The Weekend

Friday, I went to the February Party of the Month (POM) that I have with my girls from high school. We chatted, ate chocolate, and played Scene It Music. It was funny because I was telling them about my high school boyfriend finding me on Facebook and then all these things in the game kept coming up that reminded me/us of him. It's been crazy the last few weeks with running into old friends. Another of the high school girls who lives in California got a call from the French exchange student who had lived with her family our senior year, so she gave him her email address and forwarded his message to us, and I emailed him directly. I asked my old boyfriend if he remembered the exchange student, and he said, "Of course, he was our Fez." (That 70's Show) Cracked me up!

Saturday I went to Walgreens to pick up my prenatal vitamin prescription. It's for a multivitamin and a DHA supplement, so (usually) it's cheaper to do the co-pay than to buy it off the shelf. Last month the pharmacy was out of the generic brand they usually fill it with and the insurance tried to charge extra for it being name-brand. It was still a generic, though, and after about a week of arguing with them, Walgreens was able to get them to just charge the $15. Saturday, had the same problem. Only this time, I had our toddler with me. We were there for 45 minutes. She was diaperless as the potty training is consisting mostly of not wearing one at this point, even out in public for short trips. After about half an hour, I thought I'd better take her to the bathroom just to be on the safe side. She went and did just fine! She was so well-behaved that entire time, and most of it was spent sitting in the cart or being held by me. I was very proud of her. Unfortunately, no progress was made with the insurance company. As I had had to wait til payday to pick it up, I'd already missed taking the pills one day, so I didn't want to wait to take it home until it was resolved like last month, and just paid the extra money. Not holding my breath on the reimbursement.

Sunday was a bit frustrating. Our poor toddler was just trying to help, but she had the Midas touch. She was having a clumsy day like her Mama (I had hoped it would skip a generation), and had already spilled her drink and her cereal while eating breakfast, and coffee grounds as she'd tried to help me make coffee. She wanted to help me make peanut butter cookies for a co-worker's bday. I agreed, but because of the coffee incident, told her I would have to measure everything and she could just help me pour. I was excited to use my new KitchenAid for the first time. She wanted to turn it on, and since I had run it on Stir and settings 2 and 3, I assumed that's what she would do. Nope, from 0-10 in about half a second. The bowl flew off, and sugar, butter and peanut butter splattered on the floor. ARGH. I was exhausted and frustrated, and managed not to lose my temper but did tell her I needed her to go to the living room with Daddy. After I cleaned everything up (which required sweeping, mopping, wiping down the counter and cupboards and washing my feet), I started to run the mixer again and she wanted to come back to the kitchen. I told her she could just watch, and finally got done making the cookies.

My DH went to see the Travel Channel tape an episode of "Food Wars" that pitted Arthur Bryant's against Gates BBQ. While he was gone that afternoon after her nap while her baby sister still slept, I took her outside to play for a bit. The weather was a bit warmer (43 degrees!), so we got out her t-ball set. I hit a line drive that nailed her in the leg which thankfully didn't hurt, and she laughed it off, so I went ahead and laughed, too. A little while later she was trying to pick up the ball and it rolled between her legs, and as she reached back with both hands, she fell forward on her head. This time I was cracking up, and luckily she was fine. I try not to laugh at her when she gets injured, but sometimes it's just funny. And it helps her to learn to laugh at herself.

Sunday night was the closing ceremonies for the Olympics. I didn't really watch much this year. The US set a record for most medals with 37, but Canada came out on top with the most golds, 14. My BIL had texted me Friday while he was watching curling and said, "Go Canada! Oh, fer sure." :) I missed the closing ceremonies, but saw that my cousin in Manitoba had posted on Facebook "keep the good times rollin! sick closing cermonies and thinks the moose hats are epic". That was shortly followed by a post from a friend here in Kansas: "Holy shee-ite. What kind of Canadian pop music crap was that?" I had to laugh at the disparity.

Last week I fell for trying to get a free $500 gift card to Target on Facebook (DUMB!), and signed up for Netflix for free for two weeks before I finally gave up on the gift card. So the first two movies arrived yesterday. DH and I watched "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" last night. It had it's funny moments, but overall was terrible. We spent most of the time playing Words with Friends on our iTouches, so it was still fun. We are totally addicted to that game. It's Scrabble, but electronic and you can play it whenever you get a free minute. My friend in Cali from high school got me started, and now I think I have about 10 games going at the same time.

Birthday Party and Painting New Rooms

I didn't have the energy to post more on S's actual birthday, but she had a good day. That morning I told her I'd take her to get a donut for breakfast to celebrate. She was so excited about it that when I asked her what she wanted for dinner, she said donut, and then later if she wanted ice cream instead of cake since we were having cake Saturday, she said donut again. So cute.

That evening we went to watch DH play softball for a little bit. She enjoys going and the weather was beautiful. We only go to his early games and just stay for the first two innings so she can get to bed on time, but he hadn't had an early one for awhile. We got to see him get a base hit before we left, and when he got home he told me he had driven in the game-winning RBI! Way to go, baby!

Friday morning I went out to the car to discover a flat tire. Boo. Luckily, my father-in-law was able to put the spare on for me. We thought we could patch it, but I knew I needed to get new tires and that happened to be one of the old ones, so we decided I should just replace it. Nothing like big, unexpected expenses when you've just bought a house...

Friday night I baked cupcakes for the party - I had seen this cute idea online somewhere to do a balloon bouquet (see below), so I decided to just do a balloon theme in general this year, only with colors that were a little more girly. Since we were homeless I wanted to keep it simple, and S likes Sesame Street and Curious George, but I think she will still like them next year. So I went to my parents' house and whipped up some Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. I had made the frosting on Wednesday night, and had accidentally put tablespoons of vanilla in instead of teaspoons, so I'd already had to redo one part of them, so I was extra careful when mixing the cupcakes themselves. Unfortunately, I didn't look at the clock when I put them in the oven, just set the timer, and it never beeped when it got done. So the cupcakes were overdone. I didn't have the materials or time to remake them. I was so frustrated and tired, I just went to bed. But Saturday morning, I was in a much better go-with-the-flow mood and just bought some cupcakes at the grocery store. They didn't quite look like balloons since the frosting was white with sprinkles, but it was ok. The party was fun - just family at a park, and the weather was really nice, although a bit windy.

After the party we invited everyone over to see our new house! We got possession at 5pm Friday, so we were able to show it to them which was nice since my sister and brother-in-law and DH's sister were all in town.

That night S and I spent the night at my parents' house since my in-laws were having a Jimmy Buffet party. I thought it would be a good introduction to sleepovers at Grandma and Papa's since I was there, and we're going to start having her stay overnight once every couple of weeks so she gets used to the idea for when I'm in the hospital having baby R. It was awful. It took 3 hours for me to get her to sleep and she had one of the worst tantrums she's ever had. Plus my sister and half-sister were there and could hear everything, and Mom and Dad were trying to help but it just made it worse. I was so stressed out and exhausted and frustrated, and I know S could tell. It was 11pm before she fell asleep. And of course she was up at 6am. We were both wiped out Sunday.

Sunday morning, we went to the pool with my sister and then to buy paint - my half-sister and my mom offered to paint the girls' rooms in the new house! So sweet! Then it was back to the in-laws to celebrate DH's sister's birthday while she was here. DH, S, and DH's sister and I all went to the T-Bones game that evening - S's first game! She was really good (especially considering she only napped for an hour that afternoon after having hardly gotten any sleep the night before), and we left in the 6th inning so I could hopefully get her to bed more easily. It was MUCH better, but it was still 9pm before she went to sleep. At least there was no tantrum involved. I've got to get this kid sleeping before baby R gets here. Hopefully once we get moved and settled, that will resolve most of the issues. After that I went to the house to wipe down the walls in S's room and the nursery so they would be ready for Mom and my half-sister to paint. So by the time I got that done, got home, took a shower and got to bed, it was midnight. Whew!

So last night I had planned to just relax and hang out with DH's sister before she left town today. I went by the house after work to take dinner to Mom and my half-sister, and DH since he was waiting for the cable guy. Sam had a terrible tantrum when we left. She got to bed around 9pm again, but miraculously slept until 8:30am!! I was so excited! I let her sleep in and was a little late to work today, but it was worth it. I hope she can keep her time table and I can just shift her schedule back a bit.

Snow and a Battle of Wills

The big news from this weekend is we had a big snowstorm Friday night into Saturday morning. I was disappointed that none of S's snow gear fits anymore; while we often get snow into March, it just didn't seem to make sense to buy more for her for this season. She and DH did play in it for a bit, but it was too cold to make a snowman or go sledding.

This morning we had our first big battle of wills. S accidentally knocked the Cheerios over on the floor so I asked her to pick them up. She got about half of them before deciding she didn't want to do it anymore. An hour and a half and 2 time outs later, she finally finished picking them up. I have a feeling we'll have more of those experiences instead of fewer as time goes on...

KU kicked Mizzou's bootie today! It was very exciting, a from the start which we didn't expect. Samantha watched a lot of fist-pumping "YES!" moments and started imitating us. Good thing it wasn't a losing game. :)

Work was frustrating the last few days. I was there late Friday and had to go in Saturday for a few hours. And I've had a cold again since Wednesday but since I'm out of sick days, I've just been trying to suck it up. Unfortunately, as the days go by, I feel worse instead of better. Just trying to hang in there a few more days as I'm sure it will run its course. On the upside, I was able to get out of work in time to get some scrapbooking in with girls from work which was fun.

I can't believe it's March and S is 19 months old! She's learning more every day. She's gotten very good at putting on her socks and can often get her shoes and pants on by herself (if she's willing to wear clothes, that is!). She is feeding herself with a spoon so well she eats yogurt on her own now, too, although it's still messy. She stacks her shape-sorter blocks 8 high, and loves to "read" her books. She started trying to put a diaper on her baby doll. So cute!

Sing a Song

S has started singing. DH made up a song we sing when we change her diaper, and this week she's started saying "Na na na" to the tune of the first three notes when we start to change her diaper. So cute! She's always loved music and dances around whenever it's on, but could only point to the iHome to get across the message she wanted to listen to some. Lately she's started clucking and wiggling to tell me, hey, turn on some tunes!

Yesterday I had to go to the photo studio to help out with some shots by being a hand model, and DH accidentally left his keys at home, so he and S had to come downtown to get my set. The photographer had gotten an autographed photo of Mario Chalmers' shot that tied the championship game and sent it into overtime, so I was glad DH was able to see it.