Not just smart but clever too

I've been blogging about cleaning and organizing so much lately that I thought I'd take the time to write a little something about Malea.  Every day she surprises me with the things that she says.  Today she looked down at her fishy crackers and said, "We're missing one mommy."  (Parker had eaten one when she wasn't looking).  What, when did she learn to conjugate words, say proper sentences and count well enough to know that something was missing?!

So today I have two stories to share because they are so funny and anyone that knows my husband, Matt, will laugh and know where she gets it from (especially Matt's poor mom).

Story 1:

Malea and I love to build towers.  Mostly I build them and then she knocks them down, or should I say crashes them.  She loves to say, "crash mommy's tower!"  We play this game where I build it and she tries to sneak in an knock it over but usually I can push/tickle her away until I feel like it's tall enough and then I allow her to crash it.

Last week though we were playing this game and in the middle of me building a "biiiiig tower" (as she calls it) and pushing/tickling her away she suddenly stopped and said, "Mala build tower too."  I stopped and said, "okay, you can build a tower" and let her walk over to the blocks to start building her own tower.  However she had something else in mind... she knew that if she said she was going to build a tower that I would let her come over, because I didn't know that she had learned the art of trickery!  She walked right over, and without even hesitating, she totally crashed my tower!  I couldn't believe that I had fallen for it!  When did my little, innocent girl learn to trick me?  Totally awesome, funny and clever, but kind of scary too.  :)


Story 2:

The next story goes with a picture.  I had to take one because I just couldn't believe my eyes, it was SO Matt!!!

Last week Malea was enjoying a tea party at her "big girl table" when I walked over and noticed that she was putting water from her sippy cup into her tea cup.  I asked her to stop and explained to her that I didn't want her to put water in the tea cup because it needed to stay in her sippy cup.  The tea cups are for pretend, and for play, and the sippy cup is for drinking.  I walked away and when I came back this is what I found:

She decided that if she couldn't put her water in to the tea cup that she would put the sippy cup into the tea cup so that she could still "drink" out of the tea cup.  Very clever...  Where does she come up with this stuff, and when did she become so clever?

She obviously gets this cleverness from her daddy which means, if she's starting this early, I'm in BIG trouble!  Oh the joys of parenting... :)

Turning 2!

Last year for Malea's party invitations I dressed her up and took a bunch of pictures of her holding a "1".  The pictures turned out really cute so I decided to start a tradition and do the same thing this year with a "2".  I thought I'd share my craft since it was fun and didn't cost me anything. :)

Tore off a piece of cardboard from the Jeep Malea got for Christmas. :)

Didn't quite get my "2" right the first time around.  Good think I was planning on painting it!

Used the left over paint from when we had to redo the crown molding in our bathroom.

Flowers and ribbons from my craft bag.  I ended up using the ribbon from one of Malea's friend's party invitations.  Thanks Brandi! :)

Two coats of paint and a little glitter.

My LEAST favorite thing about working with a hot glue gun!  So many clue strings, everywhere!

The finished product, all ready for pictures with Malea tomorrow!

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

This weekend Matt participated in the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes fundraiser for Shasta Women's Refuge. Malea, my mom and I all joined him for the walk and we all had a great time. Matt did a great job and he didn't even end up with any blisters! I thought you all might enjoy seeing some pictures of Matt in 4" heals so here you go... This first one is my favorite. I told him it would be a good one for Malea's baby book! :)

Christmas came early

This week has been a hard week for me. I have been struggling with my loneliness again and feeling like maybe God really did forget about me and my feelings. To top it all off I was making dinner the other night and my knife was just not cutting it--literally. I have sharpened this knife every time I've used it for the past week and a half and it just doesn't seem to want to cut anything. So the other night Matt had just gotten home and I was telling him that I was kind of in a pissy mood because I had been thinking about my situation that day and how I feel so disconnected from our friends and from the Stirring. While I was talking to him I was trying to trim the fat off of some chicken but it wasn't coming off because my knife wasn't sharp enough. At this point I was trying to tell Matt how I felt, I was crying, I was trying not to mess up my makeup because we had to go to our Water Birth class that night, I had chicken slime all over my hands--so I couldn't wipe my tears, and I had just about had it with my knife. So in an instant temper tantrum I took my knife and slammed it against the cutting board as hard and loudly as I possibly could--it was very unlike me but it felt good to release some anger on the knife. I looked up and Matt's eyes were filled with terror. I felt a little bad but I was more relieved that I hadn't hurled the knife into the wall or something worse than that.

So yesterday Matt came home from work and he was hiding something behind his back. He asked me if I wanted to see my early Christmas present, and of course I said yes. From behind him he pulled out a beautiful knife, the nicest knife that has ever been in our house, it was a Wusthof. He said that he had gone to That Kitchen Place and spent almost an hour there looking at the knives and talking to the sales rep until he found the best knife possible for me. It was beautiful. I cut a bell pepper with it and I didn't even have to try to cut it, it practically cut itself; all I had to do was move the knife back and forth--no pressure needed. It was unreal! When I asked him how of our Christmas budget he had spent I almost fainted but he said he figured it was better to spend a little to buy me a knife that would last forever rather than have my other knife end up in him. :) I guess I scared him a little more that I thought the night before!

So that's the story of my early Christmas present. DON'T WORRY I don't really have rage issues, I was just having a hard night the other night but I am extremely grateful for my sweet husband who bought me an amazing knife that now I will be excited to use to make dinner every night.

YIKES!!!

Yesterday I was drying my hair getting ready to go to our first labor class. I was excited because I was using my new hair dryer for the second time and it is so much nicer that my old hair dryer... or so I thought. I was about 2/3 of the way done drying my hair when all of the sudden sparks started flying out of the hair dryer and out on my hair... no exaggeration!!! There were literally sparks shooting out from the hair dryer. I immediately pulled it away from my head and checked to make sure that my hair wasn't on fire, then I turned it back on and looked at it and spark were flying out the back too! CRAZY! I tried running it a few more times but every time I turned it back on there were more sparks. So I guess I'll be taking that hair dryer back.

On another note here's a picture of Matt and I headed off to our first class:

We had to watch this totally lame movie that was about an hour and it made you want to rip your eyes out. The hair, clothes and poor acting were all straight from the 80's--woo-hoo! Other than that it was pretty interesting but I have a feeling that we will probably learn more in the future classes. Luckily there were a few normal couples in our class so we had some people to talk to. The crazy thing though is that there are 5 babies all due w/in 1 week of Malea and they are all girls! It's going to be a busy week for the maternity ward. :)

Totally random

My freind Jessica is hilarious! She sent me this You Tube video and said it's the theme song for this picture: She said that Matt's the paper pusher and I'm the "leggy blonde." It's funny, you've got to watch it!

The best birthday card EVER!

My dear friend Renee', who lives in Washington, mailed me this card for my birthday. I think it's the funniest birthday card I've ever received. I was seriously in my kitchen, laughing out loud, by myself.