Blog Storm's a Comin

Wow I have soo much to write about. Maybe during nap time I'll crank a few out. However I had to write about the funny stuff that just happened right now.

My little girl is becoming WAY too independant. While I was checking email she came and asked me if she could have some cereal while holding a box of Shredded Wheat. I said sure, figuring she'd plop down on the floor and grab a handful out of the box. Next thing I know I hear the fridge being opened. I run to the kitchen to see what's going on.

Reese had climbed onto the counter, gotten down a bowl, filled it w/ cereal (without spilling any on the floor) and was now getting the milk out to add. Luckily the milk was almost empty so w/ supervision I let her pour it in. Then she grabbed a spoon and sat down at the table to eat.

Back to the computer I go and a few minutes later I see Reese walking to me with a carton of OJ. This morning she had asked for OJ but since there was none upstairs and I didn't feel like getting any from the basement I told her she was having apple juice. So where did the OJ come from?? She had gone downstairs, opened the fridge there, gotten out OJ, and brought it upstairs to me. She's done this a few times and it's pretty helpful if I am feeling lazy so it was cute. She puts the OJ down and then walks up to me with a full 1/2 gallon of milk. Apparently she had brough both upstairs. That's some arm strength for a 3 yr old.

But the cuteness doesn't end yet. Since she had brought a gallon or each upstairs she new that the basment now had less of each. So she promptly grabbed a dry erase marker and her stool. If she new how to spell she would have written Milk and OJ on the shopping list board. But instead she asked me too. while I'm writing she hops up on the counter again, gets me a bowl, fills it with cereal, and says now I can have cereal and OJ with her.

So much cuteness how could I not sit down and have a snack with her :-)

A Computer Knows Me Better Than Me

So Mat and I are starting pre-marital counseling through church and I am super excited. The first step was taking an online survey and then meeting with one of the pastors to go over it. Nothing to surprising when they went over mine and Mat's answers. The things we knew needed work/ more discussion and planning were what we thought they would be. It was still good to voice them to someone else and get a little bit of reassurance about how we were handling them and advice for the future.

What was more interesting was the personality profile results. Weirdly I am someone who is confident but not aggressive. Normally confident people know what they want and ask for it, which was this surveys definition of aggressive. I wasn't to surprised by this revelation, and I think most people who know me would agree. I will stand up in a debate and defend my side or challenge someone who does something that upsets me. But in many other things I am not aggressive. There are 2 sides/reasons for this. The first part is that I know what I want but I hate to ask people for help. Especially when it comes to Reese. I hate asking people to babysit her or do other things for her. She's my kid, she's my responsibility so I need to take care of her. My parents have told me over and over again they have never felt like I abused their generosity in asking them to watch her. And I know Mat loves taking Reese out to spend time with her. But I can't help but still feel like I'm asking people to do me a favor and I'm burdening them. Definitely something I have to work on. I still don't want to take advantage of people, but I do need to realize that there are other people like me, who like to help people. And people who enjoy spending time with Reese and don't mind watching her for me, or even really enjoy getting some time alone with her.

The second side to this is similar about not being a burden but a little skewed. I don't like feeling like people are hanging out with me b/c they have to or feel obligated to. I've always believed if someone likes/loves you they will put in effort to spend time with you. I kinda sucked at that rule during college and lost touch with alot of close friends. Some of it was because I didn't think those friends would like the person I had become. But that's a whole different blog. Now I try to make sure I IM, call, text, or visit with my friends to keep in touch. I always hope that my friends will do the same. To me there is no better feeling then when people chose to come spend time with me. It's a weird way to think about it but sacrificing their time to come hang out with me is really nice.

So far I've talked about stuff that didn't surprise me so you probably wonder why I chose the title I did. Well here it is. Another aspect of the personality profile was that I am comfortable in social situations. I knew that from how I was raised. May mom was always hosting dinner parties or I went to parties with them. Being in these situations I learned to start conversations with lots of different people and how to interact at a party. I'm very lucky because Mat is not a big social person like me but still can handle himself at a party. I've dated guys where I felt like I had to hold their hand the whole time (and not in the romantic way). Guys who felt awkward being around people they didn't know, or just in a party situation. Tim (the pastor we met with) said that it was good I was aware of that. And that I recharged myself through those events. At the time I dismissed that. I've never been someone who needed lots of friends, I just feel comfortable when put in big social situations. Or at least I thought that until tonight. I've been a SAHM for 2 days now. I love getting time with Reese, it's been great. Tonight Mat and I went to a tasting event at the place we're hoping to have our wedding. I felt off the whole evening as soon as I left the house. I thought maybe it was because I felt bad leaving Reese. She hurt her thumb with splinters (I'll explain more in another blog). I didn't know what was wrong, and I kept trying to figure it out. Then we got to the event. Within 5 minutes I ran into a sorority sister who works at the place and a fellow ISAT grad who's wedding is a few weeks within mine. Chit chatting with those 2 and catching up I suddenly felt so much better. Hillary and Neil showed up and I got to introduce them to my friends and show the place to Hillary. As Mat and I left I suddenly felt so much happier.

I didn't figure it out till I was in the car, but the computer was right. Social situations energize me. At work there's lunch and other random interactions with coworkers that provide that socialization. I really hope that I can find a way to fulfill the social needs in other ways now that I'm at home. Because I really don't want to feel like I did today again.

Reese's Hannah B-day

Today was Reese's last day at school until I find a new job. Hopefully a new job will be close to Frederick so she can go back b/c I LOVE her school and all her teachers. "Luckily" her last day happened to coincide with her B-day weekend so she could still have her school party to celebrate with her friends.

Reese loves Hannah Montana. I blame myself b/c I like Hannah Montana so I've put it on when we're home at night since she was a baby. Also at school Reese sometimes gets bumped to the PreK classroom and they tend to listen to Disney Artist music in there.

So for Reese's school party I was determined to get her Hannah Montana cupcakes. I checked a couple places that wanted ridiculous amount of money for cupcakes. I even purchased little pics with pictures of Hannah on them and contemplated baking my own because I needed 30 cupcakes to cover all her friends in her 3 different classrooms. Then a teacher recommended I go check out Walmart. I went over on Wed and saw some HSM cupcakes out for sale. I asked the woman behind the counter if they had Hannah Montana decorations and they did - rings and pics with different designs. YAY!!! So I order 36 cupcakes for a grand total of $18 which was much more reasonable than the other quotes I had gotten.

Thursday evening we go to pick up the cupcakes. I noticed all the valentines cupcakes were all marked $3 for a dozen. Now I was thinking if I had risked it and just come in and bought those cupcakes and switched the decorations I could have saved money. Oh well too late now.

After 10 minutes searching through the cooler (it must be huge) the bakery woman brought out Reese's Hannah cupcakes. There were amazing. They had airbrushed them with Pink and Purple (Reese's 2 fav colors) and I think the amount of icing on each one was equal to or more than actual cake. This is very important to children (and adults like me who can eat icing out of a can anytime) The smile on Reese's face was worth the extra money I was going to pay for them. But then I got to the register and . . . they rang up at $3 each. Apparently all cupcakes were on sale, even special order. I almost jumped for joy.

Of course Reese and I had to taste test them after dinner to make sure they were up to par. And yeah they were delicious. I really want to go more for the weekend but then there's that whole diet thing. Walmart does wedding cakes and after tasting the cupcakes I might seriously consider them because it was delicious.

This morning Reese woke up and put on her Hannah shirt from Great Grandma Davis, her Hannah Rockstar ribbon (from me), and her Hannah ring from her cupcake last night. Definitely a Rock Star in training. I even convinced her to let me braid her hair which is an accomplishment for me. I can put my hair in a ponytail and that's about all.

So here are some pics or her this morning as we drove to school. Don't worry we were at a red light when I started snapping.

A small look at my french braiding skills

Never trust a toddler with that look on her face, holding a marker. Luckily her dry erase doodle board was the only victim.

My Little Fashionista

Monday night Reese suddenly decided that she wanted to decide what she was wearing and Mommy had no say anymore. (She thinks Mommy has no say, but I hold ultimate Veto power)

So outfit #1 - to wear to bed was the following lovely ensemble:



A lovely floral summer dress, with striped pink leg warmers, a striped pink and brown head band, and her monkey T-shirt to keep her arms warm. This outfit was her choice for school the next day as well. It's hard to tell but the 2nd pic is her jumping. She's practicing those oh so difficult "action" modeling poses ;-)















Wednesday was another morning searching through our summer dresses to pick the next ensemble. And here it is:



Our favorite multi-colored heart shirt, with a navy Nautica dress sporting a teddy bear on the chest, teddy bear tights, and her black "dancing" shoes.



This morning's outfit was just as creative but I didn't have time to take a pic before we left. I'll post it later tonight.