My List:

I changed up my list a bit since I wrote this earlier...
here's what I have: There's 8 mom's so everyone can sign up for one item(s)

1. Spider Cookies (already signed up for)
2. Grapes cut in half
3. Snack size sandwiches
4. Individual Orange Jello
5. Carrot or Apple Muffins
6. 2% milk.
7. Treat Bags to take home
8. Fall themed Plates, Napkins and Cups


Here's why I picked these... the grapes are universal, and easy to eat for toddlers, I don't want MY 2 year old eating 8 items of junk - so I tried to limit that since they're also having treats during the games... so as to the sandwiches - I'm thinking either finely chopped ham and cheddar - melted and then put on the bread so it'll stick together for the kids, and then use a pumpkin cookie cutter so they'll have pumpkin shaped ham sandwiches - OR finely chopped cucumbers with a cream cheese mix (a little lighter and definately kid friendly) still shaped like pumpkins. The orange jello is an easy "sweet" thing that hopefully won't send the kids into a sugar shock. The carrot or apple muffins are fall themed, yummy and reasonably healthy.

I also decided on plain old milk - because, let's be honest, after treats, cookies AND jello - do they really need more sugar in the Juice? I didn't think so. LOL

So there we have it... I love Dana's idea for the treat bags... TOO CUTE!

I told her teacher to just leave me for last and I'll make whatever else nobody wanted to sign up for. (I'm kind of hoping for the sandwiches or treat bags... those both look fun!)

Can you tell this kept me busy for much of the afternoon? LOL

Lizzy & Fire?!

No, don't worry... she didn't start a fire, get burned by a fire or really anything that has to do with *real* fire... but this was Fire Saftey week for her school. So tuesday the kids made tie dye shirts and practiced Stop. Drop. and Roll. Then today the fire department came in and worked with all the kids on fire safety... Liz came home with some fun souvineers for her day...



A fire Hat:
A stop drop and Roll Tshirt:

And of course we had to practice the stop. drop. roll part... this was liz... pre drop:

They also picked me for Room Mom today. So that'll be fun... my first assignment is due tomorrow... come up with 8 Fall Harvest (christian school so they don't call it halloween) Party favors/food stuff for the kids to snack on. Any ideas? I was thinking of dying some white grape juice bright orange (so it's still 100% juice - minus the 4 drops of food coloring.) ;) Or just bring in OJ - for some reason I think the kids prefer grape and apple juice though. I'll pick up some cute fall halloweeny paper plates and napkins... and one of the mom's already volunteered to make "spider cookies" So I need 7 more ideas. Any thoughts?

I'm feeling a little better today - not much has changed, but I'm coming to accept that this is just one of those things we have to go through and to keep on marchin... as a wise man (woman?) once said... "The only way to get through your current troubles is to not stop walkin... keep movin and eventually you'll be on the other side." Wise (albeit phrased a bit hillbilly) words. Fitting for the situation when I feel like just giving up.

So anyways... nothing new to report. Still don't have my car... bummed about that b/c it means staying at the house all day and we get cabin fever pretty easily these days. Next time we move, I'm making sure there's a park within walking distance - I'd love to just get out and take kiddo to the park this afternoon... she'd love that.

Well, that's all for now folks!

PrePartum?

*sigh* Alright y'all, brief moment of reality for Jess here... I try to keep a pretty upbeat attitude towards life, with the occassional bad day that I just brush off...

But the last few weeks have me wondering... is there such thing as prepartum depression? I swear, life just sucks right now. I mean... really really sucks. Let me preface this by saying sorry to all of you who keep emailing, texting, calling hoping for happy go lucky Jess. I just haven't been in the mood to talk lately. I know alot of this is probably hormones, but I am seriously feeling depressed right now. :(

Everything in my life seems to be going wrong, everytime I think we get a break, something else happens to make me want to pull my hair out. Lizzy aside (for she's a handful but always a joy to be around) I just hate my life. UGH. I mean, BOTH Jay and I's vehicles are broke down right now... and when Jay's breaks down - we have no income. And when we have no income, bills start piling up and I start freaking out. But if only that was the only problem... see, FIXING Jay's truck has turned into quite the ordeal. We took it to a mechanic, who "fixed" it for $300 - not terrible considering it's a 3500 truck... however, the next day while driving to a job, he broke down on the highway and never got it started again... we tow the truck back to the shop - shop starts the truck up and can't figure out what's wrong with it, we go to pick it up - breaks down 3 times on the way home - just shuts off completely. Doesn't overheat, doesn't run out of gas... just shuts off - and takes a minimum of 20 minutes between each time it restarts... (not to mention this entire time my car is out of commission b/c we can't afford to pick it up from the shop until we get paid again)

Fast forward to today - truck has worked... *ok* for 2 days now - shuts off occassionally but hasn't prevented Jay from working, he just takes a long time to get where he's going... I had a doctors appointment at 10 am... nurse calls at 9:30 asking if I could drive 45 minutes to their other location because my doctor wants to get in on a surgery over there this morning...Um... well, I have to pick DD up from preschool at 11:30, right next to the office close to me... there's no way I could drive 45 minutes, have an apt. (and blood work) and drive 45 minutes back in time to pick her up... not to mention, what the heck does that mean? "Wanting to get in on a surgery"??? So they called me back, informed me that she would indeed be "getting in on the surgery" and would be a little late for our apt....She hadn't even gone into surgery at 9:30 am... and it's a 45 min drive to this office... and she's only going to be a *little* late? *sigh* Jay took the morning off to take me since I always get shakey after blood work - we scheduled it so Liz was in school, (4 weeks ago) The doctor's not doing an emergancy surgery... apparently, just something "fun" she wanted to get in on, instead of making her appointments on time. Nice. (Yes, I realize this isn't entirely rational and I should try to be flexible and whatnot - but I'm rather annoyed anyways.)

Oh, but they still wanted me there at 10 so I could fill out some paperwork. Whatever. We show up at 10, fill out the paperwork. Pee in a cup, get put in a room... and sit... and sit... and sit... and an hour and a half later - still no doctor. She no showed us. And of course, they just couldn't possibly send in a PA or another doctor to help cover her patients - no they'd rather just leave us in a room with no word of anything. Well, we had to leave to pick up Liz so we ended up leaving... no appointment.

This wouldn't suck quite so bad if we had just been screwed by a doctor - but oh no, we get out to Jay's truck and guess what? It won't start. Yippfrickinee. Soooo I'm about a mile and 1/2 from Lizzy's preschool - I start walking while he works on the truck (aka pushes it home) Good thing we didn't go to the other office right? We'd have REALLY been screwed. I got ahold of mom and she was able to pick me up about a 1/2 mile from the school so I was only 10 minutes late picking her up.

DOES IT EVER END??!?!?!?!?!?!??! Of course not. We get home, go over our finances... and basically we're screwed right now. Just one sucky thing after another - one expense after another... and to top it all off, they couldn't reschedule my doctors appointment for another 4 weeks. Which means I'm now 8 weeks between visits, past the point of a 21 week diagnostic ultrasound... which screws us even more.

Joy.

So I pretty much had a major meltdown this afternoon... we put Lizzy down for a nap and I swear I cried for almost 2 hours straight... I haven't eaten anything (I know I know I will before I go to bed) since 9 this morning and I just feel sick about life. I mean, there's bad luck, and then there's GOD HATES ME days. This was one of them. Jay took his truck back to the mechanic this evening around 6, they're going to work on it together tonight to see if they can't figure out what's wrong - the guy said he wouldn't charge us anything else for labor if Jay would help him, so Jay's going to stay as late as he can until he get's it figured out.

So here I am. Frustrated out of my mind. Ready to say screw it, who needs prenatal care. I'll deliver the dang kid at home, how bad can it hurt right?

We figured out that even if I did go get a job... by the time we pay the penalties for pulling Liz out of her school and then paying for daycare... I'd basically be making nothing. I really really really hate life right now...

I'll get over it.

No need to respond if you've read this far...

I just needed to vent... badly.

*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* :(

Tall Kid.

So I was looking at the ride restriction list on allearsnet.com this morning and guess what? Lizzy is almost tall enough to ride... nearly EVERYTHING!

Crazy!

Check this out, she's ALREADY tall enough to ride Kali River Rapids and Goofy's Barnstormer... but she's only an inch and 1/2 from being able to ride: Dinosaur, Primevil Whirl, Body Wars, Soarin, Test Track, Splash Mountain, Stitches Great Escape, Star Tours and Tower of Terror...

Now I know that this doesn't mean I'd actually take her on all those - but some of them?! She'll love Splash Mountain, Test Track and Soarin! How fun!!!! Here I thought we'd be limited to kiddo rides for another couple years - but no, if she keeps going she'll probably be able ride all those rides for our May trip next spring! How FUN! Anyway, this completely made my day. I can't wait to share Splash Mountain with her. She'll just love it, I know! And Test Track? This kid LOVES stuff like that... wow... this will open up a whole new world of rides for her! I think I'll wait a few years for Tower of Terror and Dinosaur... I think those might scare her. But still! This December daddy and Lizzy can ride Goofy's Barnstormer together! I can't wait to see how she does! We'll skip Kali River Rapids for now too - that ride gets WAY too wet and it kind of freaks me out... I've heard of those things flipping before at other parks so I've always had a grudge against any river rapid ride. ;)

So check it out, as of next summer (assuming she grows an inch and 1/2) there will be one ride in each park she's not tall enough for... but everything else is fair game!!!
Animal Kingdom~ Everest
MGM~ Aerosmith Rockin Roller Coaster
Epcot~ Mission Space
Magic Kingdom~ Space Mt.

This is just too cool.

We sat and watched video's on Youtube this morning... Lizzy was requesting all her favorites, we watched Seas with Nemo, Pooh, Peter Pan, Buzz, Wishes, Spectromagic, (some of these were my favorites) :P But it was a fun way to spend some time together this morning... Liz get's so excited when she see's the characters. Too cute.

I'm stranded at the house today - My car's in the shop AGAIN. The radiator sprung a leak this weekend so we took it over yesterday... that's okay though. I have plenty of laundry to do and lots of healthy things for lunch so we'll be fine.

That's it for now... just had to update - there's definately advantages to an extremely tall kid! How fun! :D

Confession Time

Okay... so after all that writing about dieting and Krystyna being my motivator... (which she still is) I had a moment of EXTREME weakness tonight. Dang travel channel showing donuts... AHHHHHH Y'all know me and donuts! And I sat there glued to the TV watching them produce one krispy kreme glaze donut after another...

So Jay went on a donut run. I told him only 1. But still... 1 donut at almost 10 at night? Dear heavens I have no will power. *sigh*

Oh well. I'm going to savor every bite and kiss the ground my sweet husband walks on. :P

And there he is now! Catch ya later! 400 calories or so greater! ;)

Hair Cut Etc.

Okay... so I finally got Jay to take a couple pics this morning before church, they're sort of bad pics - hurried and whatnot, but at least y'all can finally see my hair. I've been getting threatened in all y'all's emails about getting it done - so here you go! ;)

Okay, so now that that's taken care of... lol No real updates. I got some new mums for the front of the house, (Maroon and Yellow) and put up my fall wreath... it's CUTE! We picked up some mini pumpkins to put around the house, but we're going to wait until our pumpkin excursions on the 20th and the 23rd to get the big pumpkins. Can't wait! I'm feeling pretty good... scoured my kitchen last night so it's nice and sparkely. I'm also officially *dieting* but not really. ;) I'm just watching what I eat instead of just watching the portions... I decided to start buying some of those new zero point soups from progresso (actually very tastey!), some 40 calerie per slice 100% whole wheat bread, and low cal turkey and low sodium, low cal swiss. And lots of grapes. LOL I figure if I can start cutting back on the calories and being more careful about eating out, then that might help me curb so much weight gain but still stay healthy for the baby.

That's my goal anyways. Krystyna motivated me... most my friends usually gain a pretty decent amount, but I was completely impressed with how K did, so I've decided to put in more effort to really keep my gain on the 25-30 lb range. Wish me luck! The upside of that is that Jay's been wanting to eat better lately too, so by me only buying the healthy stuff, he's going to start eating better whether he knows it or not. ;)

You know how good it feels to really scour and bleach your fridge? I did that last night (at 10 pm) and today woke up to a wonderfully clean sparkly fridge... I was a bit giddy over it, I admit. LOL Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a crappy housekeeper... there's always a few messes around my house at any given time, but I've been really proud of myself lately... I have one messy room in the whole house - and all the other rooms I've been keeping very very clean! (Vaccuming 2x's a week or more as needed, dusting, etc.) That's pretty impressive for me... I'm usually the biweekly, if that cleaner. The messy room is the sunroom... which also happens to be right next to the laundry room- so it get's the spill over of laundry. One of these days I'll get on top of all that too... but for now, I'm feeling pretty good about my house right now!

So that's all for now... bring on the fall weather! I'm sick of this heat and rain!

Mini Update

Well, it's been a few days since I posted last. And seeing as how the last couple posts were rather dramatic in the world of toddlerhood - I thought I'd update.

Lizzy's managed to refrain from any more accidents the last few days. I guess her 2 days of terror might have taught her a thing or two b/c now she'll look up at the top shelf in the bathtub and say "noooooo." (Even though the razor is now locked in the medicine cabinet.) Her finger is mostly healed, we still keep bandaids on it, but the hole healed pretty quickly with lots of neosporin and bandaids, it's got a few more days to be 100% but there's now it's just slowly filling in with new skin. The burn mark was gone by the next morning, it definately wasn't on full heat when she grabbed it - but I no longer do use my curling iron anyway since I just chopped all my hair off so it's been put away in the child proofed linen closet. I scoured the house for anything she could turn on/hurt herself with and really couldn't find alot but there were a couple cords I went ahead and hid/got rid of and a few sockets that were open (behind the side table in the living room) I figure she probably would never even reach those but given my child is a bit accident prone - I'm not taking any chances.

On the other side of kiddo news, the baby has been moving like crazy lately. It's so fun feeling her boot scoot and boogey around in there. I didn't feel Liz until about 5 1/2 months - this one is moving ALOT much earlier. I'm sure there's some medical reason like my muscles are stretching faster this time around but whatever the reason - I'm loving every little roll, flutter and occasional kick. This is that point where you love it before it starts hurting. ;) Sooo I'll take it. :)

I need to get a new picture up of my chopped off hair... sorry it's taken so long, the last few days have been crazy. I'll try to get one up later today. It's the most perfect 5 minute style ever! I love it, I just put mousse (sp?) on first and then blowdry and bam! All done. No styling necessary! I just brush it out and it's that easy... I'm kissing the ground my stylist walks on for giving me such an easy do. I got so tired of wearing my long hair up all the time b/c it took 20 minutes to blowdry and another 20 to style decent... this is so great, I don't even consider putting it up b/c it's so easy to leave down! YAY! (Sorry for the giddiness... it's a wee bit exciting for me as it makes all the differance in the world having a kiddo and an easy hairdo.) I can't take 40 minutes to work on my hair in the morning but I sure can do 5 minutes! :D

Anyway... not the most exciting update, but at least when I look back and read these a year from now I'll have my boring life recorded. :P

Oh Oh! I did get Liz a REALLY cute fall outfit from gymboree the other day! It was onsale and has a cute little stitched pumpkin on the front... SO cute! Pics to come soon. :)