Teeth, Swimming, Sunburns and More!

Wow has it been a while! I'm not sure that I can even remember everything that has happened since the 26th (our 4th anniversary by the way). I do know one thing that hasn't happened, however. We have not yet sent in our package to get our voucher for our new crib. Don't get me wrong, we want to participate in the recall, but with moving in two weeks and everything else going on we just haven't got there yet.

What else, what else. Right after my last post (well, that Saturday morning anyway) we left to go visit some friends that had moved away and abandoned us. It was their daughter's birthday party and seeing as how we hadn't missed one in years, we saw no reason why we should start. It was a wonderful surprise to my dear friend and her daughter - who also happened to be the only two people that didn't know we were coming. We had a wonderful weekend catching up and visiting.

A little later, Grandma and Grandpa came up for the Fourth of July for a visit. That was really nice. We hung out at the park, watched Lily eat some watermelon and marveled at the fact that she slept through the very loud band and fell asleep near the end of the fireworks. No joke, we were like RIGHT THERE in respect to the fireworks and the poor bug fell asleep. Silly girl.

That weekend was also a certain husband's birthday. While we hung out on Saturday watching movies I attempted to make a cake. Usually easy enough - rainbow chip cake with funfetti frosting. I decided to get fancy and attempted to make a raspberry preserve and jello filling for the two round layers. It was very messy and wasn't as easy as it should have been but the end product was still pretty and very very tasty. It was nice having family here because we did candles and had a little party. Yay parties!

During this whole time Lily had been cutting two top teeth. Her left front tooth and the little canine right to the left of it. Not too much after however, she cut her other front tooth and is now currently working on the right canine. She's such a toothy little girl! Be careful though, she loves to munch and anything that gets in that mouth is just something for her to gnaw on. Small teeth are sharp too!

As far as life around here, things have been...okay. It's kind of nice having a home routine where most nights we come home, play, make and eat dinner, play, change into jammies, play, nurse or rock to sleep and then sleep in our crib. Before, when that one set of friends was still here (and I wish they still were) we were over there ALL the time. Now that they aren't here, we've been forced to stay home more often. I think it's actually helped our little family. Lily is crib training much easier and the routine means that I actually get some time in the evenings to do things that I need to get done. Crib training itself is going okay. She's usually up 3 times during the night. Usually hubby gets up, shoves the binky back in and the bug goes to sleep. Sometimes, however, she needs me to get up (usually around 2 am) and nurse her back to sleep. I haven't had to do that in the last couple days though. It's crazy actually getting to stay in bed all night. I love it.

Before I get too far ahead of myself into present day, I have one more past thing to talk about. This past weekend we again went to visit our friends and accompanied them to the water park. It worked out fairly well because we were able to stagger it to where someone was always watching the kids while others got to ride the water slides. Admittedly some (*cough cough*) got to ride more than others and some hardly got to ride at all, but all in all it was fun. Playing with Lily in the water was fun too. She had an adorable fishy swimsuit and we got her a little green rain forest floaty. You can see from the pictures that she really liked it. We floated with her in the lazy river and then found another small pool with a waterfall and a fountain in the middle that we floated around for a while. I think she really had fun as did I. The only downer was that hubby and I tried an aerosol based sunscreen on ourselves - spf 50 - while she kept her regular waterbabies sunscreen. She didn't color, which is good, and we completely fried. Like, I'm still in pain as I type this.

So that's family life. Work life has been okay. A fair amount of drama and other inevitable things, but like I say, they are inevitable. Inspections have sort of lost their magic for me as I get more and more people that are upset and fairly rude to me. I'm also starting to learn just how the farmers around here view regulatory officials - even some from my own department - so that is hard. It really is not something that motivates you. *shrug*

In other workish news, I start my Masters of Education in English as a Second Language / Bilingual Education. I'm unsure if I ever want to go back into teaching kids, but I still love teaching and whatever I teach this will definitely help me. If I ever have to move and look for a new job I would LOVE to find something in Public Health Education. If not that then some other adult education. I'm nervous about starting classes but I'm only taking a half-time load so it shouldn't be horrible.

Current news involves Lily having a fever. Her daycare called today and said that she had a fever of 102.7. She had no other symptoms so they said she could stay there, but still, it's upsetting. When we got her home it was still 102.7. We gave her tylenol but only after an hour or so did she start to feel any cooler. We did our normal night-night routine but this time, instead of sleeping 2-3 hours she woke up after an hour and then again shortly thereafter. We gave her some more tylenol and she is now sleeping again. It could go two ways - she could sleep because she is sick or she could be awake since she has been sleeping all day apparently. We'll see which it is as the hours go by.

This weekend there is a huge event going on in one of the neighboring towns. Hubby is reserving Friday and Saturday night so that means I'm on my own for those two nights. I know I'll survive, but the thought is still hard. More power to you single moms. I am so spoiled by having hte help that I do. Also, tomorrow I have to go to the event and inspect the food vendors that are there. Sometimes they can be less than honest so with me luck. I wish everyone just realized the importance of food safety and made a concerted effort to keep their establishments safe.

Well, I think that's about it for now. It's past my bedtime and since sleep is a precious commodity around here I really want to take advantage of it.

Have a peachy day!!!

Grad School. Office Fun and Sweet Potatos

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So, I don't think I've mentioned it, but before I ever applied for this job I had applied to grad school. My thought process was that I needed a full time job and that if it wasn't in teaching I needed to then at least continue my education in teaching.

I decided to apply on January 11th, not realizing that the priority deadline was January 10th. I kicked myself but planned on applying before the last deadline on March 15th. True enough, after writing all the papers, getting all the forms done and getting my recommendations in, I turned in my paperwork on March 15th. Phew! The office said that I should hear back by the end of three weeks.

Three weeks came and went and I still hadn't heard anything. I logged on to see my application status and was quite surprised when I saw that my application status was "canceled by applicant." WHAT? Freaked out about the possibility of all the time and money getting wasted ($50) I called the grad office who confirmed that my application had been withdrawn. They forwarded me to the ed department who were, thankfully, surprised. Turns out, when you apply to grad school you have to choose a first and second choice for majors. Well, they knew that I didn't want the second choice and had only put something there because the application made me. When they said axed the second choice it ended up withdrawing the application from both choices! Oh noes! It turned out okay though because I was in fact recommended for admission and he had my departmental recommendation right there. I should get a letter by the end of the week. Phew!

So in 30 minutes I went from, "Aww, I must have been rejected," to "I canceled my application?" to "Yay, I got accepted!" Talk about toying with my emotions.

Let's see, what else is there. Lily started her last vegetable before starting fruits. She likes her sweet potato! She's eating a lot more at mealtimes now so the little jars that I thought would last a few days are only lasting a single feeding. Silly little piglet. The picture on the right is of her munching on a biter biscuit. She loves them, but Mike hates them because they melt all over the place.

I know there's more...ah yes. My husband works in IT and his office consists of himself and two other coworkers (one being his boss). One of the coworkers is the author of Office Warfare, the name explains it all. Anyway, I guess today the author got totally silly stringed. Oh, fun office games. :D

In a slightly less upbeat note, today is my last day at home with Lily before starting work. I'm excited yet nervous at the same time. I have a big fear that she's going to forget who I am or have more fun spending time with her daycare since she'll be there more than she'll be with me (during waking hours anyway). Man, how do mommies manage this?

I'm sure there's more, but at this time I can't think of what it would be. I'll leave you with a request to go check out the site of a great Romance Author, Jane Richardson, and enter her latest contest. Her books are charmingly sweet! Enter here.