The Stuff I Live For

Toilets Are Entertaining… When You’re 3 January 31, 2008

My girls had a sleepover over their grandmother's (my mom's) house. She has Vanish toilet bowl cleaner. We don't. My mom had a good 3-year-old moment with Ayla (who happens to be pink-obsessed).

 Ayla, looking down into the toilet with her pants around her ankles:  "Uh…uh."

 My mom:  "What's wrong?"

 Ayla:  "It's blue."

 My mom:  "It's OK, it's cleaner."

 Ayla, after peeing, looks down in the toilet again:  "It's green!"

She flushes and stands there staring at the toilet water. Pants still around her ankles.

 My mom:  "What's wrong?"

 Ayla:  "I'm waiting for it to turn pink.

3 1/2 is an awesome age.

What I’ve Been Up to This Week: More Ruffled Skirts January 30, 2008

I made 3 more this week. Two more for my girls. Luckily since the skirts have elastic waists, the length doesn't really matter because they're skirts, and my oldest is so skinny, I can make their skirts the same size and they share. The one in the middle is for my favorite little niece, Natalee. I better see her wearing it!

These are super easy and fun, but I get bored easily and I think that's enough of that. I'm ready to try something else. If you haven't seen my last post on ruffled skirts, it's here. There's a link there to a great tutorial. This is a great project for a sewing beginner. Gina from Life With Four Daughters commented to me on that last post that her daughters will never have these skirts because she can't sew! Anyone can do these, trust me.

Wordless Wednesday - I May be in Trouble Here January 29, 2008

 Wordless Wednesday hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom.

My best friend, my sister: Ashlee.

WooHoo!… Laundry?

Sometimes simple things make me oddly excited. I just pulled out a load of laundry from the dryer, and it was nearly ALL rags. Do you know what that means? Nearly NO folding! It was so exciting to pull all those rags out and throw them in a pile then throw them under the sink cabinet! I felt like it was my lucky day. (although I will be doing at least 3 more loads today and just about every day to follow) Why can't all the loads of laundry be rags? OK, that's crazy. Why can't someone invent clothes that DON'T wrinkle? Is that too much to ask? We send men to the moon and do heart transplants. I'm just asking for a never-wrinkle fabric.

A Dose of Laughter January 28, 2008

No, I don't regularly watch the news, so I may not know much about wordly events. But, I do find lots of humorous pictures on the good old internet.

Go to the mall on a Friday night and I bet you'll find 20 teens you could say this to. "Just because you are unique does not mean you are useful." It's funny cause it's true!

From the sound of it, I'm betting this was the first question (worth $100). The highlighted answer is the one this woman chose, thus humiliating herself on national television. To be forever archived on World's Funniest… shows and remembered as the woman who thinks elephants are bigger than the moon. Poor lady. Yes, I realize it was obviously an oversight on her part, but come on!

This is why drive-through animal parks should be illegal. I nearly have a problem with zoos, let alone these awful places where morons can run over an animal's foot, or worse. Anyway, some great parent put the kid's back window down and decided to record this precious moment. Sad for the animal(s), yes, but… still funny!

Seeing Your Husband Jump Like a Scared Little Girl: Priceless January 27, 2008

Once every other week or so, I give a go at scaring my husband. You know, jumping out from behind a doorway or something. Usually, he practically laughs at me. Last night, we watched Death Sentence on DVD with Kevin Bacon. I thought it was scary and couldn’t get it out of my head. Of course, Eric said it wasn’t scary at all, but I’m convinced he was a little shaken and it helped my cause.

It was about 11 pm, and Eric was pouring a glass of water from the front of the fridge door like he does every night. I came down the hall, around the corner and yelled my normal, “BLAH-HA-HA!!” Ah, I am still revelling in how perfect it was. Not only did he jump, but I was also rewarded with simultaneous, “SH*T, ELEX!” and a clanging of the glass from his shaken hand against the side of the fridge door.

I jumped up and down laughing hysterically, of course. I really felt like Publisher’s Clearing House just knocked on the door to tell me I won a million. It is so great to scare a grown man!

Now, though, I am scared because Eric says it’s war and he’s going to get me back even better. I can dish it out, but I can’t take it!

My Cozy Corner January 26, 2008

Monkey Giggles has invited bloggers to share their 'cozy corners.' So, you'll either get a laugh, or think I'm crazy here. I do not love the cold. I love, love, love heat. So much, that I sit on the floor, directly in front of the heat vent - literally with my back smashed against it, wishing the oil would burn even hotter. I get comfy with a blanket and even have an outlet right there for my laptop! Growing up, our house had the heat vents on the floor and my sister and I would fight over sitting on them.

Come on spring! I want to plant flowers.

Cool Warmth

Apparently these have been around for a few years but, alas, I do not live the life of a person who would ever even see one of these in person. If these fireplaces are well-known, maybe I’m showing how un-hip I am, but oh well. I am so amazed, I have to post about it.

They are suspended… FROM THE CEILING. Guess that’s redundant. But isn’t it fabulous?

At the risk of sounding like an infomercial… But wait! There’s more! It also rotates 360 degrees! And you (not me) can have one for just under $10,000!

One Great Kid Product January 25, 2008

Is it… Play-Doh? NO! That stuff is awful! The kids mix the colors all up and it ends up looking disgustinlgy dirty. yuck. Then it falls, well gets knocked off, the table in a zillion little (and big) pieces. Then, we step in it and find it in the rug. Finally, a few hours later, I find some stuck in the butt of one, or both, of the kids’ pants.

How about stickers? Ah, yes, it’s great when the girls get a few of them stuck in their hair and they scream as I pull out the stickers (that now have their own hair, yuck). Oh, and when I was at the post office last week and the lady behind me told me I had Dora on my butt. ha!

Crayons? My girls pick all the paper off the crayons in, again, a zillion little pieces WAY more than they actually color with them.

It’s not like a deprive my kids of any of the above stuff now that I know when a pain these things are. I do let them get creative, but sometimes I’d just like to not have to stand next to them at the table to help avoid some type of disaster. Those times, I get out the most fantabulous invention of all: Crayola Color Wonder markers. GENIOUS stuff. Honestly genious. Too bad for our parents that this wasn’t around. They have paints and sprayers, too. But, I’m talking not messy now. I hand them the markers and they can run around the house with them if they want. I don’t have to do a thing. It’s like a miracle. I can almost take a nap. OK, not really, but they’re great anyway.

And how smart are they to make it only work with the special Crayola paper for Color Wonder products? Gotta give them props. I’ve bought in and I love it.

Fab Home Decor Find

Guess what this is! No really, guess! Ah forget it, you’ll never guess…. It’s scratch and sniff wallpaper! No, you can’t taste it, but it is so Willy Wonka-esque. If I hadn’t been blessed with a husband and children, maybe I’d be a single girl working as a fabric designer and living in a studio in NYC - with one of these fab wallpapers on one wall of my way-mod kitchen.

A 27″ X 15′ roll: a mear $300-450. If you don’t feel like doing the math, no, one roll is not nearly enough to do one wall, so save up. Surely it’s worth the daily kick you’d get out of smelling your own wall while sipping coffee each morning, no?

b-a-n-a-n-a-s

cherry forever