I Did It

I gave my notice today. My manager, MA, was very nice about it and made it easier than I thought it would be! We agreed that I will stay on until the end of November since they won't be replacing me and it will be best for MA if I continue doing the Medicare stuff until then. While I feel very ready to be a true SAHM (stay at home mom), it still made me a little bit sad to officially give my notice.

Then on my way home some dumb Jersey driver absolutely infuriated me by doing something really stupid. I was at a stop light. The light was red. I had my turn signal on indicating (which is the purpose of turn signals) that I would be turning left, across traffic. Opposite me was a line of vehicles, the first of which was also turning left across traffic. I couldn't clearly see the cars behind that first one so when the light turned green I waited to turn just in case one of them would be coming straight across (something that often happens at that particular intersection.) There were only 3 cars so it was only a wait of a few seconds, something I would much rather do than risk getting hit. So when I hesitated to go, the van behind me went around me, on my LEFT, driving in the WRONG LANE, and turned left across oncoming traffic, in front of me! I. WAS. LIVID. I would say that I'm sorry for getting mad about this, but honestly!!! Who gives these people licenses? I know that road rage is not Christ-like, but it makes me so angry when people do such idiotic things. All I can think is that their stupidity could cause me to get in an accident, affecting not only me but my entire family. Praise the Lord for His protection, and for His restraint which was the only thing keeping me from rolling down my window and yelling angrily when I passed that van!

You Make Too Much Noise

I believe that I have mentioned once or twice before that the upstairs apartments in this building have very creaky floors. It certainly isn't our fault that our floors creak and squeak and moan when we walk on them. We've kind of figured out where the worst spots are, and we try to avoid them late at night or early in the morning, when our downstairs neighbor is probably sleeping.

Now, DH starts work at 5:00 in the morning. This means that he has to get up at 4:00. That is VERY EARLY and we realize it, so we really try not to make a lot of noise. We prepare as much as possible the night before by getting the coffee ready, making as much of DH's lunch as we can, and getting out work clothes so DH can just grab them on his way to the bathroom in the morning. There's only so much we can do the night before, however, so for about fifteen or twenty minutes we are both moving around the apartment. Last night DH forgot to get his work clothes out. No big deal, they are all in one drawer, just open it and get them out. For some reason known only to himself, he didn't turn on the bedroom light and was digging around in the drawer by the light from his cell phone (at four o'clock in the morning you aren't always at your sharpest.) So it took him a little longer than usual, like, oh you know, a minute. Then he went into the bathroom. Then he came back into the bedroom for something else he had forgotten. Hey, he's human, right? People forget things! But that meant more floor creaking in the bedroom. Apparently it ticked off our downstairs neighbor because the next thing we knew she was banging on her wall or ceiling or something to indicate her displeasure.

Now I don't know about you, but when I'm doing something that is bothering someone else, banging on the wall does not make me want to stop. In fact it really rubs me the wrong way. I quickly get into my flesh and picture myself jumping up and down, or doing a nifty two-step in the hall while wearing tap shoes. If you have a problem, address it with us. You can come upstairs and knock on our door and we can discuss it like civilized adults. It doesn't have to be right when the problem is going on, if it happens to be early in the morning. You can wait until you are up for the day. If you are unable to talk to us, you can leave a polite note on our door. The way I see it, though, is that if you live in an apartment, you are going to hear your neighbors. That is just the way it is. I realize that creaking floors can be annoying, but five minutes of creaking sure beats all night, like BIL/SIL1 have to hear from their neighbor! Besides, we don't complain to our downstairs neighbor about her thumping bass sound system. If our moving around in the morning bothers her so much she should invest in some kind of white noise maker, like a fan or something. Deal with it. Like the rest of us apartment dwellers. And stop banging on the walls. You might wake up the Boogie and then you'd really be sorry.

Ohhh, Baby

This is beyond cuteness, if I do say so myself. Make sure your volume is turned up!

And her new favorite song:

Where Am I?

This morning at 4:30 when DH left for work he could see his breath. This is New Jersey in August? Dropping below fifty degrees at night? I think it might barely be fifty degrees right now, at eight o'clock in the morning! I would think nothing of this if I were in the Pacific Northwest, but here? It feels like fall and I can't stand it. I like fall but I don't like winter and I'm emphatically NOT READY for summer to be over yet. :( Come back, Summer! Stay a little bit longer, pleeeeease ...

Blogging Is Not A Chore

You know how when you need to do something and keep putting it off? And the longer you put it off the more you dread doing it? So you keep putting it off and it just seems to get bigger ... well that's how I feel right now about writing this post. I've been meaning to but it kept getting put off and more things kept happening and I kept thinking, "I should blog about that!" But now I have so many things in my head that this will be a boring recap of the last few days.

Our birthday party was really fun. Reenie brought over some princess party decorations which were so cute.

This says "Princess Party" and has Disney princesses on it

There was a pink tablecloth but I forgot to take pictures till everything got cleaned up.

Party favors! A big hit with the little girls.

We had a great time and Reenie gave me some really fabulous clothes! I was so surprised -- I never expected such a nice gift. Here I am in them. I know Mom is green with envy over my super-cute jacket.

Not only did she give me the cute top and adorable retro jacket, she also found earrings and a necklace to tie in with the pattern on the top! She has an amazing sense of style. AND she gave me a new cami. I wear camis under everything and all of mine are maternity ones from when I was preggo with the Boogie. They have been washed and dried so much they've shrunk, and worn so much that they are stretched out and dingy no matter how much I bleach them so I really appreciate a new one! The D family gave me some yummy body wash, body butter, and body spray from Victoria's Secret. It's delicious. I am tempted to shower several times a day just so I can use it. And DH gave me some body spray from VS too, only a different scent! I made out like a bandit. :)

On Sunday FIL's parents came over from Delaware to surprise everyone. We had leftover chili from the night before so we invited them over to help us eat it. They hadn't seen our new apartment yet, and BIL/SIL1 brought the LCs and their lunch upstairs and ate with us.

Today was laundry day. I had several loads. With VBS last week a lot of things got pushed back ... The Boogie played and played with her Pop Pop and the LCs and wore herself all out. Here she is playing with FIL on the kitchen floor.

I completely forgot to write about DH's promotion and raise! He had his one-year anniversary at work and got a great review. He was promoted to the next level mechanic and got a $1.23 raise, which is awesome. We are so thankful to the Lord for providing this job and the paycheck that goes with it. Now we are praying that DH won't be "volunteered" to work the night shift which is 10:00 pm to 8:00 am, four weeks on that shift then four weeks on the day shift. It would be another dollar raise but it's not worth it in our opinion. So please pray with us that he doesn't have to do it. We like being able to spend time with Daddy and don't want him to become sleep-deprived from having to catch his zzz's during the day.

It's Time to Par-tay

Last night I got a voicemail from my brother B (who did not call me on my birthday or write to me or text me or even leave me a happy birthday message on MySpace.) It went like this: "Hey, I know that in New Jersey it is August 22nd, but here on the West Coast we are actually 3 days behind and it's the nineteenth, so happy birthday!" I didn't expect him to remember it at all so I guess three days late isn't bad. :)

VBS ended last night. It was a fun week but I'm soooo glad it's over. Good thing it only comes once a year!

Tonight we are having a birthday party for me and my friend Reenie. We always get together to celebrate our birthdays since they are eleven days apart. I got her a fun gag gift and a cute real gift. I can't wait to give her the gag gift. It makes me laugh whenever I think about it. Anyway the D family is coming over for dinner too, and maybe another friend, and then all the ILs and LCs are coming over later for cake and ice cream! It's gonna be a fun par-tay. Now I need to make the cake and hang up the "Happy Birthday" banner.

Mama's Little Angel

Isn't she sweet? Yes, I did laugh. I try really hard not to laugh at her when she is being such a booger but sometimes it slips out accidentally.

Here are some cute pics we took this morning. She reminds me a lot of me in a few of these (the smiley ones.) Happy:

Not so happy:

And somewhere in-between:

20+ years ago today ...

... I was born! I think it was 24 years ago. Yeah, that sounds right. That's a good number. So that means I was born in, ummmm, 1984. Yes. 1984. That makes me twins with my brother, except his birthday is in July. But we won't quibble over details. We can be twins. Next year he will become my older brother. And we won't quibble over that, either. He's probably always wanted to be the oldest anyway.

VBS is going just great. There were probably about 20 kids there last night. HR did a fabulous job decorating our craft area! She spent practically the whole day there yesterday! Here are some pics of what we (mostly she) did:

She made this amazing guy out of cardboard.I made the sign and that's about it. She made the dinos.

She made this guy too! I love how he is munching on some foliage. :)

Our crafts went well last night and hopefully will continue to for the rest of the week. I'm starting to think that the one for tomorrow night is going to be too easy for some of the older kids. I'm trying to come up with a way for it to be just a teensy bit more time-consuming.

I forgot to write about DH's company picnic on Saturday. It was at a really nice park with lots of stuff to do, like horse-shoes, swimming in pools or a lake, paddle-boats, a bouncy house, a blow-up trampoline on the lake, volleyball, miniature golf. We ate and walked around and let the Boogie go wading. She loved it! If we hadn't held on to her I'm sure she would have walked right out into the deep water.

And since I haven't posted many pics or videos lately, here are some "just because" ones:

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go!

It's Vacation Bible School week! I doubt that I'll be posting much this week since we'll be at church every evening. HR and I are doing crafts ... this is a new thing for me and I reeeeeally hope all goes well. Thankfully HR is much more creative than I. She had some great ideas for decorating and is going in the morning to finish up our room so who knows what I'll find when I get there in the evening. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will look good! Now I need to go color some dinosaurs ...

Two Years Ago Today ...

... we found out about the Boogie. It was my birthday and we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Over our food DH asked me, "So, when are you planning to test?" since I already knew that there was something going on. I was in denial and didn't want to test at all, but DH convinced me to, so after breakfast we went to Target and bought one pregnancy test. On our way home I thought, how stupid to buy one test! What if it's defective? I took it as soon as we got home (I didn't know I was supposed to wait until first thing in the morning) and could immediately see the little plus sign begin to appear. I was still in denial so I set the test on the counter and went into the living room where DH and I sat on the couch for two minutes and I felt every range of emotions from excitement to nervousness to dread. When the time was up I sent him back into the bathroom and two seconds later he came back out with the biggest grin on his face. I can't remember what he said but I sent him back to get it so I could see it for myself, and we hugged and laughed and cried. Then we went to his company picnic and it was so fun to have such an exciting secret! I was excited for that day but I cried for real that night because I was so scared about having a baby and disappointed that our family of two was going to expand so soon. It took me several weeks to start being excited for good. Of course by the time our Boogie was born I couldn't wait to meet her and now I simply couldn't imagine our family without her!

Wednesday Already?

Where has the week gone?

On Sunday afternoon we had the R family over. We watched the Olympics and HR and I discussed craft ideas for vacation Bible school next week. H-man and the Boogie played very nicely all afternoon despite no naps! After the evening service we headed to the D family's house for some chips and salsa and more Olympics. I coaxed a couple of smiles out of baby K which totally made my day! It was a full Sunday but very nice.

Over the weekend DH talked about possibly changing his morning start time at work. When he took this job he was given the option of working 5:00-3:30, 6:00-4:30, or 7:00-5:30. He chose the 6-4:30 shift and has stayed there for a year. On Saturdays, however, he starts at 5:00 am. He thought he might like to try a 5:00 start time every day, but wasn't sure about it. Lo and behold, on Monday there was a shop meeting at work and due to an extreme jump in the electric bill they are making some drastic changes. One of the changes is that the shop is shutting down at 3:30, forcing everyone to come in at 5:00 in order to get their full ten hours in! So that took care of that decision. It started the very next day so we are beginning to adjust our days to start and end an hour earlier. My challenge is to get myself and the Boogie up earlier so that she'll go to bed earlier, etc., etc. I am a sloooow starter in the morning if I don't have to go to work, so this is definitely a challenge. Thank the Lord for coffee! :)

Yesterday HR and I took H-man and the Boogie and went craft supply shopping. We hit several stores and ended up at Chick-fil-a for lunch. It was a fun time! I'm excited to have them move into our building. They are a very nice family. Last night SIL1 came over for a while with EK and DR. I got to hold DR -- he is a very solid boy! He has great jowly cheeks and at least a couple of chins. Today is laundry day at 52 for me and the Boogie so SIL1 is bring EK and DR over as well and we'll spend the afternoon together.

A few days ago I painted the Boogie's toenails pink. Yesterday I gave her a bottle of nail polish (closed tightly, of course) and she immediately sat down and began to "paint" her toenails by holding the bottle and touching each toe with the lid. That's my girl! She started saying, "Oh no!" yesterday too, which I think is so funny. She also started saying, "bye!" after every kiss she gives. I'm not sure why that is but it's very cute.

Time to make myself useful around here ...

Back To The Old Routine

It's been a good week and I'm glad it is over. I worked a little over 20 hours. Honestly I don't know how moms who work outside the home do it, especially the ones who work full-time! They definitely have my admiration. Even though I do have a job other than my wife/mom one, I really feel as if it's hardly worth mentioning since I normally put so few hours in.

Today I did not work. I lounged around for most of the day. The Boogie and I played and colored and went for a walk. I talked to my mom and got all updated on the latest happenings in Washington. DH worked in the morning then mowed the church grass. We went to T.G.I. Friday's for dinner where we tried out their smaller portion menu (at smaller prices, natch) which we agreed was just the right amount of food to fill us without stuffing us. The Boogie ate with a fork for the first time and did so well that after dinner we headed to Target for some toddler flatware. At Target I found these. They fit so perfectly and were so comfy that DH insisted I buy them. Of course I am a submissive wife and did exactly what he told me. They feel so good, especially since they were on clearance. I'm wearing them right now. With my jammies. No kidding.

Have I mentioned lately how cute toddler feet are? They are so fat and wide and squishy. I read in a book once that toddler feet are like pork chops with fringe, or something to that effect. I think that is an apt description. Toddler bodies are also very cute. It's most noticeable when the toddler is clad only in a diaper and running around all over the place. It's like a diaper commercial in my house! I love my Lil Tiny Person's personage. I like the way her belly sticks out, and the way she swings one arm back when she walks, and her fat little feet. I love how every rhythm gets her dancing and how she constantly sings and hums and jabbers away in her own language. I love how she has to hold my hand and her daddy's when we are all walking together. I am constantly amazed by the things she mimics, and love how she is fascinated by things. I love when she comes up to me and says, "Mama?" I love when her tiny arms hug my neck tightly, and when I get an unsolicited kiss ... that is the sweetest thing of all.

Whew!

I am not used to working as much as I have been this week! It's wiping me out. I thought I would have today off but unfortunately I am going to have to work for a couple of hours this morning. At least it's only a couple of hours and it's in the morning. Getting off at 7 every night isn't too fun. I have a new respect for my office manager, MA. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she works 8-12, goes to lunch, then comes back and works from 2-7. She also works Tuesday and Saturday mornings. I've said many, many times that I admire management and there is no way I want that job. :) Despite being tuckered out at the end of every day things have been going well and I look forward to my nice fat paycheck next week. Family has been very helpful. SIL1 fed DH and the Boogie the first evening, MIL fed all of us the second evening, then gave us some leftovers which DH whipped up into fabulous fajitas last night. The man is wonderful. Not only did he make dinner, he cleaned up the kitchen! Don't know what I'd do without him ...

Time to start my morning rolling!

Stupidity

Last night just before bed I put a case of soda in the fridge. This morning when I got up to make DH's lunch I discovered that the case blocked the door from closing and it had been open about an inch all night long ... Now I have to go through everything and throw a bunch of stuff away. I can't believe how stupid that was. Not only is it a waste of food, but the fridge was running nonstop all night cooling the kitchen! This is not a good start to my day.

A Good Weekend and A Busy Week Ahead

We had a lovely weekend seeing many friends. This week I'm working several afternoons, starting today. Hopefully the extra money will allow us to pay off my car this month! I'm really looking forward to getting that title in the mail ...

I'm all tuckered out. Oh, my, it's 9:30 already! It's time for jammies. :)

My Kid Is So Cute And So Smart And So Funny ...

So I figure that my mom blog is good for a shameless brag every now and then (not to mention that I'm using this as a journal so I have to write down what the Boogie does.) The Boogie lives music and rhythm and often will clap her hands along to a song. The other day I snapped my fingers at her which she found to be quite interesting. After observing me for a few minutes she begin to mimic my hand motions and click her tongue to make the sound! I was totally impressed.

Last night we went shopping at Kohls. DH carried the Boogie into the store behind me and as soon as we got inside she began saying, "Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh." I didn't think much of it at first because she does often say that for no reason, but when I looked back at her she was hanging over his shoulder looking at the floor. Sure enough the floor was covered with clothes, hence the "uh-oh's"! I was impressed again!

On our way home last night she started to get kind of antsy. She loves to sing so I sang "If You're Happy and You Know It" which she knows some hand motions to, and "Itsy Bitsy Spider" which, unbeknownst to me, she also knew the hand motions to! She was so cute sitting in the back seat doing them.

So, now you know. My kid is so cute and smart and funny. And that is the truth.