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Luck be a Lady

Well Luck came to me in the form of The Mommies Network this week. My local chapter CentralPiedmontMommies held a contest for our members to win Cirque du Soleil. I was not lucky enough to win the first contest. But lucky for me The Mommies Network held another contest just for the moderators and managers. One day only, we had to pick a number from 1 to 1000. I am usually so bad at these contests and never win. I had a number in my head and was about to submit, but at the last moment I switched to 248 and the winning number was 234.


I got home from bowling and checked my local moms site to read the post announcing me and Brandy the winners. I believe I screamed and did a happy dance all around my apartment. My husband wasn't sure what was wrong with me. I told him I won and he was kind enough to let me take my good friend Faby while he stays home and watches Virginia. He isn't a big Cirque du Soleil fan. I believe I was on cloud 9 the rest of the weekend.

My weekend also included a sleep over at the Grandparents. After a nice, well little chilly, park play date. Virginia and I packed our things and hit the highway to Grandma's house. Samantha, my niece was also sleeping over. I am always so excited when Virginia and Samantha get to play. They are only 4 months apart and already super buddies.





They spent the whole night playing and getting the grandparents to push them around the house on their favorite tricycle. I just laugh watching my father with the girls. I will be honest I believed my father was going to be a little bit of a grumpy grandfather. But he has proved me wrong, he is super grandpa. The girls love him and he loves them even more. He will do anything to make those girls happy.


Even with a rainy Saturday, Virginia and Samantha were able to find some fun. Grandpa moved the car out of the garage and the girls had a blast. One thing I love about kids is that they can find entertainment in pretty much anything. My mother has a Christmas ball hanging from a string to help her know how far to pull the car into the garage before hitting the wall. Well the girls saw this has one big t ball set. They took some plastic 2 liter bottles and swung away. Giggles and screams filled the garage.

Sunday came and Lady Luck was not done with me yet. I woke up and checked my email and saw I had a few messages on Bloggers. So I went over to check my profile and check the newest topics in the forums. To my excitement I was one of the bloggers editor's pick of the day. Now I will admit I don't really know how the editor's pick and most likely may be random. But hey I will take it and I will be over the top excited. I can't say enough good things about Bloggers. I ran across the site by random. I saw a button on one of my friends blogs. I checked out the site and within a couple of days my blogs traffic was up and I had found some new blogs to enjoy as well. Bloggers has been one big loving community for me. I always enjoy finding a new blog and Bloggers is one site that makes that easy for me. So if you have not checked them out, don't wait another second and go make your profile.

Well that's all folks, I am off to get ready for my girl's afternoon out to go see Cirque du Soleil. This is hoping that Lady Luck decides to stay awhile, I believe we could be best of friends.

One Minute-What Can You Do?


One Minute- What can you do? Well I can write a blog post in one minute. I was browsing the forums on  The Mommies Network when a post caught my eye. It was titled Do you like to Blog, well of course I do! Turns out one of the mommies started a blog where a team of moms create one minute blog posts each day.  Each day a topic is posted and each mom creates a post using that topic. I love how easy and quick this idea is. What is even better is that I get to know each mom a little better each day by reading their posts.

The mom got the idea from The One Minute Writer, I believe. This blog does the same concept and at the end of the day a winner is picked. I have gotten addicted to this site as well. You will find out it doesn't take to much to capture my interest sometimes. I enjoy searching the web finding a new blog to follow or a new craft blog to read. I am one of those people that have like 50 blogs in their reader.

You all will have to visit One-Minute-Bloggers and browse the topics and leave some love in the form of comments. Here are the posts I have made so far. I may have spent one or two extra minutes an a few of these posts, I was just on a roll and couldn't stop.

Socks

I can go both ways on this topic. I do love me some socks, but really only doing winter. I love fun colorful socks and especially the holiday socks. But usually I have the white gold toed cotton socks. I really don't enjoy socks most of the time. It always feels like my feet are struggling to breathe. I love going bare foot as much as possible. I believe the worse socks are the toe socks. Yes they look all cute and funny, but those things are like prisons for my toes. I always look forward to spring and summer so I can sport my flip flops and my feet are free. My golden rule is as soon as I walk though the door off comes my shoes and my socks.


Routine


I would love to eat a Chick Fil A Banana Pudding milkshake daily as my routine! But then again I may gain like 100 pounds if I did that daily. My morning routine is quite lazy. I wait to hear the sound of my daughter's door opening and then she comes into our bed room and hands me my glasses and cellphone from my night stand. We head into the living room in our PJs to watch some morning cartoons. Most of the time it is either Nick Jr. or Disney Junior. I will grab her some milk and most mornings mini pancakes. 


For myself, I usually eat whatever I feel like. Lately it has been cream cheese bagels. Once we have our food and drinks ready we crash on the couch for a bit. While she is watching cartoons, I surf the web, catching up on email, facebook, centralpiedmontmommies, and TMN. I also start looking around seeing everything I need to be cleaning and wishing the magic cleaning fairies would come out and clean for me.


But alas no fairies have appeared so usually I wait till after lunch to really kick it into gear and clean house. We live in an apartment so there is never to much space to clean. But I try to keep the kitchen and living room cleaned each day. And I always start a load of laundry, even though there are only three of us, it seems like my laundry pile never goes down. 


Not sure why I follow this same routine most days. I guess it is just comfort and I am lazy. I will admit my routine at the moment doesn't work, because well I am lazy. I am working on creating a better cleaning routine where I clean certain areas each day. That way it doesn't add up and I find myself cleaning all day on Saturday, right before the in laws come over.


Sports


I basically lived and breathed sports growing up in the south. I remember the smell of the dugout, concession stand, and sunflower seeds. Being the father, of a family of three girls, my dad made up for not having any boys by encouraging us to play sports.

My sisters and I all played softball since we were eight years old. You could find us on the softball field year round. In the winter you could find me on the basketball court being a little more rough then in my daily life. Sports played a huge role growing up, most people identified me as the athletic one or the artsy one. I played one form or another of a sport until I had my daughter at the age of twenty-six.

Now I am back on the sports wagon playing in a bowling league. Don't laugh, after bowling three games in one night I find myself quite tired. I have my average up to 136 and rising. I believe playing sports growing up taught me discipline and leadership. Sports also brought me some of my best friends in life.

I cross my fingers that my daughter will follow in my footsteps and find a sport that she enjoys. But I will be happy either way. As far as watching sports, I enjoy watching any sport as long as I am watching with someone. I am not big into watching sports on TV by myself.

And the best way I know to close, for it's one, two, three strikes  I am out!

A Little Homemade...

Lately I have been bitten by the crafting bug. I have a ton of project ideas in my head that I want to get done. Also my late night web searching of craft blogs have given me a crap load of bookmarked projects that are going to be perfect for Virginia. St. Patrick's Day was the perfect reason for me to do a few sewing projects.

Like always I waited til the last minute to find a cute St. Patrick's Day shirt for Virginia. I guess Target doesn't believe in selling St. Patrick's Day shirts a week before the holiday. The shirts I saw at Walmart were just not what I wanted my little girl wearing. So I got a wild hair and decided to make my own. I knew I wanted work with felt and wanted a design of a pot of gold with a rainbow.

So I searched the web for a picture to reference and made a trip to AC Moore for supplies. Once I had everything I got home and started to make my game plan. Of course I waited about two days before the St. Patrick's Day party to make the shirt. I used a pink shirt from AC Moore. I wanted a green shirt, but they were out. In the end the pink worked out better. I had never worked with felt or sewed with it either so I called my good sewing buddy Susan Roberts for advice. She told me the right way of doing things, but of course I went about things a little different. I didn't have any fabric glue so I knew I had to come up with a different solution.


First I blew up my image to the size I needed. Next I cut out each shape from the felt. Once I had all my shapes cut out I laid them out on the shirt. This way I could see what I needed to sew first. I started with the rainbow. Since the rainbow was made up of different colored strips. I hand sewed the bottom part of each strip. That way they would stay still once I started to sew on the machine. At least I had hoped they would stay still. I found out quickly that felt moves alot. So next step was to hand sew the top part of the rainbow.


A problem arose when I started to sew on the machine that the rainbow was starting to arch up. A quick fix come to mind and I grabbed the scotch tape from the kitchen and just taped down the strips after I ripped the top seams open. So I sewed on the machine and slowly took off the tape as I went up the rainbow. I decided to sew lines horizontal all the way up. It gave the shirt a quilted look.

Next I did the pot and then the gold. Last I decided to hand sew on a four leaf clover. It looked more like a small green ink spot. I just had no luck in cutting out a nice four leaf clover. The whole shirt came out great and Virginia was in love with it.


St. Patrick's Day came and I realized I didn't have anything green for Virginia to wear. She had a strip of green in her shirt, but I really wanted green pants for her. I searched the web and ended up on my favorite craft blog MADE. First I thought I would make a skirt for Virginia, but I just didn't like the fabric I had on hand. But I saw a tutorial on how to make pants and I thought this would be perfect since it was a little windy outside. Again I wasn't sure about the fabrics I had laying around.

Then the light bulb went off in my head. I could use one of Reiggin's old shirts. I looked though his closet and found the perfect long sleeves cotton shirt. It was a little thick, but not to thick that it would make her hot. Crossing my fingers that it wasn't one of his favorite shirts. I am pretty sure it wasn't since I have not seen him wear it in like three years. Slowly I will get rid of the 300 shirts he has in our closet.

I was nervous about sewing pants at first. This was my first attempt at pants and my past attempts at making Virginia clothes have not been the best. Luckily MADE had a pattern that was just Virginia's size. So I printed out the pattern and taped it together. I laid the pattern out on Reiggin's shirt and used my fabric pen and cut the front and back pieces out. Since I was using a shirt, when I cut I already had both the front two pieces and back two pieces cut at at once.

The tutorial was simple and clear cut. I love tutorials that are like that and that have great photos to follow along with. I am a visual person and photos help me out alot. Also sense I am still learning my sewing terms. I was thrilled with the end product, the pants fit perfect. I did a little happy dance around the apartment and we were off to Chick Fil A to celebrate. This gives me hope that I will get better at making more clothes for Virginia this spring and summer. Who knows maybe I will even make something for myself.


Side note I did make a sweet bowling shirt this week as well. My bowling team decided to all wear green. Well knowing me you all know I could just wear a simple green shirt. I had to do things the hard way and I knitted a design on the back of a green shirt of a strike scene. It was time consuming and I knocked it out in one day just in time to wear to bowling. It gave me good luck and we won 2 of the 3 games. And I was above average on all three games, I had a 140, 143, and a 148.


Next on my crafting agenda is a easter skirt for Virginia and a fishing hole for her to play with. On the back burner is a super hero cape. I believe I will be keeping busy for a bit. But I love to see what I can create.

Here are a few pictures from the St. Patrick's Day Party.







Girls Sleepover

This weekend was a blast. Saturday I got up and quickly got everything together for Virginia's Pull-Ups Potty training party. My wonderful friend Faby was kind enough to allow me to have the party at her house and to give us a ride. Once at Faby's house we started putting things together and getting all the food out. I knew that it was going to be a small group coming. I was happy about that because with small groups you get to know people better. I was expecting two moms, but only one showed up. The party was great, the kids played and had pizza. Faby, Karen, and myself sat at the table eating our pizza and having great conversation. I couldn't have asked for a better party. I had planned to have the party end at 2pm. Before I knew it we were talking away and I looked up at the clock and it was like 3pm. We called it a day and quickly cleaned up and said our good-byes.

Virginia and I had more fun prepared for the night. After quickly getting food for Reiggin to prepare his dinner, I packed our bags in a hurry and Virginia and I were on the road again heading to Grandma's house. I was so excited to be having a girl's sleepover with Grandma, Grandpa, and Samantha. It was the first time Virginia and Samantha had spent the whole night together.


We finally arrived and Samantha was thrilled to see Virginia. They played all night long. Kept Grandma and Grandpa busy playing here and there. Or should I say Up and Down because the one thing those girls love to do is go upstairs to play with all of the toys that Grandma uses with her students.

They had their baths and Grandma read them their bedtime stories and we were ready to begin the battle of bedtime. I was hoping that they would sleep in the same bed together. That way I could have a bed to myself and I just imagined them sitting up at night giggling and goofing off. But for whatever reason Virginia was wanting to sleep with me. Samantha fell asleep pretty easy after Grandma laid with her for awhile. And after I assembled the bed rail for her bed. Susan I will be sending you the bill in the mail.


Virginia stayed up pretty late rolling around and playing with me in the bed. I must say that Virginia is not a good bedtime buddy. I don't know how such a little kid can take up so much space. I woke up about 5am to the sound of Samantha calling out for Mama. Then shortly Virginia woke up as well. Grandma got up as well and was kind enough to stay up with the girls and let me go back to sleep. It was heaven to sleep til about 10am or so. I did miss out on the huge breakfast they were going to make if I had gotten up early.


After I woke up and got dressed we all headed outside to enjoy the nice spring day. Samantha and Virginia had a great time running all over the yard. Grandma and myself sat on the swing and talked. Grandpa had steps duty, keeping an eye on Virginia and Samantha going up and down the steps to the deck. I don't know why but the small deck is the favorite spot for Virginia and Samantha to play. After alot of playing and riding their tricylces the girls both crashed for a good nap. Samantha ended up on the couch holding her cup of goldfish. Virginia fell asleep on the floor in front of the tv watching Nick Jr. I think they slept for almost 3 hours.


Susan came home from her trip to Pittsburgh, just in time for us to celebrate her birthday. We hung out for a little while and then it was time for Susan and Samantha to pack up and head home. Virginia and I did the same a few hours later. We got home and pretty much crashed. I couldn't have asked for a better weekend. I got to spend time with my family and friends and Reiggin got some much needed peaceful down time.








Princess Super Powers!


Doesn't every little girl or boy deserve a Princess crown or King's crown? It seems that all little kids enjoy dressing up and pretending to be someone they are not. So I decided I wanted to make Virginia a princess crown and cape. Well it started off that I was going to make her a super hero outfit. But then I came across we wilsons craft blog when I did my google search.

I landed on her Nicholas Crown Project page. Then I read more about Compasio and how we wilson is sewing crowns for the children at the orphanage in Thailand that is funded and ran by Compasio. We Wilson is even going further as to ask all her readers to email her the name of a child that is sick or having to deal with death or a hardship that may be in need of a crown. We Wilson is sewing a crown for every child that is emailed to her by May 4, 2011. Some of her kind crafty readers are also helping by sewing crowns and shipping them to her. I am hoping to maybe get better and ship a few crowns her way to help her project.


I sat down today and started Virginia's crown. I allowed Virginia to pick the template she liked best, which was the princess crown. Then I laid out all the fabrics that I had and she picked her favorite. After she picked her favorite I picked the fabric for the back of the crown and the accent pieces for the front. I knew that I was going to have to get Virginia over her fear of the sewing machine. If I was going to ever get any project done during the day. For some odd reason Virginia has developed a fear of the sewing machine. She tells me it is because the sewing machine is so loud. It drives me nuts because if I try to sew during the she is run screaming and crying to her bedroom until I turn the sewing machine off and put it away.

Today I was determined to sew her a crown no matter what. She did her usual running and screaming to her bedroom. But after a few minutes came out and was still crying just a little, but once I turned on the cartoons and she realized the sewing machine wasn't going to attack her. She was happy to see the crown taking shape. I am still a very beginner level sewer. But this project was super easy and was perfect for my level. I had lots of fun and can't wait to make more.

If you would like to make your own you can visit We Wilsons for the tutorial and template.

Saturday Night Oh Yeah!

Nothing to do with blog post, but no post is complete without a photo.
Ahhhhh, I feel so refreshed after my Saturday night out with my husband. Did you hear that? With my husband. Yep, we went out kid free. We headed up to Statesville to visit the in-laws and my mother-in-law was so kind to offer to watch Virginia while Reiggin and I went up to Hickory for the night. Virginia got entertained and went to Chick-fil-a with PawPaw and MiMi and then back to their place to play with her best furry buds Sadie and Zuzu.

I will admit I was a little nervous about leaving Virginia and letting the in-laws drive her around town. I wasn't worried about their driving skills, but more-so that Virginia would act crazy or just cry once we left her. I know I am silly and I am totally a helicopter mom at times.  But it was extremely nice to jump in the car, just Reiggin and me, and hit the road. We made our way up to Hickory with the plans of going to the consignment store to get clothes for Virginia. I know, I know... even on our night off we are still doing something for Virginia. We ended up skipping the consignment store and went to Ross-for-Less. Reiggin scored some great deals on work clothes. Which I love because really I feel like I am washing his work clothes every day. So now he has more work clothes which means I can space out my laundry load each week.

I didn't find much there for Virginia. There just wasn't any 2T's and it seems like it is that way at lots of places. And I didn't look for myself, I just don't enjoy looking though the racks. I am the type of person (aka lazy) that needs clothes laid out for me and even put together on a mannequin for me. I have no fashion sense what so ever. I would be happy to wear jeans and a t-shirt everywhere I went. If anyone wants to apply to be my personal shopper, please email me. Can't promise the pay will be any good.

After Ross, I hit up Michael's. I love me some craft stores. I was looking to get Virginia some more paints and paper. I came out with a cute $1.00 reversible craft apron for her instead. Yep, you heard right: $1.00. After browsing all the aisles we headed out to figure out what's for dinner. This is always tough because the "whatever you want honey, no whatever you want" conversation begins. But tonight we halved the role and I suggested two places and Reiggin choose the winner.

Red Lobster came out victorious and I was very happy. The cheese biscuits there are heavenly. I ended up getting stuffed tilapia and was stuffed myself by the end of the meal. After dinner we hit up Toys R Us to see if there was anything good for Virginia there. I was disappointed that we didn't find anything there either. She really is in a between stage where she isn't old enough for some of the electronic toys but too old for the baby toys. But I am going to Walmart today to get paints. That seems to be the winner with her lately. I hope to drive down to Ikea also today to get their $5 drawing paper roll. Also to let Virginia play in their play area for the first time. And as always when going to Ikea you have to have some meatballs.

A night away from said kid and just a night with my husband was just what the doctor ordered. We don't go out just the two of us enough. Mostly because I just can't bring myself to pay a babysitter 10 bucks or more and pay for dinner or a movie. That is a ton of money. Call me cheap. So usually we have to drive an hour either way to the grandparents. Which I don't mind doing because Virginia loves seeing her PawPaw's and MawMaw and MiMi. Next on the date night schedule is going to have to be a movie night. It has been forever since we have been to the movies.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!


What is your favorite Dr. Seuss book? I have great memories reading Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat. There are so many books to choose from.  The man behind the books (Theodor Seuss Geisel ), wrote more then 60 of them. As one of the most popular children’s authors of all time, his books continue to top bestseller lists and are beloved by kids and adults alike. In fact, more than 222 million copies of Dr. Seuss’ books have been sold, and they’ve been translated into 15 different languages. That just blows my mind.


In honor what would be his 107th birthday, here are a few fun facts about the man most of us all grew up reading. (facts found at The Baltimore Sun)
1. Theodore Geisel began using the pen name “Seuss” after being banned from writing for his school, Dartmouth College. He started using his middle name to avoid getting caught. In case you’re wondering, why was banned, he’d thrown a “raucous” party during prohibition.
2. Geisel added the “Dr.” as a shout-out to his dad’s desire for him to get his doctorate at Oxford.
3. Dr. Seuss was never awarded the Caldecott or Newberry Medal (he was awarded a Caldecott honor, but never the medal).
4. He served as the commander of the Animation Department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the US Army Air Forces. During World War II, he worked as a left-wing political cartoonist; he designed posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board.
5. Dr. Seuss was inspired to write his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, while riding on a ship. The sound the ship’s engine made and the rhythm it had sparked his first work.


    Virginia and I celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday Saturday at Target. All the Target's nationwide had an event Saturday at the store where parents and kids gathered to listen to some Dr. Seuss books being read and enjoy some freebies. I wasn't sure if Virginia and I would make it since we both had been a little sick during the week. 

    But we woke up Saturday morning feeling great. So after some convincing, I got Virginia all ready and loaded up into the car. We were one of the first to the store and luckily saw one of my CentralPiedmontMommies friends Sandy and her girls heading into the store. It was a good thing we saw them because I would have never known where to go. We followed them back and the Target staff was still setting up for the event. 

    They had a small cardboard background of a Dr. Seuss scene set up back in the kid's clothes section. They cleared the space enough so the kids and parents could all sit down and listen to the stories. So Virginia and I found a spot on the carpet and waited for them to start. Some of the staff members started handing out small goodie bags. This was awesome, it was actually small reusable Target shopping bags. They had filled them up with some snacks, coupons, and Dr. Seuss fun facts. 


    Virginia thought this was the best thing on earth. I mean she got goldfish, fruit snacks, and juice early in the morning. So she was in heaven. Then the birthday cake was brought out. I could just see all the kid's eyes growing large and all the parent's mouths dropping. The event started at 9:30am so a little early for cake. But it was a special occasion so i didn't really care. 

    Once everything was set up, the staff told the kids a special guest had come to read to them. I was thinking oh great some body has dressed up as The Cat in the Hat. Virginia goes both ways with people dressed up as characters. Sometimes she loves them and sometimes she is deathly afraid of them. Luckily  as the older woman comes around dressed up in a The Cat in the Hat costume, I am sure left over from their Halloween stock. Virginia was all smiles. 

    The Cat in the Hat sat down and read a few books. Then they asked the kids if any of them wanted to read. I thought for sure it would be dead silence because what kid is going to be brave enough to read in front of a crowd of little kids and their parents. To my surprise Sandy's girls both raised their hands to volunteer. Her older daughter was picked and she got to sit in the chair and read. She did an amazing job and is a super reader. It was really cute watching the younger daughter sit at the girl's feet listening. This makes me want to have one more child just so Virginia can have a little sister or brother. 


    After some reading all the kids enjoyed a piece of cake and signed a big poster size birthday card. Then we all gathered together for a group picture that gets displayed in front of the store. I didn't think Virginia would go stand up front for the picture without me. But to my surprise she walked right up front without me and even held The Cat in the Hat's hand. She was smiling ear to ear. 

    I just can't get over how much my baby has grown up over the past year. She has gained so much more confidence and is slowly becoming less and less shy in public.  I can't wait to see how much she grows this year.