Laundry Time

Claire loves to help me empty the dryer! She also likes to play with the things in there, too, of course! She has been emptying the dryer for me for about a month now. :) HEHE. It takes here about 10 minutes because she will stop to play with things but it's 10 mintues I can get something else done! I was trying to get her to empty it faster for the video, but normally she will empty it and then slam the dryer door really hard and go "ALL DONE! MORE!" Ahh...if only she would continue this love forever! If you listen torwards the end she says "Strawberry Shortcake" as one of her shirts has strawberries on it.
Check her out in action:

Girl Who Does Not Age

Check out this fascinating article on a girl who does not age: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/Story?id=7880954&page=1 Watch the video on the site. VERY interesting!

Playing in the Pool!

Yesterday Claire and I had a nice outing on the local trail in town. My friend Anja commented that being a stay-at-home mom is like being on vacation everyday. I totally agree. :) LOL. I have had people say to me that they tried staying at home but couldn't because they got bored. PLEASE! Even though I "stay" at home, we are always out and about doing stuff. Today we had an outing to some friends' house to play in their pool.
Claire had a blast swimming in the water and being able to splash since I don't let her splash in the tub. She will ask to splash in the tub by saying, "Spash, YES?!" She leaves out the "L" so it is really cute. I think she was also in admiration of Izzy's pretty hair!

This was the perfect size pool for her, and she was even able to get in and out without any help! Those long legs help her out! Claire had fun playing with some other kids! We had a good outing and Claire slept the whole way home and then some! :) She fell asleep by the time we backed out of the driveway!

Spa Night!

The Moms Club I am part of did a Spa Night for this month's "Mom's Night Out." It was really fun. Here is Icely with her mask:
And here is my mask. Anyone have any good "Superhero" name suggestions for me? LOL!

There are several more pictures on one of my albums on Facebook. I don't feel like uploading them again here to Blogger. If you aren't my friend on Facebook; add me. If you aren't on Facebook, GET ON IT! :) kthnxbai! :) If you've been following my blog and haven't said HI in awhile or are new, leave a comment and introduce yourself!

Yay for Babysitters!

Well I am really grateful that my mom and Rich were able to come down for the weekend and help out. So in return, we took them out for brunch on Sunday.
Apparently the color of the day was: GREEN!

Claire also turned 23 months on Sunday! Wow...her bday is getting closer and closer!

Weekend with Oma and Richie

My mom and my brother Richie came down for the weekend to help out. My mom watched Claire while we had the sale and Richie helped out all around! They brought down this cool little trike for Claire that my Dad found at ... a GARAGE SALE! YAY!
Rich was teaching Claire how to pedal. She kept talking about it all the next day. "Uncle Richie! PEDAL! BIKE! Uncle Richie! Pedal!"

Notice how clean the garage is in the back ground! WOOT WOOT! :)

Claire really likes her new toy!

Claire loves to play in this rug...she likes to roll up in it like a taco!

Josh and I went out for dinner Saturday evening while my mom and Richie watched Claire.

Richie made some awesome mac and cheese for those not going out to eat.

Ahh. How I miss my little girlie when I'm not with her!

Cheese! Do you think she looks like me?

Happy Father's Day!

After Claire wakes up from her naps on weekends, she likes to snuggle with Daddy or Mommy!
Happy 2nd Father's Day to my Baby's Daddy! :) Lol!

Aww! She looks so cute! :)

Vacation Bible School

Claire had a fun week last week at Vacation Bible School or VBS. We hung out in the nursery with the under 2 crowd between the opening and closing "jam sessions."
Playing with sand inside was really fun for Claire until she started flinging it off the Neat Sheet. SO we picked it up since she was the only one that would play with it. Nobody else was interested in it.

Here is one shot with all whooping 4 participants.

I put more photos on Facebook if you want to see them.

She had a blast with this register toy, but it was really annoying because it made noise.

So we had a busy week last week between getting ready for the garbage sale and the VBS events. Seriously. I had a garbage sale. I refuse to ever have a storage bin. If it has been in a box for 3 months, I don't need it. If I forgot I had it, I don't need it. LOL. SO SICK of stuff! I now have a pantry and closets that have space. I took four more bags to the Goodwill yesterday morning and one bag to a consignment store in town. Sure, I COULD get more on Ebay, but I'm so done with that too. Again...hating to deal with stupid people.

NEVER AGAIN. EVER.

Oh dear blog readers,
How I've missed you...not really! I haven't had time! So since my last post I was just cleaning and cleaning and de-crappifying my house. It's great. Welcome to my crap-free zone! Actually, it's still full of crap, but it's at least a LOT LESS! We made about 100 bucks on selling our old crap. Everyone wanted to know. We also sold a crappy TV for about 50 bucks ... so we could say 150. I suppose we could've sold everything on Craigslist or Ebay, which we have done before, but it's work. But a garage sale is a lot more work. I decided to open my garage door on Friday morning to "set up" things. Well that was great...made about 20 bucks on Friday as well. Sold a pool with a hole for 2 bucks! LOL. Anyway, about 1 pm on Saturday, I was getting hot and tired of stupid questions. So I started setting things out to the curb. MAN was it hilarious watching the trash pickers. But seriously, a lady asked me what a book was about. I told her to read the back. Seriously. Buy it and read it yourself. :)
I was also majorly irritated by all the people that pranced their dogs into my garage. I HATE DOGS. Well, let me qualify that. I hate dogs when they get into my personal zone. I do not want their nasty wet little noses on my legs. I do not want them within 10 feet of me or my child. I was also majorly grossed out by a lady paying me with a bag of dog crap waving in front of my face. I was sitting down in the lawn chair and so it was just the right level. Seriously. I'm glad she picked that stuff up but seriously...going garage sale-ing with that. What is wrong with some people.
LOL...on the plus side Josh saw someone picking and offered to load all the garage sale leftovers into the back of his truck. SWEET. We didn't even have to take it to the Goodwill.
Remind me to never have a garage sale again.
EVER.
My first garage sale here.
AND MY LAST!

What we are selling!

Well today I made tremendous progress for our upcoming garage sale which will be this Saturday starting at 8 am sharp...rain or shine! We are selling lots of stuff. We have 2 plastic garden chairs, a set of 4 plastic "office-type" chairs, a professional drawing table with a light, a floor lamp, a Sanyo TV, a VCR, and lots of VCR movies. We are also selling a set of 3 glass coffee tables, one long one and 2 matching square ones. We have lots of clothes I no longer wear. I am selling just a few of our extra toys. I have an extra Barbie play kitchen. We have a toaster, a coffee maker, a blender, lots of landline phones, vases, etc. I have 2 friends coming to set up some of their stuff...both have kids but I have no idea what they will be bringing. My mom and brother Richie will also be bringing a car load of their stuff. I have again, no idea what they will be selling, but my mom brought some stuff down about a month ago for the garage sale including tons of clothes hangers, neatly bundled of course, bows, bows, and more bows like for presents. There is lots of Christmas stuff and decorations, as well as knicknacky stuff like wind-up music boxes. I have taken 6 bags of trash to the dump today so I am not going to be selling "crap" like I see at some places that make you wonder ... hmm ... do they know what the trash is? So anyway, we are also selling some old computer monitors and Josh's stuff...don't even know what all...game remotes, some IPOD thing...Monster ICRUZE. An old radar detector (see, Josh always has to have the newest thing out ;) lol!) So no big furniture, but lots of little stuff and some pillows, an art stand I got at a garage sale about a year ago, but then decided there is no way I am letting Claire paint in the house...not till she is like 6 and then she can do it at school ;) lol! :) So yeah, lots and lots of stuffs...some extra throw pillows, a huge vase with 2 matching candle sticks, a bike basket if you'd like to look extra dorky (LOL!) I'd like to sell this tree thingy that we have, but Josh wants it, so bummer. I am not selling any of Claire's clothes as she is only our first people! And no, this is not an announcement of any thing...so yeah, there is a ton of other stuff, a paper shredder. We now have a bigger better giant one. But you get the idea. COME. BUY. BE HAPPY! AND REMEMBER IT IS A COMMUNITY GARAGE SALE. So there will be like 20 other garage sales nearby...at LEAST with lots of young families. So if you have any questions...leave me a comment or email me to my hotmail or personal message me on Facebook. I do not check my gmail account associated with this blog. ever. It is my spam account. :) I know, sorry, dear gmail! So lots of little appliances (we got stainless steel matching ones recently...) and some little furniture, but no huge furniture. BUT YOU WILL FIND SOMETHING YOU LIKE! I WILL GIVE YOU A DEAL!

We all want to be heard!

Who are you friends with on Facebook? Who makes your "friend" cut? http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/06/15/friends-with-benefits-do-facebook-friends-provide-the-same-support-as-those-in-real-life.aspx?GT1=43002 I basically think when starting out, people are a little more leery as to "accepting" new friends. I think the term "friends" on Facebook is of course loose. Rather, what people have are 200 contacts or people they know vs. "friends"--what is a "Friend" anyway? I think this is hugely up for debate anyway. I recently went through and deleted several people...sorry...but just because we went to the same HS of like 2,000 kids does not mean we need to be "friends" to me. I need to have had at least one semi-meaningful conversation with said "friend" and be able to remember who they are...lol! Read that article. What did you think?

What do you do all day?

Laundry. Feed Claire breakfast. Feed myself. Get us both dressed. Drive to dentist in the rain. Get my teeth cleaned, etc. Listen to blah blah blah your teeth are so nice, no cavities WOOT! Then have them check Claire's teeth....her third dentist visit...no cavities...WOOT..she has 13 teeth now! Sweet! Go to grocery store. Get milk, more cereal, etc. Let Claire eat an apple in the shopping cart/car thing so she doesn't throw a fit. :) Let Claire play with a bag of beans so she won't throw a fit. Buy bag of beans so she doesn't throw fit. Wonder what I'm going to do with bag of said beans. Make some soup, probably...Get mail in rain. Let Claire play in rain while I bring in groceries. Entice Claire into the garage by letting her shut the garage. Proceed to bribe Claire inside with promises of leftover sketti from last night to yet again avoid ... fit. Feed Claire and myself spaghetti for lunch. Feed her Lots of it. LOTS OF WIPING UP. Lots of hand and face washing. Her skin still is red. Dang tomatoes do that. Switch more laundry. CURSE DISHWASHER THAT IS STILL NOT DRAINING EXCEPT ONTO THE FLOOR! THIS IS MY LIFE. Lay down in bed to nurse Claire to sleep. Linger because I don't want to get up. Catch up on emails and make a few phone calls while she naps. Hear her. Go lay down with her again; she falls back asleep. Go switch some more laundry. Start to FOLD laundry. Label more garage sale prices. Get Claire...up now. Turn on Toddler CD and dance and fold laundry. Let Claire play in laundry. FUN FUN. FOLD 7 loads of laundry in 2 hours while feeding Claire snack. RISKY! :) PUT AWAY ALL LAUNDRY. See Josh briefly. Go to VBS at church. Try to get Claire to eat grilled cheese. She only wants chips. And a cookie. AHH FUN. Play with Claire and Amelia in nursery for VBS time. Claire gets to play with Play-Dough for the first time. She only eats it once. No, wait. Twice. It's ok, Angie made it at home. I taste some. Tastes like ass. Well, I've never eaten any donkey, but it's very salty. And doughy. Like bread that didn't bake right. YUCK. Claire tries it again while making a horrible face. SERIOUSLY! She would not try the grilled cheese, but will try this nasty crappy white looking play-dough that NOBODY ELSE EATS THREE TIMES. Amelia only tried it once. None of the other toddlers tried it. Apparently they are either a lot less curious than Claire or...smarter. NO! No other baby is smarter than Claire! They just ate their grilled cheese and aren't starving. LOL. Clean up nursery. TWICE. Three times as babies/toddlers try to unclean it faster than we can pick up. Go to closing. Leave camera on pew. Drive home.
REMEMBER CAMERA IS AT THE CHURCH as we turn onto our street. D'oh. Turn around at 9pm and proceed to drive 15 min. to the other side of town to our church. Luck out that there are still two cars there and we can get in. FIND IT ON THE PEW. YAY! Have trouble getting Claire back in car seat as she wants to "GO PLAY! GO PLAY! MORE CHURCH!" Pat camera repeatedly as I drive home as I think, "MY PRECIOUS, MY PRECIOUS." Sheepishly come in at 9:40 and tell Josh I left our very nice camera at church, but I have it now. YIKES. Feed Claire bedtime snack. Bathe her, brush/floss teeth/smear her up with lotion/really...thinking of EVERYTHING I do all day gets pretty mundane! Smear triple antibiotic on her knee and kiss it for the 10,000th time today as she screams, "MOMMY, KISSH MAH KNEE!"
Tell Claire she can't sleep with the froggy key chain as it could wrap around her finger and give her a boo-boo. She frowns and says, pleadingly, "I SLEEP WIFF (with) FROGGIE!" I convince her that her baby is a better deal. It's 10pm and she is still up. Nurse her to sleep in about 5 minutes. SWEET! Average night takes 10-15 minutes. Bad nights 30-45 minutes. Really overtired...about 1 hour...longest ever...maybe an hour and a half...just can't fall asleep when she's really over-tired, like the same with me. Admire her sleeping face in the glow of the turtle night-light. Wonder how I ever lived without this kind of intense love. Kiss her on the forehead. Ahh. I'm free...kind of. Think about hand washing the dishes. Forget it. Leave them for tomorrow. Pray that Josh fixes the dishwasher or just buys a new one and magically cleans the dishes themselves. Catch up on Facebook. Catch up on blogs. Fold once last basket of laundry that was in the dryer. Pick up toys. Decide one more toy in the garage sale pile is a good plan.
Decide to blog.
Decide to go to bed.
Good night.
What do YOU DO ALL DAY!?!

Help find these missing Teens!

There are 2 teens missing from NW IN. Please repost ESP if in IN/Chicago area!! More here: http://prettybabies.blogspot.com/2009/06/urgent-missing-teens-in-nw-indiana.html

Community Garage Sale

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, I am continuing to get ready for the Community Garage Sale coming up. Well, it's our "own" garage sale but there will be a bunch around our whole neighborhood Friday and Saturday. I am just going to set up for Saturday. So in preparation for that, today I cleaned out the garage. FUN. NOT. We have NEVER cleaned out the garage. I think I have swept it maybe once/year. But that's it...and not very well. So it was a challenge. Claire helped me take everything out of the garage into the yard. Then I took a broom and swept cobwebs off of the walls and ceilings and overhead door. I can't believe how much has accumulated in just over 4 years. Since we build our house new, it was clean when we moved in and all of the dirt is "ours" so to speak. Well, Claire helped by trying to "sweep" and drag heavy objects across the yard like a snow shovel that was way to big for her. She was pushing it around going "HEAVY! HEAVY!" She also got to play on her cars and slide in the front yard while I was working, and she loves being outside! Then I got out the hose and sprayed down all the chairs and grime covered stuff. We have an attachment that is really awesome so it did a great job. THEN...the fun part...I swept out the garage since all the winter gravely stuff was in there...then I sprayed the garage out. I stuck Claire in her high chair to eat some lunch while she watched me. She kept yelling, "Mommy WASH! Mommy WASH!" She is getting quite vocal. Ahh....so now everything was clean...except for me...and Claire. I let her down and of course she wanted to play in the puddles. So I took a shower with her in the Solar Veil sling, which is great because it leaves both my hands free for my hair and washing her! And then I nursed her to sleep for a long late nap! She slept great of course having run around outside so much! Well then we were off to our Church for evening VBS this week. Oops. It started YESTERDAY. I didn't know. I felt sort of silly, but at least I'll know for next year that it starts on Sunday! Last night I didn't even do anything important! Well, I did get the entire front hall closet cleaned out and organized in preparation for the sale, as well as our spare room and it's closet. OH MY GOSH! I swear stuff reproduces when you put it in a dark box and shut the door. SO now my downstairs is done...I even went through all my kitchen drawers, etc...eek...now I have to tackle the upstairs. I hope to make a bit of money but maybe I shouldn't buy stuff in the first place. I don't really consider myself a big shopper though. I honestly look at some stuff and can't remember where it came from! Lol! Anyway...I need to go to bed...

Medications in Mamma's Milk

Oh check it out! You can look up your meds online now! How great is this if you're nursing and need to look up something! http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT PASS IT ON!