The pros and cons of spring

OK, so I'm totally excited for spring to be around the corner, but I'm realizing there are just about as many positive things as there are negative that spring brings.

#1: The Positive: The most obvious - the weather breaking! Warmer temps are on the way!! And Snow will be gone for about 6 months!! That's all very, very good stuff! I can't wait to feel the warm sun and be able to do stuff outside. This weekend, Hannah got to go outside to ride her new bike for a little bit. She's doing pretty good with it, only fell over twice. She needs to get the hang of steering and watching where she's going. Both time she fell, she was busy watching other stuff and went off the sidewalk.
The Negative: Rain - lots of rain! As much as I'm excited that it's not snow falling from the sky, the rain is such a drag! It's such a pain to go out in it and get soaked! I got drenched Sunday out getting groceries. You can't even bother with an umbrella becuase that creates way more of a hassle than just dealing with getting wet. I hate how groceries get all wet getting them into the car and then the inside of the car smells wet - yuck! And wet sqeaky shoes - I hate that sound!

#2: The Positive: The longer days - Daylight Savings Time. I love that it's light out until so much later. It makes the day feel so much more productive and you seem to have a couple of extra hours added to the same 24-hour day! So cool.
The Negative: Switching to Daylight Savings Time. I hate losing an hour of sleep!!! It seems to be harder to adjust to because you're just not tired at 10:00 pm yet and getting up at 6:30 am is hard because you know it really is 5:30am (at least it used to be). So this is the first time I totally forgot to switch the clocks!!! We got up on Sunday around 8-8:30 and were just doing our thing. Tony ran to get a paper and came home to say it really was 9:30!!! I was so mad that I lost an hour of my day without even trying!!! I can't believe I forgot to switch the clocks!!!

#3: The Positive: I saw the beginning of my spring flowers popping through the ground yesterday!!! I was so thrilled to see a little bit of green coming through the mulch from my daffodils! I think the moles or rabbits (or whoever ruins my stuff outside) have pretty much eaten all of my tulips, but I think I have plenty of daffodils and crocus's left. It's so fun to see that sign of spring!
The Negative: Bugs - I don't normally mind bugs OUTSIDE, but I do NOT like them in the house! I have come to learn to deal with those little brown spiders. I can even kill them myself now - with a shoe or something. But I draw the line with those creepy-crawly cenipedes things!!! Tony found one on the steps the other day. Then last night, Hannah and I were standing in the kitchen and I saw one come booking out from under the stove. I tried shoving her away so she couldn't see it, but she saw it and TOTALLY FREAKED!!!!! I had just given her a marshmallow bunny for snack and she saw the bug, screamed and took off running, dropping her marshmallow bunny on the floor. She screamed and was crying and ran upstairs to Tony and was seriously shaking and freaking out!!! I managed to grab a paper towel to step on it, but Tony had to finish it off. Those things have no business being in my house!!! I can't help but feel lke the house is dirty, when I know it really isn't. Last year we had black ants kinda bad for a while. Wonder if they'll be back or not. Bugs- GO AWAY! or at least, stay outside!

#4: The Positive: Wearing different clothes! I have no problem saying goodbye to sweaters, sweatshirts and winter coats! I love goinng out in much lighter wear so much better! It's so much more comfortable than having to get all bundled up!
The Negative: These last 5-10 pounds to lose! I can't understand why I have such a hard time dropping these last few pounds. I'm actually right around what I weighed before I got pregnant, and I'm in a size smaller, but I feel fatter! So these lighter clothes require a slimmer look since you don't have the bulk to cover up that tummy roll....guess I have to actually move my body again to tone back up....maybe I can achieve that when the weather warms up and we can go outside.

#5: The Positive: Vacation! I can't wait for vacation! It's such a great way to kick-start spring adn I love going and relaxing. I love the beach and the ocean - there's no better place to be! I love counting down the days until we go....only one more Monday of work left!!! And one more Friday for me too!
The Negative: Packing, driving and unpacking from vacation....those parts are no fun! But really, I'd take those pain points all the time if it meant I can fit in one week of relaxation and the beach! So really, there's not that much negative to say about vacation, unless we have really crappy weather - that wouldn't make me very happy!

That's it on the spring stuff.

In other news, Roman went to the doctor Saturday. She said he's pretty full of arthritis and could tell he's having a lot of trouble getting around. She saw a little bit of infection in his mouth which could have been part of the reason he's not eating much -I tend to think it's because he had to move to eat. But anyway, she gave him an antibiotic and a pain pill and I got some joint supplements for him to take. He is really doing much, much better already. He gets up on his own now and does it more freely and without a huge struggle. He's been eating twice a day the past couple days. I think this made him more comfortable for sure. I'm not sure how much longer we have with him, but at least while he is still here, he's not miserable!

Hannah went to the doctor Saturday too. She's had this cold for over 3 weeks, so I thought I'd better run her in. I did think that it was actually a second cold with different symptoms, but since this one had a nasty cough, I figured I'd better have it checked out. We haven't been to the doctor since her 2 year old checkup (except for that weird thing with her eyes that she did last summer) so it's not like I run her in for every little sniffle! Anyway, she's fine - just another cold. She's 31 pound and did really well this time- no crying! We go for her 3-year old check up the end of April. I scheduled that in January! Kinda crazy they were so booked up that it took over 3 months to get an appt! OH, well!

Right now I'm sitting at the hospital waiting room while Tony is having a stomach scope. He's been complainng about a pain in his side forever now, so I'm hoping they find out what's wrong. I hope it is something for his sake and mine! I know he's tired of hearing me tell him that it's what he eats! And I'm tired of hearing him complain that he never feels good. Also, if they don't find something today, then he gets the joy of having a colonoscopy! So let's just hope they find something today!

Ok, sorry for the lack of pictures again. I know posts are more fun with pictures. But I have to admit, I've hardly picked up my camera lately. I even remembered that I forgot to take Hannah's picture at the end of the month -which I do every month and I have every picture posted on my bulletin board at work....guess I'd better get that done this weekend!

Not much blog-worthy

Or just not enough time to sit in front of the computer at home to actually tell all of my "oh-so interested" blog readers what's going on with us.

So it's been over 2 weeks since my last post - oops!!

Hannah had a cold the past two weeks. She's still just getting over it with a bit of a runny nose left. I feel like I'm getting a bit of a scratchy throat today, but I used Zicam tonight - swear by the stuff! So I expect not to really get too much of a cold, if one at all since I took it early.

We had our last poker tournament last weekend. I've done so terrible this year. I can't figure out exactly what I'm doing different, but whatever it is, I need to stop!!! I just cannot catch any decent cards to play. Oh, well. We still have our final tournament in which the top 9 players are in and then there's a 10th spot that is filled from the play-in tournament earlier that day. If we get a sitter, we'll both play in the play-in, but if I don't play, no big deal. Since the final tournament is a winner take all, my theory of winning twice in one day is pretty unlikely, so to win the 10th spot is good, but how can that 10th person be the winner at the end too?? I'd love to be the first to do it, so heck, maybe I will just go for it!

Work is going pretty good. I'm finally getting to a point that I'm unloading stuff off my plate on to my admin staff. I'm a terrible delagator - need to always do all things myself - so this is a challenge for me, but I'm working on it and it does feel good to have time to focus on other stuff. I am SO SO ready for vacation though. I even did a really big thing and requested two additional days off - the Friday we leave and the Monday after we go home, so for me to take SEVEN work days off - miracle!!! I'm sure I'll be checking in throughout vacation week and the Monday after, but I am taking a big break!!!

I pretty much have vacation all over the brain. I've already started making lists of stuff to take. I've started packing Hannah's bag. This weekend and next week, I'm going to start getting stuff ready. I've got all day the Friday we leave to prepare our stuff and get the car packed. We'll be ready to roll by 6:15!!!

We're a little worried about Roman. He's not doing too good lately. His hip or back leg really bothers him, so he doesn't move much. He eats usually only once a day - sometimes not at all. He only goes outside to go potty 2-3 times a day. I feel bad for him because I don't want him to be sad or in pain, but he's a sweet dog and is pretty normal, just not real motivated. We plan to take him to the vet this weekend to see what she thinks. We don't want to have to make a hard decision, but we also don't want to keep him for selfish reasons.

Hannah is on this huge Mommy kick. She is all things mommy. She sort of cries every morning when we leave and she wants only me to give her a bath and put her to bed. I like it on one hand, but then sometimes it makes me feel a little too needed - which, don't get me wrong, is fine, but it's a little tiring too. She's such a home body too....she always just wants to stay home - except for gymnastics night. She loves going to gymnastics!!! She does a really good job too. I can see her progressing each week and getting even more coordinated. This week, she finally was able to hop on her left leg! Up to now, she could only hop on the right. I'm glad we have her in the program - it's really good for her.

And lastly, I have to say, the whole Bachelor season was ridiculous!!! I totally watched it every week. Not really sure why, because I lost interest in that sort of show a couple years ago, but I guess since nothing else is on Monday's, I watched. For the record, I'm not wrapped up in the "feelings" that the people seemingly have - it is pretty much still just a soap opera with real people. But I have to say, Jason is a wacko!!! I thought he seemed like a good guy that just had a run of bad luck, but after last night, it's clear that HE is the issue! I wish we knew how scripted the "after the final rose" show was. And Molly is sort of an idiot for going back to a guy that dumped her - especially after watching how the whole thing played out. Oh, well, they all got their 15 minutes of fame...good for them! Maybe they'll be happy for real - who knows?

So I guess so much for not having anything blog-worthy to say....looks like I said a lot! Sorry for the lack of pictures. I'm doing this on my laptop and my camera and pictures aren't on this computer. I'll get some posted later in the week or the weekend - or at least I'll try!!!

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!!!!