I just love this pic, it’s in my new gallery (under photography) along with some others that I haven’t shown here in my blog, and I keep looking at him but put off showing him for some reason!

Here’s a fun little tidbit, when Mark was in Iraq, I had changed my IM “chime” to a roosters crow. Every time he logged on then, there was a resounding “cock-a-doodle-doo!!!” throughout the house as I also left the speakers on full blast. Nothing was more reassuring and exciting to me than hearing that (damn) rooster crow!

Nowadays, however, not so much! If I hear a rooster crow on TV, at the zoo, wherever, I about choke on my heart for some reason. What once used to calm me is now something that I find somewhat startling and maybe even a little terrifying!

I really am that nuts. (Ask around, I’m sure any number of people can confirm that.)

So, dear friends, some of whom used to get an earful (on the phone) of crowing on occasion, how do you feel when you hear a cock doodly-doing?

This face. When this face looks at you and proclaims “I’m growing! RIGHT NOW!” How can you not believe it?

She’s so cute! She’s sqwishalicious, even! And she means it. Just look at her. She knows she’s growing, and she’s absolutely thrilled about it!

Seriously. While we were out of town a couple of weekends ago, Chickeymonkey proclaimed “Mommy I am growing right now!” And that picture (although taken at the evening parade & fireworks show at Disneyworld), was the look on her face when she matter-of-factly stated her spurt was occuring at that very moment, in the middle of dinner.

Hey! I’m having a busy weekend, how about you??

I took my daughter out school-clothes-shopping yesterday and wow. It was fun!! She’s 9 now, dontchyaknow, and I can’t just pick something that I think will be cute and say “here, try this on!” Those days are over.

First we went to Gordman’s, where we figured out they really don’t care if 8-10 year olds wear clothes or not. They have about 10 racks of clothing versus the 500+ in every other department. So we trifled through their sparse assortment of “the same shirts with slightly different patterns in 4 different colors”. She loved them.

Me: “Honey look at this one! It’s (different!) PRETTY!”
C: Sqwishes up her nose and quickly shakes her head.
C: Picks (another) pink shirt and says “oooh Mom! I like this one!”
Me: “Oh that’s (the same thing I have in my hand, only this one is blue!) NICE, honey!”

And so it went, blue, then pink, then blue, then pink, and I got her to pick one white shirt (because it had blue stitching on the front). Pants? Dear Lord someone please stop making flare pants. PLEASE. I beg of you. My child hates them, she claims other children hate them, and there is not one. single. straight leg. to. be. found. UGGG. Send a parent on a wild goose chase much?

I finally got her settled into “boot cut”.

Me: “They’re not going to cover up your whole foot honey, I promise you won’t look like you’re floating when you walk!”
C: “MooOOoOOmmm, I don’t LIKE those!”
Me: “Could you just try them on and see if I’m right? I bet I’m right. I’m allllways right!”
C: “Ugggaahhhhh (or whatever that noise was)”
Me: “I promise I won’t make you wear them out of the store. If you hate them, we won’t get them.”
C: “Okay, fine.”

She didn’t mind the legs. She was okay with the legs. But JEEZ, they want a 9 year old to wear hipsters and show their buttcracks, too! WTH is wrong with these designers! She hated them. She kept trying to pull them up to her waist, jumping and twisting and distorting her little body in frustration. We gave up.

She ended up with several very pretty skirts, though!

All in all, between Gordman’s, Kohl’s and Target, we scored her a nice little wardrobe for just half-a-fortune, and I was pleased. 10 shirts, (5 short sleeve, 5 long sleeve) one sweater, 4 skirts, and 6 pair of trou, 1 from last year and we did manage to find some capri’s, slacks (NOT jeans, iew!) and leggings that met my 9-year-old’s criteria.

(And I found a pretty shirt, a pair of capri’s for $11 and a nice pair of jeans for $15! My clothes were cheaper than hers! Neener-neener!)

We shopped for 6 hours, came home and went grocery shopping, came home and I had an allergy attack (to eye shadow no less!), took a benedryl and passed out cold.

Mark and I had a backbreaking weekend working in the girls room, but I think it was worth it!

Here are the before shots – messy as they are, I had started emptying their room and then remembered to take the before shots. Woops!

And here’s what we did:

When Mark left for Iraq, I kept pretty busy. Not only did I paint a whole bunch of paintings, I painted almost every room in our house! I redecorated, ripped out walls, rebuilt things and replaced things (major things)!

We bought this house about 9 years and 5 months ago. I was pregnant with Caitlin so all I could do when we moved in was pick the colors. Everyone else painted my house! I remember how I chose the color scheme for her room, it was based on the box of a pair of shoes I bought at Payless. Lavender, purple and green. Mark thought I was nuts of course, but I went along and marked what should be painted which color and left for fresher air. He trusted me (like a good man should!) and loved how her room turned out.

For 9 years and 5 months, it’s the only room in the house that never changed. Personally, I think it has a lot to do with not wanting to let the girls grow up, especially now that both the girls are in the same room.

This week though, things have changed. Our baby girl turned 9. Then our littlest one decided that she was finally ready to grow up a little more too, fully potty training herself. New white mates beds were delivered (for free! I like free!), bunk beds came down, and now they are getting a young girls room. Sigh. They picked the color. Okay, sortof. They sortof picked the color. Okay I PICKED THE COLOR. You got me. I just let them think they picked the color. So, ssssh. It’s our little secret.

Today we’ll finish painting, and we’ll build beds, and we’ll decorate, and it will be pretty by bedtime tonight, even if bedtime ends up being midnight. Again.

It’s a great color, and they do love it. I’m not going to go spoiling the before and after pics, so I’ll show you this, which is precious anyway, because she will not take no for an answer to “Mommy can I have the brush please?” and “Mommy can you put more paint on my brush?”

We’re back!

We spent the weekend at Wasserbahn, which is basically a Holiday Inn with an indoor waterpark, restaurants and bar. It was FUN! It truly felt like we were on an expensive’ish vacation for a couple of days. We are waterlogged after spending about 20+ hours or something over the whole weekend submerged in pools, fountains, waterslides, a hot tub and our own sweat!

200+ photos later, these are my weekend pics that I want to share:

Birthday Girl with her face in a fountain

My baby turned 9 today! Yes, nine. NINE. Jeez, she’s almost in the double digits. She chose a very fun thing to do for her birthday weekend so we’ve been celebrating since yesterday morning and won’t be through until tomorrow! I’ll tell you all about it, for now I just wanted to share her sparkly candle moment. Make a wish!

(I am hoping this pic turned out okay, I can’t really tell on hubby’s laptop!)

“..In recognition and appreciation of their role in supporting “their” individual citizen-soldier and the efforts of the Army National Guard as a whole.”

‘Tis a fancy little pin, eh? I have a medal, too, which oh my goodness, has to be bigger than an olympic medal. I’m not sure but wow. It’s big. Now we’ll be needing a display case for the honors, ribbons, certificates, plaques, medals etc. that we’ve received since he went back on active duty.

It was really hot yesterday, especially in the Armory where everyone was gathered. Here’s a small sampling of the “Where’s Waldo” game we get to play. This is just one platoon out of 4, the place was just crawling with cammies.

The pinning ceremony was scheduled so much earlier than the rest of the events that we just couldn’t hang out for everything. It was hot, the three of us being sick and all, it had spanned across the noon hour and we were all hungry and needed our medicines. Pitiful bunch aren’t we? At one point Mark but his hand on my head and I was dripping sweat but cold and clammy. Yeah, time for us to go.

I have a few more pics to share if you’d like to see them…

Tussinex is wicked stuff, I say. I dozed on and off all afternoon yesterday, slept hard as a rock lastnight, and am feeling a leeeetle bit hungover right now. (In person I’m slurring my words, walking into walls, and tripping over invisible objects on the floor.) Huh? Wha?

Somebody come help me stay upright today, I have to stand in formation or something and get pinned. That actually sounds a little fun, doesn’t it? (Getting pinned) It probably would be if I didn’t feel like crud. As much as I was dreading today all week, right now I’m wishing I weren’t so sick so I could feel as honored as I am for getting any kind of recognition for hanging out to take care of the homefront while Hubby was off being G.I. Joe in a Where’s Waldo sortof sea of desert cammies.

Pardon my run on sentence this morning, I know it’s there, I really do, I just can’t think of how to fix it at the moment. 😛

So while I’m off with my magnifying glass today trying to locate the guy I married (literally, it’s like playing Where’s Waldo! I kid you not. Those of you who know, know.), please enjoy yourself with this hilarious giraffe. I’ve been saving him for a special occasion!

Caption this Giraffe!
(As many times as you want, just for fun!)

For those of you waiting on my next work in progress shot on Lucy and/or the Daisy, please hold tight! As soon as this crud drains from my head I’ll be back in the studio!