Cheese Curls

"Cheese curls Mommy!" This has been a constant refrain around here for the last couple days. However, he's not talking about the snack food. He's talking about these little guys:

If you don't immediately recognize them, it's probably because you don't have little kids who love VeggieTales. These are persistent little creatures who impersonate a snack food in the VeggieTales movie The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything.

But why was Zachary saying it over and over? It wasn't because he wanted to watch the movie - he wasn't pointing at the DVD cabinet and saying it (like he does with How The Grinch Stole Christmas "Grinch Daddy!"). No, he mostly said it when he was near the kitchen, and I realized he was saying it while pointing at our Easter Lily.

(No, that's not our lily. That's a picture I plucked from the internet because a picture of our lily plant would include a picture of the state of our apartment and I want you to look at the flower, not the pig sty we live in. I say it's because there's not enough space to put everything. C says it's because I put priority on playing and going on outings. ...even if he might be right, it still doesn't change the fact that there simply isn't enough closet space here)

Then, one day I was on the other side of the counter and I looked at the lily from Z's point of view. And you won't believe what I saw:

Cheese Curls!!

If I stall, maybe the baby will go back to sleep...

I've been writing blog posts in my head, but can't seem to make the time to type them up blah blah blah. You don't really want to hear about that; I say it because it makes ME feel better.
--

Right after I wrote those words I was interrupted by this:

This is a 2.5 year old who's walking funny, pointing 'down there', and saying, "Yuck!" It was so yucky, in fact, that he is now in the tub while I'm sitting on his bed where I have an oblique view of the tub (his room is technically the "master", but it opens right into the living room, so we took the room down the hall), trying to write this post that's apparently going nowhere, taking breaks every 10 minutes to check on The Infant Who Will Not Nap Unless Someone Is Holding Him.

It's okay though. I don't mind. I just wish I could blog a little more often.

The most exciting thing going on in our lives at the moment is that we're THIS close to making a decision on buying a house! We've gone round and round, back and forth about whether we should rent or buy? Rent a house or apt? Buy used or new? Which community? What school district? etc. ad infinitum. (quick break....nope, baby's not asleep yet)

This is the floorplan we really like:Hopefully I'll have some blog posts in the future centered around the construction progress.

Other things going on...

My sister (in law) is getting married! The wedding is set for the end of August and C and I are both in the wedding party! I have a date with a friend this evening to try on bridesmaid dresses.

Since we'll be in PA for the wedding in August, we decided not to go there for July 4th like we did last year. And since a planned vacation is a terrible thing to waste, we're headed to CA for the Fourth instead :-) There are several family members who've never met D, and we really can't let that go on too much longer. (Speaking of D, I think he's actually asleep! I now start the stopwatch and hope it lasts longer than 30min!). It will be a whirlwind tour of CA, as usual: fly into So.Cal, spend a few days; drive through Bakersfield to Nor.Cal, spend a few days (C will fly home at that point); drive back to Bakersfield, spend a few days; finally the boys and I will fly out of LA. Yay!

I've now been the Area Director here for AuPairCare for five months. I only have three Au Pairs, but there's one on the horizon and I have a couple marketing possibilities in the next couple months that will hopefully yield a few more. I really enjoy the customer service aspect: talking with the families, spending time with the Au Pairs, answering questions, etc., but the marketing is a little harder for me. It's not as difficult as making phone calls for Cutco (another position where I enjoyed the people part), and my manager is very supportive and caring (unlike Cutco where they get so many people come and go that they just don't spend too much time with any single person)(don't get me wrong, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my Cutco cutlery and cookware, I just wasn't as good at the job). I lost my train of thought...moving on!

I should probably get Z out of the tub soon, but I remembered one more thing I've been meaning to post. I took this picture before packaging it up to send for my nephew (!!) before he was born:
(There's a whole backstory, but you know what? I just tried to tell you about it, but I can't remember exactly what happened! (Let's talk about sleep deprivation and its effects on short-term memory...) Anyway, I have a drawer full of almost another blanket worth of yellow and green squares, because at some point in the construction of the blanket I forgot what hook size I was using. )

I couldn't (obviously) post the picture before the gift was received and opened, and then, you know, life got in the way, and I still hadn't posted it 3 months later. BUT it turns out that I knew what I was doing because I received this picture earlier this week:
Yep, that's my nephew (how many times can I work that into a single post?) wearing the little jacket I made for him! It was really sweet of my sister-in-law to email it to me.

I hear awake (and not particularly happy) noises coming from the direction of not-where-I-am, and so I check my stopwatch, and sure enough! 30 minutes. Almost on the dot. I guess I'm done!