It's FRIDAY!!

I'm not sure why I gave my Friday two exclamation points. Truth is, this weekend will feel like any other weekday to us since Jerry's gone. Nevertheless, Fridays always feel a little more joyful, don't you think?

In celebration of our week's end, we started our day out with these.

Have you tried these? Oh, my. They are delicious! You can find them in the freezer section at the grocery store. I say that, but here we can only find them at Walmart. Thank goodness that's not a place I shop very often. It could be very dangerous for me, otherwise.

You just let them rise to twice their frozen size and then pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes. There are 12 in a bag, and they come with two generous packets of cream cheese frosting. I was tempted to make my own frosting, but decided to go ahead and use theirs. It was pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

Later in the morning I loaded Little Man up for a much needed (read: overdue) haircut. It was so needed that Jerry told me I only had one job while he was gone - to get Alex a haircut! LOL! You know how Jerry likes Alex's hair to look good. ;-) Can't blame him for that.

For the last week I have been talking to Little Man about going to see Mary Margaret (our hair lady) because he has had some serious meltdowns the last two times I've taken him. I'm talking serious meltdowns, people.

When I would say her name to him, he would say "choo, choo" and "truck, truck" because she has a train book and trucks in a basket of toys there at the salon. I would say, "Yes, you can read the choo-choo book and play with the trucks while she cuts your hair. And we're not going to cry. It's going to be a great day because she is going to make your hair look so handsome." After repeating this exact same bit to him over and over and over again, I was curious to see if it would sink in and do any good.

The result? Little Man didn't even so much as wince at his hair cut today! Yeah, baby! He sat in the chair all by himself for the first time, and I immediately whipped out Ba-ba on the iPhone - you know, as a supplement to the choo-choo book he had already found. He sat quietly and watched Mickey catch that big red gooey fish for Mr. Pettibone all while Mary Margaret snipped and trimmed him right up. Oh, his daddy would have been so proud! Mary Margaret was so proud of him that she gave him his very first sucker - a little dum-dum. And boy, did he like that! I had to take it away from him on the car ride home because of my fear of him choking, but once we got home he finished it right up. Sucked down to the very last drop.

Maybe I gave my Friday two exclamation points because I got to walk out of the salon with my head held high instead of hung in red-faced embarrassment like the other times. On the inside I was even giving a double-fist pump because of our little victory. It's like I always say, it's the small stuff, people. Gotta take it where you can get it.

 Happy Friday, y'all!! Hope yours is worth at least two exclamation points, too!! =)

He totally rocks my world

I could just eat this little guy up! He has really become a ham lately.

When we have company, he will run around laughing and acting silly just to garner a bit of attention. He's always been into a little drama, and the picture below is what he did when I asked him to smile for me. Cracks me up! I'm so glad I get to stay home and have my day full of this kind of joy.

Here he's covering his Scout dog with Cars stickers - one of his daily favorite pastimes. We have at least one dozen Cars stickers scattered throughout the house (and on my clothes) by the end of the day. Every day. He doesn't have any other Cars toys, but I'm thinking I may have to remedy that for him.

A couple of other things he's up to these days...

Whenever I ask him, "Can you say ____?" - fill in the blank with a new word he's not said before - his immediate response is "buuuurp!" Don't ask me why. He learned "buuuurp" from his Jimmy Zangwow's Moonpie Adventure book (the Grimble Grinder burps after eating his Moonpies), and it is one of his favorite new words. He really seems to amuse himself with this.

He also has a thing for damp towels - paper towels, dish towels, a wipe, etc. He likes to grab any of these out of my hand, wad it up with his left hand, and then stick his left thumb into his mouth while he holds the damp towel. I'm not sure of the attraction here, but the second he gets a damp towel, it's like a magnetic force between the thumb and the mouth when he's holding it.

Alright. I'm signing off for the night. Hope to be back soon with new pics. Alex can show off his haircut he's getting tomorrow!

Solo with my munchkin

Daddy is in India until next week, and my sweet angel and I have been hanging out trying to keep dry from all the rain we've been getting. I am jealous of all of you who are having spring weather. We're back to cold and dreary for a few more days.

That means we've been holed up in the house quite a bit this week, and I'm telling you the nesting is beginning to kick in. I've been cleaning out closets and cluttered spots to gather up things that I'm going to put into a yard sale. I've tackled about half of my list of places to clean and organize. More to be done in the days ahead.

Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post. I decided to go ahead and order the duvet cover that many of you liked. I knew that I wouldn't be able to make a good decision without having seen it in person. I got it yesterday, and it's a winner! It feels great (very important to me), and the colors will look great with the star quilts. The only bad news is that I had to send them back because there were fabric flaws that I wasn't willing to live with given their cost. So I've got two new ones headed this way. I should get them early next week, and I'll try to get some pics posted then.

Hopefully we'll have some sunshine and warmer weather soon. Little Man has a new wagon he is dying to break in - somewhere other than inside the house - and I hope to take him on a ride outdoors first chance we get. And get some pics, too. =)

A little advice, please

Jerry and I are in the throws of converting our guest bedroom into – not a nursery, but – Alex's new big boy room.

I have held out on pictures because, well, quite frankly, the room is a huge mess, and there is still a lot of work to be done. But I just can't help myself. Jerry has done such an amazing job of making our vision a reality. So if you're up for seeing the "during construction" phase of our progress, I'll let you have a sneak peek. Please excuse the mess.

Here's the BEFORE:

And here's where we are TODAY:

See? LOTS of work still left to do. Crown molding, shelves in the built-in book cases, knobs on the cabinet doors, a kickplate at the base of the built-ins, and on and on. I promise more pictures to come later when the room is cleared out of the power tools and lumber scraps and everything is ready to be primed and painted. And just in case you're wondering, all of the new wood work will be white.

Now that we're making progress on the changes to the room, I'm trying to pull together the bedding. And that's where I need your opinions.

This room will have two twin beds. (Because it will still be used as a guest bedroom when needed and because I'm preparing for the day when the boys will (hopefully) share a room - we'll be all set with the bedding.) And the one thing I've decided on for sure is that each bed will have this quilt on the foot of it and one of the shams. I've loved this star quilt for years, and I've decided to splurge and order it!

Each bed will also have a duvet. I loved the duvet on our guest bed. It's hard to tell from the photo below, but it is a navy/ivory ticking stripe. I got it off of ebay, and my words to Jerry when he placed the bid were, "You must win this. Period." And so I thought that navy ticking stripe would be (will be!) precious with this star quilt. The problem is, I have searched the internet over for twin size (any size for that matter) navy ticking stripe duvet covers, but to no avail.

So then I started looking for fabric because I have a friend here who said she'd whip me up the duvet covers if I find the fabric I want. Score! Turns out, the search for the fabric isn't as easy as one might think. But I do think I may have found some. Here it is.

The problem is that the price tag on this stuff is not cheap - especially when we're having to make two covers. Oh sure, they make some that's cheap, but let me tell you that I've ordered swatches, and the stuff isn't all that soft. Now, I'm big on soft bedding, and since this room will still be used as our guest quarters, I can't have bedding that feels like sandpaper. You know what I mean?

In the meantime, I was doing another needle-in-the-haystack search for navy ticking bedding/fabric/whatever-would-come-up, and I came across this. Finally! A possibility! One side has the navy ticking stripe and the other side has khaki and navy stripes. First option I've seen in all of my searching.

I'm torn. I still like the idea of an all-ticking stripe cover, but the one with the two sides would give some versatility as the boys get older. I just can't tell if the latter looks too "nice/grown-up" to go with the star quilt. So what do you think? And please don't just say, "I'm sure that whatever you pick will be nice." ;-) I need to hear your thoughts so that I can noodle on this some more and figure out what I'm going to do. Here are all the pieces together so that you can see them side-by-side.

Now, lay it on me.

Inspired by Seurat

Little Man has made his first attempt in pointillism. He seemed to like the dot paint markers.

 Who knows. Maybe we'll have a future Georges Seurat on our hands.

(photo from Wikipedia)