Isn't this a good photo of Joe? I took it today.

I’m sick. I don’t want to wake up when Joey wakes at 7am. Why isn’t he sleeping in? He was up late?! Ok, so I get up with him. Joey and I play for a bit, I feed him a little breakfast and then he runs to the couch to wake up Joe. Joe sleeps on the couch because Joey sleeps in our room, and he sometimes snores and I think he’s afraid he’ll wake Joey up. So Joe gets up, and I tell him if he’s up, I’m going back to bed, and I sleep until 9:30. I get paged from work. You HAVE to be kidding me – right? I guess the change that was supposed to happen at work and be done at 8am isn’t done yet and someone was calling about it. Discussions with this person and that reveal they don’t need me right now. Well I’m up anyhow…so Joe and I leave to do errands.

We go to the post office to mail out some ebay stuff. We go to the oil change place – my van is due for an oil change. We then go to Walmart to get a few things – mostly a gift certificate for Karen – Joe’s step-mom. Her birthday is today (the day before mine).

We get home. I call Char (MIL). She said for my birthday she wanted to take me shopping. I had lost 50 lbs and nothing fits anymore. I pretty much need to rebuild my wardrobe from scratch. She’s busy now so I take a nap. I’m tired.

I wake up and Char is ready to go shopping. That’s fine. I get up and we go to Fashion Bug. I really like shopping there. They have a lot of nice styles. So I load up on all this fancy clothing. If I’m rebuilding my wardrobe – it’s going to be with skirts, suits, nice shirts, etc. No more casual for me! I take about 20 things into the dressing room (I’m not kidding, I had about 20) and start trying on stuff. I loved these cute shirts, but my bust is so big (still!) that any shirt specially cut to the bust area does not fit me. I’m bummed because I loved those shirts!!! I also wanted to find a shirt to match a new blue skirt I had bought. This sales associate was amazing. She helped me find new sizes, styles and shirts for anything I needed. I liked this skirt and jacket but the shirts I loved but did not fit me at all. They didn’t fit in the bust area and were so low cut that there was no way I could wear that to work! So this lady brought me another off white shirt that went underneath and it looked great. I found a formal dress for the cruise – I’m so excited to dress up and wear it! I actually need two more formal dresses now. We are doing three formal nights! So I walked out with a few new outfits and a shirt that looks great with my new skirt. Big relief to having clothes that finally fit!!!! No more baggy clothing!!! I’d really like to get rid of my fat clothing, but if I get pregnant again, I’ll know that I’ll need those until I can get back down to my weight I am now. I had a really good time shopping for clothes with Joe’s mom and she got a few new tops too.

So when we got home we had my birthday cake. I requested an angel food cake since it’s low fat. It’s also very light and I love that. Joe also said he really liked it too. Then we had gifts. I got a Michael’s gift card from Joey and Joe and an apple peeler from grandma (something I wanted) and Char of course took me shopping. What a great birthday.

Afterwards Grandma gave Joey an early Christmas gift – it was a hummer car that moved forward, backward, had an alarm and played music. It’s pretty cool. He loved it.

We then we over Char’s house to get Joey some outside time. We had the best time watching him play basketball, play on the gym and most of all – blowing bubbles! She had bought these tools to make huge bubbles and we all had a blast doing so. I think I had the most fun. I was getting really good and creating these huge bubbles. Joey had fun with the small tool that would make tons of small bubbles. Afterwards we went inside and Joe and Char played pool. Joey would take any pool balls he could reach and put them in the pockets. It was funny. Joe was saying ‘Joey, you are helping grandma now!’ and Char is yelling – go Joey go!!!

At the end it was close to 9pm. Joey was tired and only wanted Char to hold him. She said she’s been waiting for this moment for a long time! He normally only wants Joe or I. So we finished up the game of pool and went back to Joe’s Grandma’s house where we gave Joey a bath really quick and put him in bed.

Later that night he woke up and had a hard time going back to bed. I don’t think I got to bed until 2:30 am. He’s been coughing a lot with a cold he’s getting over and it’s been interfering with his sleep. Poor kid. It’s the same cold I got! I did feel a bit better today but was still congested and stuffy. Thank goodness for Afrin!

I got into work late today. I’m having real issues with my alarm clock. I either push snooze about 500 times, or just turn the damn thing off. So I wake up, it’s 6am and I’m supposed to be AT work at 6:30 – and it takes me 45 minutes to drive to work! Yeah, so you can imagine I was late. I think I’m going to have to unplug the darn alarm clock, plug it in at the far end of the room so I have to stand up and walk to it to turn it off. That way I’ll already be up and not be tempted to go back to bed.

I really have been pushing the envelope lately on sleep. I get up about 5:15 (or I am supposed to) and I go to bed around 11pm. I’m so tired. I’m not getting enough sleep. I really need to work on going to bed around 10:30 – which is really really early to me. I guess I should be going to be at 10 actually to get 7 hours of sleep. It’s no wonder I sleep all day on the weekends. I must be either a) conserving sleep for the next week or b) catching up on sleep from the prior week.

Friday was pretty slow at work, thankfully. We got home and I was stressed. We wanted to go up north early, since we hadn’t been up to see Grandma and Grandpa in weeks – like 4 weeks. We normally go over other weekend! So we have to pack all my scrapbook stuff, all our clothing, and all this other stuff. Then the cats needed water, we need to go buy them food because we were out…. It’s one thing after the other! So it’s 9pm by the time we leave! Augh! Such a pain! It’s the biggest pain to lug all my scrapbook stuff up north!

I’m so stressed out, I demand an ice cream from down the street. I love their cherry dipped small fat free, sugar free yogurt vanilla cones. We stop to get one and then we are off to go up north.

The trip goes fairly well. I’m so tired I fall asleep half way up north. Joey is sleeping. We get to grandma’s and he wakes up and wants to play. This happens every time. It’s like he thinks the ride up north is a nap. I know we shouldn’t but we do let him play for an hour or so and then tell him it’s time for bed. Normally by that time he’s tired anyhow and doesn’t fight it badly.

Oh and in addition, I’m feeling like crap today. I would have called in, had Judi not taken the day off work. I have a sore throat that is making me feel awful, and a stuffy nose…and I know I’m going to be sick on my birthday :(

Well I never updated Thursday because Thursdays are quite hectic for me.

I work 6:30-4.

I leave work, get to daycare at 5, pick Joey up and drive out to my parent’s house.

We get to my parent’s house at 5:45 or so.

I leave Joey at my parent’s house at 6:30 and go to the next town which is about 15 miles away to go to Weight Watchers. I faithfully go every Thursday. After the meetings I usually go to Costco which they just built one around the corner (which I’m extra happy about) and sometimes go to Michael’s, Joann’s, Best Buy or Target, which are all in the same town.

So anyhow, this week after Weight Watchers a woman met me to give me two bags of clothes for Joey. She posted on freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org) she had some boys clothing 24mos – 4T. I sent her an email that I would love them if she still had them. I was the first to email her so she said they were mine. Normally you go pick the item up when you reply to an OFFER post. In this case, she told me she’d meet me after my WW meeting and give me the clothes. How nice of her. She had two garbage bags full of clothes for me that would fit (or eventually fit) Joey! I love freecycle! So now I’m in the process of washing all the clothing, and going through the sizes to see if they fit Joey now, or I need to store them for a little while!! I so love getting free clothes.

So when I got home it was 8:30. I think we left my parents house about 9pm. I got home around 9:45 or so. Joey was sleeping. I still need to take a shower and pick up so by the time I get to bed it’s 11pm. That’s why I don’t blog on Thursdays. This is a post I’m writing later in the week and dating for Thursday.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I was super tired and didn't think I would quite make it through the day.

Yesterday I came home exhausted, Joey was full of energy and cranky - probably because I wouldn't play - I was too tired. I just laid on the floor and let him jump on me. I didn't care, I was just able to lay on the floor. When Joe came home I dragged myself to Curves to workout. It did help reenergize me.

Today the same thing but not as tired. I went to Curves again and feel better today. I'm anxious to see how much the scale says I lost tomorrow when I weigh in. When I came home I saw Joey using dad as a chair. He had already moved some when I got this photo but you get the idea. It was so cute!

Joey today said cockadoodledoo! It was so cute. He said something else but I forgot. They learn so quick. We went out for ice cream tonight. We have been going a LOT lately. I think it's because it's so hot outside!

Today is the day we put garbage out for the garbage people to pick up tomorrow. I love that day. I feel like I'm getting rid of all this stuff I don't need! AND we had 6 lawn bags from all the weeding and edging we did this weekend! We were busy. No wonder we are exhausted!

Joey has been in a big reading phase lately and loves books. This one is called I love trains and he wants us to read it to him 500,432,545,434 times a day. He never gets sick of this book. There is also another book we have where it shows boats, cars, buses, trains, etc and he likes that. He has one on animal sounds and likes that one too because we quiz him on them. All the books he like we quiz him on stuff in the book, like what vegetable is this, what does this cow say, etc. He just loves it.

I forgot to mention on Monday I was talking to my friend Caroline and Joey shut the office door. No big deal, he shuts doors all the time. I went to go in the room, and the door was locked. Oh crap! So I thought, paperclips. Nope - those are in the locked room. I thought I would hear some crying, but there was none. Safety pins, whew - those are in the hall closet. I took the biggest one I could find and jammed it into the handle and waalaaa - it opened.

I guess we'll be changing that lock! :)

Oh I forgot to add that on Saturday we got stopped by a train on our way back from the chiropractor. Normally Joe and I would have been annoyed, but we were first and Joey was in back. We were just as excited as he was. Joey look, a TRAIN! Look Joey, WOW. Joey is going WOW, WOW, Train!!!

So when it finally ends (it was super long) he starts kicking and screaming, like we can bring it back or something. I tell him, Joey, when it's gone, we can't go get it. He finally settles down, but I thought it was quite cute. I'm bummed I didn't have my camera!

It's 5am and Joey is crying. I wake up and go get Joey. He's not wet but I change his diaper anyway. He's still crying. Any mother will know this, but he had the flopping fish syndrome -where your baby is in so much pain, they don't want to do anything but flop on the floor, crying hard and kicking their feet. Then they'll stop for a second, pick up their arms for you to pick them up and then push you away because of the pain. That's when you run for motrin and pray it takes hold soon before he flops all over the house. I think it was 5:35 when he finally calmed down and I rocked him for awhile and put him back to bed. He woke around 8am. I think he had a stomach ache. He still can't tell us what hurts, but normally I think it's stomach pains. Poor baby :(


So today is my day off, boy is it nice. I did a lot of cleaning today.

Joey has had this fisher price train set since Christmas and he hasn't really gotten into the whole role playing stuff yet. I had it in a box to put away for awhile (I do this to toys he doesn't play with often) but he kept getting it out and playing with the sounds that it made. I put the tracks together, gave him the train and showed him how to move them on the train tracks and he sat there for quite a long time playing with it. You can see him here rolling the train along the tracks. It was quite neat to see him playing with something he didn't really understand how to play with before.

But really, matchbox cars are his favorite of anything he has. We also have a tractor keychain. He's loved this since he was super young. He would point at the keychain rack and go nuts if we didn't get it down for him. He saw it today and said 'tractor tractor' so I let him play with it. He has an obsession with trains and tractors and cars. He loves any book from the library on those topics. He also seems to like airplanes but not as much as the above. You can see him laying on the ground here playing with his cars. He plays very well on his own! We normally have cars in the car, at grandma's house, at his great-grandma's house - we have them everywhere because it's something he's guaranteed to play with.

So this afternoon, Caroline calls me and asks if I got any info in the mail from Princess about our cruise. I said no. She says that she think we need to get passports. I said that was fine, so it's another thing Joe and I need before our trip. Better get those soon, we leave the first day of October. So while I'm on the phone, Joey pulls me onto the floor and starts climbing on me. I setup my tripod - Caroline here's your photo of Joey. He loves to climb and body slam you and stand all over you. He's all boy for sure. Good thing I see a chiropractor on a fairly regular basis. I surely need it with him doing this all the time. He does it to Joe even more so than me!

It's been in the 90's here almost every day. Today it was 91. So hot. Joey and I have really only been going out in the evenings. EVERY night unless it rains we go on a walk around the block in the stroller. Here is Joey. We always take a cup with us with juice in it. When I go with Joey alone (because Joe is playing baseball or something) I quiz him.

Joey say tractor
say turtle
What does a cow say?
What does a snake say?

And so on. I'm trying to get him to say more words or sign a bit more. On our walks, there is a lot to look at but a lot of time to just Joey and I, so I try to develop his vocabulary while we walk. He has fun because he likes being quizzed on things he knows :)


This is Joey on his slide. He doesn't use it as much anymore, but for some reason today he kept going down it over and over and over. He's almost as big as the slide now!













Joe got home early today because his softball team lost their last game of the season. We decided to go out for ice cream. We all went out and when we got back, Joey ran for the bubbles and so Joe blew some bubbles for him. He's known what bubbles are for a long time now and says bubbles very clearly. What a good daddy!


Joe had a lot of time to kill today before his softball game so he stopped at Target and bought Joey some new cars. He was so happy. He sat with Joe and drove them up and down his shoulders and chest. Here you see his lips puckered up, he's going vrroooommmmm making the cars go!

Not much else going on. I took a nap when Joey did today and cleaned the house. We went to the library today and to the post office to ship out some ebay stuff. I also printed out this month's blog and sent it to Grandma and Grandpa Kapa. I figured they would like to read it since they aren't on the internet. We relaxed most of today. Tomorrow I go back to work so it was nice to be home! This weekend is my birthday and I have to do some testing for work so I'm bummed about that but it was my turn and it needs to be done. It's on and off, a few minutes here and a few minutes there so it shouldn't be that bad. I can't wait to go to grandma and grandpa's house this weekend. We haven't been up there in 3 weeks now! This week will be the fourth week and we miss them so much! Joey is signing grandma and saying grandma now. It's so cute!

Good thing I stayed up till 2am to last night because Joey woke up 4 times for only God knows what. I rocked him back to sleep and he was fine. I really don't even need to rock him anymore because when I do, he can never get comfortable enough to go to sleep, so I guess I should just calm him down and put him back in his bed.

So last night I got two scrapbook pages done last night. Remember those circle journals I was talking about a little while back? Everyone in the group does a journal and we send them to each other and do a page for their journal, only never to see them again? BUT we get our own back full and I did a recipe album.

Well I had to do a page last night for someone's journal called 'My inner child'. I had no clue what I was going to write about but I do have to say that it did turn out quite nice. I had been thinking about it for two weeks now. Here is the page to the left that I kept for myself. The page below is the one I did for Carrie's journal that I sent out to the next person in line.

Here is the journaling for it: Do I really have an inner child? I sat and really had to think about it. It seems I’m always thinking of what I have to do – I need to clean, I need to do laundry, go to work, and the list is endless. Do I have the TIME to be a child? Ok, I’m thinking some more.

Joe is normally the one that plays with Joey. He’s the one that takes the matchbox cars and zooms them on the ground, he wrestles with Joey, and does all the fun stuff. So where does that leave me?

I’m still thinking. Ok, I do climb up on the jungle gym with Joey and help him go walking unsteadily on the swaying bridge as I’m bouncing up and down making it harder for him to walk. I help him go down the spiral slide. I’m the one a few months ago that would scrunch up my face and make funny goose sounds and bug my eyes out so that Joey would laugh over and over and over. I’m will take the popper toy Joey has and chase him around the house. He’s even taught me to lay on the ground so he can body slam me – oh what fun – just how I wanted to let out my inner child – by pounding it out of me – haha.

My inner child turns sappy around Christmas. I love the Christmas music, the ornaments sparkling on the trees. I love buying those toys for Joey more than anything for myself. Oh and clothes shopping for Joey – it’s just nuts. I go crazy picking up those sappy so cute outfits! I like to take icy pops – those flavored ones in plastic, cut them in half and slurp them happily with Joey. I love to laugh. I’m the one that will pick up Joey when a fun song comes on and we will dance through the house – a trait he picked up and will start dancing whenever a cool song comes on! I started to teach him to summersault.

Ok, I needed this thinking exercise. I actually do have an inner child. I never would have thought that a few days ago when I started to think about it. It seems like most of the time I’m so serious! I guess there ARE things I do to stay young at heart. There are those things that I do to keep myself young when I entertain and play with my son. I wouldn’t change any of these things for the world. They make of who I am as a mother, wife and person!

So there, didn't that turn out cool? I surprised myself for writing it at midnight last night! LOL

See next post for more Monday....

Yep, it's that first Sunday in August - family reunion time on Joe's father's side.

I woke up with Joey today because it was my turn. We had a good time playing. I went downstairs and tried to clean up the kitchen. I love a clean kitchen. I also had to prepare to make 3 lbs of meatballs for the reunion. When Joey got fussy, I pulled out the swiffer broom and he took off with it. I love how he plays with the broom and it actually cleans my floor. Every time he swiffers, he pulls all this cat hair off the floor. It's by scotchbrite and it does an excellent job on our pergo floor!! He's such a good boy! I love how he loves to help me clean and doesn't even realize he's cleaning!

We didn't want to go to the reunion until after he had his nap, or we knew he would be a wild, unhappy child. He took a nap from about 11:30 - 1:30. I made 3 lbs of meatballs a little before he went down for a nap. I also took a nap after I did some housework so I got an hour nap.

When Joey got up we started to get everything together so we could go. It seems like there is so much to pack!

First we went to the library - the videos were due.

Then we were off to Meijer! Joe had to take back a car air filter that was the wrong type. We bought a cooler (never seemed to find ours that we lent out) and bought some other party stuff like water, utensils, etc).

When we got through Meijer we always buy a cup so we can get a frozen coke. Of course Joey LOVES these. We were on our way home and we would steal it from him because we wanted some too. About 30 seconds later we would hear screaching from the back. He's ticked off because we took the frozen coke from him. I would have to say he ate most of this. Doesn't the glass look like 1/2 the size of his body?!!





















Joey was quite sick of the car by the time we got to the reunion. The reunion was a bit weird this year. Grandpa wasn't feeling well and Grandma and grandpa were leaving slightly after we arrived. There weren't that many people there this year. It was just different.

Joey was slightly bored after Hannah left and we had to do everything we could to occupy him.

His favorite thing was the jungle gym. We went on it two different times but it was extremely hot out today - 90s so we didn't let him play on it for a long time. The second time he took off across the park, and it was a long walk and RAN there all by himself. See the photo of him running across the drive and the jungle gym in the background? Isn't it far away? He ran the whole way there after he found out we were not carrying him the whole way. I guess he really wanted to play on the gym!

His favorite thing was the swaying bridge. See photo of Joey and me - we were on the bridge. He walked back and forth on it.

He liked the slides too. It was so funny - the slides were plastic and when he want down this all the hairs on his head stood straight up!















By the time we left, Joey had already fallen asleep and it was only 7pm. He must have been so tired being out in the hot all day.

When Joe and I unpacked we took advantage of Joey going to bed early and weeded every bed around the house, Joe finished edging out the driveway and the house looks so much better now! I think we have 6 lawn bags after doing the rest of the edging and weeding. Oh and thank goodness for Round Up weed killer. It does a great job.

Now I'm relaxing, trying to scrapbook a little bit and wanted to update my blog.