Zipper Herd

Dumb Dog.

2012-02-09T15:07:00.001-08:00

I’m sure this will come as no great shock to those that know me, but I don’t like dogs. And to be even more honest I’m afraid of most of them. Yes, I’m a grown ass woman who is afraid of dogs. It isn’t the running away from them screaming and crying kind of scared, but if I don’t know a dog I give it a pretty wide berth and won’t be the first to say “come here doggy so I can pet you!”. I am not really sure where it comes from other than once, when I was a teenager, I was walking down the street after dark and the neighbors bull mastiff came at me from down the street in a full run showing me his teeth snarling. Now mind you this was a dog that I was VERY familiar with as I regularly babysat the children of this neighbor. He was close enough to bite me (all the while I was shrieking his name) before he came to a dead stop and started wagging his tail with his big ol’ tongue lopped out the side of his mouth waiting for a pat. I may have wet myself a little. Maybe I was afraid of dogs before this. Either way, I’m not a fan. I don’t like the drool, the barking, cleaning up the poop. Big ones that are hyper and little yippy ones. Not. A. Fan.

So today when a lost dog wandered up to our back door I silently whispered a sigh of relief that we are putting a fence up this summer. No more wandering dogs coming into our yard and scaring the bejesus out of me or leaving their “presents” on our lawn.

I was less than pleased that the dog decided to set up camp in our front yard, especially since I had to escort the children to the van to get Little Moo from the bus stop. Of course the kids didn’t mind. Niecey-poo was ecstatic and Littlest Moo (who was at that time screaming and flailing about wildly) even stopped, clapped and said “doggy”. They were all even more excited to see that the dog was sleeping on our front porch when we returned from the bus stop. You would have thought Santa made a mid February encore appearance the way those kids lit up. This dog was clearly nice and didn’t mind the kids so I let them pet the dog and we brought it a bowl of fresh water to drink. It went back to sleeping in the yard.

Damn dog.

From time to time I entertain the thought of having a dog, for the boys you know. Because all little boys should have a canine companion! I think about how it would be nice to take walks with a dog and have it sit at my feet in the evenings. It would have to be a Golden Retriever or generic yellow, lumbering, friendly, low key dog. Guess what our visitor was?

Yep. I brought him the kids’ table scraps and it wagged its tail and then rolled over for me to pet its belly. He stuck around for most of the morning and until just recently was sleeping up against our front door. I hope the dog finds his home (although is seems less likely with him sleeping in our yard) but if he doesn’t…

Can we keep him dear? We’ll have a fence….

***This would be a less than pleased Zippy watching the dog in our front yard.

I Don’t Think Skinny Capri-alls Are in Fashion.

2012-02-03T22:58:00.001-08:00

Children. They are the best (and most expensive) entertainment ever!

After a successful workout and trip to Costco we returned home and proceeded to get the children ready for bed. Littlest Moo has recently discovered naked and let’s just say, he’s a fan. He stops mid run every couple feet to inspect his parts and continues on his way. We happen to find this quite hilarious. So while the little one was pleased as pie to be removing clothes the older one, he was inspecting clothes his Grams brought from when Zippercow was little. That’s right, clothes that are more than 25 years old. Uh…thanks? Little Moo was quite taken with some awesome Hawaiian shirts, mostly because they have pockets. Apparently this is a thing with him now, shirts with pockets to carry the oh-so-important things he needs to carry. He came across a particularly striking pair of overalls with matching flannel shirt . Matching because they have the same flannel on the denim as the shirt. He asked if he could have them. They are a size 2T and I told him as much. His response was a to melt and shriek about how he never has overalls. Um…what? I was going to argue that they were too small again but thought screw it and told him “ I don’t care, go put them on if you want”. So…

He did.

Little Moo: “Mommy, can I keep these?”

Me: “Um…they look a little small.”

Little Moo: “But I like them!”

Zippercow: “I don’t think skinny capri-alls are in fashion bud.”

Priceless.

A Lesson in Smugness

2012-01-25T11:09:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time I could take my cute little 20 month old out with me and he was pleasant and (mostly) perfectly well behaved in the store, at a restaurant or in a doctors office. I could fill out paperwork or shop and he would chatter away or sit with me and wait. While we were out we were bound to see some child running away acting crazy and a frazzled Mom chasing after. Every time I’d think “I’m glad my kid doesn’t do that, my kid is so well behaved. You should try setting some boundaries”. I’m embarrassed because I’m certain I gave that pained smile that said “You need to rein your kid in” .

I hate that dam smile.

Enter a couple years later with an 5 year old whose emotional rollercoaster makes my head spin and my beautiful little 18 month old who, while happy and sweet NEVER STOPS MOVING! We went to the dentist office last week where they asked me to fill out paperwork. One page took FOR-EV-ER. Littlest Moo does not stay in my lap, he just shrieks. He is not satisfied to just play with a toy quietly next to me (hell I would have settled for loudly) but instead likes to explore space so I would write one line and have to get up and chase him. After only finishing his name (incorrectly) I was exhausted. His older brother was yelling loudly from the barred window about being in jail which another mom scoffed at. What is so offensive about that, it is a play window with BARS in it, that is a natural association! He had also stripped his multiple layers of coats and jackets he had insisted on wearing leaving little puddles of himself around the waiting room so I was gathering it and trying to keep it with us while wrangling a speed demon and trying to fill out paper work that, had they sent to me ahead of time, could have been completed in the comfort of my own home long after the children are passed out in their beds. The experience wouldn’t have been complete without Littlest Moo falling off the bottom of the slide and busting his lip. I know I must have looked as exasperated as I felt. I suppose if he broke his tooth it was good we were at the dentist. I said that. Out loud. To no one. After I finally finished the paperwork moved to the other side of the waiting room where there were quieter activities to do (it really is an indoor playground) but I still found myself chasing him around. I briefly looked up while chasing him and caught a glimpse of a mom with her 2 year old standing so nice and quiet next to her. She brought him closer, I’m sure she was terrified that the running might be contagious. Or maybe it was the blood on his lip that I had not yet seen because the only thing I could see was the back of his head running away. But then she did it.

She gave me that dam smile.

I felt so deflated. She didn’t know. I work so hard with my kids. It was in that moment I cursed myself for being so smug before. Because I had been smug, a lot. It is said “you should be careful what you wish for” it should also be said you should “beware smugness” it’s kind of in line with “Karma’s a bitch”.

** As a side note, but completely related I would like to apologize to my lovely friend who I convinced how important it was to break a little one of a binky sooner rather than later only to have my 18month old still ever so attached a year later. Also to multiple friends that I’ve expressed concern about how their kids sleep. One should never be smug about sleep habits of children, I’m learning that sometimes no matter what you do sometimes your kids are just going to do what they are going to do. I’m incredibly lucky, but not smug, just very grateful. Hang in there, someday they will sleep!

Building Memories

2012-01-20T11:14:00.001-08:00

There are many reasons there are large gaps of time between my posts, one of them being that I frequently start a post and can’t figure out how to finish it and the perfectionist in me won’t let me click “publish” and forever it sits for no one to read. But another and much more important reason is we are busy “building” memories.

Little Moo is ecstatic to have received his very own Lego sets for Christmas. He even got to pick out two sets himself with Christmas money. We were excited for him because he was able to choose something he loves and it was an opportunity to teach him how to look for sales and he was able to get two for the price of one. He was very excited about this too!

We must not forget Littlest Moo! His hands are a little grabby (okay a lot grabby!) so sometimes he ~~has~~ gets to be contained in his high chair.

He doesn’t seem to mind.

So finding these little plastic shards of joy underfoot…everywhere…always is kind of worth it for moments like these.

You’re No Good!

2012-01-10T14:39:00.001-08:00

Have you ever gone through the day and realized that every product you are using is expired? Just typing it makes me think of terrible episodes of Hoarders. We’re not. Quite the opposite. Yet the other day I went to get a band-aid and some triple antibiotic ointment (Neosporin peeps, we rock it generic style) for Little Moo and realized it had expired. In 2009. Crap, how long have we been using that?! The tube didn’t even have any dents in it! Okay so I know I have a tube of Bacitracin somewhere. Expired. Add it to the shopping list.

Later in that same day I noticed a small rash on Little Moo’s face so I went on search for some Hydrocortisone cream. Somehow we have multiples? I’m sure it was an occasion when we couldn’t find it because it wasn’t put back. Grrr (oh wait, I left it out? Oops!) or we bought it when we were on a trip and added it to our collection. Either way, multiple, barely touched tubes…EXPIRED! Ugh, okay add that to the shopping list.

Then in a act of chocolate desperation I decided to try a mug cake only to discover my baking powder was…expired. Add that to the shopping list.

Noticing a theme?

The same thing all week. Some random item I don’t use all that often I all of a sudden need and it is no longer good. Some of it expired for awhile. Yikes! It’s a miracle my family is alive, really.

(Ron Leishman illustrations)

Resolutions, Smesolutions.

2012-01-05T14:24:00.001-08:00

While mostly I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions, now that all the Christmas chaos is over it is time for me to get serious about our family’s health. No longer are there get togethers and tasty treats to distract us. I will not proclaim no sugar, no meat (yeah right!) and exercise everyday. I know myself (and my husband) too well, it would only result in crash and burn. We have to add manageable things to our day to day lives and let them become routine so they stick. Last February we got a family membership to the YMCA (thanks to a great deal from Zippercow’s work) and with the exception of major illness we have gone to the gym 2-3 times a week since the first week of February. Not bad. We’d like to try and add a day to that if possible, and now that we are a year into that schedule I will make a resolution for this year.

Not to let YOUR resolution annoy me.

You know who you are, the ones that vow to work out everyday, get a gym membership only to burn out and never come again by March. Why does someone else trying to be healthy bother me you ask? It doesn’t, not really. In fact, kudos to you for taking the same steps we have to better your health. It’s just that…you are on my damn machine! Wednesday we went to the gym at 7pm and EVERYTHING was full. Up until this week even on busy days there were still a number of various machines to choose from (the end of December was blissful) so even if the one I prefer isn’t available there is plenty others to choose from. If you ever use the machines at the gym I’m sure you have your favorites and least favorites. The only two things available fall into my least favorite category. Recumbent Bike. Maybe I’m doing it wrong (which is highly possible) but I find this to be the most excruciating of machines with very little calorie burn as pay off. As I spent my 30 minutes on the vile machine I silently swore at all the people I didn’t recognize. Our time to workout is so limited and having to get the kids home and in bed on time only means we don’t have time to wait around. I cycled for what seemed like an eternity (15 minutes, halfway through my time) to see I rode 3 or so miles and had only burned 100 calories! W. T. F. In the end I only got half the calorie burn for my time as I usually would and my back was hurting to boot. Ugh. Then I had to remind myself that they are all there for the same reason I am… and in a month or two the crowds will die down and in the meantime we can wait around for machines and recite lines from Clueless in our heads,

“Miss Stoeger, I would just like to say that physical education in this school is a disgrace. I mean, standing in line for forty minutes is hardly aerobically effective. I doubt I've worked off the calories in a stick of Carefree gum.”

You mean you don’t do that????

Oh. Maybe that’s just me…

December Haze

2011-12-28T15:49:00.001-08:00

The month is almost over and we are about to ring in a new year and it feels like it has a been a blur. Between the whole family being struck with some terrible cold, baking, decorating and preparing for Christmas it seems to have taken forever and pass in a flash all at once!

Fortunately all the hard work paid off because everyone was healthy again before Christmas and as far as I’m concerned our Christmas was perfect! The boys of course were swept up in the magic and fun of it all, and Zippercow and I let ourselves relax enough that we were swept up as well. The boys got a lot of nice things (but not too much) and most importantly we enjoyed special time with family! What great memories were made, but wait! I have a photo bomb for you too!

We got a box. Well more specifically we had to buy a new range, but for the children it was just really expensive cardboard.

Someone farted. Bwahahaha!

Cookin’ up something tasty for Christmas. The only “cooking” that took place on Christmas!

Life is a hoot when you have a crafty Mommy!

And a very patient Daddy! First completed big kid Lego kit. His pride is palpable.

And now it is time to get Zippercow ready to turn 30!!!

He’s really just a big kid.

Be Inspired By What Inspires You

2011-12-14T11:13:00.001-08:00

What inspires and motivates you? Is it cute kittens? Motivational Posters with catchy slogans? Sappy quotes? Yeah, most of those things make me go blech. Sure they are great for some but me, I like sarcasm. The more it drips the better. So in honor of that I would like to share some of my favorite blogs. These blogs make my day, make me laugh and remind me that there are LOTS of regular ordinary people that share the same smart ass sense of humor.

The first two are great sarcastic mom sites, because let’s face it, sarcastic humor is the best parenting humor.

Suburban Snapshots

The next two are comics, and sarcasm is at its best when it is drawn with bright colorful images!

Warning: These sites may cause laughter, tears and if you are unfit, abdominal pain from raucous laughter.

I wish I could write more like these hilarious people. They are my sarcaspiration!

Oh, and I can’t forget

Not quite as sarcastic in nature, but you can find some great jewels like these

I Want to Be a Dad!

2011-12-02T14:10:00.001-08:00

The other day Zippercow says to me “ It is too bad you can’t be a Dad with a baby”. I of course look at him funny because I’m not sure where this story is leading but he continues on to explain that whenever he is alone at a store with the boys (or just Littlest Moo) people are SO nice to him. They open doors for him, talk nice to him and the children, offer to help him and sometimes people offer to let him go first in line. I have noticed this phenomenon as well and all I have to say is…

WTF!?!

If I am a couple feet away looking at something and Zippercow is with the kids at the cart or people can’t see me they get all kinds of smiles and friendly head nods. Even Zippercow admits that people are not ever that nice to him in public if he does not have the children but you ad kids into the equation then you get lots of people being nice. The equation goes something like this

Dad+child+toddler= He must be the nicest man ever and how sweet that he has the children so we MUST be extra nice and helpful!

Don’t get me wrong, I love that people treat my husband and children kindly when they go out, I mean look at them they are pretty darn adorable. My question is why do moms out with children not get the same in return???? I can recall multiple occasions when I had Little Moo, barely walking Niecey-Poo and infant Littlest Moo out and we struggled to get through doors with the big double stroller or worse they were not in the stroller which meant I had the carrier, toddler on one hip and Little Moo who still couldn’t get the door open trying to get through a door and people would watch (it wasn’t that they didn’t notice, they watched like it was a sport! “That’s right Bill she had her opening and was about to score but she fumbled the baby and dropped the toddler and it was all downhill from there, WHAT. A. SHAME” ) or instead of offering to help hold the door they would use the other set of doors or even worse, stand behind me and give a loud exasperated sigh because I was holding them up. Then while in the store if a child starts crying you get dirty looks as if you are the worst parent in the world. Guess what, sometimes you still have to buy groceries, even if the kids don’t want to. But when Zippercow does it he gets sympathetic looks and offers of assistance or stickers for the kids. It isn’t I don’t encounter nice people, because there certainly are, but I have heard stories from Zippercow about how people fall all over themselves to be nice and helpful when he has the kids. Even he seems perplexed by it. I know there are plenty of Moms who experience the same things I do and some who do it with far more children but I’m curious what makes Dads so much different?

So now when Little Moo says he wants to be a daddy when he gets older I tell him, “Me too!”.

Better Late Than Never?

2011-11-26T13:10:00.001-08:00

I wanted to post something sappy about Thanksgiving and about all the things I am thankful for ON Thanksgiving but I was too busy getting ready to host Thanksgiving Dinner for thirteen that I was unable to tear myself from ~~Pinterest~~ the kitchen to write a post. The truth is I have a lot to be thankful for. Wonderful husband, kids, extended family, friends and….well I can go on and on but I mentioned the most important things. Sadly I did not get any pictures of our wonderful Thanksgiving feast and the wonderful family that joined us. It does get difficult to cook and take pictures at the same time. I did get some pictures of my helpers the day before.

Handy little helper.

Handsy helper.

This year we tried a couple things to make this year’s dinner a little less stressful and share more with family.

First, we made a separate turkey the evening before so that I could package it up and have leftovers ready to go for all of our guests. I even labeled everyone’s bag with their name. Really wishing I took pictures.

Second I made mashed potatoes ahead of time. They were fabulous! You make them the night before and put them in a crock-pot (thank you Pinterest!) the day of. It allows them to stay warm during serving AND our ~~entire house~~ kitchen didn’t get all steamed up while company was over, SCORE!

Overall our dinner was wonderful and it was great to have everyone over. After all the hard work I had this to look forward to

Decadent Peanut Butter Pie, it is deliriously good (supposing you like peanut butter) and worth not busting into it the night before. It is making me drool just thinking about it.

We have so much to be thankful for but the best things are the little things, like leftover olives on your fingers! Oh, and the kids attached to them!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving with loved ones! Christmas here we come!!!!

If You Could Turn Back the Hands of Time…

2011-11-13T20:54:00.001-08:00

You’d get no sleep. One week into daylight savings and we are all a little cranky. Such a difference an hour can make. I remember that once upon a time (pre children) Zippercow and I would relish the extra hour of sleep (and then some) on Sunday when we’d “fall back”. It was fabulous! Even now we are foolish and think with a little excitement “yay, and extra hour of sleep!” and we (again foolishly) assume the children will be peaceful in slumber because they too would want to enjoy some glorious extra sleep (see, I said foolish).

Instead the scene looks a little more like this

5:30 am and our whole house is awake. And lets be honest, not horribly happy about it. We even kept them up a later the night before assuming they might have issue with the time adjustment. Keeping them up later is a little trick we do because we hate ourselves. You see we think “smart parents, we don’t want to wake up at 7:00am on a Saturday morning so we’ll just keep them up 45 minutes to an hour later and they will sleep later!!!”

Never in the history of our children has this worked.

In fact in those cases they often go to bed later, wake up a half hour earlier than usual then are uber cranky the next day. Nailed it!

Sadly though this continued on through the week. We tried to adjust their bedtimes to get them back on schedule, but man they are persistent. No sleep makes us cranky, them cranky and we count the minutes until bedtime so we can do it again tomorrow. We have hope that this week will be better. You see, despite our sarcastic, jaded, pessimistic attitudes, when it comes to our children we are hopeful and optimistic…

that they’ll sleep.

*even as I write this I am making some terrible spelling and grammatical errors (more than usual) due to sleep deprivation. I’m sure there are still some there, but if you could only see what I fixed! I’m just as eloquent in person these days!

Fabulous Fall!

2011-11-03T14:35:00.001-07:00

Green Bluff

Pumpkins of the orange variety and small child variety

We love fall and hope you are enjoying yours!

*So I was totally feeling guilty about not posting recently. I have multiple unfinished posts but I mostly wanted to share that we are keeping busy with wonderful fall traditions!*

Happy Fall!

Must Clean All the Things!!!

2011-10-18T14:44:00.001-07:00

Alright, so maybe not ALL the things. Some of the things? Instead of going to Green Bluff and frolicking through pumpkins I convinced myself (and Zippercow) that there were more important things we needed to do here. I may have been right, but kind of wish I wasn’t. So after cleaning the house, garage and doing some fall planting I decided to tackle the puzzle cupboard.

Ugh.

The puzzle cupboard is a a small cupboard in our entertainment stand that has all of Little Moo’s puzzles. In all I think he has more than ten puzzles and I believe almost all the pieces (of the 25 piece puzzles) were in a giant pile mixed on the bottom shelf. Just thinking about it makes me itch and he wasn’t ever putting any of them together because I think he too was overwhelmed by the chaos of it all. To top it off any time the cupboard was opened most of its contents would spill onto the floor, much to Littlest Moos delight. So I decided to remedy that.

Thanks to one of my favorite blogs Thrifty Decor Chick I think I have a great way to keep all the pieces off the floor and organized enough that Little Moo will actually find them useful.

I started with cutting out the picture from the front of the box.

Then I wrote the name of the puzzle, how many pieces it had (because on some of them the piece count got cut off) and then numbered it.

Then I put that number on all the pieces that belonged to that puzzle.

Lastly I put each puzzle with the front of its box in its own quart size Ziploc and put them all in a plastic shoe box bin.

Tada!!!! No more hives for Mommy! The best part? Little Moo has already used the puzzles more in the last three days than he has in the last 6 months! Success!

I love the occasional productive day!

La LA la!

2011-10-03T13:28:00.001-07:00

Little Moo asked me to put on some music, so I tore myself away from America’s Next Top Model (a very embarrassing addiction) and turned on some ~~awesome 90’s music~~ tunes. While the kids were eating lunch I was putting away the dishes and busting out in song. About a minute later Little Moo interrupted my dream of being a moody pop star with

“Mom, I don’t want you to sing”

everyone’s a critic.

I personally think I have a unique voice like Melanie Safka. You know, delightfully terrible! Sorry kiddos, that is a direct consequence of listening to music in our home, and I can promise it will only get worse as you get older. I learned from the best (your grandpa) and plan on carrying on the tradition of getting into the music and embarrassing you to your very core. Good luck! We’ll laugh about it on the other side. Promise.

Winning!!!!

2011-10-02T20:48:00.001-07:00

How do you measure success day-to-day? It is different each day. Some days getting everyone dressed and out the door is all I need, others having the house clean, pleasant children, folded laundry and dinner ready when my husband gets home is a successful day. Those days are pretty rare…okay so mostly nonexistent. My bar is pretty low actually, I will settle for children still alive.

Today I measured success in brushing the teeth of 15 rambunctious children 4 and under in less than 20 minutes at work then later in the evening (despite being hella tired) playing Candy Land with Little Moo.

Oh, then I brushed the teeth of Littlest Moo!

Cast of Characters

2011-09-29T14:47:00.001-07:00

So it has been some time and to my followers (should I have any left) I appreciate you sticking with me! I know that for many who know me personally you certainly don’t need to be introduced to everyone but I thought it would be a good idea to put a faces to online aliases. What’s with the aliases you ask? Well since the blog is public I just want to do the best I can to protect my family. Sure my name might be somewhere else but I certainly am not going to make it easy for those up to no good! So lets begin!

Zippercow: So his alias is totally strange I know, but it is a name he is known by online and is our family domain, so I think we should stay true to that. Ask me about the story behind the name sometime and maybe I’ll tell you! He is a fabulous Daddy and Husband. There are SOOOO many pictures of him with the kids so there are many to choose from. But he can be pretty kooky too, which the kids will totally be embarrassed by someday. He works hard for our family and is absolutely sarcastic (and hillarious!).

Mama Moo: There are very few pictures of me. And most of the ones I have are pretty terrible. Mostly because Zippercow just snaps the shot without saying, “Uh Hun, your muffin top spilleth out” or “your fourth chin is showing”. I suppose I know why, but seriously!

Yes please!!! I need all the caffeine I can get to take care of the children, take care of the house and in my spare minutes learn more about photography.

Little Moo: Our spunky and delightful (most days) oldest son. He challenges us daily but we will persevere and so will he!

Have I mentioned that we love Phineas and Ferb in this house? Maybe? Once? Twice? Well it is still a current favorite around here! He’s a smart boy who continues to make us proud (even through the challenges!).

Littlest Moo: Our youngest of the herd. He is smiley and friendly and definitely his own little character! He is walking now, which he thinks is the absolute coolest thing ever! Who wouldn’t enjoy a new way to wreak havoc?!?!

Niecey-poo: Can’t forget her! She is our niece who spends lots of time with us so she frequently makes appearances on our blog. She definitely adds even more dynamic to our day. Both the boys love playing with her, you know as long as any two related children play nicely together!

Such cutie patooties, all three of them!

Look Out World, Here He Comes!

2011-09-13T14:34:00.001-07:00

For about a week now we knew that Littlest Moo was on the brink of walking. We could just see it. He would psych himself up like he was going to walk away from the couch then bend at the waist and crumple to a crawling position. We noticed he was ready for bigger and better things when he started doing this

For a couple months we have been using this bench to keep Littlest Moo out of Little Moo’s bedroom while still allowing the bigger kids to easily get back and forth. Sad day. This no longer works. So baby boy isn’t walking, but will climb over things? Sweet.

Then this weekend he did it! He took a couple steps between Zippercow and I and then by the end of the weekend he was walking short distances!

We are noticing he seems to like to have confidence in what he is doing before embarking on something new so while we can see that he has the skills needed to reach a milestone he waits just a little bit longer and clearly chooses the mode of transportation that is the fastest. But I suppose I do too, hence why I walk instead of G.I. crawl.

It is so fun to get to know your little one and begin to learn their personality as it blooms. Littlest Moo is a VERY happy little boy always smiling, waving or laughing. But every now and then we see little snippets of what we are sure the toddler years will hold for us. While Little Moo waited until about three years old before getting into full on tantrums Littlest Moo has given us a preview of what we should expect. I think when he’s happy (which is most of the time) he’s very happy but when he’s not, watch out!!!

Dun Dun Dun!!! Be Sceered. Very sceered.

Modest Mom

2011-09-08T09:43:00.001-07:00

I wish! Since I can remember I’ve always been fairly modest when it comes to clothing. Not neck to ankle garb but I prefer to cover things up. Even as a teenager ( to my mom’s disappointment I think) I cared little about being trendy and just preferred a cute t-shirt and jeans. Sadly I didn’t take advantage of a fit body as a teen and now that I REALLY want to cover it up I find it next to impossible. Little did I know that becoming a mom I’d have to let go of some of my modesty.

It starts those couple hours prior to giving birth I think. There comes a point were you don’t care who sees what, you just want that baby out! They put you in one of those stupid gowns that don’t fit anyone right and despite all the snaps there still seems to be stuff a hanging out. Then you move on to nursing.

Nursing was a nightmare for me. I tried so hard but it went so poorly that I pretty much just sat with no top on because I was having to try that frequently, so while I would usually be mortified there were people (my Dad included) who saw me topless, I didn’t care. I just wanted to feed my baby. In the end it didn’t work out for either of my boys so I quickly was able to return to my modest ways, or so I thought.

Now I have a little boy who at every opportunity pulls my shirt down. When I’m carrying him he finds it most useful to grab onto the front of my shirt like his life depends on it and pull down. I don’t think a day goes by that I’m not flashing someone. Hi bus driver! Hi doctor! Hi neighbor! Hi stranger….you get the idea. It doesn’t matter if I have a tank top on underneath to keep from flashing people. I could be wearing a turtle neck and he’d still manage to stretch the neck that far down. Okay, as I’m re-reading this I should clear up that fortunately for me and most of the general public he doesn’t pull down my bra, just my shirt. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I don’t see other mom’s bras everyday. Or maybe I’m just too busy trying to cover mine up to see theirs.

One Saturday Morning…

2011-09-01T10:22:00.001-07:00

Zippercow and I have often joked about how nice it will be when our children are old enough to get themselves some breakfast and watch cartoons on Saturday morning all while letting us sleep. We know this is a delusion of course because even if they don’t come wake us there are is always the children fighting over what they watch and who is on what couch that is sure to be loud enough to wake us. However this last Saturday Little Moo woke a little too early for this Mom, especially on the only day I don’t have to wake to an alarm clock. So, I stumbled to the living room with my eyes mostly closed and turned on some Phineas and Ferb (isn’t that what everyone watches at 6am on Saturday???) and crawled back to bed only to have him “sneak” on me (that’s how he says it) 3 and half minutes later to insist that he needed to eat that very second. Who eats less than 5 minutes within waking!?!?!? I mumbled something about getting some cereal himself. He was uncertain but I assured him he could do it. I was certain this would mean half the box would be on the floor and I’d have a heck of a mess to clean up but I didn’t care it was six. oh. clock. Strangely enough Littlest Moo didn’t wake until almost 9am (unheard of for this little man) and we came out to the living room to this

Phineas and Ferb trance.

Before I even made it to the kitchen I noticed he had milk in his cup which terrified me slightly, how on earth did he poor out of the huge gallon jug and not make a horrific mess? So from here I make my way through the dining and kitchen to assess the damage.

Chair pulled up to the pantry to reach the cereal. You’ll notice he left a path of his morning accomplishments.

He tore the tops off the box??? I still don’t understand why that was necessary but as you can see there is no cereal on the table (or the floor below) so I don’t mind the torn boxes at all.

A different chair pulled up to get into the cupboard for a cup. He left every cupboard and door he got into open.

Much to my relief the milk was almost gone so there was just enough for a cup and he poured it without spilling a drop. So all-in-all we got to sleep longer allowing us to be rested enough do deal with his I-woke-up-too-early-now-I’m-going-to-make-you-pay pleasantness AND he discovered he can fend for himself.

Score!

Son of a Itch!!!!

2011-08-24T16:14:00.001-07:00

They are beautiful aren’t they? I LOVE flowers and always look forward to their bloom every spring, what I don’t look forward to is the terrible allergies I suffer as a result. This spring I started sneezing and had an itchy throat so I started taking my seasonal allergy medicine of choice Zyrtec. More specifically Cetirizine in the great big Kirkland vat. Well over the last couple months I have been…not myself. I could NOT figure out what it could be and one of the most disturbing things I have been experiencing has been weight gain despite exercise, which has increased so if anything I should be maintaining, but certainly not gaining at such a rapid rate. I did a little research and found that for a small percentage of people rapid (that’s right RAPID!) weight gain is a side effect!!! So for general information (whether you want it or not) these are some of the side effects of Zyrtec (Cetirizine). I’ve highlighted some of the ones I’ve experienced:

Common side effects of Zyrtec Oral: Dryness of the Nose Dry Mouth
Drowsiness
Throat Dryness

Infrequent side effects of Zyrtec Oral: Throat Irritation
Chronic Trouble Sleeping

Rare side effects of Zyrtec Oral: Abnormal Heart Rhythm
Bronchospasm
Hepatitis
Liver Problems
Blockage of Normal Bile Flow
Seizures
Fit
Visible Water Retention
Heart Throbbing or Pounding
Life Threatening Allergic Reaction
Nightmares
Blurred Vision
Problems with Eyesight
Unsteady Walking
Ringing in the Ears
Incomplete or Infrequent Bowel Movements
Sun-Sensitive Skin
Dizzy
Low Energy
Excessive Sweating
Involuntary Quivering
Rash
Loss of Appetite
Weight Gain
Increased Hunger
Nosebleed
Fast Heartbeat
Feel Like Throwing Up
Diarrhea
Difficult or Painful Urination
Stomach Cramps
Decreased sex drive Nervous
Confused
Over Excitement

Okay so I’m sure some of those things are a bit personal, but I just wanted to share incase anyone out there is experiencing some of these things. I have been ravenously hungry (even right after I finish eating) tired and gaining weight at ridiculous speed despite increased exercise. And can I just say that there is nothing more defeating than trying to eat well while being stupidly hungry and exercising and still gain weight! I was so off that I had convinced myself that I could be pregnant, which is ludicrous because I had my tubes tied after Littlest Moo but I simple could not figure out why I was experiencing all these symptoms!!!! Great so I decide to stop taking the medicine. So for some other great information one of the side effects of quitting Zyrtec is itching. I happen to be fortunate enough to be experiencing this delightful side effect of withdrawl. I’ve actually experienced it before and not realized why I was itching so much, but after a little research now I know why. Oh and it is not just a little itchy, but an itch over my entire body that makes it seem like there would be nothing more glorious than to scratch my skin clean off my body. Seriously. I know it might take a few more days but I am going to just tough it out and get myself off the hard stuff. I’ll still enjoy the flowers, but I might be sneezing while doing it and in time hopefully a little lighter!

The Wheels on the Bus…

2011-08-18T09:51:00.001-07:00

For the first couple days Little Moo took the Mommy bus to school and I walked him to his classroom door where he put his little backpack in line, but now it is time for him to ride an ACTUAL bus. I told him on the first day of school (when he wanted to ride the bus!) that I would take him for a couple days and on Friday he could ride the bus.Tomorrow is Friday. I am FREAKING OUT!!!! I still can’t get past the idea that he is going to have to get to his classroom from the playground without direction. The last couple days we’ve talked about what he’ll do when he gets off the bus and where he should go and how to find his classroom. But of course I’ve got a little boy with a gaze that wanders to the glorious playground and I doubt he really knows why he should put his bag in one line vs. another.

Breath.

Of course this is it. This is the time that I actually have to let go, let him get lost and hope he learns from it and doesn’t end up traumatized. There are staff and teachers all around as well as bigger helpful kids. I’ve drilled into him his teacher’s name in case he ends up in the wrong place so he can tell them where he belongs. I am certain am I far more concerned about this than he is (in fact he is excited) so it is my job as Mom to collect myself, assure him he can do this and put him on that bus!

Wish me luck!

Oh and maybe a little luck for my Little Moo as well!

And He’s Off!!!

2011-08-16T13:58:00.001-07:00

Today was the day! Our Little Moo (who is getting so big) had his very first day of Kindergarten! It is crazy to me that we are already here, that he is ready for this milestone. The time goes so quickly. And let me tell you, he was so excited he was vibrating. He woke up before 7am and came out of his room dressed asking for his breakfast. Mind you that school doesn’t start until 8:45am, but he wanted to leave the second he woke up.

I convinced him to hold off on breakfast for a whole 15 minutes and then he got to eat his special first-day-of-kindergarten cereal. A sample box that came in the mail a week ago. I told him he could have on his first day. Every morning for the last week he pulled that box out and would give the countdown to when he could eat it.

I’m not sure where I get such deluded ideas that once school started things would be different with him. Well the only thing that is different is that I have to put up with his same tom foolery while getting him and his cousin and his brother ready to get him out the door. Where do I get these ideas anyhow, I took him to preschool for a whole year last year!

I am nervous not because I don’t think he will do well, because I know he’s smart and should be fine, it is that he is so young! Did I prepare him for this much independence? It is scary to think of him getting off the bus and going to the playground and then making it to his class when the whistle blows without me. The playground is SO LARGE and he is just a Little Moo. This is my panic point. Today he did not take the bus, but I told him could on Friday. ~~I need~~ He needs another couple days navigating.

As you can see he was so done with pictures, I COULD NOT get one with him looking at me. He didn’t even care if I stayed, he just wanted to go play with all those kids!

Sigh.

He is just so big.

It is that time of the year!

2011-08-10T14:20:00.001-07:00

The aroma-o-crayola is in the air and the glue sticks are aplenty.That’s right, around here it is time for school! In less than a week our Little Moo starts Kindergarten! I vacillate between teary-eyed reflection on where the time has gone and being excited for him to ~~be out of my hair~~ experience this milestone.

I know that I will enjoy some of the morning quiet but….yeah that’s it!

He is ready for kindergarten and super excited and I couldn’t ask for more! I absolutely LOVED school until the day I graduated. I was the kid that woke myself up at 5am (hours before my parents) because I couldn’t sleep and I would be dressed and ready to go 15 minutes later. Okay, so shocker I was a bit of a goody-goody but I liked school and I can only hope my children do to!

This time of year always reminds me of one of my all time favorite commercials!

Does it speak to my personality much that my favorite commercial is for school supplies? Yeah…that’s what I thought.

Currently I am fighting the urge to be sucked into the Back-to-School must buy everything new madness. First off, his school starts earlier than most schools so it will still be summer. I surely won’t be buying new shorts for just a couple weeks so he will be sporting non-stained clean summer clothes. If the teacher is lucky I will be able to convince him to wear underwear (that isn’t on backwards) and put his sandals on the correct feet. Then of course some of the supplies he needs are things we have so why buy more? I’m hoping to teach our kids that we don’t have to have everything new the first day of school. I’ve even read that some families set a budget (which I love!) and if the kids save themselves money they get to keep the rest. I still have a few years before we are ready for that, but it is something to consider for sure!

New school supplies or not I hope that our Little Moo enjoys his school experience and continues to love learning. Hopefully there isn’t a crying ball of mess on the floor of the classroom the first day of kindergarten, but check back to see how I did!!!

One is Fun!!!

2011-08-01T13:58:00.001-07:00

Our little baby boy is one!!! I can’t believe how quickly the year has passed and how much he has grown. You would think that since he isn’t our first this would come as no surprise, but it still always shocks and amazes us!

I love one. I love watching children this age (especially my own!) soak up everything like a sun dried, dehydrated sponge. Everything is new and exciting and they don’t talk back yet and haven’t started the “terrible twos” thing. Sure each age has its drawbacks and perks but I really enjoy that you can teach them so much and they still haven’t figured out that you don’t always know what on earth you are doing. Our Littlest Moo loves books and being read to and “talking” on the phone. He is so curious and already appears to have some problem solving skills. He isn’t walking yet, but we are in no rush and we know it will be coming soon. We remember what that entails, once they start walking everything changes and you can’t go back. Right now for him everything is a hat and he thinks it is fantastic to take one thing and put it into another. Oh to be entertained by such simple things in life!

I wish this stage would last longer but since the only way to accomplish that would be to stunt his growth both physically and academically and in my line of work I know what damage this can do so I think we’ll opt for soaking up as much of it as we can and enjoy our little man and all his stages.

**Oh and I’d like to add a special shout out to my friend Stacumz and my SIL for helping to capture the special moments of the boys’ party. I was able to take some photos but was helping the kids for a good part of it and they filled in where I was absent. They contributed some great shots to our collection of party pictures, thanks ladies!!!

Dr. Seuss Party-rific!!!

2011-07-27T16:18:00.001-07:00

This past weekend we celebrated Little Moo’s 5th and Littlest Moo’s 1st Birthday with a Dr. Seuss Party. We had a fantastic time! I’m pretty sure this is the most planning and decorating I’ve ever done for a birthday party so I thought I’d share!

Let’s start with the invitation

I’m particularly proud of these as it took me HOURS to figure out how to use paint.net, but I learned a lot. In the past I have made the invitations by hand, and I will probably do that again in the future, but this was the best way to incorporate the characters. As would be predicted, after I finished these and sent them out various crafts stores started having Dr. Seuss displays with all kinds of fun stickers that of course would have come in handy to make them by hand. But hey, it forced me to learn how to use image editing software for which I am grateful!

And of course what is a party without food!

Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes! This was my first attempt at making my own frosting and using cake decorating tools. It is not the most delectable baked good I’ve ever made, but they turned out cute and fortunately when you’ve put a lot of work into something most people won’t spit it out in front of you and tell you how terrible they are. I will believe that they were good!

Multicolored goldfish are always a hit with kiddos!

Pink Ink Yink Drink anyone?

Yummy pasta salad from my brother’s girlfriend!

In addition we had Brown Barbaloot Truffula fruit (grapes, strawberries and watermelon), Broccoli Salad (which is so popular it never goes to waste and it made for all of family gatherings) , hot dogs, soda and chips.

Now for the decorations!

To decorate I just used some Dr. Seuss books that we have and set them up around the house as well as some wall decals that I purchased from a party store where I also found the Green Eggs and Ham balloons. I pulled the colors from the balloon to match. Dollar Tree is great for decorations as well as the dollar section at Target, they have great stuff!!! And in the living room we had the audio of Dr. Seuss stories playing in the background.

This is by far the most planning I have ever done for a party, coming in second to my wedding! Some things the party didn’t have:

*expensive goody bags for the kids

*activities/games planned for the kids

*catered food or even fancy food

Guess what? I don’t think anyone noticed!!!! The kids had a great time playing in the bubbles (I set out a little bubble machine) and on the swing set and running around with each other and the adults. Sometimes all the fancy gets in the way of what is really important, celebrating!!!

And I think these kids had fun!

For those that say I could have done something better or it wasn’t big enough I kept coming across this quote while planning for this party and I think it is perfect

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” ~ Dr. Seuss

This is who we are! Nothing fancy about us but we sure know how to have fun!!!

Five Alive!!!

2011-07-21T14:54:00.001-07:00

It is official, as of Sunday evening Little Moo is 5! He is very excited about this. I was hoping (in an utterly delusional way) that some switch would turn and there would be a return of the sweet boy I know he is. Apparently his switch was defective. Darn.

Well I suppose that isn’t entirely true. Little Moo has very suddenly decided he can (and will) do things on his own even if that means pulling up a chair to reach the cups to get he and his brother some water. One day he even asked for some snack and I told him after I went to the bathroom I would get them something to eat. When I came out and he had gotten both he and Niecey-poo a snack and water, sippy lid and all. Sure there was a trail of water across the kitchen and goldfish crumbs everywhere because they had polished off the package. But he did it himself and he couldn’t be prouder. And neither can I. Do I like having to clean up his independence??? Not so much. But seeing how accomplished he feels fills my heart and makes it bearable. Kind of like when they are 9 months and poop everywhere, but they give you a huge grin and giggle and you can’t help but laugh. Sure there is crap everywhere, but you love them so you’ll get over it.

This year Little Moo received (from Zippercow and I) REAL tools that are his size and his very own. He is beyond thrilled to be able to “help” Daddy. Now whether his Dad is just as excited remains to be seen. Fortunately Zippercow likes helping him learn despite the many white hairs if gives him, which is a big deal, he only has a few!

He is a jack of all trades this little boy is. He can be caught at night when he should be going to bed dressing up in costumes and dancing to the Phineas and Ferb soundtrack in the mirror then fall asleep with his pile of books around him. You add the yard work, wrestling and incessant who, what, where, when, why and how you have a pretty full day!

When starting this post I wasn’t sure if I wanted to just make it all mushy and starry eyed about how magical these last 5 years have been or complain about how frustrating they have been. The truth is I wouldn’t change any of it for anything. Frustration helps to teach him and teach us and when the tears (mine) have dried we have some great stories to share. He is a smart and talented little boy and we are proud of our Little Moo. He continues to grow and ~~frustrate~~ amaze us and we look forward to what 5 brings us!

Birthday Season

2011-07-15T14:40:00.001-07:00

Or otherwise known in our house as Christmas in July. Why is that you ask? Of the four birthdays in our family three of them are in July. The other one (Zippercow’s) is in December. So twice a year we have to figure out massive gift giving. We don’t mind so much, but it certainly makes things interesting around here! I will be doing a series of posts highlighting each person’s birthday for this month. We’ll start with me!

This year I turned 29! I joke “29 for the first year” but really I’m not so worried about turning thirty. I know many of my friends are not very thrilled about the big 3-0 but I don’t understand why. That could be since I was twelve my mom would joke that I was “twelve going on thirty” of course adding a year every year, but the same comment. I guess I’m looking forward to actually being the age I have acted most of my life. What’s better is that I know SO much more than I did when I was twelve! I enjoy that with every passing year I learn so much more about myself and the world around me. So if you ask me twenty-nine is just the lead up to the best year EVER!

This year I have a couple goals.

*Celebrate my thirtieth in misses clothes versus plus size. I don’t care if it is the very largest size in misses, just so long as it is no longer plus sized.

* Continue and improve our efforts to be more healthy and do more activities as a family

*I’d like to continue to learn about photography and actually catch up on my scrapbooking

(this photo was taken with my tripod and remote that I got for my birthday. Little Moo insisted I show him how it works. Now I just need to take one with all of us when Littlest Moo isn’t napping!)

* And of course most importantly spending lots of time loving all my boys!!!

Here’s to 29!!!

The Invasion of Phineas & Ferb

2011-07-07T17:19:00.001-07:00

We’ve been invaded by catchy tunes, a boy with a triangle head, his brother and a secret agent platypus. What’s even more devastating is that it’s catchy. If you are unfamiliar with the Disney cartoon, Phineas and Ferb, I would suggest you watch an episode.

Now maybe you won’t look at me funny when I sing of squirrels in my pants (S.I.M.P.) because you too will be sucked into the catchy tunes. Mwahahaha!

Okay so of all things for Little Moo to be into at this time I would much rather this than Transformers or Spiderman or [insert other common comic superhero]. I blame my brother. While he is an adult he has always been a fan of cartoons. Usually I just roll my eyes and say “No Nustin, I haven’t seen that one”. But Little Moo had seen the show a couple times with him. I’m not sure what possessed me to watch it at our house, but now if the kids are watching anything, it is probably Phineas and Ferb. I enjoy the premise of the show. While it isn’t the educational programing I usually opt for at least the boys are being inventive and creative and I would much rather Little Moo act out the exploits of Perry the Platypus than shooting guns or karate chopping things/people. And the music is catchy and gets everyone dancing and singing along.

I mean, how could you not love this! Or even better

See? Everyone is dancing! Even Zippercow can be heard singing S.I.M.P. (which is hilarious by the way). It is such a hit that even the rest of my family who was over for the Fourth of July spent a good deal of time listening to the soundtrack, dancing and singing. Yes, to kids music. The songs are original and have catchy tunes. How can you not love the lyrics (this is from Little Brothers)

…Even when you break my toys,
You will always be my,
Little brothers,
Cause you're younger,
We're related, and you're boys.

Wow, did I really just blog about Phineas and Ferb?!?!?!

Four Year Old Turned Valley Girl

2011-06-29T15:02:00.001-07:00

Having two boys I thought it would be a number of years before I got to hear the high pitched chattering full of “like” and “so” in every sentence. You know, when either one of them (or both of them!!!) inevitably brings home a far too cheery girl I absolutely can’t stand so that I flinch every time she says the word “like”. Well SURPRISE!!!!

Instead of turning 5, Little Moo has gone full valley girl. I suppose it would be more appropriate to say valley speak since clearly he is not a girl. His sentences are riddled with “so” and “like” and he frequently talks so fast we can’t understand him. Where on Earth did he get that from?!?!

I brought it up with Zippercow later in the evening. We listened to him tell multiple stories using his “likes”’ and “sos” and I turned to Zippercow and asked “So, like, where do you think he got that from?” and he replied “I don’t know. He’s like, a little weird”

Oops!

The Shoes I Hope Never to Wear

2011-06-21T17:40:00.001-07:00

Today our Littlest Moo had surgery. It was very minor, the biggest concern was actually the anesthesia and he did wonderful! I tried really hard not to dwell on it a lot before hand and could feel the little hands of panic at the fringes of my thoughts but was successful in putting off any panic attacks. Maybe I’m not a great mom because I wasn’t spending hours worrying about it but for me there are just some things in life that just need to be done and we can’t invest too much time worrying about it. That isn’t to say that I wasn’t a bit concerned about the anesthesia but we have a very healthy and strong little boy so I was confident he we be just fine.

This was reaffirmed once we checked into the Pediatric Surgery Unit. I’m not sure what is says about me, but I actually was more upset seeing all the other kids waiting. The waiting area was really full and some children seemed to be there for outpatient procedures like our Littlest Moo and then there were families waiting and at least one teenager who appeared to be a cancer patient. When we entered there were two young boys (about 10 and 7) pulling what appeared to be their little sister (18 months?) around in a wagon. She was dressed in a gown and clearly had her hand prepped for an IV. They were being super sweet and I thought it was nice that they were pulling her around. After we went to sit down the boys came to sit in the waiting room right next to me. We were letting Littlest Moo play and the older boy asks me his name so I told him. He told me he is cute and I thanked him. He asked what Littlest Moo was there for. I shared that he was going to have surgery. He asked me “What’s wrong with him?” to which I told him “They just have to clear his tear ducts.” He responded with “My little sister has Cancer, she’s having her first surgery right now” And all I could say was “That’s no good, I hope it goes well” I couldn’t even look at him and I was trying not to cry.I believe I said something to the effect that “ I bet you are a great big brother”. I had no idea what to say to this little boy. I was so disappointed in myself. I like to think of myself as nurturing, someone who could have engaged this young child in conversation and keep him company while he waited for his sister to get out of surgery. Sure I couldn’t promise his sister would be okay but I could have done better than “that’s no good”. It was then that I REALLY looked around the room. There were clearly VERY sick children there waiting for surgery and families anxiously awaiting their child’s surgery be completed. What were there for was so… not a thing. Sure it was something he needed done but so minuscule in the grand scheme of things.

Littlest Moo did so well. He was carried away for his surgery with his little purple cow, didn’t even cry and when he went to recovery he was already awake. This upset me some because we weren’t there when he woke up, but he more than recognized us, wanted us to hold him and most importantly wanted to EAT. Then we had to just entertain him until we could go. This room was difficult too because it is just a bunch of beds in one room where the children recover from surgery and I did see from other children what I feared Littlest Moo would do. There were some very upset children who were hurting. Meanwhile Littlest Moo was clapping and asking for more animal crackers. The bed next to us was the little girl who had cancer surgery. She had been in there for more than an hour and was just waking when we were leaving.

We are thankful that if our son has to have surgery, it is to unblock his tear ducts and is otherwise a very healthy boy. Our hearts go out to all those families and children and I hope to never be in their shoes.

Insanity One Brick at a Time

2011-06-20T07:37:00.001-07:00

Ta Da!!!! The patio is done! After some issues with materials we FINALLY have a patio off our back slider door and as far as I’m concerned it is absolutely fabulous! It took Zippercow a couple weekends to excavate the site for our latest project. It got a little rocky. Literally.

Everyone got in on the action! Child labor laws only apply if they aren’t related by blood right?

This ~~rock~~ boulder required a neighbor to come over so the two of them could lift it out of the ground. It left a little something behind…

A gaping hole!

Sure we were already digging most of it out but this one of course had to continue out into the lawn the we were NOT going to dig out.

Fortunately we were able to fix it so that Zippercow could do this

Do you know what is more fun than building a 216 sq ft patio in pouring rain??? Just about ANYTHING. Fortunately we have some wonderful friends and family who were ~~stupid~~ wonderful enough to spend their entire Saturday helping to move 8 tons (literally) of landscaping materials in the pouring rain. I’m truly glad they were there because otherwise Zippercow and I would have been up until midnight trying to finish it (we were NOT going to pay for another day for that vibratory machine!) and if it were just the two of us it may have resulted in a trial separation. I kid, I kid… Kind of.

So are you ready for the big reveal???

First a before…

Awww! Little Moo was so… little!

And now!!!

Drumroll please…

Ta Da!

Zippercow already is enjoying sitting on the back patio! He can’t really move and is quite delirious so I left him there. But it’s okay. There’s an umbrella!

A Greener Yard One Tree at a Time…

2011-06-17T14:50:00.001-07:00

You should probably multiply that times 16 to be more accurate. Sadly we haven’t had much luck with planting trees. Last year we received 10 trees from the Arbor Day Foundation and we were so excited about putting trees in our nekked back yard. Then none of them grew. Not. One. Single. One. Out of ten, really?!? For a whole summer we had a bunch of nicely edged spots in the yard with dead twigs sticking up out of the dirt. We let them hang around hoping they would grow but no such luck. I think a rabbit may have even taken off with one of the “trees”.

So this year we thought we would try again. We purchased 6 trees. So far we’ve had much better luck. mostly.

We purchased 3 Red Bud and 3 Hydrangea Trees. The Hydrangeas were SUPER excited to be alive and are doing great. They are small still but I swear much like my children I can ACTUALLY see them growing before my very eyes! The Red Buds aren’t nearly as excited, but surely are growing. Well some of them that is. Out of our six trees only four of them seem to be growing. Enter our newest addition.

Remember that community yard sale I couldn’t shut up about? We bought a tree. Yep at a yard sale, can you believe it!!! I’m sure it will forever be known as the yard sale tree.

So apparently we have to kill 12 trees to get 5??? We are hoping to get another one to replace one of the ill looking Hydrangea trees. With all the forests that exist who knew it would be so difficult to grow trees! I think we’ve learned we need to buy slightly more established trees. Sure they are a little more expensive, but it might mean they stand a chance against us!

In other exciting news here are our Lilacs we are growing in the front of the house.

Don’t mind the weeds around the lilacs. We are planning on putting river rock in the flower beds so I haven’t been keeping up on top of weeding.

Um, okay I confess. I’m am terrible about weeding. But at least the lilacs don’t seem to care!

It’s Coming!!!!

2011-06-06T20:43:00.001-07:00

In less than a week it will be here, and I am so excited! That’s right everyone, this Saturday June 11th the Liberty Lake Yard Sales are on! Zippercow and I look forward to this every year. It has been a tradition and it is our “date” every year. Sure some years we’ve gone perusing with friends but we do not take the children with us. What is so great about the Liberty Lake Yard Sales you ask? Well what isn’t?!?! It is a large community with tons of yard sales and vendors. We spend HOURS wandering the neighborhood scoping out great deals. Some years we find great deals, some years the only thing we buy is a bag a kettle corn from the corner vendor, but it is still fun to run into people we know and enjoy the morning outdoors. Here are some of the great things we’ve scored

We found the dimmer switch with remote for $15 which is an awesome deal. Zippercow installed it in our bedroom. Mood lighting sure, but mostly it allows Zippercow to turn it off from the bed. Apparently everything needs a remote?

Over the range microwave. I think we spent $80 which is a good deal but it also allowed us to get rid of the one on our counter (which we sold thus offsetting the cost of the new one) and since counter space is at a premium in our kitchen this has helped me out tons!

Napkin holder. Sure it isn’t anything exciting, but I think we spent $1 (maybe less) for something that helps keep the napkins from blowing away. Because nothing says classy like the plastic package of napkins plopped on the counter!

And let us not forget Yard Sale Brita! May it rest in pieces. This find saved us money for YEARS!

I know that we’ve found kids items and household this and that over the years, but those are the things I can remember off hand. Being the frugal gal I am, yard sales play an important part in saving our family money. And for me this community sale is like the Black Friday of yard sales. So if you are in the area, check out the Liberty Lake Yard Sales. Just Follow the signs!

Preschooler No More!

2011-05-25T15:51:00.001-07:00

Today was Little Moo’s Preschool Graduation! Talk about water works. This Mama Moo couldn’t keep the tears back. The ceremony was sooo cute. I can not believe that our preschooler is now a kindergartener! He did really well for the rehearsed dances, but guess which mama got to look on proudly as her child messed around so much while the director was talking that the teacher had to go remind them to be quiet. That’s right, this Mama! Okay, so I wasn’t particularly proud at that moment, but not entirely surprised and come on, he’s four!!! I have just had the opportunity to sit helplessly watching on while your child is doing what he shouldn’t. What are you to do? It isn’t like you can stand up and yell “Hey, stop screwing around with the kid next to you and stand still like the rest of the children!” so you just watch on and hope it doesn’t get out of hand. This was only for a moment at the very end while the director of the program talked and they just stood behind her on the stage. He otherwise did really well. I don’t think he will realize what this all means until we don’t go back to school on Monday but we’ll deal with that then. For now we are the proud parents of a graduated preschooler!

Okay, so he is bustin’ a move in these pictures because he’s supposed to! Too bad I don’t have a picture of him rockin’ the air guitar, priceless!

Giving Up The Good Stuff

2011-05-24T15:25:00.001-07:00

After much debate I’ve decided I need to give up my diet soda habit. I know, I know, I’ve said it before, lasted about a week then answered the sirens call of the dark bubbly. I just haven’t been able to completely kick it. What can I say, I love the chemically, bubbly, refreshing goodness! On a hot day nothing tastes better than an ice cold Diet Pepsi. For years I’ve convinced myself that since I don’t smoke, I don’t drink alcohol or even coffee AND in trying to be healthier I also don’t have my tasty treats to fall back on having this one vice isn’t so bad. And no, in the grand scheme of things I suppose it is not but we have reined in our snacking and started exercising regularly and I’m not really seeing results. Instead I’m losing and gaining the same couple pounds. Hello, as an obese woman I should not be fighting to maintain! The steps that I’ve taken thus far should at least be slowly getting me down in the pounds, but instead I’m just staying put. I’ve done some research and while none of the research is conclusive I think it is worth a try.

So, this is a huge undertaking for me. I have been drinking diet soda for 10 years or so and have never been successful in staying soda free. It truly is an addiction. I start with one can, then one can a day, then two, then 3 or 4. I simply must stop! My biggest concern now is the caffeine withdrawal. Even Zippercow raises an eyebrow when I mention giving up the good stuff. My biggest fear is turning into this without caffeine

I hope my husband and children can survive this with me. I know after some time I will get back to myself, but it could be a bit scary to start with but my hope is to go from this

To this

Okay, so I am not foolish enough to believe that just giving up diet soda will get me looking like that, but I hope it will help me on my weight loss goal. I am sharing my goal with my internet peeps to help keep me accountable and hopefully so I can get some support.

I will be finishing the soda I have, now my question is should I drink it at my normal rate or cut back and savior it???

What’s with the pineapple???

2011-05-20T15:45:00.001-07:00

Mmm…Pineapple!!! It is my second to favorite fruit (strawberries of course being number one) but it wasn’t until a couple summers ago that I attempted to chop one up myself. It does look quite intimidating, doesn’t it? Okay, so maybe I’m the only one afraid of a fruit, but we all know I’m little strange so no surprises! For those of you that may know me it will be no surprise I’m not skilled at wielding a knife and the combination of a dangerous fruit and knife wielding Mama Moo is quite disastrous. Do you have any idea how painful fresh pineapple juice is in a freshly cut thumb!?! Yikes!! I still have a scar even! It was bad enough that I have suffered some post traumatic stress and have been unable to cut into a pineapples since.

Until now!

Enter the pineapple slicer and corer. It was a Christmas gift from my brother and sister-in-law and I am in looove!

Did you know that such things existed? I knew it had to, how else could you purchase pineapples already sliced and cored? But I had been unable to find one at any of our regular haunts. My brother and sister-in-law rock!!!

So this is how it works

Oh so carefully cut the top off the pineapple. Be certain not to accidentally cut off any appendages.

Then just stick the little do-hickey in the top and spin. So simple even a culinary challenged individual such as myself can figure it out!

Just remove the top handle, turn upside down and your slices slide right off! Look Ma, I have all my fingers!!! The process even squeezes some juice out that stays in the bottom of the pineapple shell (?) that could make for a great beverage in a very fresh and summery drink holder! Last but not least (and this step is crucial)

Find and marry a swashbuckling, pirate of a husband who will grill ANYTHING you hand him!

If you haven’t had grilled pineapple, you should! Go! Do it now!!!

The Grass IS Greener on the Other Side!

2011-05-13T11:24:00.001-07:00

We all know the saying “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” meaning that whatever we have it always seem like someone has it better and the lesson of course is that we should appreciate what we have. And let me just say I very much appreciate everything I have and when I find the little green monster rearing its ugly green head I have the clarity to see that everything has a price and not always monetarily. But I digress because in this case I am actually talking about grass.

This is our backyard from the furthest corner of our property. Sure from here it looks green. Okay so it is green, but is definitely not grass. Most people have grass with a couple weeds in it. We have LOTS of weeds with a little bit of grass in it.

Like this, what the hell is it? I certainly don’t know but it might bite you if you step on it.

See, green. Not grass. And these…

These are enough to make Zippercow’s eye twitch. We have fought valiantly every year, and someday our yard will be grass and not a carpet of weeds. Our neighbors have slowly filled us in on the details of this house as we get to know them. Apparently there was never even grass planted after the house was built (in the backyard that is) so any grass that is there is purely by accident. So yes, in our case the grass is actually greener on the other side of the fence. Mostly because they have it!

I long to be able to run through the grass with the kids in bare feet

without my foot being cut by some terrible weedy thing. Oh yes, that actually happened to me in our very yard. Oh how I’d love to twirl in song with careless abandon much in the fashion of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. Of course my singing won’t be nearly (or at all) impressive but still…In the mean time we will cautiously wander through the mean green weeds of our backyard with steel shoes to protect our feet.

There is one thing that grows prolifically (other than weeds) in our yard

Rocks! That’s right, it is just about harvest time and it is a plentiful crop!

We will start taking orders May 16. No checks please!

Finally!

2011-05-09T11:15:00.001-07:00

Do you remember that one time when I said we were painting the interior of our house? Oh, and that when we were done I would post pictures our our lovely painted home? Oh, you don’t remember… Wellllll we finished about a month ago and I thought that maybe I’d finally share with everyone else!

This is our kitchen before we moved in…

And our kitchen now (2 years later) We have painted, removed the terrible tile and put the new floors in and I love all of it!!! I made the valance from an old set of curtains and purchased the artwork on the wall from the clearance section at Ross. I almost put it back (because I talk myself out of most purchases) but my dear friend convinced me it would look nice. That was before we painted of course, but I think I love it even more now!

Our living room before we moved in…

Our Living Room After…Yep, couldn’t even be bothered to turn the TV off first. How I Met Your Mother Anyone?

The view down the hall before…

And after! Who knew we’d spend so much time looking down this hall telling Little Moo to get back in his room at bedtime. Okay, so it isn’t totally shocking!

Our dining room before we moved in. Don’t mind our real estate agent in the shot. You get the idea!

And now! Tada!!!! Painted and I’m sure you will notice that there is no carpet in the dining room. Whose brainiac idea is that anyhow? In what circumstance is it EVER a good idea to have carpet under a dining room table? Even if I didn’t have children I lack the grace it takes to be human and am always spilling things so…

You might noticed nothing is really staged. It was enough that there aren’t piles of junk everywhere, so this is what it looks like clean…mostly. You might have also noticed that some of the walls are blank, specifically the dining room. I haven’t decided what I’ve wanted to do with the space and much like with the shelves pictured below I have decided that instead of just buying something to fill the space so that it will be “finished” I am going to wait until I find something that I think is perfect. I have a lifetime to live in my home and collect things that I enjoy. For now we’re happy that the walls aren’t white and that I have something on some of the walls

So this is the inside of our home! Sure it won’t be in any magazines but we love it and enjoy making improvements as time goes by!

R.I.P. Yard Sale Brita

2011-05-06T14:22:00.001-07:00

Late Sunday evening a sickening snap echoed through the house followed by a howl from Zippercow that sent me rushing into the kitchen, certain that Zippercow had hurt himself. It was worse. So much worse.

The spigot for or 18 cup Brita water filtration tank had snapped off.

See? The little blue thingy (yes, technical term) is supposed to be attached to the white thingy. Yet clearly it no longer is. Do you know what can make Zippercow look like this?

And that of course is this:

You see, Zippercow is actually a blob of water that miraculously walks about on two legs. By that I mean he drinks gallons of water a day and he does not like tap water either, so he has to drink gallons of fancy filtered water. Enter yard sale Brita. Oh the times we’ve shared together.

Yard sale Brita joined our family a couple years ago. We were (strangely enough) at a community yard sale and came across this filtration system. We previously were using a pitcher variety that had to be refilled multiple times a day so we were intrigued by its size AND it also came with a box of the replacement filters. After some deliberation we decided it was important we welcome this yard sale Brita into our lives. Then a couple houses down we found 2 more packages (containing four each) of the filter replacements. In the end we had the filtration system and 3 boxes (four filters each) of replacement filters for less than $10. Zipper cow was ecstatic! He could have tons of cold filtered water and we were able to do it with very little money!

Yard sale Brita is survived by one replacement filter. That’s right, we still have one of those suckers left! And of course yard sale Brita was quickly replaced. We had to, Zippercow almost had to drink tap water!!! The new filter system is thinner, shinier and fits in our fridge better. So we replaced our old clunky filtration system with an new, sleek and sexy model. Hopefully after this post Zippercow won’t decide to do the same to me! Most likely not, because much as he found this time “trading up” cost us five times as much as our old one and we only got one filter with that.

So yard sale Brita, we bid you adieu! You were the freakin’ giving tree of filtration systems and you will be missed greatly.

Oh Poo!

2011-04-30T17:11:00.001-07:00

I should start by saying how much we love our Niecey-poo. I’m so happy that she is with us everyday. That’s not to say that there aren’t times where she drives me a little batty but why should she be any different than the other children and we get to be close to our Niece, the boys are close to their cousin and (let’s face it) she is so cute!

In an effort to protect her innocence I gave her the alias of Niecey-poo thinking I’d come up with something more fitting as I spent more time with her. But what I’ve come to discover is that Niecey-poo is perfect. And it works on so many different levels! She is at an age that I especially like. Where their curiosity and inevitable baby cuteness (that has yet to wear off) tips the scale. That’s what allows us to continue on as parents and caregivers, the continuation of the species and all. The cute, it makes almost everything bearable. And fun! Here is an afternoon with Niecey-poo.

What’s that Auntie? You don’t want me in the windowsill pulling on the curtains?

But I’m sitting in the windowsill. See? I’m cute!

Oh, you were serious about getting down…

Later after nap…

Hello Auntie, it’s me again!!! See, I’m cute!

Are you still taking pictures when I want to get out? Again?!?

Okay, I’ll do it myself!!!

Hmm… Well that didn’t work.

Maybe if I just…

Cousin? Do I hear you? Will you help?

Uh, hello Auntie! Are you still taking pictures?

You’ll help me right? Go find a rope!!!

This is clearly what stability balls were designed for, I’ll try this!

Okay. You forced me to do it. I’m giving you my cute eyes. Look deep into my eyes. You are feeling warm and fuzzy and enveloped in a blanket of cute. You WILL pick me up and let me out.

Okay so I’m sure that last picture speaks for itself. Oh and those eyes, we call them the cute eyes. It is like the scene in Skrek where Puss in Boots takes his hat off and disarms his enemies with is hypnotic cute look. Cue the music….and there, you have cute eyes. And man, does she have it down!

Laughter is music

2011-04-28T14:28:00.001-07:00

There are so many days that I’m ready to pull my hair out and I know I yell at the kids way more than I should but fortunately if you do enough things right some of the other things can be forgiven. And my kids, on a whole are happy. Could I be full of myself and in denial? Possibly. But I do know that their bad moods and tantrums pass and they frequently are caught enjoying life. Together.

Both my boys love books and love to giggle at the funny stories

or at something as simple as ribbon

Or maybe it is just that someone else is laughing…

What I do know is that I love all kinds of music for many different reasons, but my absolute favorite sound is the sound of my children laughing. It reminds me that even on my worst days when I feel I am the crappiest parent that ever there was my children are not broken, they are quite the opposite. Do they have the perfect Mommy? No. Do they have every toy known to man? No. They do have a love for life and love to laugh and it is music to my ears!

Why Does the Easter Bunny Hate Me?

2011-04-13T18:05:00.001-07:00

I am convinced seasonal candy is part of a massive conspiracy to undermine the efforts of the overweight of America. Who can easily ~~diet~~ eat healthy when there is always the tempting lure of brightly wrapped seasonal candy? Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day and of course Easter. No wonder we have to work our booties off before swimsuit season, we eat candy all winter! I am sure that I am not alone in this, but I associate positive childhood memories with delicious treats. Not exclusively, but most of the family traditions I enjoy also include some sort of treat. Lets take trip down my memory lane…

These sweet little tarts were a staple of our childhood Easter Baskets. Yellow was the best.Chicks, Ducks, and Bunnies that are oh so sweet!!!

Oh yes, the beautifully colored foil covered chocolate eggs. Yum!

I don’t necessarily recall these being in our baskets as a child, I think I may have discovered them as a young adult. I do know that these delicious eggs would help keep me awake those long grave nights I used to work. Oh, and they have made red and green ones for Christmas, but they are not as good. Apparently they have to be pastel spring colors to be delicious, you know, like how the red M&Ms taste the best. Seriously, you know it to be true!

Jelly beans. Well, they’ve never really been a favorite of mine. I would never miss them in my basket, but if there must be jelly beans they absolutely have to be Starburst Jelly Beans. The best jelly beans evar!

We would get the little Robin Eggs every year, and I remember always getting them confused with the gum that was the same shape and size that we seemed to always get as well.

This is a World’s Finest Chocolate Solid Milk Chocolate Bunny. SOLID chocolate, none of that hollow bunny business. Each of us would get one in our Easter Basket every year. This bad boy would take us weeks to eat. I have specific memories of slowly gnawing off ears and the basket (always in the same order) until it mostly a slobbery mess.

Sure this looks like a lot of candy, but as I recall the loose candy could easily fill about half of a sandwich size Ziploc bag so my parents weren’t putting us into sugar comas. But somehow as an adult I feel like it won’t be Easter without these tasty little sweets. It is silly of course, because my children are still young, they don’t know any better. But I still struggle with the thought that to get the warm fuzzy feelings I need to indulge in these treats. This year I said NO MORE! Okay, so I do believe I will still have some candy, but I have refused to continually buy bags before Easter itself to keep in our house as seasonal treats!

So I ask why does the Easter Bunny hate me? Why is undermining my efforts to be a healthier person? You know he’s not alone, Santa and that stupid baby with the bow and arrow are in on it too!

How about you? What are your favorite Easter memories? Do they include food? Am I the only one whose memories are riddled with candy?

How To Resell Your Stuff

2011-04-08T16:35:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I was able to shop the Just Between Friends pre-sale (thanks to my fabulous friend!) and was shocked (or maybe not so shocked) at what people value their old stuff to be worth. For those of you who don’t know Just Between Friends is a semiannual consignment sale for children's items and anything baby/maternity. So a consigner can register with JBF and sell their items and JBF obviously gets their cut as well. It actually is kind of a neat little system if you have enough to sell to make it worth your time and money. What isn’t neat, is what some people seem to think their old crap is worth. I get that since consigners pay a fee to sell and also don’t get 100% of the proceeds they are trying to recoup some of their money, but really if you are selling a bunch of things and are able to sell it ALL because you had it reasonably priced you are likely to make more than if your stuff is marked up a bunch.

So…I’m going to teach you how to resell your stuff! Consignment or yard sale I will give you some useful tips to help get rid of your stuff! So get out your pens and paper peeps because Mama Moo is about to school you!

What Qualifies Me

Since I was a child I have used my share of hand-me-downs, yard sale and thrift store items. Sure I got new stuff as gifts and from my parents but smart parents/people get good deals on quality items and sometimes those items are used. Some of my favorite articles of clothing growing up were used and some of my favorite items (clothing or otherwise) for my children have also been used. My family has had (and shopped) yard sales since I was very little and as an adult I have also put on a few of my own. We also regularly use craigslist and Freecycle with much success.

Why Are You Selling

Why are you selling your stuff? Are you moving and can’t take it with you? Just looking to make some space in your overpopulated home? If you are consigning are you making it a business? Are you hard-pressed for cash? Obviously knowing your desired outcome makes a difference on how you will price things. If you are trying to make space or move clearly the important part is to get the stuff gone and the money is just a nice bonus, but if you need the money to support yourself obviously the goal is to get as much as you can for your item.

Your Trash My Treasure: Or Are You Just Selling Your Trash

It is said that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That does not mean that all of your trash is valuable. I mean sure, maybe you have a few treasures, and some of your stuff is still useful but let’s face it, some of your stuff is just plain…JUNK.

Some items should just be given away free or even go to the dump. Freecycle is a great resource for the things that still have life but may not have monetary value. Save all you magazines? There are plenty of people who don’t mind reading magazines that are a couple months old (or older) but you are not likely to get money for them. Even things like board games with missing pieces can be useful to someone who does art projects with the pieces. There are many things that you should not be selling (or won’t get money for) that have plenty of life in them. Check out your local freecycle network it has a lot to offer. Then of course there is always donating to a local charity, which is something I always support. So when you are deciding to sell your stuff make sure it isn’t ACTUALLY trash. I know I don’t speak for everyone but these are a few things I would never buy from another person:

worn used underwear, socks or your stinky old lawn mowing sneakers.

I was shocked at how many people at JBF were selling their children’s well worn, disgusting tennis shoes for $5 or more! Guess what, I wouldn’t pay any amount for them. A scuff or two yes, but definitely not ones that look like they’ve been buried in the dirt for a couple of years!

Anything that is broken or missing pieces if it is a dresser missing a couple knobs it might interest me, but it will have to be an excellent deal, but things that are structurally broken nope.
Old T-shirts more specifically the ones from the race you ran, cause you supported or with company logos on them. They meant something to you because they represent a memory but to me, nope. I won’t buy your old t-shirts to use as rags, I have my own old crap for that.
Clothes with broken zippers, rips, stains or holes this shouldn’t have to be explained.
Anything with an unpleasant odor do I need to explain why I don’t want your couch that smells like cat pee? Probably for the same reason you don’t. duh.
Anything with decades of dirt and grime there are plenty of things that need a good wiping down that have value. But you can usually tell if a little elbow grease will make it a prized possession or if it has been at the bottom of the pile of crap at a hoarders’ house (have you seen that show, it is a real eye opener!)

Also, don’t empty this living room into your driveway and put up a yard sale sign. If I drive up and I find your dirty, dusty stuff mixed with garbage and no prices I will drive away. Seems odd to have to say this, but I have seen these garage sales. $2 for an old dirty plate. No thanks. Which brings us to my next point.

How To Price Your Stuff

There are a couple things to consider but mostly ask yourself “What would I pay for this used?” and be realistic. I don’t care about name brands. I won’t spend $5 on a used shirt just because it has GAP on it, especially when I can get it clearance for that price or less (I will cover that in a future post) just find a different brand and purchase it brand new. So I expect a good deal when I get used kids clothes, and I’m not the only one. When it comes to things that aren’t clothes a good rule of thumb is to know what it is worth new and, if your item is in excellent condition, you can start at 50% of that, but expect people to try and go down from there. Not everything retains its value well. Linens for example need to be marked down considerably. If you are still unsure try looking online at what other people are selling your item for in similar condition. Sure you can price it higher, and maybe someone will come along and buy it. maybe. If your goal is to get rid of stuff then price it to move. If your goal is to get a certain amount of money you might be waiting awhile if you have it priced too high. Remember that an item may have meaning to you because you have memories surrounding it, but people aren’t buying your memories, they are buying your stuff.

A Few Tips To Sell

price the item to sell and label each item clearly with the price
clean it! Don’t sell your kid’s toys with their leftover snack all over it!
presentation this goes along with cleaning but how you place your items is important too. Put like items together and consider grouping multiple smaller items together to sell. Get it off the ground and on tables and don’t make people riffle through boxes! If I went to JBF and all of the clothes and toys were on tarps on the floor I would have turned around and left. I can’t look for hours on my knees and I won’t. Having things all over the ground encourages people to walk all over your stuff or miss the stuff in the middle out of fear of trampling your stuff. stuff, stuff, stuff! There, just in case I didn’t have enough in there.
advertise the more people that know, the better chance of actually selling your item(s) Consider having a neighbor or two join in your sale too, the bigger the sale the more people it will draw.
be flexible on price if someone seems interested in a particular item but wants it for less be flexible on price. Of course if it is the beginning of the sale you can give them your phone number and they can call you later in the day to see if it is still available and you can sell it for less then, but if no one else has shown any interest at all you may want to cut your losses. Consider marking everything half off the second half of your sale. Most likely you don’t want to move your stuff back into the house. I know plenty of people who don’t like haggling and feel like they are being taken. My personal opinion is that if they are offering something reasonable it is better than nothing at all.
free, free, free! consider having a designated area at your sale for free stuff.

I don’t share all of this because I had a terrible experience at JBF because actually it was just the opposite. I found some great things for great deals, everything was laid out well and I went with two wonderful ladies who also value a great deal. However there were a LOT of grossly overpriced items given that they were used and I thought I could help others to successfully sell their stuff so that everyone walks away happy.

So how about you? Do you have any tips for selling your used items? Did I miss anything?

My $.02

2011-04-07T12:25:00.001-07:00

Sadly I have been in a bit of a coupon funk. Trying to catch the sales and not planning it correctly. Sure I’m saving money, but not doing as well as I would like, especially since some of the stuff ends up being just stockpile, not things we need right away. Saving money for our family is part of my job and frankly right now I am not doing a very well at it.

Yep, incase you didn’t know I am one of those people. Scary, I know! My friends kind of roll their eyes when I mention coupons, but what is so terrible about saving money? Then I watched an older episode of Extreme Couponing on TLC.

Holy Cow! I am not one of THOSE people. Sure if you have a large family it makes sense to shop like that because you are going to go through it all (hopefully) but when you have enough deodorant to last the average adult 150 years? I think you actually have a shopping/ hoarding problem.

Nope, I don’t take my family out dumpster diving either.

Yes I use coupons to get ~~good~~ great deals, but our food fits in our cupboards and our toiletries fit in our bathroom. I buy ahead so that if we don’t have to buy it at full price (or at least I try to stay that far ahead) but none of the stockpile I buy resides in large quantities in our garage…wait. Okay so maybe when there is a spectacular sale on goldfish crackers or chips there is one shelf in our garage (ONE shelf in a cabinet) that the overflow goes on. But it also allowed us to not have to go grocery shopping after we had Littlest Moo for awhile, except basic perishables. No rooms dedicated to stockpiles we could never possibly use. We use coupons to get the things we need or can use. What the people in these shows are doing is making couponing look like it is only done by crazy people, that it is too much work. It isn’t. Clearly if you don’t already use them even just matching a few with good sales will still save you money. My shopping usually involves a little more planning. But what are these people stockpiling for? Seriously a childless couple does not need more than what could stock a small convenience store for a couple months. One of the guys on the show donated I think 1,000 boxes of cereal which was great and he ordered ahead for it but when you empty the shelves to buy large quantities of things that you already have stockpiled it just means that another family who may actually need that deal to make it by won’t get any. Come on people, don’t ruin it for everyone else!

Try some couponing etiquette or even just some common sense, what are you really going to do with that many toothbrushes?

Being Mom

2011-04-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

My plan was to sit down to write an eloquent post about being a Mom, the struggles, heartaches and most importantly the rewards. Who knows, maybe my discombobulated thoughts will spiral into that. Doubtful, but let’s go for the ride and see! As I was saying, I was just sitting down to start this post, all the kids down for nap/quiet time, the pb & j scrubbed off the tables, ankle deep toys put away and I had even thrown some laundry in the washer when I started to hear Littlest Moo giggling in his crib. Now as I’ve mentioned in posts before he is a pretty happy little fella so him giggling is not what caught my attention, but that Niecey-poo was also talking which usually means that she has chucked the paci out of her playpen and she won’t lay down to sleep without it. Upon inspection this is what I found

Not just the paci was out of the playpen, but a whole Niecey-poo. Not only had she climbed of of the playpen she sleeps in but she had climbed into the crib! Of course Littlest Moo thought it was funny, no one other than the cat has ever been in there with him, great fun!

Niecey-poo, what do you think you are doing?

Of course her response was something garbled behind the paci but judging from her gestures it goes something like this “Auntie, I don’t know how I got here, is this not where I belong?”

Being Mom. This moment sums it up quite beautifully. Sure I put the kids to nap so all should be sleeping peacefully, but they aren’t. With kids nothing is ever as straightforward as it should be. And as I’m cursing in my head that I just wish I could have a few minutes of peace I walk in on little giggles of delight and Niecey-poo quite delighted with herself and her accomplishment.

Sure I could say that all the giggles and kisses make up for it and in the end it is true, I love my boys and niece in more than any words can express, but I struggle daily to be the Mom I want my kids to have. I fall short on most days but I pick myself up (or drag myself out of bed) the next day and try again, hoping this will be the day I get some sort of Mom epiphany and it will no longer be so much work or at the very least not seem so hard. Oh Mom epiphany where are you!?!?! But anyone who has ever cared for children knows just when you think you have it figured out, those kids will remind you that you don’t.

And they would be correct.

There is no way to know everything or do everything it just isn’t possible. So everyday I just do the best I can and remind myself that this is what I’ve wanted to do my whole life, be a Mom. Just like any other person with a career I have to make a conscious effort to better myself and to continue to learn with all the energy I can summon.

Why I Don’t Bother

2011-03-31T14:54:00.001-07:00

If you have ever been to my house you may have noticed (but hopefully not) that my windows are not clean. With the exception of the bathroom mirror every glass surface has finger prints and smooshed kid face prints all over. Sure once or twice a year I bust our the Windex and clean those windows

But within seconds, like a moth to a flame I get this

Baby cling!!!

Because what is better than smearing up and licking clean glass??? Beats me. Heck, even the cats get in on it and sneeze on it or whatever other weird things cats like to do to make an otherwise clean object messy.

Both our room and Little Moo’s room have full mirrored sliding doors which are full of the little grimy prints. And I know it isn’t me grubbin’ them up because they are in toddler range, just the bottom half of the mirrors. Five minutes ago I cleaned the ones in Little Moo’s room so that we could hang some things on the mirror. I even pointed out to Little Moo how nice it was to actually be able to see our reflection in the mirror, which he seemed pretty impressed with. Sweet, maybe this will last a day or two or…..NOT.

Currently Little Moo and Niecey Poo are blowing raspberries on the clean mirrors. Yep folks, that is why I don’t bother. They were on that glass before I even finished!!!

Some may find lazy, I just see it as making efficient use my time.

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing” ~Phyllis Diller

The Restraint of a Four Year Old

2011-03-25T11:05:00.001-07:00

Lets face it, there are many reasons to be jealous of children. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to convince Little Moo to take a nap that I wished I could be the one curling up under my [insert cartoon character here] blankie and sleep the afternoon away without the guilt of all the things I should be doing and have that be all that anyone expect of me, sleep for a couple hours. I dream of that many days, but I digress. Children have beautiful hair and skin, get carried around, served and can throw down in the middle of the store if things are not going their way. If I did that in the middle of Fred Meyers because there weren’t any more of any number of frugal items I’m looking for I’d be escorted out by a very cranky manager who isn’t going to cuddle me later. Or at least I should hope not. Yes, there are many reasons to be jealous of children, but mostly I’m jealous of my son’s restraint with food.

I show restraint in many areas of my life and in some areas I feel like I’m pretty good at exercising the restraint necessary to live the kind of life we want our family to have. Except when it comes to food. I joke that I have no willpower when it comes to food especially in dessert form. But it is no joke. This is one area of my life that I struggle with, not just daily, but minute by minute. If I buy a bag of Hershey Kisses…

Mmmm, chocolate! Yeah, they will probably only make it until the next day but not much longer. And if you are lucky you might get some, if you around when I open the bag. And it isn’t that I sit down and eat the whole bag, but I just grab one or two on my way past the cupboard or the candy dish. ALL. DAY.

OOPS!

This is true of brownies or cookies too. They just taste so good! I have gotten better at just not making sweets or buying them since I know this about myself and sadly I have not been blessed with the “I can eat whatever I want and not gain a pound” metabolism. Sigh… So I struggle with tasty treats and showing restraint.

And then comes along a spunky little boy we will continue to call Little Moo who did this

We got donuts as a special treat and he got a tasty donut with sprinkles that he was so excited for. He ate about half of it then asked if he could save the rest for later and then asked for some cheerios and milk. Ummmm…..who are you and do we really share DNA??? We have worked really hard to give our children a positive image about food. We talk about what is healthy and not and while our menu could be healthier, I don’t actually do too terrible at providing healthy meals. It is mostly the snacking that gets me in trouble (and Zippercow). Strangely enough this isn’t the first we’ve seen of this from Little Moo. If we get a travel cup of Nutter Butters or the little purse box of animal cookies for him he will (without our prompting) eat a handful and ask if he can save the rest for snack tomorrow. Duh! Of course you can you wonderful little boy you!

I’d say I don’t know how, but to be honest we’ve always had set meal/snack times for Little Moo and he gets limited candy and sugary treats. Enough that he isn’t deprived and feels the need to gorge at every opportunity but little enough that it isn’t a staple in his diet. We also NEVER make him clear his plate. Clearing our plate was what we were taught when I was a kid and I fully believe that is part of my own issues, why as an adult, even if I am full I feel the need to eat everything in front of me. Children are actually conditioned not to listen to their bodies when they say they are full. He is always allowed to eat as little or as much as he wants at meals. Most days he doesn’t eat everything on his plate unless he’s played extra hard or it is a favorite. And if you set a tray full of vegetables in front of him he will go to town! He also likes to drink water, which we encouraged from the first time he held a sippy cup and doesn’t like soda. I also try not to talk about “dieting” but eating healthy around him. All in all, to this point in his life I feel we’ve done pretty good with food, he seems to have a pretty healthy relationship with food.

I wish I could be more like him. Yes, my four year old. And it is not like I can’t do it either. While I was pregnant with Littlest Moo I had Gestational Diabetes and learned to very strictly control my diet very quickly to keep both of us healthy. Yet with no little baby growing within me to protect I struggle to keep my motivation. You’d think being healthy (and by extension skinnier) would be enough, but then I think one day without working out won’t hurt, I’ll do more tomorrow. Then I don’t. One cookie turns into four and then I feel since I’ve fallen off the wagon I might as well eat what I want. I know this is bad for me, yet I find myself in the same cycle constantly. So here I am. Twenty eight year old mom of two children who needs to learn how to be healthy with food from my four year old.

Growing Up So Quickly!

2011-03-22T14:34:00.001-07:00

Littlest Moo is 8 months old today! He’s closer to a year than being an newborn (which makes me oh so sad) but he is so much fun! He is sitting up, GI crawling, rolling and is super excited about eating real food!

Whatever brother is doing is always super exciting and hilarious, of course. Have I mentioned that most of Littlest Moo’s weight is in his cheeks. So cute! Sure I’m biased, but what Mom isn’t?

The Woobie. Littlest Moo’s purple cow that he has to have to sleep every night. So we bought another (right) so that if purple cow is dirty (because let’s face it he still spits up a lot) he has something to nap or sleep with. Instead, he wants both to sleep with. He holds one in the crook of each arm. Super cute!

Yay for fists full of cows!!!

I’m sad that our baby is growing so quickly, but I’m so excited for what is to come! Mostly I wanted to share super cute pics of our little guy!

Roommates

2011-03-17T17:28:00.001-07:00

So Littlest Moo and Niecey-poo share a room during the day. Initially I was worried that this little arrangement would not work out. Mostly because our Little Moo was never great at sharing a room, he has too much fun and would never go to sleep. But these two little hooligans are the bestest of roommates! Niecey-poo calls Littlest Moo “My-my” and if I’m laying her down she asks for him and looks for him in his crib. And if he is in there he peeks over his crib bumper, like so

Too cute! They love each other so much and know when to have fun and when to get to the serious business of sleep, which Niecey-poo takes VERY seriously. This would be Sleepus Interuptus

Like I said, she takes sleep VERY seriously! Most days they just yell at me when they are awake, but the other day I was finishing something up while they “talked” to each and then heard this

Of course they stop doing it as soon as I come in, but they were giggling for a couple minutes before I brought the camera in. I realize it is a bit dark but I was trying not to disturb their play. I’m just sad I couldn’t catch more of it! He was peeking over the crib bumper and she was popping her head up over the edge of the playpen. I’m so glad they can enjoy being roommates!

I’m Still Here!

2011-03-10T12:32:00.001-08:00

Don’t worry, I haven’t already abandoned my blog. I’m sure those of you that know me might think that I have, but with our new laptop it has become much easier to post something real quick while the children are playing ~~not so~~ cooperatively. However, every spare moment this last week has gone to caulking, scrubbing walls and taping. It’s exciting to be so close to finishing this project. Tomorrow we will have paint on 2 of our kitchen walls!!! I’ve had some “help” from the children and pets

This would be Zippy “helping” me by climbing into the box I had pulled out to put kitchen stuff in. I should know better than leaving an empty box unattended with 2 cats and a gaggle of children about. He also assisted by nudging my elbow while I was attempting to apply caulk on the baseboards. He is super helpful that way.

Whilst preparing to paint I’ve slowly worked at making our room less of a disaster. Here is a terrifying before

And now for the less terrifying after

Not nearly as put together as I’d like it to be, but there is the potential and clearly I don’t believe in working on one project at a time. Yes, that would be the drawer from the other desk on top full of stuff for me to go through, but I can see the top of the desk and eventually I will be able to make space to put more BOOKS on the bookshelf , novel I know! It’s funny, as a teenager I relished a crazy room. I always knew where everything was and when my room was spotless it actually made me anxious. That is SOOO not the case now. More that just a little clutter makes me anxious. Not in a “I need to be on my hands and knees scrubbing everyday” kind of way, but I do like to be able to use the desk and counter without having to move a bunch of things, and I don’t like tripping over, stepping on or sitting on toys. I know I’m not alone in this! Is my house spotless? Not even close, but my goal is to keep things organized enough that it is just a matter of throwing some things in a basket and making the beds. Okay, if someone new is visiting I might dust…MAYBE.

Oh, and that desk took Zippercow over 5 hours to put together…sheesh!

That’s Right, We Build Our Furniture

2011-03-05T22:11:00.001-08:00

Every time we need a new piece of furniture we spend tons of time looking at the selection of build it yourself furniture. And every time I say to Zippercow that someday we will be grown up enough to buy furniture that we don’t have to assemble ourselves. But lets be honest, that will probably never happen. In the end the stuff you build yourself is just more affordable AND we don’t have to worry about if it will fit through the doorway to get it in the house. But most important of all is it is family friendly furniture. By that I mean it holds up to the abuse children inevitably inflict upon it, and because it isn’t uber solid wood, I won’t have a heart attack every time a hot wheel screeches across it. Because lets face it with two boys everything (much to my dismay) is a hot wheel highway. So unless it is padded furniture it is probably some form of Sauder brand furniture or something from Ikea. And since we so rarely have to opportunity to visit Ikea, it more often then not is some variety of Sauder.

On this occasion we are in need of a computer desk. Our current one has been broken for awhile and I’ve been waiting for it to collapse causing all sorts of doom. But in the spirit of organizing we thought we’d get a new desk so I can get on with the organizing of our office space in our room. And instead of putting shelves up over the desk we opted for one with a hutch. So while Zippercow is putting all of this desk together I am writing this post. Sure I could be helping him but I’ve learned that unless he asks for the help it is just best to stay out of his way. And weirdly enough I can’t wait to get to organizing the desk area. Strange I know! It has been so overwhelmingly terrible that I’ve avoided doing anything in our room so as to avoid the tragedy that had befallen our room, the office space. Nothing really had a place, so just pile it here, and the like. But disaster no more! In just a few short….hours the desk will be complete and I can breath a sigh of relief. Aahh….

Are we alone here? Does anyone else pretend to be a carpenter and screw together inexpensive assembly required furniture?

Happy National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day!

2011-03-01T14:34:00.001-08:00

Oh happy day!!! As a kick of to National Peanut Month March 1st is apparently known as National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day! This is recently known to me (like within the last hour) but since I just shared my favorite things I thought I just HAD to post on this because…

peanut butter is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE!!!!

Seriously peeps, I really really love chocolate but I LOOOVVVEE peanut butter even more. If you know me at all you will know that I am famous for saying “peanut butter makes everything better”. And it is so true. First you start with this

then you add, well anything. Some great ideas are celery, carrots, apples, pears, saltines, ritz crackers, graham crackers, pretzels and of course ANY combination of peanut butter and chocolate! And it is no coincidence that today is also IHOP’s National Pancake Day, because lets face it, the only way to eat pancakes (or waffles) is with peanut butter and syrup. Don’t forget the classic lunchtime staple, peanut butter and jelly!

Peanut butter toast is great too. So fabulous in fact, I eat a slice of whole wheat toast with peanut butter and a small glass of milk every morning for breakfast, even when I was pregnant! I’m positive that is why Little Moo is also quite the peanut butter fan.

Some other great peanut butter tasties

YUM!

And of course this wonderful cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld introduced our family to peanut butter and jelly muffins, scrumptious!

Don’t forget how much peanut butter adds to desserts. Great in brownies, just make the brownies as you normally would and before putting them in the oven put some dollops of peanut butter in the batter and swirl it in with a butter knife.

Or peanut butter cookies!

1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar and 1 egg. Mix together and bake 10-11 minutes at 400 degrees.

They are great plain, or you can add a chocolate to the top for a extra special treat. I also make excellent peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They are my signature cookie! Ask for the recipe sometime, they are great!

I could go on about the magnificence of peanut butter (and on and on) but I will leave you to it. How do you like your peanut butter?

Mama Moo’s Favorite Things!

2011-03-01T11:30:00.001-08:00

I have a lot of favorite things, but I will start off with my MOST FAVORITIST things

Of course the first two are these silly hooligans. Little Moo and Littlest Moo. Aren’t they adorable!!! Sure I might be biased but come on, they are about the cutest thing ever!

Then of course there is this guy. Not the little one (but he is the MOST adorable little boy ever) but the man holding him. Such a wonderful husband and father, and probably one of the funniest people I know. LOOOOVEE him!

Mushy, sure. But I can’t share my favorite things without first sharing my absolute most favorite things, my menfolk!!!

Now on to some of my favorite things in our home

This is my favorite grouping on a shelf in our house. It is on a wall in Littlest Moo’s room. Cows. I know, shocking right? I love it for a couple reasons, mostly because right now it is the most put together thing in his room (I will show pictures of the rest of it in my next post. Yikes!) And because I made the cow pictures. I spray painted some Goodwill picture frames, found some cow coloring pictures and gussied them up.

What do you think? I love the dancing cow! I have written “moo” around the edge of the white paper. Love it!

Then of course there is the John Deere cow. ADORABLE!

Which brings me to my other favorite cow

We found this little guy at Fred Meyer in the clearance section. I couldn’t decide if I liked him or thought he was creepy. I’ve come around and now I love him. He has inspired décor for the living room that I would have never come up with if I didn’t find him. He’s my cowspiration! I will share that with you soon too. Currently he sits upon a shelf, but he has been spotted elsewhere as well

Those are a few of my favorites. Mostly cow inspired, but hey it IS Zipper Herd!

Under Construction…Always!

2011-02-25T12:01:00.001-08:00

Okay, So I am fully aware that this is a less than flattering picture of myself, but it adequately depicts how I feel about the state of our house. Insert high pitched shriek. I’m sure it is mostly a bit of cabin fever ready for a healthy dose of some massive spring cleaning, but for goodness sakes!!!!! So. much. stuff.

Being “organized” seems so short lived in our home. I feel I’ve been mislead, that once you get organized that is it, everything has a place and all is wonderful in the world. The problem seems to be that it only lasts as long as the stuff that you need to organize does. For instance we have our garage organized with shelves and totes, but what needs to be in some of those totes continuously changes as do the other items in the garage. So the trick is having the time to sort and label the items to go in the bins. And until then things just get shoved everywhere. Much with our closets in our home, everything can be folded and put in its place but after a couple months everything seems to be everywhere. Maybe I’m not as organized as I think I am? All I know is everything is everywhere and I need the garage organized before I can move things out there, and it is too cold to do that so everything seems to be “under construction” until the weather improves.

As if getting everything together wasn’t enough, we are also working on painting the interior of our home. We have opted for a slow but steady option, I say this because mostly the Hubs may leave if I asked him to tackle it all at once. Mostly because I haven’t figured out how to do the painting and watch 3 children by myself. So we have painted a little of the trim and doors every weekend over the last month or so and then we will paint the walls. It hasn’t been decided if this really is the best way to carry this out, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. So now we have stuff everywhere and partially painted walls.

Zippercow thought it would be best to paint our test spot in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Mostly because he can’t handle a random square on the wall. So we have this green over the pantry door, and a tan color in our dining room and kitchen. I promise pictures when we finish!

Here is our messy living room with partially painted trim down the hall. We are almost done with all the doors and trim in the hall.

So as you can see we have a lot of work ahead of us, but I really wanted to share our progress with everyone. Why? Because when it is all done it will seem that much more fabulous!!! So over the next couple of days I will be posting pictures of our home in its pre-spring cleaning state and then (of course!) share the after pictures. I will tell you one thing, taking time to organize is always worth it, because it makes re-organizing that much easier. Welcome to our decrapification!!!

A Proper Goodbye

2011-02-22T16:01:00.000-08:00

I like to pretend that I don’t get attached to material things and I like to think that I am pretty good at letting go of the things we no longer need. But then we had our last baby. Now every time our Littlest Moo grows out of something I get a little sad when I think of parting with it. Like the cute little onesies he wore as a newborn. Or the ones that both he and Little Moo wore. Those are hard. But of course there are a few things that we are ready to get rid of that we won’t be sad about. Like the baby bathtub. Those things are so huge and ridiculous and in a small house there really is no where to store it. man am I glad he no longer needs that thing! Also the baby swing. While a dear friend to us in his early months it takes up tons of floor space which is at a premium in our house so we were not sad to see it go!

I thought that I’d post to pay homage to those baby items in our home that served us well and deserve a proper send off. These items being the cutest and most importantly served to make parenting just a teensie bit easier.

One of our favorite baby item was this bouncy chair. Zippercow and I still say it is the BEST $25 we ever spent! It was the ONLY place that I could put Little Moo down when he was a baby that he wouldn’t scream like a banshee and sometimes he’d even nap in it allowing precious moments to use the bathroom and brush last weeks morning breath away.

This is the magic baby chair.

It once had a toy bar

with cute little giraffes and a little blue ball.

It has served this household well

Both Little and Littlest Moo loved this chair! I wanted to cry when it was time to throw it out. Sadly it was too loved to pass on to someone else as you can probably see from the pictures above. The toy bar would not stay screwed on and the fabric was tearing. But it made it through my two kids and my niece so it seemed right to retire it. Still, it was hard to say goodbye. It just seemed…wrong.

So how about you? Do you have a much beloved baby item that you just can’t part with? Maybe you’ve already gotten rid of it but it made you sad to do so? Share!

I’m High-Jacking Our Blog!

2011-02-21T14:39:00.001-08:00

The Zippercow so rarely did anything with our blog previously and we only used it to update friends and family on our little family, but now there is facebook so... As some may be aware I’m not the greatest at keeping our blog going, but this time will be different (I’m serious!). I felt our family blog in its previous form read more like the holiday letter that everyone sends out every year. My hope is to have more of my style (I know, I know, who needs that right?) honest mom moments, how we save money, inexpensive decorating ideas and anything else my crazy brain comes up with. Zippercow may add his input from time to time but mostly you just get me, and you know you love it!

A Little Sunshine

2011-02-14T15:24:00.001-08:00

Look at this little sunshine! It is so smiley and unassuming. You would never know the evil things it is capable of. You might ask, "How can such a cute little sunshine toy be anything but cute?" Oh let me tell you!

We were fortunate enough to have some nice friends loan us their excersaucer for our Littlest Moo to use. And man does he love to sit in it and play! But I recently discovered the little sunshine is not so sweet and sunny because he doubles as a spit sling shot. Sadly our Littlest Moo spits up quite a bit (much like Little Moo did) so while he's playing he spits up and we wipe it up. Littlest Moo finds this little sunny guy the most appealing and can often be seen chewing away on it, which requires him to bend it towards him. Well sometimes he spits up and before we can get to him to clean it up he will have gotten some of the spit up all over this sunny little face and then it will slip out of his hands. But don't you worry, the sunshine shares!As he snaps himself into his upright position he flings all of that lovely spit up all over my living room. Yes, baby vomit in little specks all over my living room.not cool! I didn't realize how bad it was until the other day I found spots of orange on my couch in a couple places. I don't let the little kids snack in the living room so I had to ponder for a few minutes before realizing it was regurgitated carrots that was all over my couch.FAIL. So unassuming he is, just politely smiling. I'd consider taking it off but again, it is Littlest Moos favorite and how can you deny such a sweet face a little sun? So instead we just take cover from the sun.

Here Kitty, Kitty!

2010-04-28T11:03:00.001-07:00

Yikes again! We were so busy and during that we all had 3 terrible colds back-to-back. Now that we are all finally feeling better I have time to get back to things (such as this blog) that take a backseat when things get crazy!

We do have some very sad news that I would like to share first. Last week, April 20th, we had to make the very tough decision to put Harry down. It was a heartbreaking decision for Zippercow and I to make and Little Moo still asks if we are going to pick him up from the vet, which means we have to explain to him all over again that Harry passed away. He asks less now, but the retelling just makes it hurt more. He was with us for 16 great years and if you had ever met him you would know that he was quite possibly the friendliest cat ever. He will be missed.

Moving on to things that aren't so sad, Zippercow has completed a very important phase for getting ready for our little baby boy on the way. Oh yeah, we haven't shared that yet, we are expecting a BOY!!!! Little Moo wasn't too keen on a brother, it took some convincing but now he is excited. Anyhow, back to what I was previously sharing. Zippercow built a cat cage for in the garage. It has a door on the front so that the litter boxes can be accessed as well as any clean ups that are necessary. And now there is also a cat door that leads from the house to this cage, so the litter boxes are no longer going to be in what is now the baby's room. We even put some toys and a new scratching post in the cage for them. It took them a few days to get used to going through the kitty door, but they are getting used to it. I'm so proud of my Zippercow he made the plans, and built this great cat cage and put the kitty door in. They may seem like small things, but each time we do something (even small things) we customize our house to be the home we want it to be. Next will be painting! Three rooms, double yay!?!

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Testing, Testing?

2010-04-27T10:16:00.001-07:00

Some things have changed with how we can post to our blog so I wanted to see if it still works. If it does I will post more later. If it doesn't..well I'll post tomorrow.

And so..

2010-03-05T11:31:00.001-08:00

Again, a month goes by before I've even noticed it, yikes! So here is what is going on.

We purchased a minivan. Yes a minivan. When we had discussed the eventuality of needing a second vehicle Zippercow was set against a minivan. He had grand ideas for medium sized SUVs and had no desire to be one of THOSE people who drove minivans. I personally never minded, but since he didn't want one I went along with the other options he had researched. And as we would soon discover those other options were at the high end of what we could afford and we were trying REALLY hard to keep the payments close to what we were paying for the Mazda (which is now paid off, hurray!). So we started looking into the smaller SUVs with third row seating. Now I'm sure you are thinking "crazy lady you are only going to have two kids why on earth would you need a third row?!" and as I've had to explain a couple times, I watch my niece during the week as well so once Little Moo starts preschool (not to mention appointments and now we will actually be able to go to the park!) I will need to have room for three (yes three) car seats. Anyone who has had the pleasure of strapping the behemoths into a car will tell you, you can never get more than two into a backseat safely. Anyhow,back to how we ended up with a minivan. We looked into smaller SUVs with third rows. Smaller is an understatement, cramped and uncomfortable is more like it. We did a lot of looking online and just were not finding what we needed so we went to a couple dealerships. First I must say that I hate working with salesman more than..well anything. The first place we went she took down all the things we were looking for, high on our list of priorities was price, and though we said it repeatedly she didn't ask what our price range was . After all the info she gathered she brought around a vehicle. It was not ANY of the vehicles we discussed and was about twice what we were willing to spend. She was excited and had it ready for a test drive. I took one look at the inside and new it was out of our price range. I wouldn't even get in, which I'm sure disappointed her. I know how it works, they hope you love it enough that you'll find a way to afford it. We aren't those kind of people. We do a lot of research, we always sleep on our decisions, and the more pressured we feel, the less likely we are to just leave, which I have done before. We left and went to another car lot. The salesman was nice and while he still didn't show us anything we wanted to see he paid attention to what we wanted to pay and that we needed it for a family. He pointed out how difficult it is to buckle children into the smaller SUVs because you have to fold the seat down to get to the back row, which for me would mean taking the seat out or climbing over. Yikes! He did pull around a 2008 Kia Sedona that was perfectly priced and we fell in love. So roomy, no climbing over things, space for the stroller or groceries behind the third row..lets just say I was sold. And surprisingly so was Zippercow! But since we had not researched this vehicle we "slept on it" did some research and discovered that it is quite safe and reliable. So now our driveway houses another vehicle. One of which excites Little Moo so much that he asks multiple times a day if we are going anywhere, apparently he was sold as well!

Other than the purchase of the van we are still slowly working on making way for baby. Mostly we are waiting for the temps to be steadily about 10 degrees warmer so we can open windows and paint. The weather has been so beautiful that everyone around here has just been itching to work in the yard, but it isn't quite warm enough yet. We are also trying to patiently await the ultra sound that will hopefully tell us the gender of our little baby (who has been moving all over the place!). March 18! We are counting down the days, hopefully the baby will cooperate!

So that is what has been going on, but I'm sure I will think of other things. Mostly I'm just enjoying the magic of the van, but more on that later!

"My favorite color is blue, but I LIKE red"

2010-02-01T10:08:00.001-08:00

Little Moo is now officially off the floor. You may remember a post I did awhile back about his "big boy bed" that was actually the mattress and box spring on the floor. The point of that, of course, was to keep him closer to the floor in case he fell out of bed but this last weekend we bought him a frame to put his big boy bed on and he couldn't be more excited. Mostly because it is red. Here he is on his new bed.And about five seconds later he bounced himself backward smacking his head on the window sill. I was afraid of that. So now you see him with a "boo boo" buddy in his hand (because why would you put it on said boo boo, duh!) still pretty excited about his bed. And who wouldn't be? It's red!!!!

His New 'Do!

2010-02-01T09:52:00.001-08:00

I finally did it! I have been contemplating just using the same clippers I do for Zippercow on our Little Moo for months now and this month I finally did it. I REALLY like the little boy haircuts we were getting from the professionals, but because of his many cowlicks the haircut would only look good for a day or two and then it just was always sticking up everywhere. While I'm sad he won't have little boy hair anymore it has been a couple weeks since I've cut Little Moo's hair and it still isn't sticking up! It took him some getting used to, he was very disappointed when he first looked in the mirror because he thought I had changed his hair color but alas, it is just shorter! He's gotten use to it and was excited when Daddy got his last haircut and exclaimed "Daddy your hair is like mine!". So I of course have some pictures but want to say that it was dark and the flash made it look a little thinner in some places than others, but lets face it he does have his Daddy's hairline (poor thing!) There are a few fly-aways so my first attempt wasn't perfect, but I believe the phrase goes "practice makes perfect" or something to that effect.

Making Way For Baby!

2010-01-12T16:12:00.001-08:00

So much to do, and well at this point, still a lot of time. We are currently working on clearing out the third bedroom. For those of you who don't know, our home is big enough for a family of four but not much bigger. So we are trying to make room for this baby. We like the size of our home, but it does force us to be creative with our space.There is a lot that can't be done until spring, like painting and moving the cat boxes to the garage (that's a whole different but large project) but before any of those things can take place we have have to find places for all this other..junk. We are pretty good at going through our things and selling or passing on what we no longer have a need, because lets face it, we simply don't have the space to hold on to everything thing! But somehow we still have tons of things that don't really have a home that have landed in the third bedroom catch all.

So now what?????

I am certain at this point our closet will be come very full and I need to find a place to put all of our gift wrap and bags. And there is still just stuff. How we acquire it I am not sure, but it needs to go! I'm very much looking forward to this being a baby's room (can't you tell!) but am at a bit of a stand still. Any ideas?

Christmas Has Passed!

2010-01-05T16:21:00.001-08:00

Christmas is such a wonderful time of year, yet another great time to remind us of all the special people in our lives. And we have a lot!!! What has made it an even more spectacular Christmas is now Little Moo is way into it, but better yet not in a "got to have it" kind of way, but everything seemed new and exciting from the lights on houses, to trees and Santa. We had my family here for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then Zippercow's family came over throughout the next week. So much fun! We would like to thank everyone for the thoughtful gifts and cards, we have such loving and generous friends and family!

I do realize this post is long since due, and I had part of it done and got busy with Little Moo and our 4 month old niece. And boy, do they keep me busy!

We hope everyone's new year was just as great!

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Happy Holidays!

2009-12-14T11:53:00.001-08:00

Sorry it has been so long! We have great news though! We are expecting baby #2!!!! Unfortunately our whole family has been struck with a yucky cold so I've had barely enough energy to care for Little Moo let alone keep up on everything else. I'm behind on Christmas cards, haven't finished decorating for Christmas, obviously haven't kept up on this blog and a so so many other things need to be done.

Zippercow has been taking great care of me and Little Moo couldn't be more excited about being a big brother. We don't know that he really understands it yet, but we aren't due until around his Birthday so I'm sure you know that is a bit out from now. He's pretty insistent that he is having a little sister but we will have to wait and see!

We hope that everyone is enjoying this wonderful holiday season!

How does YOUR pumpkin smile?

2009-11-06T10:54:00.001-08:00

This was the first year we bought big pumpkins and then carved them. It was a lot of fun and while Little Moo seemed uncertain about removing the pumpkin guts (he isn't big on yucky hands) once he saw we were digging around in there too he didn't seem to mind as much. He really got a kick out of pumpkin "lids". Since this was the first time, he didn't understand why we were doing it, but once he saw them lit up he was pretty excited. Our pumpkins smile like this!

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A Barbalootous Little Moo

2009-11-06T10:37:00.001-08:00

In case you didn't know, Little Moo was a Barbaloot for Halloween this year. A Barbaloot is a fictional character from his favorite Dr. Seuss book, The Lorax. He has insisted he wanted to be a Barbaloot for about 6 months now so we decided we could oblige, how hard could it be to find a teddy bear costume right? Well it proved more difficult than originally thought but thanks to the help of both of his grandmas he was the cutest little Barbaloot you ever did see. Zippercow was The Onceler from the same story (at LM's insistence) and I was a bee (yeah it doesn't fit the theme the other two had going, but I wasn't about to be a furry little guy with a mustache!) You should know that Barbaloots sit under Truffula Trees eating Truffula Fruit (hence the bunch of grapes in his hands). We had a wonderful Halloween and Little Moo really enjoyed himself which is all we can ask for! Thanks Grams and Grammy for the help with Little Moos costume, it was a success! Oh, and apparently Barbaloots don't mind snakes!

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New Host

2009-10-28T22:16:00.001-07:00

After 7 years we've finally moved to a new and better web host. This is a test to see if everything works!

Up and Down

2009-10-19T13:08:00.001-07:00

We've had a pretty rollercoaster week. We had some great news that in short time turned to bad news. We are very sad but still hopeful. And the weather has been incredibly cold, which killed all of my beautiful flowers (so this isn't really as important as the other things that were going on, but I'm trying really hard not to dwell) Yes, the flowers continued to grow into beautiful blooms that made lovely cut flowers! I'm sad that summer has ended and so too have my flowers that were literally late bloomers, but the end of summer means fall and we love fall around here! We went to Green Bluff a couple weekends ago (our official tradition) and there are some great pictures I'll share. Also we are gearing up for Halloween. Not that we do anything particularly special but we are gathering things for costumes. Little Moo is going to be a Barbaloot from the Lorax and Zippercow is going to be the Oncler. Me, I will be a bumble bee which completely doesn't fit in but the other two should be cute! We love this time of year because as people wind down from summer activities we find we get to spend more time with our loved ones. Stay tuned for some great Barbaloot pictures!

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How Does Your Garden Grow.

2009-09-09T14:20:00.001-07:00

With silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row.NO! Much to my dismay I am not much of a green thumb. I kill things quickly and thoroughly. Seriously, I potted new plants the week before out of town company came. I watered and fertilized and they were dead before the next weekend! I'm sure some of it might be my lack of patience. Okay, maybe all of it! I tried to plant flowers in the spring with seed packets from my Mother-in-law. After getting up and down to retrieve Little Moo from the street (relax we live on a cul-de-sac!) or the garage and not making much progress planting the tiny little seeds I just sprinkled the seeds all over the flower beds and convinced myself that it was fine since we were even sure anything would grow in the soil we have anyway. Shocker, nothing grew. Not only did nothing grow, but I planted some lily and dahlia bulbs (that I purchased at a store) and they didn't even so much as sprout. To make things worse I let some weeds get out of hand because I wasn't sure if they were the things I actually planted..

And then.

The bachelor buttons and one Zinnia (I think) bloomed in my flower beds. I was so excited that I was able to grow something! Not only that, but my Mother-in-law also was kind enough to bring some more dahlia bulbs that I planted in our back yard. I very carefully planted them, even researching the correct way to do it ( I didn't really want to be a complete failure to the Mom-in-law) and low and behold all of them grew into plants and a couple have even bloomed! Hurray for my wonderful flowers! To be fair I should probably give them all the credit, they were resilient to my efforts to deny them their very purpose. To you flowers I say BRAVO!

My only problem now is that grasshoppers (I think) are making a tasty meal of my very pretty flowers. As if they didn't have enough to overcome!

Baby Cousin Is Here!!!

2009-09-09T13:50:00.001-07:00

Little Moo is very excited about his new baby cousin who came last Saturday. Zippercow and myself are pretty ecstatic as well! We are so excited for my brother and his wife. This is a new chapter of their life together and of course, we are an Aunt and Uncle!

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Does. Not. compute.

2009-08-27T16:15:00.001-07:00

Little Moo was pretending to be a robot (where he learned this we aren't really sure) but Zippercow has taught him that robots say "DOES. NOT. COM.PUTE." so now he has been wandering around saying that for a couple days now. It is fun to listen to him play by himself and with his friend. They play more interactively than they did before and there is a lot more dramatic play than there used to be. A lot of it involving McDonalds which is strange since the number of times Little Moo has been there can be counted on one hand. It is fun to listen to them play just the same. So many words!!!

In other news we have finished the room, just need to get the computer back in the there as well. We are a bit worn from that project. We may not fair well with lots of construction in our home, good thing there isn't any major construction to be done!

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I'm Not Coloring The Cat!!!!

2009-08-18T16:13:00.001-07:00

We've been busy, busy! I realize that isn't a good excuse, truth be told I am terrible at keeping anything updated. But before I get into what we've been up to, a cute little story!

Little Moo was "clipping coupons" with me cutting his paper and "coloring" like mommy but the cats wouldn't leave him alone (this is mostly due to the catnip being stored in the same drawer as his marker box) after fussing about Wampus a few times I explained to him that the cats just like the way they smell. I immediately realized my mistake as Little Moo turned his back to me. I asked him what he was doing (assuming he was smelling it himself) and he quickly turned and said "I'm not coloring the cat!". I looked down and Wampus looked just as guilty. Little Moo was letting Wampus "smell" the marker which of course was just fine with him!

Aside from coloring kitties we've been pretty busy. Zippercow has been repairing and painting our bedroom. Out of necessity. Our old AC that was in the wall started leaking inside and we couldn't figure out what was causing it or how to fix it (the thing predates the internet!) So we put a new one in. I shouldn't say we, it was all Zippercow. He has been very busy reframing, dry walling, mudding, taping and painting. I've done what I could to help, but someone has to keep Little Moo out of the middle of everything. In the meantime our bed and computer have been in the middle of the living room. Not ideal living conditions, but Zippercow is almost done! We may even be back in our room by our 4th Anniversary!

We also had some out of town guests which we had a blast with, too bad they are allergic to the cats, tenting it in our backyard only works in the summer. We have also been in weddings, thrown baby showers and had a pretty fun birthday party for Little Moo, and have been spending quite a few evenings with Zippercow's sister and brother-in-law. Sadly they moved back to the western side of the state so we won't be seeing them as much. We already miss you Carrie and Caleb!

My latest venture has been savings through coupon clipping. I love the thrill of the thrift! So if you get coupons you don't use, feel free to share them! It has given me a challenge which I sorely needed and also save our family money, not too shabby.

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of things in the middle there but we've mostly been keeping super busy with stuff around the house and with our friends and family. I'll add some more photos.as soon as I find our cables to upload the photos!

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Getting Around

2009-06-24T17:25:00.001-07:00

Grammy found a great deal on some grow-with-you type skates and all the other safety equipment needed for a rolling good time.

I'm not sleepy!!!

2009-06-24T15:27:00.001-07:00

Our Little Moo has been refusing to nap. This is fine if he truly is not tired but most days he crashes in a melted puddle of toddler, just long enough to rejuvenate and want to stay up really late. And while quiet time was working for awhile it appears to be just toddler wrangling time. What exactly do other parents do when their children can no longer be contained by gates or doors with "child proof" knobs????? Anyhow, I thought I'd share another few fun pictures of him sleeping.

Summer's Coming

2009-06-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

The Shed is up!!!! Thanks to a couple of our friends with trucks and trailers we have a shed now and it is all put together. So now we have more room in the garage and less stuff hanging around in the back yard making it look junkie. Now we just have to figure out how to keep the yellow jackets from making their homes in there and we are set! Things are finally coming together with the house. Its unfortunate, there is so much we want to do and just not enough resources to do it. Of course I'm aware that is the case for most people so I shouldn't complain too much. So I won't.

Last time I mentioned that Little Moo wasn't really napping but occasionally he crashes during some hard play. His newest craze is to pull the sheets off his mattress and push the mattress off the box springs, dump ALL of his toys and pull things of the hangers. It makes for a long clean up sessions. Everyday. Sometimes a couple times a day...but here are a couple pictures of him falling asleep during play, they're pretty cute.

Zippercow and I are looking forward to our upcoming yard sale extravaganza. We go to a community yard sale every year. I don't know why we like it so much, but we do. Most of the time we don't even buy anything, but just walk around looking for hours. Good exercise, it is usually sunny and we might find something we are looking for, how can that not be fun? Also it is the start of our very busy couple of months between Father's Day, my birthday, Independence Day, a wedding, Little Moo's Birthday, a baby shower, out of town guests and all the other stuff that comes up in between it is going to be most busy. But we should know better, it is like this every summer, it just feels more hectic because the older we get the faster the time seems to go.

So, so long!!!!

2009-05-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

To be honest I didn't really think anyone was actually viewing this blog so when I realized it had been a few months I didn't feel too guilty, but apparently I was wrong! Our Family has been pretty busy so lets see if I can update everyone.

I had my wisdom teeth out in the beginning of March and before I was fully recovered both Little Moo and Zippercow came down with a terrible, terrible virus that meant that I had to take care of them...ah, to be a mom! Then when everyone was better Zippercow had to leave town for a trade show and then we had to get ready for A.J. and Stephanie's wedding where I was a bridesmaid and Little Moo was a ring bearer. The wedding was great and so much fun and LM looked absolutely adorable in his tux! Did I mention that was also the weekend of Easter? So tons of stuff is going on and will be continuing that way all through the summer.

We've been working very hard on the yard. Actually I shouldn't say "we" more like Zippercow. I've found I can't really get anything done while watching Little Moo so the things I do tend to be done in spurts as I find the time and he is being cooperative. It is safe to say that HE IS TWO as in the independent, tantrums and argumentative nature that rightfully gets the title, The Terrible Twos. While it is to be expected that most children will go through this age and stage it has limited me in most projects I like to take on. I thought I just wasn't handling it well until Zippercow claimed the same about his Sundays with Little Moo and was quick to say he would not trade me his job even on his most stressful day. So I have been reading. Mostly because I needed something I could do after the chores were done while the kids (I watch another kiddo during the week) were playing with each other that could easily be set aside (unlike my paper crafting) , and quite honestly I needed something to keep my brain from complete atrophy. Don't get me wrong, being a stay at home mom is challenging but definitely doesn't make use of my full intellectual capacities. I do however get to referee many tiffs over imaginary toys. At least they are using their imaginations right?

So since I've rambled incoherently, let me continue! About LM. We've been trying to teach him sign language (ASL) and have found these wonderful DVDs called Signing Time and he has been soaking it up! Also he is doing much better with the potty training. Still having accidents but they are fewer and far between so he is well on his way to being potty trained, yay!!! Our biggest obstacle at this time is that he doesn't nap. We've tried nap time and he just screams and kicks and throws tows until nap time is over. And when he naps he is very grumpy and seems to take just as long recovering from his nap as he did napping. So we have instituted quiet time instead. He is to play in his room quietly for the allotted time and is only has to sleep if he wants to. This has seemed to work out pretty well. He still doesn't sleep but the quiet time seems to help and then I still get some peace in my day as well. He still seems to need the sleep, but again, if he naps an hour and screams and tantrums for an hour after that it seems to defeat the whole purpose of napping.

So that is mostly what is going on right now along with my brother and sister-in-law are going to have a baby soon and Carrie and Caleb are temporarily living in town which we really love! Oh and Zippercow is working on getting a shed in the back yard and cursing the dandelions in our yard. Fortunately they are mostly gone now!

I will try to be better about updating. Little Moo is growing so fast it is hard to keep up so I really should post more as things happen and not months later!

At the far end of town where the grickle grass grows...

2009-03-04T14:12:00.001-08:00

Little Moo is quite taken by the Lorax. He reads it EVERY night with Zippercow and the two of them are often heard reciting it to each other when they are together. It's pretty cute to say the least. Zippercow shared this story with me and I thought it was too cute. Apparently while I was at work and they were eating lunch Zippercow was telling Little Moo that after I got home we were going to go to the store to pick out "big boy" underwear and Little Moo said he would like Lorax underwear. Zippercow told him that he didn't think there were any like that and Little Moo got quiet and then after a moment said "if there was, it would be my favorite". Too cute! Also, he is wanting to be a Barbaloot for Halloween this year. Hmm....

Potty Training Adventures: Day 3

2009-03-04T13:17:00.000-08:00

Using the toilet we definitely take for granted. You hear about how difficult potty training can be but much like most aspects of parenting, you never really know until you are doing it yourself. Unless you are one of those people who tout your awesomeness by proudly claiming you just put underwear on your kid and they only had one or two accidents since. You don't count, and stop acting so smug, you aren't responsible for that, it is all your child's doing. Anyhow, we are on day 3 of our potty training adventure with Little Moo. We went out briefly to the dentist and he stayed dry. And actually he's only had one accident so far today (whereas he's had 4 or more by this time the last couple days) but I still am not sure he's getting it. He is dry, but only because we go in every 30 minutes and "try" and he goes. However I have waited a few minutes past that to see if he will go on his own (or at the very least tell me) and he just stands and pees...in the middle of the living room. So again, I'm not sure he is really getting it, or if it has just been luck.

Here is what we tried:
Prep: talking about Monday ( a couple days, tomorrow, etc.) we are going to start wearing big boy underwear and the day before we started we let him pick out big boy underwear in the store. He was really excited.

Day 1: Put him straight into underwear in the morning, told him we have to use the potty and that we don't want to go in our pants because it feels yucky. He had 6 accidents but pooped in the toilet. We offer praise, high fives and a "potty treat" (butter mints, he really likes them) and for poops in the toilet we told him he would be allowed to color with his newly purchase markers (for this purpose) We might rethink that because it doesn't seem to act as a constant reminder of his accomplishment. We did put him in a diaper at nap time and bed time because he simply doesn't wake up. Our goal is to have him daytime trained. You can't push the other.

Day 2: Just as many accidents. They seem to be clustered between snack and lunch time. I'm not sure if he is just playing too intently or what, but it seems to be the worst time of day. I have forgotten a couple treats in the painstaking "wash your hands after we go potty" craziness. I think I need to be better about this, but since he forgets, I forget. He poops in his underwear and in his naptime diaper...twice. I'm really thinking the marker thing isn't going to cut it. He pees on me and the couch while I was reading him a story and didn't say anything. I just noticed he and I were wet.

Day 3:We had an early dentist appointment so we were careful to go right before we left, right when we got to the dentist and then again before we left the dentist. I never really knew how un-child friendly public restrooms are. The mall I could see, but at a pediatric dentist office they couldn't at least have a stool for washing hands for goodness sake! He has mostly been dry but he still isn't telling me he has to go and if I ask him he says "no" then a few minutes later goes in his pants. I suppose this only happened once today, but still frustrating.

I really don't want to be a parent who complains about all the difficult stages because obviously I very much wanted children, but you have got to vent somehow and it is highly counterproductive to yell at your child when they've peed in their pants for the third time in an hour (and lets face it, just plain mean!) so I am posting my experience for others who share my same frustration and sense of failure as a parent. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong or if it will just take a few more days for it to "click" for him. Obviously he will eventually get it and I should know better than to think that I can convince him he wants to do it when he doesn't. It is like a game, he is very smart but won't do anything until it is an interest to him, so we'll keep trying.

Some Mommy potty training tips:

Don't ever stand in front of your son in a stall, no matter the size (need I explain?) this is actually on the advice of a friend, but I will definitely remember it!

Find something comfortable to sit on in the bathroom while they are going. I have spent many hours on the floor and it gets pretty uncomfortable

Don't attempt to try training if you are cutting out caffeine, PMSing, or on a new diet. Trust me.

Always potty your child before you yourself goes potty, they always have to go while you are.

We praise children for going potty and often give rewards, candies, toys, stickers, etc. Well find a prize yourself! Whether throughout the day or at the end when your child is asleep, reward yourself, you deserve it!

Hurray!

2009-02-26T11:22:00.000-08:00

Our couches have finally been delivered! We have waited for 5 weeks and are so excited to see some of the changes we are making. We have been working diligently at organizing and getting rid of anything we no longer need (and trust me, there is a lot of it!) in hopes of taking care of our spring cleaning now so that when spring comes we can work on our yard, which also needs a lot of work. However the more cleaning I do the messier it seems to be, which is odd because we have gotten rid of a lot of stuff and are still getting rid of more! It is almost as if for each thing I find its place it displaces five more things I then need to find a home. Oh well, it will just have to be a continual work in progress. Fortunately Little Moo is sleeping through the night in his bed so I am more rested and able to work on our various projects. Finally, now just on to potty training! On new furniture...

Shocking!!!

2009-02-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

So, the terrible parents we are find it humorous when our son is upset. We both felt bad but could not keep from chuckling. We were at Fred Meyer and Little Moo was sitting in one of those monstrous carts that have the big plastic seat with steering wheels behind the actual cart. Great for kids, horrible for the parent that likes to shop without crashing into everything. Anyhow, the air here is particularly dry and the plastic conducive to creating static. So when trying to keep Little Moo from grabbing things off the shelf Zippercow grabbed his hand and of course zapped him. LM didn't like this so much and was crying and asked me to kiss his hand. So I did, and managed to zap him again with my lips. This horrified him and he started crying harder and he kept reaching to hug me and would get zapped. It just kept happening! Like I said we felt bad, but we still laughed. Aweful, we know.

Settling In

2009-02-07T12:59:00.001-08:00

So finally we are settling in. Which of course sounds ridiculous since we've been here since late November. But now that the holiday season has officially passed we are finally emptying the rest of the boxes in our garage. We are finding that while we have shelves and various different storage, it isn't what is needed to make our new space the most functional so we have been selling some of the stuff we no longer need or have room for so that we can make room for furniture that will be much more functional. Sometimes it is just plain unpleasant to be rational and logical. We have managed to talk ourselves out of getting a new TV or Mac Laptop because we could rationalize other things we need to make our home better. And we just couldn't justify financing these things, especially since we have a working computer - I just wanted the laptop for the video and photo editing that is offered from iLife, which I can't find in any other program- and our current TV works just fine. Sometimes I dislike being a rational, responsible person. And I truly dislike the discomfort I feel as a result of spending money I shouldn't, hell I sometimes feel guilty for buying things I know I need! We did decide that new furniture would be practical. Matching, for a new house. But of course by new furniture I mean a loveseat and a couch, unlike most people who buy new furniture for the entire room. We of course could not rationalize that. Lame. I suppose it is good we found each other, Zippercow and I, because that is one more thing that makes us absolutely perfect for each other, we don't have to fight over money the other half is spending, because neither of us buy anything without first checking with each other. Sigh. We definitely don't go without, but we just have difficulty replacing something that doesn't really need replacing.

We are settling in other ways as well. Little Moo is doing much better in his bed. He still wakes up most nights but only very briefly and sometimes only needs reassurance from the door. We've discovered that he will stay in bed with the lights out if (and only if) his door is open with the gate up. Which isn't horrible, except our place isn't that big so it limits what we can do after he goes to bed without disturbing him. We have developed a nice routine where Zippercow reads him a story before bed, in bed every night. It's nice, he can't wait for bed! When we mention bed he grabs a book and races into bed calling "come on Daddy!" His favorite right now is " The Lorlax" (his words) they have read it every night for a week! It will be unfortunate when we have to return it to the library...

"Sleep is like the unicorn - it is rumored to exist, but I doubt I will see any"

2009-01-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

Little Moo has not slept through the night since Christmas. Apparently his big boy bed is proving to be a bit much for him. We took it a step further and purchased a twin mattress and box spring. This way we can have them on the floor and have a safety railing up. Not that it makes any difference anyhow, because he still sleeps on the floor. We've been working hard at being consistent but with him being sick most of that just goes out the window. We just want him to sleep! I am painfully aware that sleeping troubles are the bane of most parents (especial those of infants and toddlers), but I just miss my sleep. It is a shame that at this point when they need so much from you toddlers prevent you from sleeping, something that is so desperately needed in order to recharge for the next day so that we can be the patient, loving parents we all want to be. I find myself half listening to people and never really getting anything done (oh yeah he won't nap either!). And god help you if you are amongst the people who share with me that "man I slept until noon today and I'm still tired!". I have no sympathy for you and I don't think Zippercow will either. If he can even keep his eyes open long enough to hear you say that of course. :)

Redeem himself he will though! As with most children, right when you are ready to pull your hair out and run screaming into the night they do something remarkably sweet or hilarious just long enough to make you rethink your previous escape plan. A few nights ago I sat in across the room from Little Moos bed in his mostly dark and quiet room trying to provide a reminder to stay in bed. He had been near sleep 4 times and then all of a sudden active and I was trying to keep my sanity whilst trying to be soothing (not an easy task) when in a sleepy voice he started listing all the people who were sleeping, "Grammy, Grampy, Grams, Gramps, Tyler, Karen, Uncle Nustin..." and the list went on. I found it humorous (though duly noted that Mommy, Daddy or Little Moo were nowhere on that list) but didn't respond to him. He was quiet for a few moments and I was certain he had finally fallen asleep when he rolled over and said "Mommy, this is ridiculous" though I hadn't said anything to him in quite some time I had to chuckle and say "Yes Little Moo, it is".

PROUD

2008-12-30T14:35:00.000-08:00

So proud of my Zippercow I am! He fixed our water heater! After much hassle to get the parts and proper tools he was able to fix it and now I can have hot showers that last longer than 8.5 minutes and we can take showers back to back and we can even run laundry or dishes without running out of hot water, it's wonderful! I have to admit I was little nervous about undertaking a project that involved something so crucial to our everyday lives that if something went wrong would be very expensive to fix, but he did a great job. He discovered that the wrong part had been used previously and it gave him some problems getting it out, but he fixed it and by doing so saved us a great deal of money. Yay for smart hubbies!

Oh, and we fixed the option that allows for our friends and families to leave comments without logging in. I didn't realize that was something I had to manually change, but anyhow leaving comments is enabled for those who choose to use it :)

2008-12-30T13:49:00.000-08:00

Let it snow, let it snow, let is snow! NO MORE- I say Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop! We have far surpassed the previous record and have already had 63"of snow this season (most of which is still on the ground), and it isn't even the snowy part of the season! And of course, we are supposed to get more tonight...Our house can no longer be seen from the street because the plow is using the edge to our front yard to store all the snow in the cul-de-sac. It is a shame Little Moo isn't bigger to enjoy this more. We've taken him outside a couple times but he isn't a fan of not being able to move and since the snow is taller than him it makes it hard to walk and play. But we had a white

Christmas, and then some! Christmas was nice, my family stayed over on Christmas Eve because we were expecting a large storm (which we got) and were worried we wouldn't be able to get together Christmas Morning. We had a lot of fun and Little Moo got some nice gifts that he really likes, but mostly it was just nice to have everyone together. Unfortunately the weather prevented my Uncle from being able to get over so we did miss him, but otherwise we were able to get everyone here. We had fondue for Christmas dinner and we are pretty sure this will become a tradition, which is fine because it is tasty!

More exciting news, as of Christmas night Little Moo no longer sleeps. Which means we don't sleep. On Christmas he decided it was a good time to climb in and out of his crib and we felt it just wasn't safe anymore to leave him in there and despite wanting to ease him into it a little more we just didn't have that luxury. So we took the side of his crib off and now it is his big boy bed....tear...he's getting so big. Unfortunately I think our talk about him being a big boy and not sleeping in his crib anymore backfired, because it is still his "crib" the side is just off and there is no side rail so he has chosen not to sleep in it. Fortunately we happened to have an extra crib mattress that is on the floor, but he doesn't sleep on that either. He chooses to sleep on the floor in front of the door. The last couple nights he has pulled up a pillow, blanket and a doll to lay on the floor with. We tried putting him back to bed for a couple nights but since he insists on sleeping with his room light on he wakes up then takes forever to fall back asleep. We feel guilty leaving him but feel he is probably getting more sound sleep staying put, especially since he has a blanket and pillow. We are unsure how to fix this and are hoping he will eventually migrate to the bed, but who knows. I had no idea that I should look forward to no sleep after he had outgrown his infant wakings. Each day brings a new suprise and unfortunately all of us are too tired to know what to do with it!

Even I don't want my Christmas THIS white!

2008-12-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

snow, snow, SNOW!!!!! I like snow but this is a bit ridiculous. We can't even go out and play because the snow drifts are taller than Little Moo! And with the wind the temperature is easily in the single digits. In a vain attempt to clear the driveway before Zippercow got home I bundled myself and Little Moo up to go outside, but every swipe with the shovel the wind would blow the snow right back. And in our face. To say the least LM was not thrilled with this and after about 10 minutes I had to abandon the shovel in the front yard and get us both inside. Since I've shoveled we again have snow drifts taller than LM blocking our front door. We tried shoveling the driveway and Zippercow tried to leave this morning to work. Ha! The snow is taller than our bumper and if you've seen our car you know it is small and light and isn't making it anywhere. Fortunately a coworker in a large truck was able to come get him. I wish I could get pictures to show just how crazy the snow is, but it is difficult to get a good shot through windows. The snow is absolutely beautiful and the wind has worked its magic added a unique design to the fallen snow, but truly, it is enough...

Our New House!

2008-12-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

Right here! ------------------------------->

And Here! ------------------------------>

And the view from our backyard!--------->

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Do not post when you are crazy!

2008-12-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

Well, I am doing much better now. We have unpacked a bit more and I discovered we do have room for things,we just need a little creative organizing, or reorganizing in this case. We've also discovered that there are a lot of things we no longer need. In the past we just kept most of the furniture we had because "someday" it may fit, and we don't know what our house will be like. Well now we know so what doesn't fit, goes! We put the Christmas tree up and I made out a bunch of our Christmas cards and I'm feeling like myself again, which I'm sure Little Moo and Zippercow are thankful for. Speaking of Christmas cards, in an attempt to forward my progress in getting them out shortly after we moved, I addressed a bunch of envelopes...before we moved. So, during the process of moving I put the box of envelopes "somewhere safe" (if you know me at all you know this place does not exist) and cannot for the life of me find them! So I started over. I guess I will have less work next year. Oh well!

Little Moo is enjoying discovering old toys in boxes and our new organization in his room. He can get to everything he wants or needs. Unfortunately that applies to the whole house. At the last place I had managed to set the whole living room up so that he couldn't really get to another part of the house without one of us. Well there isn't really a good way to do that here, and honestly he has to learn sometime, right? It has added a new element to preparing meals and doing laundry. I'm really looking forward to doing some holiday baking, but that may not be so easy we a Little Moo underfoot. Especially since he likes to be my helper now. It is cute, now we have to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday because I let him spread the peanut butter and jelly. Now only I could get him excited about folding laundry...

We're moved, now what?

2008-12-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

Home ownership. It's not quite what it is made out to be. I've been told for years how important it is to buy a home and not throw your money away renting and have been lead to believe that it is this magical thing home ownership. I haven't witnessed it so far. So far the water heater has been broken, the sink is leaking and we aren't sure that the bathroom heater works correctly. Before I go on I should say that I am very happy with the choice we made, it is a wonderful home, and I can only imagine the nightmare that would have been awaiting us with some of the older homes we were looking at. But I can't help but feel slightly mislead. This is it? We are living in a place that is ours, so that means I can't call the landlord to fix our list of issues and we have to pay for it too!!! I know that I shouldn't complain, it is wonderful that we have gotten ourselves into the position to buy a home, and the only comparison I can think of is having a baby, it is exciting and new and after a few days the blinders come of and reality sets in that you have a lot of work ahead of you. That being said I would never give my baby back, so I'm sure the work on the house will be well worth it too.

There are some theories (my own) on my blahness factor. First is the fact that we worked so hard to be in a place to purchase a home, there was a goal. Now what? I know we should be working towards retirement and college education for Little Moo, but those things are really far away so it is hard to be really excited about either. We have no idea where to put most of our stuff. The garage is piled high with boxes, so much so that our car barely fits in the two car garage! And, well we have clothes in our closets, toys in little moos room and our kitchen is all unpacked so what on earth is in the rest of the boxes?!?! Did I mention the meds I'm taking to try and conceive are making me crazy. This too could play a large role in my blahness. Actually, it could be to blame for this entire post! Just think if I wasn't crazy I most likely would not be complaining about a new house. It is slightly bonkers I know. I'm sure I'll feel better when we do things like paint the interior walls, add a fence, and build a deck. But for now, it just feels like another rental, only now we are responsible for the maintenance!

We Have a House!!! And more excitement...

2008-12-04T14:43:00.000-08:00

Hooray! We moved into our new house right after Thanksgiving, talk about a lot to be thankful about. We love it here, the space, the space, oh and the space! Little Moo is very excited about his new room and the new house. All of his toys fit in his room, so Mama Moo is happy too. We still haven't completely unpacked (nor are we anywhere close) and we are aware we have a lot of work to do but still couldn't be happier. Speaking of which, I have to wrap this up to go do some work, just wanted to update everyone! Pics and more stories to come!

Etiquette...or lack thereof

2008-11-19T16:17:00.000-08:00

Over 30 days since we put in the offer on our house and we are still....waiting. I've tried looking up etiquette for situations like these, is it rude and pushy to put in a call daily to see what the progress is or is it perfectly reasonable. I get the sense that they are just patronizing me and then I get the "we'll call you as soon as we know anything". But on occasion, I've spoken to the agent or our loan officer halfway through the day and they will say "oh, I haven't checked my email yet today" and other similar comments. So I call. I understand that our family buying a house is not the center of all that they do, but it is the main focus in our life at this time and that is why it seems necessary to call everyday just to see how everything is progressing. This whole process if overly frustrating (though from the sounds of it, we are not doing any worse than anyone else at the same point in the process) and neither Zippercow nor myself do so well with things being open ended and unresolved. We just want to know the date!

On a much different note, I have found the perfect art table for Little Moo. A box! He has helped decorate most of the boxes we put his toys in and we had to sacrifice one large box just for the purpose of coloring, stickering, playing in, building forts with, racing cars, and the list goes on! Now obviously I won't be able to save these boxes in a scrapbook or anything, but it certainly is fun! He seems to be doing well with the idea of moving (we will see if that continues to be true once the move takes place) and asks every time we leave our current home if we are going to buy a house. We tell him "yes, but not today" because heck, we don't even know when!

Under Construction....

2008-11-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

So we have merged the blog I started with our original Zipper Herd page. There are some format things we want to fix but we will not be taking care of that until after we move. Just wanted to let everyone know that I have not already abandoned the blog but we are busy packing! Hopefully moving day will come soon, we shall see!

The Uneatable Cupcake

2008-11-07T13:34:00.000-08:00

In quite a few kid friendly cookbooks and magazines I have seen that a nice treat for kiddos is frosted angel food cupcakes. And for extra added fun let them frost them! And to that I say DON'T DO IT! As fun as it should be to frost cupcakes, these were no ordinary cupcakes. Anyone who has ever had angel food cake should instantly know where the problem lies. IT IS AIR! Therefore impossible to hold to frost be cause they just squish, and lets face it, children are far from being "delicate" when holding things, especially if they are trying to concentrate on getting

frosting on to a delicious treat they will soon devour. Oh, and you can't eat them either. They are trick cupcakes. They look delicious and innocent enough, a nice tasty treat. Until you take a bite, the whole thing folds and you end up with frosting all over your face and hands. Ha, ha! You didn't really need the empty calories anyway! Lets just say is was a bit of a cupcake disaster. Little Moo couldn't frost his and just ended up eating the frosting (which I am sure he didn't mind) and anyone else ended up with cake in their face. I'm pretty sure the term "angel" just didn't fit the bill with these treats. Silly Mommy!

Moo?

2008-11-07T13:05:00.000-08:00

What has two feet, blue eyes, and rings? A wee Little Moo!

So about a week later, here are some pictures of Little Moo in his costume on Halloween. Is it any shock that our Little Moo was, well...a moo! He was so cute ( to a ridiculous extent) in his little costume and the cow bell added a nice touch. We visited friends and family to "trick-or-treat" just intending to visit a few people and not actually go door to door. However when we got to our last friend to visit the neighborhood was bustling with children and it was pleasantly warm out so Little Moo and I went to the houses on our friends small street and the cul-de-sac at the end. It was pretty fun. Every step LM took his cowbell rang (hilarious!) and he got pretty good at saying "trick-or-treat". He got a good amount of candy which he wanted, but strangely his favorite treat was the apple he got from Nana and Auntie Raino. It was a pretty tasty apple (we cut it up and shared it after he took a few bites). Me thinks our Little Moo will enjoy this holiday in the future.

The Selfish Mom

2008-10-31T09:24:00.000-07:00

Little Moo woke last night crying. He usually is a pretty good sleeper but has had an ear infection so I wanted to be sure he didn't need some medicine. When I went in, he stood up. I picked him up and it was clear all he needed was a hug, but I was selfish, I offered to rock him for a few minutes. I was The Selfish Mom. Why would it be selfish to rock your 2 year old in the middle of the night? Because he simply needed to be righted in his crib, re-covered, and pat his back and he would have gone to right to sleep. But I was willing to rock him for some extra cuddle time. Considering I stay home all day with him it could be assumed I get enough Little Moo time, but that is simply not true. I am greedy and steal any mommy moments I can because as he gets older I know there will be fewer. I doubt you can "stock up" on stolen moments, but I will take them when I can get them. To be honest, with the exception of when he is REALLY sick and inconsolable, I don't mind getting up with him, even if we don't end up rocking. Because as wonderful cuddling and rocking with him is, it just as nice to snuggle him into bed and in his half sleepy voice say "I love you mommy" in the dark and quiet of his room. It is about that time that my heart usually bursts and I can't help but smile. Definitely worth getting out of bed.

There Were Two in the Bed and the Little One Said "Rollover!"

2008-10-30T13:29:00.001-07:00

Well actually he says "peek!" but still. Little Moo's new favorite game with Daddy is to lay on either end of the couch under a blanket. He either "yoinks" (taking Daddy's toy or seat) or peeks under and above the covers. Sometimes he's even content laying there and playing with his cars quietly. Still, it is too cute to see. Very special those two!

The Latest Moos!

2008-10-29T14:58:00.000-07:00

A couple things happened this last week. First, we had out of town guests . We had a great time and the kiddos got to play together! I can't believe how big they are getting! The visit was far too short!

Next we flew to Western Washington for Zippercow's Grandma and Grandpa's 65th Anniversary. The ceremony was beautiful and it was nice to see all of his family (his Dad's side). It was kind of a whirl wind weekend as we flew there Saturday and flew back on Sunday. This was the first time Little Moo ever flew on a plane! Unfortunately we found out he had an ear infection which would explain his refusal to smile for any pictures on the flight back. Well, that and the fact that it was an incredibly busy weekend with little to no napping.

As much fun as we had in the last week we are now recovering from terrible head colds, sinus infections, ear infection and just general exhaustion from the busy week. Hopefully the weekend will provide us with some rest and relaxation. We'll see what surprises this weekend brings!

Here are some more fun photos of the last week!