We just received a refund check from Sallie Mae for $1.51. Chirp China, here I come!

Ha.

The Queen of Pop and Angelina the Ballerina come together for one totally toe-tipping, floor stomping, smashing hit!

Chirp!

Oohhhh...

I am in trouble now.

Better pictures here.

A compliment?

Jason, after he ate a supper of beans,
"When a man has a good cook for a wife, he sometimes gets gas."

J. Peterman

I love J. Peterman. Their catalog is classic and most of the clothing is so vintage and
a-dor-a-ble.!!! I want this, and this and ooohhhh, I really really want this one. Every item has its own page and comes with the most interesting clothing description you will ever read in any catalog or magazine. Sign up to recieve the catalog today. It's free and such a fun read!

And...

look how much Eily changed in that amount of time!

It's Monday!

This was me a little over a year ago. Eily was a couple of weeks old so it was in the middle of May.





















This is me a year and a month later.


















That is some serious hair growth and it's even longer now. Too bad my armpits and legs are growing at the same rate. I am considering laser on the last two body parts.

In a totally different note, the checkout man at Dollar General gave me a free bottle of Crest Advanced Whitening Mouthwash with my other items this morning. Like, a whole bottle!!

Fun new contest coming up soon!!

Yesterday

Yesterday my cell phone rang. It read the call was from my cousin/friend, Anna. (Anna was and is one of my best friends and then she married my cousin once we got all grown up.)

Anna has two little boys.

The oldest is Aaron, who is 3 and has the cutest southern accent ever!

Isra is just a couple of weeks younger than Eily. HE IS A DOLL. And apparently very strong.

I answered the call and this is how the conversation went:

Me: "Hello?"

scratching and moving noises

Me: "Hello? Hello?

more scratching and moving noises. a little bit of heavy breathing.

Me: Aaron? Isra? Can you give the phone to your mommy?

Isra: bbbplllttptpllltltlll

I hung up and called Anna's home phone.

Me: "Hello, Anna? Just thought you would like to know that Isra has your cell phone.
Anna: breathing a heavy sigh while walking to her Dining Room

" The reason he has my cell phone is because he is ON the top of the table playing with my phone and the dirty glasses from supper.

Anna's status on Facebook a few days ago:

Anna Green just found Isra IN the bathroom sink.

I think boys must be just loads of fun! :)

Eily's version of Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Shaking the ol' Booty

Thanksgiving

I did pretty good this week. I did not do good this weekend. Too much ice cream at my fingertips. I didn't exercise either so this coming week I have really got to make a point to make that happen.

My Uncle Evan visited me in this house for the very first time yesterday. That was pretty special and I'm so thankful that he is able to travel now. He even fixed our lawnmower.

I am also thankful for mechanics in the family. Tonight after church, Matt and Josh were up to their elbows in grease fixing Jason's car.

Family is amazing. Thank you God.

For 2 days

Yogurt for breakfast, salad for lunch and whatever I cook for supper. I'm not picky about supper except on the sugar end of things.

I have run out of my grilled chicken strips so I guess tomorrow's salad will be ham. Gotta learn to move on.

Eily and the Paci, Night #2

Miss Eily cried for about 30 seconds tonight before drifting off to sleep. I think she has done an incredible job of getting used to no paci. If she doesn't wake up crying like last night I will feel confident enough to throw them all away.

RC Cola and Candy

If there is ever a time that my brain is not functioning well, it is now.
Rachel Claire is killing my energy. Her and the half gallon of Vanilla Bean ice cream and the almost entire bag of chocolate dipped caramels that I ate this week. And the several handfuls of chocolate chips. Oh, I forgot to mention the bag of chewy Starburst candy that I finished off last night.

Did I say that my jeans didn't fit well this morning? Or yesterday morning for that matter.

I have been binging so badly the past few weeks. I usually do not keep candy in the house except for a bag of Jolly Rancher hard candy that has been in the pantry for about 6 months and every 2-3 months one of us will be desperate for sugar and will remember that it is there and go get a piece. Why do I get in these slumps? I still have the rest of the caramels and a bag of Recee's Pieces and last night Jason wanted me to make a Chocolate Pudding cake and I did so now there is that temptation sitting on top of the stove.

So you probably can't tell because I have rambled about both topics and not in a good order but there are two topics that I am going to address in this post.

Rachel Claire
Healthiness

To begin, we will discuss this awful habit that Rachel Claire is developing. She goes to sleep at 8pm (respectively) and she doesn't take a nap so she usually falls asleep rather quickly. It used to be WWIII every night but now she just listens to the music until she falls asleep. Then eventually Jason and I go to bed. Crickets chirp. On occasion, a snake will wander into our house. You know, the usual nighttime activity.

Then the fun begins. Around 2am Rachel Claire wakes up and I go get in her bed. I only lie there for about 5 minutes because she goes right back to sleep and then I get up and go into my bed. And we do this routine every ten minutes until I get sick of getting up and down and I just stay in her bed. Last night I asked Jason to go because I never get to sleep in my own bed. So he did and he said that she yelled out in her sleep all night and kept waking up to see if he was still there and then around 5:15 he went to the couch (Because Elaina had gotten in bed with me. I asked her this morning why and she said that she thought there was a snake in the crack between her bed and the wall. I lied and told her that snakes don't come in people's houses. Does that make me a bad person?)
So at 5:30 this morning when Rachel Claire was once again awake, Jason lost it and I told him to go to bed and I would take a turn. This time she was very upset because she wanted to get in our bed because we had two fans in our room. Apparently I have passed on the love of the nighttime fan blowing. I finally got her to calm down and understand that we were not going to my room we were going to stay in her room. I have no idea what time she actually fell asleep but it was so bright outside that Claire said, "Hey! Somebody turned the light on out there!"

Why, I repeat why does she wake up so much in the night? Why doesn't she get/need a good night of solid sleep? Did any of you out there have children that did this? What did you do about it?
Our pediatrician told us to make waking up in the night not a pleasant experience but that girl is the loudest person I have ever known and it doesn't ever seem worth waking up the other two girls. Also, she cries because she doesn't want to be alone and that is the type of thing that really tugs at my heart and I have a hard time arguing that she should be all alone.
*sigh*

Ok. On to the next topic.
SUGAR!!!
What has gotten in to me? I am back to drinking Dr. Pepper whenever it is available and I have been keeping candy in the house.
It's time for a change. Today two of my nieces are coming over and we are going to make Rice Krispie Treats so after that... NO MORE JUNK FOOD!!!!!

These are my New Resolutions for the rest of the year and you must keep me accountable. I think I will take it a month at a time. I will post what I want to accomplish and then post what actually took place.
Ready?

1. No more junk food/candy in the house.
2. Water. Only Water
3. Try to cook at least 5 meals a week for my family. Good meals with lots of veggie and fruit variety.
4. Exercise at least twice a week. This may not seems like a lot but we will start with baby steps. It makes it more likely to be accomplished and that will encourage me to accomplish more next month.

That's all I'm going to start with this month. If it goes well I might start being more specific with things like how many inches I want to loose around the middle, etc... Aren't you so excited??

I cannot bring myself to post.
Sorry.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity, Splat!

We are home again and I am looking forward to staying home for a few weeks at least. I have always been one that enjoyed traveling but at some point you have to say to yourself, "Enough is enough!"
We went to my brother-in-law's wedding this past weekend in Mississippi. Elaina and Rachel Claire were the flower girls and did a very good job. Rachel Claire was very particular about her petals and would not sit down until every last one had been emptied out of her basket and then she had to make sure there were none on Kara's train and none on the carpet. She placed them perfectly on the white runner that Kara had walked down.

There really isn't much to write about at the moment. I'm sure I could ramble on about some abstract, meaningless topic but I will spare you. At least for today.

Rosie and Me

This morning I got up, bathed, dressed, got the girls up, bathed and dressed, fed the open mouths directed my way and loaded up the car with bags and children. We had 30 minutes to be at the library for Toddler Hour. I walked to my side of the car and was met with a flat tire. So what did I do (besides get mad)? I put my carefully spirally curled hair back in a lackadaisical ponytail and changed that sucker. And the sweat poured. And it wasn't pretty. And it didn't make me smell any sweeter.

And I did it in less than 10 minutes.

New Name

From henceforth, Claire shall be called Rachel or Rachel Claire.

It was her choice.

This guy deserved his own post

Rain, Rain, Go Away! Come again July 5th.

Jason had such a great 4th planned for out little family. This was the first time that he had planned a fun filled day just for us and I was really excited and encouraged about it. We were to go to church that morning and then for lunch we were going to grill shiskabobs and then he had bought a small pool so we were all going to swim together and then as it was getting dark he was going to build a small campfire and we were going to roast hot dogs and marshmallows and the do our fireworks. It was a great plan. Full of fun and activities that even the littlest one would enjoy.
























And then it rained.















































The girls did get to swim for a few minutes and we got to shoot 3 roman candles and do a few sparklers. The girls came up with the fun idea of putting a marshmallow on either end of a bamboo skewer. That seemed to be a big hit. I felt really bad for Jason. He was pretty disappointed that we didn't get to do everything. He had even gone and bought all the groceries all by himself.











































But we made the best of it and just enjoyed each other's company and ate snacks and yummies all day long.








































Loving that man of mine,
Ceridwen

Happy Independence Day!!!

Rememer that odd luch I made up yesterday? Turns out that it's pretty good the second day. Very good, actually. Makes me feel special inside.

You can think of your own title to this very strange post.

Where do you think the word hilarious came from? I like to think it means Hi (as in a high level) of lariousness?

Is larious even a word?

Today I was awakened by the sound of the doorbell. That's always my favorite way to become introduced to the new day. By a sound that can only mean that whoever is there isn't someone that should be seeing me in my husband's undershirt and drawers (mine, not his) because they obviously don't have a key to the door and the only people who have a key to my house besides myself is Jason and Mom and they have seen me in the previously mentioned outfit a hundred times at least. Soooooo, it wasn't mom or Jason and that meant that I had to jump out of bed in a complete state of froggyness (that's my word for groggy and foggy put together), run to the door, yell for Phillip and the girls to count to 5 before opening the door, unlock the door and then run back to my room to make myself descent. Makes for the best day!

It's 12:50 pm and I am just now feeling like I am on the verge of starting to wake up. On a good note, the girls have played very nicely with each other today.

For lunch the girls had hot dogs and mac-n-cheese. What? It's super nutritious! I rummaged through my pantry and this is what I came up with for me to eat.

In a saute pan I sauteed green chilies and onions and then I added a can of cream of mushroom and a can of olives. I let that simmer and then I got out the tortilla shells and made enchiladas and then covered it all with colby jack cheese and cooked it until it looked done. It's not too bad. It not too good. It would taste a lot better if it had a large dollop of sour cream on the top.

I just read this post and apparently it is a list of every move I have made today. If Jason was writing this he would add, "And then I turned to the left and pooted."
What is it with men and gas? When my cousin Dan was little all I had to do was make a pooting noise with my mouth and he would be laughing so hard that tears would be falling from his eyes. It was very entertaining so I did it a lot.

All the chilluns are in bed so I think I will do something profitable like put away laundry and sweep.

Reminiscing about the good old days in the yellow(ish) house on Berclair,
Ceridwen