Things learned

I've been accumulating random tidbits of information and I thought I might impart some of this fairly boring, yet occasionally helpful information on you all.

-Sex can become painful when going through menopause (not that I am, just interesting to know)

-Denture Cleaning Solutions work wonderfully on your shower heads to unclog and decalcify them without scratching and making it dull

-using a fine-toothed comb to hold a nail while trying to hammer it in helps clumsy folks such as I who may fear pounding fingers

-Flowers can make anyone happy, and brighten their day considerably, whether from spouses or children, from stores or from the garden.

-Little girls shaking their booties will bring smiles to even the most grumpy of indviduals

-If your indoor cats are too much, let them become outside cats, and in all likelyhood the mouse and bird population surrounding your home will take a mysterious plummet.

-Mr. Clean Magic Erasers work on darn near everything and are fabulous, but they also take off paint so use with caution

-If you are a new mother and have trouble finding time for a shower, take your child in with you. They will eventually enjoy it if they don't right away, and then you have gottne them clean too. Also helps if they've had an expolsive diaper, or thrown up.

-May not work for those of you afraid of them, but if you have a bug problem and can't afford exterminators, leave the spiders and their webs if you can and they'll help cut down on your bug population. Obviously don't leave poisonous ones, but otherwise they help more than they hinder.

-In the heat, instead of blow drying your hair, let it air dry and you'll stay a lot cooler. Doesn't work if your hair is uncooperative or must be tamed, but especially children can stay cool, and wet hair in ponytails stay cool for a while and cools any breeze that reaches your neck. Very handy.

-Don't plant cantalope near squash because they can cross pollinate and squashalope isn't really fabulous.

-It is possible to dehydrate spaghetti sauce and take the powder camping with you. Or just save space with food storage. (Logan thinks it's the coolest thing ever)

-Standing and sitting with your back straight and keeping good posture eliminates a few inches from your waist, and developes muscles that can in fact eat the fat that you're hiding doing so.

-Flipflops can contribute to leg and back aches, and you should do feet strengthening exercises if you plan to wear them often. if possible wear sandals with a heel strap.

-You may think your children are too young to do something, but never underestimate them or their understanding and comprehension.

-To make yourself look more awake, put highlighter or concealer on the shadows of your face (chin crease, between eyes, under eyes) and line lower lashes with bright shadow or liner.

-In a pinch, golf shoes can be used to airate a close-cropped lawn

-If you do your own floors, do not skimp on transition strips. the cheap ones crack and break alot.

-Horses, like many children, do not like peas. (strange I know)

-It is possible to get a will drawn up and completed for cheap (My hubby is selling a fabulous service and if you're interested let me know)

-You should not wear a turkey on your head, it will probably get stuck. And it smells.

-It is possible to make a camping stove with a soda can. And it works fabulously.

-Bread heels or slightly stale slices can be toasted and blended and are great for sprinkling on pasta dishes or salads and the like.

-Most summer drinks can be turned into popcicles with ice trays and popcicle sticks.

-A hot shower or bath that lasts longer than 10 minutes dehydrate your skin, so if you don't want to shorten your relaxation time remember to moisterize afterwards.

-Yard sales are full of things that are cheap and can be bargained down so check them out before you hit the store on saturday. (also babyshower and birthday presents can be found in such places)

-Pumpkins can come back for years, so keep that in mind when planting.

-If you don't want a lot of zuccini, planting in a bucket will control your produce by a significant
amount

-Do not plant mint in anything but a box or bucket or it will take over your garden.

-Snow peas and sugar snap peas cross pollinate, but are actually pretty good together.

-Chocolate dipped grapes are actually pretty good.

-No money for dates? If you have money for a sitter just go stargazing and bring food for a picnic. No money for a sitter? Wait for the kids to be in bed (if possible) and play a game together, or Turn on some soft music and just dance.

-To much of a good thing isn't good and 5 slices of watermelon in a one year old are too much no matter how good it is. And 5 slices of watermelon actually produces quite a bit of vomit.

-Love your family and they'll love you back.

And love is all you need. :)

Okay, so I know I've been totally dreadful about giving you guys picutres, so i decided to rectify that situation. I'll upload a video later too, it just takes a really long time to load. So I know you guys probably could care less about me, so we'll start off with the baby. (we all know that's who you want to hear about!!!!)

So here she is finding easter eggs, and most upsetting news, this involves grass.

Here's her fabulous birthday cake. I'm inordinately proud of myself. Please don't disillusion me.

Sometimes my dorkiness shines true in my daughter. I'm so proud.

Here she is inspecting G on our visit to the homeland. She just loves him.


And no baby. Just me and lyss being silly, as we are wont to do.

(Dumb hawaii and dumb tan people. I am not a ghost)

And most recently, she has decided, on a surprise visit to the horsey, that she likes it. She now watches it from the window and points to it imperiously when I do not immediately intuit that she would like to pet it again thank you very much.

So that's all for now. I'll try to get the vid up soon, and more about our lives (yes us boring adults) when I have more time. Enjoy!!!

There are so many things that happen everyday in our lives, but if we don't write about them we forget them and they quickly are lost in the fog of the past, where they are unimportant and insignificant. It doens't matter how much importance an experience has for you at the time, in a few days or months they are forgotten. It is sad to think that someday all these little joyful moments shared with my daughter are going to fade into a foggy mist of insubstantial memories that are recalled only with the greatest of effort with little detail, if any. There are so many things that if I had not written them down I would already have forgotten. It hurts my heart to know how fragile our memories are and little we can retain. I know there are plenty of things in my past that I wouldn't want to recall more clearly, but there are a great many more things that I wish I could remember far more clearly than I do now. Someday I hope we can unlock the secret to retaining our memories and how we felt while experiencing them.

If you sat down right now and tried to remember the first time you saw your child's face, could you? Not the time, obviously, but the way they looked, the way you felt, where you were, who was there. Can you remember it?

If you tried to remember the way you felt on your wedding day, how your spouse looked, who came, what you ate, whether you cried or not, the look on your parents faces, can you? Do you remember it all?

Can you remember your gradutation? Were you nervous? Who spoke? Who came? Was it inside, outside? Did you have fun or just endure? Is it still there? Can you remember it at all?

Do you remember your first job? The first day of your first job? Did you mess up? Were you a nervous wreck? Who did you work with? Can you remember their names?

Why is it that so many of our experiences become so insignificant that they don't even stay in our minds? I'd like to be able to say that I will never forget how it felt to hold my daughter the first time. How I cried when I saw her, and couldn't even form the words when my husband asked me if I wanted to hold her, but he still knew. I wish I could hold that feeling inside me and never lose it even a little bit. But already it slips away, day by day. I forget.

And those are the big things. I don't want to forget the way my daughter grins with her three teeth and then tries to attack my fingers. I don't want to forget how she loves to play peek-a-boo, and hides from me before popping up and laughing as she does it over and over. I don't want to forget the way she nestles down with her head under my chin and falls asleep listening to my heart. I don't want to forget how she tries to hide things on her head, and thinks it's the bestest ever.

There are so many things I don't want to forget, and I've already forgotten them. I wish I could get them back. They are my treasures, and it hurts to lose them day by day.

Don't forget what matters most. Never forget it.

The Monster Update

Quick overview of will be covered:

Piper's Birthday

Easter

Money thingies
Marriage-ness

Random tidbits

Piper turned one! I can't belive it. I'm the mother of a one year old! And she's an adorable specimen if I may say so. She is a little motorbutt, crawling at super speeds, quite hilariously too. She puts her head down and just zooms along. Which is just grand until her not-looking ends with her head coming in contact with walls and the like. Then she gets a puzzled look, often followed by a sort burst of tears, before resuming her pursuit with her head up for at least a minute or two. She doesn't like dresses, though she got several simply fabulous ones for her birthday, because they are just too darn hard to crawl in. She also got toys and other clothes, but only recently discovered that the toys can be just as much fun as the wrapping paper and boxes they came in. She also has discovered the wonders of cake. Cupcakes are fabulous, as are cookies, but cakes are allowed to be smooshed and everyone just smiles so they have become her favorite. But when she's that cute what am I to do?

She didn't like that it crumbled

But she loved that I let her do it all by herself!

And she knows when a smile will make everything forgiven!

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the fabulous Easter Party, but it was oodles of fun! Piper found 5 eggs, one all by herself. She didn't like that icky grass stuff she had to traverse to get ot the wonderful tasting plastic egg, but se perservered. And she still adores them. We are putting all the eggs away with the decorations, she found a red dinosaur one and she even sleeps with it sometimes. And her birthday cake was served there. It was in the shape of an Easter basket with eggs shaped sugar cookies inside. I made it, and I am more than a little proud of myself. My first cake and it was grand. I'll have pitures up soon.

So Logan decided to put an ad on Craig's List for doors. He said he was a garage door guy and had a spare door sitting in the our garage that he needed to sell. He marked it up a little, and then said ne would also help install if needed for a nominal fee. 3 days later he had 25 responses. We only hope things will continue in this fashion. Because, while we aren't exactly rolling in the dough, we are able to pay our bills, and have a steady income. He had work every single day last week. For the first time in eight months. We can hardly contain our excitment. Though Piper misses him when he goes. She's used to seeing her daddy a lot more than she has of late.

Tuesday was our 2 year anniversary and we had a wonderful night. (Not like that! As if I'd write about it on my blog.) Fawn kept Piper overnight and we went to dinner, then to the movies, and then for some dessert. No time restraints, no worrying about getting Piper home for bed, it was like we were dating again. A year may not be that long especially in the grand scheme of things, but when you take that and tack on the 2 months I was too big to really do anything, it's been awhile since we were just husband and wife with nothing to do but enjoy each other's company. And we really did enjoy it. A great night all the way around.

Okay, sick to death of mamma mia. I could sit here and write out the entire script for you. Piper still enjoys it to the hilt though, and so when we must confine her to her bouncer (like when I'm mopping and suchlike) it's on. She is almost walking... well she's technically walking, because she's taken steps, but she won't now. She is terrified of falling, and so won't stand if you let go of her. She took a bad spill and now the only way to get her to walk is to trick her into it. Which only works every once in a while, because she's caught onto that ploy. I'm going back down to California tomorrow, because I do that a lot. I'm pretty fond of it there. Though it's been in the eighties here so I'm actually starting to enjoy myself. But we are actually going because alyssa is back from collegia and she has to see piper, and I'm benefitting from that.

Okay, that's it. Hugely a lot I know, but it's been a while, and so much has happened!

And here are a few headlines that missed the point:

Include Your Children When Baking Cookies

Something Went Wrong In Jet Crash, Expert Says

Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms

Eye Drops Off Shelf

Teachers Strike Idle Kids

Miner Refuses to Work After Death

Stolen Painting Found By Tree

War Dims Hope for Peace

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetary, Hundreds Dead

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Steals Clock, Faces Time

Sex Ed. Delayed, Teachers Request Training

Have a nice day!

Things Learned

-Babies do not want the toys you bought for them. Give them keys, water bottles, or magnets and they will be much happier.

-Horses run in circles, whether or not they are on a track.

-Lose enough times and no game is fun anymore.

-Babies will explode out of their diapers at the most inopportune moments.

-It takes money to make money. Oft said, but newly realized in a personal way.

-New shoes bring joy to ones life. No matter how much you spend.

-Talking after people stop listening is pointless, but I can't seem to stop myself. I hate leaving thoughts unfinished.

-People rarely listen through the end of what you have to say. But will pretend that they are.

-Taxes are grand in theory, but useless in practice.

-Clothes never look as good on you as they do on the manequin.

-Your children are the most expensive and precious thing in your home, and yet they are usually an afterthought to everyone else.

-The world is a strange and scarely place. Heard said many times. Realized in truth only very recently.

-Many people will take everything they can get, even if it's more than they need or want. Just because they can.

-The less stress in your life, the less time you waste in pointless worrying.

-Boys are thoughtless, irresponsible, unromantic, crude, and sometimes mean. But we love them still. And we forgive them of these things in hopes that they will forgive us for being fickle and picky and emotional and moody.

-Marriages are hard, but being alone is harder.

-Love is the cure-all in any situation. And if you remember that you'll be quicker to forgive.

-If you are happier throughout the day everything just seems to work itself out.

-I love my family more and more, and it never seems to stop, though I was sure it would. But I'm very glad it hasn't!

What have you all learned? I want to know!

There's no people like these people!!!

I love people.

I especially love it when I have people who love me around.

Like, for instance, all my family here who just love being with me. And the extended family, my grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles who I just love to see. And talk to! And also those people from church! All the people I grew up with and know so well.

I love seeing all these people again.

I love catching up and just chatting the day away.

I love having people to hang out with all the time.

I love not being alone.

Can you see the faces?

California

We are here, in the land of sunshine. Now, some may argue (particularly my sisters in Hawaii), but I have to say that California IS the land of sun. It's the middle of february and we were out working on our tan this afternoon. How I have missed this. It's been storming in Idaho and we just beat a huge one last weekend that would have had us snowed in.

So why are down here, again? Well, unfortunately, it's not for fun or sun. Well, it is for me. But we aren't here on a lovely holiday (that was last month), this trip is business. Logan is working for his brother for two weeks while the person he hired to replace Logan when we moved is down in Mexico. Basically we're here to make us some money to keep us afloat for a little while we look for jobs.

Piper's favorite movie is Mamma Mia! and we watch it between 2 and 5 times a day. So isn't it strange that I still love the songs? I do. I listen to them and sing them all the time. Piper loves it. She claps for me. She's growing so fast!!! She crawls real crawling now. And she claps and waves. And talks, though she doesn't know what she's saying. She says mama and dada and nana. We've decided that since she started this nana thing while we're here that she's saying grandma, so that will be my mom's nickname.

I don't think I've told people, but I've been writing a book. It's taking over my brain. Everytime I am watching a movie or listening to music or knit, or change a diaper, or update my blog, or read a book, or anything really, my thoughts are hijacked by my plot. I only hope that something will come of it.

Happy Baby