Perhaps lunch or dinner instead

Sometimes I feel bad for Nora because she is older and just isn't as scoopable as the other two. Ryann is at that age (2 1/2) where you can't stand to not hug her because she is just so cute. Georgia is, too - in addition to the fact that she is still somewhat of a baby and gets carried around a lot. At times, I feel like Nora gets the shaft because she's 5 and has grown out of that unbelievably, uncontrollably cute stage. I try to be very intentional about giving her lots of hugs and kisses and praises throughout the day so she doesn't feel bad, but I feel bad - because it is intentional, where for the other girls it isn't (right now). Does that make sense? I know it isn't HER, but the difference of the ages of the girls, but still I feel bad.

So I am always thrilled when she does something or says something that puts a smile on my face or makes me laugh. She now has a sense of humor, she is so kind and loving and caring and she loves completely. She really enjoys playing, she likes to take care of Georgia, she enjoys Ryann - at times - and she especially enjoys spending any time with mom and dad. She helps me with my new job and feels very important for doing so. She loooves to learn, cannot get enough of coloring and crafty kinds of things, is beginning to read a little bit (although if I knew how to teach her she would be reading a lot more), is very curious and always wants to help. She is a wonderful little girl and I love her to pieces:)

This morning we were driving home from Georgia's 15 month check up listening to our Marc Cohn cd. One of my favorite songs was on and I was singing along as usual. Nora stopped me and asked, "Is he saying 'breakfast', mom?" "Breakfast, honey? When?" "You know, walking in his breakfast?" (we were listening to this song).

I laughed and was reminded that she IS still unbelievably, uncontrollably cute in her own 5-year old kind of way. I am so grateful for my little Peek and all that she shares with us. God has blessed me so:)

Overalls

There is just something so unbelievably yummy about walking babies in overalls. Even from behind they are so CUTE!
And I would like to announce that this whole fashion trend of long t-shirts under short sleeves is WONderful!!!! I did not have to buy Georgia a new wardrobe for the winter, hers basically doubled with the addition of a few long sleeve onesies. Whoever thought of this was an absolute genius!

PS - please take note of the unbelievably clean floor behind her. There is one diaper bag and a blanket on the floor. THAT IS IT. Hello??? Do you have a concept of how amazing that is? Congratulations to me:)

You know what'll happen

Just because I know everyone wants to know this...

I just listed all of my baby bottles and breastmilk storage containers on ebay. So now you know what will happen.

Dave needs to call 1877-877-4VAS right now.

Dreams

Based on this Oprah show, Cornbread and I made our own dream/goal posters on Sunday afternoon. I have to give you a disclaimer to tell you that the show was pretty new-agey and you really, really have to look past that to find the bits and pieces that you can take away from the show and apply to your life. I am in no way advocating a karma type philosophy or a life in which you base your actions on how the universe is going to return vibrations to you, however, if you listen carefully, there are some good things to come away with...

Like make goals. Be specific. Speak them out loud and live your life like you expect them to occur. One of the girls called it "placing your order" - when you go to a restaurant and place an order, you expect your food to come the way you ordered and you don't think any differently. In the same way, you should speak your goals and consider them an order and just expect them to happen and make your decisions based on your goals. Yes, yes, I hear you - God works. God has plans. But we can create goals and work toward them with the expectation that if God has other plans we need to be flexible enough to follow his call.

My whole poster is the picture that is above. Here are the bits and pieces zoomed for you to see. By the way, our posters are interestingly different - mine is mainly words and phrases, Cornbread's is mainly pictures... hmmm visual vs. lingual - makes so much sense:)

Some day I want to 1) see Wicked; 2) have season tickets to the White Sox and 3) have a career in nursing.

At some point I would like to take two nice vacations each year. I would like to visit so many places - including Venice, Hawaii, Colorado, Belize, Santa Barbara, Alaska, Ireland - the list goes on. I want to travel with Cornbread and provide experiences for our girls. Thanks to Edward Jones, both of those are distinctly real possibilities:)
Someday, I would like to have a second home - a condo downtown so that we can go to the city for a weekend and stay downtown rather than drive home. So we can do fun things in the city and not worry about the traffic on the way out and on the way home. I want to experience city living - but not full-time (besides, Cornbread has no desire to live in the city full-time - so I have to take his wishes into consideration:)
Here I am showing my new attitude toward weight and weight loss. I've been re-examining my ideas about this for the last several days. I've begun to wonder why 120 is my magic weight number when in reality even at 120 I have a hard time finding clothes to fit me correctly. Maybe, just maybe it should be more about being healthy, being in shape and enjoying life - regardless of what my actual weight number is.

I love the quote on the right side. It says, "I never set my goals based on a scale. Nope, just miles on a machine. Minutes on the treadmill. And loving every second of it."

I want to continue to have one of the happiest marriages in the world. I love Cornbread. He is my absolute best friend - my favorite person in the whole world and I want that to always be the case. And yes, I would like to have more sex:) Being parents sucks, sometimes;)
Remember my mission trip to Honduras? I don't want that to be my first and last mission trip. I want to go on more. I would like to go on mission trips as a family. I would like to go on a trip (or more than one) with Cornbread. I want to serve God's people. I want to give them clothes and a cup of cold water. I want to fullfill God's call for me.
There's also a piece of the poster that says "Undeniably strong". I think that works on so many levels - my marriage, my fitness goals, my body, my faith in God. Awesome.

QOTD:

What would your dream/goal poster look like?

Tales of a Superbowl Birthday

Sunday was Cornbread's 31st birthday. And as his wife, I was able to secure an almost perfect gift for his birthday. Don't ask me how I was able to accomplish such a feat, but I was able to get the Bears into the Superbowl... being played on his birthday. Could you imagine anything better than that? Well, if I could have assured a victory it would have been the most perfect birthday ever, but that was too much of a stretch - even for me. So, while his birthday was overall a good one, it didn't end the way we wish it had.

And here, in photos, is a day in the life of our Birthday Bears Fan:

Knowing how much he looooves cinnamon rolls, I decided to try to make some from scratch like my mom used to do when we were growing up. I had visions of perfectly rising, fluffy cinnamon rolls oozing with cinnamon sugar and vanilla icing, making the whole house smell heavenly on the morning of Cornbread's birthday. Instead, this is what happened:

And if it looks like they are rock hard and hardly risen, that's because they were - they were horrendous. Don't know why, but they didn't rise...

Some photos of our miniature bears fans:

Clearly, Ryann was very excited about the bears and the superbowl.

I thought there was a distinct possibility that Cornbread would never even see the Superbowl because he might have a grabber by the time it actually came on. The air in our home was a mixture of unbelievable excitement and sheer, utter boredom as we waited for the 5:20pm kickoff.At 3:00 it was naptime - for everyone. Cornbread decided that a good way to pass the time would be to sleep it away. Everyone was put in their beds and he climbed in ours with the hopes of waking up just in time to catch kickoff... in reality he got a short nap because everyone else woke up early. Again, doing what we can to pass the time... I don't think I've ever had a day take so long in my life.

As of now, the game has started. If you haven't heard about The Woof and football, then you should know, he is a GIANT PANSY. He gets very nervous during football games because Cornbread gets very excited and there is a lot of positive (or negative) energy in the air. The Woof, being the pansy that he is, starts to pant, pace and sit as close to a human being as possible (that usually is me - and he sits on my chest). Here he is panting and getting nervous.

Since the cinnamon rolls (obviously) did not work, I took that as a challenge from the yeast. You think I can't bake with you? Ha! I'll teach you. So I made some soft, giant pretzels. They were good, but they took a long time to make. And I kicked the yeast's butt.

In order to keep the girls out of Cornbread's hair during the game, we set up a portable DVD player with their movie. We also ordered our favorite pizza.

Here he is as the Bears begin to dash his hopes.

After halftime as the Bears fall apart:

Georgia was being a doll, so we had a little photo shoot (don't you love her hair?)

At this point I believe he had given up all hope, which is the only reason why there is a smile on his face.And yes folks, we have lost the superbowl.And then we let the girls take some pictures...

Nora's picture of mom and dad:

Ryann's first attempt at a picture of mom and dad:

Oh, here we are...

Ryann's picture of Nora:

And someone was quite excited about their movie:)

We had a good day. Cornbread's reaction to the loss was much different than I expected. He has been completely pleasant and unmoved by the outcome. I had expected a winner - or, perhaps I hoped for a winner as opposed to the reaction I assumed he would have if they lost. However, my Cornbread is now a real live grown up and doesn't get so worked up by things anymore, at least on this occasion anyway. He is 31, you know;)

Superfans

I remember watching this in high school and it was funny, but it is so much funnier now that I live in Chicagoland... the accents are real - people really talk like that (I had no idea) - the obsession with the sports teams, the idolization of the the sports people... its all so real.

The day after the Bears won the NFC championship I think there may have been one brief news story that was not about the Bears, but the entire morning news was about the Bears. For the last 2 weeks, at least every 3rd story is about the Bears. It is insane, but it is so much fun.

Go Bears!

RIP Chris Farley.