Thursday, April 30, 2009

It's the end of the world as we know it, and i feel swine...

I feel it my duty as a blogger, to warn you of many of the evils of the world, such as SPAM, the Wiggles, and the Snuggie. Now we have a new evil that i feel i must discuss with all of you. It is the well known Swine Flu outbreak.

Why go to the World Health Organization webpage, when you can come here? Who are you going to trust, people with an MD after their name, or someone who plays peek-a-boo and patty cake all day?! The answer is obvious, my friends.

I recently read that they believe they found "Patient Zero" in Mexico, yet they are delaying closing the border. What is it going to take people?! We have a pandemic on our hands here!

For those of you who are worried about how to prevent the spread of this piggy flu, i am going to give you some helpful tips to pretect yourself and your family:

1) Wear a mask. Nothing like keeping panic to a minimum than by walking outside like you were just infected with SARS. Michael Jackson got the message. He'll be safe. He'll be our leader when this whole thing finally ends and there are only a few people left. Here are a few suggestions:

Childrens Mask Pictures, Images and Photos
Predator mask Pictures, Images and Photos
Stormtrooper Mask Pictures, Images and Photos

2) Invest in some stylish clothing options, to help keep the swine at bay. Here are some options for you:

wrap Pictures, Images and Photos
LockAndKey Pictures, Images and Photos
Snuggie Pictures, Images and Photos

3) Don't touch your mouth or face after touching doorknobs, public restroom faucets, money, or anything that has been on a VH1 Reality TV show. Not only will you contract Swine Flue, but there's a good chance you will also get Hep C and Herpes

brett michaels Pictures, Images and Photos
flava Pictures, Images and Photos
Daaaang Pictures, Images and Photos

4) Stay away from Mexico. Unless you happen to be named Heidi and Spencer, and are there on your honeymoon. In that case, i suggest you participate in a running of the pigs excursion. I'm sure you'll be fine!

Spencer & Heidi Pictures, Images and Photos

5) And lastly, whatever you do, totally freak out and panic, because you WILL DIE!!

Thank you. Be safe, and good luck!

My first attempt...

So i managed to hunt down and buy the book that i've been looking for for a while now. It's called "Hello, Cupcake". It's a baking book, so no need to worry that the real Stacey has been abducted by aliens and replaced with a book loving pod. I've read reviews about this book, and i just thought it would be the perfect thing to help me on my way to becoming super mom. Yes, that's my ultimate goal, to become the world's most wonderful mom. I want to be that "cool" mom, the one who all her kids friends (and yes, even her OWN kids) wants to be around. The mom who has awesome crafts projects to do, the one who throws the best birthday parties ever, the one who makes the coolest foods and cakes! Well, this book is just one step on the way to all of that. So when i found it at Borders, i had to buy it. Of course, Frank is trying to take credit for the book, and saying that HE bought it for me for my birthday, and i just got it early. Ok, baby, whatever you say :)

So here's my first attempt at making something from that book. As my avid readers all know already, i'm baking cupcakes for the benefit for the little girl that got attacked by the dog. Well, i saw this as my perfect opportunity to test out my skills. At first, i wanted to make the cutest things, so i was going to make doggie cupcakes. Bad idea, especially for the benefit for the GIRL WHO GOT ATTACKED BY THE DOG!! Time to rethink my plan. So i decided to go with sunflowers. Now, they don't look as wonderful as the picture in the book does, buy HEY, it's my first try here people! I'll get better. And they taste good...(yes, i ate one...hehehe)




I give myself a B-...but not bad for a first try.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Snoozin like her mommy...

Last night when i layed Mady down for bed, i could totally see myself in her. Not the little cries because she wanted to stay awake just a little bit longer, and not the staring at the mobile and the pretty lights on the ceiling. But the part where she fell asleep. She was laying on her tummy, yes you read that right, i said her tummy. She had her arm up under her head, and her one leg bent...it's pretty much exactly how i sleep. It was so weird! Good thing though, i was beginning to wonder if she really was my baby...you know, since EVERYONE says she looks like Frank. It's true, i know, but it's nice to know she has at least some of my traits.

And what is with the weather?! We were just getting used to the nice warm temps, and all of a sudden it drops 20 degrees? What the heck! As you can tell, i'm ready for summer already. I'm also ready for school to be over so i can spend every minute i have with Mady, but that's a whole other story all together.

Tonight i'm baking cupcakes for the bake sale to benefit the little girl who got attacked by the dog in the Heights. I feel bad for her and her family, as she needs plastic surgery and stuff and they don't have a lot of money. But at the same time, i don't think that dog should be put down. Not to be mean or critical to that poor little girl right now, but who lets 2 9 year olds walk a Bull Mastiff?! That's a large dog, and unsupervised little girls can't handle it. And i'm sure those little girls did something to that dog to make it turn on them, though they'll never tell anyone that they did. A well mannered dog, like this dog's owner said this dog was, would not turn on someone for no reason. I just find it all a bit fishy, and i think that that poor dog is going to pay the price for no reason at all. It's all just very very sad if you ask me. There has to be a better way.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Splish Splash, was i taking a bath?

Yesterday was a gorgeous day outside. So nice, in fact, that i thought it would be appropriate to take Mady swimming. Well, we don't exactly have a pool just yet. We thought about that fact last weekend when it was so hot outside, and we did the next best thing for her, we bought her a kiddie pool...you know, the kind we all had as a kid, the kind that took hours to blow up but was so much fun. Well, this one is a whale, and it's tail is like a shade for her, and you can attach the garden hose to the side of it and water will spray from the "blow hole". It's really very cute. Well, by the time she ate breakfast and was ready, it would have taken forever to blow that pool up. Plus, she took an extra long afternoon nap. So what was the next next best thing for her?! Swimming in the bathtub. Yes, you read that right. We put on our bathing suits, i filled the tub with coolish, warmish water, and we went swimming in the tub. It was quite fun. Next, i'm going to buy her an inner tube floatie thing that she can sit in, and we'll fill the tub more and let her kick around. Oh the things we'll do to entertain our children. I can't wait until the river is open and we can take out the boat, and when school's over and i can take the baby swimming, in a real pool.

Here she is, with her first barrette in her hair. It barely stayed in, but it looked so cute!
Here she is enjoying her first summer day

Monday, April 27, 2009

It's like a heat wave...

Our weekend here was absolutely wonderful. Well, at least i think so, but i know Frank doesn't agree. He doesn't like the heat very much at all, but i absolutely love it. And this weekend was a great start to that heat wave i've been so craving for what seems like forever lately. It was in the upper 80s on friday and saturday, and in the 90s yesterday...and today and tomorrow seem to be promising as well.
Saturday, we took Mady to Knoebels. It was opening day, so it was a bit crowded, but not as bad as i thought it would be. We walked around and ate, and she seemed to have a good time looking at all the people and being outside. Then we went out to eat later, but it was just too nice to be inside at all.
Yesterday we went to Sam's club. I love Sam's club. They are a conglomerate genius! The deals there are completely amazing, it's no wonder i don't spend all my money there. But taking Frank along with us is a sure bet that we just MIGHT spend all our money there. I love him dearly, don't get me wrong, but he is like a giant walking kid when it comes to places like that. "Let's get this", "Can we have that", buy buy buy, spend spend spend. And you can't talk any sense into the man. He picks something up and sets his mind on it, and that's all there is to it. A good example, he picked up a bag of like 150 mozz sticks and says "Let's get them". Now, we do in fact eat mozz sticks, but only like once a month, and only like 6 at a time. What in the world would i want with a bag of 150?! He looks at the ginormous box of turkey burgers...we don't even EAT turkey burgers! He doesn't understand that just because it's a good deal, doesn't make it a good deal for US! We go there mainly for diapers and formula. It's such an amazing deal, you can't turn it up. It's 200+ diapers for the same price as 100 diapers at Wal Mart. The only bad thing is that they get random sizes in, so you have to catch them on the right week. This time we needed either size 2 or size 2-3, since our little peanut is only 14lbs, and they didn't have either of those sizes. We ended up buying size 3's, and we'll just buy a few packs of the 2's at WalMart to get us in between. We also bought a small case of the little swimmers diapers, so she can be ready for the pool and the boat. I'm so excited for summer!!
Then we went to Wal Mart last night for groceries. I am growing to hate WalMart. There are 25 or more check out lanes there, and the most i've ever seen open at one time was 5. That's right, 5. The lines are at least 6 people deep, and people have full carts (not just 10 items or less), so you are pretty much guaranteed a 15+min wait in line just to check out. And it's not like they don't have the man power to open anymore lanes. I see plenty of employees just standing around, talking, pretending to price check or something. Open a lane people! Most of us don't have forever here. And then you get the people that only have a few items, and you think you're going to go fast for once, but then they pull out coupons and ads from other stores and all kinds of other annoying things, and they end up taking longer than the people with the cart loads. There should be a line for people who want to price haggle more than 3 items. Seriously people, have that stuff ready when you get to the front of the line, you have plenty of time in line to do it. Argh! No pent up frustrations against WalMart THIS week, nope, not from me!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Picture updates...


Here is Frank pushing Mady on the swings

Here is Mady, out for a walk in her sunglasses
Here is Mady in her summer wear

Here is Mady, practicing her log rolling skills
And, in honor of Earth Week, here is Mady in her Earth Gear...she also wants me to pass along the message "Recycle, reuse, and Go Green, so i will have an earth to grow up with". Happy Earth Day everyone!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

What's next...

So today was an eventful day, in a way. Mady ate her lunch a bit early today, so we had some extra time, so i thought it would be a good idea to take her to the bank with me so i could deposit some checks and put a few things in the safe deposit box. Well, when i went to pick her up, i caught a whif of something...yup, you guessed it, it was poop. No biggie, normally. So i went to change her, and when i unbuttoned the overalls she was wearing, it was not a normal poop. It was the mother of all poops! It was everywhere. Down her legs, up her back, everywhere. So i had to give her an emergency bath to get it all off. It was our first actual, major, huge blowout. So once i got her cleaned up and re-dressed, we still had enough time to get to the bank, so off we went. Well, on our way back out, i realized it was pouring! It wasn't letting up, so we had no other choice than to make a break for it. I put the shade up on the stroller, put her blanket over the rest of her, and off we went in a dead sprint for home. It was quite funny, i imagine, to see. Then, since all "wonderful" things come in 3's...i drive all the way out to work, only to find that all the games for today have been postponed again! And it was dry out, to top it all off. Seriously people, what a day.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

A wonderful weekend...

Here at the Grindstaff residence, we had a wonderful weekend, and we spent it as a family! Usually we're busy with our own things, and we don't really spend full days with each other, but we did this weekend. Saturday morning i had a softball game to work at, but i was home pretty early. Once i was home and we ate lunch, we went for a walk to the play park. Yup, that's right, and Mady was on the swings! She loves it. I think she likes looking at all the people and the new scenery and stuff, but i like to pretend that she enjoys the swings. Then we went to the town park and layed out blankets and sat outside for a while. All in all, we were gone for about 3 hours. It was so nice to be out and about in the sun. Pictures will be up soon.

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I often wonder, do some people own mirrors? Seriously. We were at WalMart on Friday night, trying to get our grocery shopping done and out of the way so we would be free to enjoy the wonderful weekend. Well, i swear i saw 4 people that made me cringe. Now, be prepared when you read on, it may sound judgemental, but it's not. I have nothing against overweight people, believe me! But the people that i saw at WalMart insisted...INSISTED...on wearing skin tight tank tops that wouldn't even cover MY belly! And don't even get me started on their short shorts, that's a whole other post right there. I mean, do these people look in the mirror before they walk out the door in the morning and think "Wow, i look smokin in this outfit, i'm gonna go show it off!"?!?! And they make no effort to cover up or pull it down or anything. When i'm out, and i reach for something or bend over or whatever, and my shirt comes up, i pull it down. I don't mess around, people don't want to see that stuff. But not these people. Why not just walk around naked already?! And, as Frank so kindly put it...these are also the people with the caterpillar unibrow, the five o'clock shadow (mind you, these are women), and the 2 foot hairy chin that even the 3 little pigs would be envious of. Sometimes WalMart is a scary scary place!

Friday, April 17, 2009

Room to move...

So last night, i decided to try something new with Mady. I knew this day would come eventually, and i was actually dreading it...but i figured, she's sick, she's up already, what's the worst that could happen. So i did it. I put Mady to bed without swaddling her. Yup, you read that right. And to my pleasant surprise, she slept through the night! I was surprised, happy and proud all at the same time. She is really growing up too too fast. And she likes to sleep on her side, so hopefully that will help the hair on the back of her head start to grow in as fast as the hair on the top of her head.

In other news, Mady has had 4 doses of her medicine, and she is starting to sound better already. Granted, she is still coughing and she still sounds congested, but it's all better than it was on wednesday. Only 16 more doses to go!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Sicky baby returns...

So Mady had her 6 month doctors appointment today. She is growing perfectly. She is 14lbs 2 ounces, which puts her around the 40% mark for her age, and she is 26 1/2" which puts her around the 75% mark for her age. All in all i'd say she is doing just fine, tall and skiny. On a bad note, she is sick. She is on an antibiotic for 10days, so hopefully that will make her better. She is handling it like a trooper, but we can tell it's tough on her. She isn't sleeping as well as she normally does, and she is fussy and a bit cranky. I hope it doesn't take the medicine long to kick in, for her sake. Poor sicky baby.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Will the real Madylinn please stand up...

Honestly, i'm not sure who this alien is that took over my child, but i think i'd like my OWN baby back please. We're on solid foods now, as most of you already know. We started out giving her sweet potatoes, which i thought she would love...most babies love them, dont they? Well, she didn't. Not one bit. So after the 3-5 day test period, we moved on to pears. Again, i thought she would love them. But sadly, another no. She didn't hate them as much as she hated the sweet potatoes, but it still wasn't a good reaction. So after the 3-5 day test period, we moved on again. This time it was peas. I was sure she wouldn't like them, they tasted nasty! (yes, i DID taste them, i couldn't make her do it alone). Well, wouldn't you know it...she LOVED them! Honestly? Are you kidding me?! Peas!!?!! Who would have ever thought. Surely not Frank or I. Weird.

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Yesterday we had Easter dinner at our house. It all went well, if i do say so myself. I love turkey, so any occasion to have it is fine by me. Mady had a great first Easter as well. She gots lots of clothes and toys and candy from the Easter Bunny. To her dismay though, she couldn't catch him. Maybe next year. I will post pictures of her in her Easter dress later, when i get a chance to download them.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

By jove, i think we've got it!

Yup, you read that right. I think we've solved the mystery. What mystery, you might ask?! The one about how our dog gets of out the yard. He's no high jumper, that's for sure. So that made us wonder, what the heck is going on here?! So yesterday, Frank got home from work and let the dogs out into the backyard. He came in for a minute, and thought he should go back out and watch Ecko to see what he would do. Well, when he got outside, he solved the mystery. Ecko wasn't jumping OVER the fence, he was pushing the bottom of it with his nose hard enough to squeeze (and i do mean squeeze) underneath it! He gets his head out, and then he can't get it back in because of the angles and all with the points on the bottom of the fence, so he is pretty much forced to squeeze his way under the fence. Then he just gets all stupid and excited and runs around like a nut. Now, Frank just has to buy something to hold the bottom of the fence in place, and we'll be ok....for now.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Now there's a twist i didn't see coming...

I'm shocked, flabbergasted, and down-right amazed. That's right. And do you want to know why?! It's all because of my favorite show, House.
For those of you who have never seen the show, let me catch you up briefly. House is about a brilliant, genius doctor and his staff. There are three staff members that he oversees, one "manager" type person that used to work for him but now works WITH him, his best friend (the oncologist) and the head of the hospital. Well, these people work really well together. They make the show so interesting and personable...and it's such a great dynamic. Well, last night (be prepared if you DO watch it, i'm about to spoil last night's episode)...they had one of the main characters, Kuttner (one of the staff members that works under House) shot himself! I couldn't believe it! I totally didn't even see it coming. I don't know how they're going to replace him, or what they're going to do to fill his void. This is terrible!

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And what about the snow we got this morning?! Seriously people, it's April! It's supposed to be in the 50s and 60s, and overcast...not 30s and 40s and snow and freezing cold wind. This is making for a very backed up season for us. Back-to-back games, here we come.

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Here is a few new pics of Madylinn...

She doesn't just eat, she likes to wear it too...this is what i get for letting her help feed herself, lol.
Here, we were having "Mady/Mommy dress alike day", hahaha
Here is Mady and her cousin Karleigh..and of course Mady has something in her mouth, but this time it's her cousins hand!

Monday, April 6, 2009

Run, boy..RUN!!

Why is it that my dog likes to jump the fence and run around town without me?! It can't be because he's hungry, because he eats like a pig at home, and people are always giving him treats. It can't be because he's love starved, because he is always paid attention to, and he gets his own spot on our bed for crying out loud! And it surely can't be because he likes to play in the rain puddles, because he makes those in our own yard, and he likes those just fine.
So why then, would our wonderful dog jump the fence and run around town, making me chase him? I guess it's like the question "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop"...the world may never know.

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In other news, Mady is now officially into her 3-6 clothes. I know, i know, about time! But we're getting there at our own pace i guess. She is in her 3-6 onesies, because her 0-3 ones are too small in the leg area, not anything else. And we've started putting her in some of her 3-6 sweaters (and rolling up the sleeves) because by the time she fits in those things just right, it'll be too warm for them. So might as well get use out of them! She looks adorable though :) Pictures to come soon!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Another one of those days...

Today was another beautiful day outside. It had to be close to 70 degrees out! Again, I had Mady out and about, and she was in short sleeves for most of the day. She totally loves it outside, and who could blame her?!

But amid all this beautiful weather, we still managed to have 3 of our 5 games today cancelled. Apparently, it rained so hard last night that the infields were all mud. That caused us to have to postpone our games till a later, most likely less beautiful and more windy, day out.

Other than the nice weather and the postponed games, today was a pretty boring, normal day. My life isn't very exciting these days. I guess i should take that as a good sign...i hope.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Ah, feel the sun on your face...

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor. I won't kill you with the rest of that song, even though it's not playing in my head. Honestly though, yesterday was wonderful outside. It was in the mid 60s at work! It makes me want summer even more! I had Mady in short sleeves for a while, we went for a long walk and played a bit outside. It was so refreshing. And it was nice to not have to bundle in 30layers to sit at the baseball game last night. But then, low and behold, i wake up to rain and wind this morning. Super.

Mady is getting much better at the sitting thing. She still folds herself totally in half, but she can pull herself back up and semi-balance for a while. I think the trick is, putting a toy in her hand. Don't ask me why, but it seems to work.

In other news, there are some weird construction workers working on the "crazy people" office up the block from me. Well, i'm on my way to work and to drop Madylinn off at daycare, and this guy is in the process of knocking on my door. "Can we borrow some power, ours got cut off". Seriously, i thought?! Who goes to random houses and asks for power? Whatever, i thought. I said yes, for a bit you can. Well, i got home at 8pm...7 hours later...and they were still using the power! Frank wasn't really bothered by this. I, on the other hand, was totally pissed. I'm not supplying power for the whole block here. And to top it off, i got up early this morning for my daily run and they were using my power again, and this time without asking!!! I am going to flip my circuit breaker when i'm done here so they get the dam point. I would go say something, but they are up on a roof doing something. Seriously people, what is wrong with you?! Wish me luck.

Picture of the week...

Picture of the week...