Bids For Cici

Most of you know about my friend's daughter who had the accident and now has severe brain trauma. My friend has put together an auction to help raise money, and there are some great items up for great prices!

To see the auction, go here: http://www.bidsforcici.org/
From there, you register with the site and then start bidding away (don't bid on what I am bidding on! Just kidding- I hope you do, so we raise more money for such a great family!)

To read more about their story, and how FABULOUS Cici is doing as a result of all of her therapies (as well as how much these therapies cost and why they need fundraisers!), go here: www.colofisch.blogspot.com

Happy shopping!

Based On Her Outift...

...I don't think Audra is ready for winter yet (yes, she picked out her outfit, and for those of you thinking, "but the calendar says it's only fall"- you must live outside of the Denver metro area and not have had SNOW the last three days like we have had).

In this picture Audra is helping me make bread- something she loves to do. Today she helped me knead and kept saying, "punch bread, punch bread" as she did so. Do I win mother of the year for teaching my 2 year old how to punch?

Good Things Come In Threes!

Some very exciting things around our neck of the woods:

1. For the last three nights, Claire has slept through the night until 8 AM, 5 AM, and 6 AM respectively! Then, when she wakes up, she nurses in bed with us and falls right back to sleep!Yippee!!!! I hope this continues, though I am not holding my breath!

2. The nighttime routine has turned into a nightmare with Audra, so I made her a sticker chart. She earns one star sticker for each part of the routine she behaves well for. We started it last night and it was a total and complete success! Now nighttime won't be such a horrible experience for us all! Yeah!!!

3. After the disaster known as Glee, we found a new comedy we really like: Community. We watched the pilot episode yesterday and it was really, really funny- and mostly clean! Yeah!

Let's hope the wonderful things continue! I'll leave you with a picture of our cutie:

Design On A Dime

(Warning: There WILL be bragging)

Because I have a newborn and have nothing better to do, I decided to completely redecorate our bedroom. Ben had been constantly complaining about how dark and depressing the room was, and Oprah says your bedroom should be your sanctuary, so I decided to get to work. But, being that Ben is my husband, it had to be done on the cheap. Well, mission accomplished!

Here is what I started with:

Here is how it turned out:

Forget about the swing (I AM still a mom), and you have to admit: that looks pretty dang sweet, right?

Here is what we (mostly me, but Ben was a HUGE help with the painting- thank goodness!) did:

Paint- we went with a light blue, and I have to say: I HATE painting!!! I have decided it is like childbirth: during the process it is horrible and you wonder why on earth you are putting yourself through it, but in the end it is worth it. Cost: $90.00

Curtains: I made the curtains (don't look too closely at the "straight" lines). Cost: $14.00

Comforter: I was most worried about this, because let's face it- comforters are EXPENSIVE! But, then one night I realized: I can just flip the comforter upside down and then it will be a nice white comforter! Cost: FREE!

Pillowcases: I made the blue pillowcases, and recovered the green pillow: it used to be red. Cost: $8.00

Art: I like to have pictures of us on the wall- I don't care if it is against the designers code. So, I had a bunch of old picture frames and I painted them black. Cost: Free!

Pictures over the dresser: I made those, and those were a bit trickier. Cost: $9.00.

So I did the whole room for well under $200.00! Let's face it, I'm pretty awesome!

I Feel Dirty!

I so need to go to bed, but I can't without getting this out. Ben and I almost got scammed big time on Craigslist, but thanks to my ultra negative and untrusting husband, we weren't.

We are in the market for an LCD LARGE TV- somewhere around 46 inches. I thought we should try Craigslist, so we looked and I found a 42" LCD for $335- an excellent price. I e-mailed the seller, and she e-mailed me back saying she had relocated to England and would have to ship us the TV, but there is a shipping company called TNT who will allow us to see the TV for a few days and then accept the TV and continue with the payment. We went to their website and it explained everything- and this website is INCREDIBLY well done:http://www.tnt.com/express/en_us/site/home.html

She said she would pay for the 2 day shipping and we would be fine.

Ben was instantly weary (remember, he doesn't trust anybody). Here were some of his signs:

1. My sister lives in England and had never heard of this company, even though the seller said it was well known in England
2. By the time the seller paid for 2-day international shipping, she was basically going to be paying us to take the TV
3. The search engine on TNT's webpage doesn't work
4. There are no pricings on TNT's webpage (Ben was obsessed with trying to figure out how much it would cost her to send us the TV)
5. The Better Business Bureau does not have this company on their website
6. The price was just too good to be true

So, he asked me to do some more research before we proceeded further. I did NOT want to do this, totally naively believing this was a really nice person who just was stuck with a TV with an American adapter and she wanted to get rid of it. Boy, was I wrong! After doing 30 seconds of research I found this:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/Internet-Fraud/Dennis-Owens-Roger-D/dennis-owens-roger-dorian-tn-387b9.htm

The verbage in his e-mails and mine are almost identical. I can't believe I was so easily duped!!!!! I feel like I can't trust people anymore!!!!!! I feel so yucky and violated that this person now has my e-mail address, and I almost sent this money to TNT!!! Thank goodness for my amazingly pessimistic husband and his untrusting demeanor!!!!!! I posted that this was a scam on Craigslist, and I am posting it here as well so I can try and not feel so bad, but also to hopefully stop this from happening to anybody else!!! UGHHH!!!!

Vital Stats

Here's where Claire is at after today's doctor's visit:

Weight: 11 lb. 7 oz- 67%
Height: 23.5 Inches- 82%
Head:38 cm- 14%

And the official diagnosis from the doctor: Practically Perfect In Every Way!

Two Months!

Today Claire woke up and shouted, "I'm 2 months old today, Mom!" Ok, maybe not- but she did wake up full of smiles to celebrate, as you can see. Here's a couple of short videos: the first of Claire smiling, the second of Audra's new favorite thing to do- put something on Claire's lap and then say, "no, mine!" and grab it back as if Claire had stolen whatever it was.

Claire is still a really good baby. She giggled last night which was too adorable! Nights are hit and miss- just like a newborn. Normally she wakes up once during the night and then around 6 to stay awake and that's it, but sometimes it is much worse. During the day she still can only stay awake for 1-1/2 hours before she needs a nap, but I expect that to change as she is getting older. She eats great and rarely fusses. And, Audra just absolutely adores her still! But, I have learned I can NOT run errands with both of them, so I'm excited that I worked out with a friend that I would watch her daughter so she could volunteer at her boys' school, and she would watch Audra so I can run errands- YES! That will be absolutely wonderful- I don't want some psycho stranger slapping Audra for having a tantrum!

Tiny Town

Today we took Audra to Tiny Town- it was so much fun! Thank you so much, Jenny, for the idea! This place just goes to show you don't need to take your kids to Disneyland to have a good time (not that I'm against Disneyland, because I'm not- but this place proves that sometimes smaller is better!)

Here she and Daddy are looking into a building:

It was very difficult to get any pictures of Audra actually looking AT the camera.

Of course, the favorite part for Audra was the train:

This house was built as a replica of "Gothic House"- that painting with the old man and woman and the pitchfork, with this full-size house in the background:

Jailbird:

She climbed into this herself....probably was not supposed to:

Then, Audra's favorite thing to do is play house with Daddy. Yesterday he came home and was holding Claire and I offered to play with her and she yelled, "NO! Daddy play house!" Goes to show where I fit on her priority list compared with Daddy.

Then, not to leave Claire out- I thought this picture was too precious with she and her daddy!

Glee

Did anybody watch this show last night? It's a new show on Fox,and we were quite excited to watch it because it looked like a comedy, and we are so incredibly sick of dramas and reality TV, that we were anxious to see if this comedy would be fun to watch.

I have to say- I pretty much hated it. I think Ben liked it, but the whole time we were watching I was almost fuming at what was going on! First and foremost- it wasn't funny. I didn't laugh once- and this is supposed to be a comedy? But, that wasn't the real issue I had.

The basic premise is a Glee Club at a high school trying to find success.

The main character- we'll call him "hot teacher" (HT) is married. We meet his wife and she is a whiny, awful person who the show obviously wants you to hate because she says things like, "I have to stand on my feet for 4 hours three times a week!" and complains continually to HT. They have been trying to get pregnant, but have had no success.

Then, HT has an admirer- a co-worker at the high school who continually flirts with HT, volunteers to chaperone activites with him, offers to share her PBJ's, and is anxious to console him when he and his wife have a problem- which they always do.

Halfway through the show we find out HT's wife is finally pregnant. She now wants HT to quit teaching and become an accountant so he can make more money and support his family.

Do you begin to see where I have so many problems????

1. The woman at work is flirting with a MARRIED man, hoping he will leave wifey and go be with her. And this is a show geared to teenagers- what a great example they are showing of how we should respect marriage vows.

2. They turn a wife wanting her husband to support their growing family as a horrible thing- yet isn't that what ALL women want? While teaching may be his passion, supporting his family should be his number one priority!!!! What is more important then your spouse and children? Somebody else's children? I don't think so!

3. Co-worker horrible woman is the one who consoles HT and convinces him that he should follow his passion and ignore his wife- after all, she is just a mean, awful monster who wants to make HT's life miserable (let's just forget the fact they are MARRIED and made COVENANTS and PROMISES to EACH OTHER- not to horrible co-worker woman!!!!)

Oh, I can go on and on- but suffice it to say, I was absolutely NOT impressed with this show- or it's complete lack of respect for marriage and family relations- and I would not recommend it to anyone else who is considering watching it! But, perhaps some of you saw it and liked it. Maybe I am reading too much into the storylines (as Ben seems to think)! I would be very interested in hearing what others of you thought!