the post in which i curse more than i should

Yeah, so remember this post?  The one that grossed all my friends out?  Yeah, that one.

Well, that fucker has friends and one of them made his way into the house today.  That’s the second one in two days!!  Three in three weeks.  Is anyone else seeing a pattern here?  They’re like goddamn serial killers.  Their cooling off period is getting shorter and they’re all going through decompensation.  They’re escalating people!!

He also met the fate of the fly swatter/vacuum death combination.

I think it’s time to call the exterminator.  Mostly because I’m not going up into the attic which I am convinced is a den of mud wasps waiting to attack the first person who pokes their head up into that hellspace.  I’ll save that for the guy who gets paid to do it.

If one of these makes it into the bedroom I will be taking my family and moving into my parents’ house until this house has been bombed to kingdom come.  No joke people!  Yes, I know it’s smaller than me and we’ve been telling Emma the whole ‘he’s more scared of you than you are of him’ bit of bullshit, but fuck that in real life.  No thank you, sir.

And if I find one in Emma’s room.  Oh-ho bad things will happen.  Baaaaad things that will make Eric the vampire look like a sweet little kitty.  Albeit a beautiful kitty, but a kitty nonetheless.

So stay away mud wasps!  Otherwise I will take my Daddy’s advice and stick you in the microwave for 18 seconds.  And that is just not nice.

i don’t like this turn of events

A couple of weeks ago when Ray was in Burlingame I had put Emma to bed and was in the living room on my computer or something.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw something fly by me up to the window we have next to the TV.  At first I thought it was 2 mosquito eaters making out … it was really big.  I went and grabbed a fly swatter and when I got closer I discovered it was not two mosquito eaters, but one of these:


Of course, in this picture it looks huge, but you know what, that is pretty freaking close to life sized right there.  It’s about an inch and a half to two inches long and though it looks pretty frail with its weird skinny stick body I had to hit it full on 5 times before it died.  I sucked it up with the dust buster (which in our house is merely a bug vacuum) and was creeped out for awhile.

Then today while Emma was eating her lunch ANOTHER ONE flew by in the living room!!  I called out to Ray and grabbed the vacuum this time thinking I would just vacuum the thing up.  I did that.  Let the vacuum run for awhile and it was STILL ALIVE in there.  We have a Dyson.  It’s supposed to be all-powerful.  This wasp is more powerful!

It’s called a mud wasp and they build their nests on the overhang of your roof.  While we haven’t found a nest anywhere we have this awful climbing, flowering plant that grows up along the sides of our garage and partially covers the overhang.  I’m pretty sure that’s where they’re lurking planning out their world domination.  Or at least domination over our house.

Stupid bugs.

thought summer was supposed to be about relaxing??

Have I already told you how crazy this past week was for us?  My friend’s daughter was over Monday and Tuesday, I went to Los Banos on Wednesday, Prunedale & Salinas on Thursday and then we had a big playdate with some of Emma’s preschool friends on Friday.  Then we had my nephew’s 4th birthday party in San Jose (or as we like to say ‘up north’).

It was fun, especially for Emma (she loved having so many playdates), but so exhausting.  Plus, I was having an awful time trying to sleep so that didn’t add to my cheery disposition.  Oh wait, I don’t have a cheery disposition to begin with.

I didn’t bring the camera out very much this week and when I did I generally forgot to take pictures, but here’s a few I did take to sum up our week!

Emma & Autumn showing off their crowns they made.

 

Flower’s at my friend’s in-law’s house.

Time for a playdate fashion show!

Birthday Boy!!

Enjoying her brother’s birthday.

Emma made me a special meal.  There was noodles, bread, cake, orange juice & a lemon cookie.

Ready for bed after a loooooong day.

And that was our week.  How was yours?

my tv dream may be coming true

I’m going to tell you right now that I’m going to be talking about True Blood, the show & the books.  Not really in depth so I’ll try not to spoil anything for you if you haven’t read or watched and want to.  Mostly, I’m going to be talking about this guy:

It was reported the other day that this season of True Blood would be based on Charlaine Harris’s fourth book, Dead to the World.  If you’ve read the first three Southern Vampire series books you must go out and get this one because it is THE BEST.  So I am way too excited that this HBO series is giving Alexander Skarsgard more time.  Ray said last season was all about him so what am I talking about, but really this is something completely different.

I’ve always been on the fence about the TV series. I love the books. They’re fun, racy, exciting, frustrating and suspenseful, but the series is just on this side of bizarre.  The whole season of Tara and Eggs and Maryann was overkill and awkward.  In the book, that whole thing lasted about a chapter, maybe a chapter and a half.  I would much rather have spent my time with Sookie in Dallas than stay in Bon Temps with that ridiculousness.

Since the books are all told from Sookie’s point of view most of the characters on the show don’t have such a big showing.  Of course, Eric, Bill & Pam are ever present as well as Sam, but Tara & Lafayette are merely spoken of once or twice in each book if even that and they aren’t the same characters as their TV namesakes.

It doesn’t help that I can’t stand Bill and Sookie.  In the books Sookie is awesome.  On the TV show, she’s a little dumb and wishy washy.  Hopefully this season will give us a stronger, more independent Sookie.  Oh yeah, and the fairies that the critics had a field day over … yeah, Charlaine Harris did a MUCH better job at incorporating the fairies into her books.  I don’t even know what the writers at HBO were thinking.

Basically, this season had better be the end all for me.  If they screw up this book I’ll probably drop it.  Though if Alexander Skarsgard remains on the show I guess I can’t really give it up, can I?

Now Jen, I want you to go out and read up to Dead to the World.  Then we’ll talk.  Because right now, you’re talking crazy.  Ca-ray-zee.

my brother is awesome

Last week we went to Silver Creek Sportsplex to watch my brother play soccer.  He’s played since he was a little kid, but took a break for awhile and recently decided to get back into it.

I have to warn you that these pictures are crap!  I am NOT very good at action photography, even using the action settings on my camera I still suck.  Plus I was shooting through the glass so there’s all kinds of reflection and junk.

Isn’t he so handsome?

Emma generally sees her Uncle he’s generally watching a movie or playing a game on the PS3 or something so she was fascinated with him playing soccer.  When the game started and he was running back and forth she turned to me and said ‘Uncle’s running like he’s never run before!’

Hopefully we’ll get out to see him play again!

things i forgot about in the 5 years i wasn’t pregnant

• EVERYONE wants to touch my stomach.  I don’t mind my friends and family, but people I barely know … that’s just creepy.
• The backache, the boobache, the buttache, all the aches.  Seriously, why does my tailbone hurt no matter how much cushion I’m sitting on??
• My stomach literally feels like the heaviest thing in the world.
• Getting out of chairs is next to impossible.
• There is no such thing as a comfortable sleeping position.
• The novelty of pregnancy (for me) wears off pretty quickly.
• Sitting on the toilet is ridiculous.  I feel like I need a sling to pull my stomach up because straddling the toilet is just not an option.
• Riding a bike without possibly giving my baby shaken baby syndrome is also impossible.
• I’m pretty sure in about a month I will be unable to clip my toenails or shave my legs.
• I REALLY miss sushi.  And bloody rare steak.
• Because I can't eat it I miss hot dogs and lunch meat.  I don't really like those things when I'm not pregnant.

But really, now that I’m not feeling like puking after everything I eat I feel much better.  The heat’s started here … today was 97 degrees and it was slightly miserable, but we have air conditioning so I really can’t complain.  Ask me in a few more days though.

I love how excited Emma is, how she loves to hug my tummy, give it kisses and tell the baby how she loves her. 

Yesterday we were at my sister’s house for Father’s Day and my nephew pointed at my tummy and asked ‘What’s that?’  I said it was the baby in my tummy.  He asked if he could see it and I told him that he really couldn’t see anything because it’s inside Auntie’s tummy.  He insisted.  I lifted my shirt over my belly so he could see and he did look disappointed.  My tattoos were not interesting to him, he wanted to see a baby.  I reminded him that the baby was in Auntie’s tummy just like Chloe was in Mama’s tummy.  My sister was standing next to me holding Chloe (who’s a little over a year now) and Chloe looked around like, ‘what the heck is she talking about??’  I told Dominic he could touch my tummy where the baby was so he did.  He was slightly fascinated, slightly unimpressed.  Chloe also wanted to touch.  This morning my sister told me Dominic told her ‘Auntie let me feel the baby last week.  I think she’s going to hatch soon.’

And that, my bloggie friends is what makes this pregnancy so much more fun than the last one!

daddy’s day

Father’s Day celebrates two of the most important men in my life.

My Daddy.

And my Emma’s Daddy.

Happy Father’s Day to my two favorite Daddys in the world!

oh the power

The lovely Minute Man’s Wife awarded me with the Overlord Award.  How did she know I was craving so much power??

MMW writes the most amazing blog.  I started reading back in January when I was getting into obsessively reading blogs.  I loved her honestly and her blog design.  Just like books, I judge blogs by their designs.  Things went crazy all of sudden (seemingly) and I couldn’t help but admire her candidness once more and I’ve been addicted ever since!

Basically I get to change three things about whatever I want to, good or bad.  She gave this award to me a week ago and I’ve been mulling it over since then.  Such a big decision!  Here’s my three …

1) Reality shows are banned from TV.  I know, this is going to earn me some enemies.  I’m really not that person who watches PBS alone and rolls my eyes at the drivel that is on TV.  I just can’t stand that this crap gives these awful human beings a platform to earn more exposure.  I read a lot of news and it KILLS me that a breaking story or a major headline will be about some idiot on Jersey Shore driving into a police car or something equally asinine.  I know it’s a guilty pleasure thing, but I also know for a fact that there are real idiots in the world and I sometimes must deal with them in real life.  I don’t want to see them on TV too!  I watch some reality shows, Top Chef, Master Chef, Top Chef Masters & Project Runway, but I would gladly give those up just to not have to see some brainless dolt from Orange County or Jersey Shore on TV.

2) Everyone must take a job in the restaurant industry for a minimum of 1 month.  And not as management, but as a tip earner.  Waiter, host, bartender, cocktailer, busboy, dishwasher or line cook.  I don’t think you can truly appreciate the kind of bullshit these people have to deal with until you’ve walked in their shoes.  I have worked in all those jobs except for a line cook.  The day before Christmas Eve one year found me working at an Italian restaurant with an awesome staff, save for our unhappy manager.  She managed to piss off all of the back of the house guys who decided at 8 p.m. they weren’t going to work as long as she was there.  They left.  It was no fun.  The rest of us servers repressed our feelings of murder towards our manager and picked up the new jobs we had no experience in.  I washed dishes.  It was both fun (because I had this hose sprayer thing that I could aim at someone and literally take them down) and exhausting and dirty.  One of our servers tried his hand at cooking and we told all of our tables that all we had to offer them was pizza.  Our usually self-centered, prima donna hostess stepped up and took orders, bussed tables, ran food, whatever we needed she did it.  It was awesome that everyone (except our manager who retreated to the office to cry and bitch on the phone to our GM) came together and didn’t complain and worked their asses off.  At the end of the night we made a sign that said ‘Will work for kitchen staff’ and took a picture.  I still have that picture.

3) When you’re pregnant your tummy becomes like an electrified fence.  When people rub your tummy they are electrocuted.  Not to death, mind you, just like they’re tased.  You can enter in people who you don’t mind touching your tummy (i.e. your kids, your husband, family members, friends).  It would mostly be a deterrent.  People would know that if they try to invade your personal belly space they will be sorely punished. 

I’m passing this along to people who I would really love to see their response mostly.  They’re blogs that I love and you should love them too!

1. My Notie Natalie at My Blog is Boring.  You all should know about her by now.  I pimp her out all the time.  She’s the bestest.
2. Ixy at Illusion.  How can you not love her??  She’s Canadian!  And a sweetie-peetie.
3. Mollie at OK in UK.  She’s fantabulous and full of awesomeness.
4. Lah at Lazy Girl Reads.  She’s my fellow Gryffindor classmate and she’s a great resource for me when I need a new book to read.
5. Erinn at as it were or even if it weren’t.  She’s a dancer.  I want to be a dancer, but I’m not good at that at all.  So I live vicariously through her fancy-ness.
6. Ali at Our Happily Ever.  She’s such a cutie and she’s having a not so great time right now in the work department.  I hope she uses her three ‘wishes’ to get some justice!
7. Tiffany at Hello Tiffany.  She makes the most amazing little knitted things.  She makes me want to learn to knit or crochet, but I’ve tried, twice now and I am NO GOOD.  *sob*

Have at it ladies!!

quite a trip

This week Ray had a conference in Burlingame as I’ve talked about here.  Originally, Emma and I were going to go with him for the week and hang out in the city, but I’ve gotten to the lovely point in the pregnancy where sleeping just sucks so I thought it would be better just to wait until the end of the week and stay one night.

The plan was to go to Emma’s Fun Fitness Class (she has that every Monday & Wednesday) at 3, pick up my Timptations box at 4 and head out to Burlingame.  But then I thought it would be fun to take the train out there instead.  We’re almost at the beginning of CalTrain.  There’s a stop or two south of us, but we’re really at the beginning of the line.  Which means that there’s only 3 trains that leave from Morgan Hill and only one that stops in Burlingame.  That train leaves at 6:45 a.m.

My lovely friend Kim picked up my Timptations box for me and we decided to skip the class so we could take the train.  Emma was super excited.  I packed the night before, ran the dishwasher and set my alarm for 5:30 a.m.

Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the volume up on my alarm so when it went off I didn’t hear it.  I woke up at 6 in a panic.  Luckily, we live 5 minutes from the station, but still I was sure we would miss the train.  I threw on my clothes (I had the foresight the night before to set out the clothes that Emma and I would wear on the train) and woke Emma up, threw her clothes at her and told her to get dressed.  She cried because she was 1) tired. 2) grumpy & 3) thought we would miss our train and she wouldn’t see Daddy.  I ran and threw our stuff in the car, came back and miraculously she was dressed and we ran out the door.

We made it to the station with 10 minutes to spare.

She’s so tired!

Emma directed us to the upstairs and she squirmed around excited to be on the train and on our way.  Until the train took off the second stop and she announced she had to use the restroom.  We still had about an hour before we got to Burlingame and there are no bathrooms on the train. 

At the San Jose station there’s a train that leaves just about every 15 minutes and using the fancy CalTrain app I had downloaded onto my phone the night before I was able to figure out we could get off in San Jose and get right back on to the next train and make it to Burlingame.  It worked out perfectly!

We get off the train at Burlingame and I check Google Maps to see which way we’re supposed to walk to get to the hotel and realize the stop we got off on is 1.1 miles further away than I had thought.  We had to walk 2 miles to the hotel.

Now that might not sound like that much to you, but imagine this:  think about a woman who is about 30 weeks pregnant.  I am only 21 weeks, but I am as big as if I were 10 weeks further along.  I had my backpack that has my laptop, iPad, 3 hardback books, 3 paperback books, miscellaneous other crap.  Then Emma had her backpack with her junk to do in it, her rolling suitcase and I also had a slightly large travel bag that had the rest of our junk in it.  Emma pulled her suitcase along and wore her backpack, but after the first 1/2 mile of the almost 2 miles we had to walk she just couldn’t carry the backpack anymore.  So I took that.

Trucking along.

We stopped every other block or so to rest.  Finally, after we made it about a mile Ray was able to come and pick us up so we didn’t have to do the overpass over the freeway.  That was the best car ride EVER!

We hung out in the room, got some breakfast and then went out to the pool.  Of course, I had to fall in the hot tub paying more attention to Emma than myself.  I was able to grab the pole by the stairs, but that caused me to wrench my arm.  That was fun.

For dinner we took Emma to Benihana’s.  She didn’t want to go.  She wanted to go to McDonald’s.  Our kid’s palate is quite refined, you know.  She ended up in awe of the whole thing.  She loved our chef.  His name was Hiro, just like my uncle so that was instantly exciting for her.  She thought Hiro was pretty cool.

She’s expressing her disbelief at something Ray has told her.

Now she’s completely engrossed in the cooking!

When we woke up this morning I discovered that it was very difficult to move my entire body.  Good stuff.  But totally worth it.  Ray and I have spent the night apart very few times since we’ve been together so anytime away is no fun.  I just feel odd and sad when he’s not here.  And Emma too.  She’s got to have her little family unit under one roof to feel happy.

So now we’re all back home and everything’s back to normal.  Except for my friend Kim!  She’s broke her foot in two places last night!  Let’s hope for a super speedy recovery.  Until then, Emma’s decided we can temporarily adopt Kim’s kids.  This should be a good time had by all!

let’s chat

I’m thinking about writing a blog post, but I am completely distracted by the Glee Project and not in a good way.

I’ve come to the realization that I don’t like actor wannabes.  I don’t think I spelled that right, but whatever, you get the point.  I love Glee and I know that they’re going to have to introduce new characters and not everyone is going to be Darren Criss.  I thought if I watched this show that would endear one of them to me so that when they eventually end up on the show I won’t hate them.

It’s not working so far.

Half of them creep me out, most of them make me think of cheap imitations of the original cast.  There’s a Santana, a Rachel, a Mercedes, an Artie and none of them are nearly as good as who they wish they were.  I’ll give it a chance, maybe I’ll end up liking someone.

Tomorrow Emma and I are going to take the train to meet Ray.  We have to leave the house around 6:30-ish.  That should be an adventure.  Emma’s been on the light rail, but not the train so I’m excited to take her though she might just want to sleep since she is my late waking baby.  But she’s super excited to see her Daddy.  We’ll be right next door to the It’s-It Factory.  We’ll be stopping by there of course.  Ray will be in meetings for the day so we’ll have to find some stuff to keep us busy.  I’d like to go into the city, but I am a mess when it comes to taking public transportation.  I’ll let you know if we get lost.

If you’ve never read a Jack Reacher novel go out and get one right now.  You should start with the first one, The Killing Floor, but my favorite is probably the second book Die Trying.  While reading that book I had to set it down so I could exclaim to anyone within hearing distance that I LOVE Jack Reacher.  He is a bad ass good guy.

Let me give you a little background on this guy.

Jack Reacher has spent almost all of his life in the military.  His father was a Marine and he eventually joined the Army.  He’s 6’5” with a 50-inch chest and can break a man’s neck with one hand, kill a man with a single punch.  Blond, blue-eyed.  He mustered out of the Army in the late 90’s and since he’d spent all of his life on some sort of military base, mostly outside of the US he decided he would just drift from town to town and see the country he was a citizen of, but barely knew.

Somehow he always finds trouble.  Part of his problem is that he cannot stand to see injustice.  Can’t stand to see someone weaker being bullied or threatened by someone stronger.  Despite his desire to keep to himself and just meander through the rest of his life his conscience won’t let him walk away.  Sometimes he comes across as cold and uncaring, but he’s definitely the opposite.

All in all, Jack Reacher is one of the best book characters.  I always thought I would love to see Lee Child’s novels turned into a movie just so I could see Reacher in action.

Now I wish it will never come to be.

Why, you ask?  Because the actor they’re considering to play Jack Reacher is Tom Cruise.  I’m not joking.  It sounds like a joke.  Tom Cruise is literally the antithesis of Jack Reacher.  And I don’t like Tom Cruise.  I should like the actor who plays Reacher.  To be honest I cannot think of anyone who could play Reacher.  And apparently, that’s the problem they’ve always had.  Lee Child’s books were optioned years and years ago, but there was never any clue as to who could play Reacher.  I guess they gave up and are trying to hire the guy who was available.

If I don’t sound upset enough it’s because I can’t properly express to you how devastating this news is to me.  When they cast Josh Hutcherson as Peeta I was upset.  And I still am, but really, I could care less.  I don’t think I will be as excited about The Hunger Games movies as I would have been about seeing Reacher on the big screen.  If Tom Cruise is actually cast I won’t see the movie.  Period.  I don’t mind some altering going on.  A movie can’t be a complete copy of the book, but this is the main character!  This is why the books are written!  Why they’re as good as they are!  AND TOM CRUISE IS NOT GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BOO!!!!!

So let’s see…..something good……I got nothing.

Let’s move on.  Actually, let’s not.  This post is way too long as it is.  So there you are.  Several paragraphs of rambling for your amusement, ridicule or for you to ignore completely.

not quite a daddy’s girl

Emma has spent most of her life in my company alone.

For the first year of her life after I returned to work from maternity leave she stayed with my Mom while Ray & I were at work.  It was the greatest thing in the world and I am forever grateful that she got to spend that time with her Ba-chan.  She now has this amazing bond with my Mom that I’m not sure she would have had had she not spent those precious months with her.

Then the company I was working for was bought out by HP.  Since I worked in Payroll there was no reason for them to keep us.  We were offered a retention bonus on top of our severance if we stayed.  I stayed.  I had nothing else lined up.  My job experience is varied, but mostly I’m a frakking fantastic waitress.  I kick ass at waiting tables.  I’m not so much a corporate girl.  With my future job outlook not looking so great Ray and I decided that I would stay home with Emma instead of finding another job.

My last day of work was April 30th & Emma turned one on May 7th that year.  So since she was a year old I’ve been with her nearly every day of her life.  I didn’t leave her overnight anywhere until she was two years old.  Seriously.

For the most part she’s been with me every hour of every day.  When she’s sad she comes to me.  When she’s excited about something she comes to me. If she’s hurt or wants to cuddle she comes to me.  She’s mama’s baby.

In the last year Ray’s had the opportunity to work from home much more.  Recently she’s been much more affectionate with him, but given the choice she would go to me first.  There are lots of things she has in common with Ray.  She loves to hear about how things work and likes to make things or do project with Daddy.  But still, for affection she comes to me.  Ray pretty much never goes out without us except to go to work.  The rare times I’ve left the house without her (Bunco or a concert) there is generally much crying to deal with before I leave.

It’s not fun.

So this week Ray is at a conference for 4 days.  He’s not going far, just down to Burlingame, but because lots of the stuff starts early in the morning he’s staying at the hotel where the conference is taking place.  Emma and I were going to go with him and just meander around SF while he was busy doing his classes, but we thought it would probably be a long week if we did that.  We’ll probably go see him Wednesday and meet up with my sister-in-law for dinner or something, but that’s 3 days without Daddy around.

Emma did not take this news very well.

We were at my aunt & uncle’s house in San Jose for my uncle’s birthday dinner.  It’s about a half hour drive home.  She cried the entire way.

I even tried playing her favorite Glee songs, but she was having none of that.  She just couldn’t believe that we’re not going to see Daddy for the week.  I told her we would see him on Wednesday, but that’s ‘too far away’.  Usually, she takes showers and a bath is a treat so when we got home I thought a bath would be a guaranteed cheer her up sort of thing. She cried the whole time she was in the bath.

She is currently sleeping in my bed on Daddy’s side of the bed.  She truly takes it for granted that Ray is just always here when she wants him to be.  And since he rarely does go out without us when he does leave and she’s aware of it it seems to throw her whole world off balance.

So she may not be a Daddy’s girl like I was/am, but she definitely loves her Daddy.

my little salesgirl

We had our garage sale yesterday.  It went well.  We sold junk.  Mostly Emma’s junk so girl made some cashola.  But the highlight of the day was Emma’s lemonade stand.

She was soooooo excited to set up, but started out somewhat timid.  Ray told her she had to call out, ‘lemonade for sale’ so people noticed her.  Once he gave her the idea, she ran with it and it was DAMN CUTE!  I know she’s my kid and I’m supposed to think she’s cute, but seriously people she was cute.

She spent the night before at my parents’ house and she and my mom made cookies, wrapped them in twos in plastic wrap and she was going to sell those for 50¢.  

Later in the day a guy stopped by to check out our wares and didn’t find anything he was interested in.  He dropped a quarter in Emma’s money box and asked for a lemonade.  She poured him and cup and then also handed him a package of cookies.  She said ‘it comes with cookies too’.  He replied ‘wow!  I feel like I should give you some more money!’ and then he dropped a few more quarters in. 

The kid loves money, don’t get me wrong, but I think she just mainly liked the idea of playing store.

Her first customer of the day.

Showing off her first dollar.

This one came out super blurry, but it was the only one I took of her whole table!  

Doesn’t she look so happy?

So now she’s spending another night at Ba-chan & Ji-chan’s house because she didn’t get in enough crafting time the day before what with all the cookie baking.  She and my mom do crafts together like nobody’s business.  She even has her own sewing machine over there.

Two nights in a row … that’s unheard of around these here parts.  I miss he when she’s just gone for the day.  Ridiculous, I know.  *sigh*

But on a happy note it's Comment Love Day over at FTLOB!  Yay!  Happy CLD everyone!!

surprisingly it looks smaller on film

2o weeks gone by now … we’re halfway there!  When I look down at my stomach I swear it’s 5 times bigger than it looks here.  Maybe because in this picture in comparison to the fridge it is much smaller?

Anyhoo …

We bought the first thing for the baby yesterday!

It’s soft and cuddly and it’s a monkey so it’s automatically adorable.  Emma helped pick it out.  Emma and I are blankie people.  Ray says this baby is not going to have a blankie, but we know that’s just crazy talk.

We registered yesterday at Target.  That was eye opening.  I can’t believe how much more expensive crap is now!  It’s only been 5 years!  It was fun though.  I haven’t really gotten excited, everything feels slightly unreal.  Picking out little towels and seeing all the cute new stuff there is now made everything real!  Coupled with the fact that we’re at the halfway mark brings a bit of relief as well.

So we’ve begun the registering!  We’ll register at Babies R Us & Buy Buy Baby too because you get goodies for registering!  That and you get a 15% completion discount to purchase things off the registry you didn’t get.  We’ll be putting lots of diapers on there.  Plus, you get to walk around the store with a scanner.  That’s always a good time.

lemonade is expensive

On Saturday we’re going to have a garage sale to get rid of a bunch of junk we’ve got lying around.  Emma is completely uninterested in selling her stuff.  But she is excited about her first lemonade stand.

We had a container of lemonade mix leftover from her birthday party so I told her that she could have a lemonade stand while we had the garage sale.  She was disappointed however, to find that we were not building her a lemonade stand, that she was only going to use a table.

Then we found these at Target.

So she’s happy now.  She has a sign, a banner & a money box.  We thought she could sell cups of lemonade for 25¢.

I guess Emma was thinking more along the lines of $5.11 or $25.11.  Either way, I don’t think she’s going to get much business.

s’more please!!

Last night we had, as Emma called it ‘the best family fun night ever!’  Ray bought a fire pit/bowl thingy because I’ve always wanted one.  It was very exciting when he brought it home!  Guess what my main plan is??

Yup.  S’mores.  They’re really the only reason to build a fire, right?

So we built up the fire.

Emma got tired of playing around in the sprinklers so she came and sat down with Ray and they discussed why Doritos are so yummy.

After dinner we started roasting our marshmallows.  Emma and I caught ours on fire.  Then my baby girl got her first taste of s’morey goodness!

She liked it.  How could you not??

Afterwards I played around with my camera, the sunset and bokeh.

Turned out not so bad.

Look at our pretty, but dirty patio lights.  I ♥ them.

I’d have to agree with Emma.  This was the best family fun night ever.

hey i almost forgot!!

If you're feeling like it you should hop on over to Ali from Our Happily Ever After's cooking blog Cook-A-Holics Anonymous.  She just started it a bit ago and she's looking for people to guest post their favorite recipes.  She featured my posole recipe on Monday and even though I just posted it on my blog it was very exciting to do my first guest post!

So if you have any recipes you'd like to post on Ali's blog be sure to get in touch with her via either of her awesome blogs.

farmer girls

Instead of cleaning the house yesterday Emma and I decided to join Autumn & JeNae for some adventures in farmland.

First we headed over to Swank Farms, but unfortunately there’s not much to check out over there unless it’s Halloween.  During Halloween they have these insane corn mazes and all kinds of other activities for kids, but right now there were just a bajillion goats and chickens hanging out.

So we headed over to Casa de Fruta to get some goodies and play around.

After we ate some lunch Emma and Autumn had to do some time in the stockades.  Thanks to Scooby-Doo, Emma knew exactly what these were.

Then we hopped on the train and took a tour of the area.  JeNae & I found the ride to be relaxing and pleasant.  Emma and Autumn thought it was thrilling.

After the train we headed to the second deck of the carousel.

Then it was off to the water wheel and sluice where Emma and Autumn searched for treasure.  In the gift shop you can buy bags of sand that contain crystals & other fun stuff.  The girls found lots of amethyst, quartz, arrowheads and shark teeth.  It was definitely the highlight of the trip.

There’s really only so much sluicing I can watch so I wandered around taking pictures of some interesting stuff.

The place is full of old farming machines that they used back in the day as well as other machines that other farms have donated for display.  This was part of an old fire hose contraption.  I could’ve wandered around and taken pictures of tons of old rusted out machines, but maybe next time!