Ok, disclaimer - Joe did a photo shoot of me after I got a new haircut and I put up some of my favorites. You will read about that below :)

Today was the day that we needed to go into Saginaw to get Joe a new suit. He has one but it's a few years old and frankly, he's gotten fatter since college and the pants are really tight on him. Ok, he's really as thin as a rail still, so you can only imagine how thin he used to be!

So once Joey took a nap we drove to Saginaw. It's about a 45 minute drive or so. We went to Men's warehouse. They did an EXCELLENT job outfitting Joe. He got a gray suit and a blue suit with very subtle beautiful pinstripes. He got two shirts, shoes, ties and 2 mock turtlenecks that look great with the suit but don't require a tie. He looked so good in them. He needs at least ONE suit because he has a meeting with the CFO of Comerica Bank on Monday! Wow! I'm excited for him. He wants to be dressed to a T so we pickup the suits tomorrow. It was $1064. At least we can use them both during our formal nights on our cruise in 15 days!!!!

I told Joe he needed a haircut while he was trying on the suits. At the end of the order, I asked the salesman where he could get his haircut on a Saturday and he said Grondins. So we went there and saw the girl that the salesguy from Men's warehouse saw. Joe got his hair trimmed.


Now as soon as I walked in, I talked to Joe about getting MY hair cut. It's been awhile and I wanted something a bit different. SO before Joe was done, I went and talked to the hair dresser doing Joe's hair and asked what she could do for it. Well I didn't sign in, but decided, what the heck, I'm getting my hair done. It was marvelous. I love getting my hair done. She did these beautiful layers and they frame my face and I just love love love my new hairdo!!!! She said to mousse it everyday to give it some more body. I felt pampered.
The coolest part - it only cost me $13!!!!!!! She charged Joe $13 and me $13 and I bought some mousse from her and of course we tipped her. I told Joe, I'm sorry but we are driving to Saginaw from now on so she can do my hair. She's the only hair dresser I've found that does my hair and I LIKE it after!!! Joe absolutely loved my new do. He would let me know if he didn't but he really liked it. I felt like a million bucks.

After we got our hair done we went into Toys R Us. Of course we had to buy Joey more Thomas the Train engines. We got him a Thomas engine, and Diesel - the bad guy.

Then we went to Famous Dave's. They have the BEST RIBS! They have the most marvelous food. Joe has not been there before. I had been and loved it. We got a platter for 2 and it had ribs, chicken, beef brisket, corn and more. It was the best food! Joe was so happy we went. What a great weekend to celebrate our anniversary!

We got home and gave Joey the Thomas toys. Of course he is beaming and screaching in happiness.

I asked Joe to do a photo shoot of me with my new hairdo. He did a very good job. I tried to take some photos of Joey but he HATES staying still for anything so I'm lucky to get any good photos of him ever! I say his name when I have the camera but he purposely ignores me! What a major stinker!!!!! Doesn't he know I'm a scrapbooking mom?



We got a snowman for Christmas from Avon that sings 'Winter Wonderland' and moves and turns. Joey knows how to sqeeze his hand to turn it on. I showed him once and he picked right up on it. My little boy is growing up!!!!

So anyway - here are my new photos that dh took. I think he did a great job. He's such a sweetie.



So there is a photo of Joey looking at his stomach. That is what he does when we ask 'Joey, where is your belly button?!'. Isn't that cute? If we ask 'Where is daddy's belly button', he will run up to daddy and pull up his shirt and stick his finger in his belly button. It's so cute!



The other photo is Joey and Joe walking back to the house after we were outside playing today. Notice that they are walking the exact same. You can definately tell that they are father and son. I love that photo.


Thanks for looking! :) Please leave a comment if you are here! Thanks!

I was almost was killed by a dumbass on the road today. He meant to turn into the middle turn lane and instead turned into my lane. It's M-59 a two lane road. It was wet and dark. He never merged over into the turn lane, and he was just dead stopped in the fast lane going in with his headlights pointing right at me, like he was playing chicken or something. I was blaring my horn, and it did not matter. It was wet, my brakes were locking. I thank GOD that no one was beside me because I had to swerve to go around him. He never moved. I'm not so sure the person even realized what happened. There was a car behind me too. I never looked behind me to see if he moved or anything. I was so shook up I kept thanking God I was alive. I THINK that he was worried someone was pulling into that turn lane to turn and didn't want to broadside them. If I were the guy, I would rather broadside someone than be hit by a minivan going 55 when you're dead stopped!!! I was so lucky. I called Joe and cried. I was shaking. I've never been that upset ever. It was awful. Can you imagine me hitting a car at 45 mph (I think I only slowed down 10mph) that is dead stopped. I probably would have died.

So at work today it was a good day. I’m finally back. Yay. I got a lot done. I went out to eat and had a chicken pita with mayo on the side and did not eat the pita. I had chili cheese fries but had the chili and cheese on the side. So it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We had steak, beans and French fries (ore-ida baked) so that was a good dinner too.

They said at daycare Joey wasn’t 100% today. I know what they mean. He just sat on the couch and watched tv, and he was very cranky today when we got home. Poor kid.

Yesterday I picked up a drying rack, coat and book from a freecycler. It was a long hike out of my way but worth it. I almost bought a drying rack last week for my sweaters so that came up on the group and I asked her if I could have it. Then she posted a really nice black coat – it almost looks like a ski coat. She said it was anorak style – but I have no clue what that means. All I know is it’s double lined. There is a fleece lining that zips out and then a weather proof outside layer. It’s a very nice coat. I washed it today. I swear, I love freecycle!!!

This week I got rid of an old scanner I’ve had since 98. It worked well but I need a higher dpi scan so I bought a new one awhile back. Some lady came to get it. A billion people asked me for it, even after I posted the pending and taken messages. Then I gave away some gold necklaces. I do NOT like gold. I do not know why but I really don’t like to wear it. I love silver. I want a silver wedding ring now. I just hate gold. So I gave away most of my gold necklaces. I have no clue if any were 14k or not. I just didn’t want them and no one would have bought them anyhow. A few were nice Avon necklaces. The lady was happy to receive them. I’m trying to get rid of a diaper pail but no one wants it. I think I’ll just throw it out. I also took 7 bags of clothes to the salvation army today! What a writeoff that will be. Most of it was my fat clothing. I’m just glad to get it out of the house! Monday I’m going to try to take some clothes in for consignment. What they don’t take, I’m taking to Salvation after that.

I am selling cookies and popcorn for Joey’s daycare. I have 8 sold so far from work and my mom. They are trying to buy a moonbounce for the daycare. They rent one for special events all the time and this way they don’t have to keep renting it. They will have it and then the kids can enjoy it on really nice days. That will be nice! Oh and they told me that strep is going around at daycare too. GREAT! Just another thing Joey needs to get!

Well that’s all for now.

To start the day I gave Joey a breakfast of pancakes with syrup, canadian bacon and some of my all bran cereal. He decided it would be great to rub it in his hair so this is the result. The end result was a bath. Ick...

Then he was doing fine today so I asked daycare to take him for the day while I worked the rest from home. They said that was fine. I got a lot done later in the day when he wasn't here. He just needs so much attention!

Today is Thursday - time to go to my parents house. So I took Joey over there. My mother told me to bring my camera to take a photo of this potted plant she has on her porch that's blooming. Here is the photo of it. Isn't it amazing??!

So today was my BIG day! Today was weigh in day at WW! AND today is my lifetime member award where I reach my WW goal and I don't have to pay anymore as long as I stay within goal! So of course I got a photo of me weighing in and guess what - I LOST OVER 50 LBS!! 51 to be exact so I got my 50 lb award! Yay!!

Then after class we had a group photo. A lot of the regulars weren't here today so I was kinda bummed but there were a lot of people that come a lot too that I hadn't seen in awhile so it was fun to get everyone in the photo!

Here's my leader Ginny. She's the inspiration to my success. She's wonderful. She's active, she's inspirational and she's the best. I'm so happy I stuck at it and I know she's so proud of me. Today was one of my favorite days in my life. I've been working at this goal for a year and a half now (since April 04) and I finally did it.

Now I just have to remember what Joe says - now you have to maintain it. Yep - I know!!!

It's our 3 year anniversary today! We are supposed to celebrate this weekend - but not sure yet what we plan to do.

It's 10:30 and I'm STARVING!! Yeah, before this diet I could eat my cold cereal and milk (cheerios or something) late at night. I may go get a bowl before I head to bed, though it's not on my diet plan. I'm just HUNGRY!!

I wanted to show you Joey's Halloween costume. I found it yesterday at Kroger. I wanted to get him a Thomas the Tank costume but the ones I saw were soooo cheap! I knew that if he wasn't Thomas, he was going to be a lion because he makes the GROWLLL noise so well. So I brought it home yesterday and he hugged it and growled - he knew it was a lion! Now today every time he passes it he growls. It's sooo cute.

Also today Joey and I walked to the end of our sub and back. He's never walked that far with me before. I would say maybe it's 2 -3 blocks one way. He's growing so quick.

I feel so bad for the poor kid. He's now got a very bad dry cough and it won't let up. :(

Curves was fun tonight. It's the third night I've gone this week. One of the girls that lives in my neighborhood told me she also scrapbooks so I have another scrappin buddy! Yay!!

Here's Joey again. He loves to stand on this stool and play on the windowsill with his cars. Whatever floats your boat kiddo!

And last but not least - here is my 2nd cat (of 4) Sasha that let me take her photo today. Usually she runs at the camera wanting me to pet her. Today I had to tell her to stay and to be good for the camera :) She's a tortie. Isn't she pretty? She has a bad habit of wanting to be right next to you when you are eating and she loves to lick you. Not sure what that's all about but she does! She's a sweetie. I call her kabassa because she's kinda pudgy :)

Today is Wednesday and I’m still home with Joey. Now he doesn’t sound like a seal anymore, but he has a runny nose and he has a dry cough. Robotussin doesn’t touch it. I’ve tried to give it to him a few times. He has hardly eaten today but ate an ok breakfast and at least he’s drinking his juice. If he coughs like this tonight I can’t take him to daycare again tomorrow. I’ve never missed 4 days of work for him being sick. I’m sure they will understand….but you know.

Tomorrow is weigh in day at WW. I’m hoping it goes well.

Here’s a photo I took of our cat Alex today. He’s so gentle with Joey. Joey is pretty rough with him and he withstands a lot. I’m teaching him to be nice to kitty but he doesn’t realize he’s done anything wrong.

Here’s Joey trying to give the cat some love (he puts his head on the cat). See how tolerable Alex is?

Here’s Joey enjoying his Thomas the train videos. I’ve never seen a kid so obsessed with something. That green shirt he has on above is a Thomas the train shirt that I got from Nic from New Zealand. It was her son’s shirt. (Her blog is to the right). She’s such a sweetie!!! She sent us 4 shirts with Thomas on them! Thanks Nic!!

I did great eating today. I was a bit hungry but for the most part I was ok. We have a tight little group of girls at Curves doing the challenge. It's about 7 or so, so it's fun. 3 girls live in my neighborhood! One I knew the other I just met so that is cool. We did a 30 minute workout, talked a bit and watched a video. She shared a pretty cool site called www.fitday.com where you can log your daily calories, etc. She wants a printout at the end of each week so that is cool with me. I hope to lose just a little bit more.

Actually I hit lifetime member on THURSDAY! I'm so excited. If I lose just .4 more lbs I'll be at a 50 lb weight loss. How cool would it be to be told you are at goal, and by the way, you just lost 50 lbs! I'm just so excited. I've been working at this since April 2004!

Well off to take a shower. Joey's doing much better today. That oral steroid must have really helped. I'm going to stay home with him tomorrow and then go back to work on Wednesday if all is well.

Yes, I knew it the instant I heard his 'seal like bark' cough last night. I took him into the doctor and they said it's pretty bad, but it's not in the resting stage of labored breathing, just when he's crying so they gave me an oral steroid for it to help open his airways. I took the rest of the day off work. i was pretty exhausted from last night. I was worried about him last night. Since he took the steroid his coughing has been minimal.

I'm doing the diet today - it's the first day. I've been kinda hungry so we'll see how everything goes.

I stayed up until 2am scrapbooking. I know, I’m nuts but I slept almost all day yesterday!! I got 2 pages done for www.scrapjazz.com. I can’t show them to you until October 1^st (and I’ll be on my cruise) so I’ll have to show you when I get back. I did one on Alex the cat and I just love it, and one on Joey that’s baseball related that I really like too. It’s funny – now that I dropped one of my design teams, I feel soooo much less stress. I’m really enjoying scrapbooking lately and really loving the new pages I am doing. One of the pages I did last night was without one of the kits I buy (a kit is where the papers and

everything is coordinated together). I actually found paper to go with my photos myself. Yeah, sounds easy but I’m so used to just getting one of my 100 backlogged kits I have and using those up that getting stuff together from scratch doesn’t happen very often!

Gas was 2.82 when we filled up today! We just went by a gas station that was 2.79. THANK GOD! It’s been so expensive lately! Augh!!

Scrapaddict has this fun game going on now where if you get tagged (tag, you’re it), you need to go to the gallery and comment on three people’s layouts and then tag them, and it goes on and on. I’ve been tagged twice now. It’s fun and a good way to give praise in the gallery.

Joey went to bed at 6pm which was really weird. He hardly had a nap that day and got up pretty early so I really wasn’t surprised but I’ve never seen him go to bed that early. This morning Joey woke up at 8am. I was surprised by that because he slept over 12 hours. Joe and I went back to bed. Joe didn’t sleep long – maybe until 9. I slept until about 10. I felt better today.

Today consisted of making a grocery list for some foods to eat for next week, and taking Joey with us to Walmart to get a few things. They are doing a clothing drive at Curves and we are taking some of Joey’s good condition clothing, putting it in a gallon size Ziploc bag, including some diapers and some sandals for the kids there. It said to include underwear and I told Denise the owner I’ll be danged if any kid in 2T clothing is potty trained already! Well there may be a few, but it’s not the norm, so we are packaging diapers instead. I’ll drop them off tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the start of our Curves challenge. It’s 6 weeks long. We eat a WW core like menu (high protein diet for the most part), and exercise on Mondays and meet as a group for those that are doing it and then I also workout anyhow on Tuesday and Wednesday. I hope to lose a few more lbs before our cruise in October. I’ve been looking in the mirror lately and I’m happy with how I look. Yeah, everyone wants to be skinnier but I’m happy! Yay!

Today Joey and I played together while Joe napped on the couch. It involved us playing who has the blanket, and taking the pillow and wrestling on it. Joe took a photo of us before he napped of us lying on the ground looking up at the camera. It came out cute. After we played who has the blanket and we chased each other all over the house with the blanket, he slowed down and we played with his trains. He loves his Thomas trains (I know I say that every day but he does) so here he is playing with them again. I had my 50 mm lens on and it took some nice photos. I love that lens more than anything. I love how it has a short depth of field when it takes photos so the background blur out and it looks so nice. I also attached photos of Grandma and Grandpa so you can see who we stay with on the weekends. Those are Joe’s grandparents (his mother’s parents). They have a heart of gold and they are so good with us and Joey. They are my biggest scrapbook page fans. There is a photo of Joey laying on the pillow and I like it because it shows off his beautiful blue eyes. There is another one of him with a HUGE cheeser grin. He was doing that after I would hit him with the big pillow, he’s grin real huge like that. It was so cute! The other of the blanket on his head is from when we were playing who has the blanket and I would throw it over his head and watch him get out if it.

Funny thing happened today. Joey wanted to go outside so badly. When he wants to go outside, he knows he needs to put his shoes on, so he grabbed his shoes and waited for someone to put them on. Well we were busy, so he went and got Joe’s shoes and said ‘Daddy’s shoes’ and proceeded to drag each heavy size 14 sandal from the door to dad. Then Joe said, go get mommy’s shoes and he did, and got both of my sandals and brought them to me. Then we said, go give these shoes to grandma, and he took them and dropped them by grandma. Then we took him outside. It’s amazing he knows which shoes match, and to whom they belong to. Also he’s never said ‘Daddy’s shoes’ before. He’s said Daddy and shoes, but never together. That was so cool.

When Grandma and Joey were outside they saw a hawk and Joey said bird. When I came out later, Grandma was telling me and I asked Joey where the hawk was and he kept looking at the sky for where it was. I just love watching him develop and grow. Oh and he’s in 3T’s now on the top. His 2T tops are too small for the most part. We’ve put a few on him and they are wayyy to tight. Now I bet he is still in 2t pants but the shirts I’m going to have to start putting up his 2T stuff! He’s growing so darn quick I can’t believe it!! He’s just 20 months old!

After we went outside he was playing with his tonka truck that used to be Joe’s. See the photos. He really enjoys being outside so we try to take him out a few times a day. I took a photo of him bent at the knees playing with something on the pavement and I love how it came out.

Today we thought Joey was running a fever so we bought a thermometer at Walmart. He was running a slight fever earlier so we gave him some motrin. Well tonight before we left he was running 100.7 temp again. I have no clue if it’s teeth or a cold. I think it may be a cold because his nose is running again. I can’t go to work tomorrow so I’ll have to work from home. I feel bad when he’s got a fever and I need to call into work. I don’t want to take advantage of it of course, but he can’t go into daycare with a fever.

I have to get the clothing ready that I have at home to take into the consignment shop. I hope I can get a few things to be accepted so I can build a little account there.

Other things I want to do – take a few good photos of our cats for scrapbook pages. It seems I always get cat related scrapbook stuff from the companies for Scrapjazz and need good kitty photos. I used both of my favorite cat photos. Really they are as much of our family as the rest of us, so I should be taking photos of them too.

Well I’m signing off now. I’m going to go through my photos and pull aside some to print off at Costco so I can redo all the picture frames in the house. The photos in the frames at our house are from our wedding (02) and from the honeymoon and such! It’s time to update for sure!

I’m so glad I’m doing this blog now. When I take pictures of Joey, I put them on here and explain what’s so special about them. It’s so easy to forget what the photos were of and the sad part about it is some of the photos aren’t even a YEAR old!

Friday I went to Curves after work and weighed in for our challenge we start on Monday. I need to make a menu still and buy some food for it. It would be nice to lose a few more lbs before we go on our cruise to Mexico.

At daycare on Friday they said Joey started to say Frances – and called Frances by his name and he started to say milk and sign it. Funny thing was when we got home that night, Joey actually asked for milk. The funny thing about this is we don’t normally give him milk and he really doesn’t like it as much as he likes juice, so for him to ask for it blew me away!

Today I woke up with Joey a few times and gave him some juice. He woke once at 3:30 soaking wet. I had to change his diaper, his clothes and woke Joe up to change the bed. Then around 6am Joey woke up. I kept telling him to go back to bed, it was too early and he did after I gave him some more juice. What a good kid. So finally at 7:45 he woke up and I got up with him. I changed him and changed his clothes, and then I had a bowl of cereal – The honey nut cheerios with raspberries. Normally I always drink it with soy milk but I forgot to bring it with us up north, so I drank it with regular milk. I haven’t drank regular milk in about ½ a year now, ever since I stopped giving it to Joey because of his constant runny nose (oh and after I stopped giving him milk, his nose stopped running). So later today I’m feeling like crap, upset stomach and all I can think of was it was the milk. I’m no longer able to drink milk – and I’m not going to, especially if it’s going to make me as sick as I was today! So it’s soy milk from now on.

I slept most of today and I’m not kidding. I slept until 11am then I slept 2pm – 5pm. I just wasn’t feeling well.

Grandma made steak tonight. Now I usually never eat steak. I’ve never ever liked it. My parents used to make it in the oven and dry them out and so I never ate steak because it never tasted good. The funny thing is I love the smell of it. I tried the steak Joe had for dinner and now I like it. I swear my taste buds are changing. I still will never try fish…ick. It makes me want to gag. Not sure why. My mother said I never liked fish.

Joe and grandma took Joey over to Joe’s mom’s house next door for a little while. Joe said today was the first day he actually played in the sandbox. He wouldn’t go IN it, but he took the sand and played with it.

At grandma’s house Joey has a mat that has roads, and other things on it. It looks like a small town. He takes his train cars (his favorite Thomas the train cars of course) and actually would drive them ON the roads on this mat. I never showed him how to do this, and either has Joe, but he figured out that the vehicles only travel the roads. I know, simple things like this amaze me!

Joe said on Friday he dropped Joey off at daycare and he ran to the fish tank and started to growl at the fish. What a silly boy.

That’s all for now. Nothing else new going on!