Better late than really late and what doesn't kill you just maims you really bad or something like that

We finally did our May footprint craft. I was hoping to have Steve home when we did it (to prevent tying Sam to his highchair and/or chemical sedation), but he has this thing called work and blah blah blah he has to be there for so many hours a day and his command doesn't care that it's well past the first week of May and my April footprint craft is still hanging in the foyer, taunting me with my lateness every time I walk past. So! I put on my big girl panties and did it ALL BY MYSELF. I bribed Sam with Cinnamon Chex (it's probably the most sugar-laden food he's ever eaten) and he behaved himself quite nicely. He still scooted his foot around like an epileptic when I tried smushing it against the canvas, but whatever, I'm getting used to these projects looking like crap. Molly received another bath after the activity and we just have THE most exciting days around here, huh?

I noticed this morning that my project is grammatically incorrect. April's craft said, "April showers" and May's was supposed to say "bring May flowers." Well, instead it reads (together), "April showers brings May flowers." GAH. A major part of me wants to find some whiteout and make it right, but the other part of me (the lazy part that usually wins these arguments) is not ready to drag the troops all the way to Walmart just for the sake of this silly craft.

Speaking of art, we have been receiving some FUN stuff in the mail lately. Sue sent me this one-of-a-kind handmade card and envelope and I think it's just the neatest thing! And it came from Japan! Made my day for sure. (The front of the envelope is way cool, but our addresses are on it, and I don't want anyone going to Japan and flooding Sue with demands for your own custom cards. Also, I hear multiple people commenting on Molly's kissable, pinch-able, in-yo-face cheeks and my house just isn't presentable enough for company right now.)

We also received a package from the hilarious Sarah a few weeks back. She gave the kiddos two cute outfits and YES, I'm totally blogging about it.

Poor Molly is destined to never have her picture taken with an actual camera, bless her heart.

I had been waiting for Molly to grow a little so she could fit into her onesie, and then when I put it on her a few days ago, the thing just BARELY snapped. (Also note: she wore a 6mo outfit to my doctor's appointment yesterday. Chunky. Monkey.) Moments after this picture was snapped, vomit. A few hours later, more vomit and some poop. I am like a ninja in stain-fighting these days. (A white-belt, of course.)

Sam's shirt fit him perfectly and he absolutely did not smear his own poop on it later in the day. (Yes he did.)

Here he is re-enacting the scene of the crime.

And showing me his favorite trick to take my mind off of the poopy laundry: the magic baby belly.

It worked. But good LAWD, just look at that skin- y'all know I'm gonna go through the sunscreen like water this summer.

The post where you become jealous that your weekends aren't as exciting as mine

Since we are one week into April (omg where is the time going???), I figured that today was as good as any other to do our April footprint craft.

You can see October, November, December, (I skipped January), February, and March by clicking on each respective month.

I am enjoying the baby flowers sooooo much! So much so, that I refuse to weed out the dead ones!

It was Molly's first footprint craft and I was hoping for A Very Positive Experience with her so that I can count on at least one non-screamy child while I force them to make cute things with me. And she was good. She didn't like it when we cleaned her feet off afterwards, but she seems to detest being cleaned in general. Sam did the usual- shrieking like we were hacking off his foot with only a shot of whiskey and a leather belt for comfort. Luckily I had the presence of mind to do this activity while Steve was home, so he was there to help hold feet and grab paper towels and we've basically got this footprint craft deal down like a Nascar pit crew. Then I decided that since we were all home, it would be A Family Craft and we needed a piece of everyone on this canvas. So some of those delicate little raindrops are Steve's fingerprints too. He is so good to me.

While in the mindset to tackle this day head-on, we ventured out to Walmart. (Between my Nascar reference and our first full family outing being Walmart, I am clearly showing my redneck colors loud and proud, huh?) And since we were only getting a few things at Walmart, I thought it would be a great opportunity to test out the BOB stroller. But first I had to go on youtube and watch a tutorial video on how to fold the dang thing. And then we finally GOT to Walmart and I could not, for the life of me, remember how to unfold it. Steve finally figured it out and this very classy picture is his reward.

My child likes to be comfortable.

Honestly, I could have gone a bit more redneck and had a random person take a family picture with Walmart in the background, but we parked really far out and I'm just not gonna ask anyone that no matter how many laughs it might get here on this ol' blawg.

To top it all off, I figured out my Moby wrap. And Molly did not slide out and eat concrete! So... success! It also nicely camouflages this, um, "voluptuous" postpartum physique I've got goin' on these days, so it is clearly earning gold stars in my book.

So wow. That was our day. We are some of the most riveting people ever, huh? A craft and a trip to Walmart AND Moby wrap success that allowed me to carry two children to the playground (because I am the only one with functioning legs, no?)! We go so crazy on these holiday weekends.

You might have a serious case of nesting if...

... you throw away every last item in your fridge so you can "start fresh" and deep clean it. I took photographic evidence of the emptiness of my fridge, as well as the full-to-bursting garbage bags of food, but between my camera, the computer, and my pregnancy brain, they were all erased. THE HORRORS. You will have to take my word for it when I tell you that my fridge is now super-clean and all of my condiments are super-fresh.

I had no intentions of throwing all of our food away, but Steve had staff duty Saturday night and left me to my own devices when it came to cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. Obviously, I do not do much cleaning after dinner, but I do manage to box up the leftovers and shove them in the fridge. Well apparently I need someone checking behind me, because I managed to leave the fridge door open. all. night. long. And that resulted in the following foods being chucked in the garbage:

2 gallons of mine and Steve's milk
1 completely unopened package of butter
5 cups of yogurt
6 cups of organic baby yogurt
lots of cheese (some of which I painstakingly shredded myself two nights before- where's my Pioneer Woman Of The Year Award??)
various fruits that may or may not have already been past their prime
lunch meat
chicken for the next night's dinner
every last condiment you ever did see (most of them were brand spankin' NEW bottles too)
a carton of 18 eggs
FIVE half gallons of Sam's organic milk (this one hurt my heart the most, as I only buy it on sale and IT IS NOT ON SALE RIGHT NOW)
and lots of other things that probably should have been thrown out months and months ago

This did, however, provide me the opportunity to scrub down the fridge and reassess what condiments we TRULY WANT filling up the fridge door space. You know, using that gray matter to focus on the important things in life. So! Anyone who is coming to visit after Second Baby is born: My fridge is clean! And my condiments are fresh! Have at it.

My pregnant friend (the one due THIS FRIDAY. As in, TWO WEEKS BEFORE ME) came over the other day and we did our March footprint craft together.

Sam behaved as if his life were in jeopardy, when in reality, I was only asking that he not flick green paint all over my forkin' floor with his wild and crazy feet. Luckily, my body shielded the floor from most of the paint, and since I can easily reach my feet, I did not mind the extra shower at all! <Please note the extreme sarcasm.> It did not turn out as well as I'd hoped, but it was the last canvas I had in my house and I'm too lazy to run out for more at the moment.

Since we were dealing with The Child Whose Feet No Paint Should Touch, we completely forgot about the fudge we were supposed to eat, but luckily I remembered last-minute and sent her home with a bag. In light of my recent fudge addiction, I have decided that I will make fudge for the nurses at the hospital instead of the brownies I made last time. (Hint: If you want them to actually READ your birth plan, plant chocolate around it. Like moths to a flame...)
Steve, however, misunderstood my note attached to the fudge and thought that I actually wanted HIM to eat all of the fudge FOR us. And this is why I'm planning to launch an investigation to see what was REALLY injected into his eyes during that surgery. Because clearly- something is off. Why would I need HELP eating the fudge?!

Since I am unsure as to how long fudge stays "good" for in the fridge, my master plan is to just keep making fudge until I have this baby. Obviously this will do WONDERS for my waistline. Or I can keep pawning it off on friends who seem to be constantly watching Sam for me while I go to all of these last-minute appointments.
In an effort to keep fudge-making supplies in my house until D-Day, I made a trip to Kroger yesterday evening. They have the cheapest chocolate chips around, and I was also hoping on a wing and prayer that Sam's milk was on sale, just not advertised. It was not. But going there provided me the opportunity to purchase ten bags of chocolate chips.

Some people might call this excessive.

I like to think that I'm just well-prepared.

I cannot imagine what the checkout boy said about me after I left.

We made a very last minute trip to the commissary last night to purchase groceries, since all we had to eat at home was a lot of chocolate chips. And I hear that isn't so good for your teeth. So in an effort to maintain our oral hygiene, we did a power trip for groceries. We blazed through in RECORD time (checked out five whole minutes before they locked the doors) and got everything we needed. We then hauled butt home so we could get Sam in bed, cook dinner, and watch the season premiere of Army Wives. While the show is not at all realistic, I love love LOVE watching it with Steve; we crack jokes CONSTANTLY and it makes the show that much more entertaining. Next week starts the Coming Home series and I am all set to cry my eyes out to that if I can manage to stay up late enough.

Today is my GB strep test swab! YeeeeHAW! Will update you on all the fun facts associated with being 37 weeks pregnant tomorrow! Try not to be too anxious!

Wine is almost REQUIRED for me to get through these little "art projects". But chocolate will do, thanks.

February is rapidly approaching and you know what that means... Oh yes, time for me to dip my screaming child's feet in paint and make another memory!

(You can see Halloween and Thanksgiving footprints here. You can see Christmas footprints here.)

I ended up not doing a footprint project for January, and kicked myself for it every time I walked past our little "gallery wall" (I use that term as loosely as it can be used. Basically, it's our wall o' frames.). But since people seem to be decorating for Valentine's Day already and the stores are pushing the red and pink candies (hard), I figured I would knock this little project out ahead of time.

This did not turn out nearly as nice as the one that I pinned, but what can you do with a child that physically opposes paint and art projects with his entire body. Oh well, at least the wall gap is finally filled, and my ears will stop ringing from the screaming eventually.

Since my child will clearly not be sending out any handmade-from-scratch-or-with-paint Valentine's Day cards, it worked out perfectly that I recently received an email from Tiny Prints asking me to check out their cute selection of Valentine's Day cards and write up a little post about them. In exchange, they would send me free Valentine's Day cards of my choosing. Always one to send a little snail mail when I have the excuse (despite my extreme distaste for the postal service), I was thinking about making a few cards to send to the grandparents and other family members. There are some very cute cards to choose from, and I always end up getting our photo cards from Shutterfly or Tiny Prints (sister companies) anyways. They have cards that don't require a photo, but you can bet the farm that I'm gonna take every opportunity to plaster my kid's sweet little face on a card and send it off to his adoring fans grandparents.


So I'm torn between this one:

Short, simple, and to-the-point

this one:

My baby really enjoys playing with cars and trucks, so this would fit personality-wise.

or this one (because really- how much longer am I going to have a say in cute things like this??):

This card is totally gender-neutral. There is green and blue and orange and brown on there. I will rationalize it however I need to in order to convince myself that my child's cute mug NEEDS to be on this card.

So what do you think? Should I do my boy a solid and go with the all-boy truck theme? Should I go with my own selfish wants and desires and pick the "Be Mine" card? Or should I settle for some common ground and go with the simple first option? 
I AM TERRIBLE AT THESE DECISIONS, Y'ALL. No, seriously, you should see how long it takes for me to design our Christmas cards. WEEKS, I tell you. Many agonizing weeks.

Disclaimer: I was given a discount code of my own for the purposes of this review. The opinions expressed are my own, and no additional compensation was received.

You can follow Tiny Prints on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest too!

And so it begins!

Hard to believe that December is already here and we are staring Christmas down in a few short weeks. In an effort to not wait until the last minute to put up decorations around the house, my friend Heather, her son Luke, Sam, and I did another one of our Pinterest crafts yesterday.

Of course it is displayed proudly in our entryway along with The Most Beautiful Nativity Set Of All Time.

Besides doing the Christmas craft, most of yesterday was spent trying to achieve The Perfect Christmas Picture. I had this coupon for Shutterfly (where I ALWAYS print my Christmas cards) and I just knew that I was going to have to pay some ridiculous full price if I waited one more day to make and order them. So I took something like 172 pictures yesterday and a whopping TWO of them turned out decently. To be honest, I was thankful that there was even ONE usable picture out of the bunch. I was trying to get this "bokeh" effect and spent naptimes researching how to make that possible with my camera, and then mostly read that I need a better lens (GAH) but could still do it. Unfortunately, most of the examples shown on the internet were of subjects that were very still. Like flowers. Or newborns. Or older kids who understand English and don't think it is hilarious to do the opposite of everything that I say.

So there were a ton of blurry pictures and after a while I just started holding my finger down on the shutter button and prayed for the best. IN THE END, I had an acceptable picture. After I put Sam to bed, I set out to find and make our Christmas card. I finished that and was feeling quite proud of myself- until I woke up this morning to find that Shutterfly had emailed me an even BETTER offer for Christmas cards... It was almost a Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation moment.

Ultrasounds, a birthday, and crafts, oh my!

So I had my monthly doctor's appointment on my birthday. You think that would have made me exempt from being weighed. But no.
I got the ultrasound "results" from my doctor, and really expected to hear a bunch of nothing. I mean, we're not finding out the sex, we didn't do any of the usual testing for genetic abnormalities, and everything LOOKED to be in place to me. (But I am also no ultrasound technician. I was looking at a brain and thought it was a stomach... So maybe it's a boy?)

You can imagine my surprise when she told me that since the baby was in such a funny position during the ultrasound, that she was not able to see everything she wanted to. They didn't get a shot of the full spine, only bits and pieces at at time, couldn't see kidneys, etc. So she's sending me BACK to the fancy shmancy ultrasound imaging center to get ANOTHER one done. Can you believe it? And right after I wrote that they were too stingy to give me extra ultrasounds during this pregnancy. Heh.

After my appointment, Sam and a friend took me out to lunch at Chick-fil-a, which we have found is the Clarksville Mecca for Moms With Kids Stuck In The House On A Rainy Day. We situated ourselves right between the entrance and the glassed-in play area. Talk about an easy lunch! I actually got to EAT mine! Sam is so occupied at that place. Which means he will also eat without fussing. Score! If only this place wasn't something like thirty minutes from my house! Gah...

After lunch, we headed on back to post and Sam took a nice long nap. Too bad he woke up in a HORRIBLE mood. Couldn't wait for Daddy to get home! And Steve thinks SAM is excited to see him at the end of the day. Ha!

Steve was quite on top of the birthday-game this year. I ribbed him quite a bit about my birthday (or lack thereof) last year and it got him pretty motivated to do something. To clarify, my birthday was not celebrated last year due to the fact that Steve was in BOLC and gone all the live-long day, we were dealing with The Newborn That Never Slept, and the last thing I needed during the Let Me Lose The Baby Weight Already time was cake. So I was quite content that he DIDN'T do anything. The best gift he could have given me would have been sweet SLEEP. And I honestly can't remember if he did or not. He helped a lot, so I will count that and call it good.

But SINCE that time last year, I have made somewhat of a big deal out of that missed birthday to Steve- mainly to get a rise out of him, but also to remind him that I would love to NOT cook dinner on my birthday and that a card would be lovely and appreciated.

So! This year he ordered a cake AND brought me three bouquets of flowers AND gave me a ridiculously funny card. He also took Sam off my hands the minute he got home and let me call my mama while he got Sam ready for bed and played with him. All of this he coordinated for me while he is having the busiest (and most STRESSFUL) week of training out in the field. (Prayers for Steve and his job would be MUCH appreciated please and thank you.)

Also, I actually have made a few things that I've pinned on Pinterest. Believe it or not. I just never take pictures of them! So! To rectify that situation, I took pictures of the Halloween craft I did with Sam,

Those are supposed to be ghosts, ok?

And here it is on our very unfinished picture wall where I will continue to hang these works of art.

and also the Thanksgiving craft we made yesterday.

The hands are obviously mine and Steve's (not Sam's) since Sam will hardly allow us to wipe his hands after a meal, much less PAINT them and hold them completely open and still onto a piece of canvas. I did paint and wrestle his foot on there last night while he was being held hostage in the high chair though. Reluctant little artist.


I've made tons and tons of recipes off of Pinterest, with most of them turning out decently, although I will not recommend freezing the crockpot potato soup because it thaws out looking miiiiiiiighty scary.