How awesome is this...???

One of my "friends" posted this on FB. I think I'm gonna have to try this! How can it be bad, it's 2 pounds of bacon man.

Behold the "Bacon Explosion"

Stomp the Yard

New Do

Explain me this

Where does for $200 million for re-grassing the National Mall or $750 million for school snacks and millions more for "Family Planning" fall under ECONOMIC stimulus??? Am I the only one who is confused with what Mr. Obama is doing?

1039

Cookie Sales have closed!!!!! I just submitted the girls orders. Six little K-1st graders, with a lot of help from Mom/Dad, brought in a grand total of 1,039 boxes! 24 of those boxes are being sent to the troops overseas. I'll be picking up 88 CASES on Valentine's Day. Pics will follow...

On a personal note: Thank you to everyone out there that helped Sydney out! She loved the process and looks forward to delivering all her orders next month.

Tooth Update

It's STILL there. That sucker isn't falling out anytime soon. It still wiggles, but not ready to come out. I guess she's got teeth like me. Very few of my teeth fell out on their own. I had to get a majority of them pulled at the dentist office, even a few permanent teeth. We'll see...

More good news on Sydney

They do sight-word testing on a regular basis at her school. They are required to know the first 25/600 words by the end of the year. Sydney was tested on all 600 on the 16th. She all but 36 words. Words like Europe, syllables, scientist & represent are some of them she missed. However, she knew words like instruments, paragraph and government. We are so proud of her. She's continuing to do well on her AR quizzes. So... I guess we'll see what happens next.

WTF!!!!

Fast forward 5 year - what horrific things will he have done by then??? What the hell??? Seriously... what kind of animals are being raised out there?

100 Days

On Monday, Sydney made her 100th day in Kindergarten. She's still loving everything about it - bus, reading, friends, learning and having fun.

Cookie Time!!!

This seriously makes me question my sanity! Girl Scout Cookie Sale has started today in our area. On top of being the troop leader, I'm also "Cookie Mom". The girls are super excited about being able to go out and sell cookies finally. When I gave them their order card on Tuesday they got to see all the different cookies and all the prizes they could receive - "wow", "awesome", "no way", "that's cool" were some of the things they said. I hope they all do awesome! I'm curious to see just how awesome they will do. Totals to come on the 28th.

Remember When?

I found these while looking for a picture of my dad. Wasn't she adorable???

What's the going rate???

On my way home from the hospital (I'm a RN, for those that didn't know), Rick told me some wonderful news from the home front. Sydney has a loose tooth!!!!!! He said that at some point during the day, she told him that her tooth felt funny. When he asked which one - WAHOO... it was moving. She still has many days before it falls out, but she is over-the-moon excited. To the garage I will go to find my "Tooth Fairy" pillow for her to use. It's a small white pillow with lace edge and a tiny little pocket on the front. She can put her teeth in it, just like I put all of mine, for the Tooth Fairy to find.

My question is: What's the going rate on teeth these days??? I remember getting a quarter or at most $1. What has inflation brought the price to now???

Finally... back to "normal"

My life is finally getting back to normal. Sydney went back to school on Monday and I'm finally going back to work in the morning. I haven't worked since the week before Christmas and my brain is dying to think. Full steam ahead and life is looking good.

On another note.... Sydney's "smarts" are really blossoming. Her teacher called the house today with some great news. Because she's considered an "independent reader", she's was tested to see how advanced her reading level is. She's a borderline second grade reader. To be exact: 1.9. What that fancy number means is she's reading where a first grader in their 9th month of the school year. She met the "Instructional Reading Level" (proficient at recognizing, reading & comprehending over 80% of the words) at 1.4. She's being placed in the "Accelerated Reader" program at school and will continue to be tested on her knowledge base. All the grades have to participate, but it is not done by the Kindergartner classes. Mrs. DeMarco will be taking her to the library this week to help her pick out more advanced books to continue challenging her. She's got no idea what all this means, just knows that she has to start reading harder books, and that honestly has her soooo excited. For only being five, she's developing an affection for books and experiencing all the joys that brings.

Lucky 13

I didn't realize that Ryan turned 13 months today until I got the email from BabyCenter. It's not that I don't when he turns a certain age, but I have worked in 3 weeks and my brain is on autopilot. I hardly knew today was Saturday, let alone the 3rd. Anyway....

What he's doing now...

• Wearing size 5 diapers
• Wearing size 4 shoe, still
• Wearing 12-18m clothes
• Goes to sleep at 7:30 and wakes up anytime after 6
• Finally started whole milk, but we are slowing adding it - we didn't have much luck the first try the week of Christmas
• Faces forward in his carseat & loves it
• Has really stopped liking "baby food"
• Almost has running down. He's at the extremely fast walk now.
• Says "up", "hi", "mama", "dada", "nite nite" "nana" and some other stuff
• Can tell you where his nose & mouth are. Sometimes will do eyes.
• Likes to throw things, especially food
• When told it's "Time to go Nite Nite with Doggie", he sometimes walks to his room and waits by the crib for you to put him in
• Takes a nap every morning around 9:30, sometimes lasting 2 hours. Afternoon naps - ever so often
• Can get his foot up on the tub. I guess he'll start climbing in there by himself before too long!
• Can drink from a sippy cup that has a straw in it! Gotta get more of them...
• Really likes to eat: string cheese, yogart, icecream, eggs, turkey or ham, potatoes (any type), bananas, broccoli, anything I'm eating
• Is finally leaving electrical cords alone & the nightlights
• Can open any door - yes, a door. Not cabinet, door! We had to put a lock on the pantry the other day.
  
• Has 9 teeth. It feels like his other 3 molars are on their way though... poor kid.
• Still likes to chew on everything
• Doesn't sit down long enough for a book to be read to him, but likes looking at them when it fancies him.
• Will, for the most part, listen to me when I ask him not to touch things or to sit down. He will hand me something if I ask for it.

He's a riot... he physically can do just about anything he puts his mind too. His verbalization has been picking up dramatically over the last few weeks. Will have to really start focusing on that. HA...

More to come later!

Have ya ever wondered...

How many Christmas ornaments are on the tree???? 287 this year and that wasn't even all of them. I wonder how many I'll get up next year. I bought only 8 new ones this year. I also have a dozen clear glass ones that I want to make as well as repaint/glam-up the solid gold/red glass balls I didn't hang this year. Any suggestions on how to make those boring balls pretty??? My inner Martha Stewart is on vacation right now - not a drop of creativity flowing.

Welcome to 2009.... and a little snow

Like most of you saw via email, we headed up to Mt. Lemmon yesterday for a little outdoor fun. We hadn't been up there since Sydney was 5 weeks old and right before the fire that pretty much burned the entire top of the mountain up. We, Tucson, got a little snow the day after Christmas. It was a long, pretty snow that left nothing but dead plants and wet roads down here, but left the mountain loaded. According to one of the newspapers, there was over a foot of white stuff left up there from that one snow. I'm pretty sure it had snowed prior to that day so it already had a good start. The slopes were opened and skiing had begun for the season. Yeap, that's right... just an hour from my house there is snow skiing in the wintertime. Sydney LOVES the snow and had been begging us since the snow day to "play in the snow", so off we went. Loading up the car with lunches, stroller, extra clothes and a camera we headed up to about 9000 ft to the white stuff. It was insane up there... a gazillion people and tons of cars all over the place. We got to the top around 10:45ish. Ate some lunch, drove around some more then started the drive back about 1:00. Surprisingly, it wasn't cold at all. In the sun I was fine in my tanktop, but it was a little chilly in the shade. The snow was a good mix of fluff and ice so they were able to play pretty easily. The kids had a blast! On our way down, we stopped and played for about 30 more minutes. Fun times by all. By the time we got to the base the Sheriff's Dept. had closed the road up because of all the congestion. Our plan is to go back at one more time before the winter ends. Should be better the next time we go back - a weekday. Will have a sled next time!
Ryan:

Sydney:

Rick & Ryan:

Rick & Sydney: