I'm a mom...

I had a moment where I became giddy at the thought that I have butterfly wings hanging up in my laundry room.

I accidentally brushed up against the wings of Amanda's Halloween costume and I couldn't help but giggle..
I'm a girl mom...
I have butterfly wings in my laundry room hanging up to dry...
I have a drawer full of hairbows and ribbons (that don't quite fit on her hairless head yet)
I do an entire load of wash that is all pink every single week. (Ok.. well Ross does the laundry, but still there is an entire load of pink clothes)

When did this happen???

Last week was full of social activities leading up to the first day of Preschool for Nathan. He went to preschool last year, but this is "Big Time" preschool. This is a big preschool, more preschool than daycare.

He was excited to go to the "Purple Door" School again. (He is in the Purple Room!) I was actually excited to get back to work and meeting with my clients. We got there, and he ran into his class and started playing with the animals. I went to say goodbye, and he said "This is Elise" (pointing to his new friend sitting next to him) He hands her a Giraffe and says "Bye Bye Mommy"

I stand up to walk outside, and suddenly I feel something coming over me. I get outside the door and a sob comes out! I was completely startled by it, so it comes out as some awful noise. The pastor of the school rushes over to give me a hug... I'm mortified because I wasn't prepared for the tears. I am excited for him to go to school, this is a good thing for him... But...But...But... We had so much fun this summer, and now he's just so... so... BIG.

And this girl... is cracking us up. She is keeps getting into the summersault position. She also tears around the house using a walker. No sign of trying to walk on her own. She loves the walker.

Love this weather!!

My friend Carly, has an amazing pool. I love it, and want one just like it. It's really baby and toddler friendly! One of the highlights of the last few weeks has been swimming at her house. The kids have a blast, mom has fun chit chatting with friends, and everyone comes home blissfully tired ready for a nap.

Thanks Carly!!

Yep.. She is a Toddler!!

She used a walker today and walked up and down the hallway just cruising on by me today.

Then, she proudly showed me this!

And now you are One!

Happy Birthday Dear Sweet Amanda!

What a year it has been, and we are so grateful today for Amanda. And on days like today we pause to give thanks for the courage of her birthparents who love her so much.

I WON!! I WON!!! I WON!!!!

I've NEVER won anything in my life. But every summer I test a theory that if you enter a contest everyday you will win. So far, my theory has failed for 8 summers.... that is... until now.

I won the Gatorade Contest. Not the grand prize, but I was a runner up. WAHOO!! It doesn't matter what the prize is, it's just knowing that I am a winner deep down inside.

Well, if you insist, I'll post a picture of the prize. It's ENORMOUS and I'm not sure it will make me more popular other than I can fit a small family in it. I watched the UPS man struggle with it as he carried it to the door. It's MONSTEROUS!!

*Large Labrador not included, just used to show scale.

Note to Disney... You owe me BIG TIME

I know Disney employees read my blog. This is for those folks at Disney. My dear sweet boy, wanted this Nemo Bubble Blower, and waited patiently until it was light outside to use it. We installed the batteries, poured in the "Ultimate Bubble Solution" and turned it on.

Nothing.

Nemo's wand moved, but he just wasn't powerful enough to blow a bubble. I poured out the solution, changed the batteries to brand new ones, turned it on, and now Nemo doesn't work.

I snapped pics of our sad and dissappointing experience. Poor Nathan is scarred for life because of Disney's defective product!
Here is Nemo looking at us with such hope and a promise of fun in his little painted on eyes.

















Nathan trying to make Nemo work. "C'mon Nemo.. you can do it!"

Sandy watches eagerly for "BUBBLES!" (Quote from Finding Nemo)








Nathan succumbs to the dissappointment that Nemo won't be entertaining us with his "ultimate bubbles" and "hours of bubble fun" as the package claimed.

I *heart* Summer!!

I LOVE SUMMER!!! The warm weather, strawberries & watermelon, and swimming! We are having a blast. Here are pics from a trip to the zoo. Nathan loves this cow, and shouted "Hi Cow, come and play with me"

Nathan touching a milipede. I wasn't even brave enough to touch it. Amanda dressed as the newest member of the Star Trek Enterprise and sealing her fate of unpopularity.

Amanda with her permanent bruise from trying to pull herself up into a standing position.

The kids on the 4th of July going to the community pancake breakfast.

Ross scored a killer parking spot for the local fireworks show. We hung out in the car for a little bit waiting for the show. Nathan was PETRIFIED after talking about fireworks for 3 days nonstop, and screamed the first few minutes of the show. We let him watch a movie in the car, and he hugged his earphones. (Check out his new shoes!)And Amanda... our brave little daredevil, was FASCINATED by the fireworks. She NEVER looked away from the sky!

June... in a nutshell

Nathan could not have been more in heaven, when we went to a party for Ross's company at a Ranch. They had a petting zoo, bouncehouse, and horses. Nathan showed us his skills as a runner, as we have never seen him run as fast as he did when he saw the ponies for the first time.

Nathan petting the chickens. He loved the sheep and miniature goat. He couldn't get enough of the ducks who had "party hats" (they had feathers that stuck straight up).
A 10 month old shot of Amanda, complete with the permanent bruise she seems to have on her forehead from ill fated attempts to stand up or walk. She is obsessed with pulling on Skoopi's face. Skoopi doesn't mind, she loves the attention. Amanda often pulls up using Sandy as a table. This is one of my favorite outfits I have bought for Amanda.


And here is a rare shot of our happy girl, being very unhappy. And poor Nathan had a fever earlier this month. I still love onesies, even though he's big. I promise he won't go off to Prom wearing a onesie.

Before I was a mother, I was unbelievably niave and cocky. "My children will NEVER do that" I'm still holding fast to some things, but most of it all went out the window. I was sooooooo naive. Did I mention how naive I was?

We bought these shoes on a whim on a trip, because he needed something more sturdy than his Robeez. They were $5, and I swore I'd never buy shoes with characters on them. Every once in a while you have to bend the rules. Nathan's loved them, and they lasted forever. Nathans been through 2 of his other pairs of shoes since we bought these. They are finally too small. Farewell Elmo! Farewell Grover!! Hello to Vans with FLAMES!

My dear friend Anna visited this week.... loved having her here. Nathan keeps asking to go to Anna's Barn. One day we will. It's great to be able to have someone you admire and respect so much as a friend.

Some favorites from the week!

This girl is cracking us up. She is moving ALL over the place, and insists on crawling through the tiniest of areas. She gets stuck and SCREAMS, then backs out of the space.

We have been trying for months to get Nathan to dress himself. I guess he just needed to get bored enough to do it by himself. At naptime, we had a basket of clean laundry that needed to be put away in his room. He attempted to put on pants and another shirt. Also, he's been playing and then making a "nest" on the floor to sleep in.

Ross on Father's Day with the kids.



Ross recieved a copy of the series "Davey and Goliath" on DVD, a show both Ross and I grew up with.


And lastly... I cannot describe the amount of pride I felt when I walked in and saw Nathan watching this. He had been watching his show on Tivo, and when the show is over it takes you back to whatever channell you were watching, and Napoleon Dynamite was on. He watched it for about 20 minutes on his own before I realized his show was over. I love it!

Is my house still "hip"?

As I experience a small lull in my accounting practice, I decided to use this time to attend to some things that were neglected. (Shameless plug, need help accounting for your business? contact me!) One area of neglect is our home. It's clean, and fairly tidy, it could use a little "oomph" and some mucking out of cabinets and closets. We moved in almost 6 years ago, and decorated it those first 2 years. Is some of this stuff even "in" anymore? I love my living room. It's Red. Sometimes I think I should paint it a nice Pottery Barn tan, but I LOVE the red. The furniture was slipcovered by me.... and it will stay tan for at least another year or two.
I need some advice on this couch. How would you accessorize it? I bought some new fabric.

How should I do the pillows? Here is the new fabric, it's a silk stripe. I turned on the comments, so anyone can post a comment with advice or suggestions.



And Finally... the reason I hit the Fabric Mart, was to buy fabric to cover the kids carseats. This fabric is fun and polkadotted, one for Nathan, and one for Amanda, and it was CHEAP!! Oh and the flowery I bought to make Amanda a little trench coat out of for next winter.

This blog needs more babies!

We officially have a crawler in the house. After scooting backwards for a month something clicked yesterday, and suddenly Amanda now shifted out of reverse. She's not moving really fast, but she is quickly getting the hang of it!

And now that she's crawling, it's definitely time she start sporting some fun bloomers! I could REALLY get carried away with fun bloomers. I like them, because it's unexpected!

I got an email from a loyal fan, who requested more pics of Baby Amanda. So.. this blog was a little Nathan heavy, until today!

Hooray! We found a PreSchool for Nathan!

Check out this Pic of Nathan's new Preschool!!
Excuse me, what's that you say? It's a Shakey's Pizza? Yes that is right, we are sending Nathan to preschool at a Shakey's Pizza Parlor. That's what the cool mom's did in the 1980's. They gave the kids some quarters and $2 for the lunch buffet, and the kids played video games and ate pizza all day, and mom picked them up in time for t-ball.

Okay, the real story is that I toured a preschool that was AWFUL! It was messy and chaotic. The director informed me that they were moving to a new large location, hence the mess, at the end of July. She raved about the new location, and how it would have a fantastic layout with lots of centers for the kids to play in.

Even though the school was awful, I wondered if the new location was really fantastic would it make up for the chaos.. probably not. But curiousity got the best of me, and this is really close to the house. So I drove by the new location, and yep, it's Shakey's Pizza. It's closing early July according to the sign on the door. That means the preschool has 30 days to overhaul it, add a playground, and make it into a daycare facility. Uh... I don't think they are going to be able to do it in 30 days.

I'm imagining the salad buffett becomes the craft table, the sneeze guards will probably cut down on the communicable diseases that plague preschools. The crouton holder can hold all the glue sticks. The Baco bits holder can house the crayons, it just might work. My brother pointed out that they would have a killer time on "Kids in the Kitchen Day" making pizzas in the giant pizza oven.

So, bottom line, no I don't think Nathan will be attending Preschool at Little Shakey's Preschool Parlor.

Has anyone seen Lord of the Rings?

Remember the Hobbits... well check out these pictures!





I was getting the dogs ready for a walk, and Nathan came out with Ross wearing these pants. They are Amanda's, and a few sizes to small. It made me laugh so hard to see him prancing around in theses chocolate velvet pants.


On Saturday, I went to the Spa for an R&R day. It was FABULOUS, and totally addicting. The robes were so plush, and I came home scrubbed, relaxed, and smelling like a pear! I could totally get addicted to going to the spa.

Also, if you haven't seen this. It's amazing, one of my favorite artist shot a music video for $15, when it normally cost $150, 000 to shoot a video. You can watch it at http://www.worldonfire.ca/

Note to Self... Donna Karen is timeless, but not always versatile.

Long story short, we think we are going to move Nathan into a more developmental preschool. So, once again I've been touring schools, asking questions about ratios and curriculum. So far, I seem to be leaning towards a religous preschool. Not neccessarily, because I feel like Nathan needs the bible time, but I really like the schools. Today I went and toured a fabulous Lutheran Preschool. I really liked it..... did they like Nathan? It appears so, did they like me... uh.. I don't think so. Here's the deal...

I have strong opinions on clothing. I love fabulous clothes, and I enjoy a good splurge now and then. I was always taught that a woman should have three great black outfits in her closet:
- A great suit for job interviews
- A black evening dress
- A black outfit that works for funerals, bar mitzvahs, weddings, christenings, etc.
I have a summer and winter version of each of those. I bought the suit pictured above specifically for funerals. Sounds morbid, but upon my Father in Law's diagnosis, I felt much better having an outfit for the funeral in my closet. (Although, technically, I wore a different outfit to the funeral, but this dress has seen christenings, baby blessings and funerals.) When I first wore it, Ross commented that it made me look Muslim. No disrespect there, he and I both have a reverance and respect for the Muslim religion some of our friends practice. The high collar, and floor length skirt definitely would work. I think the suit is timeless and makes me look tall, and for goodness sake it's Donna Karen... no other designer has conquered black like DK.

So back to today, I had a busy day planned. Preschool tour at 9:15, kids go to daycare, and I go to a funeral to support a dear friend of ours. Our heart just aches for our friends and their family. So, I put on my funeral suit loaded the kids off to the car, and off we went to this Lutheran Preschool. Nathan loved the school, joined in with the kids, and I listened to the director. They require one parent to be religious, and I told her both my husband and I are LDS. She looked at me questioningly, I explained we are Mormon. She looked me up and down and said Oh. A few minutes later, she asked if LDS was a spinoff of the Mormon religion, and I said No. She kept coming back to that. I didn't think anything of it. Then as I stopped at Starbucks for some Tea, I saw myself in the mirror. I look like I could be one of those poligamist wives on Big Love, in my long skirt, and high collar. If you add a bonnet, then I'm the lady who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart with her husband.

She must think I'm some weird cult member, because who dresses like that at 9am on a Wednesday morning. It never occured to me to tell her I was going to a funeral, it didn't seem like any of her business. Oh well.. there are other preschools.... right?

It's a Jeep Thing!

Nathan wanted to wash his car....





And my Dad with Amanda.... He held her for most the day yesterday.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered!

Adoption Day is here!! We adopted Amanda yesterday! It's the end of a long journey and while it doesn't change how we feel about her, it's a fun reason to celebrate!


Getting Sworn in...













The Judge shows Ross the document that says, "This page says you promise to spoil her with lots of fabulous shoes, spoil her rotten, send her to college, and throw her the wedding of a lifetime."











Wendy signs the paperwork to make it official.











Nathan enjoys stickers and Chocolate Milk













Here we are with the judge














Here we are with (L to R)
Judge, Nana (Wendy's mom), Grandpa (Wendy's dad), Ross with Nathan, Wendy with Amanda, and Grandma (Ross's mom)









The official "all done" pic outside the courthouse!











We had a Fabulous day!