MVJ - almost 15 months!

I canNOT believe my baby is 15 months old!  She is such a fabulous little thing.  We love every stage of babydom, but it seems like lately her abilities have just absolutely grown by leaps and bounds.  She grew and grew for her first few months of life, but now she's doing, doing, doing, learning, learning, learning, learning.

People are almost put off when I tell them she is NOT a cuddly little lovey bear.  She IS our lovey, but she is not calm or huggy.  She is wild, running around now.  She loves to be outside, loves to run in the grass, and still loves kids.  We have spent a fair amount of time at parks and while she doesn't play WITH kids, she loves to watch them and run around them. 

Guess what?  MVJ is officially weaned.  She even tries to nurse less and less now.  For the first few days it was brutal.  And she didn't understand.  It was tough on this momma.  Of course with her getting sick, it was tough to not sit and nurse her (previously my only chance to cuddle!). 

We've decided to grow MVJ's hair out.  When our hairdresser was at our house, she commented that her hair is growing well and if we just keep sweeping it out of her eyes, it'll reach the point that it'll stay back/to the side naturally.  She does NOT let us put hair things in her hair.  If we do manage, she rips them out (along with some of the hair that was clipped in it!).  She does keep hair ties in, thankfully.  Lately, she's even yanked out MY hairthings! 

Speaking of hair things, we know MVJ is watching our every moves.  In the past, when I would do her hair, I would grab a hair thing, put it in my mouth while I combed her hair, then stuck it in.  Now if MVJ gets her grabby hands on a hair thing, she puts it in her mouth and then tries to put it in her hair.  Stinker!  While she seems to put things IN her mouth less often, she still puts things up to her lips a lot.  It seems like her lips are a feeler giving her extra information about an object.  It's pretty interesting watching her.

MVJ is such a busy girl.  We've taken out our baby gates and pretty much let her roam free.  We DO have to keep the bathroom door shut.  She is fascinated with the garbage and toilet (early potty trainer???).  We also have to be good about keeping our door closed.  She loves digging though our dirty clothes AND going through all of the clean clothes in my armoire.  Stinker!

Bringing back lots of memories...

We are had a pep rally at school yesterday.  Our school counselor is hilarious and they are always enjoyable.  The kids need a break from the norm.  We usually have great speakers (this time the Lamoureux twins -- think US Women's Olympic hockey players, who went to the middle school I teach at!).  They did awesome - had a great message, made kids want to listen, and stayed for some fun (shoot out competition, race around cones, and tug of war competition (kids won against teachers for the first time ever... I guess having Olympians on your side can help!).  There was also a scooter race (that I was a part of -- good thing we had an insider tip from a gym teacher and got a souped up scooter!) and jelly bean finding contest (they put three jelly beans at the bottom of a pie tin, filled it with whipped cream - no hands!). 

This time, though, we also had the addition of a teacher band!  I dusted off my poor clarinet, asked the band teacher for a new reed, and I was off!  It came back so naturally.  It was amazing.  Of course my mouth is WAY out of practice and my staccatos were less than impressive, but I remembered some scales, got almost all the way through the chromatic scale, and could play my school's song (which is really all that mattered anyways).  JJ was impressed I could carry a tune.  I was like, "Here, I'll play you some clarinet showstoppers!"  : )  I found a ton of old music (one book entitled: "Clarinet Showstoppers"... who knew?  I don't usually associate the clarinet with showstopping music, but I guess someone did!)

Since MVJ was sick, I wasn't able to attend the one practice we had before our big gig.  I was a little nervous, but went out there anyways.  We had a drummer, some trumpets, a recorder, a violin, a piccolo, and lots of flutes (there may have been more that I missed).  Thankfully the jazz band joined us for the second verse.  But honestly, we sounded pretty good if I do say so myself!  GO SMS!

Playing clarinet reminded me of my dear band teacher, Mr. S, who passed away recently from cancer.  He held us to HIGH standards, expected great things and got them.  His motto, "Early is on time and on time is late." is something I remember always!  (Even as I sit here in my bathrobe and will hopefully escape the latter part of that statement at work today!)  He is in tons of my high school memories: pep band (learning the d@%$ school song -- although it was When the Saints Go Marching In... so the vulgarity is probably a bit over the top!!), marching band (Aztecarada anyone??), concert band, ensembles, making it to state competitions, All State Band, banquets, band tour... and just the little things - the time spent before school to practice, hanging out in his office, crying because I left my clarinet at home and my Mom refused to get it first before dropping my brother off at school and as a freshman in the upperclass band I felt so embarrassed coming in late and, as I noted, Mr. S ran a tight ship.  Hmm... some memories just stick with you I guess!

Friday's Meal -- update!

I told you to stay tuned to how my crockpot meal would turn up.  WELL, of course it didn't go 100% smoothly, but it did turn out well, and JJ had lots of compliments. Woot!  Woot! 

Let me start off by saying I heart my crockpot.  JJ will do the traditional roast, but otherwise he doesn't venture too much to the crockpot.  I am ALL ABOUT IT.  I suppose since I work during the day, it just makes sense to me.  But also, I just love the ease of dump it in, turn it on, go do stuff, come back and eat.  Yup, those steps work for me.

Anyways, I woke up early (I have been to exercise!), and got out my big crockpot and small "dip" crockpot.  I decided to tackle the meat loaf first.  My Mom sent me her fabulous recipe, so I kind of combined hers and my crockpot one.  I mixed all of the ingredients and the final step was to form it into a loaf and place it in the crockpot.  Well... we have a round crockpot, so it just didn't seem like the loaf-deal was going to work.  Soooo, I just pressed it all down into the bottom of the crockpot, and guess what?  It worked PERFECTLY.  Actually, the edges were crispy burnt (just the way I like my meat!).  Yum-o.  The only minor mishap with this one, was that while I was reaching for something in the cupboard, a jar of beef broth cubes fell into the meat.  Oops!  AAAAND lid on... lesson learned!

Then, I dove right into making the carrots.  The recipe called for two pounds of carrots -- this must be for a full Thanksgiving meal or something!  I only had the dip sized crockpot left, so I put in about half a pound.  The full recipe called for half a cup of water.  I thought there was no way fourthing a half a cup would be enough, so I just kept adding water until I thought it was enough.  Then I started getting out the other ingredients - honey, apricot marmalade, parsley.  I decided not to measure.  I'm such an accomplished chef, I really can just measure by eye.... ummm.... yeah right!  More like I'm just too lazy to get out the measuring spoons!  I poured in some honey and was checking to see about how much marmalade, in comparison on the honey, I should add when I read that it was supposed to be added AFTER the carrots cooked (NINE hours!).  Oops.  It seriously didn't seem to matter.  Besides the carrots possibly being a little water logged... and the lid not fitting on (at first -- I knew the carrots would cook down though!) -- I thought they were delicious -- and they were definitely soft enough for the MVJ to enjoy as well. 

GO cooking at home!  : )

Giveaways!

I'm discovering the world of giveaways!  Did you know you can win tons of cool stuff online?  A whole new world is opening up to me!  AND I can get three "spots" if I blog about the giveaway.  Sweet!  I don't know if I actually want to link back to this site --- you'll love it for yourself and lower my chances!  ; ) 

Of course just kidding (mostly).  Check out "Take It From Me" and win some stuff!

Ways we know MVJ is sick...

Poor sweet girlfriend is not feeling well.  I feel so bad when she is sick.  Here are some tell tale signs things aren't 100% with my girl:

*She has the symptoms- this time: cough, runny nose, rosy cheeks.

*She is a little extra whiney, a little less patient, a little more demanding.

*MVJ had trouble sleeping and she let me rock her to sleep.  That NEVER happens.  She just laid there looking at me until she drifted off to sleep.  It was quite the experience for me.  I also had this feeling that she is a big girl.  I used to rock her when she was teeny tiny.  Now her body doesn't just sit on my chest like it used to. 

*Daddy's going to be gone.  OF COURSE.  Whenever I'm by myself, or we have to make babysitting arrangements, it would only make sense that she would start to feel sick.  (Stinker!)

Livin' the Life

One of my friends used to be a hairdresser, that is before she had three kids in about as many years and is currently pregnant!  But, she still some hairdoing (?) hairstyling... on the side.  We called her up because JJ has an interview on Tuesday and I was ready to bite the bullet.  We picked Saturday morning and about a half hour before our appointments she texted to ask if she could come to our house instead.  No problem.  It actually worked better because li'l miss MVJ has been funking up her nap schedule lately.  So there JJ and I were, with our personal hairdresser, who drove to our house just to fix our hair.  : )  It was pretty fantastic.  I donated my hair to Locks of Love for about the 7th time... maybe 8th now that I stop to think about it.  It's pretty short, and I'm still getting used to it, but it'll grow back.  For some reason my hair has been on steroids lately.  The last time I donated was over Christmas last year... so it's taken me less than a year and a half to grow it the required nine inches. 

Hello there friends!

Wow!  It's been a long, long time!  And now is really not the time for me to re-enter blogging world.  I should be getting into the shower and getting ready for school!  Yikes!

So, here are some excuses why I haven't been on here:

1) Campus is shutting down wireless internet.  YEAH.  SUCKS.  We've been trying to figure out how to bypass it - because we know people are (we see them!).  Any help?  Tech people?  Someone affiliated with technology on campus?  I'm talking to you LC and NC!!  : )

2) It's gorgeous outside!  My gorgeous girl wants to be outside!  Why would I sit inside on the computer??

3) I've been involved in tons of extracurriculars.  For example, I joined a stamp club, and then there was a mini-women's retreat at our Church... and and JA (a friend from work) hosts a craft night once a month... so much to do!

4) My hubbers and daughter gave me my Mother's Day present early!  A wii fit!  Woot!  That Biggest Loser competition at my school is looking more realistic.  Although I heard someone's "sabotaging" the competition and has already lost 35 lbs.  NO FAIR!  Men can lose weight by just uttering the words "I'd like to lose weight."

5) Transition meetings and final IEPs and reevaluations and summer projects, OH MY!  Spring is crazy busy for specialists!  Well... what season isn't I guess!

6) My dog ate my homework?  Oh... wait... not those kind of excuses.  Yup, that about covers it.

Stay tuned.... I told JJ I'm making supper Friday night.... wait and be amazed .... or downright sad.