Through the years

I love when people post birthday pictures of their kids through the years. It's fun to see how much they have grown. I have never done so because my photos have never been all in one place where I can access them.

I spend the last two days rearranging our digital photos onto the external hard drive. I organized everything by year then into seasons or events. Now I can finally, quickly find a picture of BG when she was born. Oh look! There's one from the hospital.

Or maybe one when she's a little older - 6 months and just learned how to sit up on her own. Bammo! Christmas pictures.

1st birthday? It was a big to-do complete with burnt fingers and her confused by cake.

By 2 she had the party and cake thing down. She was loving being the center of attention, the camera, and all things sugary.

At three she felt so grown up. I had a hard time believing my pudgy baby was gone.

Here we are at four I am still in shock that she has grown up so much. She is turning into a little lady! My how the time flies.
Being able to find my pictures is also nice when people ask me, does Blanche look like BG did? Since I (obviously) don't remember, I can pull up a picture of Blanche and compare it to BG's from the same(ish) age. Nope, they really don't look the same, unless you just mean the cheeks. Those match.

Blanche (top) & BG (bottom) - four months old

BGs 2nd party

Like I said in my earlier post, we had two parties for BG. The second was a family party which includes a BBQ. There were plenty of presents and BG loved posing for the many cameras.

I made this tutu for BG and she loved it. She also got a leotard with attached skirt for her dance class.

Since summer finally arrived, we bought an inflatable for BG. She was really excited about it. She also got goggles to go with it.


In keeping with the pink theme, we had strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting. It was pretty tasty. I was mostly proud of myself for baking a cake and frosting from scratch.

Happy birthday BG! We love you!

It Made My Day

Yesterday I picked up my dry cleaning, paid for it, and took it to my car. I didn't think much of it until something caught my eye as I was putting the clothes in the trunk. I picked up the top bag the contained one item.

Upon further inspection, I discovered that one item was a sock. A single sock. That got dry cleaned. Who dry cleans their socks? Who only does one? I laughed all the way home.

* We did not intentionally send a single sock to the cleaners. It got mixed in with the wrong basket. I can only imagine what the cleaners thought when they saw it! For those who are curious, it costs $.50 to dry clean a single sock.

Party Time!

BG's birthday is on Tuesday. We celebrated on Saturday, and now she thinks she's 4. (I figure it's a minor technicality so I don't correct her.) It's hard to believe that only four years ago she was a tiny little thing in my arms. JM and I left the hospital feeling surreal and almost didn't believe they would let us take home a newborn.

Here we are (nearly) four years later with a grown up little girl. No longer a baby and not even a toddler. She is assertive, sweet, loud, and a joy to be around. This year was the first year we had a friend party and it was a lot of fun. We invited 8 kids but only 3 were able to come. It turned out to be a good number for a 1st friend party (for me and her!).

She wanted her hair curly for her party so we put it it rollers the night before. I always have to take pictures since it has fallen out by the end of the day or more often, after nap.

We had a Pinkalicious party and it was lots of fun. First, we decorated crowns while until all the party guests arrived.

Then we read the book Pinkalicious to get everyone excited about pink. After, we went outside to decorate pink cupcakes. Everyone got a pink apron with a cupcake on it. We ate our pink cupcakes with pink sorbet.
After cupcakes and ice cream, we opened presents. This was a favorite part for BG (obviously). All in all, it was a really fun party.
After all our party guest left, we cleaned up, and had lunch. Then I send BG to her room for a nap, so I could get ready for the second party of the day - the family BBQ party.

Capitol Punishment

I woke up this morning thinking about Ronnie Lee Gardner, a man I didn't know existed until about a week ago. He was executed shortly after midnight for a murder he committed over 25 years ago in Utah.

For some reason, this news story has had an impact on me. It might be the documentary I heard this week on NPR about the life of an executioner. It talked to prison officials, guards, and clergy who have been involved in executions in Texas. It brought a very personal element to the practice of capitol punishment. It made me look at this issue from their perspective - talking to the condemned, walking with them, praying with them. It gave a glimpse into the life of the condemned in their last days as they face their own mortality.

This week I have spent time reflecting on my feelings about capitol punishment. Truly, I'm ambivalent. I believe in justice, accountability, and owning up to your choices. I also believe in mercy, that people who desire, can change. I believe in second chances.

But do those who have committed the most horrendous of crimes deserve mercy? Do those who take another life deserve anything other than swift justice? I believe that God should be the only one to take life. Sadly, some use their agency to make that decision for God. In those cases, it is just to say "An eye for an eye!" or should we leave that choice & judgement in the hands of God? I'm just not sure.

Gardner was executed by firing squad, which I think is kind of barbaric. I think lethal injection is the more humane way, but that could just be my personal aversion to guns. I suppose that I think the ending of a life should be a solemn (IE quiet) event. A loud gun shot contradicts that notion. Apparently he was given options for how he wanted to be executed, and he choose by firing squad.

Are you ever considered the psychological toll it must be for those marksmen? I hope our system offers them counseling or some other means to cope. What are your thoughts? Is this a cut and dry issue to you or are you, like me, ambivalent?

Tasty Toes and more

Blanche likes to eat her own toes. It's adorable. She thinks they are especially delicious during diaper changes. Sometimes I have to pinch the back of her thighs to get her to put her feet down to secure a new diaper.

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BG talks to Blanche like I do, but it's so funny coming out of her mouth. She will get right up close to her and say "Hey there cutie little miss!" in a high pitched voice. Blanche loves it and will smile a gummy grin.

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Blanche has a unilateral mullet. Meaning, she has one really long lock of hair in the back. But it's not centered, it's off the the left side. The perfectionist in me wants to cut it and even it out, but the mommy thinks it's cute and doesn't.

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I'm not a reader. If I don't finish a book within a week, it's not going to happen. Case in point, I started reading Valley Boy several months ago. Tom Perkins reminds me of my husband. I have yet to finish it. Then I won a copy of When Did I Get Like This?. I started reading it and really enjoyed it. It is funny and a true reflection of motherhood. That was several weeks ago and I have yet to finish it. Both these books are sitting on the sidetable but my interest has waned.

Anatomy Lesson

While I was cleaning my bathrooms this weekend, I got to thinking about anatomy. It reminded me of a question a fellow blogger asked recently "Why can't the male species aim?"

I must preface this by saying, JM is a very clean guy. I don't have much to complain about and he does have good aim. But I remember growing up when I shared a bathroom with my older brother & sister. It was nasty. My sister and I would fight over who had to clean the toilet because neither of us wanted to do it. We usually made my brother clean it, under the logic that he was the one with the bad aim making it dirty in the first place. (He has since grown up and I hope for his wife's sake, learned to aim. We haven't shared a bathroom since he was 14.)

All this got me thinking, would this be an issue if our anatomy were reversed? While (most) women tend to be more clean than men, if we were the ones taking aim, would our bathrooms be cleaner? Or is the fun of holding a hose that creates the problem, no matter whose hands its in?

Deep thoughts.

Things Worth Remembering

As a parent, I like to think I will remember all the sweet moments that happen with my children. Sadly, as the days quickly march forward, my memory fades. Unless I make the time to write them down, I fear they will be gone before I know it. Here are a few of those moments I want to remember about Blanche.

1. She is getting really good at rolling. She loves to roll from her back to her tummy. She often gets stuck on her belly, with her arms and legs flailing. Then she spits up on the carpet.
2. When I undress Blanche for the night, I use my right arm to hold her head while I pull her onsie off. She will grab my arm and hold it with my hand under her head and gaze and me. It's a personal little snuggle every night.
3. Blanche thinks it's hilarious when BG dances. BG will jump and down and Blanche will laugh and laugh.
4. After I feed Blanche for the last time at night and wrap her up, she will often gaze up at me with her big blue eyes looking so content. Her fat, fleshy cheeks are irresistible and I have to kiss on them.

Bowling

We went bowling as a family a few months ago and I just found the pictures when I was cleaning out my photo card. BG had a great time. I have a bowling app on my iPod that she loves playing. She is surprisingly good at the app version of bowling. She was so excited to go bowling for real.

Picking up her ball all by herself.

A high five from dad after a frame.

Concentrating hard on the frame.

Mom helping with a frame.

Nightstand Make-over

When we did the great room switch last fall, I had a vision in mind for BG's room. I painted her toddler bed and we bought a dresser. We painted her room and it was looking good. I wanted to get a nightstand table to go next to her bed. I found this one at DI and decided to buy it to paint.



I sanded it and got it primed. Then it sat all winter. Sometimes it takes me a while to get around to finishing projects. I finally got it painted on Memorial Day. This weekend I went to Home Depot to get a knob for the drawer. I got it all put together and up in BG's room.

Ta Da!! I took apart fake flowers to make the petals on the knob. We added them to her dresser also. I like the way it turned out. It's not a super high quality nightstand, but I figure that's ok for kid furniture. This piece of furniture is a good step in the right direction of getting all the toys off the floor.

Dress Up

Over the weekend, I left BG to play while I took a shower. She is usually good to play on her own long enough for me to shower and get ready. On this particular morning she did not play well on her own. I got out of the shower and found this.

Does this remind anyone else of a scary circus clown? No? Just me then.

Anyway, my first reaction was to freak out and punish her. Something in my head told me to stop and take a picture before I cleaned her up. So we took some pictures, cleaned her up, then she spent a long time on time out. It did kind of make me laugh. I knew it was only a matter of time before she got into my make up. I guess this was the day.

The Garden

We planted our garden a few weeks ago. I am so excited to have fresh veggies from the garden. This year, we also put in a garden box since our soil is pretty much solid clay. We built it up and filled it with fresh soil. Our garden went from this...


To this!

Ok, so you really can't see any difference (except for my one tomato plant). But I'm hoping a few months from now it will be bursting with corn, carrots, squash, and beans. I anxiously check for new little sprouts on a regular basis.