Noooooooooo

Thanks Brett! Thanks for giving my boy his 1st real favorite sports guy. (next to Spiderman, of course) Thanks for the fun games and thanks for enjoying the game you played. You'll always be a Packer. Although you wore "4" you'll always be #1 at this house. Although, to ease my boy's pain, we're trying to pick another favorite to root for during the next year's season. He's leaning towards Donald Driver, you understand. You will be sorely missed.

(sorry if this sounds a bit sappy but, come on it's the Pack!)

Happy Birthday Mama Tembo

warning: this is not a post begging congratulatory comments. I'm simply making a recorded post regarding the length of my blogging career. :)

Well, I did it. I've never kept a journal - of sorts - going for this amount of time...ever. I tried a few journals during those all too important middle school/junior high years. I'd get all excited to start a new, what was then called a diary, only to keep at it for 7-10 days. Not a very good account of history.

Mr.Stream told me about Carla's blog and I've been reading her posts since day 1. I then started with Kristi and Erin's blogs. I sort of just jumped in and thought this would be a good way to record the antics of Isaiah and Anna and any other trivial little tidbits that may be interesting for them when they get older.

Through this whole deal I've "met" some pretty neat blog friends. Thank you for sharing your lives and thanks for stopping in to say, "Hi" every once in awhile. This is lots of fun.

No Gnews is Good Gnews with Gary Gnu

Frustration

Anna was playing in her room last night with a stuffed monkey that belonged to me when I was little. I loved it. She loves it. It's actually the ugliest stuffed animal you've ever seen, really. Oh well, love is blind.

Anna was attempting to care for the monkey with her doctor's kit and wanted to take the monkey's blood pressure. Monkey was not sitting up and holding out his arm like a good patient and this was making Anna frustrated. I overheard her scolding Monkey.

"Why aren't you copper-tating?!"

Ch..ch..ch..changes

I was tired of the old layout, can you tell? I needed a change and fiddled with the colors a few times hoping that would satisfy me. It didn't. I just decided to overhaul the layout. Whew... I did it.

Thank You PBS Kids

Anna awoke today looking for something. She wanted her Clifford the Big Red Dog. I mistakingly thought she meant our stuffed animal Clifford. Anna actually meant the real thing. She was adament that Clifford should have been in the living room. I tried to point out again the stuffed animal Clifford laying on the floor.

"No, he wuz wight hee-oh. Whey-oh did he go?"

I'm not ready for this discussion at 5:45am so I'm doing my hardest to understand what Anna could possibly be talking about. I think she had a dream about Clifford in that he actually lived at our house. I tried to explain to a 2 1/2 year old that dreams are just stories when we're sleeping and that they aren't real. That was not what Anna wanted to hear at 5:45 in the A of M.

Apparently Anna really thought Clifford would be wrangled in the living room waiting for her to take a ride atop. I pointed out the wonderful small, black dog that was actually real and wrangled in the living room. Not good enough as Anna's not allowed to saddle Matilda and ride her.

Our conversation was not progressing in a positive manner so I did what any mom would do at what was now 5:46am. I put in a movie and plopped her down in front of the TV until both of our minds woke up.

Thank you Scholastic and the letters of the day will NOT be P, B or S.

Wondering Why Wonderful White

I just have one question.... The entryway in our home has white tile. I say, excellent. This will never look dated, super. The grout in said entryway is also white.... Why, oh why was WHITE grout chosen?

Reading Game - 12345

<= That Girl tagged me with a reading game. I love to read so here are the rules. Play along if you'd like. All readers are officially tagged so go ahead if you need a blog idea. Who knows, someone may be reading the very same book and something fun could be started....

1. Grab the closest book with 123 pages.

2. Open the book to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people.

The closest book to me is the one I'm currently reading: Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon. Karon also wrote the wonderful Mitford Series and Home to Holly Springs is the first in a series about Father Tim.

"Thank you for having me." The palm of her hand was cool; she wore a suit the color of the blue parlor walls.

"I didn't know whether you'd come."

"I wasn't so sure about it myself."

There you have it. Thank you to That Girl, this was fun. I love any excuse to share the book in which I'm currently involved. Jan Karon is one of my favorite authors so I'm happy to share 4 sentences of her new book.

If you've read this post and you love reading feel free to either take this to your blog or leave a comment. What are you all reading right now?

Dog Training

No we aren't taking Matilda to dog obedience classes. Anna has completely trained Matilda on her own.

When we call for Matilda we give her a quick whistle, I'm unable to type the sound of a whistle. Just insert your own whistle sound here _______________. Very good. Now we all know what it sounds like to call Matilda over to where you want her to go. Anna cannot whistle yet, she's still two. Anna would like to get in on the calling over of her puppy dog so she has improvised.

Yesterday I called Matilda in from outside and Anna ran to the door and said, "Yet me call Mee-teel-duh." Sure, go ahead. I honestly thought she was going to yell Matilda's name. Anna did not. She did her own version of a whistle.

Anna actually said, "Hoot!" That was her idea. Seriously. Anna stood at the door and yelled her whistle. "Mee-teel-duh hoot, hoot!" Hoot - is not the sound she made while attempting to whistle. She just said "hoot". No attempt at whistling was made. She skipped all that and just said, "Hoot!"

Matilda came.

Wow!

I am so excited to say that Jessica has awarded me my first ever blog award. I'm stunned, really. Thank you Jessica. I don't even know Jessica, personally. Although I think I'd enjoy if I did. Jessica would be a great person to go out for coffee with, she's a southern gal y'all. She found my blog by chance, commented and I followed her back to her blog.

I shall follow the rules and pass along the award to five bloggers whom I feel blog with a purpose. Carla, -V- , KJ, Coffeegirl and Swampy. Thank you again Jessica.

Nutrition 101

We had some friends and family over this last weekend for an ice fishing weekend. Lots of fun, food and soda - among other things.

Anna greatly enjoyed the snacks and soda she had this weekend. A wonderful detour from water, milk, juice and the normal healthy "stuff" I force her to have.'

She just woke up from her nap in a less then ideal mood and asked to have soda. I told her no and offered the standard option of water, juice or milk. Anna told me her thoughts on this choice.

"But....ugh....wat-oh not healfy for you, I need soda."

Wouldn't my Nutrition for the Young Child professor be impressed?

Yeah but....?

This morning as Anna awoke I told her that tomorrow's Valentine's Day. She's seen the cards, candy and pink Rice Krispie bars making their appearances around the house. She knows it's something.

Her question was, "Is Baby Jesus coming?"
To which I said, "Oh honey, that's at Christmas when we celebrate His birthday."
"Yeah but can I hold him?" Meaning the Baby Jesus from the nativity scene.
"At Christmas time you can."
"Well....is that Papa coming?"
"Joseph?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry, that's Christmas, too."

I then explained how we get to be reminded about how much we love each other and we can do special things for everyone. I could clearly see my explaination of St. Valentine's Day was sounding something like: blah, blah, blaaaahhhhh. If no members of the Holy Family are showing up, count Anna out.

Yippee!

I just let Matilda out to do whatever it is she needed to do and guess what?


It's 5:39pm and NOT pitch black out there.

Spring is on it's way!

Friend Day

We had some friends over to play today and to eat lunch. This can be a dangerous undertaking with an Anna who is 2 1/2.

She only needed two time-outs during the 3hr. fun fest. She then managed to thank our guests for coming and for eating lunch with us. Miraculously she also gave out good-bye hugs. This is all just amazing progress I must say. Amazing.

Our friend's mom asked her little girl if she had a good time at Anna's. Her daughter said, "No." I laughed. I selfishly enjoy other children's ettiquette mistakes as it makes me feel so very much better about my own dolly's work-in-progress status.

Ya Don't Say

Isaiah informed me of some spectacular news yesterday.

Mama, guess what?
What?
They're giving away free candy bars at school for a buck!