Carnivour Holiday Meal!

Today is food day at work. And I love food days at work because I get to have a plate of food about every hour that looks like this-

Do you see any cookies or sweets? NOPE! Nothing but Meat!!! Yay!!

Except for the crackers, but they are for the dried beef dip!

Typically in the a.m., the table is full of cookies and more beef jerky and sausages that you can shake a stick at. And I love me some meats! I usually never even get to the cookies.

Its like the first few days after Dad had brought home the venison from the butcher. You could gleefully snitch as much jerky as you wanted because there was so much, you could barely tell any was gone!

That was truly the best part about dad going deer hunting . . .all the meat that came after.

Yum. How on earth do vegetarians give up all the yumminess of beef, turkey, venison, and chicken? I'll hopefully never have to find out.

so I'll sit here, enjoying all of my jerky and such, and drinking my cider courtesy of the one associate that brings the cider mix packets every year.

God bless us everyone!

Company Gift

One month countdown to baby check . . .

I had an appointment yesterday with my midwife . . .

and the high point was getting scolded for not having my tree up yet. Of course she confessed that she didn't have hers up either but was truly horrified when I said maybe we wouldn't put it up this year . . .

So I've slotted tomorrow for the decorating day. Now all I have to do is tell the spouse to carry all the boxes down tonight while I'm at the part-time job.

Does everyone else have theirs up already?

Today was the company gift day at work . . . and I've liked the company gifts for the last two years, I received a two pack of soft sided coolers and Jeff has adopted the smaller one because it fits a six pack of beer for him and one bottle for me inside, and last year I received a hiking style duffle which means it has more pockets and handles that any human being would ever need unless you hiked across the outback.

But this year might just be my favorite. What is it you ask . . .well, I'd tell you, but I'll wait until I get home to downloand the pics to post for an official wordless wednesday posting.

I'm so excited! Who knew that a simply company gift could be so rewarding? ; )

Final Countdown . . .

10 days until Christmas!!!

And how is your shopping going?

This was a big weekend for our house to catch up on a lot of things and some big lessons learned:
1) After three hours of unpleasantries betwixt my spouse and I . . . the christmas cards are in the passenger seat of the new van waiting to be dropped off over lunch.

Lesson Learned: Actual pictures are WAY to expensive to get for Christmas cards. Next year I'll pick out 4 -5 shots of kids and family to make color copiers on the copy machine like Mom and Dad do. . . although the letter will be no where near the level of dad.

2) Mom and I did Christmas baking on Saturday and made a good dent in the pre-holiday baking. During the entire session, she kept saying, "Why didn't we start doing this years ago?" Which my mind translated into "This is much better than trying to do this the day before Christmas Eve at 3 in the morning!"

Lesson Learned: Next year, we need to make a weekend out of it and get the shopping done friday night before. The shopping/softening/plan of attack process should get refined by about year three I hope.

Oh, and we won't plan on cooking indoors all day on the nicest day of December either because . . .

3) I completed MOST of the family christmas shopping on Sunday. this is a tough year for us, with just having bought a new vehicle and shelling out a lot of cash for the other one to be up and running, so I tried to stick to a very strict budget this year . . . which led to a few discussions (not quite heated . . .but a bit intense for us) with the spouse about why spending ten extra dollars on one person was a mortal sin. Oh and by the way, I was the winner and the ten dollars was NOT spent.

Lesson Learned: When we sit down to look at finances for next year . . which we most definitely will with a baby on the way, we are budgeting for gifts for birthdays and Christmas next year.

But the weekend was a pretty good time overall. Alaina had a lot of fun singing along with the Chrsitmas station on the radio yesterday, bursting into song with and occasional "SNOW!" "GLOW," or "CHRISTMAS!" sung at the top of her lungs. She usually joined in with any word at the end of the line that was sung for more that four seconds. It was so darn cute I wish I had it on tape, but she clammed up whenever we got near.

However, we did try going with training pants all weekend, with a few painful parts. I probably didn't approach this right, but after the third time she walked up to inform me that she was poopy and I needed to change her diaper, I informed her that she was wearing panties, and you don't change panties because you don't poop in them.

Alaina stared at me as if I had gone mad.

I said underwear isn't for changing. So you have to go to the bathroom in the toilet. She said, "No! Change my diaper!" So I said again that she wasn't wearing a diaper she was wearing underwear and underwear isn't for pooping and peeing in.

She started to pout quite prettily at this point, so I said I was sad that she didn't want to go to the bathroom in the toilet like big girls because I just know that she is a big girl and can do it. Which I got a resounding "Yes I can!" for so we hugged and went to take off her underwear and take a bath.

I told her next weekend is a no diaper weekend again, which she seemed pretty open too, so we'll see what happens.

I suppose I did that kind of backwards, but I know that she does well with the toilet at daycare so I'm a little frustrated that she refuses to try at home. Its just flat out time to encourage the switch to big girl undies.

Does anyone have a tip on a sticker chart or candy reward system?

"If you weren't pregnant . . ."

is the most horrible phrase uttered by a physician.

"If you weren't pregnant, I could give you a strong antibiotic for that, but instead here are some horse pills . . . take 4 of them a day for ten days."

"There would be a one day pill you could take for that if you weren't pregnant. But instead, here's a prescription for two pills a day and a topical cream for that . . . which you should use for 7-10 days."

Maybe the next worse phrase is . . . and you might want to avoid having sex for a while.

Don't they realize I've got at least four weeks of that coming after I have the baby?!?

Shame on them . . .

10:30 p.m. run to the store last night - Papa would be so proud

Home Sick

Yay me . . . .

I was feeling less than perky after working for 4 1/2 hours to close the store on black friday. But I just chalked it up to being in a car for two hours before being on my feet for 5 hours.

However, by mid-day Saturday it was apparent that I was flat out sick.

I don't know what's worse.

Being sick on a holiday weekend or being sick at your in-laws.

Don't get me wrong I like my in-laws. But it is hard to be nice when you feel so icky and all you want is to heat up a bowl of soup or a cup of tea in the microwave . . .

but they don't have a microwave.
I only wish I were kidding.

By yesterday the sinus pressure and icky sicky throat feeling started which in my world only means one thing . .

Sinus infection.

So I sucked it up and went to the doctor because I have no idea what I can and can't so with a sinus infection while pregnant and was subjected to a novice lecture on sinus infections, their causes, and why doctors like to wait until several days have passed before they treat you for one.

All of which I've know since I was 14. But that's okay, I'm breaking in a new doctor. . . he'll learn.