Thursday, December 16, 2010

Let it Snow!

I have been waiting for a decent snow so that Aria and I could play in it. Not a vicious, horrible snow, but the snow that Iowa winters are known for-a lot of white fluffy snow and then the next day it is 40*. Well, it wasn't quite 40*, but it was in the mid twenties when we went out to play today.

Aria walked around for a little bit, and then discovered the joy of eating the snow. Ah, the soft, fluffy, cold wet snow-how delicious it is. Once she discovered snow could be eaten that is what she did when she wasn't throwing it around, putting it in her bucket, or making a snow mountain.


Then my rosy-cheeked little girl went out front with me to shovel the sidewalk. This is one of my least favorite things to do just because if I am at the front of my house, that's where I may actually run into a neighbor. Then they will bother me either with stupid questions or annoying requests that have nothing to do with anything.


Aria wanted to help shovel too, so I let her. She tried very hard and then told me it was too heavy and I got to do it again.


It's raining, Mama! It's raining! It's too cute to correct her.


The slide was covered with snow and Aria didn't want to go down it. Therefore, to show her how much fun it would be, I went down it. I slid down it, hit a patch of ice at the bottom and kept going! I slid on my knees til I reached the brick walkway. That didn't make Aria want to slide down it any more, I can tell you.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Another Random Monday

Today Rod gave me a day by myself where he took Aria to visit his mom and I could stay home. I did put away the laundry, pick up the bathroom, and then I basically sat around on the computer thinking about how I should nap and then never did.

I did end up napping when Aria did, which makes it an official lazy day.

Anyway, the list:

1. Rod's favorite Diego episode is the one where they save the strawberry festival by having an iguana poop seeds. I am so serious. They actually have an iguana poop strawberry seeds on the farm and then the strawberries grow. We laughed a lot.

2. Aria and I cut snowflakes today. I thought it would be fun since she likes using scissors anyway. I ended up cutting snowflakes and she would cut down the center of the paper and say they were cowboy pants. She had mama cowboy pants, baby cowboy pants, grandma cowboy pants. It was pretty amusing.

I also made lemon cookies which I am eating full force right now. They are delicious.

Friday, December 3, 2010

The Holiday Stroll

If you are going on a Holiday Stroll, downtown, at Christmas, wouldn't you expect that stores would be open? You know, important stores like....the toy store?

That's just the kind of fail that is the Holiday Stroll.

Aria and I went to the holiday stroll today. I got a good parking place. We were dressed very warmly. There were a lot of people, it looked promising. However, it really was a disappointment.

There were good points. The large community Christmas tree was very pretty. They were giving away hot chocolate and cookies. People brought out their dogs which Aria petted. However, as far as the stores opening and having great deals-it was utter fail.

It's Christmas time and I really don't feel like buying carpet from Carriage House this Christmas. Nor do I want to buy Insurance. I don't want to visit Ruhl and Ruhl Realty. Those were the stores that were open along with lots of breakable shops, antiques, and pawn shops.

The book store? Nope. Closed. The toy store? Closed. The only stores that may actually benefit from a holiday stroll where there are lots of people downtown were the ones that we didn't visit at all. I'm sure I didn't miss them. I walked up and down the sidewalk while I was chasing Aria who liked the idea of running so that the cars didn't get her very much.

In conclusion, Holiday stroll is a waste of time. Will not go next year or any year afterwards. It's not worth it to walk around aimlessly and be cold. I can make hot chocolate at home and look at lights from my heated car.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

First Hair Trim

I gave Aria a trim tonight because the fact she had about five different layers of hair was bugging me. You don't usually notice because her hair is curly, but when there are strands longer than other strands, I have to fix it.

She was very good for me. She sat and watched Diego. She drank her milk and ate her dried cherries. I combed and trimmed her hair. I only cut about an inch and a half off of it, but because her hair does curl, it looks shoulder length even though when it is wet or straight it is past her shoulders.

Anyway, it is all even now except for by her face but I'd have to give her a bob for that and I don't want her hair that short. I thought a moment about keeping her first haircut and then I thought, "What the hell am I going to do hanging onto old hair?" So I showed it to her and then tossed it. She was less than impressed with it. After all, Diego was on.

I also finally made an account at Stuff. I will have about $16 from my first box, but you know, that's better than the big fat nothing I would get if I just took it to goodwill. They didn't take everything that I had in the box, but that's okay because that stuff I will take to goodwill.

I bought Aria long sleeved shirts while I was up there too.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Aria do you have to pee?

"Aria, do you have to pee?"
"No. I pee in bath tub."

Niiiice.

Today Rod took Aria to his mom's house so that I could be alone when I clean and cook for Thanksgiving. This worked out very well and mom came down to help me. While we would make something and it was in the oven, we would spend the baking time picking up so we were able to do two things at once.

The following injuries occurred:

1. I cut my thumb on the metal lid of the canned pumpkin. It bled all over the towel I wrapped around it for pressure. I put two bandaids on it and currently it hurts to press the shift key. It doesn't look too bad right now. I'll live.

2. I burned myself touching a pan.Brilliant.

3. Mom cut herself while chopping celery. I told her to use the cutting board.

The Thanksgiving Day menu looks like this:

1.Pumpkin bread
2. Sweet potatoes
3. Cornbread
4. Stuffing
5. Turkey
6. Cherry salad
7. Cranberry sauce
8. Mashed potatoes and gravy.
9. Biscuits.
10. Leftover brownies.

The best part? Everything but the biscuits is gluten free. I rule! Rod has never eaten any of my Thanksgiving Day food. I told him to prepare for how awesome I am.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Festival of Trees 2010

My mom, Aria, and I went to the Festival of Trees today in the Quads. It is always a good time. The first spectacular thing is the gigantic tree of stuffed animals. Aria's favorite thing on the tree was all of the horses. She walked around it and pointed out every horse. She also would not sit still and look at me for a picture.


The next stop was the gingerbread houses. Aria wanted to touch them, so I had to keep her back. Then she was satisfied to look as we pointed out all of the different kinds of candy. "Look, there's m&m's on the roof". "Look, there's candy canes". She was pretty impressed that you can make houses out of candy. She wants to make one too. I will probably oblige when Gannon comes down. They can do it together.

Then we looked at trees, which Aria wanted to touch all of the presentations. Trying to not have a three year old touch things is hard. I had to explain to her that the toys there were just there for pretty. She couldn't comprehend there being toys about and they are not to play with!

I was very proud of the girl in that she told me that she had to pee, then we went in the bathroom and she went right there. We brought along her potty seat like we always do now and she's been really good at telling us when she has to go while we are out. No accidents today. We took two potty breaks and she was good every time. Even always remembered to wash her hands.

Then there was the train set, which was Aria's absolute favorite thing. She could have stood there and watched that train set all day long. It was impressive. It had five trains going in all directions at once. At the top was a Santa village and a train that went around with Santa on it. Then another train at the bottom stopped for passengers. Another one went in a tunnel. Still another one looked like it had steam coming from the engine. It was a fun train.


We then went to the kid's part of things and this year I was smart and brought cash. I got two punch cards for Aria so she could do four activities. The first thing she did was go to storytime. She was so about storytime. When the lady would ask questions Aria was the first to answer. When the lady asked what book to read, Aria was giving her opinions. She actually sat and listened to three stories before her attention span wavered.



She also loved the activities. I tried to pick things that she'd be able to do because most of the stuff was geared towards bigger kids. The first one was a stamp ornament. You used your thumb to stamp out a pattern and then you used markers to color it in. Aria made a butterfly (with some help from mama) and was very proud of her creation. So much that she was showing the nice lady that was cleaning the floors.

The second one was similar. You decorated mittens with stamps, stickers, or markers. Aria had fun with the stamps there too and was very proud of her creation. She also got a sucker, a little treasure, and she got some popcorn and juice. The popcorn was just in a little bag and so it was her baby popcorn.

This year they had a small corner set up for little kids under 4 to play for free. It had big blocks, a bean throwing game, crayons, and little fisher price basketball hoops. Aria had a good time there too and got to run off some steam.

Then we ate. They had a restaurant come in with some tables along the skywalk and they were serving food. Therefore we got to sit along the skywalk while we ate. We had really yummy shrimp bisque and brownies. We all thought it was delicious. Then it rained so we watched it rain on the people below us while we sat at our comfy table at the skywalk. That was probably the highlight of my day:shrimp, skywalk table, rain.

We looked around a bit more and then both Aria and mom were exhausted so we headed home. It was a good time and Aria was pretty good except the incidents where she wanted to touch everything there.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Movie Evening With Aria.

Watching movies with Aria right before bed is one of the most fun things ever. We've done it twice now. The first time it was with Care Bears and now the second time is Bob the Builder. Usually she doesn't want to see anything but Dora, but if I tell her that we will be eating ice cream, and she can stay up late, then she was all about it. She even started stripping as soon as she could so that she could have her bath early!

It is fun watching new things with Aria because if it is something that she hasn't seen a million times she is glued to it. It was Bob the Builder and the Golden Hammer and it was cute watching Aria try to figure out the clues and making comments about the things on the screen. She sat with me on the couch underneath the blanket and a bunch of her stuffed animals were all around us.

Then it was potty break and she went to bed with no problem!

I've got a few more movies lined up for us to watch sometime next week.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Is it Tuesday? Wait, yeah, it is Tuesday.

I don't want to say that Aria is potty trained because she's still having accidents. Some days she'll have absolutely none at all and then the next day she'll make up for it by having me have to clean every one of the stuffed animals she has in her bed. Today was one of those days and that poor horse has been washed so much he now has a horsey afro.

But surprisingly she hasn't had an accident any time we've been in the store, which is what I am prepared for. If I forgot one thing, like wipes or a pair of pants, that would be the day she would pee on the floor of walmart. So far so good.

Aria and I made an epic zoo with her animals, little people, and blocks.


As you can see, the little people children all love the zoo. We have giraffes, a panda, many horses, geese, ducks, a porcupine, and a rabbit in our zoo. We also have a park, and a train.



Even Percy enjoys our zoo.

Aria and I have been playing several games in bed. All of these games are classics like, "Hey what is this bump in the bed? Hey, it's Aria!" or the ever famous "Where is Aria? I can't find her under this blanket or this one...oh there she is!" also there are many waking up games that involves Aria pretend snoring which is just hilarious.

Here is Aria pretending to sleep on the couch.


She's also been really good about going to bed lately, let's hope that continues.

Aria has made it known that she no longer wants to be tickled. She runs way from her daddy when he comes home because he'd always chase her and then tickle her first thing. I told Rod about it and he has agreed to stop tickling. Now when he comes home Aria yells, "No tickle! No tickle!" and when we say that no one will tickle her, then she is all right. I don't blame the little girl, I hate being tickled too. I don't laugh, though, I kick and scream.

Aria quote of the day: "Heh heh...Aria funny."

Thursday, November 4, 2010

11 Things Thursday

1. Had another accident with potty training this time. this time it was in her car seat. We stopped at two places in Davenport for a potty break and she didn't pee anywhere. then she is in her car seat and she goes. The good news is she didn't pee in her bed for naps and waited until she got downstairs to pee in her potty.

2. Although she seems perfectly all right to pee in her pants, she doesn't like to poop anywhere but the potty. This is the exact opposite from everyone else I've talked to. In fact, she's quite proud to poop in the potty, but she totally doesn't care if she has pee running down her legs.

3. The new game now is that Aria wants to save everything. She'll put on her firehat, get on her Winnie the Pooh fire truck, and then go save some random stuffed animal. "Giraffe, I save you!" "Oh no! Horsey stuck! I save you!" Firefighter Aria to the rescue!

4. All of her animals are her friends and in the bath she says hello to each and every bath toy.

5. Her stuffed doggie was leaking beads so I am being mommy of the year putting each bead back inside and then sewing him up. I promised my little girl that doggie would be fixed in the morning.

6. Tomorrow is Aria's first gymnastics class. I hope she enjoys it. I've been psyching her up for it and I keep reminding her she has to listen and behave.

7. I love my kitchen now. I used to hate my kitchen. Now I am loving it. It still needs work but it is 100% better than what it was.

8. I need to have parties at my house all the time because it motivates me to clean up.

9. I need to go to bed early tonight, but I know I won't.

10. I am totally addicted to starbucks coffee.

11. I was at the bank and Aria saw the fish and was just talking. The teller goes, "She talks a lot, doesn't she?" I said, "She never stops unless she's sleeping."

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Kitchen fun!

You know what you do when you hate your kitchen? You wait for a sale at Menards and then you fix it! Finally we got tired of the stupid green seventies sink, the broken cabinets, the stains on the counter top, and the ugly white wall that shows every grease splatter from the stove.

Rod ripped out the old counter and sink on Monday. It was rotted at the bottom. The plumbing had been leaking again, which prompted the fixing. We decided that just once and for all we were going to replace all of it. I'd even get a new sink in the bargain. Wicked awesome.

It was all too easy to get. The area to put it in was exactly 6ft. The counter top was exactly 6 ft. Perfect. It always ticked me off the way that our cabinets were put in before. They were way too low and there was this space in the middle of all of them. There wasn't enough room because they got cabinets too small for the space that they were going.

When Rod ripped it out, I got to painting. I picked an orange/red color for my kitchen a long time ago and Vick and I had done one wall. Now I got to do another one!




There had been a huge hole in the back of our counters that we didn't know existed before. Great. I was sure that was where our roach problem was coming from-they were living in the wall! Rod wasn't going to patch it because he said it was just behind the counter and I had to explain to him why he needed to patch it. He did and then I painted over it. No holes in the wall!

Aria was whiny while we were working all week. It was "I'm hungry!" when she had food around her. "I'm thirsty!" when she had juice. She just wanted attention and we were busy. Rod had been bugging me about why couldn't I get stuff done around Aria and when she started crying hysterically because she wanted something and we were busy I said, "This is why. This is why it is difficult to work around Aria."

But when she wasn't being a whiny little brat, she was being very helpful. She used the tape measure to draw straight lines on a paper and told us she was making a fridge. She helped daddy by giving him tools. Then she wanted to saw, to hammer, and to hold things. She liked being helpful. She even threw stuff away for us, just before requesting Dora's Pirate Adventure for the 70 billionth time.





Now granted, the color of the counter top was not my first choice. It was just the best looking of what they had at the time. It also went with my color scheme. Also, the cabinets are actually really high, but that is because we have high ceilings. For now we are using a step stool to get to the cabinets, but if we get annoyed we will lower them some. I will have a stainless steel sink put in and then it will all be good!



We managed to salvage two of the old uppet cabinets and I am going to put them in other places in my kitchen. Then I plan on getting two more counters now that I know what size I want and the approximate cost. Eventually, I may have an actual kitchen instead of the weird thing that passed for a kitchen before.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Some Things I Accomplished Today

1. Combing Aria's hair. This may not seem like a biggie, but it is getting more difficult to make that girl get her hair combed. I know she doesn't like it when I get out tangles, but it has to be done and I try to make it as painless as possible. Today I had to drag her out from under the table and then trap her with my legs as I combed her hair.

2. Made breakfast for everyone. This may also not seem like a biggie, but this time instead of just Ari and me, Rod was up too and so I made breakfast for us all. I made scrambled eggs with bacon, onion, cheese, mayonaise and a bit of white wine. It was delicious. Aria also liked it and so she actually ate some.

3. I put all of the things I don't want out this winter into the basement. That includes my patio furniture and my mower. I don't have to worry about that now.

4. I worked more on the brick sidewalk. It's getting longer now! Aria played outside hitting her big ball with her golf club. Then I put some nails in a board and let her hit them with a hammer. That was great fun to her!

5. We put the fence back up. It isn't perfect, you know, since the area was run over with a skidloader quite a few times, but our fence is back up. That means Aria and I can play outside a little bit. Only one of my asparagus plants survived the onslaught.

6. Helped Rod write a resume. He's trying to get a PTL job again and so we did his resume this morning.

So that's what I accomplished, and all before 3pm! I can take the rest of the day off!

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Oh no! Save her!

Aria's new game in the bath is hilarious. She throws her dolphin squirty toy across the bathtub to the other side, then she swims over to it to save it. She stands up at one end and then poses like she is going to dive in. She yells, "Oh no! Dolphin! Save it!" then she goes, "I'm coming!" She jumps down into the water (she bruised her knees doing this) and pretends to swim until she reaches her dolphin. She then goes, "I save it!"

This little girl is a riot, I tell you.


Monday, October 11, 2010

Pumpkin Patch Fun

I have discovered a love of pumpkin patches. I never went to one before I had Aria and now I am going to make it a tradition. Already I've found my favorites. Today we went to the one in Buffalo on Hwy 22. I drove past it once because the sign was really small, but I turned around and found it!




The first thing Aria wanted to run to was the gate of ponies. These you couldn't feed or pet, but she sure liked looking at them. There were also tires filled with corn, a barn that was turned into a little kids' straw castle, a moon bounce, and lots of stuff. Aria didn't want to play in the castle or go on the moon bounce. For her it was all about the animals.




Especially the baby cows. There were three of them. Two of them you could feed and another one was in a fence with its mama-who was a longhorn. Aria thought the baby cows were so cute and although she was too afraid to pet them herself, she lived vicariously through me while I petted them and fed them.



This was the goat that was roaming all over the pumpkin patch. Aria was brave enough to pet this one a lot and he followed people around and ate anything that was on the ground.







Aria, naturally, wanted to go on the pony rides. I went to the concession stand to get a ticket and when I told her we were ready for the pony rides she didn't want to wait for me! She just ran as fast as she could there. Lil Stinker.





Pony Rides was the highlight of the whole day. She also enjoyed seeing the bunny that the owner let out a few times. she petted it too and thought it was really cute. So between goats, cows, pony rides, bunnies, and little pigs, Aria had a full day.

There was also a point when a train went by and Aria pointed at it and started waving while yelling at the top of her lungs, "Thomas! Hi, thomas! Hi, Thomas! Hi!" The people who knew the thomas the train reference thought it was cute.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Everything that comes out of this kid's mouth is funny.

Today we were heading home from Davenport when Aria requested listening to her favorite song, Hey Soul Sister. I have it on my phone and so I handed my phone to her with the song playing. We had finished listening to Bad Romance and I got her going that Lady Gaga sings it. I asked her, "Who sings Hey Soul Sister?" She didn't know and so I said, "Train. Train sings Hey Soul Sister."

Aria then goes, "Thomas! Thomas sing it."

So she thinks that Thomas the Tank Engine sings Hey Soul Sister. I love this little stinker.


Monday, October 4, 2010

Funny Things Aria Says Now

Aria is saying all sorts of funny things now that makes me laugh. I wish I could remember even half of them so I am attempting to write some down today so that I won't forget.

The first thing that Aria said this morning when I went to her room to wake her up was, "Aria sleeping very very fast." She also says this when she wakes up from her nap.

Aria, Rod, and Alex were in the Quad Cities getting comic books and Rod had to go across several lanes of traffic. He said, "Now hold on because daddy has to go fast. Are you ready?" Well, he ended up not going as fast as he thought he was going to have to and Aria said in the most sarcastic little voice, "Daddy goes very very fast." Rod said that it was so funny he almost had to pull over cuz she sounded so sarcastic.

Today when Rod said he wanted to go to the Quads on Tuesday I reminded him that mom would be down to get groceries. He said yeah, that was fine and I said, "I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page." Aria then blurts out, "The next page!"

We were also at Drugtown and they had a big blow-up pumpkin in the parking lot. Aria asked me, "What do pumpkin balloons do?" I said, "I don't think they do anything, honey." She goes, "What do pumpkin balloons go?" I said, "I don't think they do anything, sweetie." Then she goes, "Pumpkin balloons go 'AHHHHHHHHHHHH!'!"

Friday, October 1, 2010

Family Fun Museum

Aria and I went to the Family Fun Museum in Bettendorf today. It's a lot like the children's museum in Coralridge Mall, but half the price! Both Aria and I got in for $12 total.

For some odd reason, Aria didn't want to go in at first. She cried and wanted to go back to the car. I did not understand that one at all because she's never done that before. I picked her up and carried her inside and once she saw all of the fun, she was okay.

Aria's favorite things were the little kitchen. She put all of the plastic food in a big pan and she was making soup. She'd then put the pan in the little refrigerator to cook it. She put her soup on plates-one for mama and one for Aria.

There was this thing set up on the floor that looked like a pond of fish and when you stepped on the lilypads or the flowers or anything, the butterflies would fly away and the fish would swim. The water would ripple. Aria liked that a lot and was stomping on it to try to make the fish move.

Aria's second favorite thing was the electric piano they had set up. She had a good time changing the sounds of the keys and playing it. She spent a long time playing that piano. She also spent a great deal of time banging on the xylophones that were set up. She wasn't really interested in the little grocery store or the drums. She just wanted to go back and forth from the piano and xylophones.

Mama is Aria's favorite playmate now. Even if she is around other kids, she doesn't want to play with them. She stares at them and then kind of stays away from them. I will sometimes talk to the other kid and encourage her to play with them, but she doesn't. I know it isn't because she's shy, because she's really not a very shy kid. She has her shy moments sometimes, but she quickly warms up to people. Right now she just wants to play with mama.

I was so very proud of my little girl. I went to the restroom and they had little kid potties in stalls. She wanted to go in one on her own and picked a little potty that had a yellow seat. She pulled down her pull-up and sat on it for a long time. She even wiped herself and flushed. At one point, Aria wanted mama out of the stall so she could shut the door and pee by herself. That was so awesome. I told her over and over how awesome it was she did that.

Random stuff:

Favorite song right now: Secrets-One Republic
Favorite ice cream: Blue Bunny Cherry and chocolate
Favorite facebook app: It Girl

I also went on a site where I could load up a pic of me and try on celebrity's hairstyles. I look best with Jennifer Aniston's hair and Gweneth Paltrow's hair.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Mole No More

Today I went to the dermatologist and got my mole taken off my chin. I also got one taken off my chest, but that one wasn't as important as the chin one because I didn't see it every single day. My mole has been there as long as I can remember and has been seen in school pictures as early as 1st grade. Therefore this mole has been a part of my identity for 25 years. Taking it off was kind of sad, like I was losing part of my body. Which, quite literally, I was, but you know what I mean.

But, seeing how skin cancer is prevalent in my family, how moley I am, and that I have health insurance, I thought that I should get that done since it was changing sizes, color, and hair was growing out of it. Same with the other mole that was also removed.

So that you know what having a mole removed is like, let me tell you in explicit detail!

First of all, they numb the area with an anasthetic. That's actually the most painful part of the whole ordeal. You feel like you are being pricked with a needle, which in fact you are. It's not a jumping pain or a clenching pain at all. Just a "Ow, that kinda hurts a little" type of pain. After that you are numb like you are at the dentist on novacaine.

After you are numb, they take this shaver that is not unlike the ones that you see for your feet when you have calluses. Your mole is then just shaved right off your face. It doesn't take very long at all, just a few seconds. It took them longer to get the one on my face than on my chest.

Once the mole is shaved off, they clean it with alcohol. Then they burn the skin so that it will stop bleeding. This also does not hurt at all but you do smell the burnt flesh. This is not as shocking or disturbing as it sounds. You just go, "Huh, I smell something burning." You don't even feel it as they do it. After it is burnt so that you don't keep bleeding, it is cleaned again, antibiotics put on it, and then the bandaid!

the whole thing takes about 10 minutes total.

I did not watch as they shaved the one off my chest. I just did not want to see that. I kept my eyes closed. What does my chin feel like now? It feels like I have a sticker on my face and it also itches where the bandaid is.

I can take the bandaid off tomorrow, but for two weeks I have to add antibiotics and wash the area with alcohol. The doc also told me that I will have scars. I told him no big deal. I'm used to something always being there anyway.

Monday, September 27, 2010

I Accomplish Something, I Swear

I have so much I need to do and the list seems never ending. I feel like I haven't really accomplished anything. Therefore to make myself feel better, I will write a list of what I accomplished today.

1. I took Grandpa his pictures from Vick.

2. I did a load of laundry.

3. I hung up the new mailbox and threw the other one away.

4. I did a load of laundry.

5. I sealed a few of the cracks in the basement.

6. I used remaining crack filler to try to paint over the graffiti on my sidewalk.