Big weekend!

Big weekend for the Brenneman family!

First off, happy birthday to Jeff! Yesterday Jeff turned 32 and we celebrated by going out and eating with friends at Shoguns. They have a little birthday treat you can buy, but we've never been excited about getting the $5 pineapple slice that comes with a song and a Polaroid photo, so we get sushi for our birthday splurge.

This was Alaina's first trip to Shoguns and she had a lot of fun watching the chef cook our food. (Of course I don't have any pictures, even though I brought the camera.) Her eyes were as big as saucers the entire time!

Jeff's parents were up for the weekend because they wanted to bring Alaina her birthday surprise early. But before we could even think about giving it to her . . .we had to go to the Children's zoo for a train ride, so we loaded up on Saturday (which was cold and wet) and went for a very cold ride.

When we got back, Alaina got to go downstairs to see her new present. Her very own train.

Kitty even joined in the fun.

We also took a bed buying trip for Alaina to Nebraska Furniture Mart.

Jeff and I debated quite a bit on what to get for a bed for Alaina:
Bunk or regular?

Twin or Full?

We ended up with this behemoth of a bunk bed, but Alaina would have preferred the one with the slide attached.
Each bed is a full size mattress and the total cost ended up being $3 less that the check we got for my little accident two weeks ago. Yay insurance money!

We could have spent all day in the store it was so much fun! Even Alaina loved 'trying' out the furniture.

Every time she sat down she would say . . .

"This is so comfortable!"

I told Jeff that I can't wait to go shopping for new couches there. We'll need a whole weekend. Do you think the sales people would let us order in lunch while we browse?

One problem we didn't foresee was buying sheets. Did you know that licensed character sheets aren't usually found in Full size?

Neither did we.

But the evil empire of Wal-Mart had them so for the first time in two years . . .Jeff went to a Wal-Mart. (I've been in one on road trips, but he usually stays in the vehicle with Alaina, so for me it was only about two months)

I try to console myself with the knowledge that the money we spent was from Jeff's company party in Feb and from the baby shower his co-workers threw for him . . . so we didn't spend any of our money.

Stupid Wal-Mart.

Happy Earth Day!

Yes I agree that it is a commercial effort to make us all feel good about saving the earth for one day . . .but how else do you get the stragglers on board?

By 2 big things this year for going green are:

1) recycling or donating all of our old clothes. No more pounds of nasty clothes for the landfill from my house, Good Will will take anything and recycle it for insulation or carpet padding or something else useful.

2) Green cleaning: I'm going to try to make my own cleaners after I get rid of all the chemicals in my house. But its mostly for the reason that buying a bottle of vinegar and having baking soda on hand is much cheaper that a bathroom scrub, windex, a multipurpose spray and other things.

Cheap I tell you! Cheap!

Now if only I could figure out how to make my own makeup I'd be set.

Today is also administrative professionals day which means . . . free lunch for me!!!

To bad they don't have the option to order maternity plate sizes because they think that all women pick at their plates like birds.

Yellow Dresses and Yellow Lines.

So I survived last week . . .which ended with a tense conversation with my pediatrician and holding my screaming/crying daughter while she had an IV for two hours.

Needless to say I didn't go back to work after that on Friday.

Alaina finally started to perk up late Friday, but we had a pretty rotten spell up until then.

She was feeling good enough to put her Belle dress on and put Butterscotch the stuffed cat to bed. Awww . . .she even read him a story.

I told Jeff that it is about time to look into making a new princess dress for her so that I can rotate one through the wash. He looked at me funny and pointed out that she had several other play dresses to put on. I countered with

"Yes, but they aren't princess dresses."

You should have seen the look on his face. hee hee

Baby shower on Sunday and then back to work.

And boy did this day start fun!!!

I'm putting together my receipts for my business credit card and couldn't find one. I remembered that I had stuck two of the receipts in a book that I returned to barnes and noble, but I only had one.

So . . . .

I drove over to b and n for lunch, located a copy of the book I returned, and

Lo and behold!

The receipt was still inside.

Then off to the mall to grab some Qdoba chips and guac. (Apparently now when I get chips and guac I get a free salsa too. Yum!)

I tried to pull into a parking space that looked open and can nose to nose with this.

Oh how I wish my camera was a polaroid. I would have left this pic with a snarky message on it like.

"Who taught you how to park . . .your grandma? Go back to Kindergarten and learn how to stay in the lines."

Any other suggestions?

Are we there yet?

Is it the weekend yet?

Monday rounded out okay and Alaina was doing better on Tuesday so we sent her off to daycare Wednesday.

Alaina had been a bit hoarse on Wednesday, but I attributed it to the fact that she was upset that I wouldn't let her sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed the night before so she cried pretty hard before she finally calmed down.

I was wrong.

Alaina woke us up with a Croup-like cough at 1 a.m. Thursday morning and a fever of 101.7.

She was so upset she could barely breath because of all the coughing.Jeff stayed home with her, but to give him time to work, I bundled her up and took her to see the pediatrician.

While sitting at the traffic light just outside of the doctor's office, Alaina vomited all over herself again.

And I hadn't grabbed an extra set of clothes.

So I stripped her in the van and took her in wearing my fleece coat, a pull-up and her socks.

Our regular pediatrician was out, so we saw another one who basically patted us on the head, told us it was a cold with maybe a little croupy cough, and sent us home.

I was unhappy with the diagnosis, but happy that I would be back at the office within an hour.

And then Fate stepped in.

While waiting for traffic to start moving at a green light, I heard the screech of brakes, followed by the unmistakable crunch of car to car impact, which ended at the back of our van.

We had only been moved about 8-12 inches forward, and Alaina just looked a little bewildered and asked, "what was that?"

"A car bumped us."

I got out, there were three vehicles behind us, the last one that started the impact had all of its airbags deployed and the poor girl who was driving was frantically calling her mother in tears.

I asked each of the drivers how they were, did they need emergency medical attention and had they called the police.

Both of them ended up being taken away in emergency vehicle - one with a very painful knee, and the man from the car behind me said he had a headache. (sheesh)

To entertain Alaina, we watched the emergency vehicle arrive and marveled at their uniforms.

There were three fire trucks, two Ambulances, and one police cruiser.

She desperately wanted to go home, so I distracted her by having her take pictures of the vehicles and personnel. It didn't dawn on me until later that I should have taken pics of the accident. (duh)

Alaina was very cooperative when the fireman took her blood pressure with a finger clamp.



There were only two red scratches on our back bumper and we were the only vehicle that was able to drive away. The young ladies dad came down to see how we were and was happy to hear that I felt fine after seeing me get out of my van in all my pregnant glory.

I was just glad I hadn't hit the little blue haired lady in the car in front of us.

Four hours later, the nurse from my midwife clinic finally called me back and insisted that I get an ultrasound at the hospital.

45 minutes later and $40 poorer I emerged with a nice picture of baby brenneman's foot and fist, was told she was head down/face down, and that she was in fact a she.

Sorry aunt Stacey. Next time dream I'm having a girl and maybe we will have a boy.

Arriving home that afternoon, Jeff informed me that Alaina had gotten poo all over her bed after her nap.

And to top the whole thing off . . .she vomited all over again this morning at 3 a.m.

I'm calling the pediatrician again this morning.

And how was your week?

Too much Easter . . .

The Set up -
Alaina was pretty bad about taking her naps this weekend. In fact, she didn't take any at all.

We gave her Easter treats but not too many.

Because of the strange time schedule of the weekend, Alaina was completely distraught by bedtime. She cried for Mommy and didn't want mommy to leave the room. I never like these days because I just want to stay and hold her, but if I try that she just sits and talks to me and there is still no sleeping anyway.

I got up once at about 1 am when she cried for me.

Then 4 am came. . .
I nudged Jeff to get up and get Alaina when she cried this time.

When he went in her room she told daddy "I spilled."

"Spilled?" said daddy, "Spilled what?"

"I SPILLED!" (crying harder)

Jeff finally sees through the haze of sleepiness that Alaina had thrown up all over herself.

Joy.

Mommy gives her a bath to clean out her hair (ewww!!!!) and then we cuddle for a very long time - translation I didn't get to go back to sleep. I emailed/ called into work at about 6 am. Jeff and I assumed it was just too much Easter fun.

Until the diarrhea.

And when she vomited a second time in the van while we were getting ready to go into the grocery store for food.

Happy holidays to me . . . and here's a virus for your daughter.

The Easter Bunny is now on my hit list.

However, I'll see if I can wrangle some picks from Easter . . .my camera was dead so I depended mostly upon others.

The hair color initiative

Just a quick note to let you know I'm here.

I was all inspired and decided to color my hair Monday night.

I went for Nice and Easy Medium Champagne Blonde, which is pretty much my natural hair color, but it stripped out a little of the brown that I have been loathing.

Jeff of course couldn't tell the difference, but since he's colorblind (no seriously, he is) I always figure that if he can't see the difference, then I didn't go too drastic.

At work all yesterday, not one single person commented on my hair color. Which is funny because in the regular course of my job, I have been asked if I colored my hair more times that not since my hair looks so different depending upon the weather and how I style it.

But

I had a prenatal appointment last night. Just one of those "Are you in Labor? No? Well then see you in two weeks," kind of appointments.

The nurse and my midwife both said "OH my gosh! you colored your hair!"

Now how about that?

Trips to Denver and Minneapolis

Enjoy! Our trip to Minneapolis was so much more laid back I didn't take many pics but I have dozens of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Denver!