Romantic SASS

You know your perception of romance is forever changed when "I love you" is replaced by those three magical words that never fail to make your heart go pitter patter:

"Call the babysitter."

Another Week Gone... Part Two

Did you miss Part One? Check it out here. After we got home from Papa and DeeDee's, we got a visit from Auntie Bonnie (no pictures), visited with our friends Olivia and Laura (no pictures) and Mark went in the pool for the first time (no pictures and he hated it). After all that, you'd think there would be no pictures.

You'd be wrong.

As usual, there were plenty of shenanigans going on at the Sunshine spread:

I have no idea how he does this to his hair.
I think there is blueberry yogurt involved though.

I'm also afraid it may be hereditary.
(This is Grace at 13 months.)

Grace found a hole in the front window screen. And utilized it as entertainment:

Overheard: "Uh Oh! Green circle!"
Note: It's not an uh-oh when you do it on purpose.

Mark and Grace both enjoyed watching Daddy mow the lawn so they could go outside and play... in the dirt (of course!):

Hi Daddy!

Someday I'm gonna use that machine!!!

I sort of glossed over our many visitors, but that is what truly made our week so fun. My cousin Bonnie was a huge encouragement to me. She's almost done raising her son and daughter, so she had lots of insight (and sympathy!) for me. She also made me feel like I was doing a good job. I almost felt that I was doing a good enough job I could handle having one or two more kids. (Calm down grandma; Robert wasn't there for the pep talk.)

Our visit with our little friend Olivia started at the library storytime, where Mark displayed none of the shyness that Grace had during her first visit. In fact, when the music was turned on at the end, he happily spun round and round right in the center of the room! When we later put him in the kiddie pool in Olivia's backyard, he immediately burst into tears and darted for dry land. Guess we'll stick to the bathtub awhile longer.

I hope you had a good week with your friends and family too. Sometimes you've just got to let the housework go, and concentrate on what matters - good friends, family, and um, stickers:

Stick with me kid, and we'll have lots of fun!

Another Week Gone... Part One

This was a good week. A good week!!! This might be the first time I've ever written those words on my weekly post... hmmm. I should probably work on that. I have about thirty pictures to share, and that's just the first half of the week (now you know why this is late) so we'd better get to it.

Since the weather has finally decided that summer has arrived, we played outside. We have a nice backyard with a large grassy area. My kids did this:

Look mom! Dirt Pie!

Look mom! Dirt!
(Just dirt. He isn't cooking quite yet.)

Mark got dirt everywhere. I had a hard time getting it out of his ears during bathtime. I think he thought there was a contest.

I'm so good at this! I'm going to win the prize!!

No prize?!? Fine then. I'll just take my
talents elsewhere. Like DeeDee's house.

And that's exactly what we did. On Monday, we packed up and headed over the river and through the woods to Grandma DeeDee and Papa's house. They live on a couple of acres with lots of animals and large expanses of grass. My kids did this:

Look mom! Dirt!
(LARGE expanses of grass... ACRES of grass...
my kid finds the one mole hill.)

There was no prize for this display either.
He really does have a talent for it though...

We did lots of other things at Disneyland DeeDee and Papa's. Grace helped DeeDee make dessert:

If Grace gets any closer, we're going to have
to rescue her from the bottom of the bowl.

It's hard to see, but there is a little pink tongue
sticking out of that little red head.

The best part was when Gracie finally got a taste from the spoon. It was a lemon dessert. I wish I had a picture of that to show you! Ha! Surprisingly, after one small taste, Grace decided she'd had enough. Momma liked the dessert though!

We also did lots of fun stuff outdoors:

We said hi to the horsies...

and to the kitties...

Hi Maow!

We jumped in the water...

Well, some of us jumped.

Papa and DeeDee have all manner of wheeled transportation to choose from. Mark and Grace tried them ALL:

Grace has a lead foot like Grandma DeeDee. Here she's
actually standing on the pedal to make the car go fast!

Here she is practicing for future vehicle encounters.
 "I was going that fast officer? Goodness, I had no idea!"

Mark did his best to keep up:

Momma, you're not going to tell anyone I rode a pink bike
in just my diaper are you? Good. No one will ever know...

See Grace? This is a machine with REAL power.
You just have a little pink bike.

Uh, ignore the fact that someone is
pulling the machine with all the power.
 I'm still cool. ('Cause I'm only in a diaper!)

 The next morning, Grace and Momma watched t.v. together:

Good mornin' mommy!
(Yes sweetie, it IS a good morning!)

Later, Grace found another comfy spot to veg:

I'm afraid she may have inherited my
laundry skills...

Folks, we're this far in and I haven't even gotten to Wednesday yet! So, I will leave you with two pictures of the most adorable children I've ever given birth to, and leave Part Two of this week for tomorrow... double the fun!

A Post Dated Post*

Dear Mommy,

Thank you so much for taking care of me this weekend when I was feeling sick. I have heard it said that boys can be big babies when they don't feel well, so I did my best to live up to all expectations. You did a great job of holding me constantly, and if you ever need  a recommendation for best person to pull an all-nighter with, you've got it.

I especially appreciated the fact that you kept constantly moving so that I could sleep. Next time, you should sleep too - I don't understand why the constant rocking and pacing didn't put you right to sleep. If you'd just kept moving while you were sleeping, we both would have had a much better night.

I also appreciate that despite only having three hours' of sleep, you still allowed me to have fun the next morning. Standing at the light switch for ten minutes was a blast. You flip it up, I push it down. Oh, and the light turns on and off too! How exciting is that? I can't believe we don't do this more often. Especially since it keeps my interest enough to keep me from crying. That's always a good thing.

Also, letting me have the spoon at breakfast? That made me happy too. I suppose you were just too tired to fight the constant battle for the spoon any longer. Sorry about the bright purple blueberry spot on the floor. I had no idea what a great arm I had for flinging that stuff around!

Thanks for all the kisses and cuddles, the constant checking on me and the personalized attention. I had a great time. I can't wait until next time I'm sick, so we can do this all over again!

Love,
Mark

*Confessions of a blogging mom: I tend to write multiple posts at a time when the muse strikes, and then leave them in draft form so I can pull out a quick post when time (or creative energy) is running low. Mark is not actually sick this week (thank heavens!). This letter was written in February, but when I ran across it today... it still seemed timely. I hope you enjoyed it.

Another Week Gone...

I can't believe it's June already. The year is half over. It's not just me either. Living in California, we're usually quite well into the swing of summer by now. This year, the weather has only just caught on - we started the week with cold and rainy weather. Thankfully, the sunshine and temps in the 80's have found their way to the Sunshine SAHM household. Momma was goin' a bit stir crazy. Now she's just crazy.

Unlike last week, I actually took pictures this week! Yay! Mark got a new couch for his birthday (yes, his birthday was two months ago, but we just got around to spending some of the birthday money Grandma Dee Dee had given him):

Yeah, sure, the couch is great.
Where's the remote??

The Toy Story couch also came with 3-D glasses:

Dude, it's even groovier if you put your glasses on
while flashing the peace sign...

Um, sweetie? I don't think they're meant to be
worn quite that tight...

Grace LOVED the glasses, and was very disappointed (read: cried profusely) when we wouldn't let her sleep with them that night. Seeing the picture of her below reminded me of another photo I'd seen of a little redhead in glasses:

I'm not sure what this look is, but to
me - it's priceless.

This is ME - not daddy. I did indeed have red hair that
grew at about the pace that Mark's is growing... which is
to say, barely at all. I'm about Gracie's age in this photo.

Mark wasn't the only one who got something new. Grace got new shoes! She was very excited, as you can see:

Jumping up and down - in her ONE
shoe. She put it on when she woke up and
wore just one shoe for about half the morning.

Grace has begun to have opinions about what she wears, and likes to pick out different things for herself now. I generally let her, as I have no fashion sense whatsoever and couldn't care less if her outfits actually match. I figure if she likes what she's wearing and it covers all the important parts, that's good enough for me.

Imagine my surprise when I asked her to go get her socks on, and she returned with her socks and (ahem) HAT! I burst out laughing. She not only insisted on wearing her "hat" as we left the house, I forgot to tell her to take it off before going through the drive thru at the bank! The teller gave her a lollipop anyway. All I got was a funny look.

Grace with her socks and hat. Or last years'
bathing suit.  You decide.

Wednesday we had friends over to play. The boys showed Mark and Grace how play soccer, and Grace was thrilled that someone could actually play on the swing set with her, instead of just standing near it like mommy does.

Touchdown! Oh wait, it's the other kind of football.

Don't worry, no children were harmed
in the making of this blog post.

Grace loved playing with the "big" boys, and it opened my eyes to what life may be like in the future. Growing up, it was just my sister and I, so the conversations that Zach and Daniel had were quite entertaining to me and Gracie:

Zach created a "pet parasite", and used the word "destruction"
about ten times while he and Daniel perfected the "awesome
special powers" the parasite had for defeating enemies.
Grace is just astounded.

While my kids were napping, Zach showed Daniel "The
most awesome place in the UNIVERSE to sit."

The boys used the words death, dying, blood, destruction, awesome, universe, "ever" and "best", parasite, snake, and other boy words we rarely hear around here. They are great kids, and every time they came up with a description I was laughing. (Daniel was so hungry he was practically dying... and Zach was continually showing the kids the "best" and "coolest" stuff "ever".) We had a blast.

I hope you had a great week in your household, and that the sunshine came to visit you too. Hooray for summer! Oh, that reminds me. When the sun comes out, so do my freckles. En masse. So, it is a bit embarrassing to admit that I spent about twice as long as I should have cleaning the grape jelly off Grace's face this morning. What do those two things have in common? Well, the tiny spot of jelly on her nose wouldn't wipe off - I finally realized it was a freckle. Hee.

Yep, that tiny little dot is indeed a freckle...
the first of many, I'm sure!

Another Week Gone...

Okay, so this blog is three days late. Do you want to know why? (Well, if you're still reading, of course you do!) I have a major mommy confession to make.

I took NO pictures of the kids this week. None. Nada. Zero. Zip. For most moms, that's par for the course. For me, it's practically child neglect. So, since I had very little material to give you... I didn't.

However, I did have some exciting stuff happen in my little blogger life, so I'll tell you all about that instead. How's that sound? (Not as good huh? Well, it's all I've got. As I tell the kids "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit.")

Moving on.

Monday's post about my Quantum Toddler was my 100th post!!!

Wow! 100 totally random and barely decipherable ravings! You're welcome.

Seriously, I am pretty excited about the whole thing. Despite my lackluster performance with keeping to a schedule lately, I've seen my readership grow, and I've been getting all kinds of nice feedback from you wonderful people, so it's pretty fun to reach a milestone like that.

Speaking of feedback, I also changed my comment system (yet again) because we couldn't seem to fix the old one. Now we're back to the regular Blogger system and guess what?!? Within 24 hours of moving back - I got my first spammer comment!! Yay!
(I told you this was an exciting blogger week for me.) Yeppers, somebody made a comment about how I had such a nice blog that they bookmarked it. And then they posted a link to a site selling cell phones. Woot! From what I hear, hate mail is the next big step in my blogger life. I can hardly wait.

Lastly, I received another blogger award! Now, I know I told you last year that I was giving up the whole competitive blogger world, and just settling in my own little corner. This is still true. However, when someone is nice enough to find me in this corner, and they don't imply that I'm here because I've misbehaved and "need to think about what I've done", then I like to say thanks. So here goes:

A big thank you to Bert over at First Time Mom (FTM) for sending the Verstatile Blogger award my way! As usual, there are some requirements that go with accepting this honor. You are supposed to share 7 things about yourself, and then pass the award on to 15 other newly discovered bloggers.

Well, if you haven't noticed, I barely have time to keep up my own blog, much less "discover" fifteen others. So you're looking at a mama with no new blogger friends. I do follow some pretty great blogs though, so please see the "Stuff I Like To Read" column to the right if you're looking for some great reading.

I am capable of sharing seven things about myself though, and I'll try to make them remotely interesting - or at least something you may not have known about me. Hopefully these revelations won't keep you from ever visiting Sunshine SAHM again.

1) I hate being called Jenny. Jennifer or Jen is just fine, but only my cousin Andy and my Aunt Peggy are allowed to call me Jenny. And, oddly enough, if Andy or Aunt Peggy were to call me anything else, I'd feel hurt. I guess the seven year old in me still needs a little encouragement every now and then.

2) I read CNBC daily (yes, even Saturday and Sunday, pointless as it is). I follow the financial markets pretty closely. Just this week, I was on the phone with our financial guy discussing the downturn in the market while changing a poopy diaper.

Yeah, wouldn't you love to drop that into a discussion when telling people you're a SAHM? "Yes, I stay at home with my kids - but I'm not an idiot! I can discuss the finer points of market downturns and dollar deleveraging while wiping rear ends. Now wipe that smirk off your face before I re-allocate your portfolio." Yeah - that would be fun.

3) I'm an INTJ. If you don't know what that means, find out what you are here. Then Google it. A Google search on my personality dug up this. I must confess, the Guide to Dealing with INTJ's at that link is absolutely right on - and I hope you don't hate me now after reading that list. If you do, please see number eleven. (Please note: Also see number eight, as most of the list is dripping in that.)

4) Wow. I thought I had seven items... I'm running low here. Oh - my daughter brushed my teeth tonight. Using her toothbrush. Betcha didn't know that about me.

5) I love the phrase "I would know myself better if there weren't so many of me." Contradiction seems to permeate my life. How can you love your kids so much, yet run around the house whooping and yelling when Grandma Dee Dee says she's going to take them to her house overnight? How can you be a conservative Republican and yet feel your Christian values align more with liberal Democrats in helping the poor? How can you hate laundry so much, and yet still wear clothes every day? Contradictions: My Way Of Life.

6) If I could do anything (career-wise) I'd be a SAHM. I'd want a cook, maid and gardener of course, but I'd still be a SAHM. Oh, and if there is such a thing as a Professional Potty Trainer, I'd want one of them too.

7) I love that all of you take the time to read my blog. I really do. There is something satisfying in presenting the world with ideas and words, and then getting positive feedback from others. So, thanks. I appreciate you all very, very much.

Well, I guess that's it for this week! Thanks for making it all the way to the end with no pictures - my kids would have given up long ago. Until next week...