Conversation with Ardyn at McDonald's: "mom, can I have a bite of your cheeseburger?" Sure Ardyn. She chews... "mom that burger tastes kinda slimy!" I said "yeah? Good slimy or bad slimy?" Ardyn looks up in the air and taps her finger on her chin "let me think about it." A couple of seconds later... "work with me Mommy!" I laugh and she whispers "I think bad slimy!" *pause* "Can I have another bite??"

Today.... and a Review: Family Tools PEGS system

I love typing when a 1 year old is trying to jam the tines of a fork into the keyboard on my laptop. Fun times. It's kinda like our own version of 5-finger fillet (where you stab the knife on the table between your fingers. Ick.)

It's a little dreary outside, but not really. Basically it's nice, but not sunny. It's only 10:30 though, so that could still change. Yesterday was SUCH a busy day. It was fun, but today I am sore and tired and did I mention SORE?!

We headed to Princeton for lunch at Pizza Hut with my friend Dorene. We used to run the Princeton Computer User group together. But now we both have other interests and commitments and it seems that the group itself is slowing and potentially disbanding. But I still love Dorene and was happy to see her and eat with her. We talked horses and all sorts of other things.
Then we met my friend Stacey to take pics of her tutus and hair clips and dresses, which she sells at Guys and Gals Salon. I had just recently created a Facebook page for Guys and Gals, and Stacey wanted one for Bows by Stacey, so last night I set to work on that. It turned out GREAT (check it out and see what you think!) The fun part about this is that instead of being paid to do things like this, my friends and I swap services. So I get things like free tans, free haircuts, and free bows for doing a little work for my friends to help them out. I don't have any problems promoting their little businesses, because they both do AWESOME work and they re so nice.
Everything Stacey makes is so durable and she has impeccable taste and an eye for color. Kelly is the most awesome hairdresser! She is the only person on the planet that I trust to say "do whatever you want" and it always turns out FABULOUS. I have never been disappointed in a color or cut she has given me.
So after working on Stacey's Facebook photos, the kids and I came home and started working in the yard. Elizabeth and Kelsea and Jadeyn stopped over for a while and the kids played while EK and I chatted. I started dumping all the bags of my square foot garden "soil-less" mixture into the bed. Evan recently started the garden for me, after what seemed like FOREVER of planning and waiting for it. The soil-less mixture consists of 1/3 Peat Moss, 1/3 Vermiculite, and 1/3 compost. Then the compost itself is made up of three "thirds" of different types of compost. I have Mushroom Compost, Manure, and Compost. So that was alot of work to carry, open, pour, and mix 10 cubic feet of planting medium. Ardyn helped by watering it down for me and then I would stir, then she would mist, and I would stir. It went surprisingly well. I did a few things differently than the SFG book recommends, but I wasn't about to mix it on a tarp and drag it over to it's location. Duh. So I just dumped and mixed it in the box, and it turned out great. I would say the consistency is very similar to Jiffy Mix, with compost added :)
Then we watered all our containers and our steppables that we have planted, and Ardyn helped me to plant two windowboxes. I had planned on hanging them under the kitchen windows, and I would be able to see them and enjoy them from the kitchen sink, as well as open the windows and just water them with the sink sprayer.... but I realized late last night that the Pussy Willow Tree is covering half of one of the windows. Doh! So I am not sure what to do about that. It gets trimmed each year, and it hasn't been trimmed this season yet, but I am not sure we can trim it back THAT much without it looking ridiculous, and the last thing I want to do is draw attention to it with a gorgeous flower box!
It's funny, but I feel like we have a sort of "compound" inside our fence. The front yard has everything inside the fence, because then I can work on things with the kids in close proximity, and safe. Inside the fence is the patio furniture, the sandbox, and all their toys, and also the clothesline, the SFGarden, and my composter. It's a little silly to most people I suppose. But it has to be close or I would never be able to get any of these things done with kids around. I have tried to make naptime be the time in which I work on flower beds OUTSIDE of the fence, and it worked well so far, except that the past week and a half I have had so much sinus and allergy stuff going on that all I have wanted to do is nap with them. So I have a ton to do on the east and west sides of the house but haven't gotten to it. I did get all the dead stuff out of the back side and the northwest corner, and filled all that with new mulch, before the sinus crap really started in. That's good. I also got landscape barrier laid on the west side, and Evan mulched it, but there is nothing planted there. I don't even want to think about the status of the pond and the east side of the house.

I do have a good handle on laundry these days, because I got rid of my mesh laundry sorters (I have always hated those stupid things, they fall apart and don't hold enough for this family) and replaced them with white hampers. I saw that they now make "sorting hampers" but they are only $1 less than a regular hamper, and they are much smaller, too small for us. So a couple of weeks ago I bought EIGHT hampers, all rectangular, and labeled each one (sharpie marker on colored index cards, adhered with clear packing tape) and they are working AWESOME. They work great for sorting, and when the load is clean, I can carry it up in it's designated sorting hamper, fold it, and put it away. Of course as I say this I have a hamper of diapers to sort and fold, a hamper of towels and rags to fold, and two baskets of kid clothes to put away. But I do have a good handle on laundry these days. :)
Another thing we have been doing is called P.E.G.S. When at the Hearts at Home Conference, we saw a booth for the Family Tools PEGS system and I was instantly intrigued. For some reason I couldn't get them to give me a PRICE on anything, and a friend said later that perhaps the people working the booth at the time didn't KNOW the price. Well, I found out later that my friend Sarah had purchased one, and she recently started using hers and raved about it. I decided to check it out and we got one too, and I also got the Choose a Chore and the Pick a Privlege Jars also. PEGS stands for Practical Encouragement and Guidance System. Basically you get several sheets of round circular "chips" that have holes in the top, and hang on the pegboard. (which is included in the kit)
There are circles for various chores, including basic things like making beds, brushing teeth and hair, and getting dressed. Because we bought the two-child system, we received duplicates of all these chips. There are then blank chips to make your own chores/responsibilities. You receive "clock" chips which you can customize to have things done by specific times. For example, I have made a "naptime" and a "bedtime" chip, and really no matter what time nap and bedtimes turn out to be, the chips will continue to work for me.

There are also jobs that are considered "household" jobs, and you get one of each of those chips, so that the jobs can be assigned and rotated between siblings as necessary. Things like getting the mail, taking out the trash, recycling, taking care of pets, shaking rugs, setting the table, etc.

Then there are "A B and C" chips. A is for Attitude. B is for Behavior. C is fo Communication. There are Red "NO" chips that are circles with a slash through them, and then there are green "Good" chips. I can use these chips to show how their ABC's have been throughout the day.

Now, let me start by saying that I haven't read the manual yet. Typical me. Start the process however I damn well feel like it. Basically I haven't had the moment's peace to sit down and read it. It's in my "to read" stack. (ugh.) So there are many ways to approach this, some probably better than mine.

For us, I use it to show Ardyn that there are things we are expected to do on a daily basis, WITHOUT ARGUING and WHINING. It's working. She does not cry when I brush her hair. Because she knows that it has to be done. It's routine. The chip is on the board. I had been trying to discuss this with her for MONTHS and it never got through to her that you just have to brush your hair every day. When the board went up.... it was instant. She has learned and added lots of new chores. She sets the table. She picks up her toys. She puts her own shoes away and hangs her coat on the hook designated with her initial. She makes her bed. She puts all her dirty clothes in the hamper. Many of these things happen without prompting. Putting dirty clothes in the hamper and putting shoes in her closet shoe-holder are becoming natural to her, and she automatically does them, most of the time without even being asked or reminded. Sometimes she reminds ME!
It has also made "naptime" or quiet time much nicer, because she knows that she has to first go potty, then climb into her bed. She flips the chips and there are NO arguments. Bedtime is great too.

Now, about the ABC's. Basically if she gets into behavior that starts to head towards a time out, we warn with "do you want a red X?" and she does NOT want one on her pegboard. If she gets a time out, she gets a red X first, in the appropriate ABC category, and then she sits in time out. When she is done with time out, she is very very upset and generally wants to "get that red X off the board" as soon as possible. This is where the "choose a chore" jar comes into play. She picks a chore disk from the jar, and we hang it next to the Red X. (it's not really an X, but that's what we call it.) If the chore can be completed immediately, she usually does. If not, we leave it up there with the Red X until the chore is completed. When the chore is done, we replace the red X with a green circle to show that she has corrected her bad behavior with a chore. These are "additional chores" and she has recently done chores like "disinfect all the doorknobs" and "clean the fronts and tops of the washer and dryer." Another one that was my favorite was "check and fill all hand soap dispensers" which came at just the right time as ours were all empty! She of course feels very important and enjoys it. You should have seen the grin on her face while we filled the soap pumps and she returned them to their designated sink spots. Thrilled. (and mom was thrilled too!)


It helps me to instill responsibility in her. It helps her to realize that she has things that she needs to do in order to be a part of this family and help things run smoothly at home. And it really does take a load off me when I don't have to run around gathering up shoes and coats and toys all day long. She is a big help.

The pick a privlege jar is important, and I feel badly that we haven't used it enough yet. It's got things like "go for ice cream" or "watch a movie" or "paint or color" or "get out the playdoh." These are things that we might do now and then, and it's easy to use them as rewards because she enjoys them so much. There are things like "go for a walk" or "ride your bike" and these are all things she loves to do.

So, the Family Tools system is pretty cool. :) I am loving it. Ardyn calls it the "Keep Mommy Happy Game." And I NEVER said that to her. That's entirely her name for it. LOL.

That's all for now friends. I am sore from all that lifting and squatting and mixing of dirt yesterday. Oy. Off to get a few things done today I guess!

Ready to Ride!

We are working on family bike riding. Our first problem was that no one but Ardyn has a bike. The second problem is that my dad received a hand-me-down bike trailer for us, but we have never been able to use it, because we don't have bikes to pull it.

I have been doing bike research, and was just going to buy the cheapest cruiser that I could find locally, but after reading reviews, I discovered that most of them didn't last a year, several of them had manufacturing defects very consistently, and pretty much all of them around here that were cheap had the problem that we have with Ardyn's Tricycle, the Schwinn "we don't make them like we used to" issues - like immediate rusting and fake chrome that is like foil and bubbles out of the box. (I recently added a review and photos of the Schwinn Roadster Trike on Amazon)

So anyway, after doing all the research, I decided that it was silly to think I was going to get a decent bike at a price that cheap. I would have to make a slightly bigger investment. So I started searching more online, because if I am going to spend money on a bike that is going to last me, I want it to be reliable, be purchased from a place I can rely on for service and support, and to be stylish and reflect MY personality. Is this impossible? nope. I finally found one, and I have a bicycle dealer near me trying to acquire it right now. Keep your fingers crossed!It might be hard to tell, but it is a black/copper brown color with leopard print seat, handlebars, fender and other details. The tire tread is flames!! Whoot!

Then I found bike helmets for the kids.... :) They both have Mohawks, Marek's helmet is black and Ardyn's is white. Aren't they cute?!?!
Now I just have to hope that I can PULL the bike trailer, or that Ardyn starts to pedal soon so that I can use a front bike seat with Marek and let her ride her own bike!

A FREE Internet Scavenger Hunt? Count me in!!

Sign up for FREE to be a seeker in the Internet's GREEN Scavenger Hunt. Great Green Prizes, including items like cloth diapers and mamma cloth. Check out the website at www.GreenQuizQuest.com

And also find them on Facebook- just search for Green Quiz Quest.
You know you want to!

Review: Little Beetles "Little-To-Big" OS Organic Wool Cover (snapping)

Well, long long ago, in the land of diapers (that's my house, dontcha know?) I was looking for some wool that was gender neutral and would work for both kids, but was unaware that such a fabulous thing existed. I came across the news that Little Beetles had JUST released a new cover, the Little Beetles OS Wool Cover.... and that it was available in snap or aplix! How cool!!! I was so excited! Marek was still a newborn (ish) and Ardyn was just starting to do some potty training, so I was wary about dumping a chunk of change into anything, and this really was a chunk of change at near $40 for one cover. But in the name of research, and of finding what might be the perfect solution, I bought one, back when I also bought two pair of little beetle learners- training pants for Ardyn.

When it arrived it was SUPER cute. I promptly hand washed and lanolized it (according to directions, don't fear, this isn't my first pony ride.) Then I decided to start trying on the babies!

First I started with Ardyn, because Marek was sleeping, and he was still not quite 2 months old...

It was a really good fit for her. She was wearing 24 months or 2T size and this picture was taken when she was 20 months old and just beginning potty training. I liked the fit overall, and it was trim and I could see wearing it under clothing. These pics are over a Goodmama fitted, so it adds some bulk of course.






I love how nice and trim it looks from the back. Fast Forward two weeks and Marek was almost 2 months old, and I decided to try it on him. I had used it about 2 times on Ardyn, because she was PLing it really wasn't necessary because I had her in trainers almost full time.... but she did wear it overnight once just to test, and there was no leaking whatsoever. Very nice.

Well, per most OS covers, well, really most OS diapers in general, it fit Marek, but was WAYYYYY Bulky (he was after all, still young- not quite 2 months old in fact, it was May 2009.) I knew that he wouldn't be wearing it under ANYTHING and my main goal was to also find a wool diaper cover that was smooth and thin enough to wear under clothes. This was a no-go for someone still so small, but honestly I was not surprised. Here is a pic of him in the cover- Basically it was a try-on session and we took it right back off. :)



One thing that I really did NOT like was the way the snap configuration was on the front to allow for wing overlap. It didn't seem to lay right no matter how I tried, and I am a wing professional, especially since we've been using Goodmamas for 2+ years. I don't quite know why the wing overlap is wonky, but it added unnecessary bulk that was not only unattractive, but confusing.

Overall, I knew that when Marek got bigger, I would like the cover. So we used it about 4 times, had only washed and lanolized it that one initial time.... and then a few months later I pulled it out when Marek was wearing Goodmamas consistently and I felt he would fit the OS cover nicely. And he DID! So we tried it on, and it was great! I was so excited, and then the next time I went to put it on..... What's this? SERIOUSLY?!?! The fury. The sadness. The regret. The LEG ELASTIC!!! OMG you are kidding me. The leg elastic in one leg had completely given out. I was SO upset. How does a $40 cover get washed by hand once and worn a max of 5 times, and then have no leg elastic left? By this point in time, my 30 day "one wash" warranty was over by about 5 months. What a horrible experience!

I don't know what caused this, perhaps I purchased a lemon? It was when the covers were first released. I kept meaning to call the company, but it was one of those things that got put on the back burner, and so now I have this EEEEEUC like new, barely touched, beautiful, soft, bulletproof, organic, one-size, snapping, LOVELY wool cover.... with elastic in one leg. Well. So much for good ideas on my part.




I look forward to hearing experiences from others with this cover. I am unsure if the leg elastic issue is isolated to me, or if it happened to anyone else, but it made me very sad. I keep telling myself that I will just rip the seam open and peek inside, to see what type of elastic is in there and try to determine what happened..... if I ever get to that I will try to repair and let you know what I find by updating this post!

So, I really wish I could provide a better review on the quality and longevity of what I initially thought was a great product, but I just can't give this one the stars that I so desperately wanted to.

Day at Niabi Zoo

I really need to get to sleep, it's already 1am and I have just two days to start and finish my dress for the Mother's Day Tea, and also to get my hat ready! Whew! It's been a busy two weeks and I can't wait for what's next!

Here is a collage of some of my favorite pics from the ZOO Today! It was so cold (we could see our breath!) and it was rainy and windy... but we made it through the whole thing, including our train ride, before it started to rain. That was a bonus!

Hope everyone is well and hope to post more later!

Overnight Soak with OxyBoost does Wonders!

Well, I recently decided to try out an overnight soak with Oxyboost on some clothes. I have always had a tough time with stains on kid clothes, and I have posted several times before about that. One of my favorite products was Shout Advance, but you really have to let the stain fighter SIT on the clothes for a long time, and that doesn't always mesh with my laundry groove. I LOVE the natures source stain treatment, but I already went through my first bottle, and I just thought that I should explore more options with the OxyBoost that I already use for cloth diapers. I hadn't really had time to read up on the other recommended uses, and so I was thinking there must be a way to make a stain fighting paste or something with it. In the past I have done overnight soaks on diapers (especially when Ardyn had real poo issues when she was having the dairy allergy problems) and they had done wonders. So I read the bucket (novel idea, eh?) and they recommend a soak with 4oz to every 2 gallons of water (I think that's the ratio, anyway, what do you care? LOL. Read YOUR Bucket!) and I put in four shirts of Marek's. Three of the four were brand new ones that he destroyed on the first wearing, one was WHITE with spaghetti sauce all over it, one was striped with chocolate ice cream, and the third was orange with mashed banana ground into it. I had washed all of them on warm with color safe bleach, two of them had been washed TWICE and none of the stains had come out. One of them (the striped one) had actually been washed AND dried at least twice since it got stained. I grabbed a 2 gallon bucket that I used to buy OxyBoost in (when I wasn't buying in as MUCH bulk as I do now) and that little bucket was the perfect little handy size. I added hot water and my oxyboost and used my little whisk that I keep in the laundry room (for tie dyeing, mixing, and tasks such as this.) and stirred it well. Then I dunked and soaked the shirts, and put the lid on the bucket (for some reason the shirts keep bubbling up OUT of the water otherwise) and I literally came back in two days (I was sick so it wasn't overnight as I had planned) and washed them with a regular load of my clothes, and EVERY SINGLE STAIN was completely gone. Completely! Even the chocolate ice cream stain that had been set by the dryer a couple of times! Miracle? I believe so. So from now on, no more wasting money on additional stain fighters... I will just stick with the oxyboost for an overnight soak! For those of you who have been asking, OxyBoost and OxyPrime, and many other green cleansers and home products, can be purchased via http://www.ecogeeks.com/greenstore/ The large quantities that I buy need to be purchased via telephone.... and if you want that information I would be happy to provide it :)

Busy week Ahead!

I should be doing SO many other things right now. I AM working on laundry, thank god, because we are all out of clean clothes, towels, diapers... pretty much everything is dirty. I did two loads of diapers already tonight, and have a load of wetbags to do yet, and I am on load #2 of kid clothes.

Basically, we were without laundry detergent for a week and a half, which seems like an ETERNITY (it was, really!) and so now it's time to play catchup. The laundry room is so full of laundry that I actually can NOT put all the dirty clothes in it. When washing and drying I am literally standing ON dirty clothes down there. Not pretty. So I went ahead and sorted two hampers out in our room instead, and am taking them down by the load. Icky.

What happened you ask, that we would just "not" have laundry detergent? Well, I buy detergent once a year. My detergent is environmentally safe and safe for cloth diapers. About 2.5 years ago, I did the math and determined that by purchasing detergent in a 5 gallon bucket, I could save around $80 a year over purchasing All Free and Clear at Wal-Mart, which is what I had been doing for as long as I could remember. I started out buying Charlie's Soap, and loved it. With the Charlie's I used a product called OxyBoost, which is made by Natural Choices. It worked better than OxyClean, is environmentally safe, and cost me less money because I could buy it in bulk. I started buying it in 5 gallon buckets also, because it is better for the environment when it comes to packaging and it's overall carbon footprint :)

For some reason, Charlie's suddenly became taboo in the Cloth Diaper industry. I am not sure why, because I never had a single rash, buildup, or stink issue and I used it for over a year straight on all types of diapers and on all of our clothing as well. I still believe that if you are using the proper amount of soap, and if you are doing your double rinses, you shouldn't have an issue with the soaps. But after the place that I used to purchase Charlie's dropped it, and recommended OxyPrime (made by the same manufacturer as OxyBoost) I decided why not give it a try. So I started to use both OxyPrime and OxyBoost and haven't looked back since.

So anyway, I order a 5 gallon bucket of each, usually the soap comes due once a year, and sometimes the Oxy Boost is closer to twice a year. Well, this time for some reason they were both empty at EXACTLY the same time. Convenient, except that means $260 of laundry detergent. At one time. So I waited until I had the cash and I ordered it. And was told that it would ship that same day (per usual) and since I am close to the company, it should be here in 1-2 days (per usual... it has ALWAYS arrived in 24 hours!) And I waited. For 5 days. And never saw the soap. Never saw an email confirmation. So I called, and they found out that the entire order was on hold because they were waiting for the OxyBoost. She assured me it would ship that same day. Whew. So I waited 2 more days. And called again. And "whoops!" they are still waiting on OxyBoost. At this time I have to say I was getting a bit cranky. You just do NOT go without laundry soap for a week with 4 people, two of them being miniature disasters, and one of them wearing cloth diapers. it is not advisable. I stressed to her that I NEEEEEEDED that soap LAST WEEK and that I didn't understand why they were holding the whole order for the OxyBoost, because they could have shipped at least the detergent, especially because I have to pay shipping for each bucket separately because they can't package them together for UPS shipments anyway.

I was again assured that the soap was coming and they found out that the OxyBoost 45 pounds were being made that very moment. And the next day, Voila! Soap on my steps. A whole LOT of soap. I drug it inside and had Evan carry it to the basement to the laundry room for me, and today I cut it out of the boxes, tore open the buckets, and scooped it into my stainless steel canisters and started some laundry. All this drama over soap. Seriously.

So, despite the fact that I have all this LAUNDRY to do, I also have all this YARD WORK to do, and so yesterday and today I have been working in the yard as much as I can, and naptime has become "work outside the fence" time where I bust my ass to get as much done as I can without two little people to manage. Yesterday Evan and I worked in the space between the garage and house, and along the west side of the house, pulling out dead leaves, hosta leaves, and the old clematis growth. We had a trellis that got destroyed by a storm last year, and we had to take it down and unwind all the old vines, and put up and secure a the new trellis that we had purchased last fall and never got to. There are SO many things that we never got to last fall. Ugh. So after cleaning all that up, we trimmed suckers off the dwarf flowering crabapples. I adore those little trees but the fact that they are grafted onto other tree's rootstock is rather annoying because they get so many suckers so quickly. Ick. Then we trimmed a bit of the old fashioned lilac bush, and pulled a bunch of creeping Charlie. Our old landscape lights along the sidewalk are almost 1o years old, they don't work, and the plastic is cracked, so we pulled those out. I cleaned out all the weeds starting on the west side of the house and lay down some landscape fabric along that side. I planted two containers and the hanging basket on the front gate, and added a flowering perennial (viola) to the bare space inside the planting around the stop sign in the front yard. I also measured and staked out the 4x8 area where Evan is going to build my raised bed garden, and then cut and lay weed block down in that area to prepare it for the bed. Once it got dark last night I put out 6 new solar landscape lights along the back sidewalk, which makes it much less treacherous.

Today I started by pinning down the weed block fabric with landscape staples, and then I lay 10 stepping stones (wetcast flagstone) over in the area by the raised bed. The stepping stones give me a pathway into the far northwest corner of the fenced in yard, and lead in several directions. Now I can "step" my way to the clothesline, the back side of the raised bed, the water spigot on that side of the house, and to my composter. It makes me happy. I am hoping that VERY soon, the 10 "steppables" that I planted in that area will start to spread and hopefully (Rapidly!) start to cover the ground around all the stones. I did choose steppables that are suited for the highest traffic allowed, and that are the rapid spreaders.... but that old dirt is so dry and crumbly, that I don't see them getting too excited to go ANYWHERE yet. I tell myself they have barely been in the ground for two weeks, and they look perfectly healthy and are flowering too, but I really am so impatient!

This afternoon I also lay 6 BIG bags of cypress mulch in the back where we trimmed bushes and pulled up old leaves and things.... and we really could have used 7 bags but I made it work. Tomorrow I am hoping that it doesn't rain (although I think it's still supposed to) because I have a whole BUNCH of salvia, lilies, and grasses that I want to plant on the east side of the house (in the area that I freshly weed-blocked last summer but never got planted) and a whole other side of the house that needs the weed block stapled down yet, and then planted and composted. And this doesn't even TOUCH the cleaning and filling of the pond. Ugh. I know I have the whole summer ahead of me, but I HATE working when it gets so unbearably hot outside. This is the time of year to get as much done as possible, and this includes weed block in my book because I HATE to pull weeds and I have much better things to do.

We also have the native prairie signs to get into the ditch before some jackass comes along and sprays or mows it. Once Evan gets that raised bed built, I can plan and start the Square Foot Garden. I also need to read my Worm book because I am considering adding worms to my composter this year.

This is going to be a REALLY busy week! We have playdate, park playdate, and then MOPS to start off the week, and I am taking the kids to Wisconsin with friends (other moms and kids) to stay at a lake house for a couple of days. Very excited to have this opportunity and REALLY hoping that Ardyn's 2 year old attitude improves and she starts listening better. I also have a 31 party to attend this week, and a massage, AND a scrapbooking night! I also think that there is a chance my Pampered Chef Show will be coming in sometime towards the beginning of next week! I had a show that was OVER $1200! I am so super excited, I am gettting SO MUCH STUFF and I am really thrilled! Remind me to take pics of it all once it gets here. I counted the other day, and I have 26 pieces of stoneware already, and two more on the way. I got a second pizza stone and the Covered Rectangular baker that makes all those microwave dishes and weekday dinners. I also got the whole knife block and professional knife set, and the double burner griddle!

Next week I MUST cut and sew my tea party dress for the Mom's Tea the following weekend. My Brother-In-Law is letting me borrow Grandpa Warren's Mustang Convertible to take to the tea. No minivan for this mamma! Whooo! I also have to finish attaching all my fabulous feathers and flowers to my tea party hat! So much to do, so little time! I do have to say that I love this time of year! The days and months just seem to be flying by already! Once the hot days of summer hit, I think we will be a little more laid back and get into our "by the pool" mode... although I hate the heat and pretty much have to be IN the pool to tolerate it!

Well, it's time for me to switch laundry again. If I could find the remote I would be watching the Nanny on Nick and Nite.

Everyone have a great Monday (if that's possible!) and Enjoy this nice weather before it gets too hot!