Wednesday, September 29

Recycled Magazine Coaster

Look what I made at naptime this morning!

 I have a stack of Entertainment Weekly Magazines just sitting in my bathroom, and I hate to throw them out, so this is the perfect solution!

I just followed This Easy tutorial  over at   How About Orange 





Incidentally, this is now one of my favorite sites on the internet.  Her DIY collection is incredible and makes me want to run to a craft store and blow hundreds of dollars on lovely supplies.

Alas, there is not enough time in the day or money in the bank to do as much as I would like to.  But these little beauties are both free and earth friendly (although slightly time consuming- this one took me about 40 minutes, but I bet the next one would be a little faster)


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Tuesday, September 28

I've been tagged!

  Lolo over at Crazy About my Baybah tagged me in to the game the other day.  Sorry it took so long to get on this, but I'm grateful to be included  :)

So she asked 8 questions, and then I have to come up with 8 questions of my own and pass it on to eight other bloggers.

Here are her questions:

1. If you had an evening alone, what would you do?
     Well, sometimes I have Friday night to myself after peanut goes to bed and I generally just veg out, pour myself some wine and watch some girly TV or a movie.  Mostly I just ignore the housework and try to do as little as humanly possible! Also there's usually some chocolate indulgence going on as well...


2. What is your favorite thing to do with your family?
    This is a hard one... my current favorite thing to do is walk into downtown Salem, grab something caffeinated and eat breakfast sandwiches at Red's.  Sooooo much cheesy goodness!  But I think my all time favorite thing to do is to snuggle into bed together on Saturday mornings.  It's really really rare that Emma will snuggle in with us, usually she's a little powerhouse of energy!  So I love it when she does!

3. Who is your hero and why?
       I never really know how to answer this one, but I really look up to other sleep-deprived mothers just doing the best they can every day by working their butts off for their kiddos.  (whether at home or at work)

4. What is your favorite style of music, singer, or group?
   I like pretty much everything, seriously.  Name a genre and I bet I listen to it! Although I am not a huge fan of metal, opera, or yodeling.  But some of my all time favorites are Ellis Paul, Jason Mraz, Norah Jones, Eisley, and Death Cab for Cutie.   I've been into more mellow music lately. Probably cause I'm so sleepy all the time! 
5. Where is the one place you always spend more money at then you planned?
    Target. It's like a tar-pit of awesomeness.  Also the Used BookStore (yes that's the name of it) and Christmas Tree Shop, oh and IKEA!

6. What is your favorite picture that you took?
    This is also a really hard one... favorite picture ever?? I'm going to wuss out and just say one of the 8 million pictures I've taken of Peanut where she's making funny faces.

7. What is your favorite hobby (other than blogging)?
    Couponing lately.  So addictive!  I treat it like a game.  I get a little adrenaline high when I walk out of a store without paying full price for anything.  I saved over $20 in coupons on my last grocery shopping trip (not that I'm bragging or anything)

8. How has your life changed in the last 10 years?
   Well, let's see... ten years ago I was 14! So I was in high school worrying about algebra and cute boys.  So I've grown a few inches, gained a few pounds, graudated high school, graduated college, got married, got knocked up, had a baby, became a stay-at-home mom and now I can drink alcohol! That about sums it up I guess. Whew!

So here are my eight questions:

1.  When do you do your blogging? Naptime?  After bed?
2. What is your all-time favorite dessert? Feel free to share a recipe if it's fatty and delicious!
3.  What is the most annoying thing your husband/sig other does?
4.  What are you most proud of ?
5. When I say comfort food what comes to mind?
6.  What is your favorite holiday?
7.  If you could have a super hero power, what would it be?
8. How would you spend a million dollars?

And here are the eight bloggers I'd like to hear from! Although, even if you're not listed feel free to join in!
3 crazy munchkins
Twice
Punk Rock Mama
Confessions of a Semi-Salcker Mom
Render Me Mama
Lost in the Blue Light
little t and me
Surviving Little People

Whew! That was kind of a lot of work, but fun :)


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Monday, September 27

A little catch up

So I have been seriously slacking these past few weeks, but I'm going to do better this week I promise! Besides, it's supposed to be rainy and generally crappy all week anyways, so we'll be stuck indoors for the most part. 

Although, this morning we did go for a nice long walk in the rain just to get out of the house. And we may or may not have stopped at the playground and gotten nice and soaking wet.  Emma simply could not understand why I didn't want to sit on the slide with her... silly peanut.  I really wish I had brought the camera with me, but it was raining, and I'm afraid of ruining it. 

But enough blabbering, my good friend Lauren over at : 3 Crazy Munchkins was nice enough to give me a blog award last week.  I didn't ignore it I promise Lauren!!!  

 
  Now I am supposed to pass it on to 15 new blogs, but I've only got a few minutes here, and I can already hear peanut rustling around in her bed.  I'm sure she will start to call "mama, up mama"! soon.
    Did I mention that this was her first week sleeping in her "big girl" bed?? So proud!
So I'm going to be bad blogger, and just accept the award graciously.  Everyone should go check out Lauren's blog though, it's pretty spectacular! 

 
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Wednesday, September 22

Need another vacation!

So Sorry I've been a bit MIA lately.... it's been a bit of a crazy week around here. (and not in the good way)

Peanut has been teething which means waking up frequently at nighttime and lots of tantrum throwing during the day!  This has put mommy and daddy a bit on edge, which makes us one big cranky family.  Also we had to throw over $500 dollars at our car after it failed inspection. (suck) Add to this various other small things (and one  disappointment that I can't talk about on here) and it's just been a stupidly long, emotional week.

We've also been taking lots and lots of walks in an effort to tire Emma out so that we can all get a good nights sleep!  It hasn't really worked, but it's probably good for us anyways... we could both lose a few pounds.

And on top of all that I decided that since Peanut learned how to climb out of her crib it was probably time to switch her over to her toddler bed.  Night one could have gone better.... she may or may not have fallen out of the bed sometime around 3 am, and I may or may not have slept only 2 consecutive hours...

If you want to see her new bedding, we picked up at Target today, click here (I kind of love it!)

Simply put, I've been a bit too drained of energy to do any sort of real blogging.  I apologize.

So in lieu of any real blogging, I will leave you with some more vacation photos.  I miss it so much already!!!














Oh man, that last one makes me want to go back and live there.  Who's with me?




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Wednesday, September 15

Super Simple Toddler Activity

So I wanted to share a delightfully simple activity Emma and I did together yesterday morning.  She has been very interested in colors lately, and can name all the basic ones.  And sometimes she even matches the correct name with the correct color! For example, she calls one pair of her shoes "the pink shoes". 
    Since she is so interested, I thought I should come up with a project to explore the concept a bit further.  I wanted it to be both a learning experience and a fun game! I figured I'd share what I came up with:

I first cut pom-poms in half and glued them on to the bottom of an egg carton
(I used hot glue, but you could probably use other kinds of glue)
And that's pretty much it, then you just take a couple pom poms of each color
 and place them in the coordinating colored cup


It's surprising how big a hit something this simple can be!

Emma spent 30 minutes (eternity in toddler time)  taking these balls out and putting them back in
It took her a few minutes to figure out the concept but once she did, she was pretty excited! And I was impressed with her super amazing color-sorting skills.

Enjoy!


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Tuesday, September 14

All I wanted was one good picture!

So we were at this beautiful series of little waterfalls, gorgeous really.
See?





And everything was going well, until .... mommy decided that she would like to have a picture of the peanut and herself (just to prove that she really does go on these outings, and it's not just daddy and Emma)


Ok, ok so that didn't go very well, let's try again.  Look at daddy Emma!



How did that one look?  Not good? Are you sure?
Cause I felt like it went well...


Ok, so maybe this isn't happening right now....



But we're in this beautiful place, and I apparently like punishment, so we'll try just ONE MORE! I think it had potential...


Ok, so we'll try it like this.  I'll get down at her level, give her a rock (that's what she was screaming about) and she'll look at the camera in adoration and gratitude!



There we go!  Now what the heck is wrong with my face?  Seriously?  The one picture she's smiling in, I look like this....




            And I think it's time to call it a day... That one's great hunny, really!

At least she'll know I was there right??
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Saturday, September 11

Trying out a new blog hop this weekend.  Come join me!



 
And welcome to any new friends!  You can learn about our family in my About Me tab, or just feel free to browse around, just make sure you leave me a comment so I know where to find you!



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Friday, September 10

We're back!

Well, we're back after 4 nights and five days away! And I've just gotten all the unpacking done.  Phew! Now I just have to face the enormous pile of laundry...  


And I'm delighted to announce that we had a wonderful time!  I will post more about it in the coming days, but for now I will just leave you with a brief synopsis.


Here's a list of things we did:
  •  Remick Country Doctor Museum (which I highly reccomend!)
  • The Lincoln Falls
  • The North Conway Children's Museum (possibly Emma's favorite stop of the trip)
  • The Mount Washington Discovery Weather Center
  • a cupcakery (sooo freakin good)
  • paddleboating
  • Ben and Jerrys
  • a lot of shopping
  • a few restaurants
and a whole lot of sitting in a hammock........ :)


And the best part is that we spent under $250 (including gas) for the whole week!!!


This picture is not from the vacation, but it was taken while mommy was packing up to go, and it is highly amusing!

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Friday, September 3

A poopy mystery

  So I have been dreading the moment when Emma figures out that she can reach into her diaper and pull out her poop. (Every mother's worst nightmare, right?)  Well, folks, today is that day! (Oh, goodie!) At least I think it was today.... I opened the bathroom door this morning to find a very stinky little peanut eagerly waiting for me to emerge. The first thing that hit me was the stink. The second thing was the fact that there was poop smeared all over her stomach and hands! Ahhhh! So I immediately place her in the bathtub and grab some wipes. After getting her belly and hands all cleaned up, I opened her diaper (expecting a huge mess) and found...NOTHING! Excuse me?

So my question to all of you is where did this poop come from???? 

Here are the facts:
  • I'm 98% sure it was poop (I don't know what else it would be)
  • It was her poop. I was in the bathroom, where the litter box is, so it wasn't Bellas
  • There was not even a smidgen of poop on her butt
  • The poop was found only on her stomach and hands
Here are my theories:
  • She pooped so explosively, that it somehow rocketed up on to her stomach!
    • This one is a little iffy because I think she would have to have been sitting down to make it work, also I'm pretty sure there would be poop smears
  • She was waiting for the poop to come out! She had her hand stuck down her diaper, and literally pooped into her own hands.  Then proceeded to smear it all over her stomach.
    • I think this is the most likely although she has never done anything like this in the past!.
Thoughts?  Comments?  Any poop theories of your own?

Also, although I made a thorough search of the house for more poop, I'm more than a little worried that I will be finding additional poop smears in the coming weeks.  This makes me really sad.

This may be my last post for a little while.  We are going on our first ever family vacation!! We will be in the White Mountains for the majority of next week, and taking a few little "daycations".   I'm really really excited about it!  So if I don't respond for a little while, don't take it personally.

And seriously....where the heck did the poop come from???? It's going to drive me crazy, I think I may need a nannycam.

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Thursday, September 2

test

Just testing out my new signature!
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I finally have a button!

A Funny Little Peanut




And here it is!! What do you think? It took me long enough to figure out how to do it! But I finally managed it with a little help from FotoFlexer and  this tutorial 
Feel free to grab it and use it :)  Just leave me a comment letting me know that you did.
Thanks!

Toddler Talk Thursday

 
 
First off, I was featured last week, hooray! And yes, I will definitely work on getting myself a cute little button. As I've said before, I am a bit technologically challenged!  But I've been wanting one.  I just need to find an hour or so without grubby little fingers "helping" mommy type, and demanding to watch online episodes of the "amnimals and baaa"  (shaun the sheep)    Thanks so much for spotlighting me, made my morning!!!
 
This week's topic is music, and unfortunately I don't have any cute videos or pictures of the peanut dancing.  I really wish I did, because it's super cute when she does it. Problem is she's notoriously camera shy when she's dancing.  I'm not sure why.  She might get it from me.  I may or may not have spent last night watching the CMA music fest and dancing around my living room while my husband watched a movie in the front room.  (If you really get into it, it totally counts as exercise!)
 
But there is almost always music going in our little apartment.  Most of the time, I just make her listen to my music because I'm selfish that way.  Also, she doesn't care about the words so much yet, unless there's a really catchy repetitive chorus.  (like a lalala kind of thing, then she will sing along)  Some of her favorites include:
Eisley
All American Rejects
Rascal Flats
Postal Service
and Guster
 

I do happen to have a husband who is very musically talented, and comes from a musically talented family.  He plays guitar, violin and the drums (if pressed).  Sometimes he will pick up the guitar and sing for us a little on Sunday mornings, and Emma likes to "help" daddy play the guitar by plucking at strings while he plays.  I really hope she gets his musical genes because despite my name (Melody) I don't have a musical gene in my body (or family tree-sorry guys!)

Below is a picture of her clearly enjoying some guitar time with her "bappa" my FIL

 


She has also been "singing" to herself a lot lately (which is beyond adorable!) I catch her doing it a lot when she is laying in bed.  She sings herself to sleep at night, and if she has had a good night's sleep, she'll sing to herself in the morning before I go in to get her up.

If you'd like to join us (and I'd reccomend it!) you can head on over to Crazy about my baybah,  Family and Life in Las Vegas or The Life of a Sippy Cup Mom
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