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!