Today started out fine. We went to a Mom2Mom sale and most everything was overpriced. Most people wanted $1+ for clothing, which I think is expensive. I think .5-$1.00 is reasonable for used clothing. I did buy a bunch of stuff from one lady that had a life jacket that I got for Joey and a TON of carter's clothing in BOY's colors - and those were $1/piece and that was fine for me. I also found a few more maternity clothes - 2 shirts and a skirt for $7 all together. Not bad! Joey got a Sesame Street firehouse for $1.00 that had the firehouse, 4 fire trucks and the sesame street characters. He picked it out. I'm totally addicted to mom 2 mom sales and Joe loves it when we go because we get awesome deals!

So after that I was off to the grand opening of the new Salvation Army store in White Lake. YEAH RIGHT!! There was no parking and there had to be 150 cars there trying to get in, and people parking at neighboring businesses just to walk over. I have never seen anything like it at a SALVATION ARMY store out of all things. I guess that was the place to be today. We did not go. There was no way I was battling through 100's of people just to go to a SA store grand opening! I'll go Monday and hopefully it won't be so nutty!

Off we went to quick kuts to get our hair cut. We had two coupons so Joe and I both got our hair cut for $12.50 together! Wowsers! I like how she did my hair. She thinned it out quite a bit and feathered it a bit and tappered it around my face. I like it!

Then back home. Fed Joey and put him down for a nap. When he woke up MIL was here (Grandma Char to Joey) and off we went to Greenfield Village to see Thomas!

When we got there Thomas was actually going around the outside of the village and we could see him over the fence. Joey about had a canary and was sooo excited. He kept yelling Thomas Thomas!! It was really cool. Joey was very excited about all of this.

When we got in the gate we went down to see Thomas at the station. We must have gotten there right before our train boarded because we watched Thomas board passengers and then Thomas left and we walked to the platform and they were already loading for the 5pm ride. So we waited and waited. Joey could hear the train on the other side of the park and kept looking around to see where it was.

Finally Thomas came around the corner and Joey was soooo excited! There was THOMAS! He kept saying 'Hi Thomas'. So cute. We boarded the train and took a nice trip around Greenfield Village. I videotaped Joey most of the time so I really wasn't able to be a passenger and enjoy it. Joe's mom took tons of photos, which was nice. After the train ride was over, we watched Thomas board the final trip of the day, watched it go down the tracks, Joey said goodbye Thomas, and we left the park. It was very nice. The train ride wasn't too long, Joey loved it and we weren't at the park a very long time.

Before we left we went to the gift shop and bought a train for Joey and he played with it the rest of the evening and was even dropping to the ground outside the gate to push it on the sidewalk. We were laughing so hard. Funny kid.

We went back to Milford and had a great dinner at Chili's. Joey was super good as usual and had pizza which he really liked. He also like the cheese sticks - that was the first time he has had them.

For any moms out there: Joey has never had a problem with me washing his hair and dumping water on his head until the past few days and now he doesn't want me to wash his hair at all. Any suggestions?

The family at Greenfield Village

Joey, excited to be on the train!

Joey and Joe on the train!

A nice shot of Joey

Train ride all done!

The three of us with Thomas in the background

Joey and Joe by the banner

Grandma Char, Joey and Joe by a train engine

Thomas going by one last time.

Joe and Joey running down the lane.

Joey with his new train from the gift shop

Whew, it's Friday!! Yay!

Today at work kinda dragged by. Not sure why. I brought in a costco (YUM) cake for Duane's graduation with his Master's degree and that was nice. I went out to lunch to Chinese which made me sooo tired by the time we got back to work. I hate how Chinese food can put you to sleep!

Anyhow, funny thing happened today at work. My boss was walking down the hall with me and Lori and he dropped his pop drink. Funny thing is, I have no clue how he dropped it. So he's standing there, in the middle of the hall with a puddle on the floor right in front of him and he's facing it. Now walking up, it looked like he MADE the puddle. I made some off cuff comment to him such as 'Your water pills are working overtime today, huh'? My boss always has something funny to say and constantly jabs at us with funny remarks so for me to finally GET him, I was ecstatic! He was so flabbergasted that I said such a good remark, Lori busted out laughing and he didn't really say anything because he didn't have a comeback for it! In fact, when I got home, I called his wife to let her know what happened so SHE could give it to him when he got home! hahaha ;)

THEN on my way home I was taking a piece of cake home with me for Joey. I was carrying too many thing and my camera bag, which was on my shoulder, came down and hit the crook of my arm, the arm that was holding the cake, and the cake hurdled through the air and went SPLAT on the ground. I heard Duane and Kim start busting out laughing. Duane was nearly rolling on the floor. He was like, man, that cake just flew through the air and landed on the ground - like it jumped off your plate. So luckily hardly NO frosting was on the floor. I threw out that piece of cake and got another to take home.

When I got got Joey in the car, after getting him from daycare, he saw the cake and started saying cake cake cake. I told him he could have it after we got home and he got in his chair to eat. Then he started singing 'Happy birthday to you'. I have never sang that song around him, except when it was Joe's and his birthday's recently. They sing it often I'm assuming at daycare and he relates cake with the birthday song. It was so funny to hear him start singing it! When I got him home and in the chair, he started singing it again! LOL It was sooo cute. He ate the huge piece of cake, well he ate only the frosting off it! Silly boy! Here are some photos of him eating the cake. He actually posed for me and said CHEESE! Other songs he really likes right now is 'Rock-a-bye-baby' which I asked and daycare sings that a lot, The Pledge of Allegiance, which they say at school and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It's sooo cool to see him singing the songs with us!

After he was done with dinner we were playing around and he was putting a bowl on his head and calling it a hat. It was so cute, it required a photo.

When he was done with the hat thing he bolted upstairs and ran into his room. I was trailing shortly behind (I guess this preggo lady can't run as fast as he can) and got pictures of him just adoring his new bed - and jumping on it in joy. He even went to bed right in it tonight. What a big boy we have!!!

If someone very close to you was sick, and never told you? I have a family member that told me about someone else that has a, well what I consider to be, a very serious health condition that could kill them. This person is especially close to me and it kills me that they didn't tell me, more or less that I don't even think this person is trying to make themselves any better. I want to say something to this person but I don't know if I should. Gosh, this really sucks. The worst part is their father died the exact same way. It's sooo scary :(

Well off that sad note, it's just something I needed to write down and get off my chest.

Joe setup Joey's new bed tonight and I took photos. See attached. It came out really nice. I hope he likes it. It sits up a bit higher than his toddler bed. He didn't sleep in it tonight because he wanted to go to sleep about 10-20 minutes before Joe finished. I guess we won't know until tomorrow. I'll keep you updated!

Ok, first of all, I hate it when you are in the middle of typing something LONG and then your pc shuts off. I have a laptop and when the fans get gunked with dust, it overheats and then shuts off. I was almost done writing this blog and it shut off and I lost everything! I guess it's time for the compressed air can. I need to go buy some. What a pain!! Don't buy a Toshiba laptop. The last time this happened I took it in under warranty and he said this happens all the time to the Toshiba's!

So anyhow, I had today off. Joey had a kidney appt today. (My pc shut down again! Augh!)...
If you didn't know - Joey had a kidney removed when he was 6 weeks old. It was never functioning - even in the womb. The other kidney was partially blocked. They fixed that kidney and they have yearly appts each year to have it looked over. His appt was today for his yearly. Joey didn't much like the ultrasound they did but he was ok if he was drinking his sippy (it's his comfy). Then we had to wait an hour to see the doctor. Good thing I came prepared with food, toys and books. The doctor said everything looked great. He said that Joey has what is called, an overcompensating kidney. Since he only has one kidney, it took over for the other that is no longer there and is working for both. He said if you were to stand it up on end next to another kidney for a child his age, it would be like standing up someone short next to Shaq. He said it's large but that's the way it's supposed to be and that he's doing well. That's a relief to hear! It's good to know that everything is going well :) He weighed in at 32.8 lbs today on the scale (with shoes).

So anyhow, that's why I had the day off today. We then went shopping at Kroger. He was good. I got him two matchbox cars, a ball and a pail and shovel. They were like $1.00/piece so it wasn't like I was going nuts or anything! :) He even knows to put his stuff on the belt to the register to pay for!

The rest of the day we hung out. I cleaned up downstairs and some upstairs. My house needed a good cleaning! It's so hard to do when I work full-time and I'm always running around, normally outside, with Joey!

Greg (my brother) came over today to help us measure some closet doorways so he can figure out how much he needs to cut down our new bi-fold closet doors. We bought 14 different doors and we are replacing every one in the house. My brother is such a help to me. We also had a lantern type post light in the front that broke. The piece that holds the lightbulb broke and hung sideways and it was right as winter was starting, so we couldn't take it out of the ground. All winter I swear we looked like white trash with that thing in our yard! My brother pulled it out of the ground today and taped off the wires. Whew, no more white trash in our yard! I hate it when big eye sores are in your yard and you can't fix them until the weather gets better! Augh!

This evening we took Joey to the playground to play. He loved it. We only stayed 1/2 hour because we needed to get home to give him a bath. He took his bath and then I read a few different stories to him before he went to bed. He's doing so good with his books. I let him pick out what he wants me to read and he's finally sitting and letting me read the words. It's nice to see him growing up like this!

This was funny - did you see my post from this weekend about 'Get out of the way deer?'. If not, you should see below. Anyhow, Joey and I were going through a wooded area of Brighton on the way back from the kidney dr. appt and he yelled, 'Get out of the way deer!'. What amazed me most was he remembered saying it from this weekend and knew to say it when we got into an area with a lot of trees! My smart little boy!

The photo above is from work. We had a team building activity yesterday and I'm the photographer. I took photos of everything but my boss made sure I was in one of the photos ;)

The other photos are of tonight, Joey and Joe were playing with his Thomas trains before we left for the playground. Joey loves to lay ON the ground and play with his trains.

The cool thing is we are going to 'A day out with Thomas (the train)' this weekend at Henry Ford Village! We got tickets a month ago and we are so excited to go! Joey doesn't even understand but I'm sure he's going to go nuts. We are actually riding on Thomas too! What a cool thing. I believe we are bringing the video camera and our camera! I'll share photos this weekend.

Carolyn - thanks for putting the blog roller on your blog. I stole the idea and have it on mine. I love how it tells me which one of my friends have recently updated their blog! What a cool idea.

Hope you like my new blog. Will write this weekend - or maybe sooner!

Well it's almost here - a new blog. I really got a crash course in CSS (Cascading style sheets) which build these blogs and I'm feeling more comfortable with it. I have a few things I still want to do, like fix my misalligned photo on the right, add a customized banner and add a few more tweaks from my old blog. Don't get too used to this blog. I have a habit of changing them when I get tired of them every now and then! Now that I understand CSS more and the blogger code, who knows what it could be next time! I guess that makes me dangerous! LOL So excuse the dust. I hope to finalize it tonight!

NOTE – I UPDATED 3 BLOG’S WORTH OF STUFF BELOW WITH PHOTOS DATED 4/22!

A lot has went on this week, so much that I could only blog last week’s events last night and not even catch up on this weeks!

This week on Monday and Tuesday I wasn’t really feeling well, leftover from not feeling so well last Sunday. I didn’t do much except watch Joey play outside. Wednesday came along and Dena at daycare told me another girl and her mom Casey would be at the local high school pool if we were interested. Two weeks before Casey showed me the pool and I’ve been wanting to take Joey ever since. I figured,what the heck, let’s go to the pool!

So we went to the bank to get money to go, then we went home to get our bathing suits and then off to the pool.

This pool is pretty sweet. It has a hut in the middle of the kid section that you can climb a series of stairs and slides for the kids to go down. They have some bubblers that have water come out of the pool in a stream for the kids to run through. Joey wasn’t so sure why I was stripping him down at first and putting on a swimmer diaper, plastic pants (Joey is still saying ‘Get out of the way deer! LOL), and then his swim trunks. I JUST bought a bathing suit on Monday that week so I had a suit to go in too.

When we got out to the pool part Joey wasn’t so sure. Last year he was terrified of the water. As last year, he had a death grip on me. I did what I could to make this fun. He watched Larissa go in the pool and swim. Another girl was playing with Larissa and she was going in the water too. Joey still didn’t want to go in, not even to get his feet wet. I took him over to a place where it was knee deep on me and we sat on the edge of the pool and I taught Joey how to kick his feet in the water. He thought this was pretty cool. Soon I was dipping him up and down in the water and he was giggling. I put him in the pool and he didn’t want any part of that. We played some more where I got him gradually wet. He started to get down on his own but wouldn’t really leave me. After about 30 minutes he finally felt comfortable enough to go out on his own. He actually fell under the water twice but we laughed about it when he got up and said it was ok and he looked shocked but was ok. Larissa and Casey (mom) left at about 6:15. Joey didn’t want to leave. At about 6:30 I asked if he wanted to go home to see daddy. He told me NO. Finally at 7pm they kicked us out. We got there at 5:15 and Joey had a great time! We are going to need to take him back. He’s free, I only have to pay $4.00 so that isn’t bad at all.

Thursday he went to my parent’s house after daycare as he normally does. I did some errands and got my friend’s wedding shower gift, and ordered a cake from Costco for a co-worker.

Friday we left to go up north to see Grandma again.

Joey has been really saying a lot lately. He’s been saying sentences. Just yesterday he started to say the word YES, which is a welcome addition to the word no. Before it used to be ‘Yeah’ but never Yes. Perhaps he thought we won the battle of the words if he ever said yes, so it was noted right away after he said ‘Yes’. Yesterday I went with MIL to some garage sales and before we left Joey said ‘Mom, can I come?’ I almost didn’t hear him right because I didn’t think he was capable of saying that! Tonight on the way home the deer were out on the roads. Joey said, ‘Go car’ and Joe said, ‘No Joey, Go DEER!’. So I said, ‘Get out of the way deer!’. So Joey repeated 50 times (and is still saying it as I’m typing this), ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY DEER!’. His English is mostly so plain to understand. He’s doing so well. I’m so proud of my little (big) guy!

Saturday I went garage sale’ing with Joe’s mom (MIL). EVERYONE was priced wayyyy to high. They wanted $2/$3 for clothing for kids and some lady had 6 chairs that were metal and had some fabric on the round seat and wanted $360 for all 6! Whatever lady!! I couldn’t believe what people wanted. I didn’t get anything.

They had a mom 2 mom sale at 11am and Joe and I got there about 10 minutes after it started and we GOT A CRIB! $45 and it’s only 3 years old and she said she hardly used it because he son co-sleeps (still). It included the crib mattress but we really don’t need it, we’ll just use Joey’s and disassemble his toddler bed.
That bring me to where is Joey going to sleep?

Well we went to Wal-mart on Saturday and found a cute bed there for only $127 – it’s a twin bed, has drawers underneath and a bookcase headboard. It’s a light pine color which is what we wanted so it worked out perfectly and didn’t cost us an arm and a leg like we thought it was going to!

Well (Joey saying Get out of the way deer again!), because we don’t have a twin bed in our house, we needed bedding so down the bedding isle we go. I swear I’ve looked for bedding for him before and didn’t see anything I thought he would like. Well today was our day we hit the jackpot – THOMAS THE TRAIN BEDDING! I was so excited. We got the sheets, pillow cases and a comforter for the new twin bed. He LOVED the bedding. He looked at it the whole way home and slept with the new comforter last night. So this weekend we did great – an inexpensive bed AND a used crib for only $45! Just in case you forgot, we broke Joey’s crib so that is why we wanted another and didn’t want to pay full price for one since this is our last child.

So that is all that really went on this weekend! I hope to be a bit better with keeping everything updated!

BTW - tonight is the first night I could put my hand on my tummy and feel the baby kicking!