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.