Archive for February, 2007
I cannot stop eating these coconut Hershey’s Kisses. I bought a bag this morning for my mom, to have on hand when she visits next month. She’s a *huge* fan of coconut. But alas, I’ve eaten almost half a bag. :( I’m not even all that big on coconut, so it’s insane! But when paired with chocolate … mmm. I *really* need to stop pigging out. But I think that my period is about to start, so that’s probably why. :)
Meredith *laughed* for the very first time today! And her big brother is the one who made her do it! :) She was watching him wave a brightly colored basketball around in front of her and just burst out in giggles. OMG … *so* freaking cute. I can’t *wait* for her to do it again! We need to get that on video. She also does this “shriek” now ~ high-pitched, kind of like a pteradactyl. :) I’m wondering whether most baby girls do that or whether it’s a Meredith thing. By the way, we’ve coined a term for when she lets out a little toot … “Meredithium.” It’s the stinkiest element on the periodic table. :)
More about her four-month checkup yesterday … later. Right now, I’m working on a freelance editing assignment. Gotta run! Stay warm, guys … it has been snowing here all day. Nothing major, though.
Stolen from Laura. I’m not really sure what the point of this “meme” is ~ maybe just to see what words other bloggers can come up with off the top of their heads. Here are mine. You take the third letter of your middle name and answer the questions. My middle name is Victoria, so therefore … this blog entry is brought to you by the letter C:
Names used in the Bible: Cain, Christ (an obvious one, haha!), Corinthians
Junk food: Cheez-Its, Cheetos, cheddar popcorn
Things that grow: Carnations, children, chives, cilantro
Companies: Citibank, Chevron, Carter’s, Cohoes (a department store here in Albany)
Articles of clothing: Capri pants, coats, cardigan sweaters, cutoff shorts
Desserts: Chocolate cake, creme brulee, caramel nut brownies, Chinese almond cookies
Car parts: Carburetor, catalytic converter, cruise control, CD player, convertible top
Things found on a map: Coordinates, countries, cities, counties, compass
Athletes: Carl Lewis, Charlie Miller (former IU basketball player), cheerleaders, cyclists, climbers
Four-letter words: Cone, cube, cool, cars, cake, city, cork, chad (as in, hanging!), code, call, clad
Items in a refrigerator: Caffeine-Free Diet Coke, cheese, carton of milk, cream, celery, cauliflower
Farm animals: Cow, cat, chickens
Street names: Central Avenue, Crumitie Road, Church Street, Clinton Street, Colonie Street (all in our area!)
Things at the beach: Coolers, conch shells, cool drinks, clouds, cresting waves
Colors: Celadon, coral, cherry red, canary yellow
Tools: Circular saw, chainsaw, clippers, cutters
Heroes: Clark Kent (as Superman!)
Gifts/presents: Chocolates, cars (don’t I wish!), candy, coffee (my parents *love* receiving that), cash (LOL!)
Terms of endearment: Cutie, Countess Suckula (one of Meredith’s nicknames!)
Kinds of dances: Cha-cha, calypso (isn’t that right?)
My husband told me this morning *not* to look at my office chair. Well, of *course* that’s the first thing that I wanted to see! Seems that Lucas got into the “Cars” stickers that I’d intended to use on his birthday party invitations. I had to peel them off first before I could sit down to blog!
So yesterday, I attended a “goddess luncheon” at one of my very favorite restaurants, Mexican Radio. I can’t thank my friend Marilyn enough for inviting me. And next year, I plan to invite one of my husband’s coworkers (she’s basically like family to us out here). The event was kind of a networking thing and a celebration of women in our county who have done fantastic things in order to improve our community (and the world). I thought that I would feel out of place among all of these amazing women, but the luncheon seriously felt like a group of friends just getting together to chat. I met *so* many new people, gathered several feature story ideas for the newspaper where I freelance, learned about a lady who wants to start offering some cooking classes in Hudson, NY, received a sort-of job offer (although I’m not really sure about the details just yet), ate some delicious food (Mexican spring rolls ~ incredible!), and saw some ladies from our town who I already knew. Of course, networking is easy when you’re holding a beautiful baby girl in your arms! :) Everyone came over to see her. Several people wanted to hold her. I thought about dipping her pacifier into some hot sauce and giving her a taste, but I didn’t. :) One of the sweet ladies at our table even fixed me a plate of food because I was holding Meredith. I felt *so* badly for one of the servers, though. She was carrying a *huge* plate of enchiladas up the stairs, lost her balance, and dumped them everywhere. Man. Anyway, the luncheon yesterday helped remind me that I’ve been doing some cool stuff in our community lately and that I’m *really* forming more of a connection to our town and to the people here. I felt inspired when I left. And I counted myself *so* honored to be in the same room with all of those phenomenal women!
Well, since Meredith is downstairs taking a nap right now and my husband is at church with Lucas, I should probably get back to cleaning and straightening up the house. Boring! :( Oh, by the way … Meredith is still waking up several times during the night, but … she’s now sleeping in her CRIB! Woo hoo! :) I am so proud of her for making such an easy transition!
Isn’t that just *too* funny? :) Luke is really into saying “Yeah” lately. I shot that video yesterday afternoon and *finally* figured out how to upload YouTube videos to WordPress. Many thanks to my parents for sending him that *awesome* Colts Super Bowl champions sweatshirt! I thought that size 3T would be too large for him, but it fits perfectly. How did our little guy get to be *so* big? Today, he’s exactly 23 months old. Only one more month until his big *second* birthday! I can’t believe it. We’ve decided to do a “Cars” movie theme for his party, and we ordered *lots* of cool birthday supplies (including a Lightning McQueen cake pan). Kachow! :) It’ll be *so* much fun to decorate. (Are you up for that, Mom?) She’s flying here to visit Luke on his special day. I can’t wait to see her.
P.S. Both of our children are napping right now … in their respective rooms. It’s a miracle. :) I’m going to see whether I can join them.
It’s our sister-in-law’s birthday today! If you get a chance, please stop by her blog and wish her well! Thanks! :) Have a *wonderful* day today, Mandy! Thinking of you!
I’m not sure that I should even blog today. I’m *so* exhausted that I can barely think straight. Our poor Meredith didn’t fall asleep last night this morning until 5:30 a.m., which made for a pretty *awful* night (to say the least). What’s worse, I *completely* flipped out and lost my patience because absolutely *nothing* seemed to help her. She was so upset that she wouldn’t even nurse for a while! That scared me. And it seems like she *really* picks up on our stress. We thought that gas pains were hurting her (she was pulling up her legs), so we gave her some Mylicon drops. That helped a tiny bit. Meredith hasn’t been sleeping well for about a week now, though, and we’re not sure why. It seems *way* too early for her to start teething, but I suppose that it’s possible. (She *has* been drooling a lot lately.) I’d gotten used to her sleeping through the night, and it brought back memories of when Lucas was such a rough sleeper. Please hold good thoughts that she’ll sleep better tonight. I’m going to give her a nice bath before bedtime, so hopefully that will help relax her. She has to be *so* tired. :(
Speaking of bathtime ~ I needed some new body wash (despite the fact that I still have a *ton* of bottles lined up in the shower!). So this morning at the grocery store, I found Dove’s new line of cream oil body washes. I’m not a fan of Bath & Body Works’ jasmine vanilla fragrance, but I totally *love* Dove’s version. It’s not too strong and smells very romantic and feminine. I can’t wait to use it tomorrow morning! I also received a Bath & Body Works coupon for a free aromatherapy product. I’m *all* about the mandarin lime!
On a final note, I’d like to apologize to all of you. I’m *so* behind on blog reading and e-mail correspondence. I wish that I could take an entire afternoon and catch up on everything. If you’ve sent me a message recently, know that I’ve received it and that I look forward to responding. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to go through my inbox and also leave some comments on your blogs! Thank you for stopping by my site on a regular basis, even though I haven’t been the best lately about visiting everyone else!
If you’d like to see the other pictures that I took of Meredith in her Valentine’s Day dress, they begin here. We’re staying inside today, enjoying the big blizzard outside! Sucks that my husband has to drive to and from work in such bad weather, though. I worry about him. :( Can’t wait to take Lucas outside today to play in the snow! His little snowsuit will finally get some use! :) Stay safe and warm, guys! Snow pictures coming soon, of course …
Our home was violently attacked by a *giant* bear last night. He was merciless. I guess that’s what we get for living out in the country! He disguised himself in a large UPS box, and as soon as we cut through the packing tape and opened the top flaps, he went straight for Lucas. Our son was daring, though, and tried to get the bear under control:
But the savage beast didn’t stop there! He spotted his next prey ~ our poor little Meredith. Here she is, being swallowed whole!
What a *brave* daughter we have. She fought with all her might and managed to hold onto the bear long enough for us to check out his ID tag. We’ve traced it back to Indiana. (Don’t worry ~ we’ve alerted the proper authorities.) The bear is now safely confined in our living room:
Whew ~ hope you guys don’t have any grizzly sightings in your neck of the woods anytime soon! :)
I have a new addiction: Chocolate Turtle Chex Mix. We bought some at Sam’s Club this morning, just on a whim ~ and I can’t stop eating the stuff. Caramel popcorn, caramel- and chocolate-coated Chex cereal, honey-roasted peanuts, pretzels, and milk chocolate candies. Salty and sweet. OMG ~ delicious. Also, my thoughtful parents sent us a *huge* box of Ethel M. chocolates. They’re almost gone, LOL! :) The dark chocolate and lemon ones are probably my favorite. So unusual!
We stopped at J.C. Penney after church today, armed with two gift cards and a 20 percent off coupon. I could have gone *crazy* shopping for Meredith. All of the cute Easter dresses ~ adorable! They totally put me into a spring mood. My husband, however, kind of put a damper on things. He asked, “Doesn’t she have plenty of dresses already?” Sure, our daughter has more clothes than *I* do ~ her dresser is absolutely stuffed full. But I explained to him that you can *never* really have too many dresses! :) Somehow, I was good and only bought Meredith a pair of white shoes for spring and a beautiful floral sleeper. Lucas also needed some socks. As we headed out of the store, one of the cashiers exclaimed, “Oh, she’s *so* cute! How old?” When I replied, “About three-and-a-half months,” you should have seen the look on her face. “But she’s so tiny! Was she a preemie?” I just sighed and said, “No, she wasn’t.” Ugh. Lucas has always been on the smaller side, so his weight and eating habits have constantly been a big concern for me. And even though Meredith is larger than Lucas was at three months, I’m still pretty sensitive about it.
I took our kitty to the vet the other day. She’s been pulling out big tufts of fur and chewing on a certain spot until it’s raw. He discovered that she has flea allergy dermatitis. Poor thing ~ she is absolutely *infested* with fleas! He suggested that maybe it was due to the five mice that she caught a while back, but I think that it’s because we let her out into our garage a few times recently. :( Anyway, she got a shot and some medicine that *instantly* helped her. And we’ve vacuumed everything in the house, LOL! :)
By the way, our pastor at church this morning incorporated the TV show “Lost” into his sermon. Sure captured my attention! :) That just rocks. I knew that I liked him. :)
Good customer service ~ consistently ~ goes a *long* way with me. This morning, I took in my Toyota Matrix for a 30,000-mile checkup (damn, I remember when we *first* bought that car and it only had a handful of miles!). *sigh* Anyway, to be honest, I was kind of dreading it. Not only because of the $400 price tag, but I also had visions of Lucas tearing up the waiting room because he was bored and Meredith getting a little fussy. I worried for absolutely nothing, though, because they were both *so* good! Lucas couldn’t have been any better behaved. He enjoyed playing with the multitude of toys in the lobby area. It helped that I brought his own toys from home to play with, too. In fact, other customers kept commenting to me how *wonderfully* they both did! It has to be hard for a two-year-old (and a three-month-old) to wait for several hours like that (I know that *I* got a little antsy!). Lucas sure got extra fruit snacks today as a reward. :) Anyway …
Two people at Toyota held the door open for me when I walked in. They noticed that I was carrying Lucas in one arm, Meredith in the other, my purse, the heavy diaper bag, Luke’s sippy cup, and my mug of vanilla chai. LOL! :) Then, they offered me a free car in case I wanted to take the kids somewhere instead of waiting around. One kind lady even offered to take out and then reinstall both carseats for me. I decided that it would be easier to just wait. She also kept reassuring me that my car would be back in no time ~ that they had *two* people working on it, since I was waiting with two small children. (How thoughtful was that?) She offered me coffee, hot chocolate, tea, muffins, cookies, etc. And when Trinity (she’s a Matrix, after all!) was ready, the lady came into the waiting area and said, “Don’t worry about picking up those toys ~ we’ll take care of it for you.” (I cleaned things up anyway ~ manners are just a “thing” with me, and we’re trying to teach Lucas good habits.) They also said, “Take your time!” when my car was ready and I had to get all of our gear ~ including Lucas and Meredith ~ ready to leave. They even washed my car for free (which I know is included with the service, but still … I don’t always have time to run through a car wash!).
They weren’t nice to us just because we have children, either. Ever since I’ve been going there for service, they’ve been nothing but friendly. No, they’re not paying me to advertise for them! I just think that good customer service should be rewarded. I wish that more businesses could be like that. I’m thinking about writing them a little note just to express my appreciation. So … if you’re in the area, I highly recommend Northway Toyota in Latham, NY! :)
