The Jersey Mama: July 2012

July 31, 2012

Vacation Bible School

Nope, not ours. Our church is taking a break this year from hosting VBS. Instead, the Boogie and her cousins attended one at another church this past week. I think they had a lot of fun. I also think it was good for the Boogie to be with a group of unfamiliar people -- though her cousins were with her in the same class, the teachers and a lot of the students were new faces.

And if I must be honest, it was good for this mama to let her go. While she is away from me often, she's always with family or close friends. It was a little stretch for me to leave her at another church with teachers I'd never met (though I do know some people from this particular church, which is associated with the school that cousins attend.) Baby steps, right?

I picked up several of the cousins one night and they were eating grapes out of plastic baggies. In the car I heard someone breathing in and out of a plastic bag and warned them to stop, explaining why it wasn't safe. A little later EK (who is six) noticed that the Boogie was holding her plastic bag near her mouth. "Stop doing that," EK told her, "you're breathing in the bad air that you just spit out of your mouth."

Peabody has stopped calling the newest cousin Baby O-nee and now calls him by his real name. This makes me very sad. I really loved that she called him Baby O-nee.

We were all set for this to be Eric's last week of welding class, but last Saturday's was canceled so he had an unexpected day off. That was very nice. I put him to work replacing our showerhead

because our old one was leaking where the hose met the actual showerhead. After he bought the new one and removed the old one he said, "We should keep this in case we ever need an emergency replacement." I looked at the old showerhead in his hand and said, "You mean we could have just replaced the leaky hose?" Then we both hit our foreheads with our palms.

Okay, not really on that last part. But we should have. Duh, of course we could have just replaced the leaky hose.

He went ahead and put in the new one because we would be replacing it anyway when we do the Great Bathroom Remodel. Might as well enjoy our new showerhead now since we won't be enjoying a new bathroom anytime soon. (Thanks a lot, Uncle Furry.)

(I'm just being sarcastic, Uncle Furry. I'm very excited about your wedding and coming to visit!)

Eric also helped me to rearrange the living room a little bit. I'm still a little unsure if I like it this way. Sometimes I love it. Other times not so much. I think it's growing on me, though.

We pulled the couch away from the window and angled it

then we moved the recliner to the other side of the room

then we moved the tv stand away from the piano, and put a plant stand where the recliner used to be

and put a small table in front of the window.

The room feels bigger, probably because we moved the recliner away from the kitchen doorway. We also moved my small rocker into our bedroom. I go back and forth with that, too. I've wanted to move it in there for a while. Now I think we need to rearrange a few things so it will fit better. I kind of miss having it in the living room, though. Maybe I'll move it back. Decisions, decisions.

Eric also adjusted some electronic placement, including setting up the Wii in the playroom so now the girls can watch Netflix on the tv in there (the tv has been in there for almost a year but wasn't even plugged in.) We're just trying it out for now to see if we like it. I think it might come in handy when the Boogie and I are doing school in the living room and Peabody needs to be entertained somewhere else, or vice versa.

It was kinda fun to rearrange a little bit. I've ALWAYS loved rearranging furniture (just ask my mom/dad/siblings.) I think I started rearranging my room on a regular basis as soon as I was strong enough to tug my bed across the floor by myself. Sometimes things seem blah, so shifted furniture can make a space feel newer.

Now I think it's time for a trip to Ikea for some bright couch cushions.

July 24, 2012

Coffee And Hoagies

I was reading over some old entries from when the Boogie was about the same age as Peabody now. I posted a lot more often then. It was fun to read over them. The reason I did was to see if the Boogie was as whiny as Peabody at this stage and while I didn't see anything about that, I was reminded of the Boogie's love/hate relationship with H-man. While Peabody can be possessive, I think having an older sibling around all the time has at least acclimated her to constant sharing.

Anyway, after I posted about Peabody's CWTS, a few days later I was brushing her teeth (usually Eric does it at night and I'll be honest, in the mornings I just hand the girls their toothbrushes and let them go to town) and realized that she was cutting TWO molars. Poor kid! No wonder she was whiny! I'd be whiny too. They are most of the way through now and she is much happier. Hopefully I'll be more understanding when she starts cutting the top two.

Yesterday the Boogie said to me, "Did you know that Wawa smells like coffee and hoagies? Mmmm that smells so nice!" An astute observation. Peabody gets excited when she sees this ad:

and exclaims, "Honey, look! Hoagiepet at da Wawa!"

That's her own version of the chorus in this older jingle:

Yes, we love Wawa's Hoagiefest.

All right, all right. We just love Wawa.

July 20, 2012

Pictures From My Phone

Shame on me, I rarely take pictures with my camera. I do, however, almost always have my cell phone handy and while the picture quality isn't that great (no smart phone for this girl) it still does the job. I recently transferred many, many pics from my phone to my computer. Some of these are repeats, I'm sure.

In slightly chronological order from the beginning of the year: