Does this basketball make me look fat?

I miss being pregnant.  Sure you get big and swollen and you get heartburn but I still enjoyed it.  (Not to mention the added bonus of a cute little newborn.)


Last night, Hubby and I went to a social for Sunshine's school.  Adults only.  Woohoo!  Night out!  Dinner, cash bar, silent auction and casual attire.  Woohoo!  Oh, wait, casual attire.  Usually I love the words "casual attire".


Usually.


I realized that casual attire can mean so many different things to so many different people.  I live in a neighborhood where many women will wear nice heel boots and designer clothes to the park and to a school functions.


Not me.


I like jeans.  Jeans are my best friend.  I'm not talking designer jeans either.  I'm talking just regular ole jeans, nothing special.  For me, when I heard casual, I immediately thought jeans and a sweater or shirt.


Then I realized, this was not one of those kind of casual events.  I decided on a pair of Dockers, I figured I wouldn't look too over dressed or too underdressed.  So I'd wear Dockers and something...  something... something.  I looked in my closet for "something".  Nothing.  I looked in my drawers (even though I had already decided against a sweater).  Nothing.  I looked again in my closet.  For some reason, "something" didn't magically appear.


What was going on?  Where was all of my clothes?


And then I saw it.  One of my maternity dresses that I had bought when I was pregnant with Sunshine.  I had loved the dress.  It's maroon with a tie in back.  Simple yet dressy, but not too dressy.


Oh.  That's where my clothes was.  It was packed up in boxes and  ready to be donated to other women who needed maternity clothes.  What about the other clothes?  My regular clothes.  Oh yeah.  I've been home for so long that I have about 15 cotton shirts, some sweaters and a dozen sweatshirts, some (many) of them are from when I was in high school, and that's about it.  There's casual and then there's casual.  That's just a bit too casual.

So I decided, the thing I miss most about being pregnant?  The wardrobe.  I didn't need to have a ton of stuff because I didn't need to and people didn't expect you to.

Then I began to wonder...


How weird would it be if I wore a maternity dress when I wasn't pregnant?  Probably pretty weird.  Maybe I could just strap a basketball around my waist...


Vicky

Hats, hats and more hats!

Monkey has the most animated voice of a 4 year old that I know.  His facial expressions are one of a kind.  He has a knack for getting the combination of the 2 in the best possible ways that make you laugh, even - or especially - when he's being naughty.  And now, you can apparently add story teller to his 'list'.


Monkey and Bug both have cute Monkey hats.  Monkey's happens to be one of those sock monkey hats with the long braids coming down from the side/ears.  They're cute, especially on a kid.  I'm not one who has enough self-confidence to be able to pull it off.


They other day, Monkey and I were sitting down and he asks me where was my monkey hat.  (After all, everyone must have a monkey hat.)  I told him I didn't have a monkey hat only he and Bug did.  This would be the part where is able to get this surprised/shocked look on his face along with a gasp of disbelief.  Of course he wanted to know why and I told him that I just didn't have one and that not everyone has monkey hats.


This is his reply:


"Mommy, Daddy and me and Sunshine are going to go to the dore and get you a monkey hat.  I will wap it up and hide it behind dis chair.  You will close yo'r eyes.  I will put the present on yo'r yap.  I will tell you to open it.  You will open it and you will be so surprised and you will say, 'Oh my doodness, a monkey hat!  I wuv it!"  And den you will put it on and you will have dese long thingies on the side like I do and you will pull your hat way down and it will keep yo'r ears nice and warm."


Now all that the story needs is a store that is still stocking hats.

Vicky

Did I really just do that?

I'm all congested, have watery eyes and am overall achy and uncomfortable.


I hate being sick.


I also hate when people say that.  Does anyone really like being sick?  It's like when people say they hate going to the dentist or they hospitals, doctors, needles...  I suppose there are those people that enjoy the sympathy and the attention a bit too much.  Ok, it is nice being taken care of, but not at the expense of being miserable.


Honestly, it drives me crazy though when people are always saying how much they the above mentioned yet I too am guilty of it.


Regardless, I hate it.  It's worse when you have kids too.  There are no days off.  I can't lie in bed feeling sorry for myself.  God forbid I attempt to lie on the couch.  Monkey loves to cuddle (which I love) but he is a couch and cover hog who talks often and loudly.  Sunshine will yell, I mean whisper loudly, that he needs to be quiet and it never fails that those are the days that Bug doesn't nap.  So 2 weeks ago when Hubby got sick, I felt bad for him, but was secretly hoping that I would stay my bright and cheery self.


Then it happened.


No, I didn't spontaneously get sick 4 days after him.


No, it really wasn't a big surprise.


For me anyways.  I'm sure Hubby was assuming that it would happen.  After all, I sleep right next to him and he breathes on me.


I'm pretty sure that's not why it happened though.


Last Monday, in my tired, groggy, let's just go to bed, state of mind, I used Hubby's toothbrush.


We both have similar toothbrushes.  Both are blue/blue and white but they are a different brand.  They are also kept in different cups on different sides of the sink.  The thought of using someone else's toothbrush really grosses me out.


Sure, I might kiss him - but I don't scrub his plaque off.


Then things got worse.  I must not have learned my lesson because on Thursday night I did the same, exact thing.  I realized halfway through the brushing that the brush didn't feel quite right.  I looked down and sure enough, there was my toothbrush, nice and dry.  Sitting in it's own dry cup on the right side of the sink.


When I woke up this morning congested, with watery eyes and all achy, I really have no one to blame but myself.  My next stop to the store will be one with me buying 2 new toothbrushes.  Two brushes, two colors.





Vicky

It's CAR-NEE-VAHL time!

Sunshine's and Monkey's new favorite movie is Rio.  If you've never seen it, it is cute.  You know a kid's movie is good when you're still willing to watch it after having it on over and over and over and over and over...

The best part of the movie?  They both like it.  Not something that happens often.  Now I don't want anyone to think that I plop my kids in front of the television all day but I'm certainly not going to deny that I do let my kids watch it.  How much?  More than some and less than others.  :)

Like all kid movies though, it has catchy songs in it.  Songs that will stick with you all day long until the next thing you know, you're the one singing it.  It's like a commercial jingle; you don't realize you know it until you're washing dishes and you start humming it.  Next thing you know, you're thinking that maybe you should go ahead and break out the popcorn and watch the movie again.

The catchy jingle type songs aren't age discriminate either.  Sing the song enough and others will join along, even if they don't know how to talk yet.  Bug has started to sing along too.  Although his goes more like, "Wio. Wio. Wio."  It is definitely him trying to sing the words.  The baby says no more than a dozen words but he can sing the words from an animated movie.

Awesome.

On the positive side (always look at the glass half full) he is learning words and he is exploring his musical side.

Vicky

Watch out Cake Boss

Well it may not have been perfect, but I had so much fun decorating Sunshine's cake.  Monkey decided that he did NOT want a candy cake but wanted cupcakes.  I enjoyed making those as well but realized that I really needed 1. more practice 2. more tips for my frosting bag 3. more bags and most of all 4. more time!  I was working up until the morning of at noon and guests were coming at 3:00.  I was still wearing sweats, food needed to be prepared, the kids needed  to be dressed and I had a mess of dirty dishes overflowing my sink, counters, and sinks.  Then I had a table covered in powdered sugar.  I do mean covered, you could see some brown of the wood in places but in other places it was just a white mess.  I needed to sift the sugar and it continued fluff/fall out all over the place.

Wilton's Carousel Cake DIY design and frost it.  Next time I'll make sure I have a darker color.  I was pretty bummed about how light the color was.  Apparently using the yellow butter makes it impossible to make a lavender.  Instead you get a grayish color.  The royal icing turned out a nice pretty lavender but still lighter than I had wanted.  I like the peach color around the bottom.

Here are 13 of the 24 cupcakes the Monkey and I made.  Can you tell which are the ones he made?  I will definitely need more decorating bags though.

Vicky
*So this isn't really a "recipe", I just like to brag!

Monkey man

Bug should have been called Monkey because he IS a monkey.  He crawls, climbs, jumps on everything and everyone.  His favorite thing to do?  Climb on the kitchen chair, turn so his stomach is against the back of the chair and shake the chair until it starts thumping back and forth.  Now you might think, "Oh, he'll stop if he falls off."  Oh no.  He's fallen off the chairs so many times that we've decided to take all of the kitchen chairs out of the kitchen and put them in the living room.  We found we also had to gate the living room off.  In the process of moving the chairs, he was climbing onto the chairs in the living room and rocking them again.  So we now have a gate between the kitchen and the living room.


Bug will climb on the couch and jump on the couch to land flat on his face, purposely flat on his face.  You might think, "Oh, he'll stop if he falls off."  Oh no.  Again, he's fallen off of the couch as well.  He cries and climbs back up, jumping up and down as soon as he gets there.


His new favorite thing?  Standing in his high chair.  Bug is always strapped in but he somehow has managed to stand up in the chair.  I am not a terrible neglectful mother.  I don't wait for him to fall out of his chair.  Not to worry, Bug is still ok.


He wrestles with his brothers and if you're lying on the floor he'll crawl on you and start bouncing on you.  He's not picky about what body part either.  It can be your back, legs, neck, head.  If you're on your stomach and you have your eyes closed, quietly minding your own business and taking a little break, he'll crawl over/onto you and sit on your stomach or face and bounce.  Nothing is better than having a baby diaper right in your face, usually with a wet diaper on too.


The funny thing though, not until today has he been walking more than crawling.  In fact today I officially said that he's walking.  I worry, what's going to happen when Bug is running?


It's lucky for him.  He's always a happy little boy and is into mischief but will always do it with a smile.

Vicky

The things that happen in my bed

It's amazing the things that can happen to you in bed.  Take two nights ago, it amazes me even now.  It was about 3:30 am, there I am, sound asleep, dreaming of something and lying at a 45degree angle (mostly on Hubby's side of the bed).  I wake up with some kind of pain in my back.  What was that?  I try to ignore it because, frankly, I'm tired and I don't want to get up.  If I ignore the pain it will go away.  It didn't.  I start moving and shifting and eventually end up waking Hubby up.


Practical Hubby tells me to go to the bathroom.  I get up and am doubled over in pain.  This cannot possibly be good.  I "go" to the bathroom but refuse to get up.  Maybe that's what the pain is and the pain will eventually go away. 


It doesn't.


This must be what back labor feels like.


Then it hits me.  Wouldn't that be awful if I were one of those women who went 9 months without know she was pregnant!  I suddenly understood how those women might not recognize what the labor pains were and vowed that if a baby suddenly appeared in the toilet I wouldn't just stare at it as some of the women do but would promptly pick up and wrap him/her in a towel.


Obviously this was not the case as I am not the mom of a new baby.


After 1 1/2 hours of painful nothing-ness, I crawl/stumble back to bed and sleep/snooze the next 1 hour.  When I wake again I tell Hubby that maybe I should go to the ER.  I call my mom and she is able to come over in about an hour.  Hubby helps me dress and while I'm in the process of dressing I barf.  Since I am an adult I got it in a bucket and not on our new carpet.


By the time we leave we decide to go to urgent care.  Now an HMO is great... when nothing is wrong with you.  Otherwise it kind of sucks.  I called them because, God forbid, I can't go to urgent care on my own and I needed a referral.  Instead of getting a referral, I'm told to come into their office of an 11:30 appointment.  Gee, thanks.  I'm in pain and I have to wait 3 more hours.


Regardless, I don't want to spend an extra $100 on a visit that my insurance won't pay for.


Of course the first 2 questions out of her mouth?  "What happened?"  "What were you doing?"


"I was in bed sleeping and I hurt my back."  Really?  I have to tell people that I pulled a muscle so bad that I compared it to child birth and it happened while I was sleeping?  How embarrassing.

Vicky