Birthday Blowout!

I love birthdays! It may seem kind of childish, but I look at it as taking the opportunity to celebrate and be happy.  One year I spent the day wearing a tiara... I was in college.  This year I took a slightly less dramatic route, but one that was a completely different level of awesome.

I woke up and my husband had made me sausage, biscuits, and eggs which is obviously an amazing start to any day.  At lunch we went and picked up my cake from the bakery, next year I will come up with a better idea for the cake, all I told them this time was white cake, white icing, and pink decorations.

After lunch I played outside with my beautiful daughter.  It is hard to imagine any celebration without her, she definitely makes life so much cuter.

 

My in laws took us out to dinner to celebrate, and then we came back and ate cake and ice cream and opened my gifts.

 

 

Dravyn got tired of trying to use utensils but not getting the last of the cake crumbs out of the bottom of the bowl.

 

 

 

My wonderful husband then took us out to the city lake for some fresh air and fun!

 

I hope you have a great weekend, and find something to celebrate soon!



20 Months!

 

Someone turned 20 months old not long ago, and is just about to the point of driving me crazy every single day. Her vocabulary is growing like crazy and she just melts my heart when she is being sweet.

 

 

 

 

A few days ago she found a belly dance skirt a friend gave me during high school and is obsessed with it now, she loves wearing it and running around to make it jingle.

 

 

 

I am looking forward to this weekend and having more time with my two favorite people.



Waiting

I am waiting, I am dreaming of a phone call and an interview but preparing for the letter of doom, the one that says, nope, you're not what we are looking for right now, we have someone better, or just you're not good enough.

I have gotten that letter before, from this place, for this job, the last time it was open, and boy was that unpleasant, of course I knew I was going to get that letter because they were looking for a man, and that I definitely am not.

But other things are going on in my life, I refuse to just sit and wait.  I went to visit family, I got a couple new expansion packs for The Sims 3, I am trying to exercise regularly, and we have started to try potty training.  I'm not sure that she is ready yet, she sits on the toilet, she wipes, and she flushes the toilet, but she doesn't actually do anything when she sits there.

I went on a date with my husband after church Sunday, and we had a Duck Dynasty marathon Tuesday night, it has been a great week, and it will be an even better weekend.  Why? Because I'm the mom and I said so!

I leave you with pictures of my cousin from when I visited this weekend.

 

 

 

Snowuary 2013

Minimal words today, just showing off all the beautiful snow, and my even more beautiful daughter playing in it.

Happenings

I mailed off my last assignment for my photography class through Penn Foster last week, and as it arrived in time, I am done!  Woo Hoo!  The only photo I managed to get to commemorate this exciting event was blurry, and that just wont work so pretend that you see here a picture of a nice fat envelope waiting to be mailed away.  I am so glad to be done with that class.

Tax season is always a fun time for us, because we get money back, and that makes me so happy!  This year we did our usual savings account refill, plus paid off a doctors bill, and dentist bill, and one of the student loans.  But then with fun money we bought a t.v.  a huge 60 inch t.v. that makes us both very happy.  We were going to spend the money on season passes to the Kansas Speedway to watch NASCAR races, but then realized that would only entertain us two weekends the whole year, and the TV will be here everyday.  I think we made a good decision.

Dravyn turned 19 months old Saturday, but I forgot to take photos and then she got sick Sunday night, so most of her pictures are of her laying on the couch resting.  I hate it when she is sick and really wish I could make her feel better somehow.  Her little eyes are just so sad looking.

 

I hope that everyone has a great week and a nice Valentines Day.

Root Beer Floats and Tents

You know those things in life that remind you of a memory, and then that memory leads you to others, related, but not in any specific order, kind of like dropping an envelope of photos on the floor.  These are some of the things that do that to me.

When I think of Root Beer Floats I think of when the ice storm hit and we lost power at Crowder and had to go to MSSU, they have a late dinner time when the dinning hall is open and the whole crowder group would gather, a bunch of us making root beer floats.

That makes me think of escaping with a group of friends and ending up a few random places one of which being the tattoo parlor, and watching my then boyfriends roommate Kevin, who is now my husband get his first tattoo.

A trip to Taco Bell, Swinging on the swings outside the cafeteria at the college, and about 20 other things.  Kevin was out of town for a work thing the beginning of this week and when he got back we made root beer floats.

Tents always remind me of the camp outs I have gone to in the past, small things like being terrified of the cows wondering around in the dark when I was younger, running around the campfire playing keep away with Uncle Bob's hat, glow sticks, rainy days, pixy stix, and spook walks.  In a word, family.

There are so many other things,  but right now I am tired, my sick and clingy baby is finally asleep and I should really start cleaning the kitchen and working on laundry now.  I hope you have an amazing weekend.

Activity!

I am so excited that it is supposed to be in the 50's tomorrow, we may go to the park.  I never really thought about how hard it is to entertain a toddler until I had one but oh my gosh, her attention span is shorter than mine and trust me that is saying something.

Last weekend, Dravyn had Christmas number two, because we hadn't seen my side of the family since before Christmas, so of course she was playing with some of her new toys, her favorites are the helicopter her Grummy got her, and the tunnel tent her grandparents got her.

But anyone with a toddler knows, toys only keep attention for so long. So what do you do when you don't have shiny new toys for them to play with?

Getting outside is always a hit, but not always the most practical, depending on how cold/hot/wet/snowy the weather is.  Dravyn loves playing in her sand box, chasing the cats, playing in gravel/pebbles, or just roaming the yard until finding a seemingly random place and flopping down on her back for a few seconds to look at the sky.

Anyway, coloring is great and she loves it.  She however looses interest quickly in crayons, but throwing in the occasional closely monitored pen drawing session, or colored pencil time is a huge hit.  The other day it lasted thirty minutes before she started drawing on things other than the paper! That is a huge improvement over the 5 minutes it usually takes.

Last week we played in bubbles.  I got two bowls one slightly larger than the other, put just a little soap in the smaller bowl with water, and gave her a couple measuring cups to play with.  This was a huge hit, and if you put some towels under the whole area, it basically is self cleaning, just rinse everything and pick up the towels when you are done.

 

 

Another hit is self contained painting in plastic baggies.  Just put a little paint of a couple different colors in a plastic bag and tape it to the window (use tape on all sides if your child is anything like mine and likes to pull on things a lot).

 

A really good thing about the Internet is the ability to make friends with other people all over the country and even the world.  One of those people that I am lucky to now call a friend posted a blog post over this same topic this week, and has some other really great ideas.  A bunch of us all did the window paint activity, and that is the first one on her post, but keep reading, because there are several other activities she covers.  I can't wait to find some play-doh.

 

Please check out her blog post here http://mycrazyamericandream.blogspot.com/2013/01/sensory-play-for-toddlers.html

 

I hope to have a wonderful weekend with my family, and hope you do the same.