Ummm... tastes good mom

This weekend has been so productive.

Friday Night

Selected the carpet for the basement.



Saturday

Went to tumble tots class.

Looked at floor tiles.

Shopped for Easter.

Ate Reeses Peanut Butter eggs in the car on the way home from Target (see the evidence in this picture).

More evidence in Bro's hair.  Bro kept saying, "Umm... tastes good mom.  Ummmm... tastes good mom," the whole time he was eating the Reeses cup.

Somewhere over the course of the past few weeks, Bro has decided that he will pose for the camera.  Here he is showing off his new sunglasses.

I had a list of things to buy for Easter.  These were the items on my list.  Very reasonable, don't you think???

... Dear Husband had other ideas...  Yes... I blame ALL of this extra candy on him.

Plus, we have these items from our visit to the Peeps store.

Regretfully, we did not celebrate Earth Hour this year, like we did last year.  Instead, Lulu had a friend over and they watched the Kids Choice Awards and Dear Husband bottled some wine.  Ugh, I felt so guilty... with lights on all over the house.  :-(

Tomorrow?  We hope to dye eggs and make our traditional Easter basket cupcakes... a tradition that has been in my family LONG before Martha Stewart came up with the idea.  I'll keep you posted!

Names

Picking a name for a baby is the hardest thing to do.  Agreeing with your hubby on this name... is even harder.

A few months ago I reviewed my favorite baby names. 

I have a list of favorite baby names; Dear Husband has list of favorite baby names.

To date, all of our talks about names go like this:

Napmom:  Have you thought about names lately?

Dear Husband:  Yes, what about Claire or Chelsea?

Napmom:  I don't like those too much.  What about Darcy or Keely... Norah or Stella... I really like Keely.

Dear Husband:  Nope.  I don't like Keely at all.  The others are so-so.

Napmom:  Oh.

Repeat and wait one week.

Repeat and wait one week.

Repeat and wait one week.

Yesterday I sent him a new list of names.

Kassidy
Briley
Kennedy
Madigan (call her Maddy)
Breanna
Brianna

He is open to Briley, Breanna, and Brianna.  I told him that this is good news becaause someone needed to come up with a new pool of names to choose from since we cannot mutually agree on ANY of the names in the current pool.

He laughed.

Baby Update:  Went to the doc today.  He said that he guesstimates that the baby weighs 6 lbs. 13 ozs. now and will be about 8.5 at birth.  How many more weeks do we have untl this baby is born?  :-)

Google

You can tell a lot about my life just by what I google.

Here is a list of the topics that I have googled over the past week.

1.  What to do with leftover Easter eggs?

2.  Can you freeze egg salad?

3.  Cherry Blossom Watch

4.  Toddler color Easter egg

5.  Canon Rebel Manual

6.  Getting wisdom teeth pulled

7.  Getting canine teeth pulled

8.  Mono symptoms

9.  Where to set up bird feeder

10.  Do stink bugs really stink?

11.  Top Golf

12.  Philadelphia with kids

See?  Now you know more about me than you need to know.

And the thought process behind all of my searches:

1, 2, 4.  I'm not a fan of hiding plastic Easter eggs.  When I was little we decorated eggs and the Easter bunny hid those eggs and we found those eggs.  Seriously... in my mind... hiding REAL EGGS is the RIGHT way to do Easter.  In my case, this means that we will also have to color 2+ dozen eggs... and I am wondering what people do with all of those eggs.  Seems like a waste to just throw them out.  I'm going to try making egg salad and freezing it.  These people say that you can freeze egg salad.  If I try it, I'll let you know how it goes.

3.  The Washington D.C. cherry blossoms are about to bloom... so I keep checking back to see when they are going to be ready for me to visit!

5.  I want to use some of the settings on my camera.  I lost my manual. 

6, 7.  At the last trip to the orthodontist, they told us that Lulu has to have her canine teeth pulled.  This seems like a load of malarky to me...

8.  Lulu was very sick on Friday and the doctor said that she could have any type of virus... including mono.  She's all better now.

9.  We'll get to this one later.  It's a blog post all on its own.

10.  Just wondering.  Yes, apparently they do stink.

11.  While we were at the Peeps store, Lulu was at Top Golf with her dad.  She wants to have her birthday party there.

12.  Lulu has a cheer competition in Philadelphia this weekend.  I'm wondering what else there is to see while we are there.

What have YOU googled recently?

Peeps

It was a gorgeous weekend here in the Eastern United States - just gorgeous.

You are NOT going to believe this.

Dear Husband took Bro and I to National Harbor (Lulu was at her dad's house) to the Peeps store.

OMG - National Harbor was gorgeous!  And, there was hardly anybody there.  And, we walked out to the edge of this pier.

I asked Dear Husband to take some pics of Bro and me together.  It was gorgeous.  We had the whole pier to ourselves.  The wind was blowing my hair.  Bro was hugging and kissing me and... {{gasp}}... posing for the camera... we had a great bridge in the background.  Pictures!  Snap!  Pictures!  Snap!  Pictures!

We went to review the pictures - "NO MEMORY CARD."

I'm NOT kidding!

whishhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  {{that's the sound of my heart deflating}}

The Peeps store was just as I had envisioned - no surprises there.  I had Dear Husband with me so I couldn't buy as much as I had hoped.  {{drats}}

I did walk away with *NEW* chocolate covered Peeps, which are supposed to be available in your local grocery store... but they aren't... I've checked.

If you need to try some on your own... you can get them this Saturday at your local Rita's ice stand.

I sampled both the milk and dark chocolate versions.

My review?  Well, in my opinion...

while they were both very good.  They did NOT AT ALL taste like chocolate covered Peeps.  They tasted like... chocolate covered, runny marshmallows.  I'm betting that if I covered a real peeps in chocolate, they wouldn't taste the same. 

Don't believe me?  Read Candy Blog's review and see her great pics here. 


Lulu tried the Peeps flavored Rita's ice this weekend.  Here is her Rita's Peeps ice review:

"It was very plain Mom.  I mean, very plain.  I was so hopeful that it would be my new favorite flavor.  But it really wasn't that good."

Have you tried the new chocolate covered Peeps or the Peeps Rita's ice?  What did you think?

Happy Valentine's Day!

What did we do over the Valentine's weekend?

A.  Try to lure the squirrels away from the bird feeder.

B.  Count birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count.

C.  Eat a sugar-filled healthy breakfast.

D.  Enjoy a great after-dinner dessert.

E.. All of the above.

See the piece of corn sitting on the railing?

See the bird sitting on the railing?

Yummy breakfast!

Yummy dessert!

OK - I know that this post is 2 months a bit late, but we had so much fun!  I love Valentine's Day.  It might be my favorite holiday.  {{I might say that about every holiday.}}   

I'm a Big Boy Now

Yeah - Bro is offically in his big boy bed now and Dear Husband took down the crib. 

In other news... I bought Bro some paints and a paint book, but he had other plans in mind.  As I was showing him how to paint in the book, his EXACT instructions to me were, "Go do the dishes mom.  I paint the water."

And he did.

Basement = No Progress

Do you remember the deal?

Dear Husband was going to do three things with the basement... that is... (1) tile in front of the fireplace, (2) paint, and (3) carpet. 

Deadline?  {{Yes, there is a deadline now.}}  April 15 - tax day.

So, mid-February {{when we had all of that snow}} I took the kids to my mom's house for the day. 

I came home.

He had....

... ripped the trim from the basement bathroom door {{yes, the now infamous basement bathroom as mentioned in the Marriage Ref post - guess no one is using this bathroom anytime soon}}.  Was this on the "official" to-do list?  No.

Ahem.

Moving on.

A few days later he had...

Tiled?  No.

Painted?  No.

Carpeted?  No.

He had... ripped of the drywall from the top half of the basement.  And... after that... he ripped down the bottom half.  Now, he is redoing the walls beside the fire place. 

Here is his explanation... as best I can understand:

Bathroom trim:  It is not on there correctly and is uneven.
Basement dry wall:  It was uneven.
Fireplace wall:  No one sets a fireplace in a cubby hole... the wall needs to be flat/flush.

He tried to appease me with this little goody...

... a homemade bird feeder.  You can't tell but it has little perches and everything.  Okay... fine... I'm NOT mad... but the deadline still sticks.

"C" is still for cheering

Another weekend passed... another day at a cheer competition.

This time, the cheer competition was in Ocean City.  Ocean City is a few hours from our house and Lulu had to be on site at 6:30 a.m.

So we stayed at a hotel on the beach... {{like, middle-of-the-winter is the ONLY time I could afford a hotel on the beach in Ocean City}}.

I tried to capture some cool sunrise, silhouette pics... but it didn't work out to well.

I did capture this pic of a TOTALLY EMPTY boardwalk.  When do you ever see the OC boardwalk TOTALLY EMPTY?  Never!

They had a Volkswagon bug beetle car in the show lobby and all of the girls had to get their picture taken in the car.  {{What is the real name of this car?}}

 
Below is a very blurry picture of how crowded this place was.  Does anyone know what I was thinking at this moment?????  Anyone??? 

Allow me to elaborate... this was a small glimpse of the spectator space.  It was STANDING ROOM ONLY at this point... and so sweaty... and I was wondering...

if there was a fire now... how the heck are all of these people gonna get out of here?  What is the maximum capacity per the fire code?  I am sure that we have exceeded it.  This "conference center" was NOT designed to hold this many people.  This is a fire hazard... how will I get out... where will I go?

I took a few moments away from planning my escape to watch Lulu's performance... all 2.5 minutes of the performance.  Lulu is the far left person in this next series of pictures.

Before the jump.

Prepping the jump.

The jump.

And another jump.  It's called a 'herkie' jump.  Now that I see it in still motion... it's much better than I thought it was.

So, now you see what I do with all of my free time.... I wait... and wait... and wait... and plan my escape... and wait some more.  But, she loves it... and so I do it... with a smile... so that I can see her smile!

Parents - what do you do that is pure torture for you... but really makes your kids smile? 

"C" is for cheering

Oh gosh… where to begin…

About 11 years ago I gave birth to my little sweetheart (we know her as Lulu). I vowed that she would be well rounded and not just a girly-girl. Being a single mom… with no brothers to refer to… I did the best I could. While I did take her to ballet lessons and she played with dolls… I also signed her up for soccer and bought her a lifetime supply of Thomas trains. We have also been canoeing {{she traded places with her friend because paddling the boat was too hard – even though every other girl out there did it}}, fishing {{worms and hooks are gross}}, we even planted oysters to help save the Bay {{apparently they are a bit icky and smelly too}}, and more. When we take her to sporting events, she is more interested in eating cotton candy and checking out the gift shop, than what is going on on the field. Ugh!

Several years ago her best friend’s mom suggested that we sign the girls up for cheerleading… and we did. Lulu has been hooked on cheering ever since. Napmom, on the other hand, did not like cheering then and I like it even less now. True, there is some bit of athletic ability needed to cheer… but (1) cheering is one step away from beauty pageants, if you ask me, - I cannot stand that they receive points based on their looks and (2) now that cheering is being classified as a ‘sport’ we are getting more and more statistics on the severity of cheer injuries as compared to other sports {{which the coaches have been trying to downplay for years}}.

Alas, Lulu is happiest when she is cheering. So, we continue to let her cheer.

Recently, we went to one of her cheer competitions.

Have you ever been to a cheer competition?

Um… cheer competition = sitting around for 5+ hours waiting to see your child’s one 2.5 minute routine. Sounds like fun, huh?

For those of you who have never been to a cheer competition... allow me to give you a tour...
At cheer competitions you have the stage…

… vendors that sell you quality pics of your kid performing…

… lots and lots and lots of girly stuff junk to buy…

… Trophies…

... cheerleaders…

… as well as judges, people taking your money videographers, and more people taking your money photographers.

Here is a glimpse of Lulu’s squad warming up behind the stage.

Lulu’s backstage jump.  (Lulu is in the back corner, closest to the camera.)

Lulu’s squad performing. Lulu is holding up the girl for the stunt.  Don't look for her - you can hardly see her.

Lulu’s jump, as performed in the routine.  (Lulu is the highest jumper in this pic.  Blurry.  Right up front - corner.)

One more stunt.

Clearly, she was pleased with her performance.

The girls received 1st place in their division and a bid to go to finals. Drats - now I gotta pay for that trip to finals too Yahoo!!!

One piece to note, I am extremely thankful for our local rec cheer team and all of the dedicated parent volunteers. At Lulu’s very first competition, I was shocked to see the type of {{ahem}} seductive body flinging dancing {{for lack of a better word}} from the girls on the squads. It was shocking… jaw dropping… however, I think that I have become immune to it at this point.

After Lulu's first competition I asked her what she thought about how some many most of the girls were dancing in their routines. She said that someone asked the coach “why don’t we dance like that?” The coach responded, “Because we don’t have to shake our butts to win.” {{Ahhhhhh… small victories!}} So, Lulu continues to cheer and, thus far, even though the coaching volunteers have changed… I haven’t seen any sign of butt shaking from Lulu’s squad… and for that… I am very, very thankful!

Oh, and Happy St. Patty's Day!

Missing In Action

I know, I've been missing.

It's because, as I might have already mentioned, we are in the middle of "session" at work... and I'm pregnant... and well... I have nine months of pics on my camera card that need to be downloaded and so... I've just been absent.

To recap where we are now:

Birds:  I still haven't upgraded to a squirrel-proof bird feeder... but it's coming.

Peeps Store:  I still didn't drag my butt to the Peeps store yet, but I will.  What?  I didn't tell you that we have  Peeps store here?  Um... yeah....

Ankles:  I sprained/twisted my ankles at Bro's tumble tots class.  Yes, I can walk on them but I can't twist them.  {{like... putting on my tennis shoe really hurts.}}

St Patty's Day:  I have had NOTHING planned for St. Patty's Day.  I did not make the shirt pictured here.  {{I was gonna make the green one.}}  I did not plan anything cool for dinner OR dessert.  I might be able to remember to serve Lucky Charms for breakfast... that counts, right?  Luckily, {{taking brick off of my shoulder}} my saving grace is that Fairy Grandmother just called to invite the family over for corned beef and cabbage for dinner.  Awe!!!!!

Oh... and I'm still pregnant... and my belly is very large... like... the largest EVER!  I might just have to post a clothed belly pic because I can hardly believe this myself!  And... eeewwww... I don't like naked preggo belly pics. 

Coming soon... pics... I will post pics and stuff about my family once again... promise!

Marriage Ref Conclusion

Thanks to everyone who voted on Napmom's First Edition of Marriage Ref.

It was kinda a tie, with most of you being "on the fence" but somewhat siding with side #1.  It was my own-two-family-members who sided with... side #2....

Did you guess who was side #1 and who was side #2?

Even though the basement is chilly and dirty/dusty right now... I'd prefer for people to do their #2 business in the basement.  It is just plain courteous.  Napmom = side #2.  Now ya know!

I find it most interesting that the two people who voted that you can go-wherever-you-want-to-go would never have this problem in their lives.  One person has her own private bathroom that she does not share with the other people in the house... and one other person has a "watercloset" in her bathroom... thus keeping the stink at bay... even while in her own bathroom.  Whatever!

So, I'm trying to be easier to get along with.  I just can't believe that this is such a nonissue for some of you! 

This was fun!  We'll do it again soon.  mkay? 

The House at Riverton, by Kate Morton - A Book Review

This past fall I read The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.  I only briefly mentioned it as item #13 on my Thursday 13 post.

Since then I read My American Journey:  Colin Powell as well as The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. 

While I was/am waiting for Em to finish the first Percy Jackson book {{she is almost finished}} I picked up Kate Morton's debut novel, The House at Riverton. 

I loved The House at Riverton for soooooo many reasons, and here are just a few...

1.  I love historical fiction books.
2.  The first half of the book read like "Gone With the Wind" to me.  I know, I hate to compare it to such a classic, but this book, this story, this family... Grace... was beautiful.
3.  The second half of the book was as much of a suspenseful page-turner as I have ever read.  I just couldn't read fast enough!

Not convinced yet?  Check out the 110 5* ratings that it got on Amazon.  It was great!

***** 5 Stars   

The Cutest Dress... I Ever Saw...

One of my friends co-bloggers friends is having her very first give-away.

She is giving away the handmade dress seen here.

It looks like two different dresses... that's cause IT'S REVERSIBLE!  I've been admiring Katelyn's dresses since she first started making them.  Don't they look great with jeans... and they aren't too girly.  I'm almost certain that she linked to a pattern when she started making the dresses, but despite my efforts  {{Yes, Katelyn, I went back and looked... and looked... and looked some more}}, I cannot find a link to the pattern on her blog.

Great News!  She's giving away the dress seen here {{did I already mention that}} right now!  The rules to apply for the give-away are listed on her blog.  You get 5 {{as in 1,2,3,4,5}} chances to enter to win. 

Head over to The Bird's Nest to Enter to Win this most adorable dress... for your own daughter... or to give as a gift.

Who is the dress model?  Oh, just the most adorable and sweet soon-to-be toddler that you could ever hope to meet!  {{Awe!}}

Marriage Ref

Run, don’t walk, over to yummy mummy’s blog and help her solve a dilemma. Hilarious I tell ya! If you have a blog then you MUST play along!


The general premise of the “game” comes from a new show (that I have never heard of) called Marriage Ref. In Marriage Ref, people/judges help solve little marriage squabbles. Yummy Mummy posted her own “squabble” and asks for your help.

We have an ongoing “squabble” in my house too, of course.

Today. I am going to give you BOTH sides of the argument (without telling you which one is mine) and let you decide the outcome.

Here goes…

 
What do you think? Do you side with #1 or #2 {{no pun intended – get it #2 – hahahahahaha}}?


Again, if you have a blog then you must play along!