Happy Birthday Dad!

Spring is happening around here!




It's about time

There's a new kid on wheels in the neighborhood.
Here she is carefully measuring up the competition:




She'll totally be a threat once she figures out the petals.




Watch out!

Yesterday morning, when I was at Costco stocking up for the week, I cruised by the bed section to make sure they were still there. Thanks to tax return time, we set aside some of it to pay for a new bed. They only had two queen sized beds left, which made me panic a little.
Once I got home, I talked to my lovely housemate about the situation and we agreed as soon as there was a break in the rain, we'd head over there to get my new bed. She is vital in this operation, since she has the truck, and I cannot possibly shove a queen sized mattress in, on or around my SUV.

This afternoon, our break break in the rain happened, Misty the crew and I caravaned to Costco. Since the bed was such a good deal, I was able to get a twin mattress for Julia's bed too. We did a rockin' job getting the mattresses loaded up in Misty's truck and I even brought those ratchet tie down straps The Man had stashed under his work bench for projects like these to secure it to the truck. Because I measured my bed at the house and the length of Misty's truck bed and concluded beforehand that we'd be unable to close the tailgate of the truck with the mattresses in there.

We left Costco, I followed Misty to make sure everything went okay, which ended up being a good plan. After about two minutes of on the road time, a gust of wind hit the back of the truck and flung both the queen box spring and mattress out into and across the street. I screamed a little (okay a lot) as a jeep almost ran over the box spring. Super nice Jeep guy helped us load the mattresses back into the truck, and I had an extra tie down strap to put over the top of them to keep them from flying out again.

Luckily there were no incidents the rest of the way home & amazingly enough, there was not even one mark on either of mattresses. That plastic they're bagged up in is more durable than I thought.

Julia was bored with the drive home and fell asleep, so as soon as I got hers all made up, she finished her nap on it.

Then, what better way to break in my new bed, since The Man isn't here, was at 0130 I woke to Julia coughing weird and then throwing up next to, on and around us. Poor thing had had a rough couple of weeks of random colds, and the latest version has this yuck cough, that had finally started to get better this weekend. In my favor this time, is that she sleeps on top of the covers, so the mattress was spared and I only had to start laundry in the middle of the night.

Julia was too quiet while I was making dinner tonight.



There's something wrong with those roses.
And that pile of petals on the floor you don't see.

Lately we've been spending the mornings at the local skating rink. It's been crappy out, and it's a good way to spend a few hours with the kids. Julia has always ridden in the mini wee (umbrella stroller) as I skate, pushing her. She likes to watch the disco lights and the other kids. Today, after a few times around the rink, she looks up at me and asked, "Want skate Mommy."

So, I got her a pair of the tiniest little cute skates and set her loose on the carpet.



The wheels were pretty tight, so she was pretty much set to 'walk' on the skates.
Antonio was excited to see her out on the floor and took her other hand as we made the painfully slow laps around the rink.

When she decided she had enough of my instruction, she insisted that I quit holding her hand and took off on her own.

Friday night is movie night.
This is during the intermission:



It didn't mellow out for real until a dose of bedtime Spongebob was supplied.

This afternoon it was cold, it's been snowing or cold enough to snow the past few days. Julia is apparently sick of pink and frou-frou hats.