Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Mimi's Birthday Wishes

Shopping with my Claire-bear

I am one of those women who does not really enjoy shopping. I will say that I do enjoy looking (notice I said looking) at shoes and bags/purses. Every now and then I do make a purchase and it is usually a bag. You can buy bags or purses cheaper than you can shoes these days. I have started pulling out the spring and summer clothes for Maggie and Claire. I have gotten everything for Claire that she needs except flip flops and a bathing suit. I thought I would not have to buy anything for Maggie but it looks like I will be purchasing a bathing suit for her as well because the one that Claire had at this age is too small (shocker). I decided I would look online since I have looked at some stores and have not found what I am looking for(ask granna or my mom about the search for that "perfect" big girl bedding for Claire- and yes they think I am crazy). I was sitting at the computer looking at the swimsuits at target. Claire comes out of her room and here is our conversation- Mommy, what are you doing? I am looking at swimsuits for you and Maggie. Oh, can I look too? Sure. Climb in my lap. Ooooooooo I like that one, no mommy I like the blue one, wait no I like that purple one. Look at that pink one. Well Claire, which one is your favorite? The pink one. Ok, well lets see if we can look for some flip flops. Yeah! What do you think about these Claire? I like those, no wait I think those are cute. Wait, I like the pink sparkly ones. You do. Well, maybe we can get to target and see what they have at the store. OK mommy. -
About 3o min later Claire asked me when she is going to get her sparkly flip flops. I said we would need to go to target to look. She said, "its ok mommy, papa will get them for me (this is her new phrase since papa has a surprise for her every time he sees her... thank you Brunos for going out of business...). I passed this information on to mom and she told dad that Claire said he was going to buy her some flip flops. Yesterday afternoon he came home with not only one pair but two pairs. We went over to their house this afternoon to visit. Dad came home from work and pulled out her shoes and let her open them. The first box had a white and pink pair of flip flops that light up when you walk in them. How fun were these. They are really cute. Claire was really excited about these. Claire got the second box and took the top off and was so excited to find a pair of pink "sparkly" flip flops with butterflies on them. She jumped up and jumped in Papa's arms and hugged him and told him thank you. I am sure at this time Papa's head grew about three sizes. He had a grin on his face and was really excited to see her so excited about the shoes. We have now decided that Papa will be do the shoe shopping. He does a great job. Claire has asked for a swing set and trampoline- we will see how this one ends but I tell you something, if Claire had asked for anything else in the moment right after she hugged papa's neck and told him thank you then I am sure no matter what it was he would have gotten it in a split second. It is such a sweet bond that grandparents have with their grandchildren. Yes, they spoil them and then laugh at us as they give them back to us with chocolate mouths and bags full of goodies but it melts my heart to see the love that they have for one another. And its ok if we are the bad guys sometimes....they are just getting us back for all those fits and long nights.. after all you can't go to grandparents house without some candy. We love you guys!

Laura's Shower

Brook, Cristy, and I had the honor of throwing Laura's baby shower for the church. We have a group of girls who have hosted the last 3 or 4 baby showers we have had and they have done an amazing job so when it came time for us "old schoolers" to have our turn we found ourselves under a little bit of pressure. We started thinking about what we should do or not do and threw out the ideas that back 10 years ago would have been so great but not so much now. We decided to go all out and do fine dining. We needed to find some fancy dishes and decor. I was in charge of this. I had a thought to check thrift stores and some flea markets but I was running out of time. I started praying for free dishes. (and hey, we are not afraid to ask for free stuff these days!) Mrs. Calfee told me that Maw had a ton of dishes that she collects and that she would love for us to use them. I had forgotten that she collected them. I was so excited when we got up there and found so many things to choose from. She showed me her milk glass collection and it was beautiful. I decided this is what we would go with. She had the punch bowl, candles, and other platters to match it. So leave it to me to bring up death in this situation. As we were packing these dishes up I asked Maw (and before i realized what was coming out of my mouth) I said something to the affect of "so has anyone claimed these when you go and see the big man upstairs" - which could have been taken- when you kick that bucket i want those dishes you hear. As I have analyzed this in my head over and over that is the only thing it sounds like to me. She was so gracious and said no would you like to have these. Yes! So my free dishes were beautiful for the shower. We needed to find some thank you notes that did not cost us a ton of money. So we began to pray for free thank you cards. Cristy J went into target and found some cards that were damaged. (the boxes were damaged not the cards themselves) She grabbed them up and went to the customer service desk and started asking how much she could get them for. After a little process of negotiating she walked away with two boxes of really cute thank you cards for 6.00 total. Now I realize these were not free but God never said He would give it to us I just felt I needed to ask and His favor was with us. The next day I had to buy flowers. I went in to walmart and just before walking in I prayed that God would help me to find just what we need for a great price. He did! I found several bundles of flowers that were half off and ended up spending 2.50 a bundle. I was so excited! I called Brook and Cristy and shared my excitement. I am sure the people in Walmart thought I was a fruitcake and thought they were too because you could hear them squealing through the phone. It did not matter to me one bit. Cristy J had an idea to get boots and put flowers in them and make it a little cowboy theme. She even pulled some bamboo from her back yard and we used that with flowers. I was sweating it a little bit when Mrs. Calfee came in and saw the bamboo sitting in the floor and said what are you going to do with those weeds! I told her we were going to put them in boots for Laura's shower. The look on her face was so cute. I went over to Brooks on the Friday before and we spent the day getting everything set up. Cristy joined us by phone for most of the day but it was so much fun. We set the flowers up in the boots and it made the cutes arrangements. We got a picture so I will upload those a little later. The shower was beautiful and we were all really pleased at how everything turned out. Laura said she really enjoyed. Now either she really enjoyed or she did not want to hurt us old timer's feelings.

The incredibly chaotic day!

Monday morning I got up ready to start my monthly grocery shopping. Rodney was so great to offer to keep Maggie at the church while Claire and I headed to do all the shopping. It started off really great. I got through Sams and called Rodney to check on Maggie. He said she was fine and for me to finish up my shopping at Walmart. So Claire and I get into walmart and get halfway through and Rodney calls with this child screaming in the background. Normally I would have recognized Maggie's scream but it was so high pitched that I could not tell. By the tone of his voice I could then tell it was Maggie. He informed me that he was suppose to be in a meeting and normally she would have been fine sitting there playing with toys or eating but she would not do either. I decided I better head out since it was a 10-15 min trip back to the church. I got in line with the groceries I had and stood there for 10 min and realized that all the lines were this long and none of them were moving. I knew I had to get out and could not wait so I parked the buggy(don't tell anyone) and darted out with Claire. I got almost to the church and Rodney called and said Maggie had fallen asleep (of course) and for me to finish. I told him I was almost at the church and I would just come and get her and go home. I got home and spent about 30 min on the phone with the insurance agent trying to explain to me about our renters policy and even he was confused on it because the lady in his office put it in the computer wrong. And could someone tell me why on earth when you pay your insurance monthly that they charge you for this. This does not make any sense! During this time Claire walked out of her room and said mommy in this low pitiful voice which can only mean one thing- tete accident. I got her cleaned up and about that time Rodney came in. This certain afternoon I wanted to run to the door and jump up and down and say Rodney's home, Rodney's home. Claire usually gets this job every afternoon. He told me to go on to walmart and finish up the shopping while the girls were still napping. What a great idea. I was able to go by myself and blow off some confusion and just not think but drive to walmart. I got there and let me just give some advice. Do not go to walmart on a Monday afternoon at 4:00. It was a mad house. That should have been my first clue to turn around and go back home. I instead pressed on. I went through the aisles and realized I could not find anything because there were so many people in the way. My buggy was so full that everyone started looking at me like I was going to feed an army. It became embarrassing. After being there for 2 hours I finally got in a check out line behind "that" woman with the two kids screaming whose debit card would not work. Luckily her friend was on the other side of walmart with her kids and she was going to come and pay for her stuff. (now, let me take a moment and say that i have been "that" woman with the screaming kids but for some reason when you are by yourself and you see other people with their screaming kids you think to yourself why did they not leave their kids at home). When I was checking out the woman at the counter asked me how often I buy groceries. Now, I could have taken offense to this but I had first made the comment to her that I was not the only one eating all this food. So we were able to just laugh about it. I finally got checked out and was headed out the door. Luckily I had put the eggs on top so they would not get smooshed. I hit a bump and yes the eggs fell off the buggy and onto the floor. All of them were broken. There happen to be a big garbage can sitting right beside me and I just picked those eggs right up and threw them in the garbage and started walking to the car and never looked back. I know the right thing to do was to turn around and go back in and get more eggs. I called Rodney and told him I was headed home and that Pops would have no eggs for breakfast because I was not going back. He laughed and said that was fine. I think that was one of the most stressful times at the store. I think I would have done better with the girls with me. I had layed some chicken out to fix for dinner. I was planning on baked chicken with veggies. Since it was 6 when I got home I had to revamp my plan quick. At this time Brandon and Laura came to bring the truck back that they borrowed that afternoon. They ended up staying for dinner so I had to make sure we had enough for the six of us plus a child who honestly doesn't count because she eats like a bird (and if the pudgeball ate chicken then we would have really been in a mess). At this time I was praying over the chicken so that it would feed us all like Jesus did when He was feeding the five thousand. It ended up all working out fine and Mrs. Calfee so graciously said that next time she would go with me. I don't care what anyone says-Mondays are so hard!

Daddy takes Claire camping

Last week Rodney decided to take Claire camping since I was going to be at a conference all weekend. He pulled out his big tent and they had a practice night. He set up the tent in the living room and for about an hour they had a camping trip. Everything was going great until it was time to go to bed. Claire wiggled and squirmed and moved and grooved and finally Rodney decided "off to her bed with her." I was able to catch a few moments on the camera. Claire was so excited. It ended up raining this past weekend so Rodney and Claire were unable to go on their "real" camping trip. I think I got the best end of the deal because Rodney braved it out with both the girls and allowed me to go to the conference baby free. Maggie was such a trooper. Out of sight out of mind. As soon as I walked in the door and she saw me she remembered " oh yeah I am hungry." This is the first time I have been away from Maggie for longer than a couple of hours. Rodney met me around lunch and I was able to feed her and then took her back home. Thank you Rodney for being with the girls and thank you Maggie Rie for allowing me to slip away this weekend.

I asked Rodney if we had anything that would work for Claire to slide down the hill on. He came back with a baking pan which worked quite nicely. I even got to take a ride on it and had a great time.

A day up at Grandmother Allreds

We took a trip up to Grandmother Allred's house a couple of weeks ago. Grandmother had saved a limb that Claire played with when we were up there last. She pulled out some crafty materials and her and Claire made a beautiful masterpiece. Claire loved it! Maggie enjoyed herself as well.... eating of course.

Snow Day

Make a Smilebox slideshow