Ta Da!

Brent and Kari are now Mr. & Mrs. Ballweg. Our bestest buddies are married! Exciting times my friends. The wedding was awesome. I was doing great with keeping any tears at bay all morning...and then I saw Brent in his tux. And then I cried a little. And then? Then! Since I was stationed behind Kari, I had to face Brent through the whole ceremony. And that jerkstore had the nerve to be really happy and almost crying...through the entire ceremony.

Aside from the absolutely disturbing amount of sweat the entire wedding party excreted that day, everything was beautiful. Kari was stunning. Brent couldn't have been more handsome. Everything, the whole day, just everything was fantastic. I am so happy I got to be a part of their wedding. It's not every day two people that mean that much to you get married. And it is one of the coolest things to be a part of.

Congratulations to two of my very favorite people.

New Day - New Discovery

Our house is not big. At all. But for now, it's just fine and snuggly. Alex's room is by far the smallest room in the house. Aside from the bathroom...but it's a bathroom...and it's the size of a small walk-in closet so it doesn't really count for much. Anywho, his room. It's small. But being the smallest person in the family, that's what he gets.

When we lowered his crib mattress, it was suddenly just a bit lower than an outlet. Which meant he could easily reach his chubby little sausage fingers into an outlet. An outlet that has stuff plugged into it. Not good. So we rearranged things.

This morning I am laying in bed, cherishing every moment I have gotten to sleep past 4:45. And over the monitor I hear this click...click...click. Was he kicking something? Did he manage to sneak one of his drumsticks to bed with him and is gently tapping on the side of his crib? I couldn't figure out what he was doing to make that noise. Eventually he started making his "Mom come get me" noises, so I ventured downstairs.

And then I see what the noise was. His door is pulled open, since he can now reach it if he stands on his tip toes...which is about 99% of the time. He is standing at the end of his crib. Click...click...click...light on...light off...light on. He found the light switch. And he loooooooves it. I have a ever growing pit in my stomach just thinking about how long he is going to stand there at bed time click, click, clicking. There just may be a new room arrangement on the horizon.

New Witching Hour

4:44. In the A.M. For the past three mornings. That is the ridiculous time Alex starts fussing/whimpering/kinda sorta being awake all of a sudden. Not cool, little dude. Not cool. Aside from me not wanting to be up that early, he is clearly not ready to be awake. So he ends up being all cranktified...and wobbly. That kid cannot walk when he is tired. Which is a problem because he tries to walk...and then trips and plops down...and then cries...the fakest, most pathetic cry ever. And then he gets back up and tries to walk. And round and round we go.

This morning I got up at 4:44, put his nuk in and covered him up. And he fell back asleep for about a half hour. Then I got back up and rocked with him for a bit. He was fidgety and then after a while just started talking, so we got up. In all of our bleary-eyed, wobbly-legged glory. And I decided to prove just how tired I was this morning by only putting on some of my make-up. Apparently mascara was optional today. Lookin' good Julius...lookin' good.

One effective bitchtastic workout lady

Holding steady at -12lbs for the past 3 days.

I still come close to hyper-ventilation near the end of Level 2. Level 3 is not even in the running for something I am considering attempting. And I need to wash my living room floor. The amount of dried sweat droplets is so many levels of disgusting I don't really want to talk about it. Oh yeah, and then I let my baby play/walk/crawl/roll around on said floor. I am a stellar mom. A 12lbs lighter stellar mom! CAN I GET A WITNESS?!!!

Dear Brain, Please return.

I am seriously losing it. My lack of memory is nuts. On Monday evening Alex and I went grocery shopping. I shop from the store. He sits in the little baby holder spot and shops from the cart. I keep things in the cart until I pay for them. He takes things out of the cart one by one and drops them on the floor. We have different styles. Anyway! On Monday, he grabbed a bag of sugar snap peas from the cart and instead of dropping the bag and laughing, he decided to chew on the bag. Chew away kiddo! As long as you are content chewing on that bag, my shopping experience is one step higher than the 7th circle of Hell.

Jump forward to last night. I made cashew chicken for dinner. Getting everything ready, I was going through the peas de-stringing any that needed it. With each handful I pulled out of the bag, I was completely shocked at the quality of the peas. Or lack of quality more specifically. Every single pea pod was marred in some manner. A lot of them jaggedly broken in half. I was shocked the distribution company would even bag these to sell them. They were a mess.

Yeah...I was 3/4 through the bag and said out loud, "Geez! It looks like a mouse chewed on every single pea pod in here!" And with that sentence it finally hit me. It wasn't a mouse. It was your kid that you let chew on the bag for 25 minutes. Dumbass.

Shake it baby!

Alex's dance moves are coming along nicely...separately, but nicely. He can't quite seem to get the legs and arms moving at the same time. Which results in one of three moves.

1. He bounces up and down.
2. He does the twist, but only with his upper body.
3. He waves his arms around in the air.

I have admit, I am partial to #2 & #3. The twist thing cracks me up. He thinks it's terribly funny too. So, he sits/stands there, arms doing the twist, giggling like a goofball. The twist is definitely second the the arm waving thing though. He stands with a look of concentration and his arms just waving around randomly. He looks like one of those obnoxious inflatable arm flailing things stores use when they are having a tent sale. Or an insane orchestra conductor. Either way, it's funny.

Blood sucking jerk stores!

The mosquito situation at our house is out of control. They have taken over. It is impossible to be outside. When I got home yesterday, I parked in the garage and by the time I got to the back to take out the groceries there were no less than a dozen of those little bastards swarming the back tailgate. Alex got two bites just being carried to the house from the car. It's like a damn mosquito horror movie in our yard.

We are giving the mosquito-sucker-in-thingy another shot. It gives off carbon monoxide to trick the flying little jerks into thinking there is a human nearby ready to give blood. And then when they get close to the device...it sucks them in and traps them! And then we get to watch them flying around in the little trap/bucket thing until they die. I realize it is morbid, but they are mosquitoes. I have no sympathy/empathy/whateverathy for those little assholes. We were having some technical difficulties early in the summer and gave up for a bit. But it is so unbearable, we have no choice but to try try again.

As of this morning, there were about 15 of them trapped in there. I am not sure if the mosquito-sucker-in-thingy is actually working. It could very well be that with the sheer volume of them in the yard, that many are bound to fly close enough to get sucked in. I don't care why they are in there. I am just happy they are in there and can't stab me with their little blood sucker thingys.

Loathe. Loathe is the perfect word to describe my feelings on mosquitoes...just in case I haven't clearly driven that point home yet.