Dolphin Picture

Here is a better copy of my previous dolphin picutre.

This was right off the coast and not too far from where we walk out in the ocean.

I was very excited when I took this picture because while I was trying to take the shot Tim told me to give up, there was no way I could actually get the dolphin in the picture with as slow as our camera is. but I did and here is my best shot.

Marissa's Blonde Moment #2

I was getting ready for work today when, "Mommy, could you please come in my room? I need you!"
So I stopped ironing my clothes and went in her room. She is sitting on her bed with her VTech, which is a hand held v smile. she says, "I keep turning up the volume but I can't hear anything at all. It's broken."
Great. Her favorite Christmas toy is broken. So I grab the head phones that are attached to the VTech and put them in my head.
"Marissa the sound is working just fine"
"oh, I forgot you had to put the headphones on"
She had been turning the volume up and no sound was coming out because she didn't have the head phones on her ears.
DUH!
I just looked at her funny and we both laughed.
Seriously, my child is smart, but her blonde moments are reminding me of myself.

But I'm not Ready for This!

If you read any of my earlier posts you know how hard it was for me to let my baby go to Kindergarten. I just wasn't ready when the time came. I could no longer hold on to the toddler years at that point. When your kid goes to Kindergarten they are no longer a toddler but a regular school aged kid! That was part of what made me want another kid. The other reason it was hard was because for 5 years I had been working part time and hanging out with her the rest of the time. Now I had no excuse not to work because she would be in school all day. Well there are some things I can't control and her going to Kindergarten was one of them.

Today I was sitting at work waiting for my husband to pick Marissa up from girl scouts. As soon as he picked her up he called me so she could share some news with me. "Guess what, Mommy! I have a loose tooth!" Well being pregnant and really emotional, tears instantly formed in my eyes. Of course I didn't let her know this. What kind of crazy mom would cry over a loose tooth? me, of course. It was just another reminder of how my child is growing up so quickly. Just like I couldn't control her going to Kindergarten I can't control her loose tooth either. So now my baby is going to be a toothless Kindergartner.

What's next?

Christmas Vacation

I haven't blogged much lately due to being gone for a week after Christmas. My family had a great Christmas which consisted of visiting lots of family and Marissa opening lots of presents and of course, celebrating the birth of our Savior.

The Saturday after Christmas we left for a family vacation. In the last four years all of our vacations have been company promotions. While I am truly grateful for the opportunity, company events mean that I either have to leave my daughter with her grandparents or take one of them with us so Tim and I can go to dinners and misc. functions. This trip was our first totally non-Farmers related trip. 7 days of just the 4 of us. We left Saturday morning and arrived in Atlanta in the evening. This was the first time we didn't drive straight through but my doctor advised me to stop often since I am pregnant so we stopped halfway. The next day we left early to head to Venice, Fl which is where we were staying since Tim's Grandpa lives there. The drive should have taken about 9 hours but we hit really bad traffic and didn't arrive to Grandpa's house till after it was too late to get a glimpse of the beach. So we went to bed eager to wake up and set out for my favorite beach, Siesta Key which is about 20 miles from Granpa's house. Grandpa only lives about 2 miles away from Venice beach but Siesta Key is my favorite and worth the 20 minute drive. Monday-Thursday we spent four days doing nothing but walking the beach, swimming in the ocean (yes, in December) and site seeing Florida. We also got a chance to see Grandpa and go to dinner with him. Overall the trip was great. Probably the best vacation I have ever had. It is so hard to come back to cold St. Louis (which apparently wasn't that cold while we were gone).

Here are a few of my favorite pics. I took mostly pics of the beach because I don't really like my overall appearance at this stage in my pregnancy:) Of course I took lots of Marissa pics too.

Siesta Key Beach and a sailboat out in the ocean. I really like this pic and I am thinking about inlarging it and hanging it in my family room.

my 2 favorite people. This is at the end of Siesta Key beach where you can look out and see Long Boat Key.

A picture of Long Boat Key from Siesta Key.

Long Boat Key Beach

See the Dolphin in the distance. This is actually not very far off the shore. I am going to try to zoom in and edit the photo.

Marissa's blonde moment

Marissa would be very upset with me for posting this but since she can't read much yet she'll never know:) Saturday morning Tim and I cleaned the house and threw away some of our junk. I got done mopping the floors and cleaning the bathroom late afternoon and had to get dressed for our date to the Blues game. Marissa was going to Grandma Patty's for the evening. Marissa was all dressed and waiting for me to finish getting ready when I heard her call out from the bathroom, "uh oh Mommy, Come help!" Geez the kid is 5 years old. She shouldn't need help going to the bathroom. I was praying she wasn't sick. I ran into the bathroom to find her standing in a puddle of pee with pee all over her pants, underwear and snow boots she had just put on. She had run upstairs from the basement to go pee and sat on the toilet without looking and peed with the LID CLOSED! Yes, she peed with the lid completely closed, which caused the pee to overflow onto the floor and her pants and underwear. I stood in the doorway laughing and called Tim in to come see the mess. I knew I would have to reclean the toilet and the floors I had just cleaned AND change her clothes that she had just put on but it was too funny to be upset about. We didn't have time to give her another bath so I told her to tell Grandma to. Tim's bright idea was to rub hand sanitizer all over her legs (which he did).
So that was Marissa's blonde moment over the weekend. She had done that one other time but she was half asleep that time. This time she was fully awake!

Christmas Picture

Here is the picture I took for our Christmas pic this year. It is just Marissa. We haven't done a family one the past two years but probably will with the new baby next year. Marissa is all dressed up and ready to go to her school concert, which was last Friday. I just ordered these pics on Sunday and I am hoping they will come in before Christmas so I can put them in our cards. Obviously I will not be mailing these cards due to time. I just stick the picture in the card and hand them out to family on Christmas day. I will hand them out to church friends Sunday if they are here on time.

This is the one we printed for the family to put in our cards.

Here is one of Marissa posing. She always wants to do really weird poses and I keep telling her to just stand "normal"

Another Marissa pose.

Who is the parent anyway?

The other night I was a little crabby. Tim was going to another hockey game and I really didn't want to be home by myself. Well I wouldn't be home by myself, Marissa would be with me. But I really didn't want to stay home and do all the dirty work myself (cleaning the kitchen, laundry, bath time, etc). So I was basically throwing a fit. Truthfully, I don't mind if Tim goes to the games. Everyone deserves time of their own. Especially him because he doesn't ask for much for himself. I was just in one of my pregnancy moods (I will post on that later).
Marissa is rarely ever crabby. She never has been. She is basically ALWAYS in a good mood. She hardly ever throws fits. She has been like this since she was little. So the other night she could tell I was in a bad mood as I stomped around the kitchen doing the dishes. "Mommy, let's play a game." I told her I had housework to do till midnight (much exaggeration) but I would play a game anyway. We got out the game SORRY to play first. She was winning by alot. It didn't really matter to me. I'm not a sore loser in my old age. But she didn't want to win. She wanted mommy to win so that I would be in a good mood. I explained to her that I was already in a much better mood just from playing the game with her and it didn't matter to me who won. I was still having fun, thanks to my five year old who was much better spirited than me.