Lily reminds us 'Tis the season to think about gifts...

Suuper quick too tired, tooo late blog post!
Look at the cutie visitor I woke up to this morning.Ri's baby sis's babe- Baby Lily.
We babysat a few hours so her mommy could work today.-following some family drama that left Lily sitterless-

She is a super sweet babe, and played quietly with me early this morn while I let Ri & Rory sleep in a bit...
Well she did get SUPER fussy before her big nap this morning.
After the long nap we woke up Ri& Rory.
Lily was a big help Cooing ,grunting ,and "elling" (as Rory calls it) at them to wake them up.


Aww, I think Rory was pretty thrilled with our guest, don't you?



Can you tell Rory was a pretty good helper ,tooo? :)

I had the heater on and it got a little too toasty in here- I changed Lil Lilys outfit- but then turned the heat off and changed her back..
Rory showed Lily every toy she owned, being careful to keep her from the teeny ones

-"she drooled on me"

Somehow Lily fit in a nap while Ri was hammering the satellite dish back on the roof,and Rory played outside.



- short and she woke up happy, can you tell?

looks like someone is teething.

Ri took Rory with him to the grocery store to pick up some extra baking goods and snacks.
Rory LOVES shopping just her and her Daddy- but wasn't very eager to leave Lily.
Sari called and checked on Lily lots-understandable, it is much different to drop your child off somewhere when you never do- on top of I have never watched her,formula was also all new to me. Lily was pretty easy baby though,and I think she had a great time.
When they got home Val called to exchange gifts.

We got her a really pretty green tea bath set. Smelled great too, she seemed to like it.
I love bath sets- it is like a simple pleasure no one ever buys for themselves..
but I can't use most of them with my hypersensitive skin. It is nice to pick them out for other people.


Val was surprised how big Lily is - she's a big& and tall girly. and mentioned how much she looks like Sari- To us she looks almost like a little mini Rj, except her mouth.
This morning while chatting online with Val I showed her a link to what Ri found for Seth, a handheld gutair hero.-the game was on stupid.com I had to tease him about the "stupid" gift.
seth seemed to think it was pretty awesome though
Val got us gift cards AWESOME. and Got Rory a HUGE playset. Rory was sooooo thrilled. She didn't stop playing with it all night.

Very cool.
...but,, it turns out that is the same playset my parents had got Rory.
I called to break the news to mom and dad- but got a very grumpy Lissy.
I feel terrible because Val described the toy she bought months ago, as did JJ- and I for some reason thought they were NOT the same one.. I really feel like it is all my fault.

Sari came and picked up Lily and got her birthday present. A lavender bathset-which she seemed to love. We know bath stuff is always perfect for Sari.

Ri concerned sounding- asked me how much I "enjoyed watching that baby".
listen,I LOVE babies. Always have. It wasn't until I had my own that I realized how much differnt your own is than someone elses. I Still love babies- but I don't want to do the baby thing again.FOR SURE, not the newborn thing. Visits are lovely though.-He was relevied tp hear that reaffirmed after my day with a baby. Which was surprising from him.
For years he has been the one less sure if he was DONE.He says he has just recently started to think he is.He is really enjoying Rory, her age and her abilitys which grow everyday.It's hard to imagine having another kid on top of all that ,you know?hard to imagine another child not taking away from what we can do for Rory , in many ways... Oh how I am hoping he is rethinking not getting a vasectomy.---

--
I called my parents house again- wondering what they were going to do about the double present... she def doesn't NEED it I am sure she has plenty of toys- hell she had plenty before any xmas presents- I was just wondering if there was a plan.
Instead got my hormonal ungrateful sister pulling her woe is me holiday act,and hanging up on me.
-sigh.-
I put up the phone, just grumbling. Ri told me he was proud of me, he could here me stay calm and cool trying to rationlize with her.At least Ri could hear me trying


Our 6 mo break from Directtv was up. .. they told us we had to get it turned on- or pay to get the canceled compleatly- weirdness.. well Ri went ahead and had them turn it on today considering we have to pay a month for it before we can put it on hold again.So YAY we have TV.

Ri also made yummy dinner. He worked seitan into chicken nuggets - which were good..but Rory wasn't impressed by the italian style breading.She at a surprising amount of the side he tossed together of squash,zuccini, tomatos and corn.

Rory played with her playset and watched the upside down show till she crashed...

...We managed to stay up watching Top Gear wrapping the handful of presents we had got Rory, and a few other gifts we had left.

I had feared running out of paper.Far from it, nah we just ran out of tape instead. I guess I will be shoving dads gift into a bag. -darn.

Tommorrow we are doing a laast minute scramble for Grammy the grapes Xmas Eve party- and Chirstmas as well.

So, I need to go to bed..
Wish me a little more holiday peace ,and less family stress for the next few days.



hmm I wonder if i should turn the tv in the bedroom>?



G'night- and Happy Holidays
BABYHELLFIRE

Itchy Ballerinas, overheated Santa Claus magic,kitties- and don't forget drama

Hey People!!!..um, Noobie says "hi!",too.

When I finished my last post Rory was being goofiness with her playdoh car driving Little Pets.

Well, later that night she decided to dress up as a ballerina and dance... Noobie also had to get in on the action...and attention.


On her tiptoes while the music box played.



--OH! She also had a rash pop on her arm. Mom said it looked/sounded like posion ivy... I am somewhat concerned it could be from cashews though, as I haven't got the rash-and she really hasn't been anywhere to have gotten into o posion ivy.. it has cleared up a few times..and came back and cleared up. :(






Next morning.
We got up and ready to go to porky's xmas bash.Porky's is a local bar restaurant type deal. Mom and Dad hang out a Porky's regularly, doing karaoke,auctions and helping organize this bash..
We had been to the party before , it was HUGE
- one year they raffled out free bikes-along with small gifts to every kid from santa,this year they went a different route (because of problems the last few years)
and raffle tickets got kids into "santa's shop"(without a parent unless they were under 2) to pick out there own gift.They also had free hotdogs and soda, for kids under 12.Mom said they had bakes sales and auctions and collected 10thousand dollars just to give back to the community.

Mom & Lissy came to get us. Rory was excited to get to wear her party dress.

JJ met us there and we waited in the LONG line to see Santa-even though we "knew" Santa personally.
There were SOOO many people it was shocking. Had to be over 500 kids!! Check out the line!



Can you beleive I got a teeny bit sunburnt waiting for santa!!
Wayy toooo hot. I felt bad for santa.

Lissy got hungry, so JJ took her to the store to get a snack...we were still in line when they got back. lol.
There were games set up- ring toss and bean bag toss- after the kids played they got to pick out a 2 liter of soda. Rory picked out a dr.pepper.
There was also a GIANT slide. I sent Lissy to let Rory do that while we stood in line.
Mom, JJ and I "awwed", and giggled, about how nervous she looked at the top.. I was really afraid she would be to scared to go down.

--but when she got to the bottom, she cut across and went back up one more time, before Lissy could catch her! LOL (Ri says we are raising a little cheater)- Lissy said that the woman monitoring it just giggled and pointed up the ladder when it happened.

THEN- SANTA!!
Rory was sooo tickled that "Santa" knew her name!,AND Aunt Lissy's name!
(Aww,look at lissy's baby bump!)




LOVE this pic..NOTE the giant fan-poor guy- he should have dressed as beach santa or something LOL. The rednose was very santalike though.
And Rory's pose pose smile.
.....Well, I REALLY expected her to figure out "SANTA" was Grandada!-at LEAST by his voice, I even went as far as prepping her proir to the party, that "Grandada might help santa by pretending to be him"- but she says he didn't :)

We saw Mel(Ri's older sis) on the way back past the line- She said she reconized me "by the booty!"- which my mom cringed at. The kids are looking too big! Jade(he is 12 i think) sounded nervous about seeing "santa" - He was like "what am I sposed to say?"- I told her it was my dad, and he is awesome. He is REALLY great with the kids. Everyone was gushing to us about how great he was up there. We even had a great laugh watching him while we waiting in line.

While Mom,J,and lissy listened for Rory's raffle number to get called I took Rory to the bounce house...um yeah- lets all pretend that that isn't a kid in camoflauge Pjs in there with her.

- i thought I would never get her out. The girl monotoring it was really sweet and shuffled out the big kids so Rory and a few other little ones could jump. Me and another little girls mom had a REALLY hard time getting them out.-Our girls were in there jumping pretending not to hear us- I feared having to go in after her.

Poor overheated "Santa" decided he was done after awhile,and we walked up to greet him(Mom had brought him street clothes to change into) .Lissy told Santa how Rory was waiting for her number to get called,but it hadn't been. Santa picked up Rory and took her- With us trailing behind. I was like "santa stole my baby"

..He took her into the backdoor of the secret shop.. where she picked out a toy. I knew, and had said to mom- she probably would pick something cheap if left to pick on her own... She bypassed keyboards,and dollhouses, and went for a shovel and pail gardening set -but afterall isn't that what alll little Florida kids need :)


I thought these were pretty...until I almost fell in trying -unseccessfully to get to a yo-yo a little boy had dropped. His dad came along and got it for him though.

We waited around in theback-Lissy was reading a womans palm. While we waited to see Dad and say bye.



- I do beleive ,Rory even told Dad about meeting Santa !
Mom also told Dad about the nice family we met in line in front of us, with 5 small children..and sent him back to work a little santa magic to make sure their numbers had been called in the raffle.
As they day had warn on they were practically giving toys away- Dad tried to argue they should save them for next year instead.

Before we headed to St.Auggy to shop, we stopped in at the trailer park pavilion JJ lives at now- they had went ALL out decorating and EVERY inflatable xmas decoration you have ever seen, snow globes and lights- we will have to go again at dark.

...Oh and some wild urkeys...not like the phesant little wild ones in our neighborhood. I told JJ he should catch one- Ri might eart a free range turkey ...prolly have to get someone else to clean it.

We stopped in at Mom's to pick up Amy.. and headed for St.Augustine. Figured we shop the outlset mall for Xmas ,and Lissy had planned to pick up a cheap aquarium she found on craigslist(the deal fell through though :( ) .

We stopped in and got subway on our way.- i got a really simple veggie sub- I was overheated and not very hungry.Rory head chips and cookie.Sub was pretty excellent though- you never know with subway it could be terrible or awesome.

-Rory's rash DID flare up again a few times. Luckily I thought to bring hydrocortizone.I am a bit worried the rash is a cashew allergy from those chocolate turtles Ri brough me she loved soo much-mom thinks posion ivy though :( ...either way I hope it is gone by xmas.It seems gone as I type ,at least.

_-- OH and i never got one single pic of my cute outfit. My tank top and stipy arm warmers and pigtails. I got a few comliments for it even :(..Maybe Mel will send me the pic she took.

The outlet mall was a bust I must say. DUDE I swear they added a dozen store i don't remember. WAY WAY over priced store we would never shop at. SAKS 5th avenue? yeah, gucci? yeah, just not the place for me.
OH but I could move into earthbound trading Co. Mom bought a few Crystals there. Rory checked out the hermit crabs.
I think Rory could move into Clairs...like any little girl.Didn't find /buy much though,but it was fun walking around checking stuff out,laughing and joking with my fam- even with an overstimulated kidlet.
We got back to moms pretty late. Dad was surprised they hadn't dropped us off 1st.

We had to pet the kitties and eat some more junk food though...Mmm ice cream cake and caffine
..and kitties!Rory played with the
Aww lavender is soo cute.
Rickjames(the mamakitty) was VERY mad at me for taking innapproriate pics of her cleaning herself.- I swear I was just trying to capture the dryerlint fluffness(you have to touch her, she doesn't even feel cat-ish) that is "lavender".


Aww its basement kitten
Aww, she has such pretty features.


I WILL break Ri of his "no cat" rule one day.


Surprise flash..


It was fairly late when we got home. Rory was wound up.I was sooo sore and tired...and so was Ri when he got home.
Slept really reallly good.

This morn' I woke to Ri up early playing a insanly loud video game..and rory telling him he "intruppted her beauty sleep!".
Rory and I had a pretty univentful day as Rory played around the house with her playdoh, and connect four from the party-and I deep cleaned ,and prepped everything for the holidays.
Monday, and Tuesdays, are Ri's days off and we have much to do.
..Well as I sat down to upload pics(had a helluva time)-
Sari called.IT finally happened. ..Ri's mom has been watching Lily for her, and ever annoyed by it and bitching about Sari not wanting her to watch Lily at her house(even though i was the SAME way when Rory was that age)..and the ever growing beef with RJ-which we all knew a blow out was just festering and is all too familiar i must admit,)well anyway...
Sari needs somone to watch Lily in the morn.
Which means I REALLY should go to bed now. I Do feel like I owe it to Sari -considering sari was the one who came to OUR home free of charge to watch Rory at that age.
HOPEFULLY, Sari will find a way to get out of work Tuesday, if not we will have to figure out how we can juggle watching Lily and finishing the last of our holiday prep-cringe-. Well, at least I AM excited to play with her in the morning.

-sigh to bed with me.
PEACE AND TOFU CHICKEN GREASE,
babyhellfire

...and in case the next few days are tooo busy :
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Jeez! She isn't even quite 4 yet!"- and other neat things

Did Rory get bigger overnight, or is it just me?
I don't mean bigger size, she is still rocking the size 3s. I just all the sudden have a preschooler in my midst. She spends her mornings coloring,her day asking questions- she wants to know everything about letters and numbers.
I can't read to her enough, I can't do enough activities with her.She blasted through ALL of the activities (mazes,number and counting games) in all of her coloring books ,all of the sudden, the other day.
Oh, and she EATS now, really really eats. She tries food she has never seen before, eats BIG heaping servings without turning up her nose,or bribery on our part- even telling us we make wonderful dinners.
Crazieness.


It has been HOT here. UGH. December in FL it goes from freeeeeezing to HOT.

Sunday, Ri was 'sposed to be off ,but actually got called in to work. WOOHOO!- He even managed to make us a yummy breakfast before her went in.Rory LOVES tofu scramble and ate loads of it, more than she even ate of the grits.Gushing about what a great cook her Daddy is.
Rory spent a lot of the day outside,she picked some mandarin oranges by herself( she has been eating them almost nonstop this week) and sat outside with the dog.





Noobie had fun playing with that rope with us.
I spent a lot of the day clearing off the dryer so RI could take it out and apart (to fix the belt ) on his day off.
UGH! We store sooo much in there it was a HUGE job. Sucky.
I tossed Rory in the bath-which was a struggle.
She had a scratch on her leg the other night, and got soap in it, and now she is freaked out about baths hurting her boo-boos.
She is also sort of oddly upset when she gets a boo-boo. She is afraid she will be in trouble for crying about them (?) . Puzzling. She tell me not to tell daddy she cried,and is embarrassed by it. Poor thing. .. At 1st I thought maybe she had cut herself getting into something she shouldn't have AND THAT made her worried about getting in trouble,but then she got a blister, and had the same embarrassed worried about being in trouble reaction, poor thing.

Ri got off fairly early, Sundays they close pretty early.I had this idea- he had made Setain/wheatmeat "Ribs" a while back , and I thought maybe that recpie would be good as "hot wings " instead of ribs..They turned out awesome- I will get back to them later-
We stayed up far later than we should have eating dinner.Then Rory woke up , overtired , and upset she had missed dinner.

Monday- We went shopping for a few more Xmas presents, a birthday present for Sari( Ri says THIS year he WILL NOT get her a gift for xmas), and a belt for the Dryer. Rory was all over the place, shoes falling off being far more stressful than I would have liked.We spent almost the whole day shopping, and really didn't buy a terrible lot.
We tried to get ahold of Sari to bring her, her gift with no luck.
Ri made awesome Chineseish dinner, fried tofu-(with sweet and sour sauce), and fried rice. Even fried some other veggies -pepper onions, and pinnapples in beer batter. Turned out really awesome. Rory declare tofu as her favorite food, between tofu scramble, and fried tofu she LOVES it. I got an odd sense of pride hearing that one. UgH- greasy belly kept me up a little later than I would have liked.

Tuesday- I woke up wayy before Ri... a bit grumpy. I was having an all out grumpfest. Nothing felt like it was working right.The kitchen was trashed but I couldn't quite clean it because I didn't have a place to put the storage stuff that was waiting on the dryer to get fixed and put back.

I finally woke Ri up and he tried to fix the dryer- and found out he didn't have the right screw driver to fix it. He ended up running up to Hills (local hardware a few blocks away) to find one.Damn thing cost 20 bucks. So the dryer eneded up costing 25 bucks to repair....BUT YAY it is fixed , and I didn't have to resort to hanging my clothes in between surprise Florida rainstorms.
We DID get ahold of Sari about bringing her gift.She sort of frustrated Ri telling him she is having Xmas dinner and we HAVE TO COME, and HAVE to bring something...
and also saying we shouldn't come over right now" because they don't have enough food"(we don't want your steak)... he just told her to call him back when she was ready for us to come over and bring her her birthday present. She didn't. The whole thing was passive agressively rude back and forth.Yay family love.
Did I mention I was already having a grumpfest??
Well , I tried on the dress I planned to wear for xmas, and it didn't fit!
UGH. I have been gaining weight soo bad. Ri was no help .I felt crappy
Rory kept complaining her tummy hurt but I didn't manage to find anything to help.

We went to the park.


These cranes, I swear there is only a small group of them that live out here, but they are all over the place.

New thing at the park



Little did we know the drama that would follow......






- Ugh poor baby. she had already been complaining of a belly ache before she stepped in some doggies poo, and trailed it through the toy house- to the top of the slide, then slid down the slide. :(
I was done. We didn't bring a change of clothes for her.Her belly hurt, and she had some strange dogs NASTY poo on her. So we left even though we hadn't been there long, and Rory was upset to not get to play more with the new toys.
Ri was really offended - as a fairly responsible dog owner, we pretty much ALWAYS pick up Noobies poo, and ppoooor Rory! :(

...For dinner Ri made those Setain hot wings again.

he modifies this rib recipe
http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2007/05/barbecued-seitan-ribz.html


They were sooo good, with some HVRanch dip. We had corn on the cob and mashed potatoes with them. He also made some with no hot sauce for Rory, She LOVED them(and her whole dinner,
they were almost like chik'n nuggets-which Ri is talking about making next with some breading! Mmmmm. They are really good, and MUCH MUCH cheaper than boxed faux chic'n stuff.




I sent this pic into Jones Soda, the product placement is too perfect.


It is so awesome she has been eating sooo much.
...except maybe the concequense of having a load of added crazies before bedtime. I swear she has some much energy she could run up the walls. .. and she keeps getting hurt doing it it. She busted her top lip that night. running through the kitchen and falling :(

Ri also made some really awesome bread. ..before he drank too much - spent hours on the phone with his mom, and passed out.



Wednesday- I just tried to catch up on the laundry , and cleaning since the dryer was fixed. I got this wild hair to pull out the sandwhich press and made grilled cheese sandwhiches on it.
..and much much much later Rory helped me make PB&J sandwhiches on it.
Rory seemed content playing around the house-dressed like a princess while I hung clothes , singing and coloring.

Ri called and told me he would need to work thurday morning So I made us all dinner. Lentils,rice with crushed tomatos , and broccholli. Which Rory ate a lot of and again declared it the best dinner ever.


Yesturday. Since Ri had to work in the morning- Rory and I woke up and went to the park.
She decided to ride her bike there.


Since it was midday, and midweek I decided it would probably be alright for her to ride around helmetless in our quite neighborhood.
She is getting REALLY good.
I DO keep having to tell her to SLOW down enough to steer.Soon I think I will need a bike to keep up with her!!
She rode ALL THE WAY to the lake park... where they had some new things
This is actually a wheelchair swing...

We played around there for awhile before we rode back... I heard some lightning and HOPE it wouldn't rain on us on the way home.
We rode past the comminuty center- which was crowded, not sure what was going on there... a few of them tossed cat calls , or nicetys ,, and cheered Rory on as she focused on pedalling. She did SOO good, and was really proud when everyone told her "good job,pretty girl!"
Can you beleive how big she is???
It was CRAZY CRAZY hot. We even came home and made lemonade.
HA!! I didn't even see the GIN label until this pic!!
No worries, it hasn't had gin in it for a long long time... just a very sticky label.



Rory had a whole lemonade stand going. Charged me a dollar for a cup!
It wasn't long before she was napping.

Woken up from her nap with a start by a guy saying knocking on the door.
He handed me a peice of paper and told me to call our mortgage company.. and asked if he could take pictures of the outside of the house...
I said sure but it freaked me out. I knew we were a bit late on our payment, but I didn't think late enough they should be evaluating our property. I called Ri - they told him it was really no big deal( scare tactics, me thinks)... and he told them he WILL be making the late payment soon.

My head was hurting in the yuckiest oddest way most the day .Rory was bouncing off the walls.
I was really overstimulated headachy when Ri got home.I tossed together left overs for dinner... Ri said he had to work early again.
I am really glad he is getting some hours.. I miss him though. and I hope we will be able to wrap presents soon.


LOL Right now, Rory is playing with playdoh and her pets- she just built a car around her bulldog toy, then gave him driving glasses and a hat! Love it.

Well, I have to get ready for the Xmas party I am going to with my mom tomorrow.
PEACE AND TOFU CHICkEN GREASE,
BABYHELLFIRE