My quirky silly kids:

First, I give Jonathan the option to watch cartoons or Cash Cab ---"Cash Cab Cash Cab!" In case you dont know, its a gameshow on the discovery channel where people who get in a cab are asked trivia questions until they get to their destination. My 3-year-old is fascinated by this show...go figure!

















Next, my darling little lady has discovered a new method of eating her Lucky Charms - the puppy dog method. I guess that way she doesnt get her hands messy!





























Here is the monkey method of eating:



















I have started giving the kids baths together and they both just love it. If I start to give Jonathan one alone he says, "Gracie wants a bath."







































































Here is Gracie standing up, something she does ALL THE TIME now! She just got back from her 9 month checkup - so you can see her band-aids from her shots. She didn't cry a bit when they gave them to her! She is so tough - probably used to the pain that her brother inflicts on her!






















Here she is showcasing her brand new teeth!



















And here she is showcasing her huge diaper - this is her model pose!



















And to finish this up, a nice heartwarming picture of Jonathan reading a story to Gracie...actually, I posed this picture and Gracie got down as soon as I was done...

Another skinny-mirror? Or is it?

So I had another run-in with a skinny mirror - at the Reebok store. So Im trying on shorts to wear at the gym, which by the way is a big step for me because for the most part I havent worn shorts in public in like 10 years, and I look AMAZING in these shorts. Wow! Im thinking my workouts have really paid off - then it hits me...of course, this is a skinny mirror! I looked behind the mirror because i read up on these things and apparently if they tilt the mirrors ever so slightly you look thinner. Sure enough, the mirror was closer to the wall in the middle than on the top and bottom - only about 1/4 of an inch. 1/4 of an inch shouldnt matter that much, right. No, Im thinking, I cant look this good. I bought the shorts anyway. When I got home i tried them on and got in front of my fat mirror. Suprisingly, I didnt look that bad. Actually I still looked kind of good, but not as good as in the store. I looked behind my mirror. The top and bottom were actually closer to the wall than the middle because of the way that it is fastened to the wall - the opposite of the skinny mirror...so it really is a FAT mirror!
So....what is my conclusion? If I looked awesome in the skinny mirror and not too bad in the fat mirror then Im somewhere in between...do I acutally look pretty good??
My hard work and dedication to my gym class and nightly mini-workouts is paying off!! Hooray!
I do however still want to look the way I looked in the skinny mirror...now if only they can make a mirror that gets rid of cellulite! (actually that is starting to disappear too!)

Kids at the park

We had an unexpectedly wet day at the park today, but it was a lot of fun and wore the kids out! Gracie got a little cold, I think, so that's why she is crying - I just love her crying face - it's soooo cute!
And...today at the park Gracie was so excited to see the water. I stood her up and let go of her. She stood by herself and clapped at the same time! It was awesome. I wanted so badly to get a picture, but it didnt work out. Then at home when Daddy gave her an animal cracker she said "cookie" - no mistaking it...she said it three times. By the way, she also says "clap clap clap" when she claps! She is such a smart baby!

Yea! Another Bikini Carwash!

Chuck says I'm starting to sound like a grouchy old fuddy-duddy, but he does agree with me on this one:

Moms...would you encourage your fifteen year old daughter to put on her sexiest underwear and go stand on the street corner asking for money so she could get out of town??

Every weekend as we have driven out from our house there are 90% naked fifteen-year-old girls standing at the corner of a busy intersection. No, we do not live in Germany's red light district - we live in America's heartland. It's called the bikini carwash - made popular by some 80's movies I think. Well, they are taking over our town. Every weekend we drive by and see two or three of them holding up signs and wiggling around with big smiles on their faces...gross!!

What moms allow this?...so they're sitting in a booster club meeting, "Hmmm, how can we raise money to go to cheerleading nationals this year...I know, lets dress our daughters real slutty and have them waive posters around at cars until one stops to oogle over them washing it...sounds great! Go team!"

What kind of persons stops to have their car washed? I for one would never stop...that would just be weird, "Hey, I noticed your great tan and slim thighs, I just thought I would stop to ask you where you work out while you wash my car."

And what man stops without fearing that those who see him will take him as a pedafile? Seriously, some of these girls look like they're twelve! "Hey girls, I noticed your nice big breas..I mean, signs...they're very, um...attractive, you look so strong, I bet you could do a nice job waxing my...car." Really, 20/20 could probably catch half of their internet predators here instead of having to coax them to houses.

Parents...please stop prostituting your girls out for school functions!!! If you want to put them on street corners make sure they are fully clothed and give them boxes of liquorish or squeegees!

Pictures of the kids

7:30 AM, really?

Now a show of my true colors...what a terrible person I am for even thinking this way...but I dont think many people read my blog anyway and those who do might forgive me.

This morning on my way to work I had to stop at the grocery store to buy some frozen dinners to put in the freezer at my office for the next week - getting to the grocery store with two little ones is rough, so its easiest to stop after I drop them off at daycare. I went into the store this morning and in the middle of the front aisle that leads to all the other aisles was a lady in one of those scooter things. An employee seemed to be helping her transfer the items from a regular cart to this one. They were side by side and blocking the whole aisle! So instead of asking the poor disabled lady to move I walked around to the back of the store to get to the frozen foods aisle. After I got my things (like 5 minutes) I went to check out in the only lane they have open at 7:30 AM, and there she was, having someone help her put her things on the conveyor belt. Now, why she needed to transfer her items from a regular cart to this one just to go checkout - I dont know! Well, now she was taking her time getting her things on the belt, talking to the cashier, and the lady behind her, and then trying to find her money or whatever she used to pay...etc, etc. It must have been 10 minutes I waited in line - long enough to read the covers of all of the magazines (by the way, Enquirer says that George and Laura Bush are splitting up and People has Brangelina's twins pics). Ten minutes later for me to get to work means ten minutes later I get out of work to pick up my kids.
Now, I know its picky and mean, but why did this lady need to be in the grocery store at 7:30 AM? If she is disabled, why can't she wait till later in the day when the rest of the people who have nowhere to be are in the grocery store? If you have ever been in the grocery store at 7:30 AM, you know it is mostly people who are on their way to work - we have somewhere to be and typically 3 or 4 things to buy - that's why there is only one lane open!
This is the point that I decide to stop ragging on disabled people because I realize that doing so will come back to haunt me and one day I could be that disabled person who just NEEDS to get their shopping done at 7:30 AM! And maybe she thought it would be the best time because she wouldn't be there when the crowd was...but it was just frustrating at the time.
I know it sounds like I have been upset about this all day, but really, it only bothered me until about 8:00 AM, until I sat down to write on my blog tonight and couldn't think about anything to write!
BTW, am I too wordy?

A house for Rent...

We have decided to move - we are in a 3 story townhouse now and that just doesnt work with two small kids - not to mention we dont have a backyard really. So we are looking for a house to rent. Jonathan hears me calling people, "Hi, I'm calling about the house for rent." Then later we say that we are going to look for a house for rent. Well, Jonathan believes that we are looking for a house for Rent, that is, that Rent needs a house. I figured this out when we went to look at one with a realtor and as we were leaving he looked at her and said, "Bye, Rent." I tried to explain to her what he thought, but I think it just offended her. This morning during our Wednesday morning semi-ritual of going to the donut shop he saw a woman come into the shop and said, "Mommy, there's Rent." It wasnt the same lady, but looked a little like her, to a 3-year-old maybe. I tried to explain to him today that we were looking for a house for rent, not for Rent. "Rent is not a person, Jonathan."
"Mommy, Rent is a boy?"
"No, Rent is not a person. You know how we go to the store and buy things. Well, you can buy a house too. If you dont want to buy it you can sort of borrow it, that is called renting."
"Rent is a girl?"
I guess if I cant explain to him why he should poop in the potty, I should have realized that this was a lost cause...