" show, but you get what I mean). I've recently started watching Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, but my husband doesn't like them, so I don't watch them every week.
6) At 7:00 every night we take R up to take a bath. Her bedtime has become a habit, which has been so helpful in making sure she goes to bed easily. She goes to bed so well, without fussing, and I'm so thankful.
So there you go...maybe you know me a little better now. I'm supposed to tag people to do this, too, but I won't. If you read this and want to do it on your blog, great. If not, don't worry about it.
1) A habit I've gotten into since being a stay at home mom is to watch "Good Morning America" in the mornings. When my little one wakes up, I get up too, bring her downstairs, get her a cup of milk, which she inhales, and turn on Good Morning America. She sits on my lap drinking her milk and waking up, while I wake up watching the news. She then scrambles down to the floor and starts her day of playing and bringing me books with Good Morning America on in the background. We usually go eat breakfast and go back upstairs to get dressed while it's on, so it's not like I sit on the couch for two hours to watch it, but it's always on and I'm in and out, getting caught up on my news that way.
2) A VERY bad habit I have is to get on the computer a bazillion times a day. When we just had the desktop it was easier to avoid because it's upstairs in an extra bedroom, and I wasn't up there very often, but now that I have a laptop and it's readily available, I get on it way too much. It's nothing important....email, reading blogs, checking what good bargain toys I can find on Craig's List, or other equally unimportant tasks. Once I put my laptop away for a week and found I got a lot more done that week--and I know I should probably just keep it put away during the day, but I can't bring myself to do it. Now R has discovered it, too. Whenever I open it up, she wants to crawl in my lap and see the various sites I have bookmarked for her. She likes the Noggin.com site, where she watches music videos on the "Jack's Big Music Show" site. She especially loves Laurie Berkner's songs. Since she's discovered these, I've gotten several of Laurie Berkner's CDs out of the library and we listen to them in the car all of the time. They keep her much happier while we're out and about. She also likes to watch that little video clip I put on here a few weeks ago with her picture on it, participating in various "adventures." She asks to watch that over and over! Another site is an alphabet site where they say the letter and an animal that starts with that letter. My little girl is already a tech junkie and she's not even two years old....
3) When I put R in her high chair to eat breakfast, lunch, or a snack, I try and get some task done in the kitchen. Usually it's emptying or filling the dishwasher. In the afternoon when she has a snack I'm always getting something prepared for dinner. It's the only way I can make sure she's not going to be hanging on my legs while I'm busy.
4) Hmmm...I'm having trouble coming up with habits. I guess I'm not a creature of habit. Here's one: At 4:00 every day I start making dinner. My husband gets home around 4:45 and he likes to eat then. Otherwise, he snacks and then isn't hungry for dinner, so over the years that we've been married dinner has become earlier and earlier. We joke that we're just like the older couples who go to Bob Evans at 4:00 for dinner. Often someone will call around 5:30 or so and ask, "I'm not interrupting your dinner, am I?" and I've just finished up cleaning up the dinner dishes!! When we go to dinner with someone else or go visit someone, we're always starving by the time we have dinner around 6:00....a more "normal" dinner time!
5) I guess the TV shows we watch are habits....though right now now many of our shows aren't on. We watch Lost, which doesn't start until February, The Amazing Race, which starts in a few weeks, and recently have become hooked on 24, through watching them on DVD. We've been reserving them at the library, but they only give you 5 days to watch them. A whole season (24 episodes) in 5 days?!?! We actually did it once....it was insane. We were watching episodes non stop and got so sick of it that we were so relieved when we finished. That show is so intense. Last night we finished season 3. That one we were able to renew several times because no one else was waiting for it, so it was much more relaxing to watch an episode or two in the evenings (well, relaxing isn't really the right word for such an "on the edge of your seat" show, but you get what I mean). I've recently started watching Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice, but my husband doesn't like them, so I don't watch them every week.
6) At 7:00 every night we take R up to take a bath. Her bedtime has become a habit, which has been so helpful in making sure she goes to bed easily. She goes to bed so well, without fussing, and I'm so thankful.
So there you go...maybe you know me a little better now. I'm supposed to tag people to do this, too, but I won't. If you read this and want to do it on your blog, great. If not, don't worry about it.
Monday, October 22, 2007
picture page
I said I would make you wait for the pictures....but I changed my mind. So here are lots of random pictures from the last several weeks that haven't made it into the annals of this blog.
A couple of weeks ago when I did that market research/jury thing, Daddy took her to a nearby park that has a farm. He took some pictures while they were there. It was a cold, dreary day, but she had a great time seeing the animals and playing with pumpkins (even though she couldn't lift them up...after lots of trying, Daddy said!).
We went to the zoo this weekend. They have a petting zoo over in a section we hadn't been to yet. We fed her obsession for animals by letting her pet the goats (poor goats....being chased after by hundreds of small children...probably not very fun!).
A couple of weeks ago when I did that market research/jury thing, Daddy took her to a nearby park that has a farm. He took some pictures while they were there. It was a cold, dreary day, but she had a great time seeing the animals and playing with pumpkins (even though she couldn't lift them up...after lots of trying, Daddy said!).
We went to the zoo this weekend. They have a petting zoo over in a section we hadn't been to yet. We fed her obsession for animals by letting her pet the goats (poor goats....being chased after by hundreds of small children...probably not very fun!).
She tried to give most of them a hug....without much success.
She plopped herself down next to one and started playing in the straw, and then started poking the goat with the straw! 
This is when we were looking at the fish. I like this one because she was looking up at me, showing me, excitedly, what she had found swimming in the tank. 
She found this tiger outside of the area where they have the actual tigers. The real tigers were sleeping, so she found this tiger much more exciting! 
Just chilling out in her stroller after seeing the tigers....
They had a hay maze set up, which she loved. Here she is in the maze. She didn't care much about the fact that it was a maze...just about picking up the hay...every piece of hay she could find (and it's a hay maze, so there was a lot of it...trust me! It took us a long time to get through that maze!)
A couple of weeks ago on a warm, October day, I took some pictures of her playing outside. Every so often she'll lay down in the grass for no reason and just look up at the sky. I guess she's pondering life, or something equally as deep, but anyway, here she is, my philosophical, pondering daughter!
One of her favorite pasttimes is picking up sticks (and leaves, rocks, acorns, and anything else she can find) and bringing them to me. Notice her excitement....she seriously gets this excited over every single stick! Wouldn't it be nice to be that easily entertained?!
A couple of months ago I bought her some winter boots at a consignment sale I went to. I later found out that they light up--she's the one who discovered that when she started playing with them. She loves these boots. I had to hide them in the closet so she'd stop playing with them, but every time the closet gets left open, she finds her way in there and gets the boots out. One morning a couple of weeks ago she brought them over to me and sat down to try and put them on her feet. It was hilarious to watch her try. I finally gave in and helped her do it. The result was hysterical--PJs and boots (2 sizes too-big-for-her-boots, at that!). If any of you have ever seen pictures of me when I was little, you'll notice that she is the spitting image of me in this picture!! One of these days I'll scan some pictures of me in to compare.
A few days ago I read that instead of finger painting with regular finger paint with children this young, you can have them finger paint with pudding. That way if they try and lick it off their fingers, it's okay. So I bought some chocolate pudding and tried it this weekend. Here are the results.
First she just put her fingers in it and enjoyed the way it felt. I tried showing her how to move it around and make a picture, but she wasn't interested.
Next she decided to bring the plate up to her mouth to test it out. I'm sure glad this was pudding and not paint!
She liked what she found!
Sunday, October 21, 2007
go tribe, go!
Yeah, I'll bet you didn't know I'm a closet Indians fan....well, only in October when they make it this far and I know how important it is to my dad, who's waited his whole life to see his Tribe win it all in the World Series. So here I sit, Weed, the most unlikely to ever sit and watch an entire baseball game....or any sporting event for that matter....watching Game 7 all by myself. Aren't you proud, Dad!?!?
So, several of my friends have blogs, which I love to read. I'll admit that I get sad when I check them and they haven't updated (which I know the one or two of you that read this also must feel when you check my blog and don't see new pictures or stories of you know who!). Anyway, my friend, Emily, posted recently on her blog that November is NaBloPoMo, which apparently is "National Blog Posting Month." Who knew?!?! NaBloPoMo has a website, and those who participate promise to post to their blogs every day in November. So she asked if anyone else would like to try it. I said I'd try, but I don't promise that every post will be full of excitement or interesting news! Who knows, I might have to resort to posting song lyrics, which I once wrote in my weekly language arts journal in 8th grade (for which I got in HUGE trouble, even though I wrote "do not read" at the top of the page, which was supposed to ensure that my teacher wouldn't read it....yeah, right, Mrs. Klinger!!!)
So anyway, I'll try to post something every day in November...any of you blogging friends of mine out there who read this blog want to try it, too????
I have pictures to post and stories to tell of several different events, but I'm on my laptop and the pictures are on the desktop upstairs....hmmm....maybe I should save them for November! It'll give me something to post! :) I'll keep you waiting for those!
So, several of my friends have blogs, which I love to read. I'll admit that I get sad when I check them and they haven't updated (which I know the one or two of you that read this also must feel when you check my blog and don't see new pictures or stories of you know who!). Anyway, my friend, Emily, posted recently on her blog that November is NaBloPoMo, which apparently is "National Blog Posting Month." Who knew?!?! NaBloPoMo has a website, and those who participate promise to post to their blogs every day in November. So she asked if anyone else would like to try it. I said I'd try, but I don't promise that every post will be full of excitement or interesting news! Who knows, I might have to resort to posting song lyrics, which I once wrote in my weekly language arts journal in 8th grade (for which I got in HUGE trouble, even though I wrote "do not read" at the top of the page, which was supposed to ensure that my teacher wouldn't read it....yeah, right, Mrs. Klinger!!!)
So anyway, I'll try to post something every day in November...any of you blogging friends of mine out there who read this blog want to try it, too????
I have pictures to post and stories to tell of several different events, but I'm on my laptop and the pictures are on the desktop upstairs....hmmm....maybe I should save them for November! It'll give me something to post! :) I'll keep you waiting for those!
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
storytime, take two
After the last fiasco, we haven't been back to story time at the library. But this morning we went to a story time I had signed us up for at this nearby church. They have an indoor playground and the kids got to play and do a craft and listen to stories. We didn't go the first week because she was sick. We didn't go last week because I was at that all day market research thing last Wednesday. So today was the first time.
Well, suffice it to say we won't be going back.....
She was WAY too young, even though it said for ages 1-5. Most of the kids were about 4, it looked like. Of course she wouldn't sit still for the stories. She just wanted to run around, touch other kids, and jump up and down making noises. The playing part was fine. The craft part was disasterous--they did leaf rubbings with crayons. She just wanted to hold all of the crayons and drop them and pick them up, drop them and pick them up, run over to someone else's stash of crayons and do the same thing... I expected her to put the leaves in her mouth like she tries to do at home....thankfully she didn't go that far. We ended up leaving before it was over, though, because I just felt like she was such a tornado in this otherwise orderly storytime. They were about to do another craft with clay, and that looked like a disaster waiting to happen for us. They have a waiting list of people wanting to be in it so I told the lady to go ahead and ask someone else to come the rest of the times because she was clearly too young. The lady was very nice, but readily agreed with me!! (She said, "But I'm glad you tried it!") I was so embarassed. I know I can't let my daughter's behavior be a reflection of me, but I can't help but feel that way. And when she doesn't behave well I feel like it's my fault and I've not done a good job of teaching her. But then I remind myself that she's 18 months old and behaved just as most 18 month olds would. And she hasn't been in those types of settings--how can I expect her to sit still and listen to a story when she's never done it before and her attention span is nowhere near what a 4 year old's is? My expectations are unrealistic. I can tell myself all of these things, but it still felt like everyone was looking at me thinking, "Can't that mother control her child?" and "what is she doing here with such a young and noisy little girl?"
We went to the mall after that (partially to cheer myself up!) because I had something to return and a coupon for a free chik-fil-a sandwich. So I made the return, went looking for some mittens for my little one (I'm having a horrible time finding lavendar mittens to match her winter coat and that fit her!!) and then we went to the food court for lunch. I got her a kids meal of 4 nuggets and milk--it was her first ever kids meal. She ate two of the nuggets, a couple fries and drank the milk. She liked looking all around and playing with the straw and the board book that came with the kids meal. After that she got to play in the play area for a little bit until she spit up her milk on one of the animals, right in front of a set of 9 month old twins! I had the mother of the twins watch the spot so no one got into it, in order to go get a wet one to go wipe it off and then I figured she probably shouldn't play any more, in case it happened again, so we came home.
Whew! What a morning. Sometimes I wonder why I venture out....
Well, suffice it to say we won't be going back.....
She was WAY too young, even though it said for ages 1-5. Most of the kids were about 4, it looked like. Of course she wouldn't sit still for the stories. She just wanted to run around, touch other kids, and jump up and down making noises. The playing part was fine. The craft part was disasterous--they did leaf rubbings with crayons. She just wanted to hold all of the crayons and drop them and pick them up, drop them and pick them up, run over to someone else's stash of crayons and do the same thing... I expected her to put the leaves in her mouth like she tries to do at home....thankfully she didn't go that far. We ended up leaving before it was over, though, because I just felt like she was such a tornado in this otherwise orderly storytime. They were about to do another craft with clay, and that looked like a disaster waiting to happen for us. They have a waiting list of people wanting to be in it so I told the lady to go ahead and ask someone else to come the rest of the times because she was clearly too young. The lady was very nice, but readily agreed with me!! (She said, "But I'm glad you tried it!") I was so embarassed. I know I can't let my daughter's behavior be a reflection of me, but I can't help but feel that way. And when she doesn't behave well I feel like it's my fault and I've not done a good job of teaching her. But then I remind myself that she's 18 months old and behaved just as most 18 month olds would. And she hasn't been in those types of settings--how can I expect her to sit still and listen to a story when she's never done it before and her attention span is nowhere near what a 4 year old's is? My expectations are unrealistic. I can tell myself all of these things, but it still felt like everyone was looking at me thinking, "Can't that mother control her child?" and "what is she doing here with such a young and noisy little girl?"
We went to the mall after that (partially to cheer myself up!) because I had something to return and a coupon for a free chik-fil-a sandwich. So I made the return, went looking for some mittens for my little one (I'm having a horrible time finding lavendar mittens to match her winter coat and that fit her!!) and then we went to the food court for lunch. I got her a kids meal of 4 nuggets and milk--it was her first ever kids meal. She ate two of the nuggets, a couple fries and drank the milk. She liked looking all around and playing with the straw and the board book that came with the kids meal. After that she got to play in the play area for a little bit until she spit up her milk on one of the animals, right in front of a set of 9 month old twins! I had the mother of the twins watch the spot so no one got into it, in order to go get a wet one to go wipe it off and then I figured she probably shouldn't play any more, in case it happened again, so we came home.
Whew! What a morning. Sometimes I wonder why I venture out....
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
a different world
Today was a different day in the world of weed. It didn't consist of staying home with you know who like a normal Wednesday. Today I had to get up like any normal working adult and go to "work," but it wasn't really work, either. I got a call last week from this market research company with whom I'm registered. They call me from time to time to answer questions and sometimes, if I qualify, they ask me to come in to be a part of a panel to discuss whatever it is they are researching. (Okay, in actuality, this is only the second time I've gotten to go in). They pay well and it's an interesting change of scenery. Last time it was just a couple of hours in the evening to talk about area hospitals. This time it was an all day affair. Daddy took the day off and had his first-ever full day with our daughter all by himself. He was great....and so was she! He took her to a metropark in our area which has a working farm, so she got to see pigs, cows, chickens, a horse... but was most enthralled, apparently, by the windmill and the group of fourth graders who were there on a field trip!
Anyway, my day was spent on a pretend jury, where I had to listen to both sides of a pretend court case in the morning and deliberate in the afternoon, and then discuss our impressions of the whole thing. They gave us boxed Panera lunches and lots of snacks (to keep us awake from sitting so long, I assume!). It held my interest and was a change of pace, plus I got paid for a day of "work," so that was great.
All in all it was a nice day, but only because it was different--I'm glad I don't do it every day and I missed my little one like crazy. I'd much rather stay home and get paid in hugs and smiles (well, most days, anyway!!!)
Anyway, my day was spent on a pretend jury, where I had to listen to both sides of a pretend court case in the morning and deliberate in the afternoon, and then discuss our impressions of the whole thing. They gave us boxed Panera lunches and lots of snacks (to keep us awake from sitting so long, I assume!). It held my interest and was a change of pace, plus I got paid for a day of "work," so that was great.
All in all it was a nice day, but only because it was different--I'm glad I don't do it every day and I missed my little one like crazy. I'd much rather stay home and get paid in hugs and smiles (well, most days, anyway!!!)
Sunday, October 07, 2007
one and a half?!
When did my little girl grow up so much? As of Tuesday she'll be 18 months old. I can't believe how the time has flown, and yet it seems like she's always been here with us, too.
In honor of turning 1 and 1/2 we had her pictures taken today. She hasn't had them taken since her birthday. When I compare these to the one she had taken on her birthday, she definitely looks like a toddler now, while she still looks like a baby in the birthday picture. What a big girl.
I couldn't get her wispy hair to lie down, but I guess that's what toddler hair looks like for the most part, so I couldn't do much about it. I'm happy with how they turned out. I like the first one because it's a close up. I like the second one because I wanted one in that outfit, too, and she looks so cute sitting on that little wall (she loved sitting up there!). I like the last one because she looks like she's ready to take off and run any second, which is totally her!
Enjoy!!
In honor of turning 1 and 1/2 we had her pictures taken today. She hasn't had them taken since her birthday. When I compare these to the one she had taken on her birthday, she definitely looks like a toddler now, while she still looks like a baby in the birthday picture. What a big girl.
I couldn't get her wispy hair to lie down, but I guess that's what toddler hair looks like for the most part, so I couldn't do much about it. I'm happy with how they turned out. I like the first one because it's a close up. I like the second one because I wanted one in that outfit, too, and she looks so cute sitting on that little wall (she loved sitting up there!). I like the last one because she looks like she's ready to take off and run any second, which is totally her!
Enjoy!!
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
her adventures....
Click below and see the exciting things she's been doing lately!
http://www.myabcadventure.com/index.htm?movieid=F1C35B6D-6AC6-4611-8517-1EC995A74227
http://www.myabcadventure.com/index.htm?movieid=F1C35B6D-6AC6-4611-8517-1EC995A74227
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