Fishing on a Rainy Day

What to do on a rainy, dreary, cold, wet Monday morning? Why, go fishing, of course! Courtney woke up feeling quite crafty and wanted to make a fish to go fishing with. It's a wonder what 2 pieces of tissue paper, some markers and stickers, plastic grocery sacks, and a bit of elmers glue can do! Literally hours of entertainment :)

Here she is standing on land with the fish in the water.

Reeling in her catch:

I offered to cook it up and serve it for lunch, but she insisted on naming it "Swirly Fish" and keeping it as a pet. Just as well, I can't imagine it would provide for a very tasty/filling lunch.

A Stroll Through December

We wrote to Santa, and guess what? His elves wrote us back!!

They even sent Courtney a free donut card :)

And since it's too cold to go outside, Courtney has taken up architecture. 

 My Snug As A Bug ChubbaChunkers all nice n' cozy



One night Jeremy brought home a gingerbread house village kit.  It took us literally a week to finish these little suckers!

I have come to accept the fact that my head will always look infinitely large compared to Courtney's when pressed up together. And yet we still take these pictures.




Are 90 pictures of these houses really neccessary, you may ask? The answer: Absolutely yes!  Had they only taken a day or so to do, then maybe not so much.  But that was a lot of work and I want credit for it!

And because the camera was out, of course Courtney insisted on my taking 112 pictures of HER. 

Only 3 more days til Christmas!

May Funnies

Me- "Hey Courtney, what's Daddy going to make us for dinner?"
Courtney- "He's going to make you make dinner!"

Courtney- "Mom, you're really pretty!"
Me- "Thank you! Am I skinny, too?"
Courtney- "Well...not really.... but you're still pretty!"

(Courtney loudly chewing her gum)
Me- "How's that gum?"
Courtney- "Yummy."
Me- "You sure make it sound yummy."
Courtney- "Yep, I'm practicing to be a cow."

(Oma trying to get a goodbye hug from Courtney. Starts pretend crying.)
Courtney- "Okay, okay, stop." (gives her a hug)

(Me trying to get a good morning snuggle, trying Oma's new trick. Pretend crying)
Courtney- "Oh whatever, that's fake!"

(Courtney dips her spoon in chocolate pudding, pulls it out)
Courtney- "Hey look! It's like a bear pooped on my spoon!"

(Courtney getting very upset that I wasn't putting on her favorite cartoon)
Courtney- "Mom! Get me Max and Ruby! ONE....TWO...."
me- (laughing!) "Are you really giving me the countdown warning?!"
Courtney- (dead serious) "YES!"

Courtney- "Patty cake, patty cake, bakers man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can. Pat it, and roll it, and decoration it, and put ribbons on it and cherries on it and frosting it, and mark it with a C and toss it in the oven for Courtney and me!"

Courtney- "Mom, you're cute and pretty."
Me- "Thank you! Am I skinny, too?"
Courtney- (awkwardly avoiding eye contact) "Um... you're really pretty..."

Poor Jeremy

Jeremy was told to come in to Madison Memorial hospital at 8:00 this morning, so here we are, bright and early. He's just chillin in this picture, waiting for things to get goin'.

Doesn't he look excited to be here?

He wanted to tie bright orange hunter's flagging tape around his left leg just to make sure they did the right knee... but they marked it with a sharpie and got initials. I guess that works as well. Not as fun, but just as effective.

What do you know? Another bed Jeremy doesn't fit in. Shocker.

Pre-surgery pics stopped here, because this is when I got put in a hospital bed myself. True story. The nurse came in to do Jeremy's IV, which is my cue to get the heck out of there before I puke, but just standing out in the hall, with the bright hospital lights, my pregnant-ness, and hearing them talk about blood flow and veins and needles and such... I was 2 seconds from hitting the floor. Thankfully a nurse was in the hall and caught me and got me to a bed. She said I was white as could be and my eyes were in the back of my head. I felt like such a loser.

Anyway, back to Jeremy. They wheeled him away for about 2-ish hours, and he came back looking like this. I thought he was asleep, and since I was trying to not be obnoxious with pictures I thought this would be a good time to sneak one in. As soon as the camera was about to go off, out came his 'thumbs up'. He was more alert than he looks!

He was so darn sweet afterwards, holding my hand the whole time, asking me how I was feeling, asking if I had gotten enough to eat (after I ate half his lunch!) and just being so concerned about how I was doing. Aww :) You would think I was the one who just underwent surgery.

Another thing that doesn't fit Jeremy. Walkers for normal size people. No worries, even all drugged up, he figured out how to make it taller :) ... in the bathroom of all places.

Ta-Da!

If you've noticed that there is a very small short little person missing from these pictures, you're absolutely right. Courtney was so lucky to get to have a slumber party with Jazzy at Oma's! (She would NOT have done well in a little recovery room for 9 hours!)

From what I hear, those two little girls kept Oma on her feet. Running around til 10:30 pm and giggling and chatting bright and early at 6:30. Thank You Oma!! This is Courtney about 3 minutes after we left Oma's house. Zonked out dead for the entire car ride home.

And now for recovery. Not to sound pessimistic, but from the sounds of it...recovery is gonna suck. A lot. Good thing Jeremy has a good little wifey to nurse him back to health! (when I say 'little' we all know I mean 'huge waddling slow poke', but hey, I can get the job done!)

"That Phase"

We have officially entered "That Phase". You know, the one where as a good mother, you spend time picking out a darling little outfit for your toddler to wear, one that she will look so darn cute in. And then she comes in, gives your thoughtful outfit a smirk and says, "Here, I'll do it." She pulls her chair over to her closet and begins sorting through to find the oddest little outfit you can possibly manage to put together, and puts it on, beaming with pride.

And this is the outfit she insists on wearing all day, especially if it happens to be a day where we need to actually go out in public.

We've also hit that "I want my hair down, don't brush it!" phase. So not only does my little girl look like a zebra today, (from head to toe, dress up shoes included!) She's also sporting the Orphan Hairdo and crazed crack-face expression.

Ladies and Gentleman: My daughter. Whom I claim proudly :)


(p.s. Yesterday she looked like a walking easter egg.)

Alex's Room...Minus the actual Room

Tonight I made my first purchase for Baby Alex! I found this stinkin' cute nursery set on craigslist and had to snatch it up before anyone else did. I googled it and found the exact same set to sell for over $200 in stores. I got this for quite a steal!

Everything is textured; suede, corduroy, fuzzy, soft, embroidered, etc.

comforter:

Dust Ruffle:

Picture frame and crib sheet:

Bumper:

Window Valance:

Set of 5 wall hangings:

(Courtney couldn't fathom the thought of the camera being out and her not being the main focus, so she managed to weasel her way into a few of the pictures!)

Hanging Diaper Holder:

Dark green trash can and 4 beanie jungle animals:

Lamp:

The great part, price-wise, it's as if I bought the lamp and the picture frame at full in-store price and got everything else free! Great deal if you ask me :)


Now I'm wishing I actually had a room to set all this up in! The house we're moving into the end of June/first of July is in the midst of being remodeled so I have to wait until at least then before I can put all this together. Big plans for Courtney's new room, too... (hint: Jeremy will be painting a large castle/dragon holding a princess mural on one of the walls!)

Summer's Here!

It's finally summer weather. I would say spring, but I think spring got skipped over and we got thrust straight into 120 degree summer heat. Feels that way, at least! Every day we have a picnic outside on our new picnic table that Oma made for Courtney (For Christmas...we just BARELY brought it home!) Thanks Oma!!

And then we have to play in the water to cool down. Thank goodness for our spinny dora sprinkler, Courtney loves it!

A wet little girl covered in peanut butter and jelly.

I'm not kidding when I say 'hot', check me out after not even an hour of being outside.

We need to dig the kiddie swimming pool out of the storage unit, because Dora only cools you off so much, we need some serious water!

Think this Girl loves her Puppies?

Today is a rainy, dreary, gloomy kind of day. We've had a quite a few of these lately, and trying to keep a rambunctious 3 year old happy indoors all day is getting challenging! So today we put our jackets on and went to the D.I. Yep, the D.I. because honestly the D.I. is better than any store in finding treasures you won't find anywhere else for like... 75 cents. It's like a treasure hunt to find 'the toy' she will absolutely fall in love with and refuse to part with. Which just happened to be two little puppies she named "Easter" and "Soft". When we got home I realized, "Wow... you have a lot of puppies!" So she dug them all out of her stuffed animal pile and counted them up. 11 puppies. And then she wanted to take a picture.


On any given day you will find at least one of these puppies with a tie or ribbon wrapped around it's belly being drug all over the house. Or you'll find the small ones stuffed in the oddest places, or the larger ones dressed up in her princess dress-up dresses. I can't wait for this summer when we get moved to our other house and she has other little kids to play with so these poor puppies can have a break!