Somebody's in trouble...

"Oh, hey mom.  Good morning!  Nope, not doing anything bad in here...just hangin' out, lookin' over the side of the crib...I've had this pacifier in my mouth all night and morning.  I promise, I'm a good boy!"

"You mean these teeth marks on the crib?  They must be from the dog...I would never chew on the crib...not me...no way!"

"But seriously...you couldn't possibly be mad at me with this face, could you?  Nah, I didn't think so."

Holiday PJs

Yep...we wear our Christmas jammies year round...so what?

Giddy up!

Yesterday it was a beautiful and balmy 70 degrees in our 'hood.  I couldn't wait to take Nick outside to play, and had grand plans to wheel him around the neighborhood in his wagon.  But the idea was quickly shot down when I realized 1) It's sort of a complicated process for me to haul the wagon outside, then load it with snacks/drinks/toys/etc, then grab Nick, all while fending off Whinnie and trying to explain to her that she can't come with us, 2) Todd wasn't home to help with this complicated process, and 3) the wagon is currently sitting in the living room FILLED with the 9,000+ stuffed animals people have given Nick (mostly for his birthday...hello, he has 3 pillow pets already...and those suckers are not small), so we decided to go for a much easier option. 

I pulled his "First Years" push car outside (the one my grandparents bought him for Christmas, that took my sweet hubby 3 hours of his Christmas day to assemble), plopped him in, and started pushing him with the long handle.  But homeboy is all about doing things himself these days, not to mention his little legs are getting too long to be pushed without having them drag and scrape on the sidewalk, so all Nick wanted to do was walk and push the car himself.  I obliged and we walked up and down the sidewalk in front of our house for about 15 minutes. 

When we both got tired of that activity, I thought it would be fun to find the swings in the next neighborhood over.  So we set off on a little walk around the neighborhood, but I couldn't find the cut through in the woods that one of our neighbors told us about, so we never found the playground with the swings.  Instead we opted to visit our little playground, which is practically in our backyard.  No swings, but three slides, two little rocking animals, and a ton of things to climb on.  I put Nick on one of the little horses and he was a mixture of excited and not sure what to think:

After riding the horse for a few minutes, I thought it would be fun to take him down the slide on my lap.  I put my phone down with my keys, so naturally I forgot to take any pictures of the sliding.  Nick belly laughed every time we went down the slide.  Seeing as the slide was maybe 5 feet tall (at most) I thought it would be fun for me to set him on the slide on his own, and guide him down (with my hands around his waist).  He LOVED this.  He started giggling and cracking up.  In fact, he laughed so hard that he got the hiccups, hiccup-burped and vomited on the slide.  Awesome.  It was just a teeny bit of vomit (more like a throw-up burp), so we yanked off that cute fleece vest he was wearing, and wiped it up.  And then we continued to slide.

Finally it was dinner time, and we were both sweaty and exhausted, so we happily trekked home.  And Nick was passed out by 6:30pm AND slept like a log.  Looks like we will definitely be spending many a day/afternoon/evening at the playground this spring and summer...and possibly going on a hunt for a little slide for our own backyard!  Thank goodness for warm winter days!

Time to get organized

If you know me well, you know that I'm a bit of a hoarder.  Not in the terrible, deserving of my own A&E special, sense...but more so in that if it's got sentimental value, I can't bare to part with it.  If it looks like something that might still be in style if I lose those last 20 lbs, I can't bare to part with it.  If it somehow appears to be something that I just might be able to use for a future project -- should a project ever arise -- I can't bare to part with it.

I have stacks of colored paper, stickers, gel pens, crayons, and crafty items galore, justincase I need to whip up a quick card, homemade gift, or Halloween costume.  I have two closets FILLED with clothes that I can't seem to toss or donate justincase I one day lose enough weight to fit back into an XS and desperately NEED a tiny navy blue t-shirt to wear that day.  And I have about 25 pairs of shoes that I never wear, but don't want to get rid of justincase a pair of black and gray plaid flannel peep-toes comes back into style. (I'm gonna guess they won't...)

Not to mention my affinity for framed pictures and nick-knacks.  I can almost hear former co-worker/sorority sister Kate rolling her eyes in horror.  Girl HATED nick-knacks.  Oh how I wish I had her self control :).

Anyway, whether it was the motivation from visiting the nick-knack controlled Schwass household in Scranton this past weekend, or seeing the gloriousness that is my brother's sweet new apartment (dude can decorate!), I have been seriously bitten by the organization/decorating bug.

Monday was a holiday, so we sent Nick off to the great-grandparents for the day with Gramma, and got down to the business of "February Spring Cleaning".  But our morning was a bit interrupted, as I needed to run into the office, and Todd had to finish up some grad school homework.  So we didn't really get started on our deep cleaning until after 1:00pm.

I worked on the main level while Todd worked in the basement.  I didn't make much progress in getting rid of things, but I did make a lot of progress in the cleaning department, and can now confidently say that my floors are sparkling.  Todd on the other hand wound up with 4 trash bags full of donations for Goodwill.  None of which were clothes, because we still haven't made it upstairs!

Yesterday morning I worked to clean and organize my office.  I moved the baby items no longer in use, that were just taking up floor space, up to the loft, and threw out a ton of unneeded papers and junk crowding my desk.

This morning I spent an hour in Nick's room re-organizing his drawers and closet, and purged all of his clothes, bibs, shoes, socks, swaddles, and burp cloths into bins for storage in our attic.

My next item on the agenda, which I'm hoping to get to tonight, is to purge my closet like never before.  I want to yank out everything that I've looked at in the past year, said "hmm, I might wear this at some point", yet never put on, and throw it in a bag for Goodwill.  Shoes too.

But it goes even further.  Now I want to overhaul our guest bathroom and make it Nick's bathroom.  We never re-did the bathroom into a kid friendly format, and now that he is getting older and really loving bath time, I want it to be a fun, exciting place for him.  I want to paint the walls, change the shower curtain, get some cute accessories, and update the bath towels.

And worse, I want to re-do my office.  Paint the walls...finally hang up pictures...mount the 20 inch flat screen we've had sitting in a box for 10 months, and throw out the big ass tube TV that's taking up half the room.

I've got the organization bug so bad, that I even went so far as to re-organize all my files at work today.  Files that have been piling up on my desk are now perfectly organized.  It's like a huge weight off my chest.  I feel refreshed, enthusiastic about my work, and ready to tackle the next batch of tasks.

Yup, I've got the organization bug, and I'm anxious to get moving on all of the home projects I want to complete.  Funny - we've been in our house 3 years now, and I haven't had the organization bug this bad since we moved in.

Now, if only I could track down some money trees...then we'd be golden!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to the love of my life, my very best friend, my husband. I don't think I could be more grateful to have you as my parter for all of life's ups and downs. You are an incredible support system, and a wonderful father. You make us laugh constantly and your dimples still make me melt. I love you more than words and can't believe this is the fifth birthday of yours we're spending together. Thank you for all you do for our little family. Happy Birthday, my love!

S-M-R-T

I am so smart! S-M-R-T!

Blogger Trouble

The reason I haven't posted in so long is because I keep trying to upload pictures, and blogger is posting them all sideways.  So in my frustration, I just abandon the post.  I now have several posts that I've been working on for a while, and all of the pictures are sideways.  Help!  Anyone know how to fix this?  Example: