The Making of a Christmas Card...

When I was pregnant, I dreamed of every detail of motherhood and how I was going to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect.  I planned everything in her nursery, right down to making sure the diapers were lined up in a perfect stack and the crib skirt put on just right.  It was insanity.  But I thought that if I planned enough and paid close attention to all of those details, that the motherhood part would be a breeze!  Boy, now I know why so many moms just laughed at me when I was fretting over the perfect clothes hanger and burp cloths.

My friend is pregnant with her first and we were talking (or texting, the new talking) about the bedding that she wanted getting bad reviews.  I remember scouring the internet for hours upon hours looking for the most perfect set.  She is in that place.  My advice to her:  just get something with nice sheets and a cute bedskirt--'cause that's all you'll really use.  Do I think she'll take my advice?  No.  I was there.  I know.  You think, it'll be different with my baby.  I'm going to do things perfectly.  I'm going to wrap my baby in this adorable comforter that came with this matching set.  No you won't.

Just like with the clothes.  Oh the clothes.  Kinley had more clothes than any baby should.  We didn't even get to wear them all, and she stayed in sizes for quite some time.  I bought all of these fancy little outfits that were unbelievably cute--in the store--but then 9 times out of 10, I put her in what was comfy.

Those dreams of playing dress-up with my little girl were just that, dreams.  I mean, that is what rocks about having a baby girl!  The dress-up!  And then, you find out that the changing of the outfits and the newborn or infant that hates getting her clothes changed, makes dress-up so not fun.

Time is ticking away and I have yet to get a good picture for our Christmas card this year.  Not for lack of trying, though!  Richie refuses to help me with taking pictures of Kinley, he gets way too frustrated, way too easily.  So I'm on my own here.  I "played" dress up with her, got her all pretty in her Christmas dress and grabbed my camera.  My hopes for the "perfect" Christmas card....ended up like this:

She just got mad.  And she was *not* going to cooperate.  End of story.  She is the boss.

Moral of this story:  don't plan for perfection (when it comes to babies) because what you will really get is life.  But sometimes, that life that you get, it pretty close to perfection.  Just not the perfection that you dreamed of.  It's a whole lot better.

And if Christmas cards just don't happen this year, then they don't happen.  Life will go on.

She makes me age a year every day!

Yesterday, she got into a bowl of chocolate.

Today, she scales the coffee table.

Ugh.  I seriously can't even walk out of the room for 2 minutes!  Yesterday I left the living room to throw away some junk mail and I come back to seeing her with my bowl of chocolate (I am a severe chocoholic and buy chocolate chunks-like chocolate chips, but chunks-by the bagful and keep them in a bowl) in her lap and fistfuls of the melty goodness in each hand and chocolate drool everywhere.  Ugh.  I panicked.  I think that the whole dog-eat-chocolate-must-die theory popped into my head or something....cause I was in a hard panic.  I then realized, ummmm, it's really gonna be okay.  She's a kid, not a dog.  And Lucy eats M&Ms and is fine.  I should have enjoyed the moment for what it was and snapped a picture.  But I didn't.

Today, I was folding Richie's work clothes and when I was finished, I got up and went to grab towels from the dryer and put the sheets in the dryer.  Typical.  Well, I come back into the living room and find this...

Notice that the laundry basket that held the work clothes was used as her step up (over on the left).  This child is going to be the death of me!

Earlier today, she decided that the toy box was not for toys, but instead, for her.

You'll have to forgive her grunginess (is that a word?).  She has a cold and is snotting faster than she'll allow me to wipe.  And the hair is growing out of control!  I love it.  I love my little grunge-baby. 

The opposite of cha-ching is....

Seriously, is it really *that* difficult?  I consider myself a pretty smart girl.  I mean, I have my moments, but who doesn't.  Why can't I figure this out?

Maybe it's because it's one of those things that takes two to tango.  I'm on one page, he's on another.  But we're not working against each other....we both have the same goal in mind...so why can't it just work?

I'm talking budgeting. 

I really even hesitate to blog about this topic because it's almost embarrassing to admit that we both absolutely don't get it.  Well, we "get it" but we're not implementing very well.

There are so many "tools" out there and I use the term "tools" extremely loosely.  Most are just glorified calculators that cause more confusion.  There are countless financial geniuses out there that offer suggestions but for some reason we can't make any of them work for us.

Most recently, I attempted the Gail Vaz-Oxlade program from the show "Till Debt Do Us Part" and it seemed super easy and do-able with our lifestyle....and yet, no.  I made our little "cash jars" like she recommends and they have become receipt holders.  I think I spent more time decorating the little labels than I did making the actual plan work.  Yeah, I'm pathetic.

The simple plan of just "don't spend" isn't even an option. 

Richie's answer is that we travel too much and that cost of traveling is what throws our budget out of whack each time.  He's probably right.  Didn't I already say that after the first of the year our traveling will be at a minimum?  I think that our answer is that we need more self discipline, and when we become totally serious and ready to save more aggressively, we'll find that discipline. 

How do you budget for your family?  What have you found that works or doesn't work?

Birthdays, Appointments and School...in that order.

I feel like it's been so long since I've last blogged.  I'm not sure I even remember how to do it!  Okay, that's a lie.  I'm good at rambling on and on and on.... it's like riding a bike.  Why do they say that?  Have you tried riding a  bike after a several year hiatus?  It's kinda scary.  No joke.  I tried it not too long ago, at Walmart.  Nevermind.

Where have I been?  Celebrating a very special birthday with a very special girl.  Then getting snowed in.  Then a pediatrician visit.  It's been busy 'round here.

The party was nice.  Very small, but nice.  Kinley was completely oblivious to the party.  She only cared about the fact that she had a very large room to push her dinosaur around.  The cake, she really didn't care about.  She squished it between her fingers until it didn't even resemble a cake anymore and then sucked a little off of her hand and shoved the rest into her ear while she "talked" on her "phone."  I know that the whole cake smash is what the first birthday is all about...but it was just too gross to me.  The thought of my baby ingesting that much sugar was too much.  And the clean up was even worse.  I mean, the cake was *compacted* into the child's ear canal.  I was slightly concerned with how I was going to safely get it out.  But it's done and we all survived.  She got some really cool presents and our living room looks even more like Toys R Us and less like our home. 

At her pediatrician visit, she was listed as the 13th percentile for height and the 25th % for weight.  She's still a tiny thing.  I guess I expected that somewhat.  When we are out and about and people ask how old she is, they are surprised when we say her age. Everyone always says that she's so tiny, so I guess I expected it.  I am just surprised that she's so short. 

The pediatrician estimates that she'll be about 5'4-5'5 like mommy and thinks that she will be the late bloomer in her class.  I'm so perfectly fine with that!  I don't need to deal with boobies in the second grade.  Richie was happy with this answer as well.

At her one year appointment

She's is on target with all of her development but is ahead of the game on her behavioral development.  The doctor saw first hand how she likes to test her limits and so instead of working on the parent "homework" for 12 months, we are on the 15 months "homework."  At 12 months, parents should be using the word "no" and teaching the child that it means something.  Well, Kinley understands the whole "no" aspect but likes to take it a step beyond that and test us to see if there are consequences.  So now we're on the 1-2-3 stage.  Dr. Natalie witnessed my struggle with Kinley pulling my hair and thinking it's hilarious.  I would tell her no and she'd laugh at me (which is my fault because I think that everything she does -good or bad- is freaking adorable, and I laugh at her when I should be serious) so Dr. Natalie said "NO! We don't pull mommy's hair because that is ouchie to mommy!" and Kinley was shocked.  She looked at the Dr. with huge eyes and was just floored that someone other than mommy or daddy would tell her no.  But she didn't cry, as I expected her to.

A few seconds later, she yanked my hair again.  Dr. Natalie again said "NO! We don't pull mommy's hair because that is ouchie to mommy!" and I pulled her hands off of my hair.  A few seconds later, Kinley looked over at the Dr. out of the corner of her eye and grabbed my hair again....  she tests everyone!  So Dr. Natalie took her from me and gave her to Richie and told her that since she wouldn't stop pulling mommy's hair, that she had to sit with daddy for a while.  Kinley was just like "whatever lady."  Haha  But I couldn't hold it in and I started laughing uncontrollably.  To me, it was hilarious because Kinley's little face was so serious.  The Dr. said "mom, you are not helping the situation."  But honestly, I couldn't hold my laugh in any longer.  Ugh.  This is going to be some serious homework for me...and I thought Shakespeare was challenging.

We've had a few rough nights lately where Kinley is getting up crying a few times a night.  Dr. Natalie thinks we're super close to getting a tooth and says that its most likely the cause of the night wakings.  She has encouraged me to drop those day time nursings and keep them only for naps and bedtime.  It's going to be so hard, but I know that I have to do it for school anyway.  So I'm going to try and cut one or two out during the day. 

Other than that, she is doing perfectly.  I'm so super proud of her.  I've noticed such subtle differences in her since her birthday.  It's almost like she knows that she is one now and that she needs to act like a toddler, because it's like she's just more independent all of a sudden.  She is getting around so much easier, doing so much more than she seemed to a week ago....  she grew up and I feel like I didn't even notice.  :(

Today I have to get busy on her Thank You cards and our Christmas cards.  I *have* to do it.

I have hit yet another road block on my school plans.  It's nothing that will prevent me from starting back in January as planned, but just more crap to deal with that I hadn't planned on.  And it's my own fault, really.  I may have to take yet another class.  Or retake it, I should say.  I took in initially in '99 so technically it's expired.  I haven't heard if they're going to make me redo it for sure or not, but knowing my luck, I will be adding it to the list.  My goal is to just get graduated as quickly as possible.  I don't care about anything else at this point.  I have this semester, the summer off (or to pick up any courses that they throw at me at the last minute) and then student teaching in the fall.  Then I am done, done, done.  I hope.

My Baby Girl Is One!

Her first year in pictures, it's just under 10 minutes long.  It was hard to keep it cut to under 10 minutes...so many amazing moments and memories in this first year.  So many more to be made...

My happy tears were shed during the month long process of making this video.

This day, one year ago, on Facebook:



Joy  can not sleep in this hospital. If I move, Kinley comes off her heart monitor and I can't sleep flat on my back. I'm miserable and contractions are stalling. Now what?!

December 11 at 2:34am

Joy  finally officially admitted into the hospital! The dr is planning to break my water at noon. Looks like Miss Kinley wanted to have her birthday with her cousin Josh!

December 11 at 8:42am

Joy just got the epidural and feel amazing! Kinley will be here very soon.

December 11 at 2:59pm

Joy  Kinley is here! Born at 8:38 this evening. Weighs 6lbs 14.8 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She's been admitted into the NICU for breathing difficulty so I haven't had the chance to see her. I'm going down in about an hour to get to visit her. Please pray that she recovers soon!

December 11 at 10:45pm

Yes, I printed every status update from December 2 until she came home on December 19.  I have them all saved for her to read one day. 

Every day has been better than our last and we feel so incredibly blessed to have you in our life, Kinley Grace.  Happy Birthday, baby!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Richie!

Well, the mango didn't ripen fast enough to eat yesterday, so here I sit smelling it's foul-ness again today.  Such a horrible smell.

Today is the Mr.'s birthday.  He's 31, yes, I am a year older.  I'm okay with that.  I mean, I have to be, he rubs it in my face about weekly, through-out the year.  I just say that I'm that much more cultured, heck, I took my first step on the day he popped into this world.  Heck yeah, I'm waaaaay ahead of the game here.  So you just go ahead and bring it up one more time, Mr.  :)

Ignore my messy house.

He chose to get to open his presents last night rather than this morning (which is a good thing cause I over slept and barely got to see him out the door).  I got him a nice wallet (which I'm pretty sure he doesn't like, or I should say, he won't use).  His current wallet is falling apart.  I think he's had it since he was like 4, or something.  He keeps a spare key to his truck in it, and mysteriously, it fell out.  Imagine that.  It has holes all over it, huh.  It's time to move on.  So I bought him a really nice, new, non-holey wallet.  I think I'll put some Kinley pictures in it today so that he can slowly make the transition.

Kinley was going to get him a shirt but instead decided on pajama pants (okay, I decided on the jammer pants, Kinley was just along for the ride).  You see, "jammer time" is his thing with Kinley.  Every.single.night for the past year (well, maybe not in the newborn months) him and Kinley do "jammer time" where he takes her up, changes her diaper and puts on her jammies.  It's "their thing" and I'm all for it.  We even have a "jammie time" song...."Jammer time, jammer time, it's a jammer, jammer, jammer time...." yeah, we made it up.  It's good, I know.  But we sing it over and over as they go upstairs with her on his shoulders...her smile stretches from ear to ear.  She knows it's their special thing.

So "she" got him jammer pants for their jammer time....and she "wrote" a little card to put inside the box that said "to daddy, for jammer time, love, your jammer girl."  Awwwwww!  Cuteness just oozed from it.  And he loved it.  I think.

She only tasted it once, don't worry, it's non-toxic.

Kinley also made him a homemade card that he absolutely loved and quickly stashed in that top drawer of the dresser, where he keeps all things that make his heart melt.  :)  It's the little things.

Last night we went to Toys R Us to let Kinley spend her birthday money from grandma and grandpa.  She "chose" the Little Tykes Cozy Coupe and then she got a School Bus Monster truck.  It is so cute!  And she loves it, and Lucy HATES it.  Lucy is afraid of everything.  Even baby toys.  And Target sacks.  And boxes.  And trash cans.  And baggies.  As we walked out of Toys R (I don't know how to make the "R" backwards, sorry Toys R Us) we entered a snow globe.  Snow falling everywhere and the parking lot was covered.  It was amazing.  One of those soft snows that makes you want to stretch both arms out and spin around in it.  I really wanted to. But thought that the other Toys R Us shoppers would think that I was strange.  Hmmph.

Today I have major last minute prep to do for our trip south for Kinley's party.  I am making Glass Block Jello, which I intended to be pink and green, but strawberry jello isn't as pink as I thought it would be so now it's Christmas Block Jello.  Oh well, I'm sure it will be just as cool.  I only wish that I had read the recipe before going shopping to realize that I needed 4 boxes of jello and and 2.  So I had to cut the recipe in half.  Oh well.  It's all going to work out.
I'm also going to make some Gooey Butter Cookies.  And again, I wasn't thinking when I bought the ingredients because I wanted to do some pink, some green but I only bought enough stuff for one batch and I don't think I can successfully split the batch to do the two food color colorings.  Catch that?  So we may just have some pink cookies. 

On top of the cooking that I have to do, I have to pack and clean up the house.  I'm always very particular about leaving the house clean.  You just never know.  If something happens to you and you die while traveling, you don't want people to come into your house seeing it as a sty.  They'll think you were a terrible housekeeper.  That's not cool.  So yeah, I always make sure my house is clean when I leave.  And, it's nice to come home to a clean house.  That's a much less morbid excuse to clean before leaving, I guess.

Tomorrow will be filled with rushed hurried-ness.  Picking up balloons, picking up the cake, making sure Kinley gets a good nap early in the day, decorating.....  I also put together a little something to post here in honor of her first year.  So check here tomorrow morning for that.  I've been working on it for over a month.  I'm really excited to show it off.

Stinky Mango

She is her mother's daughter.  I remember my parents always saying that I wasn't happy unless I was right in the middle of everything-didn't want to miss anything.  I guess I'm still that way. 
Kinley, most definately is.  She is so nosey!  When we're in restaurants or just out in public, she will stretch her little neck as far as she can to see/hear what the people next to us are doing or talking about.  I just laugh, cause I know that she's just like me.  People watching is my thing. 

I had a friend (whom I don't ever see or talk to anymore, sadly) that was my people watching buddy.  Him and I would plan "dates" to go out for dinner and people watch.  We would analyze people and make up stories about what their life was like, what they were doing out, etc.  Stalkers?  No.  Just imaginative.  Those "dates" were some of the best times.  We could come up with the best stories. 

So last night, we had Dave over for Richie's small birthday celebration.  Dave is a very good friend of ours....one of our best.  Him and my cousin were in that wedding contest last week.  Richie and I always say that the song "You Find Out Who Your Friends Are" is about Dave--he's that kind of friend.  Anyway, he came over and we had appetizers and chili and cupcakes.  It was a nice time. 

Kinley, however, thought the celebration and visit was for her.  She was in major show-off mode.  Trying to show off all of her mad skills by climbing on top of everything, pushing her upside down cart, and proving that she is the boss when it is time for bed. 

Normally, she puts herself right to sleep.  She has been for a couple of weeks.  There is this cue that she gives us that lets us know that she is ready.  So we walk her up, kiss her lots and tell her good-night, sweet dreams, we love her to the moon and back, and we lay her down.  She rolls over and goes to sleep.  It rocks. 

Well last night, she started the cues out right....wanted to nurse, was getting cranky...the norm.  So then when she was done nursing she did the nuzzle/thrash which says "put me in my bed, now" and so we walked her up, kissed her lots, told her good-night and that we love her to the moon and back and laid her down.  In a split second she popped back up.  Almost as if she just realized what was happening.  And she cried, and cried, and stood up and cried.  We gave her about ten minutes (she didn't cry solid for ten minutes, I couldn't handle that) but she whimpered and we knew that she wasn't going to sleep.

So I went up and got her and brought her back downstairs and she just smiled at Dave!  She was like, "I'm sorry that my parents took me away from you."  And she had to show-off some more.  It was getting late (for us old folks, in reality, it was about 9:00) and Dave had to get going home.  So he grabbed the chili I packed up for him (and Jaime) and headed out.  Five minutes later, we repeated the bed-time routine and Kinley went to sleep.  I swear that she just wanted to see Dave off.

She just didn't want to leave her company.

Lucy is also thinking that Dave was here for her.

Kinley had to show Dave our "bzzzzzz" game.

Yesterday on Facebook, there were some funny status updates regarding that number game that is going around.  I was rolling outta my chair reading some of them!  My favorite, "Anyone who sends me a number and a question will get a solid fist to the face for your answer. Lol."  I'm not playing the game.  I think it's silly.  I mean, really, if people were truly honest, then maybe I would play.  But really, who is going to say, "#67867868, your whiney, stupid comments make me crazy and I think you need to get over yourself.  Oh, and learn how to spell." 

Or in my case, I could see someone saying to me, "#98798798, If you post one more thing/picture about your daughter, I'm going to snap.  You are 'that girl' that thinks that everyone else should be as interested in your child as you are."  So yes, I am aware that I overpost about Kinley.  But, come on, no one is honest on the game.  So why play it?  It annoys me.  If you really want to say something nice to/about someone, just do it.  Send them a message or put the little "@" in front of their name in your status update to tell them that they are a great friend/mom/sister.  Don't say nice things just for the game, say them because it's just the nice thing to do.  -stepping off my soap box-

Oh, and one more thing.  Mangos (or is it Mangoes?) stink.  I have one in our fruit basket on the table right next to my laptop.  Ick.  Nasty smelling-great tasting thing.  Kinley and I will have to eat it today cause I can't handle smelling it another morning.  Gross.