Sept 1, 2006

Happy Friday, and Happy Birthday, Dad! How does it feel to be 62?

Becky didn't do such a hot job updating us on Ariel's doctor appointment but she did send me a few pictures to post. From this it looks like Ariel is 16lbs 2.5 oz:



And I'm guessing that's Ariel trying to transform the doctor's office into a gigantic hamster cage full of shredded paper:



The doctor also told Becky that if Ariel doesn't start crawling soon, she's going to need therapy. No, not Becky, Ariel will need crawling therapy. Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous? Meanwhile, Adam and Ariel both have runny noses.

Yesterday, I had a photosession. This is Miss Kayla, you can see the rest of the shoot on my flickr site:



7:10 Drop off. Becky claimed that Ariel was asleep and she put her in Adam's room, but Ariel was soon crying.

7:30 Bananas and orange breakfast.

8:15 Nap

10:25 Ariel finally woke up. I gave her a bottle, then I was all set to go to Starbucks, but the wonder husband and his wonder friends had blocked in my car as they loaded up their car for a bike race weekend.

10:40 Wonder husband finally left. Did I mention that he's not going to my dad's birthday tonight, or family fun weekend with BOTH his parents and my parents? He's got one nice wife to let go do bike stuff this weekend.

10:50 Adam, Ariel and I went to Kinkos first to print out some business cards.

11:15 Next step - Target. Specifially the Target Starbucks (Jeremy actually ordered me to get one today, he thought that might help with my snippiness). Then we shopped around and I got Ariel a Very Cute Pair of Shoes.

12:00 Adam said he had to go potty, which is always an adventure at Target, especially when you have an extra baby to juggle. I hope we didn't catch a horrible disease.

12:15 I thought we might head up to Alex's preschool for the weekly Shabbat sing. But Ariel fell asleep in the car (and I had a strong suspision that she would not enjoy it anyway) and Adam was asking to go to the dinner store and get noodles. So we turned around and went to Noodles for lunch.

12:30 Noodles - Ariel woke up and I fed her apple sweet potatoes while Adam ate his lunch.

12:50 Left to pick up Alex from prechool.

1:10 Chaos once again. And I tried to ask Alex's teacher if they have ever considered doing outside pick up, but she assured me that would be more chaotic. I fail to see how and I'm started to dread the next year of pick ups.

1:40 Get home. Fed Ariel a bottle. Very tired (me and her). Becky said she would come pick up Ariel early, so I did not start Plan B - everyone take naps, especially me. I'm very tired as I got up at 5:15 this morning because Adam thought it was morning. It was NOT.

2:15 Ariel modeled her Very Cute Shoes:







2:40 Pick up. Have a good weekend everyone. We (the we that is everyone but the wonder husband) are going to the ranch, see you on Wednesday.

Aug 30, 2006

7:10 Drop off. Ariel ate her prunes and pears while we ate breakfast.

7:40 Down for a nap.

8:15 Jeremy took Alex to preschool.

9:30 Wake up. I attempted to give Ariel a bottle, but she wasn't interested.

9:45 Walk to libray for storytime.

10:15 Storytime. Crissy and Gavin met us there. Crissy watched Ariel while I ran over to Michael's. I was trying to feed Ariel when Crissy took her, she didn't drink her bottle again.

11:00 Finally finished her bottle.

11:15 Walk home.

11:50 Get home. Everyone was exhausted so we went down for naps.

12:35 I was hoping Jeremy could pick Alex up from school, but he couldn't so I had to wake up the babies. Ariel had make some little hard poopies. Adam was not excited to be awake.

1:05 Pick up Alex. I'm not excited about picking Alex up three times a week like this. It's just chaos with everyone picking up and limited parking and narrow hallways. Ariel had made a bigger poop in the car on the way over.

1:35 Met Becky at the doctor's office, dropped Ariel off with her for her 9 month check up. Be sure to let us know how it goes, Becky.

Sorry this is boring today, and no pictures. I am tired *yawn*. I'll make up for it on Friday.

Oh - good news on eBay - I threatened my non-payers with negative feedback and got one payment. Too bad it wasn't for the $66 diapers, I'll be filing a non-payment claim with eBay tonight. Boo hiss, eBay.

Aug 28, 2006

Happy Monday. Our weekend update - On Saturday, we had a family fun day trip to the Butterfly Pavillion. I took lots of pictures to prove to myself I can take a good picture, as I did not win (or even get an honorable mention in) the Summer Butterfly Pavillion Photo Contest. My pictures are here, if you want to tell me how good they are, I could use some encouragement:

Butterflies

And then our Sunday drama.... In the afternoon, Jeremy was at a bike race and I was curled up in my jammies reading, when what should run by my feet, but a M-O-U-S-E. Our cats have been on vacation at Aunt Laura's house for a year (because Jeremy H-A-T-E-S them), but I put a clause in that they would return the moment that I saw a M-O-U-S-E. So last night, we picked up our cats. They have taken up residence under the office futon, which is a good arrangement for everyone involved. Here they are, Abby and Dexter (or as Adam has been calling them both, Clarisa) brushed and bathed:



7:10 Drop off.

7:20 Ariel's system is still not running smoothly, so I skipped the cereal and fed her the banans and berries, with plenty of water. I even though in a few spoonfuls of flax oil, which seems to help and is good for you anyway.

8:20 Nap.

8:30 Today is the first day of preschool. Here are the obligatory pictures:





Adam really wanted to go too:


And here's Alex's picture from last year:


8:40 Jeremy drove Alex to school. Adam and I just hung out, I got on the computer (hence the early posted blog). I'm going to have to plan my time better.

10:00 Ariel woke up, we headed over to Crissy's house.

10:20 Arrives at Crissy's - Crissy changed a poopy diaper and fed Ariel a bottle. I don't even pay her to be my friend, let alone do my job. Isn't she the best?

11:45 Ariel had another poopy. I am satisfied that her poops are better than last week, though I do think we should cut cereal for a while. After I changed the diaper, Ariel ate an ice cream cone.

12:10 Time to go.

12:25 Before picking up Alex, we stopped at Safeway and got a Jamba Juice and some sweet potatoes for Ariel's lunch.

1:00 Pick up Alex. He seemed to have a pretty good day. When I got there, he and Ted were looking at a book and Alex's wasn't even looking for me.

1:30 Got home. Ariel fell asleep in the car.

1:40 Ariel woke up. I fed her the sweet potatoes.

1:55 She didn't look like she really wanted to be awake, so I put her back down in the crib.

3:00 Ariel woke up, had a bottle.

3:15 Ariel and I walked to the photo store and the grocery store. We weren't out of milk, but we were out of ketchup and that's nearly as bad.

4:10 Got home. Ariel played with toys for a bit:



4:25 Quickie bottle.

4:30 You know you had a banner day when your credit card's early warning fraud protection program calls you. Jeremy finally bought his new computer and computer desk, and add that to the store and such, it was a lot of transactions.

4:35 Pick up.

Aug 25, 2006

So here's the deal with Jeremy's job. He had gotten the first offer on Tuesday from a company he would actually want to work at. The job was good, the pay was good, and the benefits were really good. The last four days, he's been waiting for an offer from another company that he was not as excited about working at. The only reason he would take that job was if the pay was obscenely good and all his friends took the job, too. Now this second company has always been a bit sketchy. Jeremy interviewed with them right after the layoffs and they have been dorking around for the last 6 weeks. Strike one. Strike two - they have difficulty understanding time zones. The company is based out of CA and the first set of interviews were scheduled at the wrong time because they thought Colorado was in central time. And then Wednesday night, they called at 10:30pm to tell Jeremy that they almost had the offer ready. When they called, they thought it was only 8:30 (?). And strike three was really the last straw. Today Jeremy got offer. The pay was a bit higher than company one and the benefits were worse. But the kicker? All six people on his team had to accept the offer, or no one got a job. Is that even legal? Jeremy hated to be the one to decline, but he talked it over with the two people on his team that are his friends and they agreed he had to take the job that was better for him. So long story short, Jeremy accepted the offer at company one and will start working sometime in the next 3 to 11 days. Yay!

Now we can buy Jeremy's new computer and we don't have to get divorced. Double yay!

7:05 Drop off. Ariel was asleep in her carseat.

7:10 Or was she? Ariel woke up and joined us at the table for waffles. I didn't feed her any cereal because I still think she's constipated. I did start her on a bottle that she took a few swigs from.

8:15 After finishing her bottle, went down for a nap for real.

8:30 I loaded the boys up in the double stroller (Jeremy stayed with Ariel) and we walked to the post office. I was able to mail one eBay item, the other two people (including my $66 diaper nut) haven't paid me yet. Stupid cheap eBay.

9:00 Get to Post Office. Nothing exciting happened there.

9:30 Get home. Ariel was still sleeping and Jeremy was willing to stay with her, so we got in the car and headed to Alex's preschool for Meet & Greet day.

9:50 Quick trip to the credit union so I could deposit my two checks from my paying photography customers (and Becky). Yay!

10:00 Alex's preschool. We checked out his room and his teachers. I'm really happy that Adam's baby preschool teacher from last year will be teaching Alex's class, she's a lot of fun. Apparently there are a lot of high energy boys in Alex's class. He's either going to be playing kitty house with Zoe and Anna or he's going to turn into a higher-energy boy (oy-vey).

10:40 Left for home.

11:00 Home. Jeremy's update - Ariel woke up at 10:15 soaking wet from head to toe. He washed her off and dressed her in her dry outfit (Mom, you MUST renturn those size 2 diapers, they barely fit around her legs and I'm having leaking problems that can't possibly be all my fault). They hung out for a bit, then Jeremy gave her half a bottle and some cheerios.

Some pictures so I could try out my new plexiglass. You can't see the glass, but you can see Ariel can't bunch up the fabric:





11:30 Ariel had lunch, bananas and oranges and finished her bottle.

12:15 Jeremy left on an exciting adventure to meet with our finacial advisor.

12:30 Exciting outing to Wild Oats. I had to buy some yeast so Alex and I could make challah. I also bought some fresh salmon for dinner tonight. We'll see if Alex eats any, last time he said he didn't want to eat anything that was swimming in the ocean. I guess that's what a semi-vegetarian ends up with for kids.

Both kids pushed around the kid carts and I had to keep putting back all the random stuff Adam was pulling off the shelves (like cheesy-poofs and canned fruit cocktail). Ariel was in the bjorn and eventually fell asleep, probably to escape all the yelling I was doing to herd my kids.

1:15 Home - Ariel stayed asleep in the carseat and into the house. I got Adam down for a nap.

2:00 Started making challah with Alex. We used the bread maker for the mixing and rising. Alex poured in all the ingredients (you can also see his super short haircut. I was holding I-don't-want-my-haircut Adam and couldn't see what was going on with Alex):



2:15 Right as the mixing was done, Ariel woke up. She had a bottle.

3:15 Alex and I got the dough out of the machine and braided our challah. Then it had to rise AGAIN in the oven. I can see that I need to make a bigger batch so we only have to do this once a month. I didn't realize quite how labor intensive it was. And of course as we were finishing this step, Adam woke up in his grumpy way.

3:30 Jeremy got home, and took Ariel off my hands to I could hold Adam.

3:50 Finally baked the challah.

4:00 Pick up.

Aug 22, 2006

Welcome to a sorta-special edition of Adventures with Ariel. Grandma is working today, and so I have Ariel on Tuesday this week and then have Wednesday and Thursday off.

7:10 Drop off. Sleeping Ariel went into Adam's room. I wisely used this time to catch up on my newspaper reading and almost finished Sunday's edition.

9:00 Ariel woke up, had her cereal.

9:30 Ariel had a bottle.

10:00 Jeremy took the boys to the bike store. Crissy called (I almost wrote that I called Crissy, but it really doesn't matter, I was reaching for the phone when it rang). She doesn't know what's wrong with her car yet.

10:30 Bored. Ariel's hair (or lack there of) has been fascinating me. I got some free samples of hair gel, so I gave Ariel a mohawk to see exactly how much hair she really has.

Not very much, apparently:


And look what Jeremy found in the garden this weekend. How on earth did such a big pumpkin just magically appear (use Alex's hand for scale)?


And Adam woke up with some weird eye thing. This morning his eye was half swollen shut, it looks better here. All I can think is that he rubbed some soap in it last night during bath. It's very odd:


11:15 Back down for a nap.

11:45 I actually got Adam to go down for a nap too (and me too for a few mintues).

12:30 Ariel woke up, had lunch - apples and strawberries.

12:45 Ariel worked VERY hard to produce a small poopy. Maybe we should stop cereal for a bit until she's less constipated?

1:00 Ariel watch Alex and Jeremy play dominoes while I ate lunch.

So the last few days, I noticed that Ariel really knows and cares who I am. She can be playing happily as can be, but if she sees me walking by and I keep going, she cries for me to pick her up. Kinda touching.

1:45 While Ariel had a bottle, Alex explained to us in this video how water turns into ice (don't worry, it doesn't make sense to us either). And sorry that it's a bit weird today, I had to compress it differently for the site to upload it:



2:30 Adam finally woke up and we put our Get Out of House Plan in action - going to the mall to play in the fountain:

3:00 The mall - Alex had more fun than Adam today, but it was nice for eveyone to get out. And it's not like Adam was miserable, he just sat watching under his towel more than he played:


Ariel chewed on a bottle for a bit (yes, she is under there somewhere):


3:45 I fed Ariel her bottle and she drank it all.

4:00 We went home. Ariel fell asleep in the car.

4:15 Home.

4:30 Pick up. Becky wants me to say that when she pulled up, Alex was peeing very enthusistically in the front yard. And when Alex pees outside, it's quite a specticle, he can shoot higher than his head and twice his body length.

And eBay Diaper Update - they are now going for $62.45 with two days left. When I set up the auction, I had a buy it now price of $49.99. And just to confirm that people are crazy, I looked at the fuzzi bunz website and you can get a new diaper with a liner for $15.00.

PSS - I DID almost forget! Jeremy got a job offer today!!! It's a good offer and he'll probably take it, but he's going to use it as leverage first to put some pressure on some of the other companies he interviewed with. He'll most likely be employed by next Monday (but probably not going back into work that soon). Yay!!!

Aug 21, 2006

Hello everybody! We had another nice weekend. Saturday I had a sleep over at Crissy's house (my first night away from Adam) and we watched Grease and drank margaritas. Super fun time, then we got up at the crack of dawn to hike to Ouzel Lake. The 10 mile hike in Rocky Mountain National Park took about 6 hours and we took tons of pictures. The best of mine are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wendyspictures/

And no, Jeremy does not have a job yet. You can be sure I will mention if anything exciting happens. He does have a second interview sometime this week. We are both really hoping that something happens soon, as Jeremy has decided that our marital bliss is dependent on getting a new computer so we each have one. But that depends heavily on having an income to buy such a thing. And oh, I don't think our marital bliss is dependent on computers, I think it comes down to Jeremy's dang looses-leaf tea balls that he leaves on the sink and on the counter and everywhere else besides the trash. But I digress.

7:15 Drop off, and Ariel ate her cereal this morning. She's never sure about the first bite, but then she's into it.

8:30 Ariel took a nap. I cleaned Alex's room and the boys' bathroom (which for some strange reason smelled like a urinal) while Jeremy entertained the boys outside.

10:00 Ariel woke up, with another small hard poopy. Then she had the rest of her cereal bottle.

10:30 Ariel's pretty good at sitting and entertaining herself, which she did while I finished cleaning up the kitchen and dining room.

11:45 Ariel's lunch - apples and prunes (let's hope they work, there were several times this morning she looked like she was pooping but nothing happened).

12:00 Ariel drank 1/2 a bottle.

12:15 Got a call from Crissy. She was supposed to be on her way to my house for our Fabulous Adventure™ of the day. But her car had died in the Safeway parking lot on the way, so we left to go pick them up.

12:30 Picked up Crissy et al. The first warning sign should have been the broken car, but we ignored it. The next bad omen was my car kept swallowing the seat belt latches and it took WAY too much time and effort to get everyone buckled into the car. Undetered, we continued on our less-than-merry-way.

1:00 Our Fabulous Adventure™ (?) destination - Eldorado Canyon State Park. Marcus wanted to go rock hounding and this sounded like a likely spot to find rocks. Crissy had picked a trail that was marked "easy" and was only 0.3 miles each way. Sounded like the perfect hike for our boys. Well, someone has a much different definition of "easy" because this was steep and rocky in a lot of parts, plus it was super close to the water so we had to be extra vigilant.

You can see Adam's little head in the corner:


Crissy and the big boys walking ahead:


Adam climbing some of the "easy" stone steps:


And then on the way back I was trying to keep the big boys together and I tripped and fell and got an owie on my knee. But I took one for the team, Ariel and my camera were unhurt:


Poor Ariel had fallen asleep and had not liked waking up near the ground. But she was ok:


And then Marcus realized that there were no cool rocks to find (the other boys, especially Adam, were just happy picking anything up). But then we convinced Marcus that he could keep a journal of places he goes and Crissy could take pictures and he could collect rock samples. That cheered him up, and the Crissy helped the boys break open rocks with a hammer so they could see what was inside:


Ariel enjoyed wiggling her feet in the dirt:


2:30 We left the Canyon and headed towards Phase II - DQ. Marcus misbehaved in the car and wasn't allowed to get an icecream cone. He was VERY sad.

2:45 We got everyone (but Marcus) set up with icecream, and then I ran over to Phase III of our Adventure - the liquor store - to buy some medicinal beer. It had been THAT kind of day. In the car, Ariel fed herself another bottle. She's getting very good at that.

3:30 I took Crissy to our house since her car was broken, so Mr. Crissy could pick his family up on the way home from work. Since it had been THAT kind of day, we popped in Robots for the big boys, then we sat down and enjoyed a beer. Crissy played with Ariel while I re-listed an eBay auction. I'm helping Crissy sell a few things, and last week her handmade nursery set had sold immediately but I never got payment or heard from the buyer. Today I got an email from eBay saying that their account had been hijacked and I would have to relist.

Oh, and speaking of eBay, one thing of mine I'm listing is some cloth diapers. Now, I know used diapers sell well on eBay but I didn't know HOW well. I think that I bought these fuzzibunzes for maybe $85 and they are currently going for $55. For used diapers. That my kids POOPED in. When you buy disposible diapers, you don't think, "How can I recoup over half my cost?" you think, "how nice my kids aren't sh*tting all over the house." So I'm pretty exciting about that, there are still 2 days left in that auction.

4:25 Ariel had missed her afternoon nap, and was so tired she fell asleep on Crissy (psss, I don't think Crissy minded in the least):



4:45 Pick up.

Aug 18, 2006

7:05 Drop off. I was ready this morning. Dear sweet Adam got me up at 6:00 so not only was I dressed, but also showered.

7:15 Ariel would not take single bite of cereal.

7:30 Too much eye rubbing going on, I put her down for a nap.

8:00 I called Crissy to try and talk her into a Fabulous Adventure™. But she was too busy doing real work. Wah :( So I went and did photography work on the computer instead.

8:30 Up from nap. I gave her the rest of the cereal bottle and she chugged the first half and wouldn't touch the second half. She's a girl who knows what she wants today.

9:00 Becky gave me this suggestion this morning - apparently Ariel likes looking at herself in the mirror:



This video is entitled "It's time to find this baby a real playdate, she's having way too much fun with the cute baby in the mirror."



9:30 Ariel was getting cranky so we went outside to see what the boys were doing. The boys were making a new crawl space door. Part of Jeremy's out-of-work-project list. Since power tools were involved, everyone was much entertained...



...except Ariel. I guess power tools are too loud for her. So we went to the front yard. Here's me pretending our front yard looks better than it really does:





And Adam heard the garbage truck and came out in the front yard too. Here's my big boy in his underwear the 17th day. And Crissy, to make you feel better, he did have his first pee accident last night since the first week. I think he was really tired. Yesterday I took the boys on a 2 mile hike. It was the longest two miles ever, even though Adam was in the backpack. At least we saw a doe and fawn at the end, otherwise I don't know if Alex would go with me again since we didn't see any lizards.



10:00 Ariel was acting tired again, so she went back down for a nap. I worked on the computer some more. I'm trying to find a free business software but I'm striking out, I made need to buy something.

12:00 Ariel woke up. She ate her berries and pears with enthusiasm. And then I gave her Cheerios and she was interested in those. She liked putting them in her mouth, but not so much the swallowing. But definate improvement!

12:45 I tried to put Adam down for a nap but he wouldn't stay put. I could have fallen asleep just fine though.

1:00 Since nap wasn't happening, I gave Ariel the other half of her bottle.

1:15 Time to get out of the house. We had a very exciting adventure getting business cards printed at Kinkos, getting smoothies (which I spilled a bit on Ariel's head, this will be important later) and buying some salmon for dinner at Wild Oats. It really wasn't as exciting as I made it sound. Though two small boys pushing tiny grocery carts through Wild Oats does has it's moments of adrenaline.

Alex's big disapointment of the day. He asked what we were doing at Kinkos and I said getting copies. He heard "poppies" and wanted to hold my bag. When he looked in side, he said with disgust, "Mom, those are just babies."

2:15 Home. And my big picture order came! I sent the boys outside with Daddy and Ariel and I sorted pictures.

2:40 We left to bring Ariel to Becky's work. I gave Ariel a bottle in her carseat, and she drank exactly half again.

3:00 Drop off. When Becky saw Ariel she freaked out, she thought I was letting the boys pound hammers on her head. But it was just leftover smoothie. I tried to wipe it off, but it was going to need a serious bath.

Aug 16, 2006

6:55 Drop off. Despite Becky's protests, she WAS early. She got to see me in my jammies. At least I was wearing pants.

7:00 No need to dress now and pretend I'm responsible. Instead I made egg and cheese bagels for everyone. We bought orange cheese just for Alex and judging on how well he ate, I guess I came close to recreating The Bagel Store Experience.

And it was a noisy breakfast. The boys were being themselves, and even Ariel is getting loud. I asked Jeremy if he was surprised at that, and he said that even if he didn't think she was genetically prone to being noisy, then she would surely be nurtured into it. I think that was a commentary on us sisters...

7:15 Ariel had her cereal.

7:25 I asked Adam if he needed to go poopy and he went into the bathroom all by himself and went without any fuss. NOW he's officially potty trained!!!

8:00 Ariel went down for a nap.

9:10 Ariel woke up. With another hard poopy. Just saying....

9:15 Ariel finished her cereal bottle.

9:35 We left for our Fabulous Adventure™ - first stop, driving to Starbucks. I did make it a week without, but then yesterday I had a mocha along the way of my five hour walk/hike. I decided to make an annual tradition of hiking all five mountains from my house, and in the last four days I've knocked off the two smaller ones. I was also training for a big mountain this weekend, but alas the trip was cancelled. So where was I... oh yes, I had gone to Starbucks yesterday and was going for a mocha but saw they have a new raspberry chocolate chip frappachino. Well, I thought about that frappachino all night and decided for the sake of RESEARCH I would have to get one today. Oh, and I was pretty dang tired this morning too. This photography business is hard work. I spent from 6:30 to 10:30 last night editing and ordering pictures and it did not make for a good night's sleep.

So yes, I had a raspberry chocolate chip frappachino (or at least the part my children left me) and it was pretty good. It tasted like what I would imagine a liquid chocolate chip covered cherry would taste like, if it were a raspberry.

10:05 We headed over to the library for story time. Ariel listened to a few books:



Storytime was LOUD today. Lots of wiggly, noisy two year olds (mine wasn't too noise, but he was kicking the library lady.)

11:00 After storytime, we headed over to Crissy's. She didn't join us at the library because one of Marcus' friends was there and they are both too old for storytime.

11:30 Ariel had her apples and prunes at Crissy's. Maybe this will help with her, uh, problem.

12:00 Crissy, I repeat, CRISSY gave Ariel an icecream cone. See how guilty Crissy looks?



Ariel did eat it up. It's the only solid food I've found that she doesn't gag on:



And it was noisy at Crissy's house. There were 4 boys there, and of course Ariel has to have her say too.

12:30 Adam pooped in the big potty ALL BY HIMSELF. Crissy and I didn't even know he was in the bathroom. Isn't that SPECIAL?

1:00 Ariel fell asleep while I was feeding her a bottle, so we put her down in Crissy's room.



1:15 Crissy and I finally got some peace and quiet in her office. Crissy was trying to find Marcus' baby pictures, and I got sucked into Zillow. We were trying to guess how much Crissy's neighbor's giant house costs ($1.64 million, if you are interesed, and no Crissy does not live in a ritzy neighborhood). Crissy went in it today, she said the auxillary downstairs kitchen was bigger than my (only) kitchen.

2:30 Ariel woke up and I figured we had worn out our welcome. I gathered up Alex and Ariel, but Adam didn't want to come. I gave him a choice, do you want to come or stay with Crissy? He said stay, so Crissy and I thought we could do a Love and Logic lesson so I left him. I was pretty amazed when I drove away Adam was watching from the window and wasn't the least concerned.

2:45 Our first errand - paying for my sales tax license as a photographer. I'm the real deal now, baby! Ariel finished the bottle she didn't finished due to falling asleep.

3:00 Next adventure - Home Depot. Crissy talked me into buying a Swiffer vaccuum and some industrial door mats. Dang that Crissy! I also bought some plexiglass to put over my photography backdrop so (ahem) little feet don't mess it up.

3:30 And the best for last - Target-ole. There I got Adam some more underwear and I bought Alex a cheapy 35mm camera.

4:30 Becky picked Ariel up from the Target-ole parking lot as I fed her a bottle.

4:45 I went back to Crissy's and picked Adam up. Apparently he didn't miss me at all, even when Crissy asked where he was going to eat dinner and sleep tonight. Guess that wasn't a very useful lesson afterall, but it did make my errands easier.

Aug 14, 2006

Well hello everybody. We had a good weekend. I think I can say that after two weeks, Adam is officially potty trained. He's still not effortless going number two, but all poop made it into the potty this weekend and he's not had any pee accidents in at least 5 days (not counting when he accidently pees on his shorts or shirt). And his pull-up is usually dry in the morning, but I'm not going to put him in underwear at night for a while. Such a joy to have (almost) everyone out of diapers, even if it does mean risking public urination tickets for a while.

Also, I have now gone a week without Starbucks. Last Wednesday, I decided to see how much Ariel weighed, and in doing so had to weigh myself. I was not pleased with the results. So I thought what if, what if, going to Starbucks 4 times a week and drinking 500 calorie coffees might have something to do with that? So I'm going to reserve Starbucks for special occassions, and get my caffeine from unsweetened green tea. And oh, by the way, it looks like Ariel is about 16 to 16 1/2 pounds.

7:05 Drop off. Becky changed a poopy.

7:25 Cereal

7:50 Some of cereal bottle

8:10 Nap

9:00 Wake up, another hard poopy. And then she finished her cereal bottle.

9:50 Go to park and meet Crissy and her boys.

10:50 Bottle

11:30 Home

11:45 Nap. Adam had a failed nap attempt.

1:15 Wake up, eat some pineapple/pears.

Then it was time to take Ariel's 9 Month pictures.

Apparently I angered some gods last month when I bragged how good Ariel's eight month pictures turned out. 'Cause today I had lots of trouble, starting with a cloudy, rainy day.

First, Ariel wouldn't stop fiddling with her dress:


Then she wouldn't stop wiggling her feet and bunching up my backdrop:


Well fine, says I, I will put you on a chair so you can't mess with my backdrop:


"Dee-dee, this is borning. Can we go do something fun now?" NO!


"Fine, in that case I will entertain myself with this ridiculous thing you call a hat."


Ok, how about a toy, will that make you happy?


"Dude, I'm serious. I'm sooooo bored."


Fine, how about you stand next to the chair. Will that work?


Ok, so the chair is too close to mouth level, how about a stool, or will that be too fun?


So I did get a few ok ones in there, here's the collage:

2:15 I handed Ariel over to Uncle J.J. so I could look at the pictures on the computer.

Becky, for ordering purposes, I put the pictures on flickr, you know what to do.

2:40 Gave Ariel a bottle. But then Jeremy had to take over because Adam was asking to take a nap. So I tried to put him down for a nap, again.

3:15 Failed Adam nap attempt. Sigh.

3:00 Does Ariel need a nap? Lay her down.

3:45 Random Grandpa visit.

4:00 Ariel didn't fall asleep, so I set her up with toys while I finished her pictures.

4:35 Pick up.

Aug 11, 2006

Hello again. We over here had a good Thursday. Super Grammie was here, and I took Alex, Gavin and Marcus to see Cars. Then SG took Alex home with her until Sunday, so I'm short a kid.

7:05 Drop off. Becky commented how clean my house was. Now, I'd like to think my house is always pretty clean but I suppose that's not the case. But it was extra clean today because I had a photoshoot. Two nights ago Jeremy and I had gone out to dinner for our anniversary. We sat next to a family with a 4 week old newborn. I haven't photographed a newborn in a LONG time and I'd like to think I've gotten a little better. So I asked the family if I could shoot them for my website/portfolio. They said yes, and agreed to 10:00 today.

7:10 Ariel ate cereal.

7:30 Ariel hung out with Uncle "she's bored again" JJ while I vaccuumed.

8:00 Crib nap.

9:00 Ariel woke up. And she had another one of her small hard poopy diapers.

9:15 Finished rest of cereal bottle.

9:30 Adam, Ariel and I went outside to wait for one or more of the grandparents who said they could babysit while I did the photoshoot.

9:45 Grandpa rode up on his bike.

10:00 Ariel was rubbing her eyes, so I put her down for a nap again.

10:05 Grandma arrived too. This worked out well, because she could wait for Ariel to wake up and Grandpa could take Adam to the park.

10:15 My family arrived for the photoshoot. I had sun and I thought it went pretty well. This is my favorite picture from the day:



You can see the rest on my flickr site.

10:45 Ariel woke up and Grandma took her to the park.

12:00 My photoshoot ended, Grandma fed Ariel her babyfood.

12:30 Then Grandma fed Ariel a bottle. Should I be paid for today? Ariel was taking her time, and Grandpa and I overruled that she didn't have to finish it before we went out to lunch.

12:45 Lunch at CiCi's. No $5 pizza for my parents. They get the $3.50 senior's buffet discount. Ariel played with a spoon while we ate.

1:15 Ariel finished the rest of her bottle.

1:30 Grandma and Grandpa went to their home, and we went back to our.

1:45 Ariel had most of another bottle.

2:00 Ariel and Adam too a nap. I used that time to proof my photoshoot.

3:00 Ariel woke up. Rest of bottle.

3:30 Adam woke up, dry but crabby.

4:00 Pick up. I took lots of pictures today, but none of Ariel, so here's one of Ariel in her new dress with her mommy:

Aug 9, 2006

7:00 Jeremy woke me up. Somehow we had both slept in today. Dang those two-for-one happy hour margaritas!

7:05 Drop off. Jeremy handled it as I was still not ready. Do you see how I'm subtly giving more and more baby work to Jeremy? The other day I suggested we could just open a daycare in lieu of him getting a job, and he told me I could spend his life insurance money any way I wanted. By the way, he thinks his interview went well yesterday and he has another tomorrow and another Friday, at different companies.

7:20 Cereal

7:50 Rest of cereal bottle

8:15 I put Ariel down for a crib nap, but what's this... No lovey? Poor Ariel :(

9:15 Ariel woke up just as Adam was having his daily poopy crisis. And I don't buy that Chinease crisis=opportunity crap, this was just a crisis. Ariel went in to the exosaucer and I got Adam into the bathroom. Adam had some dramatics, but the bulk of the poop ended up into the potty, so more progress. Yay!

9:45 We drove to the library today. After the above crisis I didn't have it in me to walk.

10:00 Arrive at library.

10:15 Storytime. Crissy and I always get our kids settled then hide in the back of the library and gossip.

10:30 Ariel did not seem to be enjoying Crissy's company today. I decided that Ariel must just prefer me now, but then we gave Ariel a bottle and she was back to her happy self.

11:15 After the library, we stopped at the grocey store because we were somehow out of milk. Again.

12:15 Got home, unloaded the groceries, made my kids lunch and fed Ariel some pears and pinapples.

12:30 Back down for a nap (with no lovey :( )

12:40 Ariel was not asleep yet, but when I went in to check on her I discovered that she had a poopy. And it was small and hard agian, FYI. Then she went to sleep.

1:00 I tried to put Adam down but he would not sleep.

1:30 Jeremy got home from his morning of bike riding and his lunch that he spent commiserating his job loss with his fellow laid-off buddies.

2:15 Ariel woke up. I took some pictures before she ate:



Her little pout reminds me of Becky...


I was trying out my new photography trick, a $2 cat tickler toy I picked up from Target. But then Adam came in and grabbed it and started teasing Ariel:


And then Adam pulled down my backdrop sheet and rolled around in it and the session was over.


2:30 Uncle J. J. (he doesn't like that Becky, so I think we should push it) gave Ariel a bottle, so I could work on my Very Important Blogging.

3:00 Grammie's here, three cheers for Grammie!

3:45 After wandering around inside and out with Ariel, I decided to put some water in the pool for her. She splashed happily for half an hour.

4:15 Dry off, clothes on. I think Ariel is a tired girl.

4:35 Pick up.

Another Jeremy update. Now he has TWO interviews tomorrow. Well, one is for a company that made headlines today for being aquired by a competitor so he's probably not going to get a job there (nor does he want one) but it's always nice to have practice.