The many uses of the Deck and etc

You wouldn't think that tomatoes and diapers go together, would you?? Well I have used the deck more this year then I ever have. I have been trying to conserve some energy by drying my diapers out on our deck. I think that I am going to give that up though. Since I can not string a clothesline out there I must lay them flat, they do not dry very fast that way. The one I have laying on Pete's grill is a dream eze fitted that is super heavy, it has 2 hemp soakers I believe. Hemp is heavy. Her bamboo diaper is another stubborn drying one. But I don't think my homeowners association would be too pleased to see a clothesline full of diapers...

In anycase the other pictures, Pete's pride and joy. He has been very carefully and faithfully taking care of his "orange" tree and his tomato plants. Yesterday we both savored his first harvest. It was a very sweet tomato, it tasted so good!! I have started watering them during the day and when Pete comes home he checks my work. Right before dinner he walks out to check his crops, I often wonder if he is talking to them as he spends quite some time with each plant. His "orange" tree is in quotes because we are fairly positive it is actualy not an orange tree, it has thorns and has not fruit. I think it is over 4 years old and really should be producing fruit at this point. So perhaps he got scammed, but it has grown well.

So speaking of scams, I discovered today that I was scammed. You will never guess what I was scammed on, a cloth diaper!!! In February I bought a fuzzi bunz from a Mom that I thought was a true fuzzi bunz. It has a similar tag and appeared to be the real thing. I haven't been able to get the fit right on Celia so I decided that it just wasn't the right diaper for her and I was going to try to sell it. Well I posted it this morning on the Thursday diaper swap on Baby Center. Thank goodness a Mom emailed me to let me know that I might have a fake one. So I researched it and sure thing, it is a fake!! The diaper works but it just isn't a very good quality. I could sell it very cheap, and at some point I might, but how ridiculous. Someone is out there creating knock offs. I will say, you never want to buy work at home mom diapers on ebay either. Many, many, many Moms have been scammed on ebay that way. Some get diapers that are actualy made with shower curtains or vinyl tablecloth material (they don't hold up in the wash of course). It is like the on the street vendors who sell you fake designer purses. So keep your eye out if you see a guy flip is jacket open and instead of watches, it is lined with cloth diapers.... Oh I did email the person who i bought it from and am waiting to hear back.

The School Year

So as much as the coming school is causing my insomnia to become worse, and worse I did find out my assignment today and I am a little excited. I don't want to leave Celia at all and it is going to break my heart. However as everyone knows the economy stinks and it would be irresponsible if I didn't try to go back to work so that we don't keep dipping into our savings. The plan as it stands right now is to return to work for one year and then stay home with Celia and perhaps a future bean. Plans change though as we all know!!

So my assignment is Developmental Kindergarten. It is a diagnostic classroom in which children ages 5 to 7 are placed when they really don't know where they are going to fit. They range in ability but will very likely all be higher functioning then my previous students. My classroom- brace yourselves for those of you who are familiar with issues at my school- will have a bathroom and running water, no portable sinks. At least that is what my Supervisor thought the room was equipped with, and I think she is right as I have been in that wing of the building. Currently there are only 4 kids in the classroom, I can have up to 12, I will likely only have 6. This is an age range that I know I will enjoy and the fact that the classroom might have lower numbers for awhile will likely make the work load less to start.

Celia is also starting daycare of course at the same time so we both will have adjustments to make. If either one of us can not adjust then we will revisit the situation.

Now my always follow the routine husband... He has some adjustments to make too. As I will need him at home to help some mornings. I have faith in him. But getting all of us out of the house by only a few minutes after 7 is going to be hard. Perhaps not that hard if Celia continues to want her wake up time between 4:30 and 5!!

19 years

So I had to add something about tomorrow. 19 years, next will be 20 and to me that is amazing but 19 years ago I am sure that we never imagined that 20 years would fly by without him. I can't say that they easily flew by because even now there are at least 3 people who I believe think of him daily and have those little thoughts. I wonder what it would be like if he were around... Would he make his funny faces and hilarious voices until Katie had a fits of laughter? Would he make Emmett some really cool wooden cars or push toys? Would he sing to Celia? I have to only think that this would be true and he would grin ear to ear at his grandchildren, because he loved kids.
So it has been hard and if we all had to do it over, goodness, it would include you.

Love you always..

Blessings and blogs

So today was a really rough day and I got so frustrated at Celia. She is such a good baby and typically plays very well by herself- I often join her too!! So I thought that when I walked into the kitchen to make lunch and discovered that ants were enjoying our entire kitchen for their lunch that she would allow me some time to deal with that. I blocked off the kitchen, set her up with her favorite toys and went into the kitchen to deal with my new "friends". However Celia had other ideas, she crawled to the chairs blocking the door way, pushed them aside and was on her way into the kitchen. So I picked her up, gave her some different toys and went back to the kitchen. I propped the chairs so she couldn't move them and she crawled over to watch. When she discovered she couldn't actualy enter the kitchen, she was hysterical. There wasn't much that I could do to help her. The kitchen that I do clean very often and that was ant free in the morning was now crawling with them. I had to spray, I couldn't avoid it, and she couldn't enter. So the poor girl screamed, big tears fell, and her nose ran (her nose never runs). It was very pitiful. Her eyes were so red.
In anycase I was very frustrated with her, but of course felt very bad for her!! So some other highlights of my bad day were finding out that the paint color for my room wasn't exactly what I had in mind. I painted part of the room and don't know what to do now. Oh and a position I was looking at- 3 1/2 days a week at Great Valley School District is officialy not an option as the personnel person made it very clear that they do not hire teachers with "just a special education degree".
That all said I sat down after painting my room to have some down time and read some blogs, a favorite past time of mine. My favorites are Confessions of a CF Husband and The Meanist Mom, both of which I have had links to on my blog for awhile. Well on the CF Husband one today it was asking that if anyone had mentioned their journey in their blog, to leave the link in the comments on their blog. So I thought, I have had a link but I have never mentioned it. I titled this post blessings because I thought about all the petty annoyances of the day and honestly they don't compare to what they have been through so I will give a little synopsis.

CF is for Cystic Fibrosis and the CF Husband's Wife has CF (okay so most people could figure that out). In anycase she was about to go through physical therapy to prepare her for a lung transplant when they found out that she (Tricia) was pregnant. Despite encouragement to end the pregnancy, they decided they couldn't do that. So Tricia went through with her pregnancy at 24 weeks her little baby had to be delivered to save both of their lives. Gwyneth is now 6 months old and I believe weighs just over 7 lbs, maybe more. She is a fighter and so cute. Her Mom is doing well, she had a lung transplant shortly after Gwyneth was born. Unfortunately she missed alot of time with Gwyneth which is very unfair. In anycase Tricia does have a form of cancer that is a complication from the lung transplant. She is expected to fully recover from it but has to undergo treatments. They are both home and live in the OBX. In anycase, please check out the website as it really is a neat blog. The pictures are so wonderful and their journey is amazing.

As for the Meanist Mom, well she makes me laugh almost everyday. You have got to check out her favorite posts, they are hilarious.

Okay enough for now

Celia's Birthday Bash

I will try to add to this as Celia shares items with me.

Baby Legs- She wants some neutral colors and some funky ones. Some places to find them- mom4life.com (free shipping), target.com, and amazon.com all have them. Knock offs are very welcome.

Bath toys- she currently is playing with 5 rubber duckies, as I think Pete believes that you only play with rubber duckies in the tub

Knob Puzzles- the big kind

Blocks/ Mega Blocs

Shape Sorter

Musical Instruments- reccommended by a friend, but Celia loves Maracas. The Parents Bee Bop Band Set was suggested but it is pricey so again, knock offs welcome!!

Cars that she can push, but big enough not to be put in her mouth. She loves pushing some of her friend's cars at the breastfeeding group I go to.

Bumkins Superbib- you can get them at a variety of places, nickisdiapers.com does have them.

Books- she likes the touch and feel books right now and the David Shannon Books (we have Oops, Good Boy Fergus, and Alice the Fairy). She does not want the plush "David" doll as it is creepy looking- her words, not mine.

Okay I will add as she tells me. She did tell me that we are being overrun by stuffties and so she requests that the stuffed animal population be kept to a minimum, otherwise, well we may have to do something to control the breeding..

Celia also reminds everyone that we are a non materialistic family for the most part with a small house and so small gifts are welcome, hand made gifts are awesome, and eco friendly gifts (good quality reused gifts) are also wonderful. Celia is already a bargain baby hunter (again her words, not mine)

Wii fit- Carrie Rocks

Pete celebrated his birthday last week and he received some Best Buy Gift Certificates. We intended these Gift Cards for the purchase of Wii fit. However Pete wanted Guitar Hero. I was unable to find Wii fit anywhere and that is why he received Gift Cards. I was bummed when he announced an hour after receiving the Cards that he was off to Best Buy to buy Guitar hero. Luck was on my side- a shipment of Wii fits had just come into Best Buy!! So Pete was able to buy Guitar Hero and Wii fit. I never thought that I would enjoy Wii fit that much. I like the Wii but my attention span for it is short so I usualy get tired of it fairly quickly.

So we set up Wii fit and Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero makes me yawn but Pete likes it and is evidently getting very good at it. He beat the devil, don't know what that means, but he was excited about it. Well, I am awesome at some parts of Wii fit. I can hula hoop like crazy- 778 spins currently!! Pete just recently was able to compete with me in the sport slightly. Actualy, I am thinking about getting myself a real hula hoop as I actualy feel my abs getting stronger from the game. But I suppose it would look a little odd for a 31 year old to be hula hooping. I could do it in the front lawn and totally embarass Pete, hmm... Pete loves to watch me try the soccer game. The goal is to move your body in the direction of soccer balls being thrown at you so that you can hit them with your head. However they also throw shoes and panda heads at you, which you don't want to hit. I am very good at hitting the shoes and panda heads and Pete finds this hilarious. He is sick. My poor Me (character on Wii) has an awful headache, possibly a concussion after playing this game. He should not find that funny...

I am actualy very proud of Pete this weekend. I admit I have neglected cleaning for the past week or so due to various reasons (I picked up and took care of things but didn't do the all out cleaning that I usualy do). So I warned Pete that on Saturday i needed alot of help. He didn't argue and he cleaned 3 bathrooms, swept and mopped the kitchen, and helped with laundry. It was so much help. Don't worry, I wasn't sitting back while he did it! I vacummed, cleaned kitchen, etc. On Sunday I was able to paint our powder room in probably less then 90 min. of work.

Celia is very much into imitating us lately- both with her actions and verbally. She is now saying "uh oh". It is so cute. She has been making is a bit sleep deprived until the past few nights. We think she is finally getting back on track. We were getting her everytime she made a peep while Katie was here. She really liked that idea. Well last night she slept from 7:30 to 6, perfect!! Evidently she was still sleepy because at 10 of 8, she started to drain!

Okay I will post something more exciting later in the week.

Katie

I haven't been able to blong in a bit because of our special visitor. This is the third summer that we have had a visit from my niece Katie. It was a bit different this year because she had to share attention with her cousin Celia. I don't think she has enjoyed sharing the attention. She is used to Pete and I playing with her constantly and taking her various places. Katie and I have had some alone time together and Pete has stayed home with Celia. Unfortunately for Pete he had some time off from work and I think he expected that it would be a "vacation", not time spent lifeguarding at an active 10 month old!! I do feel bad for him (okay just only a little) because I know that he does work very hard and days off don't happen that often. But he survived and he even managed to get in at least 2 naps daily (so did Celia).
Pete was not used to Katie. My niece is very sweet however she is slightly high maintenance (some would disagree with the slightly). Honestly I think this makes for a more interesting kid and I think her spunk has gotten her through alot of things. Pete was a bit disturbed by the fact that I acted similar to Katie as a child. My Mom brought Katie here on Monday and for some reason, once Mom left on Wednesday Katie was a much better behaved child. I think that Mom and Katie had just spent too much time together. I also think that Katie wanted the time "all by herself".
We took Katie to the crayola factory on Wednesday and that was not a big hit- with any of us!! If you don't want to sit and do craft, after craft, after craft- I don't reccommend it!! There are some great freebies there though. Admission to the factory gets you into the Canal museum which was a big hit with us all (okay Celia wasn't that impressed). Katie was able to float a boat across an entire room and open and close aquaducts. Normally, Katie struggles some with following directions. But she paid attention to the museum worker's instructions and knew exactly what to do. I was very impressed.
Katie and I went to Moonbounce on Thursday and that is a great place. It is this warehouse with about 5 air filled moon bounce slides and obstacle courses. You pay a fee just for kids ages 2 and older, there are no fees for adults. Basically the kids run around, get tired and have a blast. I love that place.. When we came home Katie ate lunch and said she wanted to go to her room for a nap. She took an hour nap.
So some of the funny things this weekend.
Katie saying "This blows" when she literally meant that she could blow into a toy. Katie putting her shoes on backwards, arguing with Pete that they are fine, then fixing them when I made one comment.
This morning Katie got really ticked at me. She came down the stairs, frowning. I was told that I was supposed to invite her out of her room in the morning. I did not know that. I didn't even hear her. So she spent a few minutes sulking. Next time I guess I will slip an invitation under her door.
Oh and one conversation. Katie insisted that "Mom Mom" has lots of sleep overs at her house. I don't know where this came from but I was told that she has lots of sleep overs with boys, and sometimes girls. Hmmm, something you want to tell us Mom. Okay so she also told me that Emmett does too.

We saw Wall-E yesterday with our neighbors. Katie has become very good friends with our neighbor's 6 year old daughter. I think that Katie is border line obsessed with the child though. It is probably typical 5 year old behavior behavior but each day I heard. Are we going to see Harper?? (Name changed and I am not kidding but this is the name that Katie called the little girl, even though her name is not even close to Harper or Campbell, the other name Katie chose). Are we? Are we? If I said yes. It was when? Can we go now? Is it time yet? I am going now. Can't we go now? Why not? Now? Now? Now? Now?
This week was made worse by Celia's sudden refusal to sleep through the night as she has been for nearly 2 months and my return of insomnia. Last night- 4hrs of sleep. Katie is an amazing sleeper at least!!