You may have noticed things were a little quiet on the blog front. Yes, I know you haven't heard from me in awhile. Other than letting you know about the $100 Giveaway which you can still enter here, I haven't posted in nearly a week. Well, the family has not been performing up to standards...blog standards that is. They've been giving me no material to work with. Nothing I tell you! I don't know what's wrong with them. Generally, the little guy is up to something amusingly precocious, Teenager is doing something innocent that results in the police showing up, or the Hubby has got something ridiculous going on involving some form of mischief and mayhem. This week however I've got nothin'. We'll hope for a better upcoming week. I've let the family know I need good blog fodder and they need to get with it.
$100 Giveaway
I don't know whether to be proud or mortified
Just minutes ago the following took place here in the SAHM household:
Little guy woke up from his nap, I walked into his room, greeting him in his crib. I noticed him pointing his finger towards his nose and then the following conversation took place between the two of us:
Little Guy: "All gone".
Me: "What's all gone?"
Little Guy: *chewing* "I eat it."
Me: "You eat what? What did you eat?"
Little Guy: "Boo...ger"
Yep, he's learning things in pre-school all right.
Little Guy: The First 3 Years
What a journey it has been creating this slide show. I started months ago setting aside the photos, adding more month by month ending with photos from the 3 year birthday party and first day of pre-school. Watching this, especially set to music, really highlights and puts emphasis on those wonderful moments over the last three years. It's a bittersweet emotion to watch your children grow up. You know they are going to, you know they have to, but something inside you makes you want to keep them little...even if only for a bit longer. As readers of this blog know, I've made it no secret that I tend to be in a bit of denial over my youngest baby leaving "babyhood". Hubby continues to remind me how important it is to enjoy every stage he is in... to enjoy every moment we have in our kid's lives. We love to take pictures and capture some of those moments and we're happy to share this little bit of our family with you.
The police were here …again
It’s only been a little over a month since the police came out to our house as you may recall from the post: Honey, the police are here. Recently they were here again; however, no one was home at the time. Let me set the scene for you on this one: Imagine my horror upon arriving home from school with little guy, taking him back to his room to put him down for a nap before dashing back out to car to grab my Target purchases, then while checking the messages I notice a business card on the kitchen counter from the Police Dept. They left me a note saying a citizen had reported spotting someone in our yard that morning and they came over to check things out, found the back door unlocked and made sure no one was here. So, immediately I make sure little guy is safely in his crib and run around the house making sure no one actually is here. It did not appear that anything obvious was missing (like a TV or computer) so I felt fairly secure that we had not been robbed. But this was still really upsetting to think that someone had been here. I got a hold of the police department so they could fill me in on more details. Apparently, a lady who commutes to work on her bike was riding by when she spotted an individual coming out the back of our yard. Upon further clarification it was revealed that said individual was a white male, about 16-17 years of age, wearing shorts and carrying a back pack. And it was around 7:30 in the morning. Sounding a little familiar anyone? Um, could we be talking about Teenager here? But here’s the weird part: this person was wearing gloves, particularly green gloves. So from the perspective of the lady on the bike, all that was missing at this point was a ski mask because it looked pretty darn suspicious. When Teenager got home we immediately questioned him as to what “accessories” he might have been wearing that morning on his way to school. We found our culprit alright; the green gloves were his. Why was he wearing gloves in the heat of the summer you ask? Turns out, he’s a bit of a germaphobe and apparently the lock on the gate has bird poop on it. So he wears the gloves to avoid touching the bird poop. Perhaps you had to have been here to have heard this explanation from him, but frankly I can hardly control my laughter while typing this because it’s so ridiculously hilarious. Once again, I have a story that begs to be filed under the “I can’t make this stuff up” category. So the moral of the story is when you’re a teenager who goes out the back yard to walk to school in August for heaven’s sakes don’t wear gloves.
Moral Dilemma: Cell phones in public restrooms
So, you’re in a public restroom stall and hear the cell phone ring of the person next to you. Then they answer it and start talking.
Do you:
A) wait a moment before flushing because you know it will be a very loud public toilet flush?
~ or ~
B) purposely (and a little mischievously) flush right then while they’re talking because you know their caller will hear making it obvious they’ve answered their phone while in a restroom stall thereby creating a special little moment of hilarity in your otherwise humdrum day?
At least I'm not saying he's 1,095 days
The little guy is three years old. There. I said it. (Even though he’s 36 months.)
The "first three years" slide show is coming soon, but in the meantime I thought I'd share with you all a party post. We had a fabulous birthday party for the little guy and it looked like kids and adults alike really enjoyed themselves. The combination of a large group of toddlers being outdoors at a birthday party while hopped up on juice boxes and cupcakes makes for quite a wild event. See for yourself.
Bubbles were a hit.
Little Guy's Music therapist entertained the little ones.
Fun and frivolity with the photo prop.
Here's our "92 model" who was not only a good sport, but had a great time and helped out with a pack of crumb crunchers. Oh, and note that smile--the braces came off!
Daddy at the grill!
Friends, food and fun!
Anxiously awaiting cupcakes. He woke up the morning of his party and the first thing he said was "cupcake". He's been waiting for these things for weeks!
It was worth the wait! The gourmet cupcakes were delicious! (we ordered them from a cupcake bakery.)
So, Little guy is officially 3 years old. And if you think that’s hard for me to adjust to just wait….. because tomorrow he starts pre-school!
Trip through Napa Valley Whine Country
It’s a sad but true fact that we don’t get away much. At least not very far. We are blessed to live fairly close to numerous fun places that make good day trips and one of them is the Napa Valley area. As the days are getting numbered for our summer break together and Daddy had the time off work, we decided to head out to Wine country. The hubby and I have fond memories of this place as we spent some time there wine tasting during our engagement as well as a night of our honeymoon at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast Inn. The last time we were able to get away and do a B&B weekend (one of my favorite things) was Valentine’s day when I was pregnant; no wine tasting then, and none on this trip with the kids either. But, it was a perfect day weather-wise and we enjoyed seeing all the cute little shops and strolling down the street in St. Helena, one of my favorite towns in this area. We also visited the Culinary Institute of America, formerly the Christian Brothers Winery and Monastery (Factoid: During prohibition the Christian Brothers made sacramental wine.
During our visit, we were informed they were shooting an episode of Emeril and therefore we needed to keep it quiet. Fortunately, the little guy managed to behave himself.
There were numerous photo ops, as you can see.
We drove past Beringer Winery; the oldest continuously operating winery in Napa Valley.
Little guy got pretty restless during some parts, thus there was more whine than wine in this trip, but all in all it was a fun day.
We also had an additional passenger show up for part of the trip.
On the way out of town while driving past some of the vineyards,
Hubby pipes up with his recent idea to do his own vineyard on our hillside since we actually do have room. He’s mentioned this before because he’s always thought it would be “fun” to make our own wine. Of course, I’m thinking that “fun” translates into an awful lot of work keeping those grapevines alive in addition to learning how on earth to make wine.
Let’s face it; we all know that if we embarked on this adventure it would end up like this:
The Pantry Project: Our Food gets a House
The hubby decided to take some of his vacation time off work to embark on a long overdue project; building a pantry.
The kitchen has always been my least favorite part of this house. It’s not that it’s horrible, but while many homes these days have large, square, gourmet kitchens with islands, we have a long, narrow, non-island, “one-butt” style kitchen. It’s also one of those unfortunate kitchens that contains just enough cabinets to hold things like dishes, serving ware, glasses, etc. and then leaves you scratching your head as to where to put the actual food. So for years we’ve done the “cram and stuff” routine with the one tall, skinny cabinet we had to hold food items. Then we got creative and started using a cabinet just outside the kitchen in the living room to hold canned goods. We eventually had to move into a portion of the linen closet down the hall to hold extra drinks, paper towels, etc. When things deteriorated into sliding food under the bed we knew it was time to do something. We fortunately had enough room in the corner of the kitchen to actually build a pantry, though it required removing a window and a long since unused doggie door. Hubby did the bulk of the work himself, hiring out only the parts that were beyond his level and better left to the pros. Here are some before and after shots, hubby doing the electrical work as well as showing off by sliding through the two-by-fours (did I mention he’s down a total of forty pounds? Sadly, his wife cannot claim a similar weight loss success.) Had he tried this move few months ago it would have looked like a re-enactment of Winnie the Pooh getting stuck in the door to Rabbit’s house.
Here is the finished project.
I am overjoyed at the idea of actually walking into my pantry to see and grab food off the shelf as well as put food on the shelf without any cramming, stuffing or swearing required.
Of course, in order to keep the little guy out of this thing which looks like a built-in playhouse to him, we now must call it the "Food House."
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