Lily and I are on an adventure

Lily and I left Ross and Zelda at home and went on an adventure to see my family. We were having a family reunion in Huntsville and we drove up to Melbourne and caught a ride the rest of the way with my cousin Sandy and her kids (Allison & Alexander). Sandy has a DVD player in her van so Lily got to watch her favorite movie "Nemo" over and over. I have no idea where the glasses came from.

We divided the drive into two days. This photo is of the Lily sized fridge at the hotel in Macon, GA.

We got into Huntsville on Wednesday and Sandy dropped Lily and I off at Aunt Linda's house. She wasn't home from work yet so we made ourselves at home. Lily walked in and said "Soooo Pretty" so I guess that means she liked it there. We were going to walk down to my Grandma's house but by the time we got out of the shower it was pouring down rain. Lily was pooped from the drive so we just ate and went to bed.

Thursday was Aunt Charlotte's birthday so she had an open house party. My cousin Melissa had taken her barbie collection over to my aunt Charlotte's house for Allison to play with while she was staying there. Lily thought this was great. The entire time we were there, (besides when we were running around in the sprinklers) Lily kept sneaking into Aunt Charlotte's bedroom to play with the barbies or into her closet to try on her shoes.

As you can see from the above picture, Aunt Charlotte has interesting shoes, she and Lily get along very well. Lily got that University of Alabama dress for Christmas and although we are not Alabama fans, Aunt Charlotte is a die-hard, so we figured it was appropriate to wear it on her birthday. I'm sure it got Lily some bonus points in Aunt Charlotte's book.

The following video shows just how talented this little baby is.

Wonder Woman!!

I love wonder woman and have quite a collection of Wonder Woman stuff. The other day when we were cleaning out the workroom we came across a couple of plush Wonder Womans. I don't collect the newer justice league stuff, but through the years many people have given me some of it, so when I came across the little Wonder Woman, I gave it to Lily. She knows exactly who it is too. Then, we opened another box and found the same doll but a larger version. She was thrilled that now she had a BIG Wonder Woman too.


We keep the sweets in a Wonder Woman cookie jar and I asked Lily who it was and she said "Mommy" and I said no and to try again and she said "Grandma". So funny how she knows Wonder Woman on TV and on dolls and comic books but thinks that the cookie jar is me.

We look at pictures and I talk to her about her Grandma. There are a few times that she has identified my mom in pictures and even though she never got a chance to meet her, she knows who her Grandma is. It makes me cry.
The other day I was taking pictures of some stuff for eBay and set up the camera and took a few pictures of myself wearing an outfit. I took pictures from the front then turned around and took pictures of the backside. Later that same day I took a picture of Lily standing on the pool table then she turned around and told me "back, back". Ross & I are really going to have to start watching everything we do and say now that this little sponge is soaking up everything.

Yesterday Lily was watching TV while I checked my email and when we were leaving the room she ran back in saying "pause TV, pause TV". She reached up onto the table and hit the pause button on the remote!

When I turn my back....

Today I've been trying to organize my workspace because I've finally broken down and hired a shipper to help me with my busines and need to have things cleaned up to where someone other than me can actually find things. Lily had found a small box with a few coins in it and was having good fun playing with them. Yes, I know, coins are a choking hazard but she has never yet tried to put them in her mouth. Usually she takes them right to either my piggy bank or Ross' s money jar. Today, I got a brilliant idea to have her bring her little box of coins into the bathroom so she could play on the floor with them while I showered.

Not so brilliant. Lily has figured out how to open doors so she escaped from the bathroom and took her box of coins to my room. Today, instead of putting coins INTO Ross's jar, she dumped the whole thing all over the floor.

Then, we got dressed and I got this cute video not 10 mintues later

As I'm uploading them to the computer to post, I realized that there was yet another cute one on my memory card. This one was shot yesterday.

Really, who needs toys when you have fun things like coins, chapstick and rainboots to play with?

Fish! by my little artist

Yesterday, while I was working on the computer, Lily had pushed her chair up next to me and was drawing on my notepad. We were working along rather nicely. I was getting things done and she was not drawing on anything that she wasn't allowed to draw on (although she was using a Sharpie and usually she is not allowed to play with markers). Then she declares "FISH!" then immediately breaks into song "just keep swimming, swimming, swimming" (from Finding Nemo)

I look over and am pleasantly supprised that Lily really has drawn a fish. I'm not sure if she did it on purpose or was suprised herself that she had drawn a fish. Regardless, this one is going on the fridge.

Cheap Makeup

Whahoooo! One of the moms in my SAHMs group just posted a website of a makeup company that Nordstroms just bought out and they are selling off all of their stock for only $1.00 (well, some of the sets and stuff are $5) and if you use the coupon code CAROLINA you get another 50% off on up to $15.00. I just bought 15 items and shipping and everything came to $14.55

Can't beat that even buying the cheap stuff at Walgreens. I got some tweezers and makeup brushes too.

Here is the site in case you are interested:

http://www.eyeslipsface.com/shop.asp

Trip to Chicago

Last week Debbie and I went to eBay Live! in Chicago. Lily and I drove to Melbourne on Tuesday and spent the night with Sandy. At the crack of dawn, I few out to Chicago. I wrote this in my notebook on the plane:

I cried last night while falling asleep because I worry so much about my little Lily. I am on a plane right now heading to Chicago and won't see her until Sunday night. And even then, she will be asleep. I have all the confidence in the world that my family will take wonderful care of her. They will probably be more careful than I would! But, being away from her hurts my heart. Leaving this morning she was still asleep and I wanted so badly to pick her up and squeeze her. Oh poo. Now I'm crying on the plane! how embarrassing.

Because of a weather delay out of Chicago, I missed my connector in Atlanta and had to be re-routed to Orlando. Luckily, Christian was there picking up Debbie just one hour prior so I made them wait and collect me too. I made it home on Sunday but at 2AM. Being away from Lily all that time she grows and changes even in a few days.

We celebrated Christian's birthday on Monday with a barbecue then it started to pour and didn't stop so Lily and I had to stay another night. I finally made it home yesterday and it is going to take me a week to catch up on missed work and two weeks to workout enough to work off everything I ate!

(These pictures are Pamela's that she so nicely loaded into my computer for me, mine are still in my camera)

Water Part

Lately the SAHM mom's group that I'm in has only been scheduling playdates at Water parks. I am pleasantly surprised at how many there are in our county. There are literally dozens of them! Well, because I haven't gotten around to getting Lily into swimming lessons yet and for the longest time didn't have a bathing suit for myself that wasn't offensive, we haven't gone yet. I finally found a bathing suit that keeps everything covered up and just figured I'd have to watch Lily really close, and we went to a water park.
She did awesome. They have a zero depth place that has a sprinkler thing above and she played in that most of the day. There is a slide thing and a big structure that kids can play on but there were so many kids running and pushing that I wouldn't let Lily try it. There was a tube above that was pouring water out and she enjoyed standing below and putting her arm into the stream. That is, until the water pressure changed from a small stream to a huge gush and it knocked her back onto her bum. She handled it well and only cried for a minute.
She pooped too while we were there. YUCK. Taking off a soaking wet, poopy swim diaper is a very difficult thing to do. Poor thing had poop all down her legs!
Then, the afternoon thunderstorms rolled in and they kicked us all out.


The title of this post is not a typo, that is how Lily says 'Park'. She also says 'Milt' for milk and 'Boot' for book.

Today - Great day!

Today was a great day. This morning Lily slept in until 8 and stayed interested in the early morning cartoons long enough for me to get all of my emails checked.
Around 9:30 Marje skyped us from Zim to tell us that she is coming over for a visit in just a little more than a month. Yay! We got to talk for awhile and Lily was behaved enough to say hello. (just in case you don't know what skype is, it is a program that allows you to talk or chat live through your computer and if you have a webcam you can talk and see one another. It is free if you are interested click here)
Then we went to the beach. It is nice to go early because there isn't much of a crowd.






Ross is a bit of a weirdo because he doesn't sit or lie on a towel, just right into the sand. He has taught Lily to do the same thing.


We only stayed for a couple of hours and made it back in time for lunch and nap.
I went to an afternoon party then came home and realized that both Ross and I were having a chocolate craving. So, I taught Lily how to make brownies.



About 3/4 of the way through the brownie baking process I realized that it was dinner time so we threw some steaks on the grill and then we had warm brownies ready for us for desert. Yum.
After dinner Lily bounced back and forth between helping Ross pick weeds and helping me photograph stuff to sell on eBay.

Life is good. Makes it a little more bearable that our bank account has run completely dry! Earlier in the week we had an accident and had to spend $450 at the vet to have two of Zelda's teeth removed. She's all good now but Ross is no longer allowed to play golf with Zelda.

If this video doesn't make you want to squeeze this girl...

I don't know what will!

We were listening to a CD of African Children's songs that Marje gave us last year and Lily was dancing all over so I tried to get a little on tape.

My dad was shopping on the internet again

Gotta love the internet! Sometimes Daddy gets carried away with the ease of buying on the internet. I suggested that Lily would love a little table for her birthday (which is still over a month away!) and look what showed up at the house.



Ross and I stashed it under the pool table planning to give it to her on her birthday but Daddy insisted that we give it to her now so that he could see the pictures of it here on the blog.She LOVES it.She has spent all of her time out on the porch. It has worked out well for me too because I had a client give me boxes and boxes of stuff to get listed on eBay and I can work on the pool table and keep an eye on her at the same time. I have all the stuff on top of the table and set up my laptop out there too. Usually when I do that Lily is trying everything she can to get to whatever I'm working on. Now, she is at her OWN table outside.(again, why is she never wearing any clothes? and did you notice the shoes?)

This video isn't really interesting, it is just an example of how loud my neighbors are. Every single day they get in their pool and scream and curse at one another like the world is going to end. The parents tell the children that they are "bad" and say things like "what the hell is wrong with you" and they never scold the children for cursing and screaming at the top of their lungs "I hate you!". It gets obnoxious sometimes, as you can hear in this video. (and they have "Children are a gift from God" stickers on their cars)

Mini vacation in Miami

Jasmin came in town this weekend so I took a little mini-vacation and crashed at her hotel with her down in Miami Saturday night. Jen took the night off too and went out with us too. It is so nice to get together with old friends and catch up. The only thing is, that it reminds me how lazy of a friend I really am. I love to get together with people and keep up with everything in their lives, but I am just so bad at keeping up with correspondence. I always intend to call and email and stuff, but I never do. I'm a terrible friend.

Jaz was staying at the Intercontinental so I had a nightmare of a time trying to find parking in downtown. So, we parked my car at Jen's and rode the train back to bayside. We had dinner at Bubba Gumps then a couple of drinks at Bayside and mainly just talked, caught up and reminisced.

We stayed up too late talking and I slept in late. Jasmin had to get up for her convention stuff and I just kept sleeping. I took a leisurely ride and walk back to Jen's then spend a little time a her house squeezing squishy little Dean. He still smells like a baby. Gotta convince Ross that we need another one.

Check out Brandi

Aren't you so proud of Brandi and her "real" job. She stopped by the other day in the dead-mobile. No bodies of course.

But she was wearing her suit and looking all grown up.

I can't believe that they trust her to drive this thing!

Can you believe what people will do for money?

This guy will tattoo a company logo on his arm for only 5 grand!

Click here for the auction listing

A day with a BOON

A few days ago Lily got a Balloon from Publix. We always get one when we go there and most times she plays with it just long enough for me to get the groceries put away.
Not this particular day. I don't know what it was about this Orange Balloon... but she held on to it the WHOLE day. We got it at around 10:30 AM.
This is Lily eating lunch with one hand because she is clutched onto that balloon with the other. Approximately 12:30PM


This is Lily settling down for her nap after Lunch:

Yeah, I'm not sure the reason for the golf bag, but she insisted it be in the bed with her too. I kept checking on her to make sure that she wasn't getting tied up in the balloon string. Isn't she sweet? still clutched onto that balloon while she sleeps.

She held it the entire rest of the day. That evening I took her in the shower with me because I was too lazy to give her a bath. Guess what? Yep, the balloon took a shower too.
She slept with the balloon again that night. However, I waited until she was asleep and took it out of her hand because I was afraid of her getting caught up in the string and choking. The next morning she woke up asking for the balloon. Almost in a panic.
Finally she lost interest in it about mid-way through the next day.

US vs. Zim accent - which will Lily get?

I always figured that Lily would have an American accent because she is bombarded with Americans and encounters very few Zimbos. Well, so far, she has an African accent.

If you couldn't tell, in that video whe is saying that she prefers a Zebra to be called a ZEB-ra, rather than ZEE-bra. This next one is the way that she says "water", it sounds just like Ross.

The word "Bath" is very funny to me. If I ask her, she says "bAth" the American way, but if she is talking to Ross, she asks for a "BaHth". So, if I ask her if she would like to get in the Bath (and pronounce it like Ross would) she will correct me to the American version. It is sweet that the realizes the difference.

cute videos

Mini Me

If you can't tell what she is saying it is "ye ye meh hole" translation, Lily Mitchell. We were practicing naming everyone's name because I want to make sure that she knows Ross and I's names too so when Zelda walked over she made sure to say Zelda Mitchell too.

She has really gotten quite expressive lately. She took a bite of her dinner and spit it back out then I got the camera. (Why does she never have clothes on when I video her?)

I love to tell the story about how a police officer I met one day years back says to me "oh, you are dating Ross from Shenanigans? He runs like a gazelle".... well, I think Lily is taking after her dad.

Chuck E Cheese, Kentucky Derby & sock monkey

A couple of months back I joined a SAHM group and it has been great. I don't really know anyone very well yet but it is nice to finally have some people to talk kids stuff with. They are all much better mom's than me, but we are starting to fit in. They all exchange recipes and post notices about toy recalls. Me, I just try my best to keep healthy food in the fridge and let Lily play with anything in the house that isn't sharp.

So, there are playdates set up for parks and stuff all over the county just about every day. Earlier this week we met up with the group at Chuck E Cheese.

Lily was awesome! She is usually shy at first but as soon as we walked in the door she said "car. ride". We ordered a little pizza and once we finished eating she had warmed up enough that she wasn't clinging to me anymore. She wasn't afraid of the rides that move and even figured out how to put the coins in the slot and buckle her seat belt.


It was really sweet.

Last weekend we went to Mike's anual Kentucky Derby party and won the bonnet contest yet again! I won year before last, Lily came in 2nd last year and this year we took #1 & #2!!

Lily was very well behaved so I was very proud of her.

A couple of weeks ago Lily had an explosive poop incident while in her crib so I just pulled all the sheets, blankets and everything including the pillows and stuffed animals and put it all in the wash. Well, my 32 year old sock monkey that Lily LOVED didn't make it out of the machine. I couldn't bear to throw it out because I loved it probably more than Lily did (hence the fact that I still have it!) so I made Ross throw it out for me. Being the eBay junkie that I am, I found a seller on eBay selling sock monkey kits and I bought two.

I feel so much better about the whole thing now because Lily was so sweet during the making of the new monkey. She identified the socks as socks but once we put stuffing in them she knew right away that it was a monkey. She slept with it the first night when all it was, was a tube with legs. The next day I had completed the arms and tail but hadn't sewn them on yet and she was even carrying around the arms saying "monkey arms". It has been amazing watching how excited she has become each step in the process. I sewed on the ears and she screamed with joy yelling "ears. ears. ears".

Armless & faceless monkey baby above, Complete monkey baby below

New outfit

Thanks Grandad! Look what we got in the mail.

Brandi made me do it

Brandi made me post this on eBay, check it out

CLICK HERE

but, before you go, remember, this is BRANDI's item.... not mine!

Brandi inspired me to cut my hair

At the beginning of the month Brandi came over on her day off asking me to cut her hair. She had decided that she wanted to donate her hair to locks of love and was too anxious to wait to try and find a salon having a drive. So, we looked up the rules and info online and it is so cute. They even have a little video teaching you the steps on how to donate your hair.
So, I cut her hair.
It was kinda creapy cutting off an entire ponytail, especially since her hair is so thick.
The donated hair has to be 10 inches long so that left Brandi with pretty short hair. I cut it with layers all around and it turned out pretty cute. I cut Ross's hair so I figured that would qualify me as a professional so lucky for her, I do free haircuts if the hair is being donated. But, I made her work off her tip by running to the store for a red bull for me.

So, three weeks later and her bag-o-hair is still sitting her on my computer desk so, since I needed a haircut and was cutting Ross's hair today anyway, I decided to donate mine too. I had Ross take a before picture wich we forgot to do with Brandi.

I wish I wasn't wearing a sack dress. You can't really tell from the picture here, but my hair was literally at my waist. The last time my hair was that long was 1994 right before the notorious mullet cut incident! Well, I don't have a mullet this time, but it isn't picture worthy either. This is the after picture but you can't really tell what the hair that remains on my head looks like.

Ross wasn't confident enough to try and even out the cut and put the layers back in so I've got this really stupid looking bob right now. It is short in the back and long in the front (you have to cut the hair while it is banded in a ponytail) and looks just awful!
So, tomorrow morning on the way to the beach I'm going to stop in a super cuts somewhere and get them to make it look normal again.
Ross wanted to give Lily a haircut too because her hair is long enough to get in her eyes but I talked him out of it.
Now here is a great picture of Lily:

She looks like this just about all the time. She loves headbands and bracelets and scarves and pretty much is always covered in dirt (that is from mine & Ross's inability to grow grass in our yard). Those aren't bruises on her face, it is dirt and if her feet could be seen in the photo, I'm sure they were covered in dirt too. Yesterday she was playing in my closet and came out with a pair of fishnet panyhose on her head! I wish I had gotten that on camera!

Spring Break in the Keys & cute videos

Sandy came by on her way to the Keys with her kids to spend their Spring Break with Debbie and took Lily down too. So, while she was on Spring Break in the Keys, Ross and I took a relaxing day to ourselves at the beach. Then, I drove down the next day to join them. We had fun, relaxed and Allison taught Lily how to do a somersault.

Here is a video of her practicing in the yard yesterday

On Sunday we went to a friend's house for brunch. It was so nice. Most of the people were from Zim and most had small kids too. Here is Ross & Lily on the trampoline.

They also had a giant tiger. Lily LOVED it.



Then, Ross let her get in the slip & slide with all of her clothes on!

Lily is talking so much now. She puts two words together and answers questions. It is so amazing to see the progress. Last night Ross was in New York so I treated myself to sushi. I guess Lily thought it was funny because she kept saying it over and over. I thought it was funny too.

I kept trying to get Lily to say that Ross was in the "Big Apple" but she just wouldn't do it for the camera. She'd say it then I would turn on the camera and she would just repeat over and over that Daddy was at work.

Tragic accident over the weekend

Last weekend David and three friends went on a canoe trip. They had canoed this river before but this time it ended in a tragedy. The company that runs the canoe trips had a new employee who made a mistake and dropped them off at the wrong part of the river. They were dropped just before some rapids that no canoe should be on. David and his friend got dumped over about 15 minutes into the trip. The other pair were up the river ahead of them so they didn't know that they had gotten dumped over too. David and Matt were lucky and able to get themselves and their canoe over to the bank. His friends, soon after being dumped out went over a waterfall. The canoe broke and one of the boys didn't come up. After 24 hours of rescue workers searching the river they found his body on Sunday. His name was Craig Bond and I've been searching all over the internet for the story but it doesn't seem to be covered by of the papers. He was the drummer in David's new band.
I woke up five or six times in the night last night feeling sick to my stomach about what a horrible thing this is. I keep praying for his family and friends but I can't seem to get my head around the whole thing. I know that David must be having a really hard time with it. The guy that was in that canoe, the one who survived, lives in the house below Dave's apartment. I keep praying for him too. At some point during the search for Craig, he was told that he was the only one who made it!
David is beating himself up because he and Matt were joking and laughing about how bad of canoers that they were, that only 15 minutes into the trip they had already taken a spill. Not knowing at the time what was happening around the bend. He knows that he shouldn't feel guilty, but he does.
I can't imagine how bad this all feels to those guys.
It makes me sick to my stomach and hurts my heart.