A Few of my Favorite Things

Cami tagged me wanting to know a "Few of my Favorite Things." This reminds me of something from our Melaleuca days called "Products I Can't Live Without." Well, I've been stewing over that and truthfully, I don't think there are a whole lot of products I can't live without (as long as there's a decent substitute) except for one of Melaleuca's own products and that's the Renew lotion. It's truly the only thing that works for my ridiculously dry skin.




That sounded like a commercial, didn't it? Anyway, another one of my favorite things is eating out. It gives me a break from the parts of my job I don't particularly care for, like cooking and cleaning the kitchen, and I also love being with my family stuck to the table without distractions while someone else is waiting on ME. Here's my favorite restaurant. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist within 50 miles of my house:



I have sort of a love/hate relationship with the next two (well, I should say my husband and I have a love/hate relationship with them -- you can guess who adores and despises):


I actually started this post yesterday afternoon, and I completely changed it just now. I reread it, and it didn't make any sense at all. I can safely say the ONLY time I slept last night was when my husband came home from seminary on his way to work and took our sick baby from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. Sleep deprivation made for one random first draft. But I wonder what it's doing to draft two, because it's the next night at 3 a.m. and I still haven't slept because I'm holding a restless baby typing like a chicken (with one hand). Oh, that reminds me of my most favorite thing that I truly cannot live without: SLEEP!!




Isn't it this parenting thing an adventure? I tag Allison A. and Holly C.

Bleeding Orange

We had major drama at our house last night. In the words of Aubrie "this is the worstest thing that ever happened to me!"



Why don't the parenting magazines tell you this?

1. Throw away old nail polish because they might shatter in your child's hand while she's shaking it.

2. Don't let children have nail polish on the carpet (OK, they probably do say this one, but I haven't had time to read parenting magazines. Come on, I have three kids).

3. Don't ever, I mean ever buy orange nail polish (why in the world did I have orange nail polish anyway?).

4. When you have a house full of girls, part of your Emergency Food Storage should be nail polish remover (I had to race to the store because mine was gone).

5. Area rugs are highly underrated.

6. Remember that now that your oldest is 5, you need to be more sensitive to her total devastation that her favorite blanket was ruined.

I had the epiphany last night that it's kind of nice that you have about 3 years of a grace period before your kids start to remember things forever. However, Aubrie is past that now, and if I mess up, she may hold it to me the rest of my life. Yikes!

Fortunately, the glass didn't hurt anyone, but our nice, quiet evening turned into hours of scrubbing. The above picture has Oxy Clean over the spots. I thought about taking a picture before this so you could see the bright orange, but I was afraid every second mattered before it would dry.

Considering, I think we did pretty well. There's just some slight pink on the blanket and the carpet looks pretty good too. Ellie and my pajamas are ruined. Oh well.

The Hairspray Girls

Broadway here we come. High energy...cool acrobatic tricks..."creative" lyrics. These girls have the Hairspray routine down. My favorite line from the song is Ellie's line, "I've had the taste of chocolate, and I ain't never goin' back!"

By the way, our little performer Aubrie had her debut singing performance at church last Sunday. She did a great job.

Love is Sweet

After that last post the hubby here had to come up with some "sweet redemption". I even came up with a catchy little romantic, personalized saying to have inscribed along the top.

...from Dave with Love

Milestones of Love

Valentine's Day was a milestone for me.

A milestone because of this. (Scroll to the bottom of my good friend Anna Marie's blog entry). It marked 8 years.

A milestone because of this. (It makes 8 months).

Love them both.

We celebrated by going here. Love it.

In lieu of flowers, don't you think the DQ cake at the top would be another great way to celebrate all week long? Hint, hint, nudge, nudge honey.

Love you all.

Super Fun!

Even though this looks like Teyah's cousin who must be a year older than her, he is just 9 days older! Can you believe the size difference! He's a big boy and she's a petite girl. We were cracking up that they could be so different in size. Talk about both ends of the spectrum! Click on these pics to see them big and get a better feel for it.



I mean look at the height difference too!



All the cousins. Can you guess which ones are mine?







The ages and blonde vs. dark make a balanced picture!



One thing that all the cousins have in common is that they LOVE their grandma!

How I Survived My First Presidential Caucus

10. I arrived 15 minutes early but cleverly created my own parking space so I didn't have to park 3 miles away and walk like everyone who showed up after me. (And no parking ticket!)

9. My district's table was next to a door that was quickly opened for a brisk 18-degree breeze to cool down the overly-packed VFW Barn.

8. 10 minutes later I was able to put on my down winter coat to slow my shivering.

7. I brought my baby with me so I deserved to sit down even though most of the 500 people had to stand.

6. Everyone in my district wore deodorant, or so it seemed.

5. A person in my district had actually been to a caucus before (even though he failed to tell us before-hand that the volunteer delegates could vote for whoever they chose at the next level so we should have actually found out whom they planned on voting for. In other words our votes meant NOTHING).

4. I was able to look away and hide my tears during the Pledge of Allegiance (how embarrassing. I'm so sappy.)

3. I didn't feel like an odd-woman out because my guy won by a large margin in my district & state. Wahoo!

2. I held Teyah off so she didn't have to breastfeed. That would have been kind of awkward. Didn't think that one through, now did I?

1. I got a babysitter for Aubrie and Ellie!

Overall, I was largely let down by this democratic process in our state. I suppose the only way to make it better is to get more involved. At least I'm more educated for next time.