Point Me to the Sky Above...

Winter is Coming...

2012-01-30T12:38:00.000-06:00

Winter is Coming - April 1st!

Phone Photo Fun Mondays - 01.30.12

2012-01-30T00:01:00.000-06:00

It's Monday, so that means it's time for my weekly photo dump and link-up!

Tiger's been quite affectionate these days, which is strange for her... but I don't mind her curling up by feet in bed or on the couch!

I decided to buy a swimsuit early this year as last year I waited til almost summer when they were on clearance and had a hard time find anything that fit well and still looked acceptable on me. I figured this year I *needed* to splurge a little and get something for this summer as Jay's going to be quite active and it would be a good idea to take him swimming or play in a kiddie pool with him in the backyard. I found this mix and match suit at Target - tankini top is by Converse, swim short bottoms are by Merona. Old Navy online has a blue tankini top I like as well so I think I might pick that up as well so I have 2, once my local Old Navy gets their swimwear in.

He was napping with daddy, but woke up while daddy was still asleep and decided to keep snuggling.

I bought a few new nail polishes this week, including a Sally Hansen Insta-Dry top coat as I realized I didn't have one! I got NYC's In a New York Minute polish in Prince Street (purple) and Fashion Ave Fuchsia.

This is the Fashion Ave Fuchsia with the top coat

All my current nail polish collection. Kinda sad considering in Jr. High I swear I had like 30 bottles ranging from dark darks to super bright lime greens!

The bruise on the side of my knee... doesn't look any better than last week and still no clue what I did!

She happened to yawn as I took the picture and the flash went off too, lol... she looks completely vicious here!

She was sitting on the stairs with paws on 1, legs on another, as she watched Jay walk around, lol... she's sooo confused by him walking!

I got another batch of Get Glue stickers and turned them into magnets, adding onto the collection on the side of our fridge. Most of the good ones in this batch were Game of Thrones ones!

And since I was showing off magnets, here's the front of our fridge!

Tired of Jay getting into the books on the bottom 2 shelves of each bookshelf, we decided to box some up and move others around, putting his toys on the bottom ones... this is how it looks cleaned up. I got to sleep in the next morning while hubby was home and yeah... by the time I got up it was completely trashed, but it's nice not having to chase him away from the books!

I bought MORE nail polish at the end of the week (I blame some of you! LOL). This is NYC's In a New York Minute in Chinatown and Pure Ice's Purple Reign. I'm thinking these are my 2 favorite nail polish brands - they're cheap, but fun!

Purple Reign with the Sally Hansen top coat

Jay watching Thomas and Friends on Sprout. He's such a typical little boy and only almost 1 year old! 2 of his favorite shows are about a superhero that teaches spelling and reading (Super Why) and Thomas the Train and Friends, lol... kinda amuses me!

How men and women see colors

2012-01-28T03:59:00.000-06:00

This image (or one similar to it) has been making the rounds around the internet this past week... it's funny though because it's so true!

I can speak from experience when I call a certain color by its name and the response I get from hubby is "What? You mean the {insert generic color name here}?" Yep, it's happened!

My 1st Ever Post

2012-01-27T10:35:00.005-06:00

Bored, I got to wondering if I could find the 1st blog I ever made back in my freshman year of college, and sure enough... it still exists!

A friend had an online diary/journal and I decided to make one of my own on Diaryland.com. Eventually I made a Livejournal and hung out there for years, making long rambling detailed posts of my day or posting meme after meme, quiz result after quiz result... but then everyone jumped on Myspace and I continued blogging over there before posting regular "notes" on Facebook and then creating this baby here in late 2009.

Anyway, here's my 1st post ever (with the names shortened to their initials):

2003-03-26 - 1:20 a.m.

"today is the greatest... day ive ever known..." in the words of billy corgan... but yea, today was awesome! nothing could have ruined my day. 1st, i only went to one class (journalism) and we got out early cuz it was just a review for the test on thursday. L. and i went to room sign up and we got the room we wanted - suite, no bathroom - and we're roomin together too. then i drove to target and bought the new LiNkiN PArK cd "METEORA" - one of the best CD's ever! after journalism E. came up and we ate dinner together and then later that night we went to the papa roach/nonpoint concert at otto's. that was an awesome concert. D. couldnt go at the last min so B. sold his ticket to his buddy K.. L. and P. went w/ us also. die tryin and reach 454 were the opening bands... they were okay and nonpoint was okay live... during papa roach i got to be about 3 ppl from the stage/barriers, coby dick (the lead singer of papa roach) crowd surfed over my head and later he almost touched my hand... and i got half of his water bottle dumped on me... it was great. i ran into goose and mav (my next door neighbors) goose caught a drumstick... B. caught a free cd from reach454... but yea, today was awesome..."

I was quite the rocker chick back then! And as usual, I rambled on and on... yeah, that hasn't changed! And OMG, lack of paragraphs and capitalization... yes, I went through a phase where I thought it was cool not to capitalize the 1st letter of a sentence and there was time where I was intent on making it "my thing" where I would be known for not capitalizing my "i"'s... oh dear, young college self...

But be glad I'm not still making daily posts similar to this one that my college roommate once humorously posted on her Livejournal, mimicking me:

"Yesterday I woke up at 10:53. I took exactly 25 steps to the bathroom and peed. Then I realized I had morning breath so I brushed my teeth. Then I looked in the mirror and realized I had a fro and I should straighten it, so I did."

Yeah... she hit it pretty spot on! LOL....

Hard to believe it's been almost 9 years ago since I joined the blogworld!

Do you remember your 1st post or your 1st blog? How have you changed since then?

Boob Tube Babble 01.27.12

2012-01-27T08:06:00.001-06:00

It seems most of my shows came back for a week or 2, post-Christmas hiatus, and now they're gone again for a week! What gives?!

So... since there were no new episodes of Glee, New Girl or The Office this week, Community and Walking Dead are on mid-season hiatus, and Game of Thrones doesn't return til April, the only show I watched this week (aside from PBS and Sprout programming or reruns on TBS of Seinfeld and The Office) was ABC's Once Upon a Time.

This week Mary Margret and David do their best to avoid each other, however their paths keep crossing no matter how much they try. Meanwhile, in fantasy-land flashbacks, we learn more backstory about Mary Margret and David's counterparts Snow White and Prince Charming, eventually seeing how Snow White came to live with the Seven Dwarves. It was quite sad!

Also, thoughts on who the stranger is supposed to be? So we learned that it's a typewriter he's toting around... but I had Jay babbling on with his toys in the room while the conversation with him and Emma was going on so maybe I missed it... is he supposed to be the narrator/author of the storybook? Is that what they implied?

This episode needed more Robert Carlyle too, as Mr. Gold or Rumpelstiltskin... either one. His presence was missed as he only appeared in 1 short scene!

What did you watch this week?

Book Review: A Game of Thrones

2012-01-26T03:53:00.000-06:00

So... I did it.

I *finally* finished book 1 in the Song of Ice and Fire books: A Game of Thrones.

I started late last summer/early fall but just haven't had the time to work through all 800+ pages of it. Fortunately the chapters averaged about 10 pages, so it was easy to read a chapter or 2 and put it down if I needed. But my goal was to finish the book before season 2 of the show starts on April 1, however I also wanted to at least read book 1 in the Hunger Games trilogy before the movie comes out in March and I didn't want to start Hunger Games while still reading Game of Thrones cuz I hate reading multiple books at once. So that meant I had to finish Game of Thrones first.

I think I read about 200 pages the other day just to finish it, but it did start getting good as it got to the end, much like the last few episodes of the show had you on the edge of your seat as so much was happening!

Anyways, it was long and took a bit to get into it (although having watched the show, I already knew what to expect).

The show did keep pretty close to the book though - I only noticed a few slight changes and minor things that were omitted in the show, however HBO did add in a lot of gratuitous sex scenes (specifically, there's a long, graphic lesbian sex scene in the show that happens while Littlefinger is monologuing that doesn't happen in the book!). I really didn't like how cold Catelyn Stark is to Jon in the book though - on the show she didn't seem to be nearly as harsh or hateful to him as she is in the book, it made me sad for Jon! I'm kind of torn between the Starks (especially Arya and Jon Snow) and Daenerys Targaryen - I like them both! One thing I didn't make the connection of on the show was that the Lord Commander of the Night Watch at the Wall is the father of Daenerys' exiled knight guide Ser Jorah Mormont! It clicked when Jon mentions Jorah to the Lord Commander near the end of the book - doh!

After having read the book, I kinda wanna go back and re-watch season 1 of the show now, just to see what other minor things I may have missed!

I'm looking forward to finding out what becomes of Arya (if/how she escapes the city and if she ever gets reunited with her family), what they end up doing with Jaime Lannister, I already know a little bit of who claims the throne next (hubby told me that for some reason I forget) but am curious as to how and what becomes of Joffery... and Sansa, if she ever quits being stupid.

But 1st... I need to read at least The Hunger Games, and most likely Catching Fire and Mockingjay (which I already ordered off Amazon for a decent price!).

If you like fantasy books and don't mind a medieval-like settings with kings and queens, lords and ladies, dwarves, giants, zombies and the like with some sex and violence thrown in, be sure to check out this book! It's got the quite the twists and turns in it!

What have you read lately?

A recent dream, or rather, a nightmare!

2012-01-26T00:54:00.002-06:00

It's no secret that I have really trippy dreams when I sleep.

They say you have weird dreams when you're pregnant... well, I've been having really weird dreams for as long as I can remember (and I dream in color quite often too - apparently that's supposed to mean something...?). At one point I even had an entire blog devoted to keep tract of my weird-ass dreams, but I kinda gave up on that as half the time I forgot about it (oops!).

Anyways, while taking a longer nap the other day when hubby was around to watch Jay, I had another really weird dream that actually made me quite upset, and you'll see why!

I dreamed that we were down in Dallas again, visiting my old college roommate like we did back in October 2010, only instead of being 5-6months pregnant Jay was a newborn. My college roommate also had had a baby who was just slightly older than Jay.

We went out to some straight-up southern bar and grill type place one evening, after 9pm or so, so it was past the babies' bedtime. But my old roommate said that was fine, they had childcare at this place we were going to. She told me to go take care of getting our coats checked while she got the babies squared away for us.

I check the coats in and go to rendezvous with her and I learn that this place's form of childcare is swaddling and then securely locking each baby into its own small locker!

NOT acceptable for
storing babies!

Horrified, and hearing Jay screaming and freaking out, as it was dark in there, he doesn't like being swaddled, not mention he's never been in a space like that, I go to get him out, however my roommate couldn't remember the correct locker combination! So we go to the "childcare" desk and they won't give her the combination as she's not the mother and they won't give it to me as I wasn't there when he was checked in! They tell me I have to come back the next day when the general manager is in to take it up with her!

I was furious and freaking out, spending the night and day the next day waiting for the woman to show up. We ended up having to have dinner there too before she showed up.

Explaining the situation to her, she eventually used a master key to open the lock on the back so I could get him out, however it had been nearly 24 hours since he last ate, his diaper was sopping went, and he was clearly traumatized as he was just staring off in space at first, having cried himself out! He was barely breathing and took a good minute or two to come to and be okay.

Livid, I proceeded to bitch at the manager and how I would be contacting child services regarding this supposed "childcare" they offered to patrons and the way we were treated. She snootily replied that she didn't know how they run things up in Illinois, but down there, in good ol' Texas, there was nothing wrong and that my child was fine - all the babies freak out at first until they get used to it!

Yeah, that didn't help any...

Needless to say, I'm glad my dream had a happy ending with Jay being okay instead of dying of starvation/dehydration at the hands of these business morons! I would have woken up crying if that happened! But still, I was pretty mad when I woke up!

Glad to know it was only a dream (albeit more like a nightmare!).

Have you had any strange dreams lately?

A butterfly for Jay

2012-01-24T10:18:00.003-06:00

If you follow me on Twitter or read my Phone Photo Fun Monday post this week then you know last Saturday after I work I finally went and got my tats done.

The blue one the guy ended up just redoing as it had faded so much and he didn't think his co-worker who originally did it did the picture we had justice, so he went back over the entire thing, adding in the detail the other guy originally left out (which I was fine with, but this guy seemed to really want to do it right, so I was like okay, whatever).

And then we added the little green one for Jay.

And yes, I got green instead of a reddish-orangey color like I had mentioned in my tattoo link-up post last week. I thought about it when I went to make a dummy image to take with me and... when I think colors, I don't really associate red with Jay and orange didn't look right next to the blue. When I think of a color for Jay, green looks really good on him. So I decided to go with a bright green, and I love it!

I went to the same company I got my 1st done at a few years ago, only at their newer location (I don't even think the old location is open, or if it is, they don't really promote it anymore), which I was hesitant to go to as when I stopped in there years ago to get my cartilage piercing changed before my wedding (when I got it pierced down in my college town, the guy used a blue hoop, which I didn't want in wedding pictures and wanted more of a silver hoop or a CZ stud so it didn't look odd) I had a really bad experience with the guy I dealt with - what should have taken 5 minutes took like 20 because he kept running outside to talk on his phone every 2 seconds and then when he switched the rings out for me, my piercing started oozing which it had never done before. But I had a coupon I received in the mail where I could get a $50 gift certificate towards a tattoo for just $25 (a similar deal we had used when I got my 1st tat), so I figured I'd check in there, as the guy that did my 1st one is based out of that location now also.

Well, he wasn't in, but the guy that was said he had 10 years more experience on the other guy. He gave a pretty good deal on it too - I only ended up paying about $25 more out of pocket than what I originally paid for my 1st one and this was for the rework on the 1st and adding in the 2nd.

As he was getting the colors ready, I noticed he had the Game of Thrones books (aka Song of Ice and Fire series) on his shelf and struck up a conversation with him about the books and the show. I guess he said he read them all after seeing the show, but still had them there as another guy in the shop wanted to read them.

He put his iPhone on for background music too - the 1st track coming up was "Jack Sparrow" by Lonely Island... took every bit of me not bust out laughing and singing along, as I needed to sit still! Iron Maiden's "Run to the Hills" (which is one of my favorite Maiden songs!) came on too.

It only took about an hour and didn't sting nearly as bad as I recall it did the 1st time. He said he's being doing it so long he's got a pretty gentle technique - last time I was squeezing hubby's hand when it started stinging, but this time I just sat on my hands and yeah... it stung, but not as much as I remember.

It's been stinging every few hours the last few days as it heals (basically when it gets too dry and I need to get it wet and put some ointment/moisturizer on it). But it's still looking good! I was little concerned that the green wasn't green enough, like you could still see some fleshy color in it, but he assured me that once it heals up it'll look fine and if I wasn't happy with it in a week or so just to call and setup a time when he's there to come-in and he'll do a touch-up on it for free (he said his touch-ups are always free, which is good to know in the future!). So I guess we'll see!

I've been putting A&D ointment on it - a girl I once met, said she rubbed Vaseline over her tats daily to keep the colors looking vibrant. She had had hers for years and the color was so bright and vibrant it looked like it was only a week or so old, that's how well it had kept it up! I really want to try and keep the color in mine looking vibrant and I read online that A&D ointment is really good for tats, so since we have several tubes lying around here thanks to Jay I figured I'd borrow one that wasn't getting used. Hopefully this works!

Phone Photo Fun Mondays - 01.23.12

2012-01-24T00:22:00.000-06:00

Just got home from work, got Little Man to bed and my mom left recently (as she comes over for a bit to watch Jay during the time hubby leaves for work, before I get home)... which means it's time for me to post...

I didn't take too many photos this week... oops!

Oh well!

Can't really tell to well what's going on here - I took this one stopped while driving as I was waiting to exit my parent's neighborhood after dropping off Jay, heading to work. There's a sign up there for no left turns, which also is facing for cars coming from the right (heading left). There's a median there so duh, don't turn left. Growing up, it's always pissed me off when people ignore these signs as there's no left turn there and all your dumbass is doing is holding up traffic! The biggest culprits are old people, but in this case it was a younger girl/woman. It's like, are you incapable of reading traffic signs? Do you want to screw up your car by turning over a median??? Ugh... drives me nuts!

Once again, Jay made an obstacle course out of our basement stairs, throwing stuff at the cat (I took video too!). I moved all the blocks downstairs to his new play area (see last week's post) after he did this all weekend, as it was getting annoying.

So my right knee was bothering me for a better part of the week and I couldn't figure out why or what I had done to it. Then I noticed this nice looking bruise on the side while in the shower! It looks even darker today... still no clue what I did but it's feeling better now than it did a few days ago!

If you follow me on Twitter then you know Saturday after I work I finally went and got my tats done. I'll do a full post soon, but yeah - here's how they look!

Hubby's working on editing one of his novels he's had in progress (this one's more medieval fantasy) as the story kinda changed direction on him as he was writing it and required the 1st handful of chapters he wrote to be reworked. He was typing in the family room here, but setup shop on the kitchen table the other night as he's tired of Jay constantly trying to grab at the laptop when he's working, lol...

Boob Tube Babble 01.20.12

2012-01-20T01:30:00.001-06:00

I've been meaning to join this link-up for awhile but always forget until I'm reading all you guys' posts Friday afternoon/evening and yeah... by then it's too late since I don't normally have time on Friday to get on the computer.

This week I watched:

Napoleon Dynamite

Once Upon a Time

Glee

New Girl

The Office

How I Met Your Mother

Gossip Girl

Napoleon Dynamite
This is a brand new animated series based off the cult classic film from my college days and the original main cast is all back - it's the latest addition to Fox's Animation Domination Sunday night line-up. The pilot was alright, focusing on Kip dating a girl he met online who fell for Napoleon instead after they met, but the 2nd episode they showed... it was soooo much funnier than the pilot! One of their teachers has this robot match up the students in the class - Summer gets stuck with Pedro (much to Pedro's delight!), Napoleon gets matched with an Asian foreign exchange student (much to Deb's dismay) who wields a samurai sword and schools Napoleon in martial arts, and Deb gets paired up with Summer's preppy boyfriend Don. It was pretty funny and the dialogue was hilarious ("Thanks for taking me to Mexico, Pedro!" "...that was my house."). I'll probably try to remember watch - the movie was me and my roommate's favorite in college, I have no idea how we didn't wear out the DVD as we watched it soooo many times we could even quote it while drunk (we did watch it while drunk, many many times, lol...)

Once Upon a Time
This week focused on Hansel and Gretel, but what I LOVED was seeing Nicholas Lea play their dad! I've mentioned it a bit in the past here, but when I was in 5th/6th grade I was a HUGE X-Files fan and renegade/rogue agent Alex Krycek was my FAVORITE character and since those days I've made an effort to watch as much of Nicholas Lea's work as I can (ie: the movies The Raffle and Vertical Limit, shows like Once a Thief and Kyle XY... I have V queued too, just haven't gotten to it yet...). So yeah, when I heard on Twitter he was in this week's episode I couldn't wait to watch it! Gotta say, for being in his mid-40s, he still looks as good as he did 15-20 years ago when I first laid eyes on him!

Glee

I just live tweeted this one last night while catching up on it. Loved the Grease "Summer Lovin'" number at the beginning - that was cute. Becky's crush on Artie was pretty cute too... Sue's 1 liners are still pretty hilarious but WHY is she suddenly being nice and helpful to everyone?? Seems a bit out of character... I'm confused! It was a fun episode, but I miss the drama that's been going on. Oh and Sam needs to get over Mercedes and just move on - I can't really see them together and I like Mercedes with her current beau.

New Girl
Schmidt's birthday party bus... not the funniest episode, but I like they finally brought the Douchebag Jar back! It was hilarious in the 1st episode but has been absent ever since... was nice to see it again!

The Office
Pool Party! They need to get Andy and Erin back together already - those 2 are perfect for each other. Pam needs to come back from maternity leave, it's weird not having her and Jim pulling pranks on Dwight all the time. And I'm still not a fan of James Spader (Robert California) on the show... he just... I don't know. I don't like him.

Since we rejoined Netflix last week, we started catching up on some TV series we hadn't seen before, including How I Met Your Mother. I've caught a few episodes here and there while channel surfing but not enough to really get into the whole storyline of the show. So we started with episode 1 and got through the 1st 5 in one night. The club episode was hilarious! And I LOVED how the 3 geeks from Freaks and Geeks are waiting in line to get in the club while Jason Segal walks right in (he played one of the freaks on the show).

I also started watching Gossip Girl. After hearing a ton of you talk about it on Twitter each week, I was interested in checking it out, but we didn't have Netflix at the time so it had to wait. But now we do! I got through the 1st 4 episodes the other night... definitely drama-filled! I still don't understand how these kids get served alcohol in public places though... like hotel bars and in limos (around these here parts there's a strict no alcohol clause for limos if minors are riding in the back with everyone!)... don't people check IDs or worry about getting their liquor licenses revoked???

So yeah, that's what I watched this week.
What have you watched?

A Jay update!

2012-01-20T00:55:00.000-06:00

So I just realized I haven't done a Jay update in a while and well, quite a bit has happened the last few weeks!

We're alllllll done with baby food! Which is HUGE!

We buy em in big cartons, Jay loves
Goldfish so much!

We're finishing up the last of his rice cereal and switching him to oatmeal. For lunch he gets some whole grain Goldfish crackers with chicken nuggets and ranch or meat (like turkey or Hebrew National hotdogs - something that can be a finger food) plus fruit (usually Mott's All Natural No Sugar Added applesauce). Then for dinner he usually eats a bit of whatever we're having plus some fruit and Goldfish crackers (as an appetizer while we get his plate ready and cooled down). Then he usually gets a warm bottle of milk before bed.

And yes, milk - not formula! He's drinking whole milk now! It was actually a pretty easy transition, I put in his cereal one more and mixed a bit in with his formula throughout the day... within a day or 2 he was drinking just the milk, no formula. We go through a gallon a week it seems, but it's still cheaper than formula!

He's finally gotten down fingerfoods, but we have to monitor when him when he's feeding himself cuz he likes to just take a handful of food and shove it all in his mouth at once and then wonders why he's choking on it when he can't swallow it all at once /facepalm

We've also transitioned to a sippy for lunch and dinner and he seems to be doing fine with it.

He's taken a few more steps when it comes to walking alone, but he still prefers to crawl... maybe in the next 2 weeks, before his 1st birthday...

Speaking of which... I can't believe that's just 2 weeks from tomorrow! Where has the time gone?!

Most of the prep for his birthday is done - got his cake ordered, invites were sent out earlier this week, decorations and presents are bought or made, birthday onesie is here, photo albums put together... all I have left really is to finish up his baby book, buy the party favors (which I'm waiting til a few days before so I have the final kid head count), buy the food and make the punch! Should be a fun time - I'll definitely post pics!

Bedtime has been a bit of a struggle lately... unless he passes out while drinking his bedtime bottle, he'll stay up and play or do whatever in his crib for a good hour or so after his bedtime... which is already 11pm! Drives me nuts hearing him play over there when I'm trying to have my "me" time at night. And it's not like he has a lot of toys in his crib - he has a music box thing crib toy and My Pal Scout and a stuffed Eeyore. How is that keeping him up?! And he doesn't nap that close to bedtime either... hopefully this is just a phase.

He did have a bit of a growth spurt this week - he's been taking really long naps in the afternoon (2-4hrs!) and well, today I put his 6-9mo pants on him and they were above his ankles. Time to bust out the 12mo pants!

"Gimme cookie, please!!! Nom Nom Nom!!"

Jay gave me a few good laughs yesterday. He likes to play with Tiger... by throwing his toys at her when she's sitting on the steps to the basement. Now we have a gate mounted into the wall, so he can't fall down them, but he can get his arm and some of his smaller toys through the rails and yeah... he thinks it's hilarious to throw his toys at her and today she was completely instigating it too, buy jumping around, dodging them, etc. It was pretty funny, although he made an obstacle course out of my stairs...

Then I go to change him after naptime and I find one of his Cookie Monster doll's plastic cookies sticking out the top of his diaper, underneath the onesie he had on and his flannel around the house pants! I keep telling hubby I swear he pulls those cookies out of his butt, as whenever we're looking for them to play with the Cookie Monster doll (he talks and asks you to feed the cookies to him) we can't find them, but whenever Jay is playing alone, they magically appear! This just proves my theory - he really does pull them out of his diaper!

We returned to storytime at the library last night. It started up again last week but due to the mass amount of snow we got last Thursday, we decided it would just be better to stay in and avoid traveling since some of the roads were still a mess. Jay was a little stinker and a flirt though! 2 little girls joined us tonight, and the one that was 9 months old was quite taken with Jay, even trying to chase after him at a few points! It was pretty funny! He also managed to get his shoes off and then made quite a scene when I tried to get them back on at the end of storytime so we could go home... he also threw a fit when I made him put his coat on too (it was 7 degrees out, not wearing a coat or shoes was NOT an option!). He was all over the place at storytime though - one of the other moms asked if he's always this active, to which I told her yep, pretty much. Jay likes to go, go, go! Instead of practicing the different sounds (the volunteer has a bag of letters we call sounds, like M is Mmm, O is ahhh, P is puh, B is buh, etc) Jay found matching ones (the O's) and was carting them around our little section of the library, lol... he was quite proud of himself for finding matching ones, lol...

And that's my Jay update!

Yes, I have ink

2012-01-18T01:28:00.000-06:00

For some reason I thought this link-up was on Thursday, so I didn't get my post made in advance like I was

planning on... oops!

Anyways, linking up a bit past midnight (but it's still Tuesday somewhere, right?) since I can't get on during the day...

Recently Raven showed off some her tats and decided it would be fun to do a link-up for everyone to show of theirs!

I personally have never had anything against tats and as far as religious reasoning for not getting them... well, as most people cite the verse in Leviticus, they often leave out that it also says in the same passage that men shouldn't shave their faces or women braid their hair... can't pick and choose people! I'm of the belief that as Christians, when Jesus came and died for us and rose again, he created the New Covenant which kind of made a lot of the old Jewish laws/rules in the Old Testament null and void.

Not to mention I know plenty of Christians - some very involved in their churches even - who have them and love them.

I even recall once reading in one of my dad's Christtian men's health magazines about a Christian surfer who had a really neat and elaborate crucifixion scene tattooed on his back. Given him being active in a surfer crowd, his shirt was off a lot and his back exposed and his tattoo was a great discussion piece and witnessing tool to his non-Christian surfer friends. Because of his tat, he shared his faith with many of them and some even came to believe as well. I thought that was pretty cool.

My parents, being very traditional and conservative, would not allow it and so as long as they paid my college tuition I had to abide by what few rules they still had for me. Hubby's not crazy about them and doesn't see the point, but for my 24th birthday he presented me with a gift certificate to one of the top tattoo shops here in town with the only stipulation that I had a few weeks, until after our wedding, to get it done. Being nervous about getting one, I put it off for like a month til we had a free afternoon and he took me.

And that was when I realized Metallica's "The Day That Never Comes" is a REALLY long song that seems to go on forever (or at least it made getting my tat feel like it was taking forever as it was playing on the radio when I was getting it done, lol...).

So I got my 1st tat back in October 2008 - it's a blue butterfly with black trim and details on the back of my right shoulder. I felt at the time it signified the "new" adult me, as I had just finished college the year before, bought my 1st car by myself, took on a "real" job, got married and we were supporting ourselves. My new, "adult" life.

And a little fun fact - the guy that did my ink - he broke the Guiness World Record for longest tattoo session a few years back. So I guess I have that little claim to fame!

Honestly, I think people who get them without thinking them through are dumb (no offense!) - for example, my youngest brother-in-law, being the rebel that he tries to be, went and got himself 2 tats recently - the one on his arm is a Celtic-looking cross (which okay, Celtic stuff looks kinda cool, and it's a cross... not too bad, I'll admit), but the 2nd... he has an Irish flag on the left side of his chest. My husband's family is like .0000000000001% Irish - if anything, their predominantly Swedish, German and Jewish. Not Irish. He said he was "representing" his Irish heritage, yet, the punchline of "I thought you were Irish?" comes up often when you ask him anything that's common knowledge Irish and he has no idea what you're talking about! And no, he wasn't drunk when he got it - we made sure to ask that, looking for some excuse for such an absurd tattoo! Seriously people - tattoos are pretty permanent (unless you have a lot of money to get them lasered off), so it's wise to think a bit before getting one done and ask yourself if what you get is going to look really stupid when you're old and be something you too think is stupid and regret when you're older and your tastes change. That's why I choose the butterfly - black and blue are my favorite colors and well, butterflies represent change and new beginnings, a meaning and symbol that's timeless really.

And another thought, think hard about where you're getting your tat - again, they're permanent. Do you really want a tacky tramp stamp the rest of your life? Or do you plan on ever having kids? Who knows, you probably will gain weight at some point in your life... so make sure that where you're getting that tat is somewhere that isn't going to stretch much if your body does get bigger. Also, if you might ever have to work a professional job, be sure that normal clothing can cover your tat as many jobs don't allow visible tats as part of their dress code. I went with the back of my shoulder as well, how often in your adult life does the skin on your shoulders stretch? Not often. Plus it can be covered for jobs if need be, but it's there and visible other times. I've thought about getting an ankle band but I'm not 100% on that one just yet - not so sure about what type of band I want, nor am I 100% sure I want an ankle band for the rest of my life.

I also decided that for each kid we have, I'd like to get a smaller, different colored butterfly to go with my "mama" butterfly to represent each one of my babies.

I haven't gotten Jay's yet, however I'm thinking maybe this weekend since I'll have time to go after work without having to worry about who's watching Jay. I plan on his being just like mine, only with an orange/red butterfly with the black trim. I also want to get mine touched up, as the color isn't nearly as vibrant as it originally was and since I'm adding to it, I kinda want the colors to be the same vibrancy.

I hear a lot of people ask if tats hurt - honestly, I believe it depends on where you get it done and what exactly you're having done.

Like I hear foot tats are pretty painful as your foot is pretty much all bone and having a needle hit your bone like that can be pretty painful! Only part of my butterfly is over my shoulderbone, so I did get to experience that a little, however, for me, the outlining part didn't hurt so much - the shading... that stung a bit and I made sure to grip onto hubby's hand or the back of the chair for that part!

Hopefully I'll have Jay's butterfly on me this weekend if I don't chicken out (for some reason I'm nervous, but not really sure why!) I think it's just the anticipation of it, even though I've known for awhile that I AM getting it done eventually, so since I have the money now, why not?

Phone Photo Fun Mondays - 01.16.12

2012-01-17T00:24:00.000-06:00

Apparently this weekly link-up has changed a bit in name, but it's still the same Monday post where I show you the photos I took on my phone this week!

Jay had fun "playing" and making a mess in mommy's kitchen one morning, including moving his high chair across the room!

We *finally* had our 1st "real" snowfall of the winter season last Thursday and it finally seems like winter around here! Of course we had to take Jay out in his 1st real snow, as he was just a newborn last year when there was snow and we only took him to and from the car via his carrier in it.

All bundled up to go outside - he wasn't happy... until we got out in the cold and realized why he was bundled up, lol...

"What is this??"

Playing around

"This is kinda fun!"

Posing with mommy

Napping with daddy after our fun time in the snow

Maybe a little hard to see, but somehow hubby got his laptop screen orientation sideways, lol...

In these next ones, there's a few before and after photos - my dad is doing some minor home improvement projects around the house for us as he's between jobs and running out of things to do around their home to keep busy and well, he's better at that stuff than hubby and I so I figured why not? This week he installed some bifold doors to section off our laundry room area and I moved my craft area so that Jay can have a play corner in our basement.

Laundry area before

...and after! With doors to keep Jay (and Tiger) out of that back area of the basement.

My former craft area (new craft area is in the previous photo)

The beginnings of Jay's play area. We built his bookshelf and pieced together 6 of the 8 playmats he got for Christmas (which he was SOOOO excited to get, lol...). I'd say it's a pretty good start!

So I'm working on making a variation of this balloon wreath that Undomesticated Chica shared on her blog last week for Jay's upcoming 1st birthday party (can't believe that's almost here!!!) and I came across this in the bag of balloons I was using - 2 balloons melded together! Doh!

Fun with Our Phones Monday #20

2012-01-10T02:30:00.000-06:00

A few hours past Monday, oh well!

I tried out the Mary Kay nail lacquor in Plush Plum that I got for Christmas

We've been hooked on these lately, ever since buying a big thing of em at Sam's

How my kitchen often looks after Hurricane Jay has come through... Note, he pulled out most of the above Welch's bottles and had a blast with them, lol...

Best. Purchase. Lately.
Jay likes snacking on Goldfish lately and I found a big box of the whole grain ones at Walmart! Score!

Waiting with daddy at Buffalo Wild Wings

Laughing at the silly high schoolers waiting across the room from us

He's looking so big these days!

Watching TV

Sleeping cutie!

Showing off his 2nd haircut!

Once... Upon a Time

2012-01-05T02:40:00.000-06:00

As some of you may remember, last May I tweeted this:

It's no secret that I often do online surveys for market research purposes to earn credits towards gift cards, etc. This particular one for eRewards required me to view a potential pilot for an upcoming show. The survey length was approximated at about an hour, which I was a bit hesitant at first, but thought I'd check it out - if the show sucked I could just exit out of it.

Anyways, the show ended up being the test pilot for ABC's new fantasy series Once Upon a Time. It premiered at the end of October, but with football season and the return of AMC's The Walking Dead, I didn't get a chance to watch it when it aired on Sundays and just got caught up on the series this past week.

And it's as good as I remember it being!

The synopsis is this - in the town of Storybrooke, Maine all the residents are actually fairytale characters, trapped in our world with no memory of their previous lives in fairytale land due to a dark curious that the Evil Queen placed on them all. In order to provide a possible way of breaking the curse, Snow White and Prince Charming placed their newborn daughter Emma into a magic wardrobe that sent her to our world prior just before the curse hit everyone. It was predicted that on Emma's 28th birthday she would return to them and break the Evil Queen's curse. Flash forward 28 years later, Emma works as a lone bounty hunter in Boston and has built up walls emotionally around her due to her being an orphan since birth and having grown up in "the system." She also gave birth to a baby boy when she was 18, whom she placed for adoption, however, 10 years later, a boy named Henry claiming to be her son shows up on her doorstep on her 28th birthday. With him is a storybook, which he says explains the curse of the residents in his town of Storybrooke and that Emma is the daughter of Snow White and that she must come with him to break the spell. Of course she doesn't believe the kid, but she does need to return him to his adoptive mother, who just so happens to be the mayor of Storybrooke and whom Henry says is really the Evil Queen, so Emma accompanies him to Storybrooke and our adventure begins as things start to happen once Emma arrives.

When I first screened the test pilot back in May, my biggest concern was how in the world where they going to make this into a full-blown series with more than 1 season? The premise seemed like something that could be solved and dealt with in the course of a mini-series, kinda like the fairytale-based The 10th Kingdom mini-series. And I could be wrong, but I remember there being some kind of set time limit that once Emma came to Storybrooke the curse would be broken and everyone would get their memories back within a set time frame - that was part of the whole significance of the town clock ticking once again at the end of the pilot, which made me pose the question as to how this could be continued into a full series as once the time frame was up, then what? They seem to have removed that entire aspect though so that there is no set time limit that everything has to happen by. My other concern was that the transition between the real-world scenes and fairytale flashbacks didn't seem very smooth, but they've fixed that as well as it didn't bother me watching it a 2nd time around.

A great thing about this series, is that it's pretty family friendly. The violence borders on PG/PG13 stylized fantasy violence (ie: mainly sword fights or people fighting with magic), the language isn't bad for network TV and there's very little sexual content seen or implied (that is, nothing you'd have to worry about explaining to your kid).

Main Cast from Left to Right:
Town therapist Archie/Jiminy Cricket, Mayor Regina/Evil Queen, Henry, Emma, Sheriff Graham/The Huntsman, Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin, teacher Mary Margret/Snow White, David/Prince Charming

It's neat as the residents who hear about Henry talk about his storybook and who he believes they really, when things start falling into place, they start to wonder if perhaps what the kid says is true. After 7 episodes, it seems that the mayor IS starting to realize who she really is, and well, Mr. Gold, that man that "owns the town"... the entire time you wonder if he's always known what's really going on, as just like his Rumpelstiltskin counterpart in fairytale land, he continues to pull the strings... but is he a good guy wanting the curse to be broken or is he just toying with everyone to see what they do?

They also include back stories for some of the characters - we learn how Jiminy Cricket came to be Geppetto's guide, what became of Cinderella and her prince after the wedding, how Snow White and Prince Charming came to be, among others. It's also interesting to see how Rumpelstiltskin works his way into everyone's back story, playing some part behind the scenes of their infamous tales.

I loved how Pam from True Blood (Kristin Bauer van Straten) makes an appearance as the Evil Queen's "friend" Maleficent, with the Pam attitude and all, lol... and you can tell Disney owns ABC and has a hand in the show as well - Belle and Gaston fairytale flashbacks are in an upcoming episode and there's talk of an Ariel appearance in the works too.

If you like dramas, mysteries and fantasy stories - be sure to check out Once Upon a Time on ABC - new episodes start airing this Sunday at 8/7c and they're currently all up on Hulu for another week or so.

11 months already!

2012-01-05T01:10:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it... as of yesterday, Jay's 1st birthday is now less than a month away!

Holy cow!

Where did this last year go?!

Well... in the last month Jay celebrated his 1st Christmas and 1st New Years.

He took his 1st few steps, but would rather crawl or cruise along furniture instead.

He likes to make my family room and kitchen look like a small hurricane went through it at some time during the day.

He can stand and balance without holding onto anything now (although half the time he does it, he doesn't realize he's doing it).

No new teeth although those 1st year molars sure are taking their good ol' time coming in and it hasn't been fun!

Jay's had his 1st illness, getting both a stomach bug and a cold right around Christmas.

He's gotten very good putting the rings on the pole in the right size order too and he's a pro at feeding his Cookie Monster that eats the cookies which he got from his aunt, uncle and cousins in the Quad Cities for Christmas.

He definitely needs another haircut (I guess I should probably see if my mother-in-law can bring her hair cutting stuff with her next week when she comes for her weekly visit).

He also regularly eats "real" food now, often getting small portions of what we're having, otherwise he eats the Gerber Nature Select 3rd Foods if mommy's not around to do the cooking or we're not eating out.

He recently discovered Whole Wheat Goldfish crackers and LOVES those things!

He has issues with the word "no" too - it gets his attention, but he'll look at you and go back and do or touch what you told him not to.

He also tries to be sneaky by tricking you into thinking he's going for one thing when his goal is to distract you so he can go for something else (ie: the remote or phone or computer cords).

Can't believe in less than 1 month from now he'll be 1!

In other Jay-related news - I just learned tonight that his pediatric urology specialist switching from Madison to Milwaukee was a bit of a blessing. While Milwaukee is a bit further drive, his doctor and the hospital he's now at IS in our healthcare network! Yay! That'll help us out a lot in about a year or so when he has to have his surgery. I liked the children's hospital in Madison a lot, and since there's no pediatric urology specialist in our network within 30 miles our insurance was giving us a discounted rate, it was still out of network which mean more out of pocket expenses and every time he goes for a visit (now every 6 months) he also has to have a renal ultrasound to check on the status of his kidney and ureter tube so the doctor has something to discuss with us. And that ultrasound isn't exactly cheap! So good news for us! I just need to call and setup the appointment in Milwaukee and cancel the one with the specialist's associate he referred us to in Madison.

Fun with our Phones Monday #19

2012-01-03T00:14:00.000-06:00

It's that time of the week again!

I forgot to take a picture of it last week but here's the hearthstone keychain hubby got me for Christmas, from this awesome Etsy seller - I love it! Home is where the Hearthstone is set to! =D

I was eating cookies earlier in the week and noticed that I just happened to set my empty plate in front of Jay's new Cookie Monster toy (which just so happens to "eat" cookies that I swear Jay pulls out of his butt as they're always missing when I go to look for them but magically appear when he wants to play with it, lol...). I thought it was too funny and had to take a picture of it

Jay's 1st birthday onesie arrived this week - I had it custom made on CafePress

Being a cutie and a big boy at the dinner table on his 1st New Year's Eve

Trying to get a picture with that hat on his head was a pain in the arse - he didn't wanna leave it on, lol...

Ready for the (disappointing and painful to watch) football game!

Riding on daddy's shoulders!

2011 in Entertainment

2012-01-01T01:59:00.000-06:00

In 2011...

I read:

World War Z (well, technically I finished it, having started it near the end of 2010)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse book #11)
The Girl Who Played With Fire
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland Into a Ship of Her Own Making (started)
A Game of Thrones (started)
A handful of parenting books

I watched (TV):

A Game of Thrones (season 1)
Franklin and Bash (season 1)
True Blood (season 4)
Entourage (season 8)
Glee (seasons 2 & 3)
New Girl
Up All Night
Community
The Office
The Walking Dead (season 2)
Once Upon a Time
Conan

I watched (movies):

The Green Hornet
The Mechanic
I Am Number 4
Paul
Fast Five
Thor
Bridesmaids
Bad Teacher
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Winnie the Pooh
Cowboys and Aliens
Conan the Barbarian in 3D

Listened to:

Volbeat
Shinedown
Britney Spears
Lady Gaga
Adele
Katy Perry
LMFAO
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Bush
Skrillex
The Pretty Reckless
Tinie Tempah
Theory of a Deadman
The Lonely Island
Evanescense

2011: The recap

2012-01-01T01:30:00.000-06:00

2011... it's been quite a year for us!

January 1st was spent in the hospital, not for anything pregnancy-related with me, but for my father-in-law who was rushed there and diagnosed with congestive heart failure and kidney malfunction. It was a long day for hubby's whole family and my father-in-law was there for 21 days total.

The end of January we had my baby shower, which was a fun time!

The beginning of February we had Snowmaggedon/Snowpocalypse where our area got pounded by snow and the UPS hub even closed down - something that rarely happens, let alone the fact they closed for 2 days straight!

The 1st nice day after the blizzard we got 2 exciting phone calls - the 1st from the banker lady we had been working with for over a year to get approved for a home loan informing us that we were finally able to be approved and the other phone call was from my OBGYN clinic saying to get my butt to the hospital within the next 2 hours as they were concerned about Jay's lack of growth according to the more advanced ultrasound I had at the hospital earlier in the week and wanted to get him out ASAP since I was already 37 weeks and considered full-term. They were packed due to all the Blizzard Babies from the previous few days so we had to wait and they didn't begin the induction until 1030pm that night, but Jay was here at 7:26am the next morning =D

The end of February was spent with us in the hospital though for a whole week as Jay suffered from Failure to Thrive and was eating enough to grow. They pumped his tummy though via a continuous feeding tube and well... 10 months later, he eats like a champ - you'd never know he had a rough start there (which we learned later that a knot in his umbilical cord was most likely the reason for his lack of growth near the end and why he never knew what it was like to be full - he was used to just getting enough to stay alive!).

In March, after our week stay in the hospital, we picked up our house-hunt and put an offer in on one of the 1st we had looked at in mid-February after learning its price had dropped quite a bit.

Beginning of April we moved out of our now cramped 1 bedroom apartment (while spacious for a couple, with a baby and all the baby necessities... yeah, it got cramped real quick, lol...) and into a nice sized ranch nearby, becoming 1st time homeowners! Jay also celebrated his 1st Easter and I was back into the swing of things at work post-maternity leave (they require you to take 6 weeks off, returning with a doctor's note although I got 7 weeks as it took them a bit longer to work me back into the schedule).

In May we had a huge tornado warning in our area in which I got stuck driving home from work in the middle of it (that was a bit scary as the weather went to all hell less than a mile away from home!), and we celebrated some of Jay's milestones as well as my 1st Mother's Day!

In June we learned what the cause of Jay's enlarged left kidney was (a blocked ureter tube at the bladder end), how to fix it (surgery around age 2) and hubby celebrated his 1st Father's Day!

July we had the 4th of July to celebrate as well as our nephew's golden birthday (4 on the 4th!) which was a fun time with the family! Jay got his 1st tooth also!

In August I celebrated my 27th birthday with a family cookout at our house and Jay also turned 6 months old!

September started off with a thud, with Jay falling off the bed, but he ended up being fine despite mama being a bit shaken up about it! Hubby and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary, our 5 month old dryer broke, and I broke up with Netflix for the time being.

October had hubby celebrating his 28th birthday, I got new glasses finally, and we celebrated our other nephew's 1st birthday (Jay seemed to enjoy playing with his cousins and the all the new toys!). Jay also dressed up for our church's Trunk or Treat Halloween event as a Baby Ewok and was super cute! I paid off my Powerbook finally too!

November marked my 1 year anniversary at work and the holiday season was crazy and in full-swing by the end of the month. It was also Jay's first Thanksgiving! Jay also went to Chuck E Cheese for the 1st time!

And December... busy month at work and Jay's 1st Christmas! He also took his 1st steps but decided that cruising and crawling are faster for the time being, lol... We also went to the evening storytime group at the nearby library branch and I think once it starts up again in a week or so we'll be attending weekly. We also paid off our Best Buy card.

And that's our 2011 in a nutshell - lots of life changes and full of busy-ness too!

Jay's 1st Christmas & Fun with our Phones!

2011-12-27T00:51:00.000-06:00

Whew!

The craziness of the holiday season is over and I survived! Which means I should be around on here and Twitter a bit more!

Anyways, onto Christmas!!!!

Christmas Eve started off with me going into work at 830am to finish processing our shipment (which I finished by 1130am - it was a Christmas miracle considering we've been trying to get through it for weeks now!). I took my lunch break and then returned around noon to finish out til 230pm when it was my time to go home.

Merry Christmas!!!

I did a few last minute errands, such as stopping at Barnes & Noble and getting Jay a board book of The Night Before Christmas since I realized we didn't have it and stopping at Sam's to get some beverages for the weekend since we were pretty much out.

I got home around 330pm, Josh had fed Jay and I quickly gave him a bath and got him dressed up for the Candles and Carols service at church at 5pm. I was aiming to leave around 430pm and we met that goal and arrived at church with about 15 minutes to spare, sitting with my family.

Jay did pretty good during the hour long service (since there was no child care that night) - he sang along with the congregation as we sang Christmas carols (which had us cracking up) and didn't want to stop "singing" during the scripture reading so we had to take him out for a few minutes, lol... he did fine the rest of the service though.

Afterwards we went to my aunts for Christmas dinner - she had a trio of singing Wise Men mice that sang "We Three Kings" which Jay really enjoyed! Jay ate a little bit of Christmas dinner with us, which included my mom's Shepherd's Pie dish which he seemed to like. We exchanged presents with my aunt, uncle and cousins - Jay got super excited over his playmats my aunt got him, as well as the Curious George movie on DVD. He also got a Wiggles DVD and a Playskol Giggle Cow bouncing toy.

Posing with Grandpap

Picture time with mommy!

OMG!!! Playmats!!!

It's George, mommy!!!!

Then we went over to my parents house and exchanged gifts with them. Jay got some Thomas and Friends bath toys, a fishing pole and plastic magnetic fish for it for the bath tub, a Thomas hoodie for this spring, a wooden puzzle, a Lego CD player for his room (so he can fall asleep to something other than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Rockabye Baby, lol...), a new crib toy to play with, a musical, light-up snail toy, some VeggieTales DVDs, and oh geez, I can't remember what else... he got so much! My parents got hubby some Cowboys floormats for his car and a Starbucks gift card, among other little stuff. We also got the Fast Five DVD, Super Mario Bros All-Stars for the Wii (yay!), these really neat Wizard of Oz nutcracker ornaments among other things that aren't coming to mind right now (oops!).

Watching Grandpap and Grammie's train under the tree

Playing with a toy, with a bow that stayed on his head for awhile, lol...

Thomas bath toy

More toys!

Our tree & presents waiting for Jay

We went home, got Jay to bed, and then I finished cleaning up the house and we put together Jay's walker/ride-along toy. Hubby had a drink, I had a glass of wine and we hung out on the couch in the family room watching 24 Hours of A Christmas Story - we got through 2 viewings before we both fell asleep on the couch, waking up at 7am and moving to the bed, lol...

Jay woke us up around 1030am. Hubby got his camera ready while I changed Jay into his Christmas outfit for the day and we brought him out. He seemed a little unphased at first by the presents and walker under the tree... I started opening presents for him - 1st one was the Chica plush from Sprout's Sunny Side Up Show. He seemed to like her, despite acting confused as to why she was there and not on TV, lol... he got excited about the Super Why DVD, ripping it out of my hand when I showed it to him, lol... and he LOVES his talking Super Why doll! He also got really excited when we were opening stocking presents and got to the box of Aquafresh training toothpaste with the Nerdle Gurdle characters he sees on the commercial that Sprouts plays everynight around bedtime, lol... like he carried the toothpaste box all over the house, lol... he has yet to play much with his walker, but he has discovered it and checked out the stuff on it that moves and makes noise! He likes his Leapfrog My Own Leaptop laptop too, despite him only really banging on the keyboard and opening and closing the lid, lol...

It's Chica! From the Sunny Side Up Show on Sprout!

Playing with Super Why while mommy opens up the Leapfrog Leaptop

Hubby and I exchanged presents too - I got him a "Geek Dad" t-shirt from Think Geek (we said it was from Jay though), $20 in Starbucks giftcards, a $20 giftcard to the Dallas Cowboys official store, Firefly the complete series on Blu-Ray, Willy Wonka DVD, Cowboys plug and play speakers, Clue card game, some pens for writing, and a candy cane with Hersey Kisses in it. He got me the Harry Potter 8-disc DVD box set, a WoW hearthstone keychain I saw on Pinterest and wanted, and a wi-fi blu-ray player for the family room! Sweet!

At 1130am Jay got hungry and was yelling for his "ba ba ba ba ba!" in the kitchen so we got him fed and his Uncle Ethan came over around noon, after church, despite the rest of the family not showing up til 2. We watched A Christmas Story and I went to go get cleaned up and ready around 1pm.

Snuggling on mommy

My in-laws all were here by 2, as planned, and we got the food warming up (as my mother-in-law cooked it the night before). Just before 3 we decided we'd open up presents, however Jay took a light nap in my arms (it was naptime after all!). He got the whole Rock and Roll Elmo set, although his favorite still is the Cookie Monster keyboard (he loved playing with that one at his cousin's 1st birthday last fall). We also got Cowboys and Aliens on Blu-Ray, Donkey Kong Country Returns for Wii, I got a $50 Visa giftcard, hubby got a $50 Starbucks giftcard (lol... he now has $80 in Starbucks giftcards!), and he got a really neat 3 volume collection of Civil War books. One of hubby's brothers got me a fleece throw, hubby a White Sox ornament, lanyard and beer coozy, and Jay a White Sox teddy bear (ewwww - I'm a Cubs fan, hubby and I agreed we weren't going to promote baseball in our house due to the Cubs/Sox rivalry, lol...).

Dinner was eventful - Jay vomited up his cereal and milk after eating a piece of turkey (he's puked several times after eating dinner this week - we thought it was a stomach bug, but it seemed he was over it by now... guess not!). Then, after dinner, Jay had a massive blow-out in his pants, going up his back and down his legs... it was really gross and he went onto outfit #3 for the day!

He went down for a longer nap though and hubby and I ended up passing out on the couch while my sister-

in-law started playing her Skyrim game downstairs (she got it for PS3 for Christmas but since their TVs aren't working she's planning on leaving it here and playing during their weekly Monday night visits - hubby has since started playing as well, lol...) and some of his brothers sat around chatting with my his parents. My in-laws left around 1030pm, I gave Jay another bath since he pooped and puked all over himself and got him to bed around midnight before cleaning up the house again and relaxing myself.

Completely out of it, leg dangling out of the crib, lol...

Passed out, snuggling with Super Why

Jay seemed a bit snuggly today and they didn't need me for my on-call, so we napped and snuggled and hung out today, taking it easy. I think Jay was glad to be back on his normal schedule - too much excitement for him the past few days we think! Hubby had the night off though so we relaxed, his parents stopped over for a bit since they were in town (they're usually over on Mondays anyway), bringing Chinese food with and we ended up watching Jay's new Winnie the Pooh DVD before it was time for him to go to bed.

Fun with Our Phones #17

2011-12-22T02:40:00.001-06:00

I know, it's technically Thursday, so I missed the link-up, but whateva! I've been super busy with work and Jay this week and when I'm not occupied with one or the other I'm trying to squeeze in sleep - I'll be glad when this week is over!

I pulled the bottle nipple out of the dishwasher and yeah... the nipple part broke right off! How weird?!

I baked gingerbread cookies last week!

Hubby got his latest Android phone (because working for Verizon he apparently has to have the best). It's the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and it's a lot thinner than his Thunderbolt with the extended battery (sitting next to it).

He decided he was going to push/pull his high chair across the kitchen one night

He gave up when he got it stuck on the edge of the fridge and the cupboard door, lol...

WHY did NO ONE tell me 13 went direct-to-DVD?!?! I've been waiting a few years now for this movie to be released in theaters (as it should have been). It's got Jason Statham, Alexander Skarsgard, Mickey Rourke and others. Sooooo annoyed - had I know this was out I would have asked for it for it for Christmas! Grrrr

Checking out the snow!

Trying to open the patio door, lol...

"Oh hai, mommy!"

I was getting tired of not having a watch (my previous one broke) so I stopped in at Charming Charlie's on my break and found one that fit and I liked (I have small wrists so most watches I have to remove a link or 2 from)

A girl I work with, her son's 1st birthday was this past weekend so she invited us to his party. There was lots of little kids there. Jay seemed to have fun - he climbed in the Cozy Coup and toted that screwdriver around for a bit too, lol... we were joking on Facebook that he was pretending to be a mechanic here, lol...

Hey there!

One of the party favors was bubbles, but these were like plastic ones that didn't pop right away... Jay had several land on his head... he didn't want to take a picture though, lol...

Bubbles in his hair - he LOVED me blowing bubbles! Can't wait for summer!

Jay update

2011-12-22T02:25:00.001-06:00

Despite all the long hours at work that I mentioned in my previous post, it's been a fun week with Jay!

We had some snow last week that had left a nice little layer over everything when we woke up in the morning. I showed Jay and his eyes got all wide as we looked out the glass patio door. He then proceeded to try and open the door to get outside and play in it, lol... It started snowing the other day while my mom was watching him and they were out running errands - she said he was looking up and big snowflakes were landing on his face... he thought it was the funniest thing ever! Kinda sad I missed it though, as we haven't really had much snow yet!

He cut his finger up pretty bad, playing with a pot! We think there was a rough edge on it and he got his finger caught on it when he went to pull it out of the handle slot... he was playing with it like normal when I heard him shriek and when I looked over he was face down on the ground freaking out. I picked him up to see what was wrong and his finger was all bloody... it looked bad, but my mom came over and took a look and it looks like it'll fine once it scabs over. He sliced it in 3 spots though - I wince and feel horrible every time I look at it.

He's also eating real bananas now too, cut up of course. He was watching my mom eat one while she was babysitting him so she let him have a bite and he LOVED it and ate a good chunk of her banana so I went out and bought some and have been giving him half a banana a day. I also started making using of my Magic Bullet I've had since college (back then we used it for mixed drinks, lol...) by pureeing whatever we're eating and giving it to Jay for dinner - he had some chicken and dumpling soup with veggies last week (and a banana half) and tonight I tried giving him some of this cheesy skillet chicken and rice with veggies I made, but he didn't like it and puked it all up - oops! He did make a meal out of bean dip with cheese and sour cream at a birthday party I took him to over the weekend for his lunch there!

He snores sooooo loud too! The other night I had to go in and nudge him to get him to switch to a different position as he was snoring louder than hubby and I couldn't sleep, hearing him so loud over the baby monitor!

And in BIG news - he took his first steps!

He's been balancing by himself pretty well lately so hubby and I decided to see if we could get him to go from one of us to the other - I had him stand by me on the loveseat while hubby sat on the edge of the couch not too far away and called for him to come. He took 2-3 steps! I think he surprised himself too! He can walk if you hold 1 of his hands, but this was the first he did it all by himself not holding on to anything (he cruises along the furniture really fast!). We tried to have him do it again and he took 1 step before deciding crawling to daddy was faster, lol... oh well! He did it though, we just need to keep practicing with him - we knew he'd walking on his own by the end of the year!

I'm alive

2011-12-22T02:24:00.000-06:00

Hell week.

Or so those in retail often refer to the week before Christmas.

Granted, I worked retail the last 2 Christmas seasons, but never as hard as I am this year! Sears Essentials had too many people on staff so I was lucky to get at least 2 shifts a week there and they were only like 4 hours long at the most. And last year... I was just seasonal and pregnant so they went easy on me, giving me maybe a shift a week and scheduling me as an on-call for back-up in case someone called in for their shift.

This year is completely different though.

Since our store manager quit last month to make a career change (and after 14 years at the same place, you can't really blame her!) most of the seasoned employees followed suit and either joined her at her new retail job or just quite and went elsewhere. I'm basically the only regular seasoned associate who's been there for more than a few months so of course they're scheduling me lots. And I like the money, but not the hours so much.

Last week I worked at least 30 hours and this week I'll hit at least 26 hours if not more.

Mall hours are nuts this year. Last Friday I opened at 9am (had to be there at 8am though) and Monday we opened at 8am (I had to be there at 7am). As of yesterday the mall opens at 7am and closes at 11pm! We've been getting out at 1130/midnight with the recent 10pm closings... I'm not expecting to get home til 1am tonight.

Anyways, I'm surviving. 2 more shifts (today and Christmas Eve) and then things go back to somewhat normal, I've been told.

Hubby's hanging in there too, despite peak at UPS being crazy this week (he didn't get home til almost 5am the other night!).

A Very Bloggy Christmas swap

2011-12-15T03:44:00.001-06:00

The link-up for this one was technically the other day, however my gift didn't arrive until this afternoon, plus I've been swamped with working this week (yay for working retail, at a mall, during this time of year - not!).

Anyways, I signed up for this swap, among several others and completely forgot about it until I got the email about who I was paired up with (doh!).

But it was fun and I'm glad I did this one (note to self though - next year, set a limit on how many swaps to do, as I sorta signed up for some and completely forgot and then signed up for others and then I started getting all these emails about who my various swap partners were and yeah... oops! LOL... swaps ARE fun though!).

Anyways, for this one I was paired up with the lovely Etosia from Raising Rylin. We didn't communicate a whole lot at the beginning aside from exchanging blog urls, but towards the end we were emailing back and forth and following each other on The Twit (and yes, I just called Twitter "The Twit." It's been a long week, next week will only be worse and I'm in a strange mood, lol...). We blog/Twitter stalked each other to get some idea of what to get the other.

Tonight when I got home from work I was greeted with a lovely package from UPS sitting on the floor of my living/family room. I almost forgot I was expecting a package and was a bit confused trying to figure out what I ordered from Bath and Body Works (as the label said) since I work just across the way from one and usually pick up whatever I need before or after work depending on what shift I'm working, not to mention I thought I had all our Christmas presents wrapped.

I opened up the UPS box though and much to my delight I saw this:

Excuse my messy kitchen table

Card reads:
To: Rachel
Merry Bloggy Christmas!
From: Etoisa

Curious and excited, I opened it up and here were my swap gifts:

At first I was like "Whoa!!! How'd she get ahold of my Amazon wishlist?!" Since several of the items were on there, but then I remembered for the Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge last week that I showed off my Christmas wishlist with them on it, lol... I can definitely say I love it! I tried out the lip gloss right away and yep - tasted like vanilla frosting just like the scent smells! I also just tried out the mini anti-bacterial soap and it's pretty good too! And I now have a back-up bottle of my lotion/cream for when I run out of my current bottle (I use it often daily, that's for sure!)

Feel free to hop on over to Etosia's blog and see what I got her =)

Home for the Holidays

2011-12-15T02:02:00.000-06:00

A friend on Facebook just posted this tonight.

Granted, we're Verizon users (although my only complaint re: my time with T-Mobile was their lack of coverage outside major cities), but this is a really neat flash mob that was recently done at the big mall in the Chicago suburbs that we visit several times a year (Woodfield, in Schaumburg, which is like an hour away), so it was neat seeing this done there!

Enjoy!

Fun with Our Phones Monday #16

2011-12-12T01:38:00.000-06:00

It's Monday! So time with Fun with Our Phones Monday! I should mention though, this week I'm pretty busy with work so don't be surprised if there's a lack of posts for this week - this time of year, working retail... it gets a bit hectic! I also apologize for my lack of Twitter presence the past few days too - I've just been too busy with work and squeezing in time with family to stay on top of my feed.

Anyways, here's this past week's photos!

I had a few phone calls to make and when I got done this is what I saw, lol...

Having fun with his Aunt Katie (hubby's little sis)

Watching the (fake) fire with daddy

I thought I looked nice

He somehow took his shirt halfway off!

See??

Zombie baby!!

These faces he was making on the mesh netting were cracking me up, lol...

Even in Sam's Club I can't get away from Tebow!!!
AHHHHHH!!!!

Last week I got to be my sis's guinea pig for hair cutting as she's going to beauty school and had a test where she had to cut long layers on an actual person with long hair. She passed and didn't butcher my hair, lol... mom said she was a nervous wreck the night before though as this was the 1st time she was cutting on an actual person!

Just chillin' in his highchair at Grammie's (mommy's old highchair)

1st hot cocoa in my Mary Kay dishes =)

These were the bags where I had Jay's Christmas presents in, but I took them out while wrapping and Tiger decided to make a nest in them

He passed out in his pack n play, on top of Clifford

Drinking from his Elmo sippy cup

Playing with the Christmas Winnie the Pooh plushies

Throwing Eeyore around

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Days 9 & 10

2011-12-09T02:20:00.000-06:00

I forgot to do Day 9 so I'll just combine it with Day 10 (which is the last one!!)

Day 9

2012 Goals & Resolutions

As cliche as it sounds, lose weight.
Jay's almost a year old and I would really like to get back to my pre-preggo weight and maybe lose a little more. Basically, I'd like to look decent in a swimsuit again so I can take Jay this summer since he's old enough to wade in a baby pool and splash around, but that means getting the stretch marks to fade enough so they're not in your face noticable and making sure my pooch doesn't make people want to lose their lunch, lol...

And obviously make memories with Jay.
I really hate working retail during the holiday season because they work me to my max since we're soooo busy, but after December it tends to die down and hopefully I won't be working more than 2-3 days a week (right now I average 3 but this next week I'm work 4 since we're so close to Christmas). Like I've said before, I don't NEED to work, it's just any money I make is all extra and helps cover anything extra Jay might need (plus the discount is nice for his clothes - with our employee sale the other day, I picked up his $60 3-in-1 jacket for next year for just $20!) so work shouldn't come before family and Jay stuff.

Find a weekly playgroup for Jay.
He needs social interaction with other kids close in his age. Whether it's an official playgroup, the church nursery or just meeting up with a friend with kids close to his age once a week, it doesn't matter so long as he's getting interaction with other kids - it's hard to teach him about sharing and things like that when he doesn't really have anyone he has to share with, ya know?

I'd also like to get our yard in order.
This 1st year we more focused on the inside of the house and getting it to how we wanted so it felt like home. But our yard could use some work - we need to lay dirt around the foundation in the backyard to slope rain and such away from the house. Our firepit (that was already there) could use some work. Jay needs a swing set and area to play in. There's a part of the deck that's not completely stable. And we'd like to put in a concrete walkway from the driveway through the back gate and around the side past the deck and garage door as it's basically just mud/dirt there right now.

Pay off the majority of our debt.
My car will be paid off in May and we have some hospital/medical bills from when Jay was born as well as ones related to his other hospital stay and visits regarding his kidney/ureter tube. Plus we put some of the hospital bills on the credit card to get a collection agency off our backs. We also have a Best Buy account that'll be paid off soon too. Our tax return will help with a big chunk of this plus having my car paid off will be an extra $200/mo we can put towards paying other stuff off, so hopefully by the end of 2012 (assuming hubby hasn't gotten promoted to full-time yet) we'll only have his car and our house left as major debt.

Day 10

New Year's Eve Memories/Pictures

One of the more memorable New Year's Eves I had was 2004/2005. Jeny (my long-time college roommate) was still involved with the indy wrestling circuit in the Chicago-area and a bunch of her wrestling buddies were having a party at someone's place just across the border in Indiana. We went, along with our boyfriends at the time, however by the time we got there it was 30 minutes to midnight and back then we held the belief that you had to be drunk at midnight. So we quickly began to drink. And drink we did! We did several shots as well as this drink that had 1/3 beer, 1/3 something else and 1/3 something else. It was really good though! Someone had us take a shot of this anti-hangover stuff, but it tasted like chloroseptic spray and definitely didn't help my hangover the next morning! It was fun time though. One of our friend's proposed to his pregnant ex-gf at midnight, but no one noticed it happening until someone yelled it out! Doh! A bunch of the guys went streaking too and Jeny and I, being goofy, decided we would go streak behind them with our all our clothes on, lol... We got waaay too drunk that night, but had a lot of fun and ended it in the office guest room watching our favorite movie (Napoleon Dynamite), lol... the next morning and the drive home sucked (I had to stop in Naperville at my boyfriend's parents' house to get my car before driving an hour and a half back to my parent's house), but it was definitely a memorable New Year's Eve!

Then there was the 1st NYE that hubby and I were a couple:

We all went to a friend's classy party at their house (dress up nice, champagne at midnight...). Jeny and I played some Guitar Hero and started swing dancing at one point.

Then there was our 1st NYE as a married couple...

I wanted to go out and an old mutual friend of my high school ex's invited us out with them for dinner and a party afterwards. We skipped the dinner but met up at the one guy's house (he lives with his mom whom I remembered from high school - it was nice seeing her again!). It was a little awkward - they kept playing Beer Pong in teams and then someone had drama with their on again, off again gf who decided to be a bitch that night... hubby and I played some Left 4 Dead though before leaving an hour or so after midnight (like I said, it got awkward with the drama!).

The year after that I insisted hubby join his brothers at a small party at a family friend's of theirs about an hour away from us (which he thanked for doing later as he did enjoy himself and the time with his brothers). Gotta admit though, I got bored and while we planned on spending the night on air mattresses, I couldn't sleep and so hubby and I drove back at 4am to sleep in our own bed.

Then last year... ugh.

It was memorable but not in a good way. I was very pregnant and we met up with hubby's brothers at the one's gf's parent's house. I couldn't drink obviously though so I just drank water and ate chips and salsa since I was on my crappy diabetes diet. And they kept playing Beer Pong in the same teams (I hate that game - only a few can play at a time and it's boring for everyone else. If you're not going to play drinking card games at least play flippy cup where lots of people can play!). Hubby's brothers got too drunk though and while hubby wanted to enjoy the night, we ended up taking care of his youngest brother who doesn't have the same tolerance as the rest of the family and started puking... and almost got in a fight with one of his other brothers after he saw him making out with a girl he was interested in and said brother came over to try and help with baby bro (like I said, it wasn't good and we had to keep them separated for awhile). Hubby was pissed as it completely killed his buzz and well, I was completely sober and just not enjoying myself. I don't like going to parties and not drinking when everyone else is. Sure, some people can do it, but for me it's just not fun being sober when everyone is acting all goofy due to alcohol. I at least like a good buzz. Plus, I must just be getting old cuz partying with a bunch of minors and people in their young 20s isn't really all that fun anymore. It was really weird when her parents came home from their evening out with the younger kids... and then joined in the fun by playing Beer Pong! Yeah... awkward!

Not sure what we're doing this year - part of me wants to go out, but the other part kinda wants to stay home with Jay and introduce him to my family's tradition of blowing the paper kazoo thing and banging pots and pans at midnight to "ring in" the new year. So I'm not sure... either way, I'm definitely having a drink this year since I couldn't last year!

Just not Jay's week

2011-12-09T01:21:00.000-06:00

Wednesday afternoon Jay had his follow-up for his flu-shot to get the 2nd part of it since I guess your 1st time they do it in 2 shots or something...

Anyways, it's been in the 20s and 30s around these parts lately so that means warmer jackets! Only... Jay doesn't like wearing his big heavy jacket and gets mad whenever we put it on him.

So he wasn't happy about that but we took it off as soon as we were in the waiting room so he could crawl around and play with the toys in the corner.

At our office he's had 2 or 3 different nurses do his shots, but more often it's the nurse that's married to our doctor. After a few minutes of waiting she called us back to get his shot. I picked him up and as soon as he saw her got this look on his face like he knows she's the one that gives him shots most of the time. Even the receptionist noticed and was like "Wow... he's really giving you a bad look!"

He was not happy about the shot at all. And then he got mad at me when I made him put his big coat back on, screaming and crying in the waiting room (fortunately there were only 2 other people in the room, but he did get loud and the receptionists were giving us looks, lol...).

Poor kiddo... he's been teething off and on all week too, Thursday being the worst so far. We think he's working on molars the way he's been shoving his fingers into the back of his mouth on both sides. He didn't even finish a bottle at any of his meals, it hurt too much to suck on the nipples (at one point, realizing he hadn't even had 10oz of fluid today, I decided to feed him his bottle via a measuring cup with a spout on the side, which seemed to work). So yeah... I didn't take him to the library this week because he was just too miserable and fussy. At one point while I was dozing on the couch in the morning he crawled over to me after playing for a bit and wanted up, just to snuggle with me as he chewed on binky while I held and comforted him. Poor little guy =(

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 8

2011-12-07T00:32:00.001-06:00

Day 8

Christmas Wish List

Honestly, there's not a whole lot I want or need this year.

The main thing I would like to get for Christmas (which I recall hubby saying he'd get me) is this:

The 8-film Harry Potter boxset.

I haven't bought a single Harry Potter movie, despite temptation (especially after they were re-released not too long ago with some neat packaging!), because I knew after the last one they would release the entire series in a box set. Sure, it might not be THE set with all the extras and such that'll be released later next year, but honestly, if I ever watch the special features at all I probably wouldn't watch them more than once and really I just want to own the movies in a set like this.

I think we might be buying a Blu-ray DVD player with WiFi-capablities for our family room too since we currently don't have a DVD player in there and it would be nice to have since we spend a lot of time in there with Jay being too little to play around in the basement yet. Sam's has a few we're interested in.

Other things I wouldn't mind getting include:

Mary Kay Limited Edition Nail Lacquer in Plush Plum
Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel LipLicous Lipgloss
Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel Triple Moisture Hand Cream
Rockbuds by Chicbuds
The Pack-It in orange polka dots or black plaid
The book "Heaven is for Real"
Portal 2 earrings from J!NX

On our joint list, hubby and I put:

Super Mario All-Stars for Wii
Donkey Kong Country Returns for Wii
Thor on Blu-Ray
Cowboys and Aliens DVD
Fast Five on DVD
Boondock Saints DVD
The Family Guy Star Wars Trilogy on DVD

And then there's Jay.

In his stocking we put...

A candy cane tube with mini Reese's Cups
A Colgate beginners toothbrush set
Aquafresh beginners toothpaste with the Nerdle Gurdle guys on the box
Elmo Let's Get Clean bath book
Happy Hippo, Angry Duck board book
Elmo board book from the $1 section at Target (not pictured)
A 2 pack of his favorite binkies
And a 2 pack of Sesame Street figures Super Grover and Murray

Then for presents...

The Leapfrog My 1st Leaptop laptop
Playskool Step Start Walk n Ride push walker
The official Chica plush from Sprout's The Sunny Side Up Show
Talking Yoda plush
A plush talking Super Why
Super Why DVD
A plush Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh DVD
The Best of Elmo vol 1 & 2 on DVD
The 2011 Children's Place Holiday Monkey (boy)
Some wooden puzzles

I'm sure he'll have more fun with the wrapping paper though! LOL...

When Celebs Keep Their Word

2011-12-06T03:24:00.000-06:00

Another holiday-ish story that moved me... when celebs live up to their word.

I'm sure we all remember last summer when Afghanistan-based Sergeant Scott Moore posted a YouTube video asking actress Mila Kunis to be his date to a Marine Corps Ball and then shortly after she said she would Corporal Kelsey De Santis posted a YouTube video for Kunis' Friends With Benefits co-star Justin Timberlake asking him to take her to her Marine Corps Ball. He agreed as well, but many wondered if they would actually follow through or if this was just a publicity stunt for their new movie which was due to be released soon.

Turns out, they both did. And reports say they were very humbled and respectful at the balls.

How neat is that!

Mila Kunis and Sergeant Scott Moore

Corporal Kelsey De Santis and Justin Timberlake

I've always liked Kunis (and even more so after I found out she was a hardcore WoW player like myself) and JT... while I wasn't really an N*Sync fan, he was my favorite in their group and he grew on me after I really liked some of the songs off his 2nd solo album.

This just makes me like them even more! They really made these soldier's evenings and what a great way to show support for our Armed Forces!

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 7

2011-12-06T00:18:00.000-06:00

Day 7

How You Celebrate the Holidays

Let me just start by saying that I originally had this post all set to go, but accidently opened it here in Blogger, hit a key and then quickly ctrl-z'd it to remove it... and my entire post was gone and wouldn't show up again. I quickly exited out of it before it could save the empty post... but no such luck! Booo!

Anyways, we start off celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve with my family. At 5pm our church has an hourlong Candles and Carols service that we attend with my family before joining them back at either my parent's house or my aunt's house for dinner and presents. We start off with our meal - usually some Shepherd's Pie among other side dishes and top it off with some dessert such as Christmas cookies, pie or cheesecake. Then we sit and open up gifts with them (we open the ones from them, they open the ones from us). Usually we squeeze in a screening of 24 Hours of A Christmas Story before heading home for the night, where hubby and I get a full screening of it in before bed.

Christmas Day we wake up at a decent hour, exchange our gifts, watch another showing of A Christmas Story and get ready to go visit my in-laws. We usually watch A Christmas Story at least once while waiting for the rest of the family to show until my father-in-law decides it's time for us to watch something else. We open up gifts while we wait for dinner to finish cooking and eat around late afternoon/early evening. We usually end the day after dinner by doing either watching a new DVD or playing a new video game together.

This year will be a little different though as we need to set Jay's presents out after he goes to bed (we plan on putting together his push/ride walker toy and sticking a bow on it for him so he sees it right away when bring him into the room. And with my in-laws, since most of the family lives in town now it's been requested that my mother-in-law, father-in-law and sister-in-law come into to town and we have the food and gifts at one of our houses. Originally we discussed hosting it here, as with Jay, it makes the most sense (his toys will all be here, as is his high chair and the house is already baby-proofed) although one of hubby's brother's is wanting it to be at his house... it hasn't been decided yet but we're hoping for our house this year, as Jay will be bigger next year and understand a little better about not falling down or climbing up stairs or putting his fingers in light sockets... plus we can just bring a booster seat for him to sit in instead of hauling the whole high chair over there. Plus, our house is all decorated for the holidays and not a crazy bachelor pad, party house.

How do you guys celebrate the holidays?

Fun with Our Phones Monday #15

2011-12-05T23:44:00.001-06:00

It's still Monday, which means there's still time for...

Most of these are of Jay, again, but oh well! He's a cutie so it's all good!

He started playing with my ShakeWeight (yes, I own one and honestly, it seems like it works IMO, I just don't use it often enough to see results, lol...) and I was like "Don't tell me you're going to try and lift that up - it's like 1/4th of your weight!" and lo and behold... he did. Several times!

Watching Super Why, upside down.

You may recall on Twitter last week me advising not to order ceramic frames from Amazon - this is why. They shipped it with several other similar sized items in a box that was like 3 times too big. This being ceramic, and on the bottom of everything, it obviously got broken. You can see a chip in it above the "D" on the bottom side and there's at least 3 other cracks in the frame. I was kinda sad as this was part of his Christmas present as we got my mom a Grandma frame last summer and my dad mentioned he'd like one of these and finding one that works vertically as well as horizontally is a bit hard to do, not to mention I can only seem to find Grandpa frames online - no big name stores around here carry them, just Grandma ones! Wth?! Grandpa's need loving too!

I went to take a picture of the snow outside (the 1st snowfall to actually stick a little bit) and my flash made this happen instead thanks to our screen glass door. Looks kinda cool!

This is what I was actually trying to take a photo of, lol... the view of the snow from our front door. Not much and it was gone by morning, but enough to actually say it snowed a bit!

"Hi mommy. Don't mind me, I'm just playing with daddy's shoelaces!"

Too cute!

At his pediatric cardiology appointment last week the doctor gave him this sticker when they 1st met. Jay held onto it. The entire rest of the time we were there. During his testing. And on the ride home. He didn't put it down until he got distracted by one of his toys after we got home.

Sleeping cutie!

I caught him climbing ON his walker the other day. In true mommy fashion, I took a picture and then told him not to do that, lol...

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 6

2011-12-05T01:58:00.002-06:00

Day 6

Christmas Dessert/Treat Recipe

One of my absolute favorite Christmas Cookies are the Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss ones! I first had

them when I was really little and we were visiting my dad's parents in Pennsylvania - I was drawn to them because of the Hershey Kiss on top.

Sure, you can buy an easy kit at Sam's Club or Walmart, but I use my mom's recipe to make mine =)

Keep in mind, the recipe I'm about to post makes 48 cookies, so unless you're sharing them or want a big butt for the holidays, I suggest maybe cutting the ingredients in half.

What you need:

1.5 cups of flour
1/3 cup of gran. sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup shortening
2 tbsp milk
3/4 creamy peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
Package of Hershey Kisses

What to do:

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a smaller bowl
In a separate bowl, mix shortening and peanut butter, then add both sugars and beat til fluffy. Then add the egg, milk and vanilla
Add flour in 1/2 cup increments, beating after each addition
Batter will become stiff
Place batter on plate, divide into 4 parts then divide those 4 parts into another 4 parts. Make 3 balls from each little section
Place balls on cookie sheet (you should be able to get 24 per sheet)
Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes until lightly brown
Immediately press Hershey Kiss into center of cookie
With a spatula, place cookies on cooling rack

Just make sure that when serving these you don't give to anyone with a peanut butter allergy, as you can't really tell they're made with peanut butter until you bite in!

Hubby doesn't like peanut butter so I'm glad Jay does as I'm sure he'll enjoy these as like I do! He's a little too young to help me bake Christmas cookies this year, but hopefully next year he can at least help me mix/beat stuff and do frosting and sprinkles!

I'm excited to bake Christmas cookies this year, as I didn't last year due to being pregnant and having gestational diabetes, restricting me from eating the majority of the holiday goodies! And of course you can't bake Christmas cookies and NOT eat them, so I figured I'd be good and just not bake any last year... but you can beat I am this year!

In addition to these, I'll also be making holiday shaped sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles as well as gingerbread cookies (which I skimped on this year and bought a Betty Crocker mix as last time I did it from scratch they were waaaay too thick and kept falling apart!). There's also a yummy coconut cookie bar recipe I have, and the 1st year I made them they turned out perfect, but the last time I made them... they didn't turn out right at all so I think I'll let my mom make those!

Swap, swap, swap!

2011-12-05T01:27:00.001-06:00

This holiday season I've participated in several swaps here in Blogland... here's what I've gotten so far!

For Tara and Celia's Nail Polish Swap, my swap partner was Lauren from On a Lighter Note....

Here's what Lauren sent me:

That's Essie's "Cocktail Bling" and "Buy Me a Cameo." I've been hearing some of you mention Essie lately so I'm glad I got to try this brand out =)

I also participated in Ashleigh & Co's 144 participant Ornament Swap this year!

My partner was Olivia from Simply Sunshine and Daisies and she sent me 3 ornaments:

They're all great, but I particularly love the wire star one with glass balls!

I also participated in the 1st Annual Just Add Color Fall Swap which was a scarf and nail polish swap. The link-up for this swap was 2 weeks ago, however my swap partner failed and forgot to ship it until this past week so I just got my scarf over the weekend. She did write a nice apology note though and included some cute earrings as well to make up for it.

10 Months... already?!

2011-12-04T02:02:00.000-06:00

I just realized yesterday... in 2 months Jay will be 1 year old!

Where has this year gone already?!

Happy 10 months, buddy! Mommy loves you sooooooooooo much!

You're growing big and fast, having just had a growth spurt this month, officially putting you in 12 month tops and 6-9 month bottoms.

You have 8 teefers already and sadly, we've started on molars, which put you in great pain and fussiness, but we manage. It helps you finally have an interest in teething rings now!

You've weaned yourself off your binky for the most part, only really taking it when you're having some doctor tests done or when your mouth is in enough pain and you need to gnaw on it.

Burpie cloths seem to be your choice of "lovey" as you'll snuggle with the old white kitchen towel ones Grammie gave us and you snuggle with a soft, smaller one when you sleep.

Meal time hasn't changed too much - you still eat a full bowl of rice cereal mixed with formula for

breakfast plus a bottle, a combination baby food jar and a bottle for lunch, a meat and veggie baby food jar and a fruit jar with a bottle for dinner, and a full bottle for your bedtime nightcap. We have been giving you more and more "real" food to try and eat on occasion, in addition to your other food. You love pumpkin pie and sampled all the dishes everyone else was eating at Thanksgiving (your 1st Thanksgiving, by the way!).

You got see Sesame Street Live and you went to Chuck E Cheese for the 1st time too!

You know "ma-ma" is mommy and "da-da" is daddy, often rambling about us or inquiring where Da-Da is when he's at work or napping in the bedroom. You know "ba-ba" is bottle and seem to understand quite a bit as well. You often greet me in the morning when I go to get you from your crib with a "Hi!!" or a "Heyyy!" You are often quite the little chatterbox!

You still sleep through the night just fine, however since we started letting your My Pal Scout and your touch and feel animal board book spend the night in the crib with you, you've been entertaining yourself with them in the morning, letting mommy (and daddy on his days off) sleep in a little longer! You usually take 1 good nap during the day, however you don't always take a 2nd nap anymore like you used to.

You do spend a bit of time in your Pack n Play lately though, especially in the morning when mommy doesn't have the energy to keep chasing you away from the laptop power cords, or away from the picture albums or books on the bookshelves. We tell you "no", which gets your attention, but as soon as we move you back to your toys or distract you, you're right back at it again. Wears mommy out in the morning!

You're a pro at pulling yourself up using people and objects and cruise along the furniture like a

speed racer. Recently you started standing along, without holding onto anything, holding it for a good 5-10 seconds until you realize you're doing it and scare yourself, quickly grabbing onto something nearby or plopping onto your butt. You walk in front of mommy, holding onto her hands - we think you'll be walking on your own before this year is over!

You've gotten several bumps, a nice little cut on your eyebrow, and your 1st bloody lip. Nothing major and the doctor didn't seem too surprised at your check-up this past month, stating it happens with little boys and is expected (something daddy keeps reminding mommy - I still cringe and wince in fear every time you fall or bump your head though!). They found a little heart murmur, but since we haven't heard anything further since your check-up with the cardiologist it's safe to say that it's just an innocent one and you'll likely grow out of it as you grow!

You're very smart too - you showed mommy that the portable button to your fishtank has a handle on it (I had no idea that was there, but you did!). You crawl to objects with a purpose, going all the way from the family room to your room just to get said portable button and bring it back. You don't like wearing your winter hat with the ear flaps but seem to understand that you need to wear it outside or

your ears and head get cold - you do seem to understand though that you can take it off in the car, recently dropping it in its place in your diaper bag when daddy picked you up from Grammie's the other day (and then you proceeded to show daddy where the buckle for your car seat straps were!). You also know more about smartphones that you probably should - knowing that certain games and videos you like are on there, not to mention you put Grammie's phone into airplane mode for her and she had no idea how to unlock it without the manual! You also hide things (such as bottles) and reveal them later, even after mommy and daddy looked everywhere for them!

You also figured out how to get into the baby-proofed cabinets, causing mommy to resort to using hair ties to keep you out from under the sink and playing with glass/ceramic kitchen objects. You are allowed to play in the cabinets with the pots and pans and plastics though... which you make sure to pull them all out and leave them throughout the kitchen.

This month we get to celebrate your 1st Christmas and New Years! And once Christmas is over, mommy's going to start putting your 1st birthday plans into motion!

Can't believe how much you've grown so far!

Something to make you go "Awww" this holiday season

2011-12-04T01:21:00.003-06:00

Miss @TradeChat on Twitter posted this on her Tumblr blog earlier tonight and it made me tear up a bit!

"I went to a Gamestop to turn in a Playstation 2 slim that I had put towards a full preorder of Bayonetta for my brother to go with the 360 I bought him.

I noticed this raggedy looking kid that was poking around, looking real excited, and he turns to his mom, who’s wearing a grey sweatshirt with cigarette burns and grey sweatpants, obviously super poor. The kid goes “Oh wow, mom, look how cool this one looks!” and he picks up a copy of Gitaroo Man, for the PS2. I was pretty impressed, because that’s probably my second favorite game of all time.

His mom says, pretty gruffly, “That don’t look like it’ll fit in your Gameboy. That’s what we came here to get.” I guess they were Christmas shopping early. It made me kinda sad because the kid looked to be maybe 9 or 10, and he didn’t believe in Santa anymore. The kid looked kinda sad and put it back, then started staring at which GBA game he wanted.

I’ve been pretty depressed for the last couple weeks, but I was kinda happy that this was something I could do something about. So, I did. I turned around and bought the copy of Gitaroo Man, Metal Gear Solid 3 and Gungrave: Overdose (some of my favorite games) then I handed him the bag full of everything, the PS2, the two controllers I had with it and the games. He looked at me and asked why I did and told him, “Because Santa sent me.” And then I looked up at his mom and his mom was crying, and that made me cry, and I left Gamestop a blubbering mess.

Felt fucking great, man."

—A Really Awesome Person (via nickryan)
(Source: wheretimecomestodie, via xthedeathofmex)

Library playtime!

2011-12-03T01:43:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been looking into finding a Mommy & Me type organized groups/activities to take Jay to on a weekly basis where he can socialize with tots closer in age to him and I can get some parental interaction too.

Unfortunately there's not really an official "Mommy and Me" type classes in our area but I have found some similar alternatives...

the problem though is that most are held in the morning, and well... we're not morning people, Jay included.

So it's been difficult finding little kid activities in the afternoons.

But I did seem to find a group of moms in town that have a weekly Thursday afternoon playgroup and I did come across a free storytime/playgroup for kids under 2 Thursdays evenings at our nearby library branch.

We decided to check that out this past Thursday.

We were the 1st ones there, but another family with a little boy showed up and then 2 other moms with their sons showed up late as well. Their sons were all about 20 months old, but Jay seemed to do pretty well with them, crawling around after them, playing with the letter shapes that were passed out. He seemed to be enjoying himself which was good! The library worker read a few stories, we sang a few songs, and practiced sounds with the kids based on the letters they picked out of a bag (Jay liked carrying an O all over the place).

We'll probably go again the last 2 weeks of this year, so long as I don't have work. Hopefully some more kids come, and closer in Jay's age, as the other kids are all approaching 2 soon!

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 5

2011-12-02T02:36:00.003-06:00

Day 5

Ideal outfit for Christmas/NYE festivities

I would say something fun and festive, preferably with red!

Here's what we're wearing for Christmas this year:

My attire:
Top - Red dressy cowl neck sweater with tie from Kohl's (in the Misses Dept - ooooh!)
Pants - Black dressy pants from Old Navy

Jay's attire:
Red and black checkered strip shirt from The Children's Place
Black suede and satin vest from The Children's Place
Red, white and black striped tie from The Children's Place
Black dressy pants from The Children's Place
and you can't see them, but he's wearing black dress shoes, also from... you guessed it! The Children's Place (see? I really do give half my paycheck back to work, lol...)

Hubby:
He's wearing a red buttoned down top, most likely by George from Walmart and Dickie's black dress pants. He'll probably wear his black sport coat I bought him years ago too.

Tebow, Tebow, Tebow

2011-12-01T05:02:00.000-06:00

Warning - this is a bit of a sports rant.

Whether you watch football or not, I'm sure by now most of you have heard of the Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow or at least the latest internet crazy of taking random pictures of yourself in various poses known as "Tebowing." The guy is fairly young, an out-spoken Christian, and supposedly a good guy all around.

And the media seems to have a huge love affair with the guy.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not a "Tebow Hater." Honestly, I don't know much about the guy as he's not on my team (The Cowboys) so I could really care less about him and I don't really have an opinion on him.

But what I CAN'T stand is this crazy media love affair. They're like obsessed with the guy!

I swear, I can't turn on ESPN or even watch the recaps and highlights of other games between the games on Sundays without hearing them CONSTANTLY mention Tebow's name at every chance they get.

I kid you not.

Here's a perfect example:
This evening, before the big Sunday Night Football game, we were watching the recaps and highlights of the afternoon and they got to the Patriots game. Apparently some guy on one of the 2 teams that was playing in that game played in college with Tebow... So OF COURSE they HAD to mention Tebow when he had NOTHING to do with the game they were recapping!

DRIVES ME NUTS!

I told hubby that one of these days I'm going to start taking shots everytime we're watching something football-related and they say the name "Tebow." Hubby said I'd be drunk quite quickly!

I just don't get it though - WHY??? Why is the media so in love with this guy?

I hear he's not even that great - I mean hello, his team is what, 6-5 or something like that now? All the good teams this season are at least 7-3 or better.

If it was Aaron Rodgers and The Packers they were constantly going on about, okay, sure I can understand that as The Packers are currently the only undefeated team this season (although they have had an easy season so far!). But it's the freakin' Denver Broncos!

I just don't get it.

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 4

2011-12-01T01:30:00.001-06:00

Day 4

Favorite Holiday Movies/TV Specials

I LOVE the Christmas movies!

As I mentioned earlier this week, our favorite is:

A Christmas Story!

Unless you've been living under a rock, this gem takes place in the 1930s/40s (as the year isn't actually said) and follows 10 year old Ralphie and his family as all he wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder BB Gun despite everyone telling him "You'll shoot your eye out!" There's also various other hijinks that are just downright funny and hilarious, but the film is still quite sweet! While it wasn't a hit during its initial release, it gained classic status over the years and while we make a point to catch 24 Hours of A Christmas Story every year, one year hubby wanted to watch it early so we sought out a copy on DVD for own.

Other favorites include Elf (Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf, seeking out his birth father and spreading Christmas cheer wherever he goes!) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (where the Griswold's try to have a fun old-fashioned family Christmas with Cousin Eddie and all!).

As far as the animated Christmas specials go...

My favorite is the original Boris Karloff version of Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas.

I *hated* the live-action Jim Carrey massacre of it - waaay too much focus on Cindy Lou and the sappy backstory... just give me the original animated version please!

I also scored a great deal last year on Amazon, getting the Original Christmas Classic Collection. Granted, only 4 of them are worth watching (Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), but it's still a great set to have since they don't replay these nearly as much as they did on TV when I was a kid (Frosty was my favorite back then!). I love the claymation though and was sooo excited last year when Community did their Christmas episode all in claymation, giving a nod to all the great Christmas classics!

I can't wait to watch these classic Christmas specials with Jay over the years - I really hope he enjoys them like I did as a kid (and still do to this day!)

We did add 2 new Christmas specials to our collection this year just for Jay:

Elmo's Christmas Countdown, where Elmo and Abby help Stiller the Elf (voiced by Ben Stiller, lol...) save Christmas with the help of other celebrity guest - I got this one during Border's GoB sale last summer for just $8! And the VeggieTales' The Toy That Saved Christmas which I haven't seen in years but couldn't pass up.when I saw it in the $5 bin at Walmart recently.

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 3

2011-11-30T06:21:00.000-06:00

Day 3

Holiday Decor!

This is our 1st year being in a house, so I am beyond excited to get to decorate it for Christmas this year and even spent some monies at Hobby Lobby recently to get some stuff to add since we have more space this year!

Let's start with our tree:

I bought this 6.5ft pre-lit tree from Walmart when I was in college for $30 one of our 1st years in the apartment - I couldn't go without having a tree! Last year we pulled (read: cut) all the pre-lit lights off it as too many had burned out and just bought 2 strands to put on. It's easier this way since all we have to do is replace a strand rather than waste time if some lights burn out.

I decided to keep it simple this year and just put up the fun ornaments, only higher up so Jay can't pull them off. Normally I have blue and gold shatterproof balls I put up as well as some silver garland, but not this year... maybe next year when he's bigger!

My parents have a pool going on who's going knock it over first - Jay or Tiger! So far Tiger's only climbed up in it once. Jay crawled over to it and touched the bottom but didn't seem to have much of an interest!

And the ornaments:

I have the entire Puppy Love series, aside from the new one for this year

The rest of our ornaments

Jay's 1st ornaments:
Elmo with a present tree
A snowman with Jay's name on it (well, "Jay" since we'll never find anything that says "Jaydran")
Guess How Much I Love You bunnies with book replica
Baby's 1st Christmas 2011 picture ornament

Our Dallas Cowboys' ornament that my mom gave hubby for Christmas one year

Our 1st Christmas as a married couple Precious Moments ornament

The nest I made in Sunday School when I was really little and always paired them with the doves. When I moved out, my mom decided just to give me the doves to go with the nest. I always enjoy finding the perfect spot for these guys each year!

My little mouse. I've had this one FOREVER and remember sneaking it off the tree once when I was little and sleeping with it, I loved it so much!

My ballerina angel. I've had this one since I was a kid too! Sadly, her arm broke off a few years ago =(

This is a new one for this year.
It's 2 big stockings with a smaller 2011 one and says up top "...and baby makes three!"

Our star!
It's glitter, which I *hate* but doesn't seem to get all over everything.
(Thank God! I *hate* glitter - as we said in art school, glitter is the herpes of arts and crafts!)
We got this baby at Hobby Lobby a few years ago!

The rest of the decor:

Our fireplace and mantle!
So glad we got this in time for the holidays! I LOVE having a mantle to decorate! And everything on it is new!
Jingle Bell tree - Target
Medium size Nutcracker - Hobby Lobby
Nativity Scene - Hobby Lobby
Dallas Cowboys Snowman Family
And the stockings I picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond and Hobby Lobby on clearance after Christmas last year. Jay's is the one in the center, obviously.

Corner end table decorations
Snowman I took from the "give away" table in our old apartment complex
Partylite Holly Lites Aroma Melt Warmer (with Gingerbread scent from Yankee Candle)
Nativity snowglobe

My Partylite set with Poinsetta and candycanes with Iced Snowberries tealights from Partylite

Holiday Eeyore, Pooh and Tigger keeping the loveseat warm (with Tiger in her usual spot)

Samantha's all decked out in her Christmas story outfit!

I got this guy from Hobby Lobby - I *had* to get one of these countdown things!

Advent calendar
Finding one without Santa plastered all over it was hard!

My new Yankee Candle Gingerbread jar with decorative top
I have a friend who sells PartyLite another who manages the Yankee Candle store at the mall. My Yankee Candle friend has "shop with my discount" sales several times a year and since PartyLite doesn't have just a straight Gingerbread scent I stocked up at Yankee since she gets 50% off wax! I've already burned 1/4th of this jar though and it's not even December yet! Definitely thinking I should have picked up 2!

At my kitchen sink I have the Bath and Body Works Vanilla Bean Noel moisturizing anti-bacterial hand soap with a holiday-themed holder

Holiday potholders (Gingerbread house and Gingerbread man) and red and green Christmas light hand towels, all from Target!

Next to my upstairs bathroom sink - Yankee Gingerbread tart and tealight in my bathroom aroma warmer (from PartyLite) and Bath and Body Works Iced Gingerbread moisturizing anti-bacterial hand soap (which smells sooooo good!)

The wreath on our front door that my mom gave me years ago.

The lights on the house!
We still have to put the ones in the front bush, as the outlet needs worked on there.
These are blue, twinkling icicle lights. Sadly though, none of our neighbors have lights up yet!

How do you decorate for the holidays???

Fun with Our Phones #14

2011-11-30T01:16:00.000-06:00

A few days late again... oh well!

Jay figured out how to put the rings on that toy!

I thought it was an interesting number - 61616

We had him try some chicken nuggets for dinner

So much for that!

Tuesday night, after I had cleaned my house, my stupid cat decided to jump up on the fridge... well she missed. And decided to try again... missing again and this time knocking over hubby's birthday Brandy and a full, unopened bottle of wine as well as our babysitter notepad. The wine bottle shattered all over the floor and my kitchen reeked of wine! I got all the glass up but that was a good 30 minutes I would have rather not have spent cleaning up this mess!

Once again, Jay's 1st visit to Chuck E Cheese!

Winning with daddy!

Saw these in the Gordman's Black Friday ad and had a good laugh - they're obvious Disney Princess knock-offs! Only difference is that some of the names have been changed, lol...

Jay's 1st Thanksgiving!

Playing with Bear

Creating Hurricane Jay

The aftermath of Hurricane Jay, lol...

Trying to get daddy's beer bottle

Jay's plate of Thanksgiving feast
He had a few pieces of turkey and just a bite or 2 of everything else before getting tired and fussy and needing to go down for a nap!

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Look at me, mommy! I'm in ur cabinetz, bangin' the potz!"

"Someday I'm gonna be a Jedi..."

Hubby put some lights up on our house - still need to get the ones on the front bush working, but that's an outlet issue we're working on.

Jay's 1st time at Chuck E Cheese!

2011-11-30T00:40:00.003-06:00

I probably should have posted this last weekend but I was just sooo busy with the holiday and work... this past weekend was quite busy!

"Chuck E Cheese! Chuck E Cheese!"

Anyways, last Wednesday we took Jay to Chuck E Cheese for the 1st time, at the request of my college roommate's fiance. They were in the area this past week for the holidays, visiting her family, and I had requested they meet up with us at some point (I really am thankful that my out of state friends still make time to visit with me when they're in the area!). Her fiance really wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese and requested to take Jay so he wouldn't seem weird going there sans kiddo, lol...

It was fun, but boy has that place changed since we were kids!

I don't know how your Chuck E Cheese was where you grew-up, but the one here was in separate rooms - you walk in and there's the register with the prize stand by the door as well. Then there was the arcade-type game room with the skee-ball lanes. Then there was a smaller kid area and some tables. Then there was another room with the main dining room and the stage with the animatronic Chuck E Cheese characters... and then there was another room where the tubes, slides and ballpit was.

Yeah... all the walls, dividing up the rooms, are gone. The ballpit is gone (thank God! I've heard and read about too many horror stories with those!) and there's a tube that you climb up and you can go in a few different tubes that are up in the area and one is connected to a slide - it's very compacted in a corner of the now very open huge room! It was sooo weird!

Anyways, we took Jay and he seemed to have a blast! He LOVED the kiddie car rides - there was one where you can take a picture with Chuck E and another that was Bob the Builder themed which Jay LOVED! I have no clue how many tokens we spent on that, lol... and once hubby showed Jay there was a button to push on it that made noises, that was all he wanted to do on the ride!

Riding with Chuck E.!

Picture of the crappy quality photo the ride takes, lol...
It was cute enough to hang it on my fridge though!

"Can we drive it? YES WE CAN!"

Winning tickets with daddy.

Playing with the token cup while mommy shows off our ticket receipt

We all shared tokens - hubby and I got 168 tickets (I hit a lucky streak playing Skee-ball!) and got Jay a blow-up mini guitar, a bookmark and some Fun Dip for myself! Jay also liked the token cups so I snagged a few of those on our way out so he can play with them at home.

We went at 8pm on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so it wasn't very crowded at all - only 2 other families and none of the kids were close in Jay's age so we didn't have to worry about sharing the rides he was hooked on, lol...

I definitely recommend checking their site for coupons before you go though, as the prices are a bit steep! We got a large pizza with 4 drinks and 70 tokens for $29.99, plus my friend's fiance spent probably $10 or so to get another bunch of tokens. It was a fun 2 hours though!

Update on Cardiology visit

2011-11-30T00:39:00.000-06:00

I just want to give an update on how our visit with the pediatric cardiologist went this afternoon.

Jay did pretty good - in the waiting room they had some toys for him to play with while I filled out the stack of paperwork. Some other families with kids came in shortly after we did - one little girl, who I would guess to be maybe 6 months or so older than Jay, came near him to play with the box of giant Legos. Jay saw it and went over... poor girl! Every time she pulled a giant Lego brick out, Jay would take it from her! Ooops! Seems someone needs to learn how to share! At one point she got frustrated and started pulling back when he tried to take one off her - I'm surprised they didn't have a little brawl! LOL... They had toys in the exam room too so Jay played with those while we waited for the doctor to come in, but he got bored quickly and started opening and closing the cabinet drawers under the exam table.

The doc came, listened to his heartbeat and confirmed that there was a small murmur there - he said on a scale of 1-6, with 6 being very loud and 1 being quiet, that he would rate Jay's as a 2. He said that had Jay been fussing or crying during his check-up, odds are his doctor would have never heard it. He explained that there's 2 sides to heart murmurs in babies - 1 could just be innocent and benign, as like I said before, it can be caused by their hearts just pumping so fast to keep up with their rapidly growing little bodies and usually they grow out of it as they grow up. The other side of the coin... it could be something serious, such as a deformity or defect such as a hole in his heart (for example), but he said not to worry about that.

He had them do an ultrasound-like scan on his heart, which Jay did well for the most part, despite getting antsy towards the end.

The doctor gave me a brochure on innocent heart murmurs (which he had to go find as the exam room we were in was out of them - he joked at that meaning that it was quite common!) and told me to wait to read it until Friday, as we'll know by then if Jay's is serious or not. He said to consider no news as good news and that if I don't hear anything by Friday to go ahead and read the brochure and I'm guessing we'll just keep a check on it during his regular check-ups.

Thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers! I really do appreciate it - now to just keep our fingers crossed we don't hear anything bad!

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 2

2011-11-29T12:23:00.002-06:00

Day 2

Your Favorite Holiday Tradition (new or old)

This is one hubby and I started a few years ago - seeing how many times we can watch 24 Hours of "A Christmas Story" on TBS.

It starts on Christmas Eve (I want to say around 7pm CST) and replays every 2 hours for 24 hours straight (that's a total of 12 showings!).

Hubby and I both LOVE this movie - it's probably our favorite full-length Christmas movie (the original Grinch is probably my favorite holiday short). We usually catch it twice before falling asleep, once in the morning and then at least once (sometimes twice) while visiting with my in-laws as my Father-in-Law hates watching it more than once and if he notices it's on the second airing we've watched there he'll flip, lol...

We can't wait to show it to Jay (hubby's already started quoting lines to him, such as "I can't put my arms down!" whenever we bundle him up, lol...) and has mentioned several times we need to get him a pink bunny suit like the one Ralphie's aunt sends him and his mom makes him try on, lol... It'll be a few years before Jay "gets" it but oh well - start 'em young!

Just a quick request...

2011-11-29T05:29:00.001-06:00

If I could just ask a quick favor from you guys today - please keep Jay in your thoughts and prayers as this afternoon (2pm CST) we'll be seeing a pediatric cardiologist to check out the possible heart murmur his pediatrician thought he heard at his 9 month check-up earlier this month.

He said it's probably nothing or just benign and said it's not uncommon for babies to have a heart murmur when they're little as they grow so rapidly that sometimes the heart has trouble keeping up, but still... The thought of Jay maybe having even more major medical issues... I don't know if I can take it.

I've already accepted the fact that it's a 99% guarentee that he'll have to have the surgery for his ureter tube to open up (in case your new, Jay was born with a deformed left ureter tube that was pinched shut, allowing nothing to go in from or out to his bladder causing his left kidney to be enlarged with excess fluid trapped up in there - the way to fix it is surgery around his 2nd birthday, where they will remove the ureter tube from his bladder, cut off the tapered off, pinched shut part and then reinsert the tube to his bladder so that both kidneys can function correctly and not just 1).

But yeah... I just can't bear to think about the possibility that something else might be majorly wrong, such as a major heart issue that will need surgery or some type of procedure to fix it!

So PLEASE keep us in your thoughts and prayers today as they do some minor testing to figure out if there is a murmur and if it's something serious or not!

Thanks!

I met Dave Navarro!

2011-11-29T01:20:00.000-06:00

At work, when a customer pays with credit we're supposed to request to see an ID with it if the back of their card is not signed as a security measure, as we're supposed to match their signature for the purchase with that on the back of the card.

Tonight I had a customer whose card was not signed on the back so I requested to see his ID.

I went to match the name on the card with that on the ID...

and hey, whadya know, his name is Dave Navarro!

I smiled but no, I didn't ask or make some crack about the guy being the famous rockstar - I'm sure he gets that PLENTY!

And obviously he wasn't THE Dave Navarro - aside from dark hair and a white complexion, he looked nothing like him.

Still, I thought it was interesting enough to share! Have you ever met someone who shares a name with someone famous? We had a few come through the movie theater when I worked there as well (I remember there once being a Will Smith!).

The Fabulous Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 1

2011-11-28T01:59:00.001-06:00

Day 1

Favorite Gift Received EVER

I would have to say the best was probably our 1st Christmas together as a married couple (2008), when hubby got me a kitty - Tiger.

She was soooo tiny back then! Hard to believe it's been 3 years already!

Mary Kay Cyber Monday Sale!!!

2011-11-28T00:10:00.001-06:00

While some of you may be already done with your Christmas shopping, for those of you doing some Cyber Monday shopping today, here's a great deal for you!

My Mary Kay consultant, Cherice, is hosting a Cyber Monday Sale on her Mary Kay site today, from 12am-11:59pm CST - all orders placed within that time frame will receive 30% off plus FREE shipping!

And if that isn't enough to encourage to buy, unlike most consultants who work their business as additional income, Cherice gives all the profit from her sales to various charities and missions organizations! So when you buy from her, you're also giving to a great cause!

There's no code to enter for this sale - just purchase between 12am and 1159pm CST today and she'll deduct the 30% off your order once she contacts you to confirm everything (so don't freak out if it's not showing a discount on the checkout page).

I already had a few items I was planning on purchasing for Christmas gifts, but I think I'll also grab some of my mineral foundation and concealer as well since I'm getting pretty low!

So what are you waiting for - go order some stuff!

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 10

2011-11-26T04:11:00.001-06:00

Day 10: Black Friday!

I wasn't planning on going out this year.

Unlike last year, there wasn't really anything we needed to rush out, stand in the line for hours (although it was in the 40s this year unlike the freezing 'teens last year and I wasn't almost 8 months pregnant this year...), and fight the crowds for.

I had been on Amazon quite a bit and had several wish lists set up - one for what we're getting family, another for Jay, etc - and figured I'd just log-on sometime after midnight and order everything since I had giftcards.

As I went to click "checkout" though, it informed me that one of the items in our cart - the Leapster My Own Leaptop that we were getting Jay - had sold out and wouldn't be available til next week. This was something we felt we needed to get him as he's constantly trying to "play" with our laptops whenever they're out and figured he'd grow with this one for a bit too before needing an upgrade.

The online Target price was a steal (if you don't factor in shipping) so I debated for several minutes and decided to head out into the madness to see how much it was in store, since I also had several Target giftcards too.

I got there about 1245am - 45 minutes after they opened - and found a semi-close parking spot in the parking lot of the grocery store just across the way. I grabbed one of the last 2 shopping baskets (they were out of carts!) and navigated the crowds to get to the toy department (when we would go to concerts in college, my ex and his friends LOVED my ability to navigate a crowd to get us up close - guess that comes in handy on Black Friday!). The in-store price was the same as Amazon's sale price so I grabbed it. I also grabbed the Rockin' Elmo guitar that my sister-in-law requested we get one of our nephews, this Sesame Street 2 figure pack with Super Grover and Murray that apparently is kinda rare (I was kicking myself earlier for not buying it when I was there last week, as I could not find it online at all and really wanted to get it for Jay for a stocking stuffer) as well as some stuff for my little cousin's Christmas present.

After spending several minutes trying to find the end of one of the check-out lines I spent the next 45 minutes waiting in the line to check-out. I had my phone, and 4G (since the 3G was acting up) and ordered the bulk of my Christmas shopping via the Amazon shopping app - multi-tasking for the win!

(After giftcards, I spent $12 total at Target and $4 on Amazon).

This put us at 145am.

I figured, since I was up and already out, might as well stop out at the mall and work to see about something else we're including in my cousin's present. And since our sale today was that the entire store was 30% off (plus my 25% off employee discount) til 2pm (which was extended til the end of the day) I figured I'd grab Jay some more graphic tees for like $3 each since he had a growth spurt this last week and all his 6-9month graphic tees are now too short. I got out there around 2am, saw 3 accidents all within a 1/4 mile of each other, and yeah... the mall was insane! (Although I did oddly enough park in my usual close spot!). It was as packed as it normally is on a Friday night! And work... wow! The store was completely trashed and the check out line was all along the outer aisles and back of the store! We were short-staffed and completely in surprise at how busy it turned out to be (the majority of stores in the mall didn't open til 4am - only some near Macy's and Bergners opened at midnight).

I got 2 accessories for my cousin, 3 tees for Jay, a sweater for him that I had my eye on and missed when it was 40% off (my manager at the time said it would eventually go to 50%!), and 3 pairs of socks for $35.

My mom, aunt and cousin were still out at the mall when I got done shopping at work around 245am so I met up with them in Macy's and hung out with them for a bit. It was around 4am when we left the mall.

I was all set to go to bed... when I decided I wanted some Jingle Jammies from Old Navy.

I mean, why not? They're on sale, it was on my way home anyway and I have the Old Navy card so I can just pay it off as soon as I get my paycheck and not have to worry about interest... plus I get an extra 10% off.

So I got 2 pairs of the Jingle Jammies, a $5 thermal green striped shirt for Jay to wear with overalls, and a fleece scarf for $1 for a total of $25.

I got home right around 5am and passed out a little after 6am.

Jay woke me up around 1130am, we watched Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey on PBS among other things since they were doing a Curious George movie marathon all day today and after getting ready, we headed out around 2pm since I had to be at work at 3 and anticipated craziness with traffic and everything else.

We stopped McDonald's so I could get my $1 large Coke with no ice to get me through my shift and to my amazement the drive-thru was completely empty!

Next we stopped by our local post office branch to pick-up a package we missed the other day - it had Jay's Super Why DVD in it as well as his stuffed Chica plush (from the Sunny Side Up Show on Sprout) that I ordered for him for Christmas (those things sold out within the 1st 24 hours they were on sale!).

Those 2 errands took us 20 minutes - I was expecting it to take MUCH longer!

So I dropped him off at my mom's and headed into work...

The store was pretty trashed, but you could tell they had cleaned up a little since when I was there at 2am. I was assigned to stock and recover the back-half of the store, where newborn, baby boy and baby girl are all located. I kept up on baby boy and completely restocked newborn making it look awesome, so those weren't too bad at the end of the night... baby girl though... I didn't really get to touch it until the last hour or so we were open. I ended up taking down the entire wall of jeans and just redoing it all, they were soooo messy (I did it earlier in the day with the baby boy jeans too).

I had one lady give me attitude too over the fact that she couldn't use her 20% off coupon on top of the 30% off she was getting for Black Friday, despite her coupon saying that it's excluded during sale events (all coupons are - only exceptions are employee and old/new Placecard holder discounts). She was like "Well 30% isn't much - it's still like a $40 coat!" Well sorry lady, you should have come in several weeks ago when all the coats were 40% off and you could have also used a coupon on top of that! I'm not corporate, I don't make the rules - I just find your stuff and ring them up. I didn't say that, but I wanted to!

The graphic tee tables were an explosion of shirts and took us forever to put them back together. We also had to take down all the Entire Store 30% off signs and clean the floors (normally I can Swiffer the floors with 2 pads, tonight it took me 6!). We closed the store at 10pm - we didn't clock out til almost 1215am!

Lots o' money though! Can't wait for my paycheck next Friday - it's gonna be a nice one!

And now, I'm typing when I should be asleep in bed as I get to work 12-5pm today.

Jay is having a sleepover at Grammie's - hubby and I both have to be at work tomorrow and we knew were going to be worn out from Black Friday so my mom said he could stay over there for the night so we could get a solid night's sleep without having to worry about him waking us up in the middle of the night for anything or waking us up super early! We both admit though, it feels a bit weird without him here!

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 9 (Jay's 1st Thanksgiving)

2011-11-26T04:09:00.000-06:00

The past few days have been quite busy for us so I'm doing these last 2 posts back to back!

Day 9: Thanksgiving!

As previously mentioned, we usually rotate whose parent's house we go to for Thanksgiving. This year was our year at my parents'. It was also Jay's 1st Thanksgiving too!

We watched the Cowboys beat the Miami Dolphins and then enjoyed a tasty dinner made by mom (with rolls by my aunt).

The tryptophan kicked in early for Jay though - he had a few pieces of turkey, a little stuffing, a taste of non-pureed corn and a little bit of noodles and started fussing. He was tired, so we put him down in the pack n play in the guest room and he took a little nap while we finished dinner. When he woke up he ate some of his baby food and his bottle and then ate a good 1/3 of my pumpkin pie (yay for someone besides me in this household liking pumpkin flavored stuff!). He was spitting up a little bit on and off for the next hour or so though (oops - mommy overfed him!)

After dinner, once food settled and we were able to have room for dessert, we stopped by 1 of hubby's brother's places as his parents just came into town and his mom cooked dinner for hubby's side of the family over there as most of the family lives here in town now. We figured we would just stop by and say hi, but we got there as they were just about to eat, so hubby had 2nd dinner while I tried to keep Jay occupied (he was tired, but there was too much going on and so many people that he didn't want to miss anything!).

Here's some photos:

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Playing with Bear
He was pulling plastics out of my mom's cabinets earlier and
accidentally smacked Bear with one in the head! LOL... Bear got
him back though later when Jay was crawling on the floor and Bear tried to
playfully nip his ear like he would other puppies, lol...

Awaiting the nom nom noms

Hurricane Jay - he got a hold of the 3lbs of Black Friday ads
while we were waiting for dinner and went to town, lol...

Later than night, when we got home... in the split second it took me to take the wipey off his wee-wee and pull up his diaper to the right spot, he peed on me. He hasn't done that in months! I screamed out of surprise, hubby came to assist and when I thought Jay was done I pulled the diaper down again to switch it out... and he sprayed me again! He got my shirt, wrap and jeans I had on! Doh!

Anyways... this brings us to my next post....

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 8

2011-11-23T10:47:00.001-06:00

The Special People in My Life!

My 2 favorite guys:
My Big man and my Little man!

First and foremost, the center of my world right now and the most specialist Little Man in my life is Jay! Overall, he's quite an easy-going baby - sure, teething sucks and since becoming mobile the past few months he likes to get into anything and everything he's not supposed to... but I still love him to death and am so thankful that he's in our lives and healthy for the most part (yeah, he's going to need surgery in a little over a year and got off to a rough start, but things could be A LOT worse, so we're fortunate!). He's my little buddy though, keeping me company and busy when hubby's off at work.

Then of course there's Hubby - I've known him since Junior High and he's always been there for me through various ups and downs... I couldn't imagine him not being in my life. Plus he's our main provider and he doesn't seem to mind - call it old-fashioned, but he feels that the man should be the one to provide for his family. Jay seems to really like it when he plays all goofy with him too =)

And then there's my family - my mom, dad and sister.

At my sis's high school graduation
last spring

Growing up, my dad was off on business a lot during the week so until my sister was born when I was in 3rd grade it was just me and mom during the week. And as a typical teenager and eventually college student away from home for the 1st time, I shut my parents and my mom out. Since growing up and becoming an adult though we've gotten to be close again, chatting regularly or just hanging out. Plus she helps me A TON with Jay during the week when hubby and I both have to work, but she doesn't seem to mind. Dad and I used to spend daddy/daughter time together growing up when he was home on the weekends. He was the provider for our family though and I do appreciate that as I was very fortunate growing up and we were able to live comfortably, within our means. My sis and I were always at odds growing up as there was an 8.5 year age gap between us, but now that she's grown up and isn't an annoying baby/kid sister anymore (seriously, try spending time alone with your boyfriend in high school when you have an 8 year old wanting your boyfriend's attention, lol...) we seem to get along pretty well these days though, going to movies on occasion or just hanging out.

There's a lot of extended family too - my inlaws, my aunt, uncle and cousin that all live nearby... all my relatives that live all over the country... those in the military (I have a cousin in the army and another in the navy) as well as my sister's boyfriend who's gotten to be more like a brother this past year as hubby and I have gotten to know him (he's also going into the navy).

Bar-hopping for my bachelorette party!

I'm also thankful for my friends - Erika, who's been one of my best friends since like 5th or 6th grade. With us both having kids now (her youngest and Jay being 11 months apart) it's been nicer hanging out together, going to her with mommy questions, etc. There's also my former college roommate Jeny, who despite living down in Dallas for the past few years now, still makes time to visit with me when she's up this way (honestly, she's the only one of my former roommates who has seen/met Jay, despite all the others living just a short drive away!) - we had sooo much fun together back in college, definitely fond memories and made all the free-time outside of classes (and during the classes we took together) a lot of fun! And there's also me and hubby's friend Jackie - she too has moved out of the area but still makes an effort to try and see us when she's in town visiting her family! Isn't ironic that these 3 were also my bridesmaids??? Glad to know I picked the right gals ;-)

I have a handful of other more local friends, but most of them I mainly keep in touch with on Facebook... but I am thankful for them too as they provide me with encouragement and advice too! You all know who you are!

Who are the special people you're thankful for?

"Marrrrio!"

2011-11-23T03:36:00.000-06:00

Forgot to mention this the other night!

Since the theme of Jay's room is Super Mario Bros, he's acquired several Mario-related accents to display in his room (in addition to a few Star Wars ones too!). Some of these are the plush Mario, Luigi and Yoshi dolls that stand less than a foot tall. They currently reside on his changing table along with several other stuffed animals to keep him occupied.

We have Luigi, Mario and Yoshi.
Just need Toad & the Koopa Troopa.

Lately he's been really interested in his Mario plush when I'm changing him, going so far as to flip around trying to reach for it if it's in the corner.

I usually hand it to him, doing the Mario voice, saying "It's-a me! Marrrioh!", Jay laughs and proceeds to stuff Mario's big nose into his mouth.

The other night we go through this routine but as he's about to bite down on Mario's nose I hear him say: "Marrrrrr-oh!"

It was too cute and funny!

I've mentioned before, Jay says random words from time to time - only a few, like "hi" "hey" and "okay" does he ever seem to repeat on a regular basis (he often greets whichever of us gets him out of his crib in the morning with a joyous "hi!!!" or a "heeeeey!!"). I'm guessing this time he was just repeating me, but who knows!

"What kind of name is 'Stove' anyway?"

2011-11-22T05:30:00.000-06:00

I got a bit of a complaint, everyone.

This past weekend hubby and I rented the movie Bridesmaids. And it wasn't as funny as everyone made it out to be.

I had been wanting to see this one since it was in theaters, as it was made to sound like it was the female version of "The Hangover" (which was hilarious!). Hubby had no interest in it though as hello, it's a movie about a group of bridesmaids.

Ever since though, I've heard person after person, from relatives to co-workers to some of you in Blogland and the Twitterverse, talk about how funny and hilarious it was... after weeks of suggesting it, I finally talked him into us renting it and watching it together.

And I was sadly disappointed.

There were some funny parts - the part where they're trying on the dresses, the entire scene on the plane, the bridal shower and the part where she's hanging out with the cop or trying to get his attention.

Melissa McCarthy was quite funny though (as expected) and while Kristin Wiig was funny at times, I think I prefer her more as a supporting actress rather than a lead.

But the rest of the movie was just slow, and boring... it honestly didn't get funny til a good 30-45 minutes in - the first part was just dragging and we were both getting a bit bored, but I kept hoping it would get better. I mean, everyone said it was hilarious! Best movie of the year! Just as funny as The Hangover if not funnier!

Yeah... no.

Considering Judd Apatow was involved as well as Paul Feig (I mean c'mon - their show Freaks and Geeks was and is one of my absolute favorite TV shows!), I know what to expect. However this wasn't it. In comparison to other films Apatow's been involved in, I'd rank it up there with Funny People, which was also a disappointment. While it was funny at times, it dragged on quite a bit and at times I found myself bored.

So yeah... Bridesmaids.

I'd say it's worth watching it once, so you can say you saw it and decide for your own, but for me, I was a bit disappointed as it didn't live up to all the hype I had heard from almost anyone and everyone.

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 7

2011-11-22T00:46:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving Traditions!

I've mentioned time and time again, I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan, despite living in Northern Illinois. How that came about was due to watching The 'Boys play every Thanksgiving! So naturally, hubby also being a HUGE Cowboys fan, missing the Thanksgiving Day game is unheard of for us! =)

Since getting married, we started alternating where we do Thanksgiving dinner - my family is here in town, but hubby's parents live almost an hour and a half away so doing 2 in one day is just a lot. Not to mention in years past I've either had to work on the holiday (the joys of being management at a movie theater!) or work the next day on Black Friday (this is my 3rd year doing so, not to mention last year we went out at midnight and waited 4 hours for Target to open!).

This year, Thanksgiving is with my family, however with the majority of my brother-in-laws living in town now, hubby's parents and young sister will be coming into town this year for Thanksgiving dinner, having it at 2 of my brother-in-law's place literally down the street and around the bend from my parent's house so we're planning on stopping by to at least say hi.

Other than that... no major Thanksgiving day traditions - football, dinner with family and occasionally watching a Christmas movie after dinner to kick off the Christmas season!

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 6

2011-11-21T05:29:00.001-06:00

My favorite Thanksgiving Recipe!

Honestly, I'm not much of a cook when it comes to the holidays, but a few of my favorite items that my mom makes are:

Her homemade buttered rolls (which I do have the recipe for and have made in the past!)
Her yummy, yummy noodles, as their wide and thick and just taste sooooooo good...
And of course pumpkin pie! I LOOOOOOOVE pumpkin pie and must have some every fall/holiday season!

The one year I made the rolls - don't they look yummy?!

Fun with Our Phones Monday #13 and a confession!

2011-11-21T05:23:00.000-06:00

I have a confession to make before I post today's Fun with our Phones...

When I announced the giveaway winner last week, I mentioned making an announcement on here today.

Well...

I was going to announce an eyeshadow holiday swap (you may have heard me asking if anyone would be interested on Twitter recently), however after making up an icon and post all about it... I decided not to go ahead with it.

As someone (I forget who) pointed out on Twitter, there's A TON of swaps already going on that people have signed up for. I know I keep getting emails about ones that I forgot I had signed up for - oops! So yeah, not wanting to go broke buying gifts for ya'll and on postage I decided to not do my eyeshadow swap.

Perhaps next year though, before people have a million and one swaps already in progress.

And now, without further adieu...

I really wanted Velvetta shells and cheese, however I didn't have any Velvetta cheese so I used about 5 Kraft singles and melted them onto my pasta shells. Turned out pretty well - I made this twice for a late night dinner post-work last week!

So much for baby-proofing the cabinets - he figured out how to pull those off!

He also discovered the cabinet with all the plastic containers (I kept that one and the one with the pots and pans unlocked as I read it's good to let babies/toddlers explore and play with those things since they're harmless).

He had grey sweatpants on. Keyword: had.
Hubby and I watched as he stepped on one leg and then the other, essentially pulling his sweatpants off while in his playpen! Guess he didn't want to wear them! LOL

My new "fur-nephew," Bear.
My sis and her boyfriend bought a dog together this past weekend - he's an 8 week old Miniature Australian Shepherd and soooo cute! Jay really likes him too, as he's small and soft and fluffy!

Yes, I put our tree up this weekend.
Traditionally, me and my family have always waited until the weekend after Thanksgiving to pull out the Christmas decorations, however with hubby and I both working Black Friday and the following Saturday, when we're not busy working we're going to be tired and most likely wouldn't be up to it, so I figured it'd be best to get it up this weekend. And yes, there's no ornaments on the bottom 1/3rd - I figured the tree itself and lights were going to be tempting enough for Jay (not to mention Tiger too!) so I left off all the blue shatterproof balls we have and just put the regular ornaments on, but higher up.

This is why I LOVE having an electric fireplace with a mantel - I can decorate it!!! This is the 1st year we get to hang stockings too (I bought them on clearance after Christmas last year) - guess which one's Jay's! I also bought the Jingle Bell tree from Target, as well as a small Nutcracker, a new Nativity scene (the one I had was a cheapy from Walmart and was messy and I wanted a nicer one) and our Dallas Cowboys snowmen family!

I'll be making a post in the near future showing off all the decorations I've gotten and put up for Christmas this year! I love having a house as there's soooo much I can do to decorate!

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 5

2011-11-18T19:18:00.000-06:00

I thankful I live in the 21st Century because...

...things have come such a long way already in this century.

Women have rights and can vote, work pretty much any job, get an education, and do something with her life outside the home.

Technology has gotten crazy insane too! I mean our grandparents grew up without TVs - just a radio, and those rotary telephones (which I *hated* trying to dial on one, lol...) and even crank phones!

Cars... in the last 100 years cars have come soooo far too!

Honestly, I love all the advances we've made since the 20th century and 100 years ago.

I would have to say my favorite pieces I'm most thankful for are the internet and my smartphone.

The internet helps us keep in touch with friends and family and makes it easy to find almost anything if you need to look something up.

And my smartphone... honestly, when my brother-in-law 1st got the Samsung Omnia a few years ago, I honestly didn't the see the point - I already had an iPod, a cell phone, a good digital camera, and a computer at home - why did I need a smartphone? But being a mommy now and only really having access to an actual computer when Jay's asleep (unless I absolutely need to do something on it during the day), it's been real nice having access to the internet on my phone. I can quickly check Facebook or Twitter, stay on top of reading all your blogs, comparison shop via the store apps I have, among everything else you can do with a smartphone. I'm also ALWAYS taking pictures of Jay too so not having to haul around a camera with me is nice, plus I can upload them to my family on Facebook right away or text them to my mom or hubby. It's great and I LOVE having it, even though at times I'm probably on it more than I should be...

If there were a Zombie Apocalypse...

2011-11-18T09:28:00.000-06:00

One of my current favorite shows is AMC's The Walking Dead and of the most interesting books I've read in awhile is World War Z by Max Brooks (which is told in a series of interviews by survivors of how the zombie apocalypse started, how we fought back and the aftermath - it's being turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt).

Anyways, I was thinking the other day... what would we do if there was a zombie apocalypse?

Probably stock up on non-perishables and bottled water, get a gun or some other items to use as weapons and hole up in our attic, which is above Jay's room and you need a ladder to climb up into, until the threat was over.

See, after we climb up there, we can knock the ladder down and close up the door - zombie's aren't smart enough to use a ladder so they wouldn't be able to reach us. If we needed to get down, it's not far jump and we could just get back up via the ladder and knock it back down before closing up the door.

With all the movies and books out there about zombies and living in a post- zombie apocalypse world... I honestly don't see how people could not be prepared. Not to mention how many zombie shoot-em games are there now too? Killing zombies in a video game isn't just entertainment - consider it also survival training!

I mean, we all know that to kill a zombie you have to shoot them in the head or bash in their skull real good (as gory as that sounds, but hey - it's survival!). And we all know not to let them bite you. The problem with all the books and movies is that the survivors aren't prepared or aware of what to do around zombies - they live in a universe without all the zombie movies and books, etc unlike us in the real world. Knowing what we already know, there's not really any excuse for why we as a society wouldn't already be prepared.

What about you?

Have you thought about what you would do if a zombie apocalypse ever happened?

Why Bother Calling It Black Friday Anymore?

2011-11-17T23:55:00.000-06:00

Earlier tonight, while Jay was taking one of his super long naps he's been taking lately (we think he's going through a growth spurt as he seems fine, just super tired!), I decided to get online and check out the leaked Black Friday ads for next week as I'm going shopping tomorrow (yay payday!) and was wondering if I should wait on picking a few things up.

Anyways, I was a bit shocked.

Last year, most places opened at 4am. This year, midnight seems to be the norm.

However, Toys R Us and Walmart both have their sales starting at 9pm Thursday - THURSDAY!

Pardon me, but WTF???

You can't call your sales Black Friday sales when it's on Thanksgiving Thursday - that doesn't make any sense!

Yes, I know they opened at like 10pm last year, which I thought was a bit crazy too (but then again, last year we were the crazy ones outside Target in the freezing cold for 4 hours straight, me being almost 8 months pregnant, lol...).

But still... each year they seem to just be opening earlier and earlier... before you know it the stores will be open most of the day on Thanksgiving with the sales starting then...

Oh wait, Kmart already does that.

Yes, that's correct - Kmart is open for most of Thanksgiving with various sales going on.

Seriously.

I feel bad for the employees who basically have to skip Thanksgiving and having any time with family on the holiday all in the name of consumerism and corporate greed.

I know, nurses, doctors and other emergency and service people have to work or on-call, but they knew that when they decided to go into the profession. Most people that work retail can remember the days when stores weren't open on major holidays - Thanksgiving being one of them.

And I know personally it sucks - working at a movie theater, we're open 365 days a year so people can have their family traditions of going to see a movie together after Thanksgiving dinner or after they open the presents on Christmas... however we did have shortened hours, so we could have a chance to spend at least part of the day with our families (I usually took the closing shifts that started at 6pm so we could do an early, 4pm dinner).

This year we're one of several stores in the mall that are opening at midnight (although really, who's crazy enough about kid's clothes to come out at midnight for them?? We're not expecting to get busy until the rest of the mall opens hours later). Fortunately for me though, the acting store manager requested me as her closer again this year so I get the more relaxed shift as last year the crowd at the mall seemed to die down a lot after 4pm.

What are your thoughts?

Honestly, I think it's almost like they're trying to overrun Thanksgiving with consumerism and greed, making it obsolete and giving people little to no time to celebrate. And that's just sad!

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 4

2011-11-17T02:57:00.000-06:00

The Blogoverse!

I may sound crazy to some (especially those that don't get blogging), but I've gotten to know some pretty neat folks thanks to blogging!

I first got "plugged in" with other bloggers when I learned about the 20 Something Bloggers group. I met some people there (including most of my geeky and gamer-girl buddies) participated in some link-ups and got to meet some really great peeps from those too, including quite a bit of other newer mommies which has been GREAT!

I love reading and commenting on your snarky rants, crazy fun adventures, and even the more serious posts too. And I've also enjoyed getting to know quite a bit of you via tweeting on Twitter as well!

I'm sure if I was involved in the Blogoverse (or Blogland as I refer to it) I'd get a lot more done during my free time at night... but alas, it is what it is, right? It's my outlet to share, rant, and get to know people I can relate to.

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 3

2011-11-17T01:11:00.000-06:00

My Hometown

Ah... what can I say about my good ol' hometown?

Well, our public school district is an absolute mess.
We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the state.
And this year Forbes has named it as the 10th most dangerous city in the US (which is a step in the right direction, as in 2010 we were #8 or 9 on the list!).
We were also taught in driving school that we have the highest percentage of worst drivers in the state too - oops!

It is just a short drive down I-90 to Chicago and the suburbs though and Wisconsin is just a 20 minute drive away!

I've lived here most of my life though.

I was born here, and even though we moved to upstate New York 2 weeks after I was born, my dad's job brought us back here just a few years later and I've been raised here ever since. I did go away to college and lived about 30 miles away for 6 years or so when I went to NIU, however, hubby's job caused us to move back to the area, as he really didn't want to commute an hour or so to work anymore.

I've watched the 2nd largest city in the state (or are we 3rd now? Did Naperville/Aurora pass us up yet??) grow and expand over the years. When I was little the far east side of the city just ended a few blocks from my parent's neighborhood and the rest was cornfields and farmland. Now, they live in like the middle east side as so much has built up around there!

We have plenty of sports teams, several colleges, 3 nice hospitals (one of which has the best NICU in the Northern Illinois area), multiple music venues, some decent local radio stations... lots of walking paths and playgrounds...

Our most well-known hometown band!
The bassist's brother-in-law built the house next door
to my parent's house - I used to babysit his nieces...
my father-in-law used to share a studio with these guys
back before they made it!

Some of the big names you may recognize from Rockford include actress Jodi Benson (most famous for voicing Ariel in Disney's The Little Mermaid), Michelle Williams from Destiny's Child, Olympic medalist figure skater Janet Lynn, and the legendary band Cheap Trick. The Cheap Trick members are quite active in our community too, helping various local charities and organizations. There's a bunch more famous musicians, athletes and actors from here too.

It's also home to the 2nd largest UPS air hub in the country too (which hubby works at, woot!)

Rockford is also home to the Anderson Japanese Gardens, the historic Tinker Swiss Cottage, the Burpee Museum (home of Jane the T-Rex), the Coronado Theater, the Midway Village and Museum Center (and awesome walking path!).

Sure, our city may have a bad rep, but just stay close to the Rock River if you accidentally find yourself on the West side (the far west side is where all the really bad stuff is!) and there are jobs if you really do try and look and don't mind settling on whatever you can get for the meantime (helloooo - hubby has 2!).

We could move - like I said, I lived 30 miles away for 6 years - but this is home. It's got my family, plenty of shopping, restaurants, and places to go for fun.

A bittersweet goodbye to...

2011-11-17T00:56:00.000-06:00

...my winter jackets!

I all excited to wear my winter coats again this winter as I couldn't last year (my baby bump was so big come winter that I couldn't get either of my winter coats to zip up).

In addition to the cute, but larger, maternity jacket we bought last year at Burlington Coat Factory, I had 2 winter coats to wear this year - a black and white heavier coat I bought for cheap at Deb for when it was really cold (cuz it gets in the negative numbers up here in good ol' Northern Illinois!) and a coat, casual black faux leather coat with a black faux fur trim along the hood my mom got me from Hot Topic one year for Christmas.

Both coats I got back in college when I dating my ex, so I'm guessing they were at least 6 years old, if not older, so obviously they've ran their course.

But what really made me realize was when I kept getting this crap all over my car, baby and everything else:

The cause:

My all black, casual one is beyond wearable, as you can see so I'm just going to throw that one out, however the black and white one I think I'll give to Goodwill since it's not too bad...

I went to Old Navy Saturday evening after work, as I have the Old Navy Card now and get an extra 10% off whenever I use it, plus all their coats were roughly 50% off too.

I got this one:

It's similar to my black and white one and is really really warm considering how lightweight it feels!

I'm sad to get rid of my other 2 winter coats (especially the all black, Hot Topic one), but it was time.

Spam, spam, spam, spam...

2011-11-16T11:45:00.002-06:00

It always makes me laugh a little when I go to clear out my spam inbox and the ad at the top in Gmail is for some Spam recipe!

See?

LOL...

Bath & Body Works Giveaway Winner!!!

2011-11-15T11:58:00.005-06:00

Alright everyone!

The moment everyone who entered my giveaway this past weekend has been waiting for...

After plugging all the entries into a spreadsheet and remembering that those who tweeted got not just 1 entry for it but 2, that brought the total entries to 43 (or on the spreadsheet, 2-44 as the 1st line said "name" and "entry").

And the winner is...

Congrats to Ashleigh at Life As I Know It!!!

Email me or send me a DM on Twitter with where you'd like for me to send it - I get paid Friday, so I plan on shipping it out then =)

Thanks to everyone who entered!

And stay tuned - I plan on announcing something fun on Monday where we all get something!

Plenty to be THANKful for, Day 1 & 2

2011-11-15T02:28:00.003-06:00

Meant to post this Monday, but well... I got called into work and got a late start on my blogging last night (and forgot about it over the weekend - oops!).

So here's days 1 & 2 of the Plenty to be THANKful for link-up!

Day 1: Guilty Pleasures!

Pop songs/artists

I hate to admit it, being mainly into rock and metal... but I find Britney to be catchy, like some JT's stuff off his 2nd album... working in a kid's clothing store Miley Cyrus and even a Justin Bieber song have grown on me (gasp! In my defense though - he samples The Cardigan's "Lovefool"!). I like to shake my booty to Lady Gaga... and Elton John is one of my all-time favorite artists.

Gene Simmons Family Jewels

Sure, the Osbournes did it first, but I much prefer the Simmons-Tweed clan!

Trashy VH1 Reality Shows

VH1 stopped making reality shows like they used to, but I still occasionally catch a rerun of one of the greats: Rock of Love, I Love Money, Charm School, Daisy of Love, Megan Wants a Millionaire, Tool Academy, the first season of Tough Love, For the Love of Ray J, Real/Chance... Yeah - those ones! Forget the stupid Basketball Wives, TO, LaLa and whatever reality shows they have on now - bring my trashy trainwreck TV back!!!

Sex and the City

I've never been a girly girl, but I got hooked on this show in college when TBS added it to their late-night lineup for several years! It's such a good show and I hate how up-tight people think it's all just about them having sex - it's not, it's about their friendship! And totally relatable at times! (My favorite is Charlotte, but OMG I totally relate to Miranda!)

Day 2: YouTube (and other internet fun!)

Oh man, I don't know how to narrow it down, but here's a list of some videos (mostly YouTube) that I've posted here on the good ol' blog - the Sesame Street Glee parody, Sing-Talk, Simon's Cat, True Blood Meets Twilight, PeeWee Gets an iPad, My Mom's on Facebook, College Humor's I Gotta Feeling parody, Real Life Twitter...

And because she's so cute and I'm sure Jay'll be giving a recap like this in the near future...

Star Wars According to a 3 Year Old!

And of course...

Nobody Sings in the Library (by Prangstgrup - the "Reach" video is funny too!)

Just a reminder...

2011-11-14T07:57:00.002-06:00

My Bath & Body Works Holiday Fragrance Giveaway ends tonight at 10pm CST!!

Don't forget to spread the word and enter to win full-size bottles of Vanilla Bean Noel shower gel, lotion and spray mist if you haven't done so already! You can click here or on the giveaway button for details!

I'll be announcing the winner on Wednesday!

Fun with Our Phones Monday #12

2011-11-14T02:26:00.001-06:00

It's Monday, which means it's once again time for...

My 9 month old baby boy... where have the last 9 months gone?!

My mom was watching him for a bit one night when I was at work and hubby had to go in for his night job... he was climbing across his activity table, lost his footing and smacked his head into the bookshelf nearby. She said it looked a lot worse than this after it happened... it was already looking a lot better the next day though. 20 minutes after this, he was trying to swing like a monkey under the bottom bar of a kitchen chair (I caught him before he smacked the back of his head on the floor >< ) Sadly... he banged his head on the coffee table tonight though and has a huge bump on his head just above this gash... he scares me sometimes - I'm afraid he's going to crack his head open one of these days!!

"I'm a tough guy, mommy!"

We had hubby take a pic of us in our matching Elmo shirts
right before we left for Sesame Street Live!

At Sesame Street Live! His face lit-up in excitement when the music started and the curtains opened the whole cast started singing and dancing to the Sesame Street theme song!

Maybe a little hard to see, but I saw this while driving - it's a pumpkin-head scarecrow beating another pumpkin-head scarecrow that's hanging by a rope from a tree with a stick! WTF?

Can't really read this one, but someone wrote across the back window of this car "Studet Driver." That's correct - student, but with no "no". /facepalm

Totally forgot I "ordered" this Klout perk! I qualified for a free advanced copy of "The Settlers of Catan" by Rebecca Gale. Apparently it's based off some game hubby's heard of...? The book itself comes out tomorrow. I enjoyed the Klout packaging too!

Jay enjoyed the Klout box too, lol...
(doesn't he look so big here too?! /tear )

I organized this cabinet and moved all my candle stuffs to the middle shelf (there's an assortment of Yankee Candle and PartyLite - I have friends who sell both, lol...) from the drawer in our china cabinet. All Jay's stuff is on the bottom shelf and we have the fish stuff up top. You can see parts of Tiger down below, as she harasses Jay's Fishy.

Figured out how to cabinet with the pots and pans without using his walker!

And you know you have a child in your house when...

Your living room turned family room looks like this...

...and this...


...and there's an obstacle course to get down the basement stairs. (and yes, I did that painting at the bottom :-D )

Don't forget - my Bath and Body Works Holiday Fragrance Giveaway ends at 10pm CST tonight!!! There's still time to get your entries in!