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Thursday, November 29, 2012

Project 52: Week 29

Toys. They provide endless entertainment for Kathryn and endless messes for us. Toys are really just expensive clutter. I've never taken the chance to go through all of her toys and weed out the items she's outgrown, so I did just that for week 29 of Project 52.
At any given time, this room may or may not look like this...
No, I'm not dumb and didn't think that her toys would end up staying like this. I didn't even have a chance to take this picture while Kathryn was still napping. Just as soon as I was about to take it, she woke up from a nap and wondered why I had this box of toys on the mantle. I quickly distracted her and brought them to the spare bedroom. Plus, this is a good time of year to be weeding out the toys. It gives me the chance to donate to the kiddos who need them more than she does and make room for Christmas gifts.
Happy Friday, from my trouble maker.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

'Tis the Season

Call me crazy, but I'm not crazy about Thanksgiving. Of course I love the family time, delicious food, and the extra long weekend off from work, but Christmas - glorious Christmas - is what I yearn for every year. To say that I love this time of year would be a complete understatement.

On the day after Thanksgiving, we kicked off the Christmas season with some shopping. I'm not really a Black Friday shopper but we did end up getting a couple of deals. Mainly, K and I headed into town to pick up some items we needed (fun stuff like paper towels and cotton balls).

Our trip to Target turned into the coolest trip to Target I've ever taken when we ran into Rico ('Manny from Modern Family) and Raini Rodriguez. Kathryn was weirded out why her mother would put two strangers in front of her and take a picture, but they couldn't have been sweeter!
As we were checking out at Target, Kathryn asked me what I was putting on the conveyor belt. I told her that we were buying paper towels. She then turned to the cashier and told her "those are paper towels for my daddy's boogies". In related news, Kathryn makes my days a lot more interesting.

The day after Thanksgiving also means hauling the decorations out of the closets. I just loved Kathryn's excitement the entire time we decorated. She was awe the magic that only Christmas can deliver.
Admiring her work

For a few years I've wanted to buy an Elf on a Shelf and finally did this year. It couldn't have been a more perfect time to buy 'her'. If you're not familiar with this fun tradition, it's a neat way to countdown to Christmas (and excellent reminder for kiddos to behave because Santa's Elf is watching). 

As the story goes, the Elf arrives each morning in a different spot to watch over the children in house and then reports back to Santa each night. You can tell the Elf secrets (let her know what you want for Christmas) but to preserve the magic of the Elf, you can't touch her (we have a 'her' but you can also get a 'him'). I can't even count the amount of times that Kathryn has turned to the Elf and said "she's watching me. I'm being a good girl".
The rest of our weekend was low-key. We took walks, played, cleaned, snuggled (this is Kathryn's new thing - she must be snuggled until she falls asleep for naps and bedtime), and I watched more of K's personality unfold.
She tells me this is her 'dig site'.
We knew that Kathryn has a sensitive side, but in the last few days I've seen her show even more sensitivity. If I have to raise my voice and say 'no' to her, major feelings are hurt. "My tears are falling down" is often what happens and once they're wiped away, all is well. So sweet and sad at the same time.

There were more smiles than tears this weekend, though. 

Kathryn loves to pretend she's the mommy to her baby. She knocks on the front door, I invite her into the house, she takes care of her baby and tells me she has to go to work and run errands. When I asked her where she works, her response? "I help people with their taxes". WHAT?!?

While she was drawing a picture, I kindly asked her where one of the market caps were. Her response? "Just relax, Momma. Don't be crazy." We've entered into a whole new stage.

Christmas (and apparently adulthood for Kathryn) here we come!

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thanksgiving

By now, everyone is probably done celebrating Thanksgiving and I hope you find your belly full, comfy clothes on, and have a long weekend away off from work.

Earlier this evening, Kathryn and I had a chat that I captured on my phone. Since I can't exactly put into words what I'm thankful for, this does a pretty good job of summing it up.


Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Five Years

It's been one week since we celebrated our five year anniversary. I can't believe it's been five years. Five great years. Five years since our family and friends so generously traveled to spend our special day with us. Five years of so much change. New jobs, a new house shortly after we were married, a new truck (thanks to E. J.'s truck catching on fire nearly five years ago - we like to keep it interesting, I guess), and of course the greatest new addition that made us a family: Kathryn.

Two weekends ago we made our way to Austin for a quick overnight stay. Free weekends are hard to come by with E. J.'s work schedule and life in between, so when we had a weekend open to celebrate E. J.'s 30th (which happened in September) and our fifth anniversary, we jumped on it.

Austin is one of my favorite cities. It's filled to the brim with lots of awesomely weird (read: unique) people and has the ability to pretty much soak up all your time if you just wanted to people watch. Austin is about a two hour drive from us and it's as if you've entered into a whole different county. And I love it!

It may have just been a quick 24 hour trip, but it was nice to get away together. We walked all over downtown, ate some delicious Mexican food, and enjoyed escaping reality for a bit. 
 Clearly, she has better things to do
 I kid you not, as soon as she saw this Brooks Brother's window display she yelled out 
"I want these for Christmas". She has her mother's taste.
I'm so glad we managed to enjoy some celebrating the week prior to our anniversary because our actually anniversary celebration was more like the "real life" celebration. And I mean the word 'celebration' very loosely...

Last Friday night, Kathryn started tugging at her ear and telling me that it hurt. Later on that night she had a 102 fever. Mind you, she has also had a cold which has basically been on and off (more on than off) since August. On Saturday (our anniversary) morning, just as E. J. was getting home from work, I was getting Kathryn ready to head to the doctor. I was also getting a cold myself, but wasn't overly worried about it.

At the doctor we learned that she had a double ear infection and bronchitis (her third ear infection in three months, also the third ear infection she's ever had). Keep in mind, we were at the doctor the prior Saturday (before we left for Austin) because Kathryn was throwing up the night before. I haven't even bothered to add up the co-pays and prescription costs in the past four months because I'd prefer not to know. But on the upside, the pharmacist now knows me by name, so that's nice, right?

Once we got the new round of antibiotics we headed home for a quiet afternoon. 'Quiet' mainly so we didn't wake E. J. In order to make our day somewhat special, I made some yummy southwest tilapia and E. J.'s favorite, pineapple upside down.

We ate our dinner like we were celebrating our 60th anniversary - at 5pm. Why so early? Well, right after dinner E. J. had to get ready for work and then head out for the night.
Once E. J. was out the door to work, I got Kathryn ready for bed and after she fell asleep, I decided it would be a good time to run the self-cleaner on the oven. About a minute after I started it, the digital screen told me there was an error and the door lock wouldn't unlock. Great. Long story short, $300 later, the oven will be fixed on Monday. A week without an oven has made this baking-loving girl go a little crazy.

Despite the oven costasphe, I continued the 'celebrating' with a lovely glass of hot tea with honey, OJ, vitamins, and NyQuil. For two weeks leading up to this night, I had this headache that just would not go away and then I got this cold. But, when my cold went away this week and the headache got worse and worse, I finally made myself go to the doctor.
The doctor assured me there was nothing wrong other than a sinus infection. Who would have thought a sinus infection could hurt so badly and last 3.5 weeks. I'm talking I-can't-concentrate-because-there's-so-much-pressure-built-up-in-my-head-every-waking-moment-that-I-think-it's-going-to-explode kind of pain . Thankfully, he prescribed me some antibiotics and steroids that have worked wonders. I can finally say that I'm feeling like myself again. It's wonderful being able to go through the day without constantly thinking how badly my head hurt.

I can't say that our anniversary was exactly what I hoped it would be, but this week especially has made me quite thankful for our health (after a follow-up appointment, K is being referred to an ENT specialist, so we're hoping for the best!) and how lucky we are to have each other. If that isn't enough to make you realize how lucky you are to have been married for five great years and be the parents of one special little girl, I don't know what is.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Project 52: Week 28

Whew! I am BE. HIND. in the blogging department. Lately, after Kathryn falls asleep I try to sneak in some work to be relatively caught up for next day at work and then crash into my bed like nobody's business.

This weekend I was able to sneak in a quick Project 52. We haven't been watching much TV in our living room, mainly because over a year ago our flat screen broke and we haven't replaced it yet. However, we've borrowing my MIL's TV. It's an older box TV and although it's nice that we haven't had to buy one, I'm not a fan of watching TV in the living room with that TV - I'd prefer our bedroom...even though you're not 'supposed' to have one in there. Oh well.

Our entertainment stand has been severely neglected since we're not using that area much, so I went through, (did some major dusting) and weeding out and suddenly it became much more presentable!

Monday, November 5, 2012

Half-Way to Three

Yesterday we celebrated Kathryn's 2.5 birthday with her traditional half-cake.

The poor thing has been sick the past few days. Throwing up, upset stomach, head cold, the works.  Thursday night she really only preferred throwing up in our bed. After going through two sets of sheets and doing laundry at 2:30 a.m., things finally calmed down for the next few hours. But she's been handling it all like a champ.

She was also a superstar with potty training this weekend as well. But as soon as I dropped her off at school this morning and reminded her to keep up the great work with potty training, she told me she "I'll just go on the potty at home, mommy". So there's that current challenge.

Otherwise, our not-so-little 2.5 year old is simply a great kiddo. E. J. calls her our little politician because she won't give you a straight answer on anything. Most of her sentences start out with "maybe". Who are your friends at school, Kathryn? "Maybe Keaton, and Miles". What did you have for lunch today? "Maybe pasta". What did you do at school today? "Maybe I played outside". Will you use the potty today? "Probably tomorrow".


When she was done she kindly reminded me that "You can probably pack me some cake for lunch at school tomorrow, mommy". Nice try, kid.

So very thankful for this little girl, even if the smile on her face was brought on by her love of Psy's 'Gangnam Style'. If you are looking for one of the weirdest things you've even seen, you need to check out his viral video here. We usually hear the song on your way home each day. I'm not sure what it says about my parenting, but I can't help but keep the song on the radio if brings a smile this big to her face.