Sudoku Nerd

OK so I will admit ages ago I tried to do a Sudoku puzzle and really I could have peed standing up easier than completing one of those ... and never gave it a second thought ...

Then the other day I finished the crossword puzzle in a magazine and there was a Sudoku puzzle and I thought I would give it a try ... and this time it just clicked ... the numbers all fell into place much easier and I finally "got it" ...

Well now I am hooked ... I added a Sudoku application to my google home page ... and a program to my phone so I can play anywhere ...

I have totally become a Sudoku nerd ... way behind the craze but a nerd none the less ...

Do What You Say

Last night my little Curly Top couldn't sleep ... she was content to stay in her room and read ... she sang a couple of new songs she made up (her new hobby - and some of them are so funny) ... she was being good in her tent but sleep just wasn't coming ...

I asked David if he would put a new pull-up on her since she had had 2 cups of juice and was still up ... to avoid pee on all her clean sheets ...

When he went in she asked if she could go use the potty ... well it doesn't matter what time of day it is we never say no ... afterwards I see her at the top of the stairs ... David said she wanted to come and give me a kiss ... another thing I will never say no to ...

She came down all happy ... I told her what a great job she did using the potty and we hugged and kissed ... then real quietly she kept saying "Iage ... Iage please mommy" ... took me a second and I said, "Oh are you asking if we can watch Ice Age?" ... "Yes mommy please." ...

I told her it was way too late to watch it now ... but that if she went up to bed right now and tried to go to sleep I would wake her up in the morning before I went to work and she could come get in mommy's bed with juice and apple cake (granola bar) and watch Ice Age ...

A big smile exploded across her face and she went upstairs right away ... got right into bed ... and laid down ... and I didn't hear anything coming from her room after that ...

So like I promised this morning I got juice and apple cake and put it in my room ... then went to get her ... before she even opened her eyes she said "Iage Iage mommy" ... once she got out of her tent she said, "Mommy time for Iage in mommy's bed" and I told her ... it is all set up and ready to go with juice and apple cake awaiting ...

She was just so happy crawling into my bed ... she kept saying "Thank you mommy thank you mommy" ...

Now normally when she gets into our bed in the morning David can sleep a little longer ... not the case when Ice Age 2 is on ... she cracks up ... and thinks all the animals are sooooo great and points them all out ... and thinks they are the funniest things ever ...

I got a big hug and kiss before I left for work this morning ... and left her with a huge smile on her face ... so happy I followed through on that promise even though she was still sound asleep when I was ready to leave today ...

26 Weeks

So I am feeling heavy ... not fat ... heavy ... and I think one can only understand that if they have been pregnant ... like there is pressure on my pelvis ... and I am walking slower ... and bending down to pick something up just pisses me off ... thank goodness at home Skye is there to help me ... and that she loves being a helper :)

I got a couple of comments today that it looks like I have popped again ... I do feel bigger ... I haven't been taking any photos ... I should be doing that ... and unlike with Skye it is just my stomach that is huge ... it is weird to catch my reflection sometimes ...

And this kid is still kickin and kickin hard ... at some moments it distracts me from what I am doing ... waiting for it to subside ...

Next week I have another sono and my glucose test ... fun stuff I tell ya ...

I do still struggle every day with the idea of doing this one more time ... and every day I have a different answer ... some days it is "yes we have to have another one" ... other days it is "can we really afford another one" but on the negative side it is never that we don't want one ... it is can we afford to do it ... I guess we just gotta wait for this little guy and then we will know ... but I will say the conversations in my head about it all are a bit reminiscent of this annoying woman that was on my old message board ... she had this debate for ever and talked about it with everyone so I don't talk about it with anyone but David ... anyone who knows the woman I am speaking of has just giggled a little reading this ...

Wash and Dry

On the last day of 2008 we got a new washer and dryer ... I was waiting until I used them to write about them ... my oh my are they a HUGE difference from what we had ...

They are front loading machines and amazing ...

See our previous washer was just a couple of years old ... we had to buy one soon after moving in because ours broke ... we didn't have much to spend and couldn't get the biggest top loader available ... big mistake because I would over-stuff it ... but it cleaned the clothes anyway and I didn't really have a problem with that ...

Our dryer on the other hand was manufactured the year I graduated high school ... and we just had our 20 year reunion ... the only setting on the machine was a timer ... no heat settings no nothing ... when we first started using it we had to set the timer for 80 minutes ... that is a long time to dry clothes ... and a long time to use electricity ... especially with how many loads I need to do to get all of our clothes clean ...

In the recent past ... maybe the last month we had to do two 80 minute cycles for each load ... multiply that by 5 or 6 loads and that is an awful lot of electricity and time to get our clothes clean ...

I did laundry this weekend ... 45 minutes and everything was bone dry ... also the size of the new machines I got everything finished in 3 loads ... it was AMAZING ... I can't even believe it ... what an energy and time saver ... it made me a bit more excited about doing laundry and it sure does give me more time to hang out with my family without thinking about when to go down for the next cycle ...

Once it gets moved upstairs when the bathroom is turned into the laundry room I may actually grow to not hate the task anymore ... I can do loads every couple of days rather than all on the weekend and no more hauling clothes down 3 flights of stairs ... shoot I'm even going to keep hangers in the laundry room and just put clothes right on the hanger out of the dryer ...

But for right now I am VERY VERY VERY happy with our new Sears purchase ... made today a lot easier ...

Now if only there was a machine that put everything away ... then I would be in heaven ...

Writing Letters

This morning my little Curly Top really REALLY impressed me ...

My mom gave her a dry erase book the other day to practice writing letters ... I thought it was a bit early for it but Skye proved me totally wrong ...

I gave it to her last night while the contractor was here ... I thought she would just enjoy using the pen ... I did explain that the dotted lines were to help her practice writing letters ...

So she took it to her little table and wrote wrote wrote in it ... kept her busy for quite sometime ...

It wasn't until this morning that I was impressed ... first thing she wanted to do was "pakace letters" ... I took the book to go wipe it clean and there it was ... page after page of letters she had done ... I couldn't believe it ... not every single one mind you ... you could tell where she tried and scribbled it out but there were about 10 letters she did so well ... I kept asking her if she did this and she proudly said yes ... I told her I was very proud of her and that she had done a great great job ...

And again she has been playing with it this morning ...

I think my favorite part though was the last page is a practice page ... and on it was a huge happy face ... her new favorite thing to draw ...

I'm just so very proud of my little girl ... she continues to amaze me every day!!!

I Was Wrong

Oh boy was I wrong ... so very wrong ... our new family tradition is going to be staying home on New Years Day ...

I really was so so so excited about going to the American History Museum today ... I checked out the website to find out what all was going to be on display at the museum ... it was closed for a while for renovations so I was also anxious to see it ...

Skye was really excited to see Kermit ... she talked about him non stop ...

So my first mistake ... I wrote down 4th and Constitution ... when it is at 14th and Constitution ... we found a place pretty quick at 4th and Constitution and got all our stuff together and started walking ... it was freezing and windy out but I was impressed with how close we were ...

Till I realized we weren't close at all ... once we got down to Constitution I noticed none of the informational signs said anything about The American History Museum ... so we asked a cab driver ... turns out AHM is at 14th and Constitution ... I couldn't believe I was such a ding dong ... so we started walking ... I wasn't sure I could make it another 10 blocks plus walk around the museum and then walk back 10 blocks but I was willing to give it a go ...

Let me just mention that I was also an idiot ... I just wore a cardigan and scarf cause I am always so hot and figured we would park near the museum ... and Skye wasn't even in her heavy coat and jacket ... and I was freezing ... parts of me started to go numb ... that is when David said he was going to get the car and would pick us up ... I was so thankful ...

Once we drove to 14th I was sure David made the right choice ... it would have been a killer walk what with being pregnant and how crazy cold out it was ...

Well apparently I am not the only one that is aware of the fact that metered parking is free on holidays in DC ... because there were a gazillion people parked and we drove around and around till David just couldn't do it anymore ... not a space to be found ... but the garage at the Ronald Reagan building was open so we decided to pull in there ... our free parking went to 10 bucks ... but at that point it had taken us so long to do everything I was worried we wouldn't have enough time to see anything ... if only I had known how silly that statement would turn out to be ...

We parked ... got our stuff together ... and headed to the museum ... I was still beyond excited about going ... there was so much we were all going to enjoy seeing ...

OH MY G O O D N E S S ... there were more people there than I could have ever imagined ... I am pretty sure there were more people then that random trip we made years ago before we had Skye ...

I know where everything we wanted to see was located so we headed right up to the 3rd floor and the Thanks For The Memories exhibit ... and Skye was beyond excited that she was going to see Kermit ...

The line to get into the exhibit was HUGE ... but we took our place and shuffled along ... we did get to see a Dumbo car from a ride at Disneyland while waiting ... Skye wasn't aware of who Dumbo was but she loved that there was an elephant there for her to look at ...

Once we got into the exhibit area I was sooooooooo disappointed ... they list all sorts of stuff on their site that you will see ... I mean I remember it being a large area as a kid and seeing Archie Bunker's chair ... The Fonz's jacket and what not ... well the area was like the size of our family room and dining room and there were 10 display cases ... that was it ... a baseball uniform ... women's basketball uniforms ... Grand Master Flash's turntable ... something else I can't remember and then the coveted Kermit the Frog ... I will say she was beyond excited to see him ... even if she had trouble looking at me while taking a photo ...

We also saw Oscar the Grouch and the puffy shirt from Seinfeld ... and the shoes from The Wizard of Oz ...

Then we headed to the instrument room ... even more disappointing ... like 8 cases that had violins and Cello's and that is it ... not what we were expecting from seeing the website first ... but outside the exhibit area they did have an amazing doll house that Skye loved ... she looked at every room and pointed stuff out ... it was precious and so great to see her interested in all the little things inside ...

We checked out the area about the Presidents which was really cool and we could have spent more time there but as I said before it was packed and at this point we were all starving ...

From the third floor mezzanine area we could see a presentation on how they put together the first flag ... Skye thought the stars they were laying out on this huge flag to represent the first 13 colonies were great and the big Christmas tree they had set up on the second floor she thought was beautiful so we hung out up above and watched it for a while ... then went looking for the restaurant ...

Now the last time we were there they had a Subway sandwich shop in a cool restaurant set up like an old automat ... they even had one whole wall with an original Automat ... and I wanted to take some photos of it today and let Skye check it out ... the renovations apparently wiped the place out ... I was so disappointed ... but there were signs for a Stars and Stripes cafe on the ground floor ...

We got down there and I saw $9 for a sandwich ... are you kidding me ... that is just crazy ... for some premade wrapped up sandwich ... I just couldn't do it ... it didn't matter how starving we were ... even pregnant and not having lunch I couldn't pay $9 for a sandwich ...

That was our cue to head back to the car ... Skye told people in the elevator she saw Kermit today ... so that alone made the whole trip worthwhile ... but David and I kept laughing at how wrong I truly was ... and he was happy to hear that our new New Year's Day tradition would be hanging out at home ...

On the plus side all the walking in the cold tuckered everyone out ... it is currently 8 PM everyone in my house is asleep and I myself am heading that way as soon as I hit publish on this post ... I think a bit of extra sleep will do us all a world of good ...

And really is any afternoon a bust that you get to spend with your family?? ... I think not ... and our day was still cheap ... $10 bucks for parking was all it cost us ... but the experience will stay with us forever ... and I am sure the inside jokes will keep David and I laughing for years to come ... besides Skye met her hero today ... she was so touched by seeing Kermit that she wanted to sleep in her Kermit the Frog t-shirt tonight and who could deny that wish? ... Not I ...

A New Family Tradition

I am so so so excited ... we are a few minutes away from heading out to the American History Museum ... Skye is going to get to see Kermit the Frog ... I'm going to get to see fun Americana from TV and movies and David is going to get to see instruments throughout American history ...

We are also going to check out the Gettysburg Address which is just there for a few more days ...

The museum is open every day but Christmas and I'm hoping that I am right in thinking that it will be a perfect day for locals to go ... no school trips ... not a lot of tourists ... and metered parking is free in DC on holidays ...

So off we go ... I'm sure we will have some great photos to share later ...