Sept 9, 2006

7:10 Drop off

7:15 Breakfast - blueberries (baby food, not real ones) and cheerios.

8:20 Jeremy left for work and took Alex to school.

8:30 Ariel took a nap. I had several things to do during this time. First, I took a picture of my "wall of fame." I decided that I'm going to frame and hang all the pictures I've taken that I love. I envision (after many years) having this whole wall covered. Here it is now (the prints are 8x10 in 11x14 frames with UV non-reflective glass):



And speaking of the office, last night Jeremy and Alex put together the big desk. So now we have our new furniture and both computers. All we are lacking are two office chairs. Here's what it looked like 3 years ago (and 2 weeks ago):



And here we are this morning:



The final step is getting rid of that piece o' crap futon and getting some decent sleeper sofa.

My next task was to finish filling out my "American Family Survey" from the census bureau. It was long and slightly complicated and a bit of a pain in the tush. Why yes, my house does have running water and sewage removal. While I was sitting at the kitchen table, Adam announced that he wanted to make a card for Ariel:



9:30 Ariel woke up, had most of a bottle.

10:00 Left for our very excting adventure of the day - grocery shopping. I wish I had brought my camera to the store, Adam and Ariel were very cute sitting in the blue truck together. Ariel sucked on a plastic bag of crazy mac noodles most of the trip.

11:15 Got home, unpacked all the grocery.

11:30 Ariel had lunch, peas. She didn't eat them as enthusiastically as she eats fruit, but she did finish them.

12:00 Another nap for Ariel.

12:45 I had to wake Ariel to get her in the car to pick up Alex from school.

1:00 Picked up Alex, and had to wake Adam from his car nap to go inside. Why is this so hard???

1:25 Got home and started a batch of challah while Ariel fed herself a bottle.

2:00 Play time! Here's Ariel's new hippy chick outfit (these are not my best work, I had to use my flash as it was cloudy and rainy today):





And here's a video in which Ariel plays a drum, we see the kid's new fort (aka our old office desk that we need to sell) and Alex tells us about this year's halloween costume (thank you Gavin!):



2:30 I tried to see if either Adam or Ariel would take a nap, but it was a no-go.

3:00 We got the challah through its two risings, and braided but not baked, loaded up everyone in the car and headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

3:50 Got to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Ariel and Adam fell asleep in the car, and I sent Alex in with his challah for him and Grandma to bake:



5:00 Ariel woke up first, then Adam.

Tonight, we celebrated Uncle Dave's birthday:

Sept 6, 2006

Well, hiddy-ho friendly neighbors. I hope your Labor Day Weekend was as enjoyable as ours. The boys and I joined both set of grandparents down at the ranch, while Jeremy went off to a bike race. I did my usual picture taking thing, but didn't take as many as I would have because I have a big piece of dust on my image sensor that I will need to clean off soon. So here's my weekend pictures:

Turkey Toe

7:10 Drop off

7:15 Breakfast - pears (yum), cheerios (fun to playwith), blueberries (no way!). But thanks Becky, I put some of Ariel's blueberries on my waffles and they were very good.

8:00 Jeremy and Alex left for preschool, heading first for some mysterious Target-ole errand.

8:10 Nap time. Adam and I used this free time to clean the bathroom. In the interest of making Adam feel needed, I let him clean the counter while I cleaned the toliet. In five minutes, he managed to flood the counter, soak his pants and simultaneously shred the sponge into itty-bitty green flotsum. But he helped! and it was fun!

9:00 Ariel woke up.

9:05 bottle

9:35 We walked to the library.

10:05 Getting to the library a bit early, we first went to Michael's to exchange some frames I had bought for my wall of fame project I have going on. And guess what, this is the second time I exchanged the frames because I apparently can't remember what I had bought the first time.

10:15 Story time

10:50 Ariel pooped. I changed her diaper. Woo-wee

11:00 Walk home.

11:35 Home - lunch - Ariel had squash and Adam had hummus that he sucked off his carrots. And he may have licked some peanut butter off his bagel.

12:00 Leave the house again. Before picking Alex up from school, I had to drop off Kayla's pictures to her mom.

12:30 Both fell asleep in the car

1:00 Get to Alex's preschool. Both kids were still sleeping. So then I had to play the fun game of flagging down a mom to watch my car while I ran in and got Alex. When I got back, she said that being 15 feet away from my car she didn't think she heard crying. I told her it was ok, I just have to tell someone so I'm not abondoning my kids. I wish there was a better system!

1:30 Home. I transfered Adam to his bed, and gave Ariel a bottle to entertain herself with while she decided if she was going to be awake or asleep.

2:00 Ariel decided to be awake, so she sat in the swing while I framed my pictures with the (finally!) correct frames. I'll post pictures of my wall once I hang these new ones.

2:45 Adam woke up, grumpy as always. I put him in the bathroom to go pee, and he was so intent on being miserable that he stood there crying and peed next to the toliet. When Adam's like this, the only thing to do is get out of the house.

3:00 Out of house - first stop Whole Foods, where I promised the boys Jamba Juice. But alas, when we got to Whole Foods, we learned that Jamba Juice was gone, only to be replaced by a very lame juice bar. So we moved onto phase 2 - walking over to Bicycle Village to see if they had an adult pushing handle for Adam's tricycle (because like many things with Adam, the spirit is willing but the body is not). And no, they didn't have a handle.

3:40 Plan B - go to Jamba Juice at Safeway. I don't know what is up with that Jamba Juice, but it is so s-l-o-w. There was one woman in front of us that ordered two drinks, and it took 15 minutes.

4:00 Get back to the car and take a drink of my juice only to discovered I forgot to say no banana (banana makes me sick). So I couldn't drink my juice anyway. Waaaah!!!!!

4:10 Get to Becky's work to drop off Ariel. Gave Becky my Jamba Juice. Which is ironic in itself because Becky has an irrational fear of Jamba Juice and so I don't even know if she liked it.



And hey, check out Becky's sassy new haircut!

After drop-off, we swung by Taco Bell for dinner. I left the boys with Grandma and Grandpa and went to a community college photography class with Crissy (which is why I didn't do the blog last night).

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.