Facebook is fun!

This was a very full weekend, I'll just give you the highlights.

Friday morning at work at 1:30 am. Awesome!

Friday afternoon dining with Rich and Tasha at Mi Ranchito. Delicious!

Friday afternoon shopping with Rich and Tasha. Bought a dinosaur!

Friday afternoon watched Rich and Tasha decorate. Decoratious!
Saturday afternoon shopping at Wal-Mart. Bargaintastic!

Saturday night wandering through Zoo Lights. Roaring good fun!

Sunday afternoon scanning photos for Facebook. 3 whole hours!

Sunday afternoon baking 6 dozen cookies and searching on Facebook. Delicious again!

Ribbon

I am stealing this from Tasha. She blogged about it already, but my camera is dead so I can't blog about the new 74,000 feet high sound wall behind my house with accompanying photos which is what I like to do.

Tasha never wants to get too crazy with the scrapbooking. She wants to organize and watch what you are doing. This is fine. But then she says crazy stuff like "Now I don't think I'll be making the awesome ribbon box anytime soon" when she finds the raddest instructions online I just want to punch her in throat. Actually, we ARE going to make that. I'm not buying some stupid hook, hanger or ring, I am going to make an awesome ribbon box that I can decorate with super cool paper and letters cut from the Cricut.

And so are you, Tasha.

My New Baby

I wanted to give everyone a chance to welcome my new child to our lives! Vergie Harlene arrived today and she is just so precious. She smells like delicious baby lotion and never talks back. I love her so much, she reminds me of my awesome childhood. Here's a few photos from today:




In the stroller ready for a walk


Tea Time with friends


Playing with her horsey




Bath time


Story time

I Heart Weekends!

I had two awesome things happen this weekend, my handmade quilt goes missing and Sophia was sick. The first involved the quilt that was made for me in Job's Daughters to commemorate my term as Honored Queen for Bethel #1. I submitted mine and Erica's PHQ quilts for display in the quilt show to benefit the Hearing Impaired Kids Endowment fund. I drove down to pick up my quilt after the show was finished and lo and behold, only Erica's quilt was present. Everyone searched for half an hour and it was gone. I was quite miffed but I held myself in check. No sense in yelling at everyone before they had a chance to call the others who had picked up quilts.

The next morning I woke up to Sophia with a temperature of 102 degrees. The Motrin I gave her didn't control the temperature so off to Instacare we drove. Of course I was there too early for them to diagnose anything so we went home with instructions to "watch her". I was planning on that so it didn't add too much more to my day.

Monday I realized that I would have to stay home with her. This began the 10 hours of Elmo. I watched 5 hours before I couldn't take it anymore. I popped in The Little Mermaid to break the cycle of Elmo madness. Sophia knew what a shark was and play screamed while hopping around when the shark was on the screen. I'm not sure how she knew what it was, but daycare does teach her awesome stuff.

That afternoon they called to say that my quilt was found. It had been placed in an office with another woman's quilts. Thank God! I didn't realize that I had such an emotional attachment to my quilt. I was ready to offer a reward to whomever found it, but back to dear baby.

You never realize how scary kids movies are until you watch them with a little one. I tried to skip past the scary bits at the start and end, but Sophia wouldn't have any of it. We had to watch the whole thing three times. Every time the scary parts were on she would snuggle harder and harder. That should have been my warning, but I like to learn the hard way.

That night Sophia began crying at 10:30. I went in to get her and just rubbed her back because she wouldn't sit up. That calmed her down a bit and I went back to bed. This went on about every fifteen minutes until Midnight. I finally decided that she had to come to bed with me. There was no way I could get up over and over! I put her in my bed and began constructing the most amazing Sophia Containment System you have ever seen. I used my Ikea side table and humidifier to hold up my body pillow as a wall and Steve's memory foam pillow as another leg.

Though I was impressed with my ingenuity, Sophia never needed it. She kept her butt pressed against my face or would sit up and ask for Daddy then cram herself into my body to snuggle. No sleep was had that night because if she wasn't moving I was checking to see that she was still breathing.

The next morning she got up at 6:30 and said "Milk, Momma!" She dragged me into the kitchen for her breakfast but it was too early for me. I stuck my hand in the dog treat bag and held it out behind me for Sophia to take. I said over and over "Here you go!" I couldn't understand why she wouldn't take it! I finally realized that the "milk" felt funny in my hand. I put the dog treat away and got a sippy cup together. As soon as I gave it to her I realized that I hadn't put the stoppers in. I wrestled it away from her, took it apart and gave it back.

I was trying to talk myself into taking a shower but I realized that if I was trying to stuff dog treats down my child's throat that maybe I needed more sleep. I resorted to the Elmo trance inducer and fell asleep on the couch.

Visiting Utah County

Last Saturday I took Sophia to Thanksgiving Point for more harvest time festivities. They had chickens, horses and ponies aplenty. Sophia loved the chickens and horses, she even stuck her finger up a horse nostril to prove it. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of that because I was busy dry heaving. Reagan, Zane and Sophia checking out horses below.

This is Karon and Zane at the stables.

They had some fun stuff for the kids, one of them being icing a cookie. Sophia took this to mean icing your face.

Karon and Zane lookin' all cute again.

Ride 'em, cowboy!

We drove to Salem today to celebrate blessings and birthdays. It was the perfect time to catch up on This American Life. We listened to Another Frightening Show About the Economy and How to Win Friends and Influence People. I added this super exciting story so I could practice adding the link. I'm lame.

Sophia had an awesome time playing outside. She made a new best friend in Denise. Denise fell for all of Sophia's charming looks and hugs. Anytime Sophia asked to go outside Denise would hop right up to help her.

We chased Sophia around the yard and took a few photos.

Here's Sophia driving a tractor

Sophia swinging with Daddy

Sophia driving a motorcycleSophia driving a four-wheeler

Sophia driving daddy around on a four-wheeler

What I have to listen to...

Here's something that was totally unexpected on Sesame Street.

Super Fun Night!

I promised more photos from last Saturday and they will be interspersed throughout my story of tonight's adventures.



Sophia started out in fine spirits tonight. She ate all of her dinner, asked for seconds and danced to Elmo. Then we had the gall to draw a bubble bath for her.



She refused to take her clothes off, opting instead to rip tissues out of the tissue box. Once undressed Sophia splashed her hands in the water and dumped water on the floor.



Another new trick is pinching her nose and yelling "ewwww" as if one of us stinks. If we don't play along she pinches our nose and yells "ewww" for us. Tonight this resulted in a big bloody scratch on my nose from her devil fingernails.



That was the last straw so I slapped lotion, diaper and jammies on her and handed her over to dear daddy.

What a great night.

This may be a cliche...

I thought this video of Sophia dancing to "Thriller" was hilarious.



More to come from our adventures today at Gardner Village.

Mommy and Me Gymnastics

Here's a video from gymnastics:



Hope you like it!

P.S: It took me 15 minutes to get this to work so you had better enjoy it.

Everything old is new again

Earlier this year I bought Sophia a lovely new chair from Target. It was plush and pink and full of girliness. About six months later it was a disgusting mess that I hid from visitors.

I had tried to clean the chair before with little success. Scrubbing the chair would pull up the fibers and leave bare spots, vacuuming only reduced the chunks of food. I was discussing the dilema today with Alyssa, who also owns this chair and has had the same experience, and I remembered something I saw on "How Clean Is Your House?". They often use household items to clean and one of their favorites is bath soap wrapped in a soft cloth. They have used this product to clean toys, couches and anything else that requires a delicate touch. I decided to give it a whirl. Here's the 'before' shot:

I used a soft cloth that was wrung out and used a bar of unscented soap, the right arm was tackled first and I had great results.

I finished the rest of the chair, using 5 cloths total, and the chair looks great!

Sophia loved it and immediately hopped in with a cup of chocolate milk to begin the process all over again.

Dinner at my house is a delight

My dearest Sophia was really enjoying dinner last night. Apparently the way a child shows delight is by popping their feet up onto the dining room table. Maybe she learned it from Steve, hmmm.

The thing that surprises me most about the photo is how giant her feet look! It makes me worry that she will turn out like her amazon mother and have feet that require special order shoes. You should all pray for her now.

Firefox is not my friend

I had to drag Tasha over here today to help me figure out how my blog works. You know what the problem was? Firefox! All the fancy tools only work with Internet Explorer. Now that I am using IE for blogging you should be seeing a lot more neat stuff.

I got a video camera, the Flip Video Ultra, last week so videos will be posted soon. As soon as I talk to Erin and find out how to do it.

Bar food is crap

It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, but hopefully it has finally come to an end. I was in Dallas for the hurricane (I don't really recommend it) and I spent a good deal of my waking hours on Friday at Scrap Fest 2008 (also not recommended).

I was in Dallas for the TriZetto Facets User Group Enhancement Survey Review. Whew! Essentially all of the users get together and read word for word the enhancements that were submitted and if someone has questions people pretend like they know what the enhancement involves. So super fun! I met a few new people and got to meet up with my awesome friend Tina who was also there for the user group meeting. It was almost like a free vay-cay but I had to talk about work to get it.

We had tons of refugees staying in the hotel, the University of Houston football team along with their support staff and regular joes with their pets who pooped in the lobby. I have to say the pooping was quite hilarious, but that's because it wasn't my pet. The only time any of these people talked to us was when we would scratch off our lotto tickets in the lobby. They were so intrigued that out-of-staters would play the lottery. Hello! It's like totally the most fun you can have at a hotel!

Trizetto took a bunch of us out for dinner and drinks to watch the Cowboys game on Monday. The hotel recommended a restaurant/bar down the street but I think the concierge was getting paid by the restaurant manager to recommend the place. I ordered fish tacos and it was more like bottom-of-the-barrel fish bits tacos (see above). The people were on fire for the game! I never heard so much shouting in a restaurant. Texans are serious about their football.

The following Friday I attended Scrap Fest in Sandy. Scrap Fest is where all the new papers and scrappin' materials are presented for your purchase and the true crazies can bring all their stuff and scrapbook right away. I had never been so I was really excited. Little did I know how loud and crazy it would be. First thing they have an announcer who comes over the speakers to cheer on scrappers. Then he announces that there is a t-shirt contest.

OH the contest! If you had a t-shirt with a scrapbook theme then you were able to enter. 20 people got up on the stage and had their t-shirts screamed over the PA for us to then cheer back if we liked it. Here's a sample:

"Why do a workout when you could do a layout?"
"Anything you can scrap I can scrap better"

I would go on, but I got sick typing those. This went on for 15 minutes with the group getting smaller and smaller as the person with the smallest cheers was eliminated then the shirts WOULD BE READ AGAIN! Dear Lord, it was painful. Of course, I went home and got all my scrapbook stuff and went back. I'm sick.

Some people said it couldn't be done...

Wednesday night was gymnastics for Sophia. Steve showed up early just like I asked, however, DB looked more like a dumpster diver than a gymnastics superstar. I guess I shouldn't have been too taken aback since she comes straight from 8 hours of day care fun. I've often wondered why the other mom's won't talk to me and I guess it could have something to do with the black dirt between her toes.

This turned out to be her best performance day. She ran through the forward rolls, donkey kicks, jump spins and arabesque. We moved on to the trampoline and wall climbing, when lo and behold, her diaper gives up and leaks a huge amount of pee-pee onto her pants. That was the final straw. I had to remove trash baby from the class before everyone started pointing.

Steve and I have a new game plan. We will both carry an extra outfit, diapers, comb, hair ties and wet wipes. My friend, Kim, was a little distraught by the photos and she's going to give us gymnastics outfits to wear. It was either that or Kim said she would be responsible for picking up Sophia to make her presentable. See? Even people that aren't at the class are embarassed for us.

Following the diaper incident we had to get some food. The closest restaurant was Rubio's where the appetizers consisted of Cheetos. These resulted in the singing and rolling around you see above. Note the lack of pants. Onto Thursday.

Today was a red letter day! Tasha deigned to have a lunch date with me, only because her lunch room was off limits due to interviews, but I will take what I can get. We went to La Frontera, which was my 3rd visit in 6 days. I may have a problem. My heart hurts a little. We had some good laughs and parted ways.

Super Happy Fun Time!

My Labor Day weekend was just packed with fun. First off it was pay day and then my glorious coworkers and I celebrated with lunch at La Frontera. We were all feeling fat and sassy after completing our meals of melted cheese and giant pork cubes.

Next up was Costco. My dear child fell asleep on the way and there is nothing better than a sleeping child at Costco. We were able to go up each and every aisle to peruse the goods and services available to us as members. There was no shrieking, no running and no demand for "mo" churro. The storm started to hit when we left so we drove out to G-ma's for the evening. Babies are always better when there's a G-ma involved.

Finally, as the weekend came to a close, I decided to do something motherly. I made home made oreo cookies. My sister promptly told me that hers were better, but I've never had any of these supposed cookies that she makes. These cookies turned out to be the best ever for the "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" marathon going on in my living room. Sophia will only allow this show to play and screams "babies!" until we start it up. So I plopped a giant cookie in her hand and left her to own devices while I cleaned. I am such a domestic goddess.

How Trampolines Hurt America

Well, friends, tonight was supposed to be awesome but that has all gone to hell. My good friend Time Gilles was bringing his dog Ernest over for some one on one time with my Monkey Doodle, but he canceled for some lame reason.

I wish I had known about the canceling before I did the dishes, cleaned the bathroom and vacuumed. I kinda need to know this stuff, but I shouldn't have been surprised by his flakiness (speaking of flakiness, that is the exact opposite of how I would describe my dinner of crab enchiladas from Tres Hombres last Saturday!).

Now on to the title of this blog. My dear Monkey Doodle was having a great time at a mid-week BBQ in Emigration Canyon last week until a trampoline, or tramp, came in to the picture. DH thought it would be a great way to entertain the child, but you can see the before and after photos to your left. Does this look like a happy child who is unfettered by the falling economy and rising gas prices? I think not. We would have been much better off with some good ol' fashioned hopscotch.

Wedding Annoyance

Why do people still have lines at weddings? Why not just walk around and greet people? It's much more fun and it means that people can enjoy the display you have created and not wait for 50 minutes before enjoying it? I want to see your dress, I want to hear the stories, I want to talk about how great the reception is, I want to see the new pictures. PLEASE don't make me wait to talk to my mom's friend of 20 years for 50 minutes.

My dear baby didn't get a bath tonight and Steve had to take care of her all night because of this. I did meet all of the sisters, brothers, cousins but I could have done this while enjoying the effort you put in for the whole reception instead of standing in line.

Thank you for the effort and for seeing you in your beautiful dress, your family is wonderful and cute. I hope that you get the best in life.

Holy Freaking Cow!

For Reals: Sophia pooped on the potty out of the blue. I was caught off guard and forgot to make up a potty dance. In our excitement and sticker giving I also forgot to take a picture. ;)

I feel so close to the goal of NO DIAPERS that I am quivering in delight. Steve and I might make it through this economic downturn after all.

I couldn't resist any longer

I know that people were expecting me to resist the whole blog thing, but here I am. I too will bore the world with 75,000 photos of my child and all the super cute things she did today. I hope you are ready for this. Oh, and that lovely photo? Just a picture of my dinner from last Tuesday in Chicago.