Mandajuice

Bedroom hanky panky

It's been a slow week chez mandajuice.  Or, rather, I've been feeling slow this week.  My house is quickly disintegrating into a trash heap, yet again.  Today we'll head out to the library and maybe to the grocery store, so that should give me the opportunity to put off cleaning for at least one more day.

Yesterday I avoided the mess by heading to IKEA with Tana and her boys, where I bought some plastic pitchers for our Washington Party while our big boys had not one, but TWO hours of fun, free play time at the play place there (I forget what it's called "Enchanted Forest" or something like that?).  Have I mentioned the party we're having next month to celebrate our one year anniversary here?  Big backyard mandajuice family throw down featuring a bounce house, BBQ and best of all: booze.

Anyway, Tana and I were talking about sleep.  Much to the surprise of the men in our lives, we actually talk about what we AREN'T doing in bed (sleeping) far more often than we talk about what we ARE doing in bed (BOW CHICKA WOW WOW).  Now that she's two, Dave and I have been planning to finally get Genoa to sleep in her bed, alone, through the night and this is the weekend I'd put aside to get started.  My plan is to put her down in her own bed and go to her when she cries, but to basically stop sleeping there with her and to eventually stop laying down next to her to get her to sleep. 

The problem is that I LIKE sleeping with her.  Her bed is ten times more comfortable for me than the king size bed in our room.  All this week I've been putting her down, going to bed with Dave and then whenever she cries, I get up and switch beds for the rest of the night.  I HATE our bed, in spite of the fact that it isn't even two years old and it cost us umpteen gazillion dollars.  It's too hard for me and no amount of extra padding makes it better (you should see how ridiculous it looks when I make the bed, my side being a good 3-4 inches higher than Dave's).

So as usual, Tana had a brilliant idea: switch sides.  It's possible that since Dave weighs a bit more than I do, his side will automatically be softer.  It's certainly worth a try and that's what I plan to do tonight.  Wish me luck.

About a mouse

Remember the furry blur Dave and I chased into the fireplace while watching SNL a few weeks ago? (The little cretin that got away.)  Well I've been meaning to post about how said cretin continued to torment us from the fireplace.  We'd be watching TV and he'd scurry into the room, realize his mistake as Dave and I both jumped out of our seats and then he'd skitter back into the fireplace again and presumably back out to the garage.  (We think he got in via the gas line). 

We noticed two important things:

ONE:  He was SLOW.  Lethargic almost.  If Dave and I weren't both a little afraid, we easily could've just bent over and grabbed the little sucker.

TWO: He was itty bitty and almost ridiculously cute. 

I think part of the reason we had so much trouble catching him was that we didn't really want to hurt him.  I'm not kidding when I say we saw the little dude every night for close to a week before we eventually caught him.  (We refuse to put snap traps in the house both because we don't want to LURE the mice inside with the tasty (albeit deadly) smell of peanut butter and we also don't want the dog to lose his tongue or anything.) 

Eventually he was running along the baseboards when Dave trapped him under a glass in the corner by the back door.

See how cute he is!

Dave and I probably should have sent him to an early demise, but instead we took pity on the poor soul and threw him over the back fence into the green space behind our property.  In the end, we probably DID send him to an early demise mainly because we figured he was probably born and raised without ever leaving our garage and given how small and SLOW he was, he probably didn't make it long out there.  May he rest in peace, preferably before breeding.

Oddly, he was the last mouse we caught.  We've been finding our traps empty for the past several weeks.  We still need to do some creative caulking around the gas lines and foundation, but I think we've mostly gotten rid of the mouse problem with the snap traps. 

This is totally unrelated but guess who slept from midnight to almost 7Am all by her littlest self?!  Ms. I'm a Two-Year-Old Now!

Flamingo dance party

Genoa's second birthday party went off with nary a hitch.  My parents ended up taking Alex to the OMSI on Sunday (they tried to take Genoa too, but had to turn back after she wouldn't stop screaming for me as they drove away) and I had the entire day to get everything ready.  I had so much fun moving the furniture around to make room for the dance floor and decorating the tables and blowing up a half dozen flamingos and making gift bags for the kids.  If I was a Native American, I'm pretty sure my name would be "mixes matching martinis " or "always has leftovers".  This is my calling.  I'm pretty sure I was born to be a 1950's housewife.

That said, I can bake a tasty  cake (homemade butter cream frosting!) but I can't decorate one to save my life. 

Which is why I asked Dave to take over this year.  I think you'll agree that his cake turned out nothing if not LEGIBLE.  Dave gets an A+ for thoroughness and accuracy but I think I can see cake decorating classes in our future.

Genoa was in seventh heaven the entire time, mainly because Hayley was there and every day is a party when Hayley is there.

We did have a good time dancing too.

Oddly it did take Genoa a few minutes of austere pouting to finally give in and shake her booty, but then she REALLY shook it.

And a good time was had by all.

It would be easy to say, "I can't believe how fast these two years have gone by!" but honestly?  These have been two of the longest most chock full years of our lives.  We went from cranky newborn dairy allergies to moving out of state to moving into the house and basically not stopping for two minutes to catch our collective family breath the entire time. 

Dearest beautiful girl child, I never knew how much I needed you in my life or how big the hole was where you were missing before you were born.  I love you so much I can't even fathom it my own damn self, but daughter?  It. is. time. to. finally. sleep. through. the. night.

Thanks.

Awesome little brothers, Turning TWO, Waddling bumbies, Dance parties, Crazy THUNDER

1.  My brother fixed my computer!  Which is totally awesome, but I still feel extremely behind.  I need to repopulate EVERYTHING from bookmarks to e-mail folders to life in general.

2.  Genoa is officially TWO years old and I haven't had the time to stop and brag about her spectacular magnificence.  Instead, here is a video of her butt:

3.  Since I night-weaned her approximately three weeks ago, I've gained no less than five pounds.  I'm pretty sure this means it might possibly be time for me to, I dunno, EXERCISE or something.  HOLD ME.

4.  My parents are in town for her birthday and tonight we're having a small Flamingo-themed DANCE PARTY in her honor.  She's going to have a ball.  I hope I remember to pick up my camera!

5.  Last night we had the singular experience of sitting in the backyard enjoying our BBQ when a thunderstorm rolled in.  And when I say "thunderstorm" what I really mean is MONSOON.  It started off all nice and pretty; when we heard the thunder in the distance, I thought someone was playing video games with the bass on a little too loud while their parents were in Hawaii or something.

Then the light got all kinds of pretty:

And then the lighting started, thusly freaking out Mr. Alex, and then it rained so hard as to make the word "rain" seem like a joke.

And our gutters?

FAIL.

I guess we're supposed to clean them out or something?  We're still new at this home ownership thing.

More soon, hopefully with more Birthday pictures of our girl.

Oh Noes!

Quick post to say that we're experiencing some technical difficulties.  My laptop is at the shop (meaning I shipped it to California so my brother could try to save it) and now Dave's brand new laptop is overheating every six minutes.  It's still under warranty and I can send it to Dell for repairs, but until my computer is back in action, it looks like you'll be seeing me in six minute doses.

Dozer Day was on Saturday and it was heaven on earth for our boy.  I took a whole bunch of photos, which you can see by clicking on this photo of Alex's initial reaction to seeing a big line up of GIANT CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT that he would soon be allowed to operate himself:

In other news, Genoa just came up to me and exclaimed, "Take off my shirt.  It's driving me CRAZY!"  Then a few minutes later when I asked her to clear her empty bowl of mac 'n cheese from the floor where she'd been attempting to feed it to the dog, she said, "Sorry, Mama.  My hands are busy."

TWO.  I can't believe it.

...and the living in easy

Well the Great Northwest officially bypassed Spring and went straight to Summer.  On Tuesday, we had the heater running and today it'll be 94 degrees.  We went directly from staying inside to keep dry from the rain to staying inside because it's too damn hot in the backyard.  We're having friends over for lunch today and I'm pretty sure the garden hose is going to make an appearance.

Last night I caught Alex in a contented post-nap pose and he actually LET ME take his picture for a change. 

Such a handsome little monkey.

The countdown is officially on: Genoa will be TWO in seven days.  Be still my heart.

Living to eat vs. Eating to live

A few weeks ago, my friend Tonya brought me an article from the paper in which five families were challenged to reduce their grocery bills for a week.  Naturally, I read the article with interest and was surprised and disappointed to find out that I pretty much already DO everything those families did to spend less on food.  Some of the ideas were good, but simple:

1.  Stick to a meal plan.  I've been doing this religiously for many months now.

2.  Price shop.  I can tell you the price of a gallon of milk at no less than FOUR local grocery stores.  I know where to buy canned goods (Winco!) where to buy vegetables (Fred Meyer) where to buy chicken (Costco) and where to buy deli meat (Wal-Mart). 

3.  Use coupons.  Last week I saved $32 at Fred Meyer with coupons I cut out of the Sunday paper.  THIRTY TWO DOLLARS.

4. Stick to a list when you grocery shop.  Done.

5.  One of the suggestions cracked me up and explained once and for all the root of our grocery budgeting trouble.  One mom said, "I buy whole chickens for .99 cents a pound and then roast them.  A four dollar chicken is usually good for TWO dinners and TWO lunches!"

HA.  HA.  TRIPLE HA.  I regularly bake chickens, usually every week or so and I always buy the biggest chickens available.  I go for at least six pounds if I can find them.  Then I roast them and between me, Dave, Carol and the two kids, I'm lucky if there's enough meat left on the carcass to make a few cups of diluted chicken broth. 

Our problem is that we EAT A LOT OF FOOD.

At this point, I've all but given up on doing anything further to reduce our spending because I never EVER throw away food.  The fact is we just happen to EAT almost $800 worth of food every month. 

The only two things I could limit in order to further reduce our budget are things I'm UNWILLING to sacrifice: entertaining and booze.  We LOVE to have friends over for dinner and I estimate it adds over a hundred bucks a month to our grocery bills (not so much because the food itself costs that much but because it spurs UNPLANNED meals and extra shopping trips.  My friends are all good about bringing side dishes or dessert, too).  SO EFFING WHAT.  It's totally worth it.  And you can pry my Wyder's Dry Pear Cider from COLD DEAD HAND.  Dave feels the same about his three buck Chuck [wine].  Some things are not worth sacrificing.

So there we are.  I am hard pressed to find a solution to this particular area of our over-spending.  Eat less, you might suggest?  A great idea, but let's be honest, it's probably never going to happen.  Food is far too important to us.  I love to cook; Dave loves to eat.  [Okay, so I love to eat too.] 

Because of all this, I'm taking a vow to stop bitching about our food spending.  I will continue to employ all my money-saving strategies, but otherwise, I'm officially letting it go...

Final 2008 American Idol predictions

I bet Sayesha will go home tonight.  I still can't understand how it's possible she made it this far.  I mean, how is she still around when Carly Smithson isn't?

In the end it will be probably be David Archuleta, only because I think the average voter is closer to his age and has some massive gooey crush on his squinty little eyes.  David Cook is the one who DESERVES to win.  He's by far the best singer of the group (he had me on Andrew Lloyd Weber night) and is honestly the only one I'd actually WANT to hear on the radio.  At this point it doesn't matter who wins since they'll all get record deals. 

I can see why American Idol's ratings are down this season: it's all those stupid theme nights.  You know what would be REALLY interesting?  Making all the contestants sing the SAME song (of course this would only work near the end when the repetition wouldn't kill you).  Also?  If they insist on themes, would it kill them to make it more interesting?  They never even did a Motown night this year!

Anyone else care to opine?

Mice vs. Nice (Guess who's winning?!?!)

Last night Dave and I were semi-enjoying the latest DVR'd episode of SNL (those MAC GRUBER sketches killed this week) when we both saw some something gray and fuzzy streak by the floor under the fireplace.  We exchanged that look, a combination of unwanted knowledge and utter disgust, and Dave jumped into action tearing apart the living room to see if the beast was on its way in or out. 

As Dave set an ever-increasing quantity of mouse traps in the garage, I got to work cleaning the family room.  I set all the toys up high next to the TV and vacuumed every square inch and basically made sure there were no crumbs to be found anywhere.  I've decided it's my goal to make sure I can see every inch of baseboard in this entire house at any time without having to move anything.

Then I did all the dishes, which I'd been saving for the next day, and put away every scrap of food in the house.  Then I soaked a couple towels in peppermint tea and used one to fill the gap under the pantry door and placed the other under the fireplace.  I have no idea why I thought this would help, but we saw a MOUSE.  In our HOUSE.  I was not thinking rationally.

Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that I tossed and turned and imagined them crawling all over me while I slept, we didn't catch any mice last night.  The little cretin got away.

In which Alex learns a new party trick

My house is finally about as clean as I can manage to get it.  I scaled Mt. Laundry on Friday morning only to have it return again, this time with a vengeance.  I ruined an entire load of mostly Alex's clothes by washing them with a blue ink pen.  GO ME.  Good thing I'm not the type who cares all that much about what my kids wear.  A few ink spots on a pair of camo sweat pants isn't really going to make much of a difference now is it?

Dinner with the neighbors went really well, a lot better than I expected it to actually.  I always freak out a little when we host people we've never really met before.  What if they hate us?  What if we don't get along AT ALL?  As I made the potato salad and mopped the floors, I imagined every potentially awkward social glitch possible and yet NONE of them happened.  Everyone got along great!  Just like everyone else in Washington, they are almost obscenely nice.

Alex did not have a great day on Saturday.  Dave took him to soccer without me and apparently he completely goofed off the entire time, much to the dismay and disappointment of his father.  The strange thing is that after the first class (during which he wasn't the best listener), we kindly suggested that he pay attention and he'd been doing really well ever since!  We were usually delightfully surprised to see him so enthusiastically participating.  Who knows what happened this week.  Dave said he was Terrible.

As if that wasn't bad enough, when the neighbors brought their two girls over (ages 4 and 2.5), the kids initially seemed to get along pretty well.  They chased each other around the back yard (in the rain!) and much giggling was overheard.  At one point, the neighbor's eldest daughter ran downstairs to report that someone had been PEEING ON THE FLOOR upstairs.  I rushed to scene to find my son shuffling his pants back up to hide the evidence.  While the girls were all jumping on the bed (AGAINST THE RULES) he thought it would be HILARIOUS to PEE ON THE FLOOR.  This in turn spurred the younger two girls, both having recently disrobed for more efficient bed-jumping, to ALSO pee on the floor.

GOOD TIMES. 

Needless to say, punishment was administered and I promised to teach him a few knock-knock jokes for the next time he feels the need to be the life of the party.  The meat stick has to stay in his pants.

 

When Dave asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, my response was both immediate and simple: I wanted him to feed everyone for the day, including me.  No matter how much I love to cook, it is probably the most relentless part of my job.  And let's be honest, I'm not exactly patting myself on the back every morning for the culinary skill it requires to make a toaster waffle.  I tried my best to let Dave do it all yesterday, but the kids made that pretty difficult by constantly asking me for stuff.  My mantra for the day was ASK YOUR FATHER. 

Dave was a Saint about it, too.  He catered to my every whim (BOW CHICCA WOW WOW) and topped it off with a fabulous BBQ'd dinner.

And we finally went out and got the TV table we've had our eye on at Fred Meyer.  Our old one was looking pretty ragged and would never fit the new TV we're hoping to get soon.

We spent the ENTIRE evening painstakingly building the stupid thing.  While the quality of the wood and materials seemed really solid, the instructions were RIDICULOUS.  They were basically one step short of illustrating a bag of nuts and bolts on one page and the finished product on another.  My fondness for IKEA has never been stronger.  It looks a lot better, though!