Decision 2009

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

I have to share something that happened this morning that I thought was kind of funny. When we woke up this morning, I went to open the window and I sort of gasped. This past week, all of our snow had (finally) melted, but this morning, there was a new coat of snow covering the ground. I lifted the shade for Hannah to see outside and she instantly started sobbing and said, "I don't want winter anymore!" She was totally serious and I couldn't agree more with her!!! We need our spring break soon! Thank goodness its only a few more weeks away!

So today, I took her to get her 3-year old pictures taken. We had been discussing this all week and I kept asking her to smile nice and just do what the lady asks and if she's good, she could have a treat. She had this big colorful lollipop she got yesterday from her party at daycare that was my blackmail. My first hurdle was getting her to agree to wear jeans. For whatever reason, she has become to hate wearing jeans. I think it's because I buy the adjustable waist kind to keep them up, and the buttons on the sides hurt her. Well, she cooperated very well with this. My next indecision was what to do with her hair. Her curls seem to have a mind of her own so I never know what I'm going to get if I try to do her hair down. She looks cute with two french braids, but you can't really see them for a picture. I was trying to avoid her very common "raggamuffin" look and decided to pull up just the front and leave her hair down. Thank goodness her curls cooperated today too! It looked OK so we went with it.

Tony stayed home because we were going to switch from Direct TV (which we HATE due to their HORRIBLE customer service - that's a story for another post) to another provider, so just Hannah and I went to get pictures. We went to Portrait Innovations today and I was figuring on her not having a great session so I'd just have to decide which one pose to get and buy their $10 package. We got there and they took us right in and she started with her finger in her mouth and whimpering saying "I don't want to". I reminded her about the lollipop and sort of sat with her to get her started and that's all she needed! She was like an old pro after that. Full of smiles, did whatever the lady asked her to do and was actually into the whole ordeal! That was great until it came time to choosing a pose.

Flat out, couldn't do it! I think the lady was starting to get a little annoyed and was trying to still sell me the $150 package. I love that they show you ALL the pictures they take and you can weed them out one by one. We got down to like 6 and I was stuck! I really wanted to just buy the $69 CD and print my own pictures from home, but to do that, you buy the special $10 package too so I was up to like $80 bucks and only one pose....I finally got down to 4 poses and she threw the CD in for free for me (so that will work if you try hard enough!!) I spent WAY more money than I had planned and got WAY too many pictures, but I guess it was worth it????? Of course Hannah is worth it. I guess too that I decided not to do pictures for her every 6 months anymore. Now that she's 3, I'll just do them once a year and at Christmas...and really, I may not even do Christmas anymore, we'll see....

So here are the poses I had printed there:

This one was the special package pose

And these were the others I picked and had printed:

I added a slide show at the top of the blog with all of the pics...now can you see why I had such a hard time? Of course there are a few that were easy to pass up, but it really was a very hard choice! And I had to try to decide alone, which is never good.

So anyway, if you want a million pictures, just let me know which ones and what size. I have lots of the ones they printed and I can print any of the others on my own printer or at a store.

Oh, and the 10x13 is available!!! Who ever uses that picture???

Oh, yeah, one more update...on our way home I expressed to her how proud I was of her and what a good girl she had been. We went right in for the lollipop that she was looking forward to. As I struggled to get the wrapping off of it, the lollipop fell off of the stick and came crashing down on to the kitchen floor - into A MILLION pieces!!! Hannah was devastated and I felt horrible!!! We salvaged about 3 pieces that were still worthy of eating and I promised her I'd go to the store to buy her another one....sure hope I can find one!!!

Menu Plan Monday

So I started this a while back and got Erin started too. It's been several months since I did my own post, so I thought I'd try starting again.

I have not stopped menu planning - that's like a way of life for me, I just haven't been posting our "fabulous" dinners! Plus, Tony made a "joking" comment about how I don't really cook "real" dinners....I'm hoping to see it from week to week and confirm that maybe I do throw in something not from a box from time to time!

So here goes:

Sunday: Brats on the grill with sauteed peppers & onions. We also had baked beans & cole slaw.

By the way, in case you've never made cole slaw, it's SO easy and yummy to use a bag of the preshredded cabbage & carrots and 1/2 jar of Marzetti's slaw dressing (in the frigerated salad dressing area with all the bagged salads). As you dress it at first, it'll look like you need more - you don't. 1/2 jar only per bag of slaw. Let is stand in the fridge for an hour or two and it will be nice and creamy.

Monday: Soup & Sandwiches. Hannah's gymnastics night, so we don't get home until almost 8, so this is a very typical dinner for Monday's. Tony was very generous to take Hannah tonight by himself so I could have some time to relax. WOW - that was awfully nice! Thanks Daddy!!

Tuesday: We're going out to dinner to Beef O'Brady's (family friendly sports bar). Kids eat free on Tuesday's and I have a $5.00 off coupon, so we should be able to eat out cheap!!!

Wedndsday: Spaghetti & meatballs- nothing fancy, just spaghetti & a jar of prego along with frozen meatballs! Oh, and maybe even some frozen garlic bread!!!

Thursday: Turkey meatball primavera. This is an easy meal also - and actually on the healthier side.

Friday: Pizza or whatever else sounds good

Saturday - Valentines Day out to eat - probably all 3 of us!

That's it! Not that exciting, but the grocery bill for the week (with all the other non-food stuff we needed) was only around $52.00!

The Three Year Old!

Last Friday, Hannah turned THREE!!!! She was so excited for her birthday! She wanted to wear her "party dress" that morning, so I agreed.

She went to daycare for the day and we took cupcakes for all the kids. They all made her a picture and they put the pictures together in a book for her. They sang and had cake and ice cream there for her.

Tony took half a day off and did the last minute running around for her party stuff. We picked Hannah up from daycare and took her to the party place - Bounce City. All her friends arrived and they all ran to play. The place did a great job for us and I'm so glad we did it there. They did all the set up, party stuff and clean up and there were like 10 built-in babysitters that I didn't have to pay!!! The kids had a blast! They all played really hard and ran all around. It was sort of hard rounding them all up for pizza and then again for cake and presents. We all left by around 8:45, so almost 3 hours of a party and some hard-core bouncing/running/playing was definitely tiring!!

Here are a couple pics before the party started.

This is the princess chair that was all for Hannah to sit in while she opened presents!

I didn't get too many "bouncing" pictures because you can't take a good picture through the nets and they go too fast down the slides for a digital camera to capture the picture! Here is one of Hannah before she went down the slide:

Here's one of the party:

Her Barbie cake:

Blowing out the candles:

Opening presents:


She got all sorts of great things - some items were Barbies, Dress up clothes, the rose petal cottage (don't know where to put that?), beads to make necklaces with, luggage and we got her the Leap Frog Click Start computer keyboard/mouse game system.

She had a great party and it was so much fun to watch her with her friends. They held hands, played together and just really enjoyed the evening. It was awesome to watch our baby becoming such a little girl!!!

We had a busy weekend. I cleaned Saturday morning and Tony went to some friend's house to play cards in the evening, so Hannah and I hung out together and had a great time. We went to dinner and then to the mall. She was so good this weekend! We had several discussions about the difference between how a 3-year-old and a baby behave, so she tried extra hard to be a big girl this weekend and didn't whine a lot and was very well behaved!!! I loved it and hoped we turned a corner.....just not sure how long before it comes to a dead end! I'll enjoy whatever time we do get and keep working on her!

Sunday, we headed down to my dad's to celebrate her birthday. We hung out for a while and then had lunch. Then Hannah had another cake and more presents! They got her a V-Smile game system. She will really enjoy playing that!!! Here are a few pics from that party:

Then my dad had worked to plow a path down a hill on his property for us to go sled riding. If we had only come a little more prepared with snow pants, it would have been an even bigger hit! The weather was mid-40's so it was so great to go out in. We had the set up too! My dad hooked the sled to the back of his tractor and pulled Hannah across the field. Then we went down the hill with her - it was awesome. The best part, Dad was waiting on the bottom with the tractor to pull her back up!!! It was like an instant ski lift!! So cool! We went down about 6 times and Hannah complained about being cold. It really wasn't that cold out, but what I discovered was her pants got wet, so her butt was like an icicle!!! If only we had brought her snow pants, we'd have been out there for probably an hour!

We had such a great birthday weekend! I'm so proud of our little three year old! She's such a smart, good "big" girl and I'm so very blessed to have her!

Oh, a few other cool things she does: She now knows her entire phone number. She can spell abd write all the kids names at daycare and mom and dad. She can count to 30 and her new favorite thing to do is ask what letter things begin with - she's SO into learning!!! I'm so amazed at what she knows already at three years old! It's very cool!

Update on the minivan: I'm starting to like it! We broke down and let Hannah watch a movie on the drive to my dad's. Cool feature for her, but it will still only be for long trips in the car - NOT just to the store!!!! It is very comfortable to ride in and the space for stuff is GREAT. I had to go to Toledo today for work and it was nice driving it. I'm getting into the cool features of the touch screen radio system. You can copy full CD's into memory so you don't have to put the CD in - it's kind of like an MP3 player - very cool! So, it's growing on me! Erin suggested getting vanity plates for it - I'm thinking "STILCOOL" is appropriate, but Tony has questioned when was I ever cool? He's so oblivious to reality!!!!