Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Last week was my first clue.
It was a little before 3 in the afternoon--last Thursday, I think--when Mia came running into the office to jabber something at me. I looked at the clock and told her, “Mia, it’s nap time. Go and get your blanky and your babies and put them in your bed.” She ran out of the room (presumably to get her blanky and babies), and I went back to finishing up what I was working on, which took me about ten minutes. When I got up to put Mia in bed, it was really quiet and I thought maybe she’d fallen asleep on the living room floor; she’s been doing that a lot lately. But I couldn’t find her in any of her usual hiding places out in the living room. So, I went into her room, and there she was, asleep in her crib! I couldn’t believe it--that she had put herself to bed, or that she had somehow managed to get into her crib without my help. Brief concern flashed through my head at that point, but I managed to tell myself that even if she could somehow get into her crib (probably by standing on her little scooter car), certainly she could not get out. Wrong.
Last night, we put Mia to bed, and ten minutes later, she was knocking on her bedroom door from the inside going, “Daddy! Daddy!” in her sing-song, come-play-with-me voice. Incredulous, we opened the door to find her, indeed, out of her crib. We told her to get back into her crib and stood there and watched--with our mouths hanging open--as she climbed up the stroller we had folded and propped up against the wall to one side of her crib. It was something akin to watching tight-rope walkers or trapeze artists at the circus. I removed the stroller (aka: escape accomplice) and put it in the closet, once again satisfied that surely now there was no way she could get out.
But this morning clinched it for me. After my morning devotions, I padded out to the office to check my email, tip-toeing past Mia’s room so she wouldn’t hear that I was awake just yet (because then she starts demanding, “Mommy! Get up! Get up!"--meaning that she wants to get up). I heard the usual morning sounds coming from her room: Mia chattering away to her babies, toys being tossed about (she pulls toys into bed with her from her toybox), and then all of a sudden I heard the thunk of her scooter car banging against the inside of her bedroom door. I ran to her door and opened it, and immediately she rushes past my legs, pushing her scooter car in front of her, without so much as a “Hi, Mommy!” Toys littered the floor of her bedroom as if she’d been up for quite some time playing. I admitted defeat.
It would appear that the end of the crib days is in sight. I suppose there’s not much to do now, except to get the toddler bed rails out of storage and convert her crib. *sigh* Crib days went by far too quickly.
Here’s a layout I did last night of my beautiful girl in a dress her Lolly gave her. Lolly apparently has impeccable taste in Mia clothes.
Click here for credits
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Certain recent health revelations have led us to examine our eating habits, which, I am embarrassed but not surprised to say, are not good. We eat fast food waaaaaaaay too much, and any of you who have seen Super Size Me know that eating a lot of fast food can do really bad things to you (not to mention the toll it takes on your wallet). So, we have decided to try a two-week moratorium on fast food, just to see if we can do it. We don’t promise to never eat fast food again--that’s just unrealistic--but we are going to cut way back.
I’m also making an effort to start cooking healthier meals. Stop laughing. Yes, I hate cooking and, yes, I’m pretty bad at it, but we have to eat something. So my sister-in-law showed me this pretty great resource from (of all places) Meijer: they have a “healthy living advisor” who does a weekly menu, complete with recipes AND a shopping list, of fast and healthy meals! Perfect! Fast--so I don’t have to waste any more time than necessary in the kitchen, and usually fast also means pretty easy, and let’s face it: I need all the help I can get when it comes to cooking. Healthy--because I don’t think I would be able to come up with healthy stuff on my own, unless M&Ms and chocolate chips could be considered healthy (hey--chocolate chips have flour AND eggs in them!)! And it saves me from having to agonize over “what are we going to eat.” Coming up with menus is probably my least favorite thing about cooking. Anyways, this is my second week taking advantage of this, and I’m pretty pleased. I don’t follow the menu to a T--there are somethings that I just refuse to eat, I don’t care how healthy they are (like eggplant--right, Mom?). But it is certainly a huge step up from the way we’ve been doing dinner. And if you’re lucky enough to have Meijers near-by (we’re not), they put the items on each week’s shopping list on sale! Pretty sweet idea, Meijer. Good job!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Hello, and welcome to another episode of “Turn All Your Hard-Earned Money Over to the Government!” Yay! Whoooo! Blah. So, Bobby is trying to muddle his way through one of those do-it-yourself tax programs, and keeps getting errors about forms we never received from a certain Bank of Evil… No idea. I do know we’ve had more fun watching paint dry than we’re having right now. Drying paint doesn’t tell you it wants more money than you already gave it. Actually...drying paint doesn’t ask for any money. I like drying paint.
Other than taxes, we had a nice day. Bobby took the morning off to spend a little extra time with his girls. Sometimes it just feels like we don’t get enough time together as a family, so this morning was a treat. We went out to breakfast and then went to the mall to let Mia play in the kids’ play area, since it was too wet and rainy to play outside. It was nice to just enjoy each other, and watch our happy girl run around for a while.
Speaking of the girl, I scrapped three layouts of her this weekend:
Oh, and I can’t remember if I posted about it here or not, but I finally got the gallery portion of the site coded and functioning. From now on you’ll be able to find all my layouts there, as well as layouts from my creative team using my latest digital scrapbooking designs. Fun stuff. 
Monday, April 07, 2008
Yesterday, our good friends Alan and Debbie visited with us for half the day, and it was so great to see them again! It’s kind of funny that we met them in Panama City, but now we all live elsewhere. They moved to the Atlanta area, and happened to be in Gatlinburg over the weekend, so they stopped by to see us on their way back through. It was kind of a gloomy day--rained just a little--but we still had fun. Debbie and I dished about digital scrapbooking, which I totally miss. Not that I don’t jabber with all my Hello friends about digiscrapping, but it’s nice to have an in-person convo. And we had fun comparing camera notes, too, now that we both have dSLRs. We all drove downtown and walked around and took tons of pics, and just really enjoyed catching up with each other. Every time we’ve moved the hardest thing was always leaving the good friends we made behind, which just makes it such a blessing when opportunities like this come up. We have been blessed to have made such lasting friendships.
Anyways, here are some pics from yesterday. Can you believe Alan and Debbie actually wore their ‘Bama sweatshirts into Big Orange Country? The audacity! 
