Fina's new bedroom

I took advantage of Fina being out of town this weekend and cleaned and organized her room. Here's the bed:

The blocks are in the corner by the closet:

And the shelves/dollhouse/play area:

Eloise is totally impressed with all my hard work, she says I need to do her room next. Bonus cuteness:

Creepy and funny at the same time

I was looking through old pictures from when we went to Oregon in 2006 and found this lovely specimen in the middle of the zoo pics. Sure it's a creepy bat, but a creepy bat with his tongue hanging out comically elevates it from creepy to funny. You laugh and shudder at the same time.

Some (bad) pictures

So I think, "hey, the baby looks really cute today, and it isn't raining and the light looks good, maybe I'll take her outside and take her picture."

That's nice, but it could be better.

Woo hoo, throwing grass! Also slobber dripping down the chin!

Stoner baby.

Yum, dandelions! Never mind, I can see that big sister is meditating.

Ok, now she's smiling(ish) but of course the neighbors are doing something fascinating behind the baby.

"Mom, this leaf concerns me deeply. Also my hair is looking pretty darn scruffy today."

Eloise is bored of this.

"Look, I found my own props! Random sticks and handfuls of dandelions!"

Ok, she's had enough, she's leaving.

Picnic

It was beautiful today so we decided on a picnic dinner. Next time I throw the barbecue in the car and tell John that I want to go to the woods for dinner, I am driving. He likes to just drive and drive forever.

I brought a blanket so that I would have a nice place to set Eloise down with a few toys.

While Fina ran around like a little monkey.

Eloise had other ideas though.

Fina is always half disappointed when I tell her we're going on a picnic and then we eat at a picnic table, so she asked if she might go eat her dinner on the blanket.

She looked so content.

(Note: there was nothing in the hot dog bun because the hot dogs we brought were jalapeno cheddar brats that turned out to be really gross.)

Squeak didn't mind eating at the table

But she was being kind of onery when I was trying to take her picture.

Poor John

John is super competitive. For some reason, he wants to be the best at things, and then is disappointed when he is not. Take for example, bejeweled blitz on facebook. John thinks he is good at it, despite the fact that he is never in the top 5 on his leaderboard. He keeps on playing, convinced that he will one day be at the top. I always tell him that he needs to find something he is good at and not compare himself to other people's strengths, but he doesn't believe me. So he keeps on trying to find things he can be the best at. But he doesn't do it how I do it, if I find a game I enjoy that I feel I am pretty good at, I keep it to myself. I don't go sending challenges to Mom (unless it is something that I don't care about being the best at and I think she will enjoy it.) John found this card game on the computer that he was pretty good at and he enjoyed. So he thought, "I know, I will send my wife a challenge in this game so that I can feel superior or some shit!!" Yeah, sorry buddy, I just crushed your score. (Also the game is ridiculously addictive despite being not all that fun.) It reminds me of the Berenstain Bear book "Ready, Get set, Go!".

"Poor old papa bear, won't he ever do something the best, much much better than the rest?"

New diapers

I responded to an offer on freecycle where a person was giving away cloth diapers. Since my love of the bumgenius diapers was shortlived, I have been using prefolds and covers, but I only have 2 "good" covers, and she thinks it is funny to crap them every time I put them on her.

She's making this face like "It's just like Christmas, mommy!"

3 bummis covers, 1 wool cover, and 1 swim diaper

3 "dream eze" diapers (you can't really tell but the green one is this shiny satiny fabric on the outside, it cracks me up.)

6 grovia/gro baby shells, they have inserts that you snap in.

7 grovia all-in-one diapers

4 fitted diapers. The orange and yellow striped one is terrycloth on the outside, it is a very bright diaper.

There was also 19 of the snap in soakers that go to the grovia shells, and 18 doublers (which you use to make diapers slightly more absorbant for a nap or for going out or whatever), and 4 big overnight doublers. Oh, and about half a package of disposable inserts for the diapers. The lady made them sound like they were going to be nasty from her description on freecycle, but they seem clean enough to me. And the best part, as I was getting in my car to leave she said to me, "Please actually use them and don't just turn around and sell them." And I was like "say, I hadn't thought about just taking things that people are giving away on freecycle and then selling them for a profit..." *Rubs hands together*

Edit to add: I decided just for fun to price out what it would cost to buy this whole shebang brand new. $815.05 Of course if you spent that much they wouldn't come to you with stains, but your kid is just going to shit on them anyway.

My cat's favorite chair.

This is my cat Boo, and this is her favorite chair.

The only problem is, that her stupid tail keeps following her onto the chair.

And no matter how hard she tries,

She just can't get it to get off.

"Curse you, tail!!"

"I'll get you next time."