A time to be Thankful....

I am thankful for a lot of different things. To name a few....

-DA and Tornado T are at the top of that list.

-Good health for me and family are pretty high up there too.

-We've been blessed with a house this year, and we made some good friends pretty quickly. That has been wonderful!

-I'm thankful for family and the support they give to us.

-I'm excited and happy about my new doctor and have high hopes once again.

I am a blessed woman!

My sweet T...

These pictures were taken last night. He loves his little bike!

Making the change...

I'm thinking of switching over to the beta blogger. Is it worth it? Will I be disappointed?

Happy Halloween!

Technically it is November now, but I had to show off my little lion. He had so much fun. He loved wearing his costume and while he never connected with the whole candy thing, he loved running up and down the street. Anytime you can play chase is a good time for him.

There are days where I don't want to be me ...

As the day has gone on I've been feeling better, but can't this day, this week be over yet?

Check it out.

Why, Why, Why?

I want to know why general fiction is so awful these days! I try and try to expand my horizons, but when I do I am reminded why I love the romance genre so much. (The romance books that actually have plots...)

I love happy endings. I like rooting for the characters and seeing everything work out. It's not real life, but sometimes real life needs a boost.

I just read this book The Keep which people just raved about, and I thought it was horrible, confusing, and didn't make me happy at all. I thought the writer was an idiot for writing something like this. She wouldn't even use quotations for people talking. She would just write their name with a colon after it and what that charater said. I. hated. it.

Here's another one The Memory Keeper's Daughter. It was a good book, but the marriage's in the book sucked. They were filled with adultery and distance. Why do I want to read about depressing stuff like this? Isn't life hard enough?

The Pact - A Love Story. No it's not. It's all about suicide and how familes were destroyed by it. No happy ending there.

I could go on and on. Why can't general fiction books be funny and happy, and leave me with a giddy little giggle because I enjoyed it so much? One that I can't wait to share with a friend? What's wrong with reading fluffy, entertaining books? Am I missing something with these other books?

I must be reading the wrong general fiction books.

Until then I remain,

A Faithful Romance book reader.

Aww....

Now that Tornado T has learned to fold his arms we pray and pray a lot. Who knew that a 20 month old could be such a good example? But beware... if your prayers aren't said quickly enough, Tornado T will let you know when you should be done.

My super late response to a meme...

I was tagged by Cyl

What do you like most about where you live?
The rural feel that is has. It's quiet and there is no constant hum of traffic. We live in a great neighborhood that has a close feeling to it. There are also tons of children around.

Is there anything strange about where you live?
It is so far from everything. The closest gas station and grocery store is 15 minutes away. Also the city goverment is a joke.

What's one of your all time favorite music albums and why?
Def Leppard - Adrenalize. It brings back such great memories whenever I listen to it. It's also a guarenteed cheer me up album.

Did you have a passion for something as a kid that you still have now? (if not, what is one of your passions now?)
Reading. It has always been my favorite pastime.

What do you like most about having a blog?
It makes it easy to keep in touch with friends and family. Also I love getting comments. That's the best thing!

Who am I tagging?

Musical Mom
Becky
Amy

This and That...

1. It turns out I haven't been listening to my son. If I had been listening closer, I would have figured out that he's been saying "What's zat?" ("What's that?") for a good week now.

2. T is about to become a nursery dropout. While passing the primary president in the hall at church, she heard me assuring a sobbing T that I wasn't taking him to nursery. (We were going into Sacrament which is last) and I made a comment to her that nursery wasn't going well. In fact it was getting worse each week. She then proceeded to tell me that nursery was optional and if T needed more time then to take it. She said that T is still young and that having him sob all through nursery wasn't doing anyone any good. It was only teaching him to dread church. So he is now joining the CTR - 5 class, (which DA and I teach) as long as he isn't a big disruption. We will try nursery again when he turns 2.

3. We are getting closer to being done with the living room. Here is another update type photo. We still need to touch up the paint, repair the drywall in a few places, and put the baseboards back up. Then we will be done.

Another word!!!

Tornado T said another word! He's been saying it a bunch so I feel it is safe to add it to our list. He now says "Hi."

Tornado T

What your face will look like if you don't listen to your mom and then ride your bike down the front porch steps.

Success!

It's been two full days since Tornado T has cried for his binky. He's only cried for it once in the three days since I took it away. Yay for T!

No wonder....

Our allergies went haywire when we moved here. We thought it was because we were in the country and not the city, but this is why.....

We thought this pile of dirt/dust was a nail head sticking up.....

This is one of the many piles of dirt I swept up.


This is what my house looks like at the moment.

It is amazing how projects multiply once you get started. First it was paint, now it's flooring, and curtains come next, and then..... I want more furniture.

Time to say good-bye...

I just put Tornado T to bed without binky. I noticed that his front teeth seem to be poking out a bit, so I cut off all the tips of the binky's. I have loved the binky's just as much as he has. He always gets real quiet and stops whiney when it's in his mouth. But... I can't sacrifice his teeth for a bit of quiet.

I let him take his binky to bed, but he kept staring at it knowing that something wasn't right. I've always kept his binky's on the ledge of the crib and tonight as I was walking downstairs I could hear him searching for a binky that wasn't "broken." He should be finding out that something isn't quite right with those either. He's going to be sad, and I am sad just knowing that.

I have one binky hidden in my dresser, but I am going not going to give in and use it. So let it be written, so let it be done!

UPDATE:
Tornado T went to bed without a hitch last night. There was no crying and wailing like I expected...... until today. I put him down for a nap and there were instant tears. I held firm to my resolve not to give in. He had been crying for about 10 minutes when I checked on him. (had to make sure nothing else was wrong) He was sitting up with three binky's in his hands. I rocked him for a minute, told him that his binky's were broken and that it would be okay. I put him back in his crib, wiped more tears away and left. He cried for 20 more minutes. Hopefully we won't have a repeat of his nap tonight at bedtime.

Here we go again...

I think we are glutton's for punishment. After finishing the painting we were relieved there were no more home improvement projects scheduled. Then we got to looking around... the paint looked so nice, wouldn't a new floor look nice too? We had been planning on replacing the cheap, ugly, and stained carpet at some time but we didn't think it would happen until winter. So.... last night we went and bought 23 cases of Pergo Flooring and started ripping up the carpet. Once again we are living in a construction zone. *Sigh* But it will look great once it's done.

On a side note..... I will never ever move into another house unless the carpet is replaced before we move in. - No matter how clean it looks. When ripping up the carpet we found huge, massive amounts of dust and dirt under the carpet and under the pad. BEYOND YUCKY! I can't even begin to describe how much dust and dirt there was. No wonder our allergies have been out of control since we moved here. DA is completely grossed out that he's been laying on the floor watching TV the whole time. We thought that we had nail heads coming up, or something because of unevenness in the floor. No, it's was just piles of dirt. Eww! I may have to burn my vacuum when this is over. There is nothing worse than other people's dirt.

We are done! Almost.....

We still need some finishing touches, like curtains and pictures on the wall, but here are the before and after pictures!

Why did I think this was going to be fun?

Painting is not fun. at all. Trim should be used as a punishment.

We are painting out living room and kitchen for the past three days, and we still aren't done. We have to finish the kitchen and then paint the arch way. I'll post pictures when we are done. The bedrooms are just going to have to stay the way they are. I don't think I can handle painting anymore.

What no one told me....

No one told me that when I put my son in nursery yesterday, how it was going to rip my heart out. I've been talking up nursery all week in the hopes that Tornado T would be excited to go. -Yeah, I really believed that it might work. I should have been clued in by the fact that everytime I mentioned nursery Tornado T would shake his head no.

So we walk into church yesterday and we get to the door of the nursery. T plants his feet at the threshold and put's a hand on the door jam. No amount of pulling or coaxing would get him through that door. So I picked him up and took him in. Immediately tears started falling. I tried to put him in a chair and get him interested in a puzzle and that is when the death grip around my neck started.

I tried to tell him that mommy and daddy have to teach a class and this was his class and it would be so fun. Once again, he was not convinced. By that time the nursery leader (with my full support) pried him off of me. I had to get back to my class. I couldn't stay even though I wanted to. Since DA is a man, he cannot teach in primary by himself. (It was his week to give the lesson) So my heart was breaking as I was leaving my son behind, wailing and crying for me.

Next week it is my turn to teach so DA will be going to nursery with T. It is our hopes that if DA goes a few times with him to act as a security blanket, he will learn that nursery really isn't that bad of a place to be.

We have grass!

Never thought I would get excited about something like that, but we have grass. Six days after we planted, we have grass that you can see without a magnifying glass!

Pictures...

LOL.... Here are the requested photos. I do have to say that I just noticed he is wearing the same outfit in most of the pictures, even though they were taken at different times. He really does have more than one outfit. - It just doesn't look like it. His favorite hat makes a few appearances as well....