Busy Busy Busy Busy Busy Busy......

So Busy!!!

I can finally take a deep breath and relax.

Old baby turned three years old on Saturday. We had such a good time.

Thursday night, I stayed up late and baked mini cakes for his daycare. It was so enjoyable to think I was baking birthday cakes for my little boy!

I took a half day off work on Friday, and we cleaned up the house and did the last of the grocery shopping. I baked old baby's birthday cake on Friday night; Devil's Food Chocolate. Yum!

I got up early Saturday morning, and after singing "Happy Birthday" to the little guy, I picked up some ice at the gas station, and some breakfast from McDonald's. I am in love with McGriddles. OMG. How do they bake maple syrup into the pancake?? So good! I also picked up some coffee for daddy, who was having a wee bit of trouble waking up!

We shared breakfast, and set about with the last chores before the party. Luckily, we had done everything but some cooking on Friday. I made chili, and some puff pastry appetizers. I decorated the boy's birthday cake with him looking over my shoulder the whole time. He never left more then three inches of space between his nose and the birthday cake for almost three hours!

We had a house full of guests, and the food was delicious. A good time was had by all! I love the gifts that old baby received. I think I am more of a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine than he is. I want to take all is train sets out after he goes to bed and play with them. I play with them while he is awake, but he never lets me call the shots!

He and I ended the day by falling asleep on the big bed, watching the "Spongebob Squarepants" movie. Dad woke us up at 9:00 and put the birthday boy to bed.

Sunday was spent doing the very last of the handwashing, and pulling out the couch bed to watch "Mystery Science Theater 3000". It was fun until new baby tried to jump off the edge one too many times. Oh, and he puked all over Daddy's blanket. That was the final straw!

My husband mentioned that he thought we were getting better at this. I tend to agree!!

I have been busy this week! My payroll duties ar eonly part time, and my boss has occasionally given me projects to make me full time. This last project he gave me I have been working on solid for the past three weeks. I even brought some work home with me last weekend which I never do. I do see an end at the tunnel though. Assuming all goes well, I should be caught up by tomorrow.

Just in time to change all of the CA child support deductions to a central State payee. I never received an official notice from the SDU for the changeover - luckily the payroll service we use has kept me informed. I have roughly 33 employees who pay child support in CA, and I am thinking I will make copies of all of their orders to send with the checks. I am so nervous about the case #'s being wrong and the money not being distributed like it's suppsed to. Silly me for not having very much faith in the SDU!

Oh Excel spreadsheets, how I love thee.

However, when you screw up, you screw up big.

Of course, my calculator is now happy after years of neglect!

Old baby is going to be 3 years old on the 26th. I can't wait for the birthday party, decorating the house, baking a special cake. It's going to be so much fun! Especially now that he's starting to understand the whole concept of "birthdays" and "presents".

I have had fun too looking up kid's toys. I am glad to see that some of the toys I loved as a kid are still popular........







I love the detail - even a vase with flowers! Isn't it too cute!

Mustardayonnaise

We have been watching "Mr. Show" the last couple of evenings, and therefore my sides hurt from the laughing!

I had forgotten what a crush I have on Jay Johnston, and decided to go all 13 year old girl and look him up on the internet.

I am intrigued by this movie he and several others from "Mr. Show" are in called "Nerd Hunter 3004". I looked it up on Netflix, but came up empty handed.

Apparently, they live in the future where nerds are illegal. I'm thinking something along the lines of "Hell Comes to Frogtown" and "Cherry 2000".

Has anyone seen this movie?

I love my husband. I don't think I tell everyone often enough. Hopefully, I tell him often enough!

I have been thinking about us a lot lately. This December, we will have been together for 9 years.

9 years is the longest I've been with anybody I'm not actually related to by blood. Except Aimee, but that's different. She doesn't have sex with me.

9 years of sharing the same bed. Looking over at him asleep on his pillow. Getting to know him in those first years, and just knowing deep in my heart that he was going to be a wonderful husband, and an amazing father.

I wanted to marry him very much, but tried so hard not to be pushy about it. I knew it would all happen when it was supposed to. One night, we were up talking, and I ended up going upstairs and bringing down two rings. One was my grandmother's original wedding band with 2 diamond chips in it, and the other was a teardrop shaped diamond my grandmother wore every day. When grandma passed away, my Dad, my two sisters and I sat around the table and went through the jewelry, taking turns one after the other, taking those things that reminded us so much of her. The diamonds waited until the very end. I wanted them, but I wanted to make sure my sisters didn't want them first. My father asked that the diamonds stay in the family. He didn't care about the rest of the jewelry, but those meant so much to him. They were a wonderful symbol of the marriage my grandparents shared for over 50 years.

I had mentioned the rings to him before, that they were right there in my jewelry box if he wanted them. I thought if I had my own wedding band made using the diamonds, that would be the perfect way for them to stay in the family. Plus, I believed that the love my grandparents felt for each other was a tangible thing, and had somehow left a mark on these diamonds.

I wasn't sure if he felt comfortable going through my jewelry box, so I brought them directly to him. No pressure, right? I told him if ever there was a time, if he thought he would like to get married, I would love nothing more than a ring made with these jewels.

As I learned quite some time later, he took those rings to the jeweler the very next day. He designed the setting himself, and had even brought another ring of mine so it would be the correct size.

On our 4th anniversary, we went out to dinner, had a few drinks at the bar, then came home and proceeded to get rather drunk! Very late that evening, I was sitting on the couch, he came over and pulled a small velvet box out of his pocket. He got down on one knee, opened the box, and asked me to marry him. I don't even think I made a coherent reply as I started weeping with joy!

I was so startled at how beautiful the ring was, with it's tear shaped diamond and small diamond chips. The brightness of the facets was almost hypnotic. I didn't realize before how dingy and dirty they were. It all seemed so perfect, so right.

I still gaze at the ring, and the kids are fascinated with it.

Coming up on 9 years together, I didn't think it was possible to love him more. But that's exactly what has happened. I love him more every day. My chest swells with love for him, and the family we have created. He is the best.

New baby is 8 months old! He is getting so big. I am trying to appreciate his little babyness while I have it - but it seems to go by so fast!

My husband called me at work on Monday to let me know the baby had started crawling. "It's not pretty" he says, and he's right!! His front half has no idea what the back half is up to! Old baby did this whole inch-worm thing for quite a while before he started crawling on his hands and knees. Not new baby. He is headed straight for crawling on all fours. He is starting to expolore areas of the house beyond the living room as well. Not much to explore, but he seems excited by it!

He doesn't have another check up until he is 9 months old. I am anxious to see how much he weighs these days. He is still a poster child for babies, a very mellow, happy little guy!

My husband and I went on a date Saturday night. It was great! My parents picked up the kids at 4:00, and we were able to veg out for a couple of hours before dinner. We had a gift certificate for a free dinner for two at Piccolino's in Napa, given to me by my friend Maria. It included appetizers, salad, entree, dessert and a bottle of wine. We had fried calamari, I had the potato leek soup, my husband had a chicken ceaser salad, and for the entree I had angel hair pasta with tomatoes and prawns. My husband's meal was just so so. Unfortuantely the pesto sauce was as thin as water. We enjoyed a bottle of "mystery" cabernet, and I had an apple pie type dessert with a scoop of vanilla gelato on top.

I can't remember the last time we actually went out to dinner on our own. It is increasingly difficult as we are tightening the belt money-wise around here. I made sure to tell Maria how grateful I was for the gift certificate. She is such a sweetheart!

The kids stayed the night at my paren't house, so we got a good night's sleep, and got to sleep in on Sunday morning. I only woke up a couple of times to phantom children crying. I was able to go to the grocery store, take some clothing back to the store because they forgot to take the security censors off, shampoo the carpet and get the new lawnmower set up. The lawnmower was a gift from my dad. Ours is on the fritz, so I asked if we could borrow his. In typical dad fashion, he calls me up and says instead of borrowing his, why doesn't he buy me one and call it an early birthday gift. My husband asked me if maybe I didn't want something a little more "frilly" for my birthday. I told him I would see if they had any pink ones!

All in all a good weekend.

BUSTED!!

I was just in the bathroom. Apparently, I forgot to lock the door because one of my co-workers walked in and looked awfully surprised to see me.

I want to crawl under my desk and cry.

I hope I don't get sued.

I hope she doesn't have any bad dreams.

I hope I can live this down.

Amazing up to date coverage on the most relevant news story this week coming direct from my Lord and Master KOM at Lascivious Polyphony, and Chief Cook and Bottle washer over at the O'Drunkahan's place, Shamus.

Puke, Gag, ARGH!!

My boys were the "poopy twins" this morning. Both of them had a load waiting for me when they woke up.

I changed old baby first. Nothing new, I've changed thousands of diapers in the past three years. He had what looked like the most disgusting snowball I have ever seen in his diaper. It was huge and almost perfectly round. It had the consistency of mud, and as I started to fold up the whole mess, it rolled out of the diaper, hit my hand and rolled off, hit a bag of wipes and rolled off, then landed somewhere on the top of the diaper pail. I thought it had rolled off that too, but luckily it hadn't and I was spared having to shampoo the carpet!

My hand however, will never be clean enough again.

Nobody puts Baby in a corner

One of my co-workers, Ms. K., has asked me to review some songs she wrote. It seems that a musician, who will remain nameless, has said he would take a look at one of her songs, and she needed some help to pick one. She said she would take a poll and release the results at the end of the week.

I chose "Once Again", mostly because it doesn't contain the word "baby" until the 5th verse. It is very well written, and I think it would make a great song. If only Johnny Cash were still alive.

I didn't choose "Big Black Bag" because it was basically a rap song about "The Wizard of Oz". I was kind of put off by the word "bullshit". It's hard to rhyme and is kind of tacky.

"Don't Fall in Love Without Me" and "Let Me In" were crossed right off the list because the word "baby" is used 25 times. Also, there is the regrettable use of the word "shit".

It will be interesting to see how everyone else in the office voted.

*Update - Ms. K. wrote another song yesterday. It is almost as good as "Once Again", and as a bonus, it doesn't have the word "baby" in it AT ALL! She does however use the word "Sugar" towards the end which made me twitch slightly. I am sticking with my origianl choice of "Once Again".