Baby Blue Bird

4th of July

In her cute little patriotic dress that Grandmumsy whipped up for her.
The Kid and Auntie J doing.....what, I'm not sure.


Waiting for the fireworks to start. "Mama! They go boom boom BOOM!"






Hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th!

2nd Referral-versary

Two years ago today, I saw The Kid's face for the very first time. I'll never quite forget that day. If you are curious, here is what I had to say about it last year. It's funny. Before I ever saw her picture, I loved her. Then seeing her picture, that love was intensified and I didn't think there was any way I could love her more. But now that she's here, that love was just a small drop in the bucket. I love you, sweetie!!

Finger Painting

Summer F-U-N

Summer '06

Summer '07

Why I love my sister

This is her hockey shrine. And she is teaching The Kid to yell 'Hockey RULES!' and 'I LOVE HOCKEY!'

After her bath

As I was drying The Kid off from her bath last night, she turned to me, with the most serious expression on her face and said, "You need not blow dry my hair, mama."

Man, she cracks me up.

Here's a couple of pics from a wedding we attended last weekend.

All dressed up.

With Auntie J

We love you, Sarah!

Eating her big glob of frosting.

I'm proud of her, but I'm also proud of ME!

Since The Kid’s 2nd birthday last August, when she got 2(!!) potty chairs, we have been slooooooowly working our way towards potty training. At her 2 yo checkup (which I was a couple of months late on) her doctor asked if we had started potty training. If you count talking about the potty and sitting on the potty with all your clothes on as a start, then YES! That answer did not seem to be what he was going for, so being the fast thinker that I am, I told him that we were going to start getting SERIOUS about it after the holidays. And we did…for about 2 days. The Kid just wanted nothing to do with it and every time I would suggest that we sit on her potty she would scream and cry. And if I would suggest putting on a pull up instead of a diaper??? Oh, THE HUMANITY!!!!! How, on earth, could I suggest such a thing???? NO! She wanted a diaper and that was that! (And truth be told, I wasn’t ready for it either. I really love all the hugs and snuggles we would have after a nappy change.)

So I tried other tactics.

-New Little Mermaid underwear (Didn’t work)

-Sitting on the potty and singing our favorite songs (Fun, but didn’t work)

-“TK, did you know about ALL THE FUN THINGS YOU CAN DO ONCE YOU ARE POTTY TRAINED!!!!” (She merely rolled her eyes and went back to her novel)

-“TK, did you know that Gracie (her friend) goes on the potty? She’s such a big girl! Don’t you want to be a big girl like Gracie?” (Peer pressure had no effect – which is a GOOD thing, but still not helpful)

Honestly, all of that was crap. Because one afternoon, after we had taken a break from training for a few days, I said, “Hey TK, would you like to sit on the potty? I’ll give you an M&M if you do. And if you go, I’ll give you 2 M&M’s.” Her response? “Okay, mama.” And that….was pretty much that. I never realized that parenting was all about bribery. And chocolate... in a candy coated shell.

Everything old is new again

The Kid is wearing a little coat and hat that was mine when I was a wee little lass. Other than the sleeves being just a tad short, it fits her remarkably well. This and my Star Wars sweatshirt are about the only things left from my childhood. Oh, and my Yoda folder. But that is a story for another day.

A couple more vacation-y pics

You don't know how many times I have told her not to give rides to strangers....
I just love this picture.

How many kids will go into a really cool place like this and pretend to "clean"?? Just mine?? Yeah, that's what I thought. She also "cleans" the bathtub when she takes a bath.....

Some things never change

China - 2005
Minnesota - 2007

Congratulations Serra and Ron!

Vacation Pics

Our first stop in Minnesota
Pizza Hut
Going to our "teeny-tiny room" (that's what she called it!)
Getting settled in

Driving the bus at the Children's Museum
The Kid and Curious George
So happy she fell to the floor giggling

Photo Op #1
Photo Op #2
Taking a break
Being silly
Me and The Kid

Happy Mother's Day

Treat your mother right, fool.

Catching up

First off, Happy May Day (belated)! We did not make our baskets this year, but maybe we will next year. I have fond memories of May Day when I was a kid, and just learned over the weekend that most of my baskets were from my sisters. I really was the nerdy kid with 1 friend.....

Here's a little bit of trivia that you can use to impress your friends and/or family. Did you know that on any given Friday night, the average age of patrons at a Cracker Barrell is 73? And of those patrons, 92.7% were brought there from a bus tour? It is true. And if there should happen to be two or more tables of people under the age of 50, they seat you next to each other in case of an Elderly Revolt. We were seated by the only other young people, who happened to have a little boy about The Kid's age. Everytime he wanted something, he would let out the most obnoxious, ear shattering scream. This happened about 50 times (and I do not believe that I am exaggerating). Because my child has perfect manners, the first few times he did it she would point at him, angrily, and say "HEEEEY! Don't DO that!!!" But then, after a while, she would just shake her head, look at me and say "Oh, no!!!" Seriously, who lets there kid do that? The Kid would never dream of doing that more than once, because she knows we would be out of there so fast her head would spin.

We made a trek to the May Fest again this year and I learned many interesting things. The Germans make some really good wine (my personal favorite this year is cranberry plum), they can make an awesome potato pancake and they love Red Hats.

Here are various pictures from the last couple of weeks.