Weekends ...

Over the weekend, we decided to:

• Switch Sophie and Maddie's room (front of the house) with the playroom (back of the house)
• Re-paint both rooms
• get fancy with the painting
• Completely re-do Eliza's room

Each decision led to the next one. When all was said and done, the only room on that side of the house with no plans was the guest bath. And, I'm not entirely convinced we won't do something there, too.

Here's the delimma - they want a "princess" room. Now, I am all for letting the kids decide paint colors and expressing themselves (you've seen how my children dress), but for some reason I am drawing the line at a Disney princess room.

Since begging for advice always helps in this blog, this time I am asking for non-Disney princess decorating ideas. They already have a white full size bed and twin bed that can be bunked but we aren't doing that just yet. (My two-year-old is slightly accident prone. sigh)

They also have two quilts that have been pieced and are waiting to be quilted, so that's covered. The quilts have pinks, blues, purples, greens and a little yellow and orange. I really thought about going with a pale pink and pale orange (think strawberry ice-cream and orange sherbet) but that's as far as I got. And I guess that's not very princessy.

So, c'mon all you mothers of sons and tomboys out there! Now's your chance to help me decorate a very girly room! Go crazy!

Alright, sorry to anyone who is tired of all the Sophie quotes, but I want to remember these things.

• Seeing the chocolate cake I made - "Yum! It smells like a princess!" It goes without saying that smells like a princess is my new catch phrase.


• "Mommy. Your legs. Have thorns." you'll never guess what that means

One last Hurrah in the old playroom.

Goodbye crayon all over the walls. Maddie is showing off her giraffe-riding skillz.Goodbye funky paint and who-knows-what carpet stains. This one of Sophie (who's washing her car, "it's just filthy") is for Nana and Auntie to show off her new tangle free hair. Woo!And this one because it's sweet.

Confessions

A Few Friday Confessions:

1. I found cheerios in two separate wipes containers, today. Cheerios get very soggy in wipes containers.
2. Wayyyyyy too much facebooking this week.
3. I wish we had a trampoline.
4. I'm not sure if I am going to vote in the upcoming election.
5. I worked all day on Sophie's hair (now it looks so pretty! Thanks to all who offered me advice, I used a combination of your ideas. Could this be the beginning of a new era in the Ramsey household?)
6. I bribed Sophie to get her to be still while I worked on her tangles. I promised her a treat. Anything she wanted. She picked a sucker.
7. I need a haircut.
8. Don't even get me started on my eyebrows.
9. I did not read a single book to my children in the last 24 hours. :(
10. It's possible that I drank 2 Mountain Dews today.

Works for me Wednesday

Here's something that works for us Ramseys. Each of our girls have tired of baby food pretty quickly, mainly because they have no patience and wanted to do it themselves. So, we get canned mixed veggies and give that to them instead. Just drain them and spoon them out onto the high chair. Mm-mmm good! (As a screaming mime might say...)


I know it sounds yucky to give them room temp. canned veggies, but all 3 of our girls have gobbled them up. They are small enough that they won't get stuck in the windpipe, and just firm enough that they can be grabbed and stuffed into their little mouths. We tried frozen veggies, but they didn't like them cold and it was hard getting the temp just right.


It's pretty cheap, too. We just put the leftovers in those little Glad containers. (Each container is about one serving.)


Works for me!
(Disclaimer: the above was totally okayed by our pediatrician.)


Now, I need to find something that works for you. Sophie has horrid tangles. Curls + baby-fine hair = knots from elsewhere. My hair is straight. (Okay, it's funky. But it's not curly!) I don't know what to do with the knots. My sister in law has given me suggestions, but they don't seem to work on hair as fine as Sophie's. The hard part is - the tangles are at her crown, not on the ends. So, cutting it won't help. I guess I could shave it, but then the grandparents would probably stop talking to me. I could really use some help!!!!!! Thanks!!!!
This picture doesn't do it justice, at all. Seriously, it's bad.

10 Things Tuesday

10 Things Tuesday!

Today I am thankful for:

1. The little blow up baby pools. Cheap entertainment for the littlest Ramsey!



2. Speaking of cheap entertainment, those "6 for a dollar" water guns are absolutely priceless! (yes, I said guns. Don't go having any cows.)



3. And since we are talking about the water guns, I am thankful that the girls used them to clean the outside windows and back door today.



4. I am thankful that they used water and not detangling spray like last time....



5. We got to eat KFC last night! Sorry if that grosses out the majority of you.



6. Started Facebook last night. Don't know if that makes me feel old or young. It was fun finding people, though. (as I stayed up until midnight ... with a 5:30 a.m. run time the next day ...)



7. Super cheap (88 cents!) fingernail polish. My toenails are currently ocean blue. Makes me feel very peaceful.



8. We got a compliment at Wal-Mart today! In fact, it seemed as if every Wal-mart shopper was in a very mellow, tolerant-of-young-ones mood. We could have stayed all day.



9. I am thankful that Eliza loves to be outside. She doesn't have much of a choice, see.



10. No chemo this week!

Best Friends

I've mentioned before my eldest daughter's tendency to be very literal. She doesn't want to go too deep into anything and doesn't ask the typical "where's heaven?" and "what does God look like?" questions.

However, lately she has really latched onto the concept of best friends. She talks about them all the time and is constantly asking Jeff and I as to whom our best friends are. She even gets specific wanting to know who is our best friend at church, in our family, on our street, etc. (And you can never answer the same thing twice. Ok, except for Maddie who always answers "church".)

Yesterday, she was wondering what does best friend mean and how is someone your best friend. That made me pause a little bit, because I didn't really know the answer. I wanted to give her a good one, so maybe she will start asking more questions.

Here's what I came up with:

• someone you have fun with


• someone you can be happy with, even if you are just sitting quietly together


• someone you miss if they are not with you


• someone you always choose to play with

She sat there quiet for a long time thinking about what I had said. I was starting to feel good about my communication skills, an idea of being an advice columnist in Parenting magazine crossing my mind. Then she spoke.

"O-kay ... well I guess my best friend is skittles."

Oh, Honey. Lesson learned. Next time ask your dad.

Rite of Passage

Today was a special day.

First off, this morning I hear Jeff in the living room say,"Saved by the Bell! Oh, I love this episode!" For those of you who know my husband, you might be surprised by this declaration of love because

a) he's really not very enthusiastic; rarely does an exclamation point sneak into his speech and

b) it's Saved By the Bell.

However, if you really knew him, you would know that he harbors a dark secret. And that secret is ... he aspires to be Zach Morris, complete with enormous phone, closet full of "jamz", and band named Zach Attack. Oh, and let's not forget a certain girlfriend named Kelly Kapowski. (It's possible, although he denies it, that when we were first married I still might have come in second to her in his affections.)

Back to the episode, it was one of my personal favorites. The reasons are 2-fold:

1. It's the one where they do a hip-hop/rap version of Snow White. C'mon, that in itself is hilarious.
   
2. Jesse and Zach kiss. Remember that?

We decided that this was the perfect opportunity to share the Saved by the Bell experience with our girls. So, we did. All 4 of us in the living room (Eliza was asleep) watching some CLASSIC television.

What a special day.

p.s. the only one that was better? The "I'm so excited... I'm so scared!" episode. That was a doozy.

What Danna finds romantic

Allright, here's something I find incredibly romantic: I had a splinter today and Jeff got it out. Why is that romantic, you ask? I ask myself the same thing. Maybe it's because he took care to be gentle. Maybe it's because it was in the palm of my right hand and he knew that I couldn't get it out by myself. (Maybe it's because he knew I would do the BIG SIGH until it was out...)

That's really what I love about marriage. I've never been a "moonlight stroll" or "dozen roses" kind of girl. I love the little things like the removing of splinters.

This is something that had us enthralled for a while tonight. We are easily enthralled. And slightly nerdy.