My Sister, the finder of cool things

MBG just has the knack for finding the perfect gifts. I don't know how she does it . . . but she does.



But I'm still in awe of this one.



I've been struggling with the whole MSPI and still trying to nurse thing, so when this card arrived in the mail, I couldn't stop laughing.

Talk about summing up my life in a Hallmark greeting card! I can't believe you found this sis!

Not so Wordless Wednesday.

So remind me that I need to tell the story of Alaina's first retail meltdown, but I wanted to start with this one.

Everyone has seen those little neck pillows shaped like the letter 'C' that you can get in adult or kid sizes right? Have you ever noticed that they are the same shape as a boppy pillow?

I didn't, but Alaina did.

I was scolded for being too loud while she 'fed' her baby. (I was laughing) I reminded her that only mommies were able to feed babies from their chest.

And you know what her comeback was?

"That's okay, I'm a Grandma."

Oh dear.

But at least if she does it in public, no one will think to ask be if I'm nursing.

Org Roundup - Command Center

So I've been desperately trying to get back into the Org Junkie Challenge, but I haven't seemed to have the time to get the first, ummmm, eight months done before the deadline to post, if it even gets done at all. You would think I was busy having a baby or something. ; )

But lo and behold! I managed to get this one done, by the skin of my teeth. This challenge had to be done for many reasons, the biggest being that I didn't have a command center before this. And the biggest pain in the rear reason is my husband complaining about how the mess builds up on the island by the door and takes over the kitchen every afternoon.

See? Yikes!

So I decided to migrate the mess to the corner of the kitchen where my dust collectors, a.k.a. my mixer and blender, live. They got new homes and I hauled all of the stuff that had squatted there to better places.

Disclaimer: I did not decorate my kitchen! The previous owners tried to disguise the ugly brown tones of the 70s tiles with ugly wallpaper from the 80s. You should see the duck border that runs around the entire room at the ceiling. Blech!

Here's the before:

And here's the after:

The bottom shelf has room for the diaper bag, by pumping supplies, reusable grocery bags, and my travel coffee thermos that I fill everyday for work!

The second shelf is for my purse, our lunch boxes, and seasonal needs. Finally on the top I have my coupon and receipt files, things pending a trip to the basement/car, and my library books.

Since my decorating scheme is so advanced I thought I would shake it up a bit with the Husker board - Translation: I couldn't find another board that didn't cost an arm and a leg, plus this plays the Husker fight song!

But my favorite pieces are these adorable little fluer-de-lis hooks that you just hammer into the wall, only 2.64 for a package of 4 at Target!

We'll see how this works for a while. Maybe when we can finally afford to gut the kitchen, I might have a better idea of how I should lay it all out not to mention the fact we can tear down the time to make more room for shelves.

Boys!

Alaina, Kayla and I went to the mall Sunday morning. She was such a good girl, we went down and got her a small ice cream cone at Runza. We sat down beside a table with six older high school boys sitting at it and I had two trains of thought run screaming through my head at the same time.

the first train was . . .

I'm too old to tell if they are good looking anymore. The only phrase that comes to mind involves the evil adult phrase "What a nice looking boy!" (Blech!)

And the second train . . .

Its going to be so much fun when Alaina is old enough to be embarrassed by her mother in front of the opposite sex.

But for right now she just chatted happily while the boys tried to ignore the lady with two little girls at the table next to them.

Bugging me?

Alaina and I had a quick entomology lesson this morning. This HUGE praying mantis was hanging from one of the parking signs when we pulled into daycare. I scrambled to think about what I could say that would be a good fact about the praying mantis, but I could only think of one thing when I saw it.

And that fact is something I won't share with my child until much later in life.

So I picked one other thing that I notice about bugs.

Look at how still he is.

She's a girl mommy. (How did she know?)

She's sitting so still because its chilly out. When it warms it, she will move away.

Yep and then she'll turn into a boy.

and that is where I lost control of the conversation.

Oh, Alaina, girls don't turn into boys.

Yes!

Nope. Girls stay girls and boys stay boys.

I'm not going to touch the variations that modern society have made to that statement either.

It's amazing how many topics I can find to avoid in three minutes.

Biter Brenneman

Alaina had an incident report yesterday. She bit another kid. Apparently he was pestering her so she decided that turning around and biting him was the best solution for peace.

And the best part?

She bit him on the stomach.

Anyway . . .

We had an interesting adventure in eating out last night. I've learned its almost easier to find fast food that is MSPI friendly than restaurant food simply because in fast food places everything is cooked in oil, restaurants use butter.

We went to Granite City and I jealously watch Jeff eat a blue cheese bacon burger while I had pork with pork au jus, some sauteed potatoes and a delicious combo of sauteed almonds, garlic, tomato, onion and spinach leaves on top of the pork. I am definitely going to try making that topping at home!

Wordless Wednesday