Picture tag!

I was out of town this weekend and came home to find that I have been picture tagged!

Natalee over at Raising Normal Kids put up a picture of the fat squirrel that apparently likes Italian food over at her house, so I'm not sure if I can top that, but here's my photo:I try to keep my millions of pictures somewhat organized by putting them into folders by months, so when I opened my photos it was set to August 2009 and this was the 10th one. It's from a recent walk to the park near our house and I was sitting in the shade with Little Sister B while Big Sister E went up and down on the playground and enjoyed the nice day. I'm not sure why Little Sister B was sticking her tongue out (I didn't take it personally) but I had pulled out the camera and managed to catch the picture before she stopped. She's a pretty happy baby and I actually have quite a few photos like this one where she's grinning or laughing or just in general being smiley.

Now on to the rules of picture tag:

• Open your first photo folder.
• Scroll down to the 10th photo.
• Post that photo and story on your blog.
• Tag three others (or more) friends to do the same.

So,

Heather @ Theta Mom
Lauren @ Mud Mama
Daisy @ Lil Hiccups

you're it!

An award? Me?

Thursdays are a slow day around here, which is actually pretty nice. We usually have plans to see friends the first half of the week, so by the time Thursday rolls around it's just nice to not be rushing around in the morning to get somewhere on time. The girls and I either stay around the house and play or go for a walk to the park or, like today, hit up a few garage sales and go pick out new picture books at the library.

This afternoon was already going quite well due to the fact that I'm the only one awake in the house. Both Big Sister E and Little Sister B went right to sleep for their naps and even the dog is snoozing in his favorite spot on the couch. However, upon checking my email, today just got even better when I saw that I was given my first blog award! I'm still so new to the blogging world but have already met so many wonderful people and read a ton of fantastic stories. However, receiving this has really made my day because it means that there really is someone out there reading this... In the first few days of blogging, I wasn't sure that was ever going to happen!

If you haven't ever read Raising My 4 Sons, you've got to head there immediately. If you have... well, still go over for a visit because the stories about these four boys are priceless. Having only girls, I follow this blog with a combination of awe and, well, something along the lines of horror - mustard in the chocolate milk? Gross! Thanks so much, Mama Such, I'm so honored that you gave me this award!

Now for passing some love back into the blogosphere. Here are the rules of this award:

• This award is bestowed on to blogs that are exceedingly charming.
• These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends.
• They are not interested in self-aggrandizement.
• Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.
• Please give more attention to these writers.
• Deliver this award to six bloggers who must choose six more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.
• I will pass this award to some of my bloggy friends that I find exceedingly charming...

I have chosen to pass this award to:

Lilith @ Crunchy Green Mom
Nanny Dee @ New England Nanny
Melissa @ Outnumbered 3-to-1
Shelley @ I'm Still Standing
Jackie @ 3 Little Ones
Sarah @ Brea's Mommy

What a hard decision! Thank you to everyone who is following me and for all of your wonderful comments. I wasn't sure if starting a blog was the right thing for me to do but I definitely haven't regretted the decision once.

Now, back to putting my feet up and enjoying the silence around here...

A picnic blast from the past

Back in the spring of 2006, I was pregnant with Big Sister E and went in for my 20-week ultrasound only days before my husband and I left for a vacation with family and friends to San Francisco and Maui. We found out she was going to be a girl and I was overjoyed, ready to shop for little Hawaiian print dresses to bring home in preparation for her arrival. However, when my cell phone rang during the trip and I found my OB on the other end, I knew it couldn't be good news.

One of the hardest things to hear when you're pregnant with your first child is that there might be something wrong with them. It turned out the ultrasound showed one kidney was measuring much larger than the other one and Big Sister E was diagnosed with hydronephrosis, a fancy word for dilation of the kidneys. We were told to wait it out, as most cases end up resolving themselves, so wait we did. In the end, she was one of the unfortunate cases that didn't clear up on its own, so she had to have surgery. Let me tell you, getting your 4-month-old all drugged up and ready with her IV and then handing her over to a med student and watching him walk away towards the OR is completely heart-wrenching.

February 20, 2007

Thankfully, it all turned out fine. Between then and now we've been through a million different tests and scans and appointments to continue monitoring her and they've all had very positive results. In fact, after the checkup we had a few months ago, I was told that they were "graduating" us and Big Sister E was now done being poked and prodded unless we saw reason in the future to check her out again. YEAH, as if I'm volunteering her for more of THAT.

One of the few positive aspects of the whole experience has been the children's hospital picnic that we have gone to every summer for the past three years, including this past weekend. Every child who has been a patient at the hospital is invited to come with their family and play games and eat food and win prizes and, in general, have fun. It's a very humbling experience, as we go and see so many children with so many different abilities and needs and many that have been through difficulties in their lives that I will never begin to understand. I turn and look at my little girl and know that the only lasting effect she will ever have is a 2-inch scar on her lower back. And I know that we are so lucky.

Big Sister E eying up Daddy's snow cone in 1997

How times have changed.

So, we go to have fun. I let her eat a lunch of potato chips and ice cream and snow cones and popcorn and cookies and think to myself that one day of complete junk food doesn't matter. Not when we're there to celebrate children and thank the hospital for all that they have done, not only for us but for kids from all over the state and probably beyond. It reminds me to be thankful and glad that we were able to catch the hydronephrosis early enough and that by having the procedure as a baby, Big Sister E will have no memory of any of her hospital visits or the tests or the surgery and her recovery.

As for Big Sister E at the picnic? She of course enjoyed the food, liked playing some of the games (when kids are standing there with a fake fishing pole in their hands and the line gets draped behind a sheet and then reappears with a small foam cow clothes-pinned to it, are they REALLY believing that they are fishing?) and won a few small prizes. I even managed to talk her into getting within five feet of Scoopie. It was a successful day celebrating the health and wellness of my little girl.

The prized foam cow can be seen here not leaving Big Sister E's clutches. This was taken after about a half hour of on-and-off discussion and multiple failed attempts to go anywhere near Scoopie. When she finally relented and gave him a high five and paused long enough for me to take the picture, I think he was pretty happy about it, too. That, or he was glad to stop being stalked by the crazy mom who was too excited about getting her kid to say hi to an oversize custard cone.

Mail Delivery: Purex 3-in-1

While hanging around over at Metropolitan Mama, I managed to win a product that I've heard quite a bit about: Purex Complete 3-in-1 Laundry Sheets and it got me pretty excited to wash some clothes, is that lame? PROBABLY. Oh well. But let me tell you, I do my fair share of laundry. Big Sister E has a thing about changing into some sort of sweatpants for her nap, doubling the amount of pants that are worn in a day, and Little Sister B is a drooling, spitting, pooping machine. Between the two of them and my husband and I, the piles of laundry get quite threatening if I don't keep up with it during the week.

There isn't really anything difficult about using normal laundry detergent or dryer sheets... but there's so much talk about how everyone uses too much detergent (if half the recommended amount of laundry detergent is more than enough to clean clothes then why don't they just RECOMMEND LESS?) and just type "dryer sheets bad" into Google and you'll get 112,000 results as to why you shouldn't use them - they're bad for you, your clothes, your dryer, the environment. It's endless. Me? I just like convenience.

I will fully admit that I was a little skeptical that this one sheet would not only clean my clothes but then go right into the dryer with them. But if I can do anything, it's follow directions (unless they're from Ikea. Those things don't make sense to anyone. The arrows point both forwards and backwards and there aren't actually any words - made so that they can put the same directions pamphlets into boxes that are sold all over the world and just make the entirety of planet Earth equally confused). So I tossed the sheet in the washing machine and gave it a go.

So are these really just that easy?

In a word, yes. I did find that it took me the first few loads to get the hang of how easy it was to use these sheets because I found I would shut the washer door of my front-loader and then just... stand there and stare at it. What was I supposed to do now? Was there something I was forgetting? Same thing happened after I moved the clothes to the dryer. But no, that was it. I relished not only how easy it was but being able to go back to whatever I was doing before without having to wash gooey detergent off of my hands from when I inevitably spill it.

By the time I was done with this weekend's laundry, I was sold. However, the real seal of approval came from Big Sister E while she was helping me fold the clean clothes (helping, in this case, means digging through the clothes until she finds something of interest like a pair of my husband's jeans or Little Sister B's tiny pants and tries to get them on). She picked up one of my husband's grungy t-shirts and put it right up to her nose and took a deep whiff. "Smells good?" I asked. "Clean," she nodded at me.

Once she gets tall enough to reach the dials, I'm totally having her do the laundry for me.

Thanks, Metropolitan Mama, for giving me the chance to finally try these out. And, because Purex didn't want to just send me a coupon and make me have to actually go to the store to try out their products, it was a fairly large box that had to be mailed to me and brought up to my front door. Thanks, Mail Carrier.

(Other than the starter and refill pack of Laundry Sheets that I was lucky enough to win, I was not provided with anything or enticed to do this review in any way but instead just thought they were too handy of a product to not share my opinion)