Whew!

Wow! What a busy weekend!
Spent all day Friday making about 200 trips up and down the stairs from our stifling hot inferno of an attic with trips of yard sale fodder. NOT much fun.
Was up at 5:15 a.m. on Saturday to drag stuff into the front yard for a yard sale. Again, NOT fun. Roused Steve-o from bed around 6:15 to help. Priced stuff, pulled out the lawn chair & the coffee, and sat and waited for the money to roll in as all the suckas came and bought all our old stuff we didn't want anymore. Goodbye computer armoire! Goodbye random books! Goodbye basket that the cat has used for a scratching post! Goodbye giant stuffed panda bear that I'm STILL unsure how we ended up with in the first place! Goodbye boys' beds! Goodbye old stroller!

I was hoping to get enough money from the yard sale to buy the boys new beds and I did that, so I'm a happy camper. Only thing I didn't get rid of?? The Evenflo stroller travel system. Ugh. It's totally a "first-time mom-I-must-have-everything" buy. Who REALLY needs a stroller THAT big? With 3 cupholders, a basket in the back large enough to hold a 3 year old child (literally - I stuck Owen in there once when he fell asleep) and wheels big enough to off-road through the Grand Canyon?? I'm totally downsizing for baby #3. So if anyone out there needs a stroller/carseat/travel system -- lemme know. I got one for ya...you can have it for CHEAP. Or free.

So....with the old office now completely empty (sold the computer armoire, moved the computer to another room) and with the boys room devoid of beds, it's time to do some major cleaning. By 1:30 Saturday the yard sale is finished and I begin the haul - to the curb for the stuff we're trashing, back upstairs for the couple things that we'll hang on to, or hope to give away in the case of the stroller/carseat deal. We vacuum, we organize, we throw-away. My friend Ginny let me borrow her Bissel carpet cleaner so I drove over to her house to pick it up and brought it back to get to work cleaning up our nasty cream colored carpet. And lemme just say..... OH. MY. GOSH. I am in love. Steve commented several times about how I needed to chill out about the carpet cleaner. Here's the thing - and may I sound like the atypical 1950's American housewife for saying, but I'm a total FREAK about having my floors be clean. My mom ingrained this horrid obsessive-compulsive behavior in me - specks of lint, dirt, marks on the carpet leave me with a tic in my face and twitching to break out the vacuum. I CAN'T STAND a dirty floor. Dishes piled in the sink? Whatever. Laundry stacked sky-high in the mudroom? Big deal. An inch of dust over all the furniture. I don't give a crap. But carpet? Floors? Must be clean and clutter-free. For the most part, I've resigned myself to about 1 day of perfectly clean flooring a week, thanks to two boys who are constantly trashing the house. But over the last year that we've lived in the house, the floors have gotten steadily ickier, more and more stained. Enter in the Bissell carpet cleaner. I L-O-V-E this thing.....it successfully removed a 2 foot long stain of pancake syrup (compliments Owen, 3 months ago), several blobs of green paint (again, thank you Owen, last spring), ground-in-dirt, crayon, marker, juice stains, and other unidentifiable marks on the carpet and left the house smelling oh-so fresh and clean. It was absolutely amazing.
I love you Bissell heat pro carpet cleaner. I want to marry you and have little bissell heat-pro babies with you that will flit around my house scrubbing carpet and making my house look and smell fresh.

Does that make me weird??

I don't care. Someone buy me this glorious machine as soon as possible. I will love you forever.

Hope you had a great weekend. It's almost 2 am here so I'm going to bed.

where I will dream about that carpet cleaner. Ginny, when you guys move next month, if you could move into a place that has hardwood floors, that'd be great. Because then I could keep it.
The carpet cleaner that is.

I miss it already.

You Must Go to This Site

Want to know the most addicting website ever?

RetroJunk

...Where I just spent the last hour reliving my childhood by watching: tv commercials for Wonderwoman Underoos, Kangaroos Shoes, Frankenberry cereal.....And theme-song intros from The A-Team, Rainbow Brite, Thundercats, Saved by the Bell, Knight Rider, Snorks, Ducktales,Schoolhouse Rocks ...oh the list goes on.

This may be my new favorite site ever.

Go...waste an hour or so of your life.
Walk down memory lane.
Relive the 80's....or the 90's. Spike up your bangs and put on 3 different colors of slouch socks. Turn on some VanHalen or some Bon Jovi and rock your peg-legged jeans to the music of your youth.
Enjoy.

Thanks to Steve-o for the link. What a discovery!

You thought life was grand before you saw this site?? Well, now it really rocks your socks. Just sharing the love people, sharing the love....

Now you know.
And knowing is half the battle.

AJ says Thanks!

....for the sandbox grandma and grandpa N!....for the CARS racetrack mom and dad! And for the CAR from Owen!
...for the CARS pajamas Uncle Rob, Aunt Manda, Robby, Johnny, Abby, and Kenny!
(Pictures of grandma and grandpa T's gift coming soon)

What a great birthday!

April 20

A.J. is short for Ayden James. Ayden means "little fire" and at the time we named our newborn baby boy that day in April 2004 we had no clue how much he would grow into his name.
This child can singlehandedly melt my heart, completely exasperate me, make me laugh out loud, and make me pull my hair out in one 10 minute span.
He is tenderhearted - as Steve and I both saw this evening when he burst into tears after HE hit Owen with a toy, causing Owen to cry. The mere sight of his brother in genuine tears over his actions sent him over the edge. He was heartbroken.
He is a pleaser - he'll do anything to gain your approval, loves to be a helper and will do anything to make you laugh. He's our clown, our silly kid - the goofy one.
He is a snuggle bug - always wanting and offering hugs, wanting you to "rub me" - rub his back, his arms, just be touching him anywhere. He hates to be alone - still won't sleep alone and even when he is in bed with us, will frequently wake up in the night and groggily whine, "i need you to ruuuubbbbb".
He is an excellent athlete - he started walking at 10 months - which lasted about 2 weeks and he's been running, jumping, hopping, and skipping ever since. He'll jump off anything. From the time he was one, he was jumping off the swing set, off his headboard on his bed, the back of the sofa, the coffee table. He has NO fear.
He's all boy - loves trucks, cars, and especially dirt.
He's high-energy and rarely slows down. A 30 minute mid-day nap will keep him up until 10pm. He's a daddy's boy and he's fiercely independent - "I can DO it!!" "Lemme do it!" but he is a sweet sweet boy and we love him dearly. He adores his big brother and can kick his butt in a foot race any day. He loves Lightening McQueen and peanut butter & jelly. He can eat yogurt by the quart and half a watermelon in one sitting. I don't know if he will ever give up his binky. He is a precious part of this family.

And today, he is 3 years old.

Happy Birthday A.J. We love you.

Self-portraits

I was messing with my camera today when AJ climbed up on my lap......so we had some self-portrait fun. :)

So the Real Secret is.....

Yesterday I ventured into the store to pick up what my mother would call "toiletries". Why items belonging in the bathroom and having to do with personal hygiene are referred to in this matter, I have no idea, but that's a post for another day.

In particular, I needed shower gel, deodorant, and Baby Oil Gel --if you're incredibly nosy and were simply dying of curiosity to know what "toiletry" type items I was in search of.
The boys were at preschool, so rather than do my usual "swipe-whatever-deodorant-looks-cheap-and-is-easily-within-reach-before-
AJ-knocks-down-28-boxes-of-tampons-from-the-adjacent-shelf" tactic that I usually employ, I took time to peruse the dazzling display of deodorant before me.

You out there, without children, or with children grown -- lest you forget the sheer pleasure of perusing the aisles of toiletries in uninterrupted silence, let me tell you - is is a rare luxury. There are few moments peace in a mother's time, and so to stand there in Target, arms folded across my chest, letting my eyes rake over every single colorful anti-perspirant before me, contemplating the possibilities that awaited for my underarms, was 4 minutes of pure bliss. Solid, soft-solid, gel, aerosol, anti-perspirant, scented, unscented, organic - it's mind-boggling let me tell you. Now, Secret is my brand of choice, so after a cursory glance over the other brands (you never know when something different might catch your eye - like Teen Spirit, which my eyes linger over every time as wonder if Curt Cobain rolls in his grave every time a pre-adolescent girl rubs said product on her armpits) I stepped to the side to view the display of Secret deodorant before me.

After deciding which one I wanted, and having it in hand (Shower Fresh semi-solid, if you must know) I was turning to place said item in my cart when I caught site of this:


What is it, you wonder?? It is Secret Deodorant - solid. BUT, this is no regular secret deodorant, oh no! This is Secret SPARKLE - and not only sparkle, but in a lovely Vanilla Chai scent.

So for me, the real secret is......WHO IN THE ____ would want their armpits to sparkle....OR smell like Vanilla Chai??? Please, someone tell me. Are you out there women? Is there someone out there reading this, who is typing a comment right now with sparkly vanilla-chai scented underarms?? Or I suppose....it could be a man as well. As Steve will testify - Secret IS....strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.
Reveal yourself, please - I must know.

Funk-ed

You know that feeling? That indescribable, get-out-of-my-face, feeling bummed, feeling testy, not-in-the-mood-to-do-anything, fill-in-the-blank-here FEELING??

A FUNK.

I'm in a funk.

Know what I mean?

Channeling Ellen DeGeneres

My brother sent me this quote from Ellen DeGeneres today, and I thought it was pretty funny. And it aptly describes me this week:

"I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It's been about two months since I've worked out. And I just don't have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words".

Spring Break Part II

Our second day at the beach dawned cloudy and slightly cold. AJ and I were the first up at 6:30 so we put on some warmer clothes and went for a walk on the beach. We got caught in a little drizzle so we headed back to the rooms. Everyone else was up by then and after the drizzle stopped, we saw this off our balcony.


Ever since our arrival, there had been a red flag posted on the beach (rough water) and a purple flag (beach "pest" - which can mean anything from jelly fish to sting rays to "dangerous fish" or, in other words - sharks). After the rainbow faded away and as we ate our breakfast on the balcony we saw this out in the water. What could it be? A shark perhaps?? TWO sharks??



Nope. Just some bottlenose dolphins. We later learned that the rain from the night before had changed the currents and brought in a lot of fish from the sea to the shallower waters off the coast - perfect feeding food for dolphins. Or sharks I guess. But luckily we didn't see any of those.
Aren't they beautiful??
By 10 am the sun was back out and it was getting nice and toasty again, without a cloud in the sky.
AJ and Owen decided they wanted to head over to the pools for a dip in the pool.
Owen with grandpa.
A little out of focus, but I like it anyway.
Owen strikes a Calvin Klein pose for me.
And then the dolphins were back. We saw them about 3 times that day. This time the picture's a little better since we were actually down on the beach. And you can see how close they were to actual people. There was a sandbar about 20 yards off shore --you can see where it is where that wave is breaking. It was shallow enough that once you swam out to it you could stand on it and the water was only about thigh-high -- and the dolphins were swimming just beyond it.
Love this one of Steve and the boys.
And that's it.....hope you enjoyed.
I did....and I think I'm ready for another vacation. Screw work and everyday life....I think I'd like to live in a hotel. On the beach. With a king-side bed. And a spa downstairs. And room service. And someone to do my laundry everyday. And drinks and snacks brought to me on my very own beach side lounge chair. And a personal masseuse. Ok, well...maybe that's a little TOO much.

Spring Break Part I

We're back! Just drove in last night around 9p.m. So...what'd I miss???

We had a great spring break....it was relaxing, warm, sunny, fun -- full of sand and surf, good food and a king size bed. :)
Get ready for a picture overload.....I've just barely scratched the surface of the 150+ pictures that I took (which actually isn't very many for me) so here's a few from our first full day out on the beach. Please disregard the disparate amount of photos of AJ vs. Owen. AJ is my one and only (semi) willing subject at the moment, so I have quite a few more pictures of him.

Here's AJ, approximately 28 seconds from the time we walked out the hotel doors. He ran his little truck down to the beach and parked himself in a great spot. Hey, a guy's gotta claim some space -- you know how it is.....







Here's me and Owen at the outdoor restaurant/bar place that we ate dinner at. It had a great view of the sea and Owen was in a pretty good mood. I think this is one of my new favorite pictures of me with the O-dawg. Notice the copyright. :)


Ok....I actually didn't take this picture so it was a little underexposed and needed some work, hence the graininess. It's the only picture I have of just me and Steve-o though, so I'm throwing it in here anyway. Please disregard my enormous fat-ness.



Here's the O-dawg and AJ in all their cute stud-liness. :)
My kids are so dang adorable.
And cool.

Which is important.




Grandma and Grandpa

Here's AJ doing his darndest to knock down the umbrella, which by this point I needed to shade my pinking skin. On a side-note, I bought myself a new swim suit - maternity friendly- although not so sexy. Seriously, how can a maternity swim suit be sexy? Ever? It's designed to cover (or not) a massive round belly. But I digress....
NEW swimsuit cuts quite a bit lower than OLD swimsuit, thus revealing some skin that has yet to see the sun this season, resulting in some VERY white skin in the general boobage area. Aforementioned white skin is feeling the rays of the sun somethin' fierce by 4 pm

Me: "AJ - don't shake the umbrella. It'll fall down"
AJ: "yeah - I'm gonna knock it down!"

Me: "No. I need the shade. Mommy's boobies are burning in the sun.
AJ: [evil cackle]

(oh, and notice his huge dierrere -- he had just gone swimming. In his diaper. It's pretty loaded, as you can see).


A kite some people were flying behind us. Cool, huh?
Wish I had got their feet and left a little more room in this picture, but I was comfortably seated on my lounge chair and had no plans of moving back for a better shot.
Us. :)
WHEW! More to come later.....this is just the first set that I've gone through.
Hope you enjoyed.
And I hope everyone else had a great spring break. Or not, if you're not on spring break. And then I hope you had a great week.....in your cubicle. *snicker*