Not So PC...

politically correct, that is.  I guess if they are actually Chinese, it's okay for them to poke fun at themselves.  I first saw this place, in Jacksonville, Florida, probably 20 years ago.  I was taken by surprise to see it is still there!  Funny stuff...

Apologies for my very intermittent blogging... and that this is the best I can do right now, ha ha!  Baby Lucy seems to be in a limbo stage of development: she wants to try to do things (and acquiring new skills constantly - babbling the "b" sound constantly, trying to pull up on furniture, and grabbing everything that gets near her, including my water bottle, which she even managed to get a sip of water through the straw!), and she gets frustrated easily.  Why can't I tear the pages of that book Mommy is reading to Caroline?  Why can't I climb over stuff yet, but I can start to and then fall over?  And why can't I get back up myself when I fall over?  Why can't U pull Mommy's placemat into her lap?  And why does Mommy always have to do stuff in the kitchen, which I am apparently tired of seeing?  At least, I am guessing these are the things she's feeling, but probably in a more primitive way, like, "I want to do it - I can't - WAAAA!"  So times are rough right now.  But I assume the frustration of one stage is what helps boost babies into the next phase of developmental accomplishments at this age.  While I highly doubt that a three month old can experience boredom and this type of frustration, I think a six month old can.

So anyway, I don't get much blogging done.  And really not much more than basic schooling with Caroline.  It's a better-than-expected day if I can read just one whole book to Cecilia, and it's a miracle if I can do that plus one chore, like cleaning the bathroom sinks. And seeing other people's blogs or hearing about other people's lives and what they are able to accomplish is depressing to me at first, but then I take a step back and think that I can always do more elaborate things - and blog about them too so we have the memories recorded! - when I don't have a baby.  Maybe when I have an 18 month old, or two year old... I won't have a baby to hold and nurse forever, but I will have many years with older children to do special things, and even if there is another baby with older kids, then they can do some of the fun stuff themselves.  And maybe they can even take photos so I'll remember it years later!

By the third baby...

...everything starts to wear out. This is my sling. My padded ring sling, used from Caroline's infancy, tore a few weeks ago when I was tugging on the fabric to put Lucy in it. And I had just mended some very small tears around the padded part. Thankfully I had the Maya Wrap as backup when this huge tear appeared. But the Maya has lots more fabric and no padding, which I find more difficult to use for little babies... but thankfully, my friend Beth has a Nojo sling, also padded, which she's letting me borrow temporarily so I can decide if I need to ask for another padded sling for Christmas!

And this is a tear in our sheet (next to a ridiculously adorable baby). Again, I tugged on the fabric (to make it nice and smooth), and it tore. Good thing we have four more sets of sheets!

And speaking of the bed and wearing out its ten year old linens, remember how I kinda ruined our comforter by giving birth on it? My mom insisted on buying us a new one to replace the old one she'd thrown in the garbage:

How does it look?

And a view in natural light...

The stuff nightmares are made of...

Oh, well, the nice old man tried his best to draw a smiley face upon request...

Random Bits

So I guess it is time to be really concerned about the educational institutions in this area when my six year old is correcting signs posted in public bathrooms: "Employee's must wash hands," one said. Caroline asked me, pointing to the apostrophe, "Why is that there? They don't need it there, because the employee isn't owning anything." I told her that I didn't understand it, but it seems that many people think words ending in vowels have to have apostrophes when you are talking about more than one of them. Growing up with a last name ending with the letter i made this very apparent to me... and now that my last name begins with s, it is just as bad, but in a different way. I am destined for last name errors forever, ha ha.

You know, when I go to the gym, I just swim laps in the pool. I don't "work out" on the machines. So maybe I am clueless on this, but it seems like there is certain music that does not really lend itself to being work-out music. A while back I heard "Hotel California" as I walked past the exercise machines and thought, "Hmm, that'd be interesting to run the treadmill to, I suppose..." Today, I heard "Rooster" by Alice in Chains... can anyone actually, physically manage to work out to that song? It'd be like working out to Smashing Pumpkins, or Nirvana... or something really slow and peaceful, like James Taylor. I don't think it would be physically possible! Maybe Richard Simmons can do a "Sweatin' to the Depressing Alternative Music" video and prove me wrong...

Caroline was playing with our painted saints and was making them study their specific fields... she had the priests studying "priestogy," the nuns studying "nunnogy," and the mothers studying "mommogy." "You know, it's like geography, Mommy!" she said.

So I am getting to that point in pregnancy where everybody feels the need to comment on my size... I get the, "When are you due?" and "Getting close, now, huh?" comments now. I like to watch the somewhat horrified expression on the asker's face when I respond with a smile and, "Six more weeks!" Apparently they don't think six weeks is "getting close" at all! And, well, neither do I, really... sure, it feels like I must have more than one baby in there, but anyone who comments with, "Are you sure you're not having twins?" is just rude. Haven't gotten that comment yet this time...

I notice the baby image on my pregnancy ticker is now head-down. I think this little one is, too... she had hiccups for the first time, and they were down pretty low. My others had hiccups non-stop. This one has had them twice that I have noticed. Maybe that's good? I don't know...

I am making fig-filled granola bars as I type... okay, I am not really that good at multi-tasking; I already made them and they are in the oven. Our fig tree is going nuts, so I took some figs to a friend (several friends now, actually!), and she came up with this recipe based on a fruit-filled granola bar recipe. Smells great, and I hope it turns out well for me!

Speaking of baking, I am having a slight bit of nesting instinct, wanting to bake more and such, but I am also physically not too comfortable with back pain and sore feet, especially by the end of the day. My mom was going to buy me some really nice, comfortable, cushioned shoes... she has a SAS store right down the street from her house and bought herself some before she did a bunch of walking on a recent trip to Italy. Well, we got there, and they were closed. Boo. Sore feet to continue for me. I wore her pair all day at a conference last weekend, and I could definitely tell the difference. Then again, buying shoes during pregnancy may ensure that they are too big postpartum... aren't you not supposed to do that, like you're not supposed to get eye exams during pregnancy???

Maybe I have mentioned this before... Cecilia has nicknamed the baby "lump baby." Yes, she has a real name.. well, uh, almost, that is...

Anyway, on the slight nesting... I have a few lists I really need to tackle, too. I have a "before baby comes" list, a homeschool to-do list, a pack for the hospital list (that one's still in my head and not on paper)... and then the around-the-house stuff I'd like to get done (or The List Formerly Known as Spring Cleaning... oops).

Random Bits

Does anybody else thin the new Ford Flex cars look like hearses? No offense if you own one; they look spacious and comfy, and I have a thing for station wagon-style cars... but they look like space-age hearses to me.

I was shopping for a maternity sundress a few weeks ago and found a great one for a great deal using a Groupon from Old Navy... I wanted something to just wear casually in this heat as I go through the final trimester of pregnancy! So once I bought it, I realized I needed a bra that would work with it - strapless or thinner straps or something along those lines. Luckily, I was right next to a Kohl's. Actually, I thought I was around the corner from a Kohl's so I drove around the building in the same large parking lot to go in... but when I left, I somehow came out right next to Old Navy. Apparently they have two entrances, and I chose the less convenient one, ha ha! Anyway, if you have ever shopped in the underwear/bra department in Kohl's, you may have noticed its square footage is larger than my whole house. Endless rows of bras. If you are male and still reading this, please feel free to skip past if you have little interest in bra-shopping. ;) What I noticed as I walked up and down the aisles is that 90some% of the bras were padded... not just a little bit, but the padding that makes the cups stick way out, perfectly rounded, so as you have to be careful when walking down the aisles lest you get too close and knock them off the racks as they protrude into your path. Apparently I am in the minority here on not liking these kinds of bras... I guess I don't like that they are too thick, too bulky-feeling, too much fabric (meaning too hot). I typically want a bra that I don't notice I am wearing a few minutes after I put it on. And, thankfully, I finally came across something new: bandini bras. They were made by a brand called Barely There. Yes, that sounded right up my alley - I want a bra that is barely there. If I could go without all the time, I probably would, so this is the next best thing in my opinion. They are also made in easy sizes: small, medium, large. And they came in a set of two! The straps can be up over the shoulders or pulled down to make it a strapless bra. You can even have one strap up and one strap down, although I can't see much practicality in that. So, I just thought I would review this product here in case there are any other people out there who like this kind of bra!

Cecilia went swimming and talked about rinsing off the "cholrine." Hee hee. She doesn't say "scrunscreen" any more... I think that was last summer.

We were given a huge load of girls' clothes by a neighbor who has two nieces who have outgrown the clothing... and wow, is it a lot of stuff! After sorting through and putting aside the almost half of it that is too small or otherwise not usable, there is still enough to fill almost three large loads in the washing machine! I am washing it and then will need to sort through and put it into boxes by this winter, next summer, next winter, and next summer! Looks like I won't need to do any big consignment sale shopping this fall, which is good, seeing as I might not really feel up to it in the last weeks of pregnancy or with a newborn!

School is off to a good start here, and we'll do our second day tomorrow. Next week we will do three days between dentist appointments and La Leche League, and then the girls and I head to Atlanta for a Leader Development Seminar for LLL. They can hang out with my parents while I go to all the technical classes and learn what I can. So, another busy week next week, and then maybe - hopefully - things will start to slow down into a better routine... for a little while, anyway.

We are doing some of the Holy Heroes summer adventure stuff... it is like an at-home Vacation Bible School program. Caroline really enjoyed VBS with our parish a couple weeks ago.

I was noticing that there are tons of old photos on my phone that I hadn't moved to my computer... so, I finally moved some of them and thought I'd share some in an edition of Random Bits - Random Sightings:

First we have a photo from our downtown fountains, which I have mentioned before as being extremely cool for a relatively small town. I need to take my real camera there to get some actual good photos sometime... but this one gives an idea of how the three "rivers" work: there is a shallow pool at the top of the photo, and the water flows out of it (between Cecilia's legs in this photo!) and down toward the bottom of the picture into a shallower pool... and then there are fountains beyond that, which lead down to a huge fountain in the middle.

Here is what Cecilia does while Caroline is at her occupational therapy sessions... she really enjoys the time to just sit and draw, or read, or play with whatever else we bring in to the waiting room. I have found that the front room is almost always less crowded and more pleasant, with more appropriate conversations going on! I love to watch her draw, though... she likes to color in all the space. In fact, I was coloring something in to use for school, and she pointed out to me the pinprick-sized spots where I hadn't filled it in all the way! ;-P

So, I think this was at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis... maybe? Like I said, some of these photos were taken months ago. Anyway, I guess this means that children under age 9 can go in alone?

One of our chickens caught this in the backyard... it is the third snake they have caught this spring/summer. Yuck! They go crazy when one catches a snake, all chasing each other and trying to be the one who gets it! Anyone know what kind it is?

Okay, so I saw this in the cake decorating area in a store... multicultural fondant. Why would somebody decorate a cake like this???? As a side note, I think fondant tastes gross. I know you don't have to eat it, but why ruin a perfectly good opportunity for lots of yummy frosting by putting this stuff on instead?

Hmm, maybe it's cinnamon rolls, or it could be something totally different... say, human waste smells, seeing as this sign was posted inside the bathroom! What were they thinking?????

As another side note, every time I walk into the locker room and bathroom in the gym where I go to swim laps, I think, "Mmm, it smells like Big Red gum!" Then I immediately think, "It should not smell like something edible in a public bathroom..." I think it is the air freshener that has that cinnamon smell.

And speaking of bathrooms, last photo... don't remember which bathroom this was; I visit them all often these days. ;) Maybe it was Wal-Mart... but I just wondered, if soap is in the left side, what is that in the right side?

Random Bits

The baby continues to kick and jab... at my bladder. I love it! Not the having to go to the bathroom frequently part, but the feelings of her movements. She still does not have a name yet...

My brother and his wife recently found out they are expecting their second daughter. This will make five granddaughters for my parents, and no grandsons yet! It must be payback, because on my dad's side of the family, there were 10 of us cousins, and eight of them were boys! Yes, I had only one girl cousin on that side, and she is about nine years younger than me. If you look at the children of all the cousins combined, so far the boys have all together had (or have on the way) four sons and six daughters, and then me, I have three daughters. So among the cousins, so far there are four sons and nine daughters. Apparently everything goes in phases...

I had another lovely day in the waiting room, sitting in between two people having conversations about their adult son who has to go for paternity testing on a three year old that he recently found out about, making Facebook pages for a two year old child in which the mother wrote an "about me" section as if her child had written it saying he has no use for deadbeat dads (the term "sperm donor" was used loudly and repeatedly at this point), and of course, their birth control. And one of these women, upon hearing my response when she asked the gender of my baby, was, "Three girls, oh, poor you." Yeah, poor me, but it is because I have to sit between you people who are having such bizarrely personal and inappropriate conversations! Yay me that I get to have the daughters and can teach them what is and is not socially accepted discussion matter in a public waiting room! Do you really want to tell everyone how your brother-in-law pretended to be the father of one of your children and made threatening calls to you as a joke?? Or how the mother of the father of one of your children is your friend on Facebook even though you refuse to acknowledge her as his grandmother? Had to listen to another mother say, in front of her ten year old, "Yeah, I wish he was about 14 - I'd be that much closer to him being outta my house!" Ugh. What is wrong with people? I think I need to go down the street to the coffee shop to hang out while waiting instead!

So I have decided that homeschooling moms need planning days! I used to teach 3rd and 4th grades in schools, and a whole, uninterrupted day in which to get motivated and really focus on working was always helpful. I have a whole list of things to get accomplished in the next few weeks... and the Spring Cleaning has been slow going as well. But hey, it's still spring, right? ;) Among other things for school planning, I need to select and type in 40 verses from the Old Testament... every time I get ready to start, I realize it is already 11:00 and that I should head for the bed instead! Other homeschool moms: how do you get planning time if you design a lot of your own materials and curriculum? Even going with a set, prepackaged curriculum involves planning of a schedule and tweaking things for your own homeschool!

Speaking of the next few weeks, we have a summer to enjoy as well! Among the plans: trips to the fountains downtown, trip(s) to the lake, trip(s) to Atlanta to my parents' neighborhood swimming pool (and to Trader Joe's and Target, of course!), perhaps a trip to an indoor inflatable place, backyard swimming pool, library summer reading program, Vacation Bible School...

Among the summer fun, we have appointments to fit in as well. I have to have my gestational diabetes test done on Tuesday, where I drink a super-sweet drink and they test my blood... I never have understood that test. At least the drink isn't nasty - some moms say theirs is gross, but the one they give me tastes like Sprite. Then Caroline, in addition to her regular OT appointments, has to go for a PT evaluation now. She had been complaining of pain in her thighs, so we saw her pediatrician, and she pointed out that Caroline's left leg is more muscular than her right... by looking closely, you can see that the muscles in her left leg are a bit bigger/more defined. So we need to figure out why that is and whether she needs to do specific exercises to strengthen her right leg. She is riding her bike now without training wheels, so that works those muscles. She can balance pretty well and just needs work on steering, stopping, and endurance. That is hard with this heat, and with our street not being the greatest place to ride, being at the top of a hill where some neighbors top the hill a bit too fast for comfort!

This post has been sitting for awhile, so I'd best wrap it up and post it... La Leche League tomorrow, so i should be getting to bed soon!

Random Bits

Cecilia and Caroline recently watched Cinderella, the Disney version, for the first time. As kid movies go, it is a relatively tame one other than the stepsisters calling people "stupid idiots," although my children were appalled at how the king behaved... loosing his temper at the Duke to the point that he was chasing him around with a sword. "He's worse than the stepmother and stepsisters!" they exclaimed. "At least the stepmother didn't try to stab Cinderella!" They do have a very good point. I guess it shows that they haven't seen lots of "violence humor" since they don't get it. I told them it is supposed to be funny, showing how badly the king looses his temper, but that yes, it would really be horrible to chase somebody around swinging a sword at them, even though they work for you and are supposed to be somebody you like!

As a funny side note, Cecilia thinks Cinderella's dog, Brutus (or Bruno?), is named "Brutal."

And speaking of dogs, there is a new one barking in our neighborhood, and it sounds like it is in the yard behind our next-door neighbor's... and it barks all. the. time. It sounds like a bigger dog, and it doesn't just bark, but sounds like it is dying... arf, arf, aroooooooooough! That last part is a low-pitched whine. It does this when we are outside, inside, day and night. I'm about to suggest that somebody go put it out of its misery. ;) But really, I feel sorry for it if it's life is really that miserable...

I just got a new notebook. I have been carrying a clipboard with me to appointments and any place where I will have to wait, so I can make a grocery list or something productive like that. I love the notebook - everything is going in there. All my to-do lists, all my packing lists for trips, jotting down memorable quotes said by one of the kids, taping in good stuff that I have printed off but doesn't have a home, brainstorming baby names... all in one place. It makes me feel more organized.

Awhile back I wrote about how I kept seeing cars with monograms on the back window and how I think that is a bit silly... I have been noticing lately how lots of people have those little decals of people, one for each member of their family. My feelings on those go both ways... on the one hand, I have seen several of them locally that depict families with four or more children, and I think it's a good thing to see so many people with "large" families, and that they are showing others without embarrassment that they have lots of kids. Then there are the ones with two kids - a boy and a girl, of course - and they are all wearing Mickey Mouse hats, and there is a decal alongside them for Hilton Head or something. ;) A lot of people have this connotation that if a couple has one daughter and one son, then they have "the perfect family." There are all kinds of reasons why that's a bad thing to say to people... what if they really do want more children and are struggling with secondary infertility? What does that say about the other families who have children of only one gender so far? What about the families who have both genders but have continued to have more children - have they ruined their "perfect family," then? I'm grateful my parents didn't stop with their "perfect family," because I have two additional brothers because of it! But back to those family stickers on cars... yesterday I saw one that had two adult stickers and... four dog stickers and a cat sticker. As I approached from a distance and saw seven little blobs on the back of the very small car window (smaller than normal-sized four door sedan), I thought, "Wow, that is a tiny car for a family of seven!" Then I saw that most of them were animals and not people and thought, "Oh.... I see..."

Speaking of children and their genders, people can make somewhat hurtful comments regarding gender of children... often people will now notice I am pregnant and comment. Last week, one person said to Chris, "I hope for your sake this one's a boy!" Now, that can be taken as lighthearted, you know, like making a joke about him being outnumbered, but it still doesn't sound quite right. Then we had the comment, "Another girl? Don't you know how to make boys?" Ouch - what to even say to that (even though I am sure the comment was intended to be funny)? I have just been responding with things like, "Well, I'm still pretty young, you know, so there's time yet..." I don't really know what else to respond with.

We have planted all our tomato and bell pepper seedlings... many of them in pots on the patio this year. We shall see if they will do well... we have not had good luck growing things lately. The patio gets more direct sunlight that the garden boxes, so the hope is that the plants will grow better there. We added a third blueberry bush that is still pretty small, but hopefully it will get much bigger over the next few years. Also in the yard, we got three pine trees taken down. One was oozing sap - pine bark beetles, probably - and the other two were either too close to the house or leaning . With all the storms lately, I am glad they are gone! Our back yard does have less shade now, so it may be that we have to use sunscreen more often in the summer, unfortunately. The other day I was outside and kept smelling the strong scent of Pine-sol... I was starting to get concerned that somebody had been dumping cleaner somewhere around our yard. Then I realized, oh yeah - that must just be the smell of actual pine, since the trees were taken down and we have wood chips from their stumps in our yard! Pregnancy really amplifies smells for me (can you amplify something that is not a sound??).

We have basically finished up the school year! I hope to get around to posting photos from the last several letters at some point. I need to finalize our first grade plans and then maybe will do a post about them as well. I think we'll start first grade in July so that we can get a few months in before the baby's birth.

Random Bits

We are getting a huge storm here right now... thunder, wind, rain. It is supposed to blow through quickly though. Hoping that holds to be true - last week, we had such a bad storm one night that 13 pine trees were uprooted in a field right near where Chris works! Time to get our bad pine tree taken down in our backyard...

The girls found tons of inchworms in the yard the other day - they are literally everywhere. They must have had 40 or more of them in this yellow bucket!

This was the biggest... most were really tiny. They kept the girls occupied for a long time!

I am feeling more baby taps and flutters, especially in the evening when I am leaning back and still and quiet. We have an ultrasound on Thursday and will hopefully find out if this is a boy or a girl! Lately, I am becoming sure it is a girl. At first, I was so sure it must be a boy because I just felt differently than I did with the girls... but I am now kind of mentally preparing for another girl, because, well, that's how it has always been so far, right? ;) Either way will be fun and,

really, either way will be a surprise still, because I can't say I am totally, 100% convinced that it's a girl. At church this weekend, two people were able to tell I was pregnant, and today our next door neighbor noticed and commented. I talked to our other next door neighbor, and she either didn't notice or didn't feel like she should comment yet in case I was just getting fat. ;) So I guess it is now getting to be pretty obvious, as nobody said anything before this weekend. And i got to see an adorable four week old baby girl at La Leche League this morning, and another mom who is due in three weeks, so my brain is gearing up for all that newborn-ness that will be coming before we know it! Several people have said, "Wow, September isn't too far off!" Five months seems like a long time away, but yeah, it will creep up on me... so I have been ordering homeschooling materials to try to plan for next year. If only I would get my Amazon gift card code in the mail so I can buy everything that is piled up in my shopping cart!

Caroline made this for Cecilia. She made her another one recently that said something like, "I love yu even when you hit me and pull my hair." She really, really wants Cecilia to like her, and she understands the importance of forgiveness in this. And Cecilia, well, she's three, so she is starting to grasp concepts like "hitting hurts" and "we don't hurt people in our family." :)

Our church had an event on Saturday called the Princess Ball, a dance for dads and daughters. It was from 7-9, and since Cecilia wakes up at 7 am and doesn't take a nap, she had to miss out this year... maybe next year. Caroline and Chris went and he said she had a great time dancing around with all the other little girls there. They got cupcakes and punch, and she brought home a balloon.

Spring Cleaning is slowly underway here... I am having this early nesting instinct that comes in random spurts. One week, I dusted the built-in shelving in our den and everything on the shelves, re-organized some of it... then I started on the window-cleaning last week, but it is slow going. It's hard to get motivated about the labor involved there, especially when I encounter little spots that don't want to come off and then the windows don't look noticeably different at a glance after I clean them. So far, I have done four. Four of 20something?? Then yesterday, I took everything out of my closet and my dresser drawers - everything! I sorted through it all and filled up four paper grocery bags of stuff to donate, so that stuff didn't even go back in the closet. I filled up one large kitchen trash bag of clothes that were stained or discolored and stretched out, stuff that had just been shoved to the back of the closet... like a pair of Airwalks I wore in high school/collage that had holes in the heels... why did I still have those? To wear while painting?? But I did keep...

...the ugly shirt (photo circa 2000).

Just try to picture it without the mud on it... it has been through a lot. It also got nail polish spilled all over it, which my mom successfully removed by soaking it in diluted nail polish remover. That shirt is tough. And ugly, my husband says. And I think my brothers all said it was ugly, too... but I loved it, and still do. And so I kept it. It has a history. But I still did manage to donate all the things I will absolutely never wear again because they don't fit, or because 31 year old mothers in 2011 don't wear them (like overalls... unless they work on a farm, I suppose). And then, I promptly refilled every hanger I had emptied... with maternity clothes. Oh well, at least those won't be in there forever, as they will return to their storage box this fall... and then it will actually look like I have made a dent in culling my clothing collection!

Random Bits

Cecilia asked me the other day why Daddy goes to work every day. I told her it was so he could get money so we could buy things like food and clothes. Several hours later, I was talking to my mom on the phone, and Cecilia wanted to talk. When I handed her the phone, the first thing she said to Gramma was, "Daddy's getting money because Mommy wants to buy things for us!"

Caroline continues to amaze us with her mind: "Mommy, one hundred dollars is 100 one hundred centses." Aww, even when she makes profound mathematical statements, we are still reminded that she's just a little kid when she makes up interesting pluralizations of words!

Cecilia: "When I run like this, it seems like I'm pushing the wind!!!"

Cecilia, after watching A Charlie Brown Christmas with Daddy and Caroline: "Sally said why is Linus always carrying that horrible playsilk around!" Translation: "Lucy asked why Linus is always carrying that stupid blanket around."

Cecilia was turning the knob on one of the drawers in our kitchen, and it was coming loose. "Aaaah, I'm unloosening it!" she cried out. Then she started turning it back the other way to tighten it back up and said, "There, I'm loosening it back."

Cecilia decided to eat a cranberry while we were stringing them with popcorn... of course, she made a terrible face and shuddered as she tasted the bitterness. She made the same face to a lesser degree when she had some lemonade at lunch today. Both times, she said, "It makes me burrow!"

On Guadete Sunday, the priest is supposed to wear rose-colored vestments. Since we have been lighting our Advent wreath and doing the Holy heroes Advent Adventure, my kids know this well. Imagine their surprise when our priest (not our pastor, but another priest who comes to fill in here and there since we only have one priest assigned to our parish) was NOT wearing rose, but a shade of purple instead! It was actually almost fuchsia, so at first I thought maybe it was trying to be rose... so anyway, he said at the beginning of Mass how he was supposed to wearing

purple, but he "didn't look good in pink." Caroline was appalled, ha ha. But hey, the rules say wear rose, why not just wear rose? It's not like they have to wear it often - only twice a year!

Here are some of our gingerbread men I was decorating... one of them fell from my hand and landed on another, breaking both of them. The funny thing is that the one I dropped was the "Mason" cookie - my parents' cat - and it landed on the "Mike" cookie - my brother. Mason was named by my brothers, Mike and Tim. Mason is a girl cat. I think this is part of what has her so messed up, ha ha. I took this as a sign of her impending revenge on Mike, and maybe Tim too, for giving her a male name and thus beginning her troubles in life.

So, am I the only person who gets really tense when I hear a baby cry for a prolonged period? It makes me feel a bit panicky inside. So, why use a real, live infant in a children's Christmas pageant? Am I the only one who doesn't think it's "cute" when a baby cries for ten minutes straight? Whatever happened to using a doll as the baby Jesus? When I was Mary in my kindergarten pageant, I had a baby doll, not an actual infant who would be distressed to be held by a child who was clearly not its mother or father. Once, my baby brother, Tim, was the baby Jesus (he had a November birthday), but my mother held him. I think it was an informal pageant held in our church nursery... I remember he had a "halo" of tinsel on his little bald head. My mom was wearing a red dress, so I don't think she was actually playing the part of Mary, but she was holding him in all the photos and in what I remember. Better that or a doll than a baby screaming throughout the pageant, in my opinion.

Cecilia, sniffing a cookie: "I smell seasoning in it!"

So, our stupidest chicken, 'Lorpie, reached a new level of idiocy. She's so sweet, I love this chicken best for some reason, ha ha... But she is so dumb, as I have shared before. She got her feet stuck underneath the chicken tractor. She was stuck for probably 24 hours, poor baby. No broken bones, but she's acting sick, not eating much. She can walk, and she will go to get some water here and there. She ate an egg and some saltines yesterday (not kidding!) and Chris said she would eat some of her feet when dropped on the ground around her, but she won't eat it out of the feeder. And now we're getting a snowstorm, so I'm sure she'll continue to be traumatized, ha ha.

'Lorpie, able to stand and drink

This post was begun well before Christmas, so I will finally publish it now!

Random Bits... and ranting some, too

Cecilia: "I'm watching it because I'm make suring it doesn't run away!"

Cecilia, after overhearing a song lyric, asked in a "deep thought" kind of way with a pensive look on her face, "How can you lose yourself?" The song lyric had said, "How did we lose ourselves in conversation?"

So, I go swim laps at the local college pool in their gym. It used to be that the swim team was always practicing (taking up all the lanes usually) every time I went during "recreational/fitness swim hours." Seems to me they shouldn't advertise having fitness swim hours during times the entire swim team has set up a practice session, but whatever. I had to deal with things like swimming laps in the recreational side of the pool and having college boys throwing footballs over my head and crashing into me because they were acting like 8 year old boys act while in a swimming pool. Anyway, the swim team is never there now when I go, so I guess they decided to practice at another time. The kayak class must be over, because they aren't there anymore either. There was a scuba class at one time too... interesting assortment of goings-on in the pool there. Tonight I encountered something all-new, though... a bunch of college students wearing these bonnet-looking swim caps that tied under their chins (looked pretty fruity on the guys, I must say), each with a number on it, I assume to act as team jerseys so players could tell who was on which team. They appeared to be playing water polo, but while in innertubes. There were only two lanes set up for lap-swimming (usually there are four), and alongside one of them, there were at least 15-20 people sitting to watch what must be some really popular new sport. As I stood bewildered in the doorway looking for a lifeguard, I decided to ask the nearest person, "Do you know if the pool is open for lap-swimming?" He said, "I don't know... I guess you can use those two lanes over there, but you might want to watch out for flying balls." Gee, thanks. So I took the lane closest to said flying balls because of the kids all sitting with their legs dangling in the water in the outermost lane. They were all wearing clothes yet sitting right on the edge. Somebody else came in to swim laps and had to share a lane with me. When he asked, I said, "Well, unless those people are going to move from the side of the other lane, sure, you can share with me."

I don't know what's wrong with college students lately... I am sure I was an obnoxious one, but I had the common decency to move out of doorways and other traffic flow areas if I was just going to stand around. If I drive through the campus in the daylight, everywhere I see kids walking around staring at their phones rather than talking to each other. They are all so plugged-in constantly. As I was leaving the gym today, a girl in front of me was texting and didn't notice me coming through the door behind her so didn't hold it open, and then she apologized, saying she can't text and walk at the same time. Then she thanked me for holding the next door for her (you know, because of her disability with texting and walking simultaneously). Really though, it was nice to see somebody still making actual human contact while also using her phone... even if the next thing she said was, "I'll probably, like, fall down the stairs."

Oh, and one final note regarding college kids... why do nearly all of them have cars that are newer than both of my cars??? How does that even make sense? College students are supposed to be driving old cars, not brand new ones! What is this world coming to? ;)

Ah, so while I'm kind of ranting, why not continue? Am I the only person in the country who doesn't have my house decorated for Christmas and my tree up already (this is being typed on December 2nd, by the way)? People on Facebook were posting, on THANKSGIVING DAY, "Got the tree up and decorated! Now outside to put up the lights!" I was thinking, "Why aren't you eating turkey and watching football right now???" Santa came to our mall over a week before Thanksgiving. Our town had a Christmas parade tonight - December 2nd. A total stranger at the library asked my five year old, "Are you going to the Christmas parade?" In past years, people have asked, "Is Santa coming to your house soon (in the first week of December)?" and, "Are you going to sit on Santa's lap?" Now, if you didn't know Caroline a few years ago, you'd absolutely not believe that she was so shy and afraid of strangers, even of people she knew sometimes. So when they are coming up and asking a two year old if some stranger is coming to her house... bad idea. People complain that their kids are overly crazy-excited weeks before Christmas, and to some extent we can't control that since these random strangers can't keep their mouths shut and since the children's department of the library is totally decked out by December 1st... but we don't have to fuel it additionally ourselves. I knew teachers who would say the whole month of December was a waste and they couldn't teach the kids anything. Then they'd be doing Christmas crafts every day starting the first week of December and not trying to teach anything, just reinforcing their notion that the entire month is lost to mass chaos. Parents shouldn't take their kids to see Santa the day after Thanksgiving and then act upset that their kids are so impatient about Christmas coming. Then there's the materialism... strangers asking kids, "What is Santa bringing you for Christmas?" Now, I will do online Christmas shopping beginning in late November, but that is mostly to ensure that I decide on everything with enough time to find it for the best price and order it with enough time for it to be shipped. But my kids don't know I am buying Christmas presents then - they don't get set out under the tree before December even arrives! So, how to avoid all this stress and over-excitement that doesn't need to be given to kids? Well, I avoid taking them to the mall after mid-November, for one thing. We wait to put up our tree until at least the middle of December (last year we waited until around the 19th or so to buy it, and we seriously had to buy a huge tree and cut it down to size because that was all that was left in our town!). How to avoid it in general though, when the random library lady tells your kids there's a Christmas parade that day? I don't know about that... so I just try to minimize any focus that is placed on Christmas so far in advance. Kids have a really hard time waiting five weeks for something, and then it is like it is all happening around them anyway, so by the time we actually get to Christmas, it's not special, and then the tree's on the curb on the 26th. I'm glad that my own parents never put up the tree before about the third week of Advent... it seemed normal to me, and I thought that nobody really started to go nuts about Christmas until about the 15th or 20th of December... but maybe I was just oblivious as a child? I'm glad if I was! ;) Even more so, I am glad for Advent - it gives me a solid, true reason other than my aversion to the social norms of today and disdain for materialism being forced on little kids (and my disdain for people forcing their crying little kids to sit on Santa's lap because "we just have to have a yearly picture!"). So really, it's not that I have a bad attitude about Christmas - just the material focus and starting it all so soon that it's all over by the time the actual day finally arrives. So, does the hype all really start earlier than it did in the 80s and 90s, or was I just oblivious?

Oh, and sorry, I have to rant some more... Caroline's been going to OT for an hour a week, and I have to wait in the waiting area with Cecilia during that time. I want to leave there and hit my head against a wall over some of the things I hear people saying. Today it was a lady who I'd never seen before (we go at the same time each week, so I know the "regulars") telling two other ladies about her husband cheating on her... with plenty of details, and how she was "like, whatever, you go and ruin my Thanksgiving and birthday, whatever..." Then there is the one girl (I say girl because she looks pretty young) who was baffled at me nursing my two year old... thankfully, there was another lady there who also nursed her son until he was two and defended me, ha! The young lady asked me, "So, when are you going to stop?" I answered her question, but apparently she was just in disbelief because she asked me two weeks later, "So, when are you going to stop?" Uh, are you going to ever stop asking me the same question??? This time when I answered her, "Oh, she'll stop when she is ready," she looked at me wide-eyed and said, "What if that's NEVER?" I almost laughed at her... like some 17 year old kid out there is still nursing (and if there really is one, then there are some kind of developmental and/or dysfunctional issues going on). Then all the talk about food stamps and all the bajillion medicines everyone is taking... now some of these kids legitimately need meds, but the over-medicalization of everything these days is nuts to me. Then today, a woman was talking about her baby being born and sustaining a birth injury, and there was the "was the baby just too big?" question. "Well, she was 8 lbs 2 oz." Why do people think that's some monster of a newborn? Mine were 8 lbs. 2 oz. and 8 lbs. 6 oz. Maybe a bit heavier than average, but not abnormally sized by any means. And I have to see baby bottles so stuffed with rice cereal that there is literally brown gunk oozing out of the bottle nipple... gag. Then there was the comment somebody made about spending the last of her money on Mountain Dew and infant cereal - two of the most essential nutrients known to man, you know (sarcasm). Then the talk about people's birth control, and how somebody had to insist that her sister "take her pill, even though she's not having sex, because if she doesn't, she'll get all messed up." Such strange, personal conversations these people have... Ah, so when I go in there each week, I make sure to have reading materials for myself and witty responses about nursing - otherwise, I'd lose my mind, or I'd be really rude. Instead, I will just vent it here. ;)

So, I am always freezing in my house at this time of year. We keep it at 69 degrees, and then I go to other people's house where the thermostat is set at 67, and I am not cold. I don't know why that is. I will dress in layers at home: an undershirt, long sleeved shirt, and sweater or pullover, sometimes two, along with slippers over my socks. Still cold. The girls claim they are not cold, even without slippers and in just one long-sleeved layer. And their hands don't feel cold to me like my own do. So anyway, today I discovered a cure:

Yes, I am wearing a scarf inside. I love this scarf. I was not cold all day long. And I have three scarves I love. Having three scarves and loving all of them makes for the dilemma of which one to choose, and the fact that scarves have never been a high-usage article of clothing for me. Well, I think now they will be, and I will finally rest assured that it is not stupid to own three scarves for one person. (They were all gifts, I promise! ;)

Caroline dropped a bracelet on the floor, and it slid under her dresser. Her dresser has an opening on the front bottom edge, but not on the back, so when she pulled the dresser away from the wall, the bracelet was just pushed along with the dresser rather than appearing on the floor behind the dresser. Caroline cried out in true anxiety, "Oh, no!!! My bracelet is lost FOREVER!!!" All i could think of was Homer Simpson trying to open the can of pudding:

Yesterday, Caroline put on her pajamas and exclaimed, "Hey, my sleeves are too short!" Without missing a beat, Cecilia looked at her and said laughingly, "Yeah, and your neck is too long!"

Cecilia has a new habit of asking me if I can scratch her various itches. I have tried explaining to her that when there is an itch on her back, I would be happy to scratch it for her, but itches on one's own hands are best scratched by the person who has the itch!

Random photo of Cecilia eating a St. Nicholas cookie

So, I think that most products marketed as being for babies are a waste of money and not necessary anyway, but I found one that tops pretty much every other lame or extravagant baby product out there: the "Eco Cradle."

Just look at this thing!!! It's like one of those under-bed storage boxes that are made of corrugated cardboard that you assemble yourself (back in the 80's, before Rubbermaid owned the world of storage containers) - it even has the same kind of handles! "Hi, I put my baby in a cardboard box to sleep, because it's trendy to be an environmentalist!" How about I market the most eco-friendly baby bed out there: the non-existent baby bed, because it is just the family bed, which I already own! Gosh, and that actually makes me wonder how many old cribs and bassinettes are in landfills, anyway? They have new safety standards all the time, and recalled items, so that's sure to really pile up over time. But I think being environmentally-friendly would be about the bazillionth reason on my list of why my babies sleep in my bed. ;)

Since when did "my bad!" become an acceptable version of the phrase "excuse me," particularly when speaking to a stranger? A young adult of the male variety was being goofy in the middle of the aisle in Kroger today, and when he noticed I was pushing a cart in that aisle, he moved aside and said, "Oh, my bad!" So strange! Then the female who was with him said, "Please, please run over him!" I had never seen these people before in my life, and I am also pretty sure they were above college-aged, so as far as I can tell, they don't have any excuse. ;)

Oh, and in Kroger also today, I saw somebody with a Scion jacket... it was a jacket with the Scion logo and word all over it about 100 times. I thought that was a little... different.

As I walked through the mall today (without my children! ;), I saw a pretty funny thing that in retrospect, I should've snapped a photo of... it was a saucer chair sitting outside a store, and on it was a sign that read: "Stocking Stuffer $59.99." I don't know anybody who can fit a saucer chair into a stocking, nor do I know anyone who spends $60 on a single stocking gift!

Okay, so this post has gone on long enough, and has been compiling for a couple weeks now, so I think it's time to stop!

Journey to the Center of the Bed

When I got up in the morning...

Lower right: Cecilia's mattress

Upper left: the big bed, where Cecilia's half-asleep state got the better of her and she gave up at the halfway mark

About ten minutes later...

...and five minutes after that.

Pretty impressive sleep travel.

Random Bits

First, some assorted photos that I have been meaning to post... then there is text way down below. :)

Cecilia sleeping - she inherited this position from my father, apparently.

My niece - my brother's daughter, Julianne

She had recently learned to crawl and was fascinated by the latch thing for the double doors on the threshold to my parents' sunroom

My brother Stephen had just come back from a year in Kuwait/Afganistan. Here he is with all three of his nieces, and the first time meeting Julianne!

Cecilia with the toy sheep Uncle Stephen brought her

Cecilia strangling Tyke

The photos don't show it, but she was shaking his head back and forth

You wouldn't know it from how she's getting right in his face here, but he had just nipped at her as a warning before this... obviously, Cecilia didn't take his threat seriously. We finally made her stop and leave the poor thing alone...

CC and Daddy

Julianne with her Uncle Chris

Happy baby with her Grampa!

So, here are the random babblings:

Caroline, from the back seat of the car: "Mommy, are you more Irisher than me?" followed by, "Mommy, are you more Scotlandish than me?"

So, I figured out why my car's stereo is acting possessed... I told Chris, and he figured out that it was because of his new portable ham radio that he just put in the car. It is plugged into the cigarette lighter (ahem, accessories outlet, isn't that the PC term? ;) and when the car is turned off, there is extra power there somehow that keeps the music playing for another several seconds. Now that I know this, I can just lock the doors and walk away from the blaring speakers, not having to worry that I will come back out an hour later with a group of people staring at my car wondering what is going on!

When Chris reads books to the girls, he sometimes gives each character a different voice. I do this some too (just ask my youngest brother what each of the Berenstein Bears sounds like!)... but if anyone hears my kids sounding like Billy Bob Thornton in Slingblade as they quote Mr. Chumley from the book Aunt Eater's Halloween, that wasn't my doing!

Speaking of voices, Cecilia has an interesting way of pronouncing some words... and yesterday, I put my finger on who it is that she sometimes sounds like: the girl in the TV show Daria (showing my age and my bizarre taste in television as a high schooler here!), Quinn's friend, the one who is the president of the fashion club. Cecilia doesn't have her voice (thank goodness), but the way she pronounces some words is oddly similar! I think it is in the over-enunciation on vowel sounds or something... If you start the video clip below at about 1:35, she is the first person to speak.

Caroline said, "I won zero prize!" in a rather excited way. She went on to explain that the "zero prize" is better than first prize because zero comes before one, "so zero is the real first prize."

Cecilia understands that people and animals have bones inside their bodies, so the song "Doggy, Doggy, Who Took your Bone?" causes her some confusion. Today, after singing it through, she asked me, "Took a bone out of the dog's body?" I told her that dogs liked to chew on bones, and she asked, "Chew on their own bones in theirselves???"

So I received an email (for some unknown reason) from Ace Hardware, specifically, the one in my town. It has images in it, and at the bottom it says, "The perfect gift for anyone on your list!" Under that, it pictures an example of gifts and says underneath each, "Him," "Her," "Kids," "Pets," and "Yard." Huh, I didn't realize that people bought gifts to give to their yards at Christmas. I hope my yard doesn't feel like we've been giving it the shaft all these years!

Cecilia says: "for a few whiles" and "I have too many stuffs in my hands."

Caroline: "That car is for sale... or, maybe the brand is called For Sale."

"The McDonald's M is made of French fries, Mommy... isn't that disturbing?"

She also told a friend while we were trick-or-treating, "Listen to this dream I had - it was horrifying."

Today I took the kids to the McDonald's indoor play area near our house. I hate that I do that, but on rainy days, I like them to be able to climb and get out their energy, and the place is about three minutes away. I buy a drink and let them play. But man, the playground at a fast food place was like a huge, special, nearly once-in-a-lifetime deal for me as a kid. I remembered dreaming of the McDonald's playground (literally). It was special. But anyway... today when we went into the section with the play area, Cecilia looked at the steps to climb up and excitedly proclaimed, "It's BROWN today!!!" Uh, was it a different, more boring color last time? Marge Simpson immediately came to mind... "You hear that, kids? Brown!!!"

Random Bits

Caroline: "In the video, Pooh sang a song about his appetite."

Cecilia: "But he doesn't wear tights!"

Cecilia found a dead fly the other day. She picked it up and said tenderly, "It's my baby. I love it." She then proceeded to carry it around the house, tuck it in with a blanket, blow it out of her hand (to simulate flying, perhaps?), share her snack with it (which I didn't actually let her do, by the way!)...

Cecilia, running into the kitchen, excitedly announces to me, "Santa Claus is going to come and sleep in my bunkbed when I go across the hall!!!" We have mentioned that one day she will sleep in Caroline's room and we might get bunkbeds... not sure where the Santa Claus part came from, though!

We were reciting the nursery rhyme Diddle Diddle Dumpling today, which says, "Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John..." Caroline thought it was "Diddle diddle dumpling, mice on John." Poor John, ha ha!

Chris is installing a new toilet in our hall bathroom as I type this. Apparently, I will no longer be able to keep a dish of decorative seashells on the back of the toilet... Did you know that a medium-sized seashell is basically impossible to plunge out of the toilet? I still can't figure out which one it was because all my "favorites" are still in the dish. Well, we never liked that toilet anyway... too tall and had an "elongated bowl," which was just weird. As I looked in at his progress, I told Chris that he deserved some homemade doughnuts. He answered that he deserved more than that. Well, I am going to make the doughnuts anyway as a start!

Caroline (in a voice of total awe and amazement): "Mommy, Cecilia just said, 'The angel Gabriel appeared to Mary,' and that's right!!" Turning to Cecilia she asked, "Cecilia, how do you knowthese things?!?"

Caroline and Cecilia were "playing school." Caroline was the teacher and was asking Cecilia questions out of a book (how do all kids seem to play school the same way, even if it looks nothing like their own experience of school??). Caroline asked, "What does a camel eat?" Cecilia immediately and enthusiastically replied, "Seaweed!!" A brief pause... then she added, just as enthusiastically, "Grasshoppers!" So random...

Wonderings of the Week:

1. I walk through the workout room on my way to the indoor pool where I swim laps a few evenings a week. Usually there is upbeat, fast-paced music playing. One day recently as I passed through, they were playing Hotel California. How does one work out to Hotel California???

2. The other day, the local ice cream truck (er, that is an exaggeration... it is really an old mail truck that sells slushies out of the back!) was playing Braham's Lullaby. Do they want to put the children to sleep before they can manage to run up and buy slushies? Seems like a poor marketing strategy to me...

3. Why do most college students of today drive cars that are newer than both of my cars? Shouldn't they be cruising around in 1996 Ford Tauruses (Tauri?) and such? It used to be that, on this particular college campus, anyone entering after dark would turn off their headlights as a courtesy to the person in the gatehouse (who has to look at the windshield to see the parking permit before opening the gate to allow the car in)... now the cars are all so new that none of them have headlights which can manually be turned off after dark while driving. I was feeling like a weirdo every time I turned off my headlights at the gatehouse, until I saw somebody else do it tonight - hooray for somebody's parents who didn't think they needed to drive a 2009 model car to college! Or maybe it was the car of a poor professor or something...

I saw the weirdest toy last week when I was at Tuesday morning (can you tell I love that store?)... it was battery-powered "racing grannies," something like this. Pretty disturbing, and almost tops the talking Dr. Laura doll that I saw there last year...

So, what are the signs for you that it's going to be one of "those days," hmm? This morning, Caroline came into our room before 7:00 (which is the time we tell her she can get out of bed - if she wakes up before then, she is supposed to read in her room awhile) and was clearly grumpy when we told her it wasn't 7:00 yet. She was mad because I didn't have her clothes laid out for the day, and she wanted to wear a dress... I think. It was somewhat incoherent... Once we did get up, there was grumpiness from both children, and I knew it was one of "those days" when I entered the kitchen and immediately thought, "Boy, I need coffee..." because you see, I don't even drink coffee regularly. So I instantly went for my regular form of caffeine. And then I turned on my "happy place" CD before breakfast, the one that makes it harder for me to lose my patience while it is playing. So, I know it is going to be one of those days when I get up looking for coffee and turning on my CD as a distraction before even getting breakfast ready! But you know, it actually wasn't too rough of a day overall... could have been better, but certainly could have been worse. And I did get to go grocery shopping in the afternoon, which I love. Go ahead and laugh at me. ;)

Okay, Weirdness of the Day today: while I was grocery shopping, I had the opportunity to go to several stores (the bank, Big Lots, the library, Payless, Wal-Mart, and Kroger, in case you were curious). Each time I parked my car and turned off the engine and removed the keys, my radio kept playing (CD player, rather). At first, I thought I hadn't gotten the car turned off past the accessory position or something, and my key was coming loose from the ignition prematurely (which wouldn't make sense 'cause it is a brand new ignition). So I just stood there outside my car with the door open, dumbfounded as the music continued to play even though the engine was not running and the keys were in my hand. I was unsure what to do - should I just close the door and walk away? What if it kept playing until I came back and the battery was dead? But then, it suddenly stopped. Phew. Well, then it did it again, and again, every time I stopped. I was beginning to think that the CD must have a mind of its own all of a sudden. Every time, it did stop after about 20 or so seconds. I just felt a bit odd standing outside my car in various parking lots, waiting for the music to stop before I locked the doors and went into the store! And as I pulled into my driveway, I ejected the CD, and after turning off the engine and removing the keys, the radio continued to play for 20 seconds. So, it is not just the CD player... maybe the speakers are possessed? It's really strange...

Of final note: my husband makes awesome eggplant parmesan! Soooooo good!!

And a few photos from our La Leche League conference at Calloway a couple weekends ago:

"I'm making a sugar lake!!!"

What's in my Purse?

So, maybe some of you have seen this thing floating around on blogs here and there... you take photos of your purse and then the contents of your purse and then list/describe them in a blog post. I desperately need to clean out my purse... I haven't done that in months! I figured I'd do the "What's in your purse" thing while I'm at it! ;) The fun of it is getting to see a random glimpse of somebody's life that you wouldn't normally see (unless you are an 11 year old girl - at least, I remember it being common at that age for girls to ask each other, "Can I go through your purse?" Was that normal for other girls at age 11, or was my school just full of nosey people? ;).

Now, some of these that I have seen have this nice organized photo of the contents of the purse all lined up in rows. You're just getting to see a pile from me, though:

So, what is in this pile? First, the stuff that is getting thrown away or relocated to a new home:

Garbage:

1. Receipts from Kroger, Family Dollar, Chick-fil-A, Firehouse Subs, and Micheal's (the ones from Michael's have coupons on them, all of which have expired). Also a couple library receipts which list the books I checked out and their due date.

2. Lifetime Warranty from an umbrella. I think I'll just spend $8 on a new one rather than spending $5 in shipping to get a replacement one day...

3. Coupons for Horizon milk, which I don't buy. They were attached to some other purposeful coupons. Also some expired Kroger coupons.

4. Last week's grocery list.

5. Empty snack-size ziplock bag.

6. Empty packages of Sun Crystals sweetener (uh, empty because the little bits of the stuff are all over my phone and the floor now... I think they were opened packages from the beach and/or Nashville trips) and a straw wrapper, looking to be from Starbucks.

7. Savings keyring card from a junky local grocery store.

Relocated:

8. Four Energizer AA batteries... they were getting a little low, so I swapped them out of my camera before going to the concert in Nashville last week.

9. Recipe card from the local health food store for a hummus sandwich.

10. Flier for a local consignment sale.

11. Empty plastic container that had sunflower seeds in it.

12. The checkbook - I used it at the consignment sale.

13. Six little girl hair bands.

14. Nashville street map... just in case I got lost, I guess!

15. Pouch of feminine products... it goes in and out of the purse when needed.

16. A little metal crucifix... it belongs on a necklace, but I am not sure where it came from or where it belongs!

17. Bottle caps: 2 Miller Lite, 2 Guinness, 1 Blue Moon, and 1 from a water bottle. I think these are from when we went to the beach; I save them for crafts.

18. A pen. I don't need to have three of them in my purse.

19. Bottle of teething tablets. Nobody is teething at the moment...

To put back in purse:

20. My phone.

21. Useful coupons from Kroger and for Stonyfield yogurt, Annie's and Cascadian Farms cereal, and Sorrento string cheese.

22. My wallet.

23. Small broken comb - good for doing the girls' hair on the go.

24. Tiny bottle of hand sanitizer.

25. Two tubes of lip gloss (a third is being thrown away because it is empty).

26. Wet Ones antibacterial hand wipes.

27. "Owie Cream" - an ointment for cuts and rashes that I use on the girls.

28. Band-aids. Along the same lines as number 27.

29. Calms Forte for Kids, or "travel tablets." Used on crabby children during long car trips.

30. Two pens - one black, one blue.

31. A Larabar - coconut cream pie flavor.

32. Snack container with O cereal, bunny crackers, and raisins in it.

33. One diaper and a tiny tube of diaper rash ointment - just in case.

34. Empty Wal-Mart bag - also just in case. The spare 2 year old undies are kept in the van. :)

35. A plastic rosary - occasionally Cecilia has held it during Mass. I think we got it at church one day.

36. Retractable tape measure - used to measure pants when shopping for clothes for my tall 5 year old!

37. A coin from Kuwait. My brother is there now (well, Afghanistan at this moment, but supposed to be in Kuwait!), and I think he brought this coin with him when he came back at Christmas time. It can just stay in the bottom of my purse until he's back for good!

38. Two Tonic CDs... the self-titled newest album and their greatest hits album. These go back and forth between my car and my stereo in my house. Also found inside one of the CD cases: my ticket from the Nashville Public Square underground parking deck.

39. My little planner book.

40. Business cards: one for our La Leche League group telling the meeting times and Leader phone numbers, and two for my friend's home business (the one who made my purse, so I can hand one to anyone who says, "Hey, I like your purse!").

41. A bib for Cecilia, in case we eat at a restaurant.

Ahh, this is much better!

If anyone else wants to do this on your own blog, come back here and leave a link to it in the comments!