Dont ask the 4 year old....

For a few months now Alex has been telling us that her room is a "baby room". She doesnt like the butterflies and flowers on the walls. She wants a big girl room. She also feels her bathroom is a boy bathroom and would like a girl bathroom (its decorated in stars, moons and suns). I planned to redecorate her bathroom this winter. Grandma Grape aka Grandma Olivia aka GG bought Alex a colorful beaded chandalier. I originally thought about hanging it in her bedroom but found super duper cute bathroom decor it goes perfect with. And its on clearance/sale with free shipping at Target. So plans changed to hang it in her bathroom over the toilet. It will fill in the blank wall. We are getting rid and selling a few items and toys in her room that will hopefully pay for the redecorating of her bathroom. I have priced everything out to total just under $200.

Now for her bedroom. Doug and I decided to start redecorating it even though this was not planned for a couple of more years. When we bought her crib, we bought the Lifetime crib that changed from crib to day bed to full bed. We did not purchase the rails (I blame Doug for this as I wanted to buy the rails at the time we purchased the bedroom suit when I was pregnant). Well searching on line I found out the crib/bed was recalled in 2009 because there was a fear babies could get caught in between the rails. There were no reports of injuries so it was a precautionary recall. So the rails were no longer available to purchase. (hhmm, should I dance around and sing "I told ya so Doug"?)

So after some thought and research we have decided to buy her a new bedroom suit. We found a really cute bed and dresser with mirror at Ashley Furniture. We then gave Alex many options of new bedding to choose from. Obviously this was a harder task for a 4 year old than we expected.

Heres one of the many conversations we had with Alex while showing her pictures of bedding:

Mom: Do you like this one Alex?

Alex: I dont like the clock

Mom: The clock on the wall?? We are not buying the clock. Look at the comforter on the bed. Do you like the colors?

Alex: I dont like the clock. I want pink.

Mom: (next option) How about this? Do you like the butterflies? It has pink in it.

Alex: No. I want the light

Mom: We are not looking at the lamp. Look at the blanket on the bed.

Alex: I dont want butt-a-flies.

Mom: (another option) Okay how about this one? This has flowers on the blanket.

Alex: (peering at the computer screen with all the other bedding sets listed) OH Momma! Look, Butt-a-flies! I want those! Purple Butt-a-flies!

Mom: (jaw dropped) What? But you just said.... you.... but... this.....huh?

End of conversation. Daddy and Mommy made the final choice. This is how many of our conversations went when trying to get help from Alex to pick out the bedroom suit. She didnt like the comforter on the bed so she didnt want it. Its difficult to make her understand we arent buying the bedding, we are buying the furniture.

Here is the bed we chose. It has extra storage underneathe! Oh the lil things that excite me.

Here is the dresser and mirror to match.
And here is the new bedding we chose. We matched paint swatches to it as well. Two shades of pink. Dont even ask me how that conversation went with Alex. Lets just say, she apparently doesnt like pink anymore after asking for a pink bedroom. Difficult child, difficult.

New Blog=Fatter Me

One day I was browsing the web for a recipe and came across a baking website/blog.
http://www.bakerella.com/
I found so many yummy recipes to try. And of course I find it at the worst time. Doug and I are trying to watch what we eat, exercise, get fit and all that jazz. But I cant resist wanting to eat practically everything this lady has on her blog. For Dougs birthday I thought I would make something with cheesecake since its his favorite dessert. His birthday is not till April so until then I think Alex and I will have to try a few other recipes. She loves to bake and is always asking to help when Im in the kitchen. Every third Saturday he has to work so I think that is a great opportunity to have a special baking day with my lil sweet pea.

A few pictures from my cell:

Booster Seat for the cars! Alex has been appearing uncomfortable in her car seats. She needs more leg room and to sit up straighter. So we decided to switch to a booster. It was a huge change for Mommy and Daddy as we didnt want to leave the 5 point harness system. But Alex is getting so tall that she was definitely needing out of the car seat.

Oops, forgot to rotate the picture. But as you can see with a tilt of your head, she is learning how to write her name. So proud!!

Valentines Day gifts for Alex: the book "The Grouchy Ladybug" with matching stuffed animal and a singing guitar she has been begging for since January. She loves to "rock out"

The only way this child will let me take a picture of her is if I let her make a funny face. Hey, Ill take it....

Double Take!

OMGoodness! Could it be? Yep! Its me!! Im back. I'm a slacker and cannot believe I let myself go months without updating the blog. I'm sure everyone out there is wondering where the heck are we? Right?...no?...okay I didnt think so either. But we are here! Never went anywhere! Just keeping busy...or being lazy...It seems I update my FaceBook account daily so why should I keep this updated? Well not everyone has FB. Shocking, I know.

So in the last few months we celebrated Christmas, a New Year and Valentines Day. We also celebrated the births of new babies into this wonderful world and celebrated the lives of friends/family we lost. I also created a New Year Resolution for myself. I promise to finish what I have started. Another reason I am updating the blog. I have also received a couple of chances to practice photography by taking photo shoots of friends and family. I still have a lot to learn.

So what is going on? I still have short hair. HA! I havent broke down and bought a wig of long hair. I am still enjoying ym short hair. We will see if I have the same feelings this summer. Speaking of hair, Alex wants hair like Mommy's. Im not chopping her hair but am growing our her bangs and giving her a side part. So right now she is in the midst of a style change and its rather messy looking at times. I just keep reminding myself "Its just temporary. It is growing. Give it time. Dont cut it".

Alexandra has recently started learning how to spell and write her name. We are working on Alex rather than the full Alexandra. She is doing such a great job. She gets so proud of herself when she rights every letter correctly. You can tell by looking at our shower walls what letter she is working on that week. She likes to practice writing on the shower walls with washable crayons made for the tub. Which I hesitated buying for a couple of years. I didnt allow these crayons in our house until she learned right from wrong. Because she is older she understands and knows its wrong to color on the walls. I was afraid introducing her to these crayons too early at an age would make her think it was ok to write on walls with any crayon/marker/pen.

Because she would rather play with the crayons in the tub I have decided to throw away all of her bath toys. You ask, "why do that to her?" well I hate bath toys now. As a child I ALWAYS had bath toys. I didnt realize until having my own child what work it is to have bath toys. Constantly washing, drying, bleaching and disinfecting these darn things. Mold grows on these toys like weeds. And my child likes to put things in her mouth. All of the time. We never ever had to worry about her putting items in her mouth as a baby until she got older, like around 3. The child is always slurping up water, sucking on wash cloths, nibbling toys, playing tea party, etc. We see this mold growing on and in her bath toys and its disgusting. On the evening of her 4th birthday party she took a bath. I caught her sucking on a toy and then noticed after scolding her, the toy had mold in it. Within a few mins I had a barfing child. And it lasted all night until early in the morning. Because of the content of the vomit and no signs of fever, I now think its because of the mold she consumed. Absolutely disgusting. And I feel so bad as if it's my fault.
So I decided, no more toys in the bath tub.

I have lots of pictures to share but all are on my laptop at home. I will update very soon

Celebrating 30 Years

Today is my 30th birthday. I have planned for many months to donate my hair to a charity that provides wigs to sick children who have lost their hair because of an illness. I researched for weeks and found Wigs For Kids. My cousin informed me of the program, advising they do not charge the family in need of the hair, unlike Locks of Love. My closests friends Kari and Amy joined me today at the salon taking play by play pictures. I was suprised I did not cry. I was so excited for a change and to donate my hair. I have never had short hair so this was an extreme step for me. I did not go in with a style picked out. I just let her "wing it". And it turned out great1 I love it. I love my part has moved to the side. I never thought I could do that after 30 years of being in the middle. I love how its short and out of the way. I love I dont get it caught in the door, caught in zippers, caught under my arm. I love sitting next to Doug in the car and begging him to get off my hair that he has laid his arm on while using the arm rest.

This is only my first day with the short hair. And I am nervous to watch it because Im afraid I wont get it to the style the same way. But I am willing to work with it and try.

And for some reason when I post pics using my laptop, it doesnt allow me to rearrange the pics. So they are out of order, Sorry.

October Update

So now that its the beginning of November, maybe I should update everyone on how the month of October was. It was fine, thats about it. Pretty simple, huh? I couldn't end the blog like that.

The weekend before Halloween we went to Waterman Farms in Wanamaker to pick pumpkins. It was, as always, a good time. Alex rode a pony which then made Doug get the idea that he needed to buy her a horse. We also watched the pumpkin eating Dinosaur get fed. No, Doug is not buying Alex a dinosaur too. We enjoyed their homemade kettle popcorn. One bag was obviously not enough so Doug bought two as if we need it. But it is only once a year we get to eat this oh-so-yummy snack. And I have to confess. We ate both bags within a couple of days. We continues our time by taking a hayride to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins.

We carved out pumpkins a couple of nights before Halloween. Alex picked out Cinderella's shoe for her pumkpin, By the time I was done carving her shoe, I barely had enough time to carve my pumpkin. Maybe Ill save Cinderella's carriage for next year. I chose a quick and easy scary face. Alex picked out a skeleton for Dougs pumpkin.

Alex was dressed up as Cinderella for Halloween. She wore a Disney Authentic Cinderella dress we got from our summer vacation. She also wore her princess crown and light up wand. Her and her best friend Lance who was a police officer walked door to door collecting candy. Momma dressed up as a black cat, sporting black fluffy slippers as paws. A very comfy walk for me. We had to our Trick or Treating time a lil early because Alex was having stomach problems. She had the problems through out the day. Doug had to rush her home once and the second time we decided to stay home. But overall it was a good time and Alex had a lot of fun.

Now thats it November, we are preparing for birthdays and holidays. Its the busiest time of the year for the Thayers.