A Cool Day

And I mean that literally. It only got to 81 here today - what a relief!! So what's a girl to do on her first cool day in five days? Get ready - this is almost too much excitement.......






Are you ready?



Are you sitting down?










Laundry. Yep - laundry. Seven loads, to be exact. Just think - next time we have a stretch of unbelievably hot days I won't have to wait to do laundry. We'll have air conditioning. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Oh - and in other exciting news from the day....I chopped down a bush (well - one completely down but there was another that received a serious trim) to make room for the a/c unit and I cleaned out a huge area of the garage so the workman get access the attic crawl space and the circuit panel.

I know...........I, too, am blown away by the HUGE amount of fun I had today.

And let me not forget to tell you that little missy is teething and was a complete velcro baby today. While I feel for her, I was relieved to put her down to sleep tonight. This is the first time in hours my arms have not contained my incredibly unhappy daughter. How, you ask, was I able to chop up a bush and clean out the garage AND do seven loads of laundry with a velcro baby? The physical labor chores were done during her hour nap (I rocked it, if I do say so myself) and the laundry was done with a screaming child pulling on my pant leg. I didn't fold it until after she went to bed tonight. I just couldn't take the hysterics of her not being held. Poor little girl. :(

So there ya have it. My fun-filled Wednesday. Are you jealous? No? Ok - I have one more bit of news that might push that jealousy factor a wee bit further..........we planned a return trip to Disneyland. Oh yeah baby. We're going back! When? In SEVEN short weeks. Seven seems to be my lucky number today. :)

Hot, Hot and Stupidly Hot!!




It's hot! And tomorrow it's supposed to be hotter. Is that possible???!?!?!?!! Notice how the first temp says 77 degrees? That in the living room WITH the window a/c unit on full-blast only a couple feet away. The living room is manageable....the bedrooms? So not!! I'm afraid to take the gauge in there - it's a case of "ignorance is bliss". UGH.

Have I mentioned how much I hate heat? Oh yeah - this is not fun at all for me.

But.....good news is coming. Can you say "heat pump"? Oh yeah baby - this time next week I'll be saying "bring it on!" because I will have a heat pump and the house will be at whatever temperature *I* want. The WHOLE house. Every square inch of it.

Can I hear an "Oooooooh yeah!" from you all????? :)

Only 5 more days to get through and it should be up and running. Thank God!

PS..keep reading - there are still new ones below. :)

Camping in the Backyard

This weekend was the annual "camping the in the backyard" event and it was a hit! Baby K didn't actually sleep in the tent but D and K did and they had a great time!

The temperature here today is 93 - ugh! So as I type this, the three of them are playing in the pool to cool off. Then, later, it'll be bbq for dinner (probably hamburgers as we had hotdogs last night) and s'mores over the campfire (once baby K does to sleep). Then it'll be story time and time to once again camp under the stars.

My boy is in heaven!






PS..Keep reading. I just posted another one below. :)

I LOVE Garage Sales!!!

I scored!



Check this out.....for less than $40 (I don't know exactly how much since we used some of the left over cash for lunch.....) I got:
17 shirts (16 for baby K, 1 for big K)
1 pair of super cute snowman jeans
1 pair of snowman overalls
2 shorts
1 Pooh book
1 Autumn table runner

13 of the items are brand spanking new from The Childrens Place, tags still attached. The shirts and shorts are various sizes - running from 18 months to size 7. I'm one of those wild and crazy people who buys ahead (bigger sized clothes) so that when the child in question moves into a bigger size all I have to do is walk out to the garage, pick the bin marked with the appropriate size and start filling drawers (I wash everything as it comes into the house so that the container is completely ready to go).

I love garage sale season. Love, love, love it!! I dropped $24 at once on the new items - The Childrens Place stuff was all marked $1 and $2 each so seriously, how could I not?? Sometimes it is frustrating, digging through stacks of stained clothes but the pay-off of finding that one item in perfect condition is such an incredible feeling. The finds today were amazing!

How Is This Possible?

I never thought I would be saying this. I mean, come on...you are talking to the Queen of Coffee. Too much is never enough. Only...I think I hit my "enough" point.

See this mug? Looks innocent enough, doesn't it? Now guess how much it holds.


Ready for this? Half of my entire pot of coffee! That's right - it hold 5.5 CUPS of coffee. I would think that this would make me dizzy with happiness but the reality is, I don't think my stomach can hold that much liquid at one time.

And yet......this fact doesn't seem to stop me at all. Nope. Every morning I wake up, flip on the coffee pot and wait eagerly to pour my cup to the brim. And yep, I drink it all and then, and my stomach churns a bit, wonder what I was thinking.

Go figure.

From this.......

To this.....




Of course, she isn't sleeping there - but then, she never slept in her crib either. :) I found this toddler bed at a garage sale and, after talking it over with D, decided to buy it and put it up in her room. After all, the crib was mainly used for storage and at least now she has a bed she can crawl up on and hang out on. Yesterday, she went into her brother's room, picked a book from his bookshelf, toddled back into her room, climbed on her bed, leaned back against the wall and "read". It was so darn cute!!

It's the end of the chapter for the crib. It's actually pretty sad as its been up constantly since November of 2001. We put it up while I was pregnant with K and it hasn't been down again until this weekend (it turned into a toddler bed (but was as high off the ground as a regular crib) and K was still using it until baby K was about three months old. Then K moved into a big boy bed.

I was going to see about giving it to a friend but in the end, I'm way too emotionally attached to it and we decided to put in into the attic for now.

No more babies for us. *sigh* That does make me sad even though I know our family is complete with two children. They grow up too darn quickly!

PS....check out my scrap-blog. I *finally* completed a new page!

A Little Slice of Heaven


When I was pregnant with baby K, I was freaking out a bit about the realities of having two children to care for. I remember one of my MOMS Club friends trying to reassure me. She told me that someday, I'd be driving my car with the kids in the back seat when one of them would make the other laugh or, her favorite, they would be holding hands across the car seats and I would be consumed with love and know that everything was going to be ok.

Well.....she was completely right.

Some of my very favorite moments are in the car, listening to them laughing with each other, hearing K talk with baby K about nothing and everything (where we are, that's it's ok, where we're going, etc.) and most especially I love when I look back and they are holding hands.

My heart just flips over with love for these two little miracles. :)


(Thanks, Pam! You were so right!)

Who Needs To Go To Disneyland?

I have my own little Goofy right here. :)

The Shirts Are On Their Way!!

WAHOO!!!! The 1-800 number the hotel gave me was just the ticket! The cast member I spoke with was able to find both shirts, confirm they were available and process my payment (with no funky 100% mark-up that I found through a website that will send a personal shopper to the resort and find the items in question).

The new shirts will arrive in 7-10 days. YIPPIE!!!!!

Anyone Going To Disneyland Soon?

We bought our little guy two really amazingly fun shirts while we were in Disneyland; both are 50th Anniversary shirts which means they are only available for a limited amount of time. One has Mickey Mouse and one has Goofy (the boy's all time favorite characters). I bought them in size extra small and they were plenty big on him (read: if they shrunk in the wash he'd still have shirts a bit on the big side) however.........................they really, really shrunk.

Instead of looking like size 5/6 they are measuring right around a 4T (and that's being generous). I'm soooo disappointed. I figured he'd be able to wear these happy reminders for at least a year, maybe two, depending on how fast he grows.

This is where you all come in.

I'm requesting help in locating and purchasing new shirts in size small.

So........
Is anyone going to Disneyland sometime in the next month?
Maybe you live near Disneyland or know of someone who lives nearby?
Maybe you know (or are) a cast member?
Maybe you are a whiz at locating things on the 'net (goodness knows I've been trying for the past two days)?

Short of booking a trip for one to go down for the day, I have no good idea on how to go about finding new shirts. Maybe someone out there does. Here are what the shirts look like:

My boy looking goofy in his Mickey Mouse shirt (taken this morning - he LOVES these shirts!)

The back of the shirts have this on them:

Fresh from the laundry (because he wore this one yesterday), the Goofy shirt.

I can even tell you were the shirts were purchased. The MM one came from the gift shop at Paradise Pier and the Goofy one came from Star Traders in Tomorrowland.

Can anyone help???????

My Three Favorite People On The Planet




We had this taken this past Saturday. I adore it!! (And yes, they are all wearing Big Dog baseball shirts. Cute, right? *grin*)

Video Montage From Disneyland

Well.....I'm not all that thrilled with the music choices but it passed muster with the family (well...those who can speak, anyway) so I guess it's good enough to share. Hope you all enjoy it!

Create your own video at One True Media

We're Home!! Did you miss me????

We had an amazingly great time and while I don't have time (or energy - we all came home sick and I'm feeling pretty darn cruddy) for a full update, I did want to share a handful of the 300+ photos we took. :) And if you are wondering, our little guy did indeed go down Splash Mountain and while he wouldn't do it again, he is still saying that it was "so much fun!"

He had a blast! They both did, actually, but he is at the perfect age to soak up all the magic and wonder. Small World (or "Fall World" as our little man called it) was a hit with both of them and we went on it at least four times. The joy on their little faces was so much fun to watch.

He had no anxiety what-so-ever about walking up to characters and really got a kick out of getting autographs. So much fun! We had SO much fun!!!

More later - enjoy the pics. :)

Arriving at Disneyland!

Outside the Monsters Inc. ride. One of the favorites for the week. :)

The view from our room. We overlooked the California Adventure park.

Pirate Girl

All of us plus The Big Cheese himself.

Shakin' his booty at the pre-Block Party parade warm-up. He was too freakin' cute!

Goofin' around in Toon Town

The lobby of Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel (where we stayed).

P.S. I'm planning to put together a video montage with more photos - so keep a watchful eye out for that. :)