WFMW - My favorite kitchen things...

Two little gadgets I couldn't live without right now are the teething feeder and the Pampered Chef steamer. The teether is perfect for my 9 month old who is gnawing on anything he can get his little hands on. The plastic ring and mesh bag unscrew and you can put in fresh fruit or veggies and let them chew away (with supervision of course). I like being able to give Monkey something besides plastic teethers and processed baby food. They do do just fine in the dishwasher and I got two for about $4. The Pampered Chef steamer is my go to gadget for veggies, fresh or frozen. You can toss the veggies in with some salt and pepper, cook for about 5 minutes and you are good to go. It is also great for reheating leftover hamburgers, barbecue etc. It retains the moisture when it's warming it up and you'd never guess it was leftovers. It was $10 and well worth the money for me :).
These little gadgets worked for me, check out other great stuff at Works For Me Wednesday at Rocks In My Dryer!

Some drama and bad dancing...

The festivities of the 4th of July holiday and my slightly wacky work schedule lately has prevented me from being a good little blogger...well, that and sometimes I sit here and stare at my screen and think "How can I make the fact that all I accomplished today was vacuuming, making dinner, and fooding Monkey with 75% accuracy interesting??" Sensing that our life was a little low on drama, Monkey woke me up with a loud scream at about 3 a.m. last night. The next 9 hours were full of very little sleeping, some snuggling, LOTS of crying, and more bodily fluids than I care to talk about. So at noon we packed up and headed to the Urgent Care and learned he had two issues: a viral flu bug and constipation (which, to keep it G-rated, I would have sworn was impossible given what I had seen the night before). So one X-ray and minimally invasive procedure later, I was heading home with a much happier, still feverish Monkey. It made me realize how spoiled I am with a happy baby, I didn't get my first smile of the day until this afternoon and by then I really needed it :).

Todays new slang term is "time suck," which is used to describe sites that you sit and read or play when you know you should be sleeping, using the restroom, doing something MUCH more constructive, etc. My current time suck is iTunes. Inspired by "Top 100 hits of the 90's" on VH1, I found a few songs I had forgotten about to download (just try to sit still while listening to "Groove Is In The Heart" By Dee Lite!). I keep my iShuffle plugged into speakers in the kitchen and had a big realization yesterday: I have to enjoy this small window of time when Monkey actually enjoys my singing and laughs at my dancing, because soon he will embarrassed by both :).

Hope your week is drama free and full of sweet dance moves!

Tag, you're it!

Just some fun....

10 Years Ago:
I was a freshman in college, having a blast as a student athletic trainer, living in the dorms, and enjoying typical rowdy college behavior. Sure, people bash on the whole JuCo thing, but I can honestly say that those were two of the funnest years of my life :).

Things on my to do list today:
-Pack for our trip this weekend!
-Mop the floor, it's been the victim of flying baby food
-Study for my CPN (Certified Pediatric Nurse) exam while Monkey is napping
-Get a picture of the day for our picture blog
-Run to the store

If I suddenly became a billionaire:
Pay off student loans for us and our siblings, send our parents on vacation, take another cruise, build a new house, and make big donation to Children's Mercy (Hrmm...Bryan Tower has a nice ring to it!). I'd also like to start scholarships in honor of a few friends and family.

Three of my bad habits:
1. Biting my nails when I'm nervous
2. Being slow to call/e-mail people back
3. Speeding...not all the time, mainly on my way to work without Monkey in the car :)

Five jobs I have had:
Town East Square/Castelton Square Customer Service Desk
Bank Teller
Flint Hills Lanes Snack Shack Goddess
Nursing home CNA (Nurse's Aide)
Pediatric RN, Relief Charge Nurse

Five things people don't know about me:
1. I'm a little OCD about certain things, I will check my curling iron 4 times before I leave the house, I have to have towels folded a certain way, etc.
2. I like most kinds of music but I am sucker for oldies (1950-1960's)
3. If I had the chance to move anywhere in the world, I would probably still stay in the Midwest
4. I'm scared of heights
5. I'm bound and determined to see all 50 states

You've been tagged!

I need to be watered...

Monkey and I headed to our local pool today and I realized that the days of a pool with just a diving board are becoming a thing of the past. When I was little, we'd beg my my mom to drive us to the neighboring town 20 minutes away because they had an awesome waterslide. You stand there for 15 minutes, inching your way up the flaming hot metal staircase just for that 30 second ride, and then climb the ladder and get back in line again, The pool we went to today had at least 5 slides, a lazy river, a big tower that doused you with buckets of water...basically what you'd only see if you went to a water park back in my day. Since I am a total water loving fish, I was in heaven. Of course, Monkey and I were relegated to the kiddy pool, which with it's synchronized fountains was definitely not boring. But I have decided that some people take yearly trips to Vegas or go skiing in Colorado, but my ideal yearly vacation spot would definitely be more of the sun, sand, and surf persuasion. Give me lots of sunscreen, a boogie board, a shady place to rest when I need a break and I am in heaven. So for a brief moment today, I imagined I was on a beach somewhere, soaking in the sun, and the roar of the pool crowd was replaced by crashing waves. If I can't be on the beach, our pool will suffice, but I need to be watered (beach watered) next year :)!

Todays new word is...

Bagglers. Bagglers are the heap of French fries that wind up at the bottom of the bag when you get fast food. Similar to the etiquette of calling "shotgun" to get dibs on the front seat, the first person to call "Bagglers" gets the displaced fries at the bottom of the bag. And that, ladies and gentleman, is your fun fact of the day.

Wonderfully random misc.

I am currently singing along with "Build Me Up Buttercup" by The Foundations, feel free to sing along...

As I was fooding Monkey this weekend, his mouth full of carrots or prunes or another stain inducing puree, he paused and then had the biggest sneeze I have ever heard/seen come out of the little guy and instantly, the floor, the table, the baby, and I were covered in a fine mist of whatever Monkey was eating. I am tempted to write in to Resolve carpet cleaner and let them know that I think this is a much more realistic situation for their next commercial, plus it is a lot more realistic than their commercials with a mother who yells from the kitchen "That's okay!" when her child spills grape juice on the pristine white carpet (she may have said "That's okay," but you know she was thinking "can't I have anything nice?"). I didn't figure they would go for my other suggestion, which occurred when I approached our Christmas tree with a glass of wine only to see our cat project himself out of the middle of the tree. My wine glass got tossed in the air in the chaos and as the Hubs was helping me clean up the carpet, he wasn't saying "that's okay." He did show his forgiveness by getting me a new glass of wine...in a cup with a lid and straw :).

We had a great weekend, our friends Joel and Angela came to visit and had never been to Legends, one of our favorite places in KC, so we got to give them the tour. We did some shopping, got some wine, had a great dinner, and played arcade games at Dave & Busters. The Hubs was happy to have someone who enjoyed playing games that involve killing space aliens and flying virtual helicopters and I had someone who'd play the less violent, skillful games like Skeeball with me. Monkey had so much to watch and see, which kept him entertained, plus he got his first taste of ice cream. Monkey had his 9 month well child check today and I set up his appt for his 1 year appointment and that hit me like a ton of bricks. Has it really been 9 months? I know I have enjoyed each day, but it is amazing how fast they have come and gone. Monkey is so close to crawling, has just sprouted his first tooth with a second one getting ready to cut through, and on Thursday he said "Mama," well, more like mamamamamamamamama, but I will take it :). Thanks for peeking in on us, have a great week!

I am the luckiest...

Six years ago in March, my friend told me would really like to fix me up on a blind date with her brother in law and after a few days of thinking it over (and a phone call to another friend of mine who was from the same tiny town as my "would be date" who assured he me he was "exactly your type,"), I said I would. Five years ago in May, my blind date turned boyfriend took me to the centerpiece of the KC Plaza, the J.C. Nichols fountain, and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him, and I said I will. Four years ago today, doors opened up and I heard the Trumpet Voluntary and saw almost everyone I treasured in my life in the same place at the same time. And then I saw that wonderful man from my blind date at the end of the aisle...and I said I do. I won't bore you with sentimentality, but I have to say that from our first date and phone call (and the 7 hour marathons that followed), I was in awe of two things: 1) The Hubs simply fascinated me. I loved the 20 different paths our conversations would take and how he was a bottomless wealth of useless information. 2) Prior to The Hubs, I always felt self conscious of certain personality traits I felt I need to play up or play down about myself. With him, I was just myself...wonderfully, comfortably, not always glamorously myself. And he loved me that way. I remember thinking, "How do I know if he's the one?" and one day it hit me as I was driving to see him: No matter what happens in my life, good or bad, he is the one I want by my side. And as we danced to our first song as husband and wife, these were the lyrics that played and remain forever in my memory of my Hubs and that wonderful day:

"Where was I before the day, when I first saw your lovely face?
Now I see it every day, and I know that I am the luckiest."