Another month, come and gone. Can't say I'm sad to see it go, considering it means we are THAT much closer to summer!! Wa-HOO!! Here are some of my favorite pics from the last month.
Cooking up some dinner in the tub
"Vrooooooooooooom"
At the Ped's office- writing up a scrip!
Happy little love!
Someone liked Mommy's bolognese sauce... and someone was not happy about being photographed.
Playing soccer with the boys
I wonder what she is thinking in this one...?
Giving Biscuit some love
Hugging Alina at the Museum
Hugging Maddie at the Museum
Maddie & Ava at the Dupage Children's Museum
Drinking that icky water... she thought it was hilarious when I made the EWWWWWW face!
My friend Brooke posted this list this morning on Facebook. It's called things that are stupid. I'm going to replace/ add a few of my own:
Using your pet as your profile pic. Slutty/ smoochy face profile pics
Bumper stickers
Lawn ornaments.
Smoking (Yes, I used to smoke... but now that I don't I can say it's gross/ stinky, expensive & unhealthy)
Hooters music playlist (Brooke- you might need to clue me in on this one...? Do you know the Hooters music playlist by heart? If so, we might need to have a sit down :) )
Skinny jeans (unless you weigh 91 lbs and can actually pull them off)
45% of women.
65% of men.
Marriage Douchebags
Panty Hose
Daylight Savings Time (Can't we just split the difference and move it forward (or backward) 30 minutes and call it a done deal?
I love watching the Real Housewives series... Well, I refuse to watch the Atlanta episodes because I can't stand Kim or NeNe. But as for the rest of the series, they are my guilty pleasure.
The newest season is Real Housewives of Miami. If you have seen it then I don't have to tell you about how AWFUL Marysol's & Elsa's faces are. They are plastic surgery- gone very wrong. Very. Wrong.
Do these women look in the mirror? I'm frightened just seeing them. I can't help but make a grimmace face every time they show their ugly mugs. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here ya go!
Kristi: "Ken, Biscuit is barking again. Go let him out before I bludgeon him." Ken: "Nom, clha, chu, sweww, sommm" Kristi: "WHAT?! Dude, wake up! You need to get up and let him out! He's going to wake up Ava." Ken: "I didn't even hear him bark." Kristi: "Seriously?! He's barked 5 flippin times!" Ken: "I'll let him out if he barks again." Biscuit: "Woof." Kristi: "Happy now? Go!" Ken: "You know, this sucks. We should have to take turns." Kristi: "Take turns??? You must be out of your mind. Yeah, let's take turns. Especially since you got up with Ava all those times in the night? Oh yeah. That's right. You got up a total of ZERO times. ZERO." Ken: "(grumbling while stumbling to turn on the light to take care of the barking dog)"
Kristi: (under my breath) "take turns...HA! He must be crazy"
10 minutes later, Biscuit is outside, barking nonstop. I can only assume he is wanting to come back in. I go to find Ken, who is completely passed out on the couch, 5 feet away from where the dog is barking.
Kristi: "Dude, are you serious?" Ken: "What?" Kristi: "You can't hear him?" Ken: "Who?" Kristi: "UGH!!!!!!"
So, I let the dog in, flash Ken a dirty look and crawl back upstairs to go back to bed. Moments later, he is snoring again on the couch.
Okay. It's 10:20 pm on a Monday night. I'm on my 2nd glass of wine (I know... I'm SO behind) and Ken & Ava are already fast asleep. As I sit here, watching Chelsea Lately (BTW, Avril Lavigne is REALLY annoying), my mind wanders and I somehow start thinking about Ava's 2nd Birthday Party. I know, I'm outta my mind-- the kid is only 18 months old.
In my defense, I spent a lot of time planning Ava's 1st Birthday which was a cowgirl theme: Ava's 1st Bday Pics
Anyway-- next thing you know, I'm cruising Etsy and all of these party sites, brainstorming for fun ideas. I mean, we have this HUGE yard to take advantage of this year-- we can get bounce-houses, pools, petting zoos (yes, I fully realize 2 years old is WAY too young for this... just painting a visual of the possibilities), etc. So I started browsing all kinds of sites and have narrowed it down to my 5 favorites. Vote for your favorite!
I heard this essay at the Hinsdale Junior Woman's Club meeting last week and it left a lasting impression. It is about having a child with special needs. I think it is so beautiful. Happy Friday!
Welcome To Holland by Emily Perl Kingsley
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
Earlier today, I was just about to let the dogs in from outside and I looked over to Ava to ask, "Did you finish your banana? You know the doggies will eat it if they find it!". The little rascal bolted straight to the office--to her kiddy desk and picked up the remaining banana-- and ran back toward me so I could help shield her from the always-hungry-heathens.
SHE UNDERSTANDS ME?!??? Amazing! It's so wonderful to finally be able to communicate with this little person. Her words are improving, day by day... but she certainly has a grasp of what I am saying (which means I need to clean up my potty mouth). In fact, the other day she kept saying... "Awwwww NICE!" Ken and I were dying laughing!
This also means, that she can understand commands-- Which means, when she doesn't "listen" to me, she full well understands me... and is choosing to be defiant. Time-out time? Perhaps. Things are about to get a little rough around the Gilbert digs!
This could not be any easier. I made it up one night when I was feeling super lazy and didn't have much to work with (hence the small amount of ingredients).
Boil spinach pasta. Drain. Put into a bowl.
Shred the meat of a rotisserie chicken and add to the spinach pasta
*Hint: buy one at your local store so you don't have to go to the trouble of making it yourself
Douse the noodles & chicken with butter (I use spray butter for low-cal purposes)
Add a hefty amount of parmesan cheese
Add S & P... and voila! Toss together for a super yummy, super quick and semi- healthy dinner!
I've been awake since 4 AM. I got up to go to the bathroom and now I am sitting here, wide awake. Well, I'm sleepy now (of course)-- but I know that Little Britches will be hooting and hollering in about 20 minutes so what is the point of of going back to bed now?
Before I got out of bed, I lay awake and an email I received from my Patch Editor popped into my head. I've never had a background in writing so I'm learning the rules as I go. She mentioned to me that "ampersands should be used as part of a company's formal name--For example, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad--Otherwise the word "and" should be spelled out". My response? What the hell is an ampersand? You mean the "and sign"? Yep. Never knew that squiggly thing had an actual name. How did I miss this in school?
Ready for this one? Now I'm really exposing myself. When I entered the business world in 2001 (just after college) I had to do a lot of cold-calling. I would always ask the secretary for the email address of the person I was looking to speak with.
"Do you mind giving me Mike's email address? Great! PatunderscoreSmith@yahoo.com? Great! Thanks again!"-- I would then email PatunderscoreSmith@yahoo.com and it would inevitably be returned to my inbox saying no such user exists.
Stupid secretary. How dare she lie to me?
That's right. I didn't know that the "_" symbol is called "underscore", which meant Pat's email address was Pat_Smith@yahoo. com. Me= the stupid one.
Based on the video below, Ava already has odds of being much brighter than her Mother. Just watch how she dances along with The Wiggles, mimicking their moves. Little cutie. Try not to listen to my awful singing.
Want to see another interesting video? Watch the footage of this morning's tsunami. There are guys on the bridge just moseying by, watching the water rush underneath them. They aren't panicking-- just taking it all in--as if they're just peacefully watching whales migrate by. WTF?! Dude- you're about to be washed away to the next lifetime. I would move it if I were you.
Daylight savings time is this weekend?! Just another sign Spring is around the corner! Here's to longer days with more sunshine! Don't forget to set your clocks an hour forward (not back- thanks Steph!) on Saturday night!
PS- This has GOT to just be the most RANDOM post EVER.
Just goes to show what sleep deprivation will do to ya.
