Saturday Joe and I went out on a date. Grandma and Grandpa watched Joey. We drove into Saginaw and we were going to eat first, but I told Joe I wasn't really hungry. He laughed - he said he wasn't either but he didn't want to say anything because he thought I was hungry. What a goofball!

So we decided to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and use my gift certifcates. My brother needed some new Cephlon utensils to go with his new pots and pans mom bought him for Christmas, so I bought him a bunch. We pretty much got one free with the coupons so that is cool.

Then off to the Scrapbook store - the Scrapbook Peddler. I got a bunch of cool stuff there. If only my scrapping mojo would come back. I'm having the worst time trying to scrapbook!

Then we went to Best Buy and I got my early Christmas present - my 30 gig IPOD! I'm so geeked! Don't I look happy here? Oh by the way - I'm in my new Target outfit in this photo!

Then we went out to Red Lobster for dinner. It was so yummy. I LOVE eating there.

Then I came home, had Joe take these photos and I was downloading songs like crazy onto the IPOD! I think I have 1200 songs on it right now? It's awesome! Happy early Christmas to me!

Thursday was our first real snow that stuck a little bit. I grabbed the camera and took a few photos before I ran out the door on Thursday. The house is across the street. The van is mine. By the way - I HATE snow! I am so not looking forward to the winter! Blech!




WHY I LOVE MICHIGAN

When it's Winter time in Michigan
And the gentle breezes blow,
About seventy miles an hour
And it's fifty-two below.
You can tell you're in Michigan
'Cause the snow's up to your butt,
And you take a breath of Winter air
And your nose holes both freeze shut.
The weather here is wonderful,
So I guess I'll hang around;
I could NEVER leave Michigan now,
My feet are frozen to the ground.

Thursdays I never have time to blog. I go to my parents with Joey after work, then I go to WW and do some errands. By the time I get home it’s usually around 10pm.

Yesterday at WW I gained a lb. I looked at my weight checker and it’s the same lb that I have gained and lost for awhile now. As long as it doesn’t bring friends, I’m ok with that.

I went to Costco afterwards. They had a very cool shelving system for kids toys. It’s that one that has the primary colored bins that sit on an angle. Well this one had that AND it had fabric panels at the top to hold books too. I was going to buy a shelf like this originally and I liked the bin shelf but this had both. So I bought it. I can’t wait until Joe sets it up.

Then it was off to Target. I love Target. I went over to get Joey’s Christmas outfit for our yearly Christmas photo. It’s a red flannel shirt, with a red vest and black corduroy pants. It’s so darling. Then I got him some more Thomas trains for Christmas. Then I remembered, well I need some clothes for Christmas too! I went through their clothing racks and picked out 6 things to try on. I got in there and tried on the pants and the size 12 were TOO BIG! Whatever! I had to go back out and get new sizes - A FREAKING SIZE 10! I tried on the pants and they were perfect. Now I’m truly convinced that Target vanity sizes and that I’m probably really a size 12, but hell, I’ll take it! A SIZE 10 EVERYONE! I had to call my friend Lori and tell her. She would understand the glory of being in a smaller size! I also bought a 4 shirts.

I got home late and watched ER. Then went to bed.

Friday was good. I wore my new clothes to work and felt like a million bucks. I took Joey into daycare –which Joey normally does. I worked in Livonia today and was super busy. I went to the scrapbook store for lunch and got a few things. I can’t wait to scrapbook this weekend!

I went to my parent’s house tonight because I forgot my coat there last night. My dad went to bed early and we didn’t stay long.

Tonight we cleaned the house, packed up the entire van full of stuff and we are on our way up north to see Grandma and Grandpa. I can’t leave my house looking dirty, so I clean it before we leave. I hate coming home to a dirty house.

Today at daycare Sherry said that one of the parents loves Joey and wants another kid just like him. He is super well behaved but those terrible twos are kicking in. He’s a bit more cranky that normal. Dena was saying that Joey likes playing with his friends but sometimes he gets to the point where he wants his own space and he pushes his friends away from him. I can see him doing that. He does that to us sometimes. What a stinker! He’s in a stage now where he likes to screech in a super high screaming voice. It’s quite loud and ear piercing.

Not much else going on. Will write more later.

Not much going on today. I worked. Waahoo.

Came home today and got Joey from daycare. We went to the fruit market. He loves going there with me because he sees the trains they have that run above your heads. He loves that.

Then we went to the library and I got my books I had on reserve. Joey got some train books. After we left he had a breakdown and I had to carry him to the car.

I got this book from the library on someone’s referral – called KISS - Guide to photography. It’s a very awesome book and it’s made a lot of sense of some of the things I didn’t really understand about photography and made me understand some things a bit better. Some of it doesn’t apply to me so I skipped it – ie the film parts but the rest is great.

I guess not much to update. I took this photo of my ring today for the photo of the day challenge on 2peas and I love how it turned out.

Joey missed his daddy tonight. Joe didn’t get home until 9:30 because he’s working late all week. Right before bed Joey grabbed Joe’s shirt out of the dirty laundry hamper, started saying Daddy Daddy over and over and ran downstairs with it, got his cup and ran back upstairs to go to bed. I put him in bed with daddy’s shirt. Poor kid misses his dad. Joe came home and told him (while he was asleep) that daddy will play with him a lot this weekend.

At work my friend Lori and I go downstairs to get breakfast every morning. We take our water cups and fill it with ice and get something to eat. Today was no different. We got our water, and our money. We wanted omlets.

We get in the elevator, push floor 1 (we are on the 4th floor) and the doors close and then the elevator stopped - midfloor - with a HALT.

Her and I both look at each other like, oh no. We tried pushing other floor numbers, and nothing worked. Finally we pushed the call for help button. Security comes on.

Can I help you? - the security man says.

Yes, we are stuck in an elevator - car 4. - I say

Which side, north or south?

The side closest to the front end of the building.

Oh, ok. The north side. Ok, let me call for help.

Lori and I are joking about this now. Good thing I am not clausterphobic!
He puts us on hold as he calls for service. We are really stuck. He comes back on and tries to make small talk but we are already kinda nervous. Lori asks me if she thinks we could fall. We are pretty sure we are stuck between floor 3 and 4.

I don't even care about being stuck in a small space, dropping or running out of air. I'm sooo concerned I'll be stuck in there for hours and have to PEE! Yes, I'm kinda phobic of being someplace without toilets. When we went to Mexico on our excursions, I was kinda nervous about that.

Ok, so normally that isn't a BIG concern at 7:30 in the morning. BUT today I grabbed a big bottle of water before I left for work and had about 12 ounces drank before we went down to get more water. So I'm freaking - what if I have to pee?

I ask Lori - Um, what if we are stuck in here a long time and I have to pee?
She looks at my cup and says, well you can go in your cup!
I looked at my BIG 64 oz cup and said, yeah, I guess I could and then throw it out.

Then the thought of me trying to use the bathroom over a cup is a bit much and I get nervous again. Then I remember of the news story last year where a woman was stuck in an elevator for 24 hours and never even peed! I told Lori. She laughed at me.

Finally a service man comes. He's yelling - ARE YOU OK?!

We yell back - YES WE ARE OK!

He yells back - I CAN BARELY HEAR YOU. YOU ARE STUCK BETWEEN THE 3RD AND 4TH FLOOR. WE ARE CALLING FOR HELP NOW.

Oh great. Our own service men for the building can't help us. They are calling the elevator service company now!

So Lori and I are just trying to make small talk. Normally this is not a big deal for us. We can talk and talk and talk but when you are a bit nervous and stuck in an elevator, it is kinda of strained small talk.

The guys come back now and then and ask questions like '
Can we tell your manager?'. We yell back no - they aren't in yet (remember it's 7:30am).
How many people are stuck? We yell back 2.
What are your names - we tell him our names.
Then he asks for our phone numbers. We tell him this but aren't really sure why he asked this.
He asks if we are ok again. Yes, we are ok.

Finally about 15 minutes later, we start to move. And then we get to the fourth floor and the doors open, and both her and I nearly bolt out the doors. THANK GOD WE ARE SAFE. One of the elevator service men is saying how sorry he is that this happened. I was like, it's ok, it's ok. So from now on, Lori and I swore off elevators and have been taking the stairs 4 flights from floor 1 to 4 to get to our floor. We were in the elevators 45 minutes!

There was another guy in the building who was stuck recently too. I actually saw him in the cafeteria this morning. I said, hey Steve, remember how you were stuck in the elevator? We got stuck too - this morning. He said, 'Well how long?". We said about 45 minutes. He replied, "Ha, got you beat. I was stuck for 2 hours". I was grateful he won this contest, because I would have really had to go to the bathroom had we been in there 2 hours.

The rest of the day just went by. It rained all day long in Michigan today. It's been dark, rainy and cold. We are having thunderstoms as we speak. Michigan weather. We are now under a tornado watch, a high wind advisory AND it's supposed to snow tomorrow. ONLY in Michigan. I bet Thursday it will be 70 degrees. I swear the weather changes more in Michigan than your undies!

Tonight I took photos of my cats for the photo of the day. I was actually eating one of those cheapo flavor-ice pops after dinner and I totally forgot my cat Alex LOVES these. So I shared and got this photo. He's very photogenic. The black cat is Sasha. The other is a photo of Joey saying CHEESE during a late night snack.

I guess that's enough excitement for today!

Lifted from Carolyn's blog and she challenged me to do this!

• 2 - names you go by: Bree, Queen Bitch of the Universe (thanks mom!)
  


• 2 - parts of your heritage: Mostly polish, French
  


• 2 - things that scare you: death, heights
  


• 2 - of your everyday essentials: my pc, my glasses/contacts
  


• 2 - of your favorite bands or musical artists: Phil Collins, George Michael
  


• 2 - favorite songs: Like China by Genesis (Phil Collins), Older by George Michael
  


• 2 - things you want in a relationship (other than real love): Friendship, security
  


• 2 - physical things that appeal to you (in the opposite sex): Hair, height
  


• 2 - of your favorite hobbies: Scrapbooking, computers


• 2 - things you want really badly: to be and stay thin, to be the best mom I can be.
  


• 2 - places you want to go on vacation: Caribbean Cruise, New Zealand
  


• 2 - things you want to do before you die: Get more scrapbooks done, have another child
  


• 2 - ways that you are stereotypically a chick: I don't care for bugs, I curl my hair!
  


• 2 - things you are thinking about now: Curling my hair again tomorrow, Joey and how cute Joey and Joe are together, rocking.
  


• 2 - stores you shop at: Target! and Michaels
  


• 3 - people I would like to see take this quiz: Melissa Zeno, Jen and Deanna
  

Today was a good day. I went out for lunch at work and I was training other colleagues all day long so it went by fast.

When I got to daycare Joey was in a mood. He was fine there. I finally convinced him to go home. We went to go put on his shoes and he had a fit. He’s been doing that a lot lately and we even switched shoes. I’m not sure what that’s all about. Then he didn’t want his hat or his coat on. He just gave me a hard time. I wrestled him to get his coat on and said the hell with everything else and carried him outside. It was quite a scene at daycare. Dena said that is how I must stay in shape. At one point I had him half balanced on my leg, while I was standing, while putting on his coat. I think I looked like a pretzel with a crying child attached to me.

When we got home I made him walk to the house in his stocking feet. I told him this is why we put our shoes on. I was NOT happy with him at all. He was not happy with me at all either.

He was in quite a mood once we were home too. (See photo of him crying). He would not stop crying. I was about to have a fit. I got paged from work, and he’s screaming. He tested my patience a few times and he had a few time outs in his bed with the door closed while I got a breather. Boy is he turning into a typical ‘terrible two’ toddler!!!

Later that night he settled down. He only wanted to eat dinner when I told him there was corn – and corn he ate. Silly boy. I gave him some hamburger helper potatoes with cheese and he wouldn’t touch it, but now he’s behind me cleaning off daddy’s plate and saying MMMM. I guess you can see PICKY too!

I took some photos of Joey playing with his favorite Thomas the trains today. I also took a few cute shots of him in the bathtub. I was trying to think of a way to get him to smile at me while I took some photos, and just asking him to say ‘Cheese’ did it! The funny part is, he really DID want cheese when he was done with his bath. I guess if I use that trick again, I’ll have to bring cheese with me.

Call me a bad mommy - we really have never gone up to a local school and taken Joey to the playground. Of course, we decided today would be a GREAT DAY, even though the winds were blowing a good 55 mph or so outside. We decided to make a fun trip anyhow.

We got to a local elementary, that is about 1 mile down the street (yes it's that close) and we took Joey up to the school. He practically ran into the yard to go play - or the wind was blowing him in.

His favorite thing was the slides. We were both up on the play structure, kinda forgetting, opps, someone needs to be on the GROUND, and down the slide went Joey. Joe is having a cow - OMG he's going down a big slide by himself! He was fine! I went down to help him off of the slide but he loved it. The thing I hated was the slides are that plastic that when you go down them, you build a great deal of static electricity and I shocked him and myself every time I went to pull him down off the slide! Eek!!

I can't believe how big he's getting. He wants to do all the things the big kids do!

I felt bad for Joe. We were swinging on the swingset at one point, and Joey went back over to daddy and Joe lost his footing and swung right into Joey. That poor kid - yesterday he banged up his poor chin, and today daddy swung into him and knocked him down. Poor Joe felt awful. Joey got over it quickly though. He enjoyed swinging on the swings with daddy.

Once we got home he took a long nap.

When he woke, off to Target we went. I love target. Can you believe we actually had on our list to buy a VCR tape rewinder? Yes and we found one - the last one there too. It's such a pain waiting for our vcr to rewind tapes and Joey is so impatient. We got a few other things, including a new Thomas car for Joey. Boy is he spoiled!

Off to my parents we went. We had a great dinner. Mom made pot roast, mashed potatoes, green beans and it was all great. The pot roast just fell apart. We showed my parents our photos from Mexico. My dad has a sleep apnea problem, where he just falls asleep all the time in the middle of talking to you, in the middle of just about anything. So of course, he never saw our photos - he fell asleep.

Ever see a person with sleep apnea? It's scary to watch. They don't breathe, and then they shake themselves awake and then gasp for air. My dad does it all the time. My mom has tried to get him to go to the doctor, but he says no way. He won't do it. He says, I'll just lose weight and I don't do this anymore. Yet everytime he loses weight, he just gains it all back. He is the biggest chronic dieter I've EVER seen - and yes, he's my FATHER!! It's so sad to see him diet like that and to see him get such poor sleep! I told him I'm taking my video camera over there next time to tape him breathing like that but if I try to show him the video, maybe he'll just fall asleep watching that too. Go figure.

I'm not sure if I said before but one of the cute things Joey does right now is he will go driving with us and from the back seat will yet out when he sees a plane. The funny thing is he has awesome eyes. He will see planes we hardly even see! We went by a tower today with the red lights on it and he thought it was a plane. It was really cute.

That is about it. Joe and I had a few talks about work. He's in the busy part of his planning season now so he's a little stressed out.