Super Awesomeness!!!

So my Facebook is being completely stupid and WILL NOT let me SHARE anything.  I am getting really frustrated with the ridiculousness.  It's been like this for like 2 weeks. 

Anyway, my Aunt Carol is having a clearance sale on a lot of her art prints (she's a fabulous artist) and is only charging $20 for 20 prints and it doesn't matter what size! (I believe they vary in size from 4x6" to 24x32")  You can check out her work at Galaxy of Graphics.  Go to Custom Search and then select Carol Robinson from the sort by artist field.  Here are some of the prints I picked up; just a drop in the bucket of what's available. (fyi: a 16x20: retails for $20 by itself so this is such an awesome deal!)

These ones are 3 separate prints but I really like them together.

Carol also has a whole bunch of her older stuff and Christmas stuff for sale : )

Carol's out in Raymond, so if you're interested in going I can give you directions to her place.  The sale is Friday, October 28th from 4-7pm and Saturday, October 29th from 10am-5pm

Being a Grown Up Sucks

Pity Party ... table for 1!

Many of you have probably seen many of my Facebook statuses that say something to the effect of, "You know you're a responsible adult when payday is just depressing."  Yes, I am part of the oh so lucky middle class where we don't qualify for government subsidies because on paper it looks like Jay and I do make a fair bit of cash, and where we don't get tax breaks 'cuz we're not rich enough and we don't have any money to put in offshore accounts where the government can't touch it ... to you, Government, I say, "Don't judge a book by its cover."  And also, "Don't believe everything you read."  After mortgage payments, daycare, utilities, loan payments and groceries there's more often than not quite a bit of month left at the end of the money.  I know that we are definitely not the only people in this boat (feel free to join me at my pity party).  I also know that eventually said financial situation should get easier (because people keep telling me so), you know when Paxton's out of daycare, when loans and mortgages get paid off, etc, however in the thick of things, it's tough to be optimistic sometimes.  Can a get an Amen?

But I digress.  I realized recently another reason that proves that me being a grown up sucks.  Sobeys currently is promoting themselves through "BINGO."  Whenever you buy something you get a bingo ticket.  If you use your Sobeys card, you get a second ticket.  And if you buy the "item of the week," you get a third ticket.  I know, it sounds thrilling already doesn't it?  Well, on these tickets you can get an instant win where you get free club Sobeys points, or you can get a pin # that you can enter online for a chance to win gift cards.  Last but not least, there are pictures of grocery items Sobeys sells that have bingo numbers on them and you can stick them on a bingo card to try to win prizes.  I know I'm not going to win any of the prizes (since I rearely ever win anything), but I found it interesting when I looked at the prizes to be won.  There's a 2011 Ford Escape Hybrid, a $5,000 Home Makeover (for kitchen appliances) and a KitchenAid Stand Mixer.  However, the prize that I want most of all ... $100/week for Groceries for a Year!  That's right.  52 $100 gift cards to Sobeys.  More than a new vehicle, more than stainless steel fancy schmancy kitchen appliances, I just want $400/month in free groceries for a year.

Being a grown up sucks.

Puppy Dog Tale

Once upon a time there was a very cute and angelic little girl named Alisha.  She was incredibly well behaved and never did anything her parents didn't want her to do.  Ok that might be just a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but I was very cute : ) 

The point is, allegedly from the age of 2 until I was about 4 I had some slight species confusion and was under the impression that I was really a dog.  Now I'm taking my parents' word on this since I don't particularly remember most of that 2 year span, but I assume it's true since my dad somehow worked it into his speech at our wedding reception.  (And that's not really the time or the place you should be lying about stuff.)  I would apparently "run" around the house on my hands and knees, picking stuff up and carrying it around in my mouth and of course barking.  This misconception led to my very first grounding in fact.  Long story short, I bit my Dad on the ankle to "save" my Mom from being tickled by him.  Needless to say, Dad was some upset about the situation.  I will now pause so you can finish laughing.

...........................

All better?  Great.  I bring this topic up because of something that happened last night.  We were at Jay's Dad's house for belated Thanksgiving dinner and were just moving to the living room after dinner when I heard a noise in the kitchen.  I went to investigate and this is what I found.

Apparently species confusion is hereditary : )  Jay better watch his ankles.

What a Difference a Year Makes!

Yesterday we attended the birthday party of the youngest Musketeer, Carter.  We thought it would be a good idea to get some pictures of the three boys together so we can compare to the ones we got last year right after Carter was born.  They're so little!

Well here are the Musketeers a year later:

Crazy, eh?  Paxton was most uncooperative since he couldn't understand why I wanted him to stop playing with the "beads on wires" toy for 5 minutes and sit on the ottoman with Carter and Alexander.  My attempts to explain the reasoning to him were ineffective and we ended up with a few of these as well:

One of the girls we work with made Carter's cake.  She makes fabulouse cakes, and this one was no exception.  And it tasted just as amazing as it looks : )

And of course Carter got all messy with a cupcake.

This messiness was a bit staged by Cristy ... apparently it's not just my kid that she does this too : )

But Carter figured it out soon enough and that was the end of that cupcake!

I can't believe it's been a year already!  Happy 1st Birthday to the cutest little redhead I know, Carter! 

Halloweenish

I've never really been big into Halloween.  But since we've had Paxton I seem to get more excited about celebrating holidays.  Probably something about wanting him to have good memories of his childhood when he's older.  I'm sure we all remember our second Halloween ... right?  No?  Well, whatever.

So I now have this "holiday decorating" bug.  However since I am poor frugal, there's not a lot of excess moolah for splurging on decorations.  So this year I have been resourceful and crafty.  My only "big" purchase was my Halloween countdown that I got from Uppercase Living.

This one's also from Uppercase Living, but it's from last year.

The rest of my fabulous decorations have come from the dollar store

or I made them myself from sheets of craft foam.

Bats and Ghosts (in case you were wondering)

Spiders!!!

I think these ones are my fave!  They look quite real hanging from the lights.

I think our house looks pretty darn spooktacular.  Martha Stewart would probably look down her nose at my creations, but I highly doubt she'll be darkening my doorstep any time soon : )

And I bought our pumpkins today so we can make our jack-o-lanterns next weekend (much better selection when shopping early I found).  Now I just have to decide whether to go "traditional" like we did last year or be adventurous and attempt some difficult super awesome stencil design ... decisions, decisions.

"Fun"ny

I've decided that one of the greatest things about being a parent is taking pictures/videos of Paxton that I find really funny and that will probably be embarassing for him at some point in his life.  It's one of life's little pleasures :)  This one, for instance, involves him stumbling around for a bit.  He thought it was fun.  Jay and I thought it was also fun .... funny that is!

Don't worry, Paxton wasn't too terribly traumatized about hitting his foot on the table ... his concern only lasted about 5 seconds.

Much too smart

Paxton's vocabulary is grwing every day.  He's started telling us when he's pooped in the last few weeks.  (I know, parents are always talking about poop.  But it's a big part of life.  Crappy.)  He'll come into the room and say, "Poooooo.  Poooooo," while pointing at his bum.  It's great.  Saves me a lot of sniff tests.  This scenario then usually leads to me or Jay saying, "Ok.  Let's go change your: a) pants; b) bum; c) diaper.  It varies as to which word is actually used.  However, I found out today that apparently one of those words is used too often.

I'd been home from work for about and hour and finished all of the immediate tasks that Paxton, the dogs and my computer required so I decided it was time to trade my work clothes for something a little comfier.  I announced to Paxton, "Ok.  Mommy's going to go change her pants."  You can probably guess what happened next, and you might even be laughing already.  If you didn't guess, I'll fill you in.  Paxton followed me down the hall to my room asking, "Poooooo?  Pooooo?  Mommy, poooooo?"

*Sigh*  Some days I think my not-quite-2-year-old is too smart for my his own good.

Yes that is a mouth full of chips he has.  He's super Klassy like his mom.



The Dad-inator

Today is laundry day.  The frustration level of this day has grown for me in proportion to Paxton's age.  You see, my wonderful little boy just tries so hard to be helpful ... the key word being "tries."  He's convinced that if I'm sorting the laundry he needs to "help" me by moving clothes from one pile to another.  And then, once the laundry has been washed and dried, Paxton likes to "help" me by removing the folded clothes from the basket and throwing them on the floor for me.  He also thinks that running under my clothes rack while my work clothes are air drying is just the cat's pajamas or the bee's knees, or whatever saying the kids are using today.  It's even better if he can manage to knock said work clothes (which are comprised of a lot of black clothes) onto the floor to pick up Maggie's dog hair (which is mostly white).  Like I said ... frustrating.

So this evening I was hiding in our bedroom folding clothes.  Paxton couldn't "help" me since the door was closed and he hasn't added "door opening" to his repertoire yet.  Normally this situation would lead to a lot of yelling, some crying and a lot of banging on the bedroom door (mostly by Paxton).  But today was different thanks to the "Dad-inator."

Jay spent the 15 minutes it took me to fold the laundry chasing Paxton up and down the hallway with Paxton's Fisher Price popper toy all the while talking in an "Arnold as the Terminator" accent.  It was really quite hilarious.  The "dog-inators" even helped out by making sure that Paxton's Bedtime Bears didn't come to his aid.  Oh I wish there'd been a camera around.  I'm sure the visual was just as funny as I imagine it was.