Good Job ASU!!!

Well, good job to the Chemical Engineering Dept at least.

Why???

They hired Zach! He starts on Monday working part time, answering phones and what not. It's not his dream job, but it is a job and is very convenient to school :).

Yesterday I decided to set up the laptop with an Elmo movie for Madie in the bathroom so that she couldn't get into too much trouble while I showered. She was fine for a while but then she started pulling at the shower curtain and whining at me. I looked out into the bathroom and noticed that her movie wasn't playing right. The picture on the laptop is really choppy for some reason and I thought that maybe she was just tired of it being that way so I closed the curtain and went back to business. A few minutes later she starts doing it again, only this time when I open up the curtain she is holding a diaper up. My first thought was, "where did you get that??? I could have sworn I threw away the one I took off you before bath last night." Well I did throw the previous night's diaper away and right after I finished thinking that I knew where it came from. So to confirm my suspicion I lifted up her shirt and sure enough she managed to get her diaper off! This was the first time she had ever done that. No more running around without shorts for her!!!

And now...some random pics:

Madie and her daddy looking out the window before bed one night. I just thought they looked so cute together.

Madie loves to play with cars. She even makes little car sounds when she pushes them along the floor.
The other day Madie wanted some peanut butter, and since she had already had some on a spoon earlier in the day I decided to cut up some apple for her to dip into it (she is way into dipping things right now). She got the tiniest piece of apple off her plate and somehow managed to get this much peanut butter on her fingers (it is kind of hard to tell from the picture but it was about 1/4 inch thick on there).

Here are a couple of pictures from Hayden's birthday party.

Hayden waving the checkered flags I made for him (despite the look on his face, he really did enjoy them, so much so that he actually broke one that night).

A cute pic of Madie and me :) I can't believe how grown up she is getting!

Really???

While out and about this morning, we stopped by the bank to deposit a check and I noticed something odd and kind of disturbing on the drive up ATM:

I know it's a small picture (since it was taken with my phone) so in case you can't read the sign (on the DRIVE UP ATM) it says "This ATM offers audio assistance for the visually impaired."

All I have to say is YIKES!

It must be the day of stupid signs/labels because I also noticed on one of Madie's washcloths that the label said "warm iron if needed." Who irons their washcloths?!?!?!?!?!

And since Madie was up several times last night, and is now napping, I'm going to go lay down so hopefully you'll get a real post later today.

Who Eats Cold Mac & Cheese for Breakfast????

That's right, this silly girl does! This morning I got her a bowl of cheerios (which she picked out) and she only ate about half as much as she usually does and then decided she wanted leftover mac & cheese out of the fridge.

Here are some other random silly pictures for your viewing pleasure :)

Her face totally cracks me up! She is trying so hard to get that case open :)

Apparently Madie likes to sit in confined spaces

She got stuck.

I did not put her in either of those places. I did set her on the counter top while I was getting ready but she got herself into the sink.

This is how Madie chose to carry her fruit cup into the kitchen the other day

I hope we made you smile :)

Landon's First Birthday Party

A couple of Saturday's ago we trekked down to Queen Creek for my friend's little boy's first birthday party. Heather and I met in college and it had been a while since we had seen them, so long in fact that I had never actually met Landon before! We were excited to go down for the party. We went swimming, but Madie only played in the water for a little bit and filled her time with other things. Such as climbing up the back of the pool chair.

And putting on my flip flops

Landon was fascinated by this fan

I know it's sideways, but this is the Nemo cake that Heather made for Landon. Isn't it so cute?!

I love the internet

And rubbing alcohol.

While this might seem like an odd combination at first, let me tell you why and then you'll understand. I have this pair of olive green shorts that I really like and I got paint on them while painting my closet. You're probably thinking, "you should have changed your clothes before you painted" and I did...my shirt at least. Every other time I have painted, my shorts/pants stay completely clean and my shirt gets dirty (mostly from me wiping my painted fingers on it) so I only changed my shirt and wouldn't you know it! I got my shorts covered in paint. We got some Purple Power (a cleaner that my dad uses that supposedly gets everything out) but it was useless.

After the last couple of weeks of super hotty hot days I decided I wasn't ready to give up on my cute green shorts (aside from their cuteness they are the only pair of shorts I have that actually fit me) and googled "remove dry latex paint from clothes". The first site that popped up didn't have any useful info but the second one suggested hair spray (or rubbing alcohol since that is the ingredient in hair spray that would remove the paint) and since I had a bunch of rubbinig alcohol and not much hair spray I went to work. It was so easy! All I did was pour the alcohol on (no soaking time required, actually the faster after pouring the better) and scrubbed with my finger nail and voila! Good as new!!!

Before - notice the cream colored paint marks around the pocket and along the right side

After - the previously splotched pocket

After - the back right side

So I will say it again... I love the internet and rubbing alcohol!

BOFL #3

Hot stove + plastic = giant mess

I wasn't paying enough attention last night to where I put the plastic microwave cover and set it down on the hot burner (that I thought I had turned off but apparently not, in my defense the light stays on even after you turn it off). This is what happened...

(You're not supposed to be able to see through it)

Needless to say, we threw it away.

On a completly different note, this is what Madie's hair looks like this morning. She had a little ponytail in yesterday and that always makes for interesting morning hair.

I'm hoping this morning gets better because so far it has not been fun. Madie hasn't been sleeping well the last few days (bedtime and naptime) and so she is super grumpy. She was convinced that she needed ketchup about 15 minutes ago so she had a chicken nugget with her cereal for breakfast, because I wasn't going to let her eat the ketchup by itself and was tired of hearing her cry about it. Maybe I can get her to nap early and hopefully that will put her in a better mood.

BOFL post #2

BOFL - Blog Often For Lindsay

Sounds like some kind of interesting breakfast food :)

This will be short but I wanted to at least get something posted today. We had invaders in the garden here. I noticed only one at first and then as I searched for him each day I started to notice more and more...

This is for size comparison, keep in mind the big one is about the size of my pinkie nail

Snails! The most I ever saw at once was 6, including the little baby snail, but I'm pretty certain that there were more than that at one point, since I have seen the shells of them beneath spider webs. Mmmm snails.

You'll notice at the beginning that I said had and not have. It has become too hot to handle here for the snails and they have disappeared; that or the giant spider I saw in the garden just above their local hangout had a feast. That spider was so disgusting and the worst part is that I almost touched it, on accident of course.

Another edition of BOFL coming soon to a computer near you!

Slacking

So I have been slacking lately (at a lot of things...but we won't go there). My mom issued a challenge to post something everyday between now and November 5th so that Lindsay has lots of fun things to read while Nick is away...that was on Monday. Sorry Lindsay!!! While I can not promise to blog every day I will try to post more often (say, once a week or so).

So what's new??? Not much. Well, that's not entirely true, but given my audience, there's not much new that I can discuss (so I'm a little crazy and have already started working on Christmas gifts). Zach is still on the hunt for a new job. I'm not sure if I posted anything about this but he got laid off last week. We weren't really that surprised, things had been slow at work for at least the last year. And we were hoping that he would at least be able to keep his job until we moved in with my parents (which we are really greatful now for that opportunity) so that we have fewer bills to pay. Although, I have to wonder if his boss knowing that we had moved and had fewer financial responsibilities played a role in his getting laid off. But such is life, now all we have to do is find that open door.

So last week was a total bust. On top of Zach losing his job, we had two parties planned that didn't turn out how we had hoped. I had planned a Stampin' Up party and invited some of the girls from my ward that are around my age and in my same general stage of life, since I don't really know anyone in that category and thought it would be a fun way to get to know them, and only one girl showed up. The two of us did have a good time though. She has a little boy who is almost three and a little girl just a couple of weeks younger than Madie. We have also gone to the park with her and her kids a couple of times. We seem to get along pretty well and have a lot in common. So that wasn't a total bust but not what I had hoped for. And then we thought it would be fun to invite some of our friends from our last ward over to go swimming and grill pizza on Saturday night but none of them could make it. Such is life.

Saturday morning was fun though. We drove out to the QC for my friend Heather's little boy's first birthday party. That was so much fun (thanks Heather for inviting us). I had never met her little boy before, which meant that it had been way too long since we had seen eachother. Although, we didn't get to see their new house, so I guess we'll just have to get together again, hopefully before our kids turn 2!

Well it is getting late (I know, 8:40 really isn't that late, but when you've been up since 5:30, it feels late) and I don't feel like uploading the hundred pics and videos I want to post (plus then it gives me something to write, I mean type, about for the new few days). So I bid you adieu with these super cute pics of Madie and her little pigtails. Stay tuned for scenes from tomorrow's (or next week's) episode...

And by scenes I mean words...

coming up are posts on our trip to Queen Creek for the birthday party, our trip to the arizona museum for youth with Kristi and her girls, the invaders in our garden, bathtime fun videos, more of Madie at the splash park, and probably a couple of pictures from Kristi and Benjamin's birthday celebration.

Tricycle rides and water fun

Hayden decided that he wanted to ride the trike on Sunday and when Madie saw him getting on it she decided that she needed to play too. So she bummed a ride on the back of the trike while Hayden did all of the hard work.

Actually with Madie on the trike with him, it was too hard for Hayden to pedal it by himself, so Zach pushed them. Pugsley decided to follow them all around the yard and barked and ran. I think that was the most exercise that dog has had in years!!! They all seemed to really enjoy it. Madie liked it so much that she goes over the to trike almost every time we go in the backyard now.
Madie has really started to take a liking to water. She often wants to get into the pool, or at least splash her feet in it.
We have been to Espee park a couple of times now. It has a nice little splash pad area, the only problem is that there are usually a bunch of bigger kids around, so you really have to keep an eye on the little ones. This was this morning, we went and played with some of our friends from our new ward (not the people in the background, I don't know who they are). She loves to splash in the puddles, but isn't too fond of touching the water as it is spraying.