Yes, Addie reached a new place today with her poo. That place was her shoulder blades!

You know the whole hope for pictures...well those dreams have been dashed. Our laptop is broken due to being dropped from its precarious perch on the arm of the recliner on to the tile floor a total of 5-7 times. Jason is the culprit, not the children. He feels bad, but I am still pretty angry about the whole situation. Not really because it's broken, but because we'll have to use our Dell account to buy a new one when the current one is not even paid for yet. This is disgusting. I am disgusted. Thankfully we have backed up most of our files including pictures.

I have a work laptop, but it is specifically for work and not even a printer or an updated version of internet explorer can be installed on it. Yes, even You Tube has told me that my browser is ancient and they will soon be unable to support it. I watched this documentary called Girlhood on there to use for training at work, it was really good. I feel the need to explain myself in case anyone from work reads this! ;)

Anyway, any ideas on how a teacher and an obsessive couponer can survive without a computer?

I am giving up facebook for Lent this year. It's not the amount of time I sepnt on there, it was how often I was going. I would sign in 3-4 times a day just to see if anything new was going on, see if any new pictures were posted, etc. It just ended up leading to more distractions and way less time actually talking to people!

This the very first time I have ever participated in Lent, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it. So, I don't know much yet besides the fact that I was wasting a lot of valuable time on facebook and I need it back! Maybe this will translate into more useful blog posts & pictures on here! Mostly I hope it turns into more time with the family and less wasted time that I have to make up later with all the things I should have been doing while on stankin' facebook.

I totally give up on the dream of posting more pictures. Some day maybe, but not tonight. The camera is dead and I'd have to charge it first then put pictures on the computer and then upload them here and so on and so forth. There are some cute ones though, for real!

I figured an update was needed anyway. So, my dear friend Rachel is back home in Arkansas and staying with us for awhile. It's been so nice to have someone to talk to during the day, besides the kids anyway. They are excellent talkers, but rarely are they good listeners! :) The snow last week made for a lazy week since Jason was home all week until they made him go in on Friday! Isn't that silly? Hmm, kid updates...oh we're taking Freddy to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live in St. Louis next month! We'll go see Jason's brother and our sister-in-law and sweet niece and make a big trip of it the weekend before spring break starts. Freddy doesn't know yet, so I'm really excited for the day he gets the "letter" in the mail! He's been a bit of an emotional wreck this past week with things being all strange and different. It's kind of like having a teenager, he's seriously slammed his door closed and screamed, "NEBER!!!" (This means never) It's hilarious but something I can't just tolerate, you know?

Adeline is moving into her big girl car seat. She went for her first ride around the block to check it out tonight. She hit the 20 lb mark and she's 13 months now! She still looks kind of tiny in it, but I have installed it perfectly and she is snug as a bug in there. Addie loved looking forward and waving to us from the back seat. It's absolutely insane to look back there and see two big kid seats! I had almost gotten over the sadness, but there it was tonight, all welled up in my throat. Addie is still not showing much interest in walking, but she has let go and stood on her own for .3 seconds at least 3-4 times now. I think this is progress. The amazing thing right now is how fast she's picking up her signs. She's been able to say "all done" and some strange version of "more" for awhile now. "More" has been tough, because it's hard to get her to do it when she's frustrated, hungry, etc. Now, she seems to say the words and sign"all done" . She is much better and putting her fingers together to sign for "more," but it's still inconsistent. She has been signing "sleep" or "sleepy" for a month or more and she is starting to put one finger to her mouth for "eat." My favorites that she's learning and doing really well at right now are "please" & "sorry." She is so cute signing please and has even turned it into her own way to call the dog or cat to her by kind of scooping her hand in towards her chest and patting herself when she wants them. It's really precious. Please and sorry look very similar when she does them, but she knows the difference. Right now she mostly responds with the sign when the word is spoken, but I'm thinking soon she'll start using them on her own...I hope because I'm tired of the point and scream method of asking for things! Wait, she does sign "all done" on her own, so there's hope!

She's creeping me out a little bit when I tell her to go find her cup and off she goes or I show her the sign for "pet" to be soft or gentle and she actually stops beating the dog! Don't get me wrong though, I can say and sign "no" all day and she just stares at me blankly or laughs. She can say "dog" and "taa" for cat. She's a pro at the steps now, it's just crazy all the way around!

Okay, that's enough of my kid obsession for tonight!

Promise!

For someone as vocal as I usually am, it is very difficult sometimes to keep my head down and my mouth shut. I just get frustrated with people and it is honestly all that I can do not to just break it down and tell them how the cow ate the cabbage. I can't be too specific or anything, but let's just say that sometimes I fail miserably at keeping the verbal censors well tuned. What I'm upset about right now is one of those things I have no control over and letting my "nu-uh, you're not getting away with that crap" flag fly will just risk some good things that I have. So, I'm left with nothing to do but bite my tongue, vent a lot to my poor husband, and post cryptic things on my blog! ;) Surely someone knows what I'm talking about though, you know, when it physically hurts to keep your mouth shut?!

No, Addie is not walking and Freddy can not say his ABCs or even count to 3 with any consistency. (Dern Veggie Tales making me rhyme) Sorry. Nope, this is almost as good though. Adeline can get down our steps into the living room all by herself, almost every time! We have the popular 70s style "sunken" living room. Addie has been able to get up the step since shortly after starting to crawl back in September. Despite all our efforts to show her and help her though, she refused to go down the step by herself. She fell off it once or twice and wasn't willing to risk it for quite awhile. Now the only problem is that I can no longer sequester her to one portion of the house without the use of baby gates. I used to know that she would stay in the back hallway if I put her back there to play in her room, but no more. She can be in the kitchen or playing in the dog bowl in a split second! So, a new era in babyproofing has begun and I am just waiting for the day she'll show an interest in walking or at least standing on her own. Right now I have to go and supervise as they watch Veggie Tales. We just introduced this show yesterday, and I'm kind of already tired of it...oh and Addie is chewing on some random wire she found behind the tv, so I should probably go grab her...oh and there's the poo face too. ;)

I just found out that www.uddercovers.com has a promo code for a free nursing cover. Use code cranberry2 at checkout and only pay $9.95 shipping. They look really well made and generously sized, and if you aren't too keen on the idea of sewing one yourself, that's not a bad price at all. Those things are usually way over priced.

I sent this as an email to my dear friend from work this morning. I thought it was blog worthy!


Yes, say what you will about the joys of staying home with babies, but do you want to know what I woke up to this morning? Not 1, but 2 diapers filled with steaming poo! Seriously, my 3 1/2 year old shat in his diaper this morning! Then, in my misguided efforts to discourage this behavior, I made him clean it up. I was feeding Addie and kept hearing him gag in the bathroom. I was certain that I'd end up cleaning poo and puke [he held it down]. Addie's diaper had leaked in the night and the smell of the soaked in pee and the poo stuck in nooks and crannies as she tried her best to kick fling it across the room...almost made me gag as it was. So, I got her cleaned up and got the dried snot dislodged from her upper lip and moved on to Freddy. He comes in the room to tell me that he threw this crappy diaper in the bathroom trash can. As he was walking away, pantless of course, to go get a walmart bag to separate the atrocity with, I saw that despite his valiant efforts in poop removal, he had a dried streak down his leg, on both cheeks, and of course, up his back. Baby wipes were hardly a match for this! Not to mention, the poo prints I had to remove from the toilet, the sink, and various areas he wandered off to. I think a bath is in order ASAP, for everyone!

Good morning by the way, I hope you had a fabulous long weekend with your family! I have to run because Freddy just told me that I have to come get the boogers off of Addie's nose. Booger patrol, to the rescue!