Its been awhile..

April 12th to be exact but in my defense I have been a bit busy. Except two weekends in August I have been out of town every weekend. EVERY weekend. I have been to my cousin's graduation, my sister-in-law's graduation, back to my hometown two weekends in a row to see some family from out of town, I have been to my sister's, my brother's, my in-laws', a family reunion and, well, I think that might be all. Mark asked me last week what I was thinking for Labor Day weekend. I said "nothing". I mean it, too.

Even though my summer has been very (VERY, VERY) busy, it has been full of people that I love dearly. I babysat my cousin when she was three. THREE. Now she is 18. Mark's sister was eight years old when I met her. His other sister was six. They are so grown up now and I couldn't love them more if they were blood related. I was able to see my cousin for the first time in about 15 years. I met his wife and the three girls they have between them.

See what I mean? My heart is so full it could burst at any moment. And that's not all! I am pregnant and due in March.

I am so blessed.

Open Letter to Skechers

I started this blog to document our lives for our families. I don't intend it to be a soapbox where I preach about right and wrong. But I had to write this extremely long post.

Every Saturday morning I look forward to breakfast with my beautiful two year old daughter. I love watching the news until 9:00 and after that a cartoon comes on. Every time it comes on my daughter says "I want to watch this, mom." I admit that I kind of like watching it with her. I even get the theme song in my head. Of the course, with that comes the dozens of commercials pushing toys, shoes, games, etc. The shoe commercials are mostly, if not all, for Skechers.

Let me say this now, I love Skechers and have had many pairs. Their slip-on shoes got me through most of my pregnancy because my feet wouldn't fit into my other shoes (and I didn't have to bend over to tie them). However, I saw something that made me do a double take. They are now advertising for Shape Ups FOR GIRLS! The pair I saw starts at the tiny size of 2.

Is our society taking things too far? I once saw that a company made gym equipment for children. Miniature treadmills and many other things in vibrant colors. It was on the news a few years ago but they interviewed someone and said that children should be getting the majority of their exercise by playing outside. That interview always stuck with me. We are pushing too hard and these shoes are geared toward girls at an age where the only thing they should be worrying about is which swing they are going to choose.

As parents we need to teach our kids healthy habits not buy them shoes that have uneven soles to tone legs that don't need to be toned. Girls have a hard enough time during and after puberty. Our bodies go through so many changes. We get made fun of for having boobs, not having boobs, having curves, not having curves. I had a "friend" tell one of my other friends (behind my back of course) that my boobs wouldn't be so big if I wasn't so fat. Nice. Especially considering that I wasn't fat. I was within a healthy weight range for my height. I tell myself that now but at the time, it hurt and it caused a lot of emotional issues for me, ones that still creep up from time to time. Why do we want to start body issues in our daughters? I never want my daughter to hear the things that I heard. I know I can't protect her from every comment but I will be doing everything I can to make sure she knows that God made her and nothing he makes is imperfect.

So, Skechers, it is my opinion that when you are marketing something with the word "girls" in the title maybe you should stick to sparkles, lights and designs. Just a thought.

Ooh, craftiness

About four years ago I taught myself to knit, kind of. Yay me, right? I started with small needles and thin yarn and it took me forever to knit a section of a scarf so I chalked it up to sucking at knitting and quit. Before that I had promised to knit my mom a scarf.

A couple months ago I read this post and I decided to buy bulkier yarn and bigger needles. I started to use http://www.knittinghelp.com/ as Allison suggested. She is so smart because that website ROCKS! It taught me an easy way to cast on. And back came my motivation to conquer knitting. I decided to do another scarf for my mom. I chose a skein of yarn. I did not make it far before I found another color that she would love more. I decided to do one in turquoise and surprise her with it. It wasn't long before I was almost finished. I can't believe how fast I could make a scarf. Of course I have a hole in it. It isn't a dropped stitch but I don't know how I put it there.

My mom loved it. She laughed and said that she didn't think I would ever finish it. Obviously she knows me well enough to keep her expectations low. Here it is:

I am in the middle of another scarf, the one I had originally started this last time. I have learned a lot with my first one. First, pay attention. Second, it will take more than one skein of yarn and they need to be the same lot number and you may end up digging through a lot of yarn to find a few with the same lot number. Three, do not mess up your mom's scarf because the hole you left in there will be noticed the minute she pulls it out of the gift bag. And it will be the first thing she comments on (or maybe that was a good thing. You know, keep the expectations low).

After this next scarf is done, I plan to try a pattern or two. Wish me luck.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

If you didn't figure it out by the title, today is my dad's birthday. We went over for lunch. Amelia and I stayed until after supper or in her case junk food. She loves her "Papa" so much (and her "Nana" too).

My dad is an easy going, happy person. He has taught me a lot throughout my life. The most important thing I have learned (besides a good work ethic) is to let things go. It isn't always easy and I can't say that I always follow that advice but I always try. I am usually a happier person when I do.

Happy Birthday, Dad!! Love you!

Bad Dreams

I have officially entered new parenting territory. Nightmares. Three or four nights this past week (and a few the week before) Amelia has woken up at least once if not two or three times screaming. This has happened before but not as often as lately. Tonight she wasn't in bed more than 20 minutes before she started crying. I went in, comforted her and went back to the living room. Five minutes later she was crying again.

I am starting to wonder if she is getting teeth. She has been grabbing at her mouth. I don't know if that would cause bad dreams but she has never NOT slept through the night without good reason. I can't feel any teeth but she did this for WEEKS before her i-teeth came in. Tonight I gave her some ibuprofen. Hopefully that will help her get a good nights sleep.

I won't complain if I get some sleep in the meantime.

A Break

Last night I got about 3 hours of sleep. Amelia has been having nightmares and I have a lot on my mind, both of which contributed to that. For the first time since 6:00 a.m. today I have been able to sit down and do something for myself besides shower. It is 8:30 p.m. I am tired and I should go to bed but I won't because I need my "me" time, especially today.

New Escape (not the SUV)

This morning I was pretty frustrated with everything. So frustrated that the minute my husband got out of bed, I grabbed a basket with 2 loads-worth of laundry, my iPod, shoes and water bottle and went downstairs to do laundry/exercise/shower. I set the timer on that elliptical for 45 minutes. Every time I got the urge to check my time I would remind myself that the sooner I got off that thing the sooner I would have to go back upstairs to reality. When I finally let myself check how much time was left I had less than 13 minutes to go. I finished 45 minutes. I may have even been able to do more but I had decided to do the next level up from what I normally do and I was pretty tired. When did laundry and working out start being an escape?