Is spring here to stay?

I think the forecast for snow this weekend was replaced with a forecast for severe thunderstorms. We're under a tornado watch right now. We went on a walk tonight (which was probably a bad idea since I was coughing and hacking the whole time). It was super windy and I'm praying that we don't lose power.

When we got back to the house, we let Jack explore a little and he toddled up and down our front walkway over and over and over. I could just see the look of wonder in his eyes as he looked at everything that there is to put in his mouth discover.

I didn't have the video camera, but I could have posted all of the pictures so you could have made yourself a little flipbook of him walking back and forth . . . but I'll spare you.

Our little zombie

Kyle and I realized today that Jack has officially crossed over from mostly crawling and a little walking to more walking than crawling. Seriously, this transition has happened over the course of 48 hours or so. He's still much faster at crawling, but I think he enjoys the challenge of walking. Plus, his zombie impression is spot on.

Plus, he's realized that he's taller than Murphy when he's standing up. Murphy, on the other hand, is not so fond of this development.

One of the funniest parts of this newest stage is when he's walking and loses his balance, but doesn't fall all the way down. He'll land on his knees and will shuffle the rest of the way upright on his knees. It's hilarious. I don't have any video of it, but here's a sampling of his new found walking skills.

Please pass the Excedrin

I'm sick. The kind of sick where I have a really bad headache and I have to walk around with tissue hanging out of my nostrils to keep stuff from dripping down the front of my shirt (gross, but true). I'm achy and I'm so tired, but I can't get comfortable or sleep. To top it all off, I fell down the basement stairs tonight and my bum hurts.

The other reason that I'm sick is that stupid American Idol had the elimination round tonight. My stupid tivo recorded that instead of he new episode of The Office. Now I have to watch it on a stupid computer monitor instead of the tv.

Why, oh why, does all the really bad stuff happen to me?

Yeah . . . this is how I get when I'm sick. Just be thankful you're not Kyle.

This kid is full of tricks

This is one of my favorites.



He's right. He is pretty big.

I could have told you this

The University of Michigan could have saved themselves some research money on this study and just asked me. I've been saying it for five years now.

It says that husbands create 7 extra hours of work for their wives each week. I'm not even sure how this happens, but it does. I know that Kyle doesn't try to create extra work, but I see it happen week after week. We've had numerous conversations about how little it took for me to keep things clean before we were married but neither of us can really figure out what's changed, other than the fact that we both live here. And two sets of hands should actually make cleaning easier, right? We both do quite a bit around the house, but it really seems like I've never been able to keep up with household duties, even before Jack. If I had to guess what the biggest factor is, I'd say laundry. Between going to camp, then going to practice, then coming home, he goes through several sets of clothes a day. Some of these clothes can be re-worn, but many of them cannot.

I thought of all of this tonight when I read this post. Laundry has become a continuous process rather than a task to complete in a set period of time. It seems like as soon as we get ALL of the laundry done, there are baskets upon baskets waiting for us.

Anyway, now with Jack in the picture, I've lost all hope of my house ever being really clean again.

The spread of spring

It's been close to 70 degrees the past two days. Oh and, by the way, it's supposed to snow this weekend.

Mother Nature is a bit of a tease.

All this for a team that is 0-6

Jack and I were out all day Saturday. "All day" is defined as 9:30 AM until 5 PM. He didn't fuss once. In fact, he's even got a bit of a cold and he was still happy the entire day. I am the luckiest mom in the world.

We went to Lansing in order to find ONE THING. I knew I'd be buying Jack some summer clothes too, but there was ONE THING I was specifically looking for: A Detroit Tigers shirt in his size. Not just any shirt . . . I have some qualifications for this shirt. First, in must be a t-shirt, not a onesie. Second, it must be 18 - 24 months (I'd even take a 2T if I had to). Third, I want it to be simple . . . blue with the white English "D" on the front or maybe just the "Tigers" moniker on it. The only one I've seen that I really like is one that says, "My first tigers t-shirt" but he had one like that last year . . . and I feel like it would be dishonest to get him another.

I looked all over Jackson on Friday, but I couldn't find anything. Now, if you would like to don your child in NASCAR apparel, that's another story. You can find tons of infant NASCAR apparel. This fact alone should give you a sort of mental picture of where I live.

We did find a Tigers' hat and decided to go with that. He won't keep it on, but he looks great holding it!

Now, I'm not usually a fan of props in my photos. But I couldn't get him to stand/sit still for more than .05 seconds without giving him something to play with/sit on. The bat that he's holding in some of the photos I took was a gift that Kyle got when he was the best man in a wedding almost 5 years ago.

You can see more pictures of Jack's 10th month here.

Dear Jack, Month 10

Dear Jack,

I am stunned at your capacity for showing love and compassion at only 10 months old. I didn’t realize until now that children your age were capable of demonstrating these qualities. I'm not sure why that's such a surprise to me . . . you've been created in God's image and you are able to reflect His qualities just like the rest of us. Your mild temperament and sweet disposition are such a blessing to me. I hold my breath every morning hoping that this day will not be the day that the tables turn and you become a little stinker! But morning after morning, you greet me with hugs and kisses and I'm reminded of how lucky I am. Don't get me wrong . . . you're not perfect. You have lots cranky days, too. It's just that the good days are so good that I don't really remember the bad days for very long.

The changes that we have seen in you this month have been staggering. Of course, walking has been the most poignant. You’ve taken 3 or 4 steps here or there, but on Friday you walked back and forth ACROSS THE ROOM several times in a row. It’s so funny that you know to be proud of yourself when you accomplish something like that. You applaud wildly when you walk and reach your destination without falling. You always give us this look that says, “THAT WAS AWESOME!” And you’re right. It is awesome.

The whole time, your dad was cheering you on and I was sitting quietly watching while I was trying to hold my tears back. My emotions caught me a little off guard, but I was so proud. I am so proud.

You’ve starting to play games and interact with us on a new level this month. You love playing peek-a-boo. You love trying to sneak up and tickle me. You love, LOVE, love wrestling with your dad and laugh out loud when he scares you. You love making other people laugh at you. You love clapping your hands and prefer that we do it along with you. If we do not, you make fake laughing noises until we join in on the fun. You wave at people by opening and closing your fist, but your hand is usually positioned so that it looks like you're waving at yourself. I, of course, think that this is adorable.

You love throwing your hands up in the air as if you were filled with the Holy Spirit whenever someone asks, "How big is Jack?" You love chasing Murphy. You’ll look for anything with buttons that you can push . . . remote controls, phones, the back-up power source to my computer, etc. You love cheerios. You love to point at things/people and have me tell you who/what they are. You’ve tried lots of new food this month and I’m not sure there’s anything you won’t eat, however, you’re not all that fond of formula.

You have two teeth on top that are slowly making their way to the surface. You also have a molar that's working it's way out too. Because of this, when you sit in one place too long, I usually find you sitting in a large puddle of drool. Murphy apparently thinks that I am shirking my responsibility as your mother when I'm not there to immediately catch the drool as it leaks from your lips. She is continually trying to lick your face and keep it clean. You think this is hilarious. I think it's gross.


You were baptized this month. In our church, the ceremonies for baptism and dedication are essentially the same thing and we made the choice to have you baptized. I’m writing a separate letter to you about why we made this decision and I’ll let you read it when you’re older. But for now, I want you to know that we are committed to teaching you God’s commandments and helping you to find personal faith in Jesus. There is no other part of parenting that we take more seriously than this.

I love you.
Mama

A day in the park

Jack was in the office with us on Thursday and he kept staring out Kyle's window. His window overlooks the "tot lot" playground. We decided Jack was trying to communicate his desire to go out and play, so we did just that!

You can see all of the pictures we took here.

Fact:

When you're pushing a stroller and you look down to see your baby standing up in the stroller staring back at you, it's time to start strapping him in. How on earth did he do that without me even noticing?!

Emma @ 6 months

My, how times flies. My niece Emma is 6 months old and it's hard to believe how fast the days have gone. Remember when she was new in the world?

I took some pictures of her on Wednesday. I really like the way they turned out with two exceptions. First, the ISO on my camera was set at 800. I have no idea why. I have never set the ISO to 800 in my life. I only checked it after the fact because I was surprised by the graininess of the photos. I wonder how long it's been that way without me noticing.

Second, I ordered some seamless paper to use as a backdrop and it was supposed to arrive on the day of the pictures. And it did, but not until late afternoon. So, I had to use a thin white backdrop that was in need of ironing.

Oh well, she's such a cute kid that there's very little that could detract from her pictures!

You can see them all here.

A note about my deals below . . .

Well, I’ve had quite the morning! I went into town to pick up a few things I needed and I was armed with my Excedrin coupons. I know that people have used them successfully at the Airport Road Meijer, but they were out of Excedrin. So on my way home, I hit the East Jackson Meijer.

When it was my turn to be rung up, the cashier looked at the coupons and said that he had to call a manager for approval and went on to announce (to me and all of the people standing behind me) that I was attempting to commit coupon fraud. Talk about humiliating. The manager came out and said that trying to get overage on a coupon is coupon fraud and he could press charges. I explained that this was brand new information to me (and I'm still not convinced that it's true) and asked if they could just give me the discount up to the amount of the sale price of the Excedrin. The manager begin inspecting my coupons. He then said that two of my coupons were “copied” (they had just been printed on my black and white printer at work) and continued to accuse me of “coupon fraud.” I showed him the watermark on the coupons and let him know that I had not, in fact, copied the coupons.

Meanwhile, Jack is sitting there crying and the people behind me are staring like they’re watching an episode of “COPS” play out in front of their eyes. I told him that I would just cancel my purchase and leave. He then said he’d give me the $.99 from each coupon toward the Excedrin (making them free with no overage). I have no idea what caused the sudden change of heart, but I suspect that he feared I might pursue this issue a little farther if I left empty handed (and he was probably right).

That said, I was so humiliated that I’ll make it a point to avoid that particular Meijer from now on.

I've e-mailed a few people who have blogs about coupon deals exclusively and write about coupons with overage all the time to see if they've had any experience with this.

Let me make myself perfectly clear: If using coupons like this is a "moral gray area" I want to have nothing to do with it. Honestly, the thought of this being something "dishonest" or "fraudulent" never crossed my mind until now. One concern concern that struck me on the way home is this: The cashier put those coupons in the drawer, without making any indication on them that only $.99 was given toward my purchase. When they send them in for reimbursement from the manufacturer, will they collect the full $2? If so, that seems like coupon fraud.

I've got a headache. Good thing I'm stocked up on Excedrin.

Why pay full price?

I've been trying to post the best of the best easy deals I get here. There are a lot of them and there are some great ones that require a lot of coupon clipping and several purchases, but I don't want to make grocery shopping stressful! I didn't get a chance to post any deals last week. I'm sorry about that because I got 6 bags of Dove caramel and almond chocolate for FREE and 6 bags of Chex mix for $2.40!

Here are A couple of deals for the week:

• 24 ct. Excederin is on sale at Meijer for $.94. Use the $2.00 coupon found here and get $1.06 back toward the rest of your purchase.
  
  
• Honey Bunches of Oats with chocolate clusters are regularly $2.28 at Walmart. Use this $2 coupon (you can print two fo them) to get them for $.28 each! These coupons are located several places on the Internet . . . the more you find, the more $.28 cereal you get!

I don't think anything will ever match the $2 Sharpies, but still not bad!

A little bit of this . . .

I'm sort of stuck between the stress that I feel because the upcoming summer and the total relaxation that I often fall into when I feel the warm temperatures. Therefore, my temperament tonight is mildly bipolar.

I'll bet you didn't know that two months from today, Jack will turn one year old AND we'll be in our first full day of staff training. The summer is coming so quickly and I feel way under prepared. Last year, I knew I would be delivering Jack right around staff training time, so I overcompensated and had everything ready for the summer by February! Here's what we were doing last year at this time. My added responsibilities at camp, coupled with the extra work of having a baby, have caused me to be WAY behind. Way, way, way behind. I would make you a list of everything that I'm behind in, but doing so might push my blood pressure into unsafe territory.

I was so grateful that Joy came down to visit on Monday and stayed through today. We totally took advantage of her and roped her into babysitting a little bit! She's so great with Jack! We really did have a good time. She lived with us two summers ago, so when she comes back it's not like she's a house guest. She just makes herself at home and we like having her here.

Kristen and Brett came over for lunch today. We pureed food for Emma in the morning while Kyle and Brett were helping with a baseball camp for elementary school kids. I took some 6-month photos of Emma, too.

The weather was beautiful today! It was a little chilly, but the sun was out so it seemed warmer. Several of our neighbors have been out all afternoon burning leaves. As a result, it smells like we have a campfire going in our living room. My eyes are burning!

As heard early this morning

Me: So . . . I'm pregnant.

Kyle: WHAT?!

(Pause)

Me: Happy April Fool's Day.