Funny right now

I am going to jump right in to why I haven't blogged since last Wednesday.  Yes, excuses, excuses, excuses.

 

Here goes.

 

My brother and sister-in-law bought a house in Tampa.  My parents flew out there to help them move.  They flew in to Phoenix on Thursday and then spent the night here so they could watch Elliott for me while I went to a doctor's appointment on Friday morning.  Thursday night was out for blogging.

 

Moving on to the weekend.

 

Michael and I have been re-watching all of the episodes of The Walking Dead from seasons 1, 2 and 3.  We wanted to watch the season finale from season 3 the night before the premiere of season 4 so that there wasn't any gap in time between the re-watching and the new watching.  We set up a little schedule for ourselves to stay on track, because that's how dedicated (and AWESOME) we are.

Friday and Saturday nights were spent watching old episodes of The Walking Dead.  Then last night was the new episode, The Talking Dead and Once Upon a Time.

 

So yes, I slacked on blogging because I have been sitting on the couch watching zombies and fairy tale characters.

 

Lame.

 

Then today Michael asked me what was going on with my lack of posts and I figured I should give my dedicated readers (all 3 of you) something to read. 

 

Don't get too excited though.  This post, aside from excuses, is a compilation of the funniest things I have pinned in the last month or so.  I have pinned other things to my funny board, it is one of my most active boards afterall, but these are the things that  have made me laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh till I had tears in my eyes.

 

(Thanksgiving, anybody?)

 

 

 

(Maybe I can buy this to go along with the Sweet Potato Pie scent)

 

 

 

 This last one just kills me.  Kills me.  My sides hurt from laughing so hard the first time I saw it. Maybe it's because my son's middle name is Stephen with a PH or maybe it's the look on the dog's face or maybe it's a little of both, but OMG that's some funny stuff right there.



Linens

I am not hard to figure out.

 

I like dishes, especially seasonal ones.  I like bed linens, especially seasonal ones.  And I like home decorations, especially seasonal ones. 

 

This is a hard time of year because the dishes, bed linens AND decorations are all so fabulous right now.  Spring and summer are much easier for me to resist.

 

We have a big linen closet in the hallway but it is not big enough for all of our linens.  That's not actually because we have so many for each bed, but because we have so many beds: a king, a queen, a full and two twins.  We also keep all of the blankets, towels and washclothes in there.  It was really bothering me to be keeping linens under several beds (I know, I know, I have issues) so I took my birthday money and bought a new linen storage unit to keep in our bedroom.  Now all of the sheets and blankets for the king are folded neatly and stored in our room.  All of the queen sheets are in a chest in the guest room and all of the sheets and blankets for the full and twins are in the hallway closet.



 

It makes me breathe easy to be organized. 

It was time to change the sheets on our bed today.  There is supposed to be a storm coming in over night so I decided to go with the fall flannel sheets.  We'll be burning up and sweaty by the weekend, but they look so pretty.

 

I wish I had different fall and Christmas sheets for each week of those seasons.

In other news, Elliott cried for all of 1 minute at nap time.  I think the Elmo is really helping.  He only cried for 30 seconds at bedtime!

 

This afternoon, after Elliott had been sleeping for 2.5 hours, I went in the room, turned on a dim light and layed down with him.  He rolled over, saw me and the light and flipped out.  He just cried and cried and cried and cried.  Nothing I did would calm him down so I picked him up, sat down in the recliner and rocked him.  And he fell back asleep....deeply and with snoring.  He slept like that for another 20 minutes.  Apparently he is still feeling the after effects of our busy weekend in Tucson.  When he finally woke up (because he heard Ginger walking into the room from the hallway) we walked out to the living room and he promptly threw a tantrum because I wouldn't open the front door and let him out into a dust storm. 

 

1-almost-2-year-olds are ridiculous. 

 

And I lied about Spencer being absent this week.  Thanks to facebook we can keep really close tabs on him!

 

Elisa gave him this building kit for his birthday.  He is having a blast with it.

 

They went fishing this morning.

Spencer caught 2 huge catfish.  Or is it catfishes?

Melmo

Elliott is in love with Melmo.  Melmo, for those of you that don't live with us, is commonly known to the rest of the world as Elmo.

 

The love started a few months ago when he started asking for us to read the Melmo book 1 billion times a day.  It was the first time we had heard him refer to a character by name.  Then he started seeing Melmo everywhere in stores so he got a Melmo shirt, toothpaste and toothbrush.  We also remembered we had a Melmo stuffed animal from Spencer's toddlerhood and dug that out.

 

About 10 days ago Elliott, just totally out of the blue, started crying at naptime and bedtime.  He had been doing such a beautiful job for such a long time going to sleep on his own so it was really surprising to see him backslide.  We've been strong though and aren't letting him play us.  He cries and calls for us for 5-10 minutes and then stops and goes to sleep.  We are very much against the cry it out method and have always refused to let our kids cry for any amount of time, but this feels very different.  He's definitely trying to manipulate us.  Knowing that doesn't make it any easier to listen to him cry though.

 

We tried a night light and it made no difference, so we decided that a bedtime buddy was needed.  We went to Buy Buy Baby after dinner and bought a very soft and snuggly Melmo.

 

Side note: months ago we put the crib mattress on the floor in our room after we took the crib apart.  We keep books and toys on it and Elliott will sit there and keep himself busy when I am in the shower.  It's also where he picks his bedtime books.

 

He was pretty excited about the new Melmo.

 

Excited and cute.

I don't want to say that the problem is solved, but he only cried for about 30 seconds tonight and then it was total silence.

Addionally, and unrelated to Melmo, Elliott wore those plaid pajamas for the first time tonight.  They previously belonged to Mr. Spencer.  He wore them for the first time in October, 2009, when he was 2 years-1 month old. 

It seems like that was about 3 months ago.  And yet, here he is on Sunday at 6 years-1 month old. 

He is also spending the entire week in Tucson with his grandparents so he will be totally lacking from the blog this week.

A promise, broken

I found myself just randomly in Maricopa today.

 

Here's the story.

 

I work on an Indian Reservation south of Phoenix.  It is about 20 minutes from Maricopa, where we used to live.  I was supposed to have a meeting at 4:00 today.  Spencer was also scheduled to go home with Dorothy, our sitter, for a sleepover since he doesn't have school tomorrow.  My 4:00 meeting meant I would get home really late and delay the beginning of their fun sleepover.  So.  I decided to go to Maricopa during my lunch break so I could go to the bank and stop at the grocery store....both things I needed to do after work.

 

I stopped at the bank and then went to Fry's.  It was weird.  I used to do ALL of our grocery shopping there.  For three years I bought everything we ate there.  But when I walked in today I hadn't been there for four years and two months. 

 

All I needed to get was some bacon, but I had some extra time so I did some strolling, because the Fry's in Maricopa is the most awesome grocery store on the planet.  You can actually buy everything from cereal to a leather couch to a beautiful oil painting there.

 

I made a promise to myself last week that I would not buy a single new jar candle until I was done burning all of the ones I already have.  I managed to stay strong at Bath and Body Works AND Yankee Candle yesterday. 

 

Side note: Yankee Candle has a whole line of Thanksgiving candles out right now.  The scents include Turkey & Stuffing, Sweet Potato Pie and Cranberry Sauce.  And they smell exactly like what they say they do.  Exactly.  I could actually smell sage in the turkey one.  It was weird. 

Side note over.

 

Back to Fry's.  I'm strolling around and I walk by a little end cap of candles in mason jars with gingham bows.  CUUUUUUUTE!

 

I smelled them, walked away, walked back, walked away, walked back, plucked the Hazelnut Coffee one off the shelf and never looked back.

 

$1.49.  That's barely breaking the promise, right?

My 4:00 meeting got cancelled at 2:00 and my 2:00 meeting never showed, so I found myself with plenty of extra time after work.

 

My car, just on its own, drove to Kirklands.  It was strange.

 

I wanted to get this Halloween framed picture.  I have wanted it since July and I felt it was time.  I really intended to just buy this, but,

OH MY! 

 

Coffee and cream candle that smells exactly like coffee and cream, my favorite smell in the world?  Um, yes please. 

I plan on brewing a pot of coffee ice cream flavored coffee and burning both coffee candles at the same time so our heads can blow up in a coffee scented nirvana.

So, I broke a promise to myself, but the house smells delightful and you get a sneak peek #2.

Busy

I've been really busy.  Like, really, busy.  I hope that statement helps to explain my almost week long absence.  I am behind on writing my blog posts, behind on reading other blog posts and definitely behind on commenting on other blog posts.  I apologize to you (Sherry and Jeannette) if you have been wondering where the h-e-l-l I have been.

 

Tomorrow is my last day of work before a 2 week fall break.  I had almost no meetings in July and August and maybe 3 meetings in September. I've had like 6 or 7 meetings last week and this week.  And I only work 2 days a week!  We are all on a tight deadline since we lose 2 weeks to do meetings this year. It has been crazy.

 

My parents were also here this week and spent the night.  My aunt came over for dinner that night and had a major medical emergency during dinner.  We ended up with 4 firefighters and 2 paramedics in the living room.  Then I ended up at the ER for like 4 hours on Monday night.  Which put me further behind on my work work since I was going to write an evaluation report and IEP that night.  She is home now (after 2 nights in the hospital where I went to see her 4 times) but without a diagnosis.

 

Here is a very brief catch up of what has been going on.

 

Spencer had Pirate Day in kindergarten on Friday.  I deserve brownie points for the bird on the shoulder idea.

 

He went to a friend's birthday party on Saturday.  The (backwards) J is for the first letter in his friend's name.

 

I decorated the whole house for fall/Halloween on Sunday.  This is a sneak peek. 

Spencer had his 6 year check up and both kids got flu shots on Monday.  Spencer was 42 pounds and 42 inches.  I put his little sheet with his stats in the notebook where I keep them and looked back at all of his old stat sheets.  He actually gained 6.2 pounds this past year.  I was pretty shocked.  It's the most he has ever gained since birth to age 1.   He was 32 pounds at age 4.  Elliott is currently 31 pounds at 21 months. 

 

I'll let that sink in.

 

We went to the orthodontist today.  I had my top permanant retainer re-glued because I busted it biting into an apple a few months ago.

 

Spencer had a new panoramic x-ray taken.  His bite is actually better than when they took the palate expander out and he stopped wearing his mask 6 months ago. 

 

We kept ourselves entertained while waiting for the orthodontist.

The assistant pulled up all of his old pictures and x-rays.  Spencer had just turned 3 (and was 29 pounds) when I took him for the first time.  It was awful.  They were only able to take pictures and no x-rays because he was crying and 100% uncooperative.

 

Look at what a tiny baby he was!

Can you see the single tear falling from his left eye?  I thought for sure we would NEVER be able to start treatment with him because we couldn't even get data and records done.

The orthodontist wants us to come back in a year and we'll keep going back once a year to decide when/if to do braces.

 

He got a cookie on the way out.

I got a Woodcraft catalog in the mail this week.

#1. Do people still get catalogs?  Didn't the internet replace those years ago?

#2.  Woodcraft?  Really?  Am I known for my talent in shaping wood into interesting crafts?

I have a crazy 4 or 5 days ahead of me and then I think that I will be back to a somewhat normal schedule.  Bare with me.