Monday, August 18, 2008

Online charity auction

I'm giving a shameless plug to the online charity auction we are holding for my former teacher, who is near and dear to my family. She is facing Stage 4 cancer.

100% of the proceeds will go to benefit her family. There are some awesome jewelry, art prints and more available through this auction. Please take a moment to check it out through our Ebay store. We have over 100 items listed and only about 9 days to raise money. To learn more about our efforts, go to www.helpsolveforx.com.

Here's the link to the auction. You can navigate through the store easily by using the categories listed on the left.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Who Says Girls Can't Pee Standing Up?

Anna is potty training right now. It's going pretty good, considering. She's a very stubborn girl, and she frankly doesn't see the need to suddenly stop what she's doing and conform to someone's demands. But we're making some progress.

HOWEVER, I'm not sure what happened today can be classified as progress. We were at the zoo with a friend of mine. The kids were on the playground when I look up and see a little girl's white butt shinning across the way. Uh-huh. It was my little girl. Her pull-up was at her knees and she was waddling through the crowd. I ran to her and quickly got her decent and ask her WHAT she was doing.

"I'm going to go pee on a tree," she told me.

I was horrified at this response. "No you're not!" I told her firmly.

I offered to take her to the potty, but she just shook her head, and we moved on to the carousel. (We do actually see the animals at the zoo, but this was the end of the trip.) So we go on the carousel and then get ready to leave when my friend, Emily, asks, "Where's Anna?"

If you guessed that my little girl had gone to find a tree behind the carousel, then you'd be exactly right. She found a secluded little area that conveniently had a tree and she leaned her little belly forward and let it rip.

"Wow!" Emily said. "I don't think she got a single drop on herself."

Part of me was proud that she had good technique, but a bigger part of me was mortified. Come to find out, when my mom was here a couple of weeks ago with my nephew, she LET Anna pee on a tree like the two boys.

I made my mom talk to Anna and tell her that it's NOT okay for girls to pee on trees. When Anna got on the phone, she said, "I peed on a tree just like the boys Grandma!"

Oh the joys. :)

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Fair Weekend

We had a lot going on this weekend. The State Fair was Saturday, and we had free admission tickets that Steve got.

We got there bright and early and made our way through all of the animal areas within an hour. Then we hit the kiddie rides and invested big bucks in the $20 wristbands that allowed the kids to have unlimited rides. (We figured we'd use it since riding the carousel would have been $8 for 2 kids by itself.)

It was worth it. The kids had a blast going from one kiddie ride to the next. Most of them required you to be 36 inches, so Anna just squeezed in. I never thought we'd have so much fun on the kiddie rides, but I'm starting to think it's better than going to Disney World (at least for rides, that is). When you go to a big theme park, there's usually only 3-4 little kids can do, and of course, they are all packed. But here, there were probably over 20 rides they could do, and there were no lines. Of course, you can do the math and our "free" State Fair tickets ended up costing us plenty with $10 on parking, $40 on wristbands and a little more on food. It was fun, though.

On another note, our friends are in from Singapore and we went to their little girl's b-day party at McDonalds. The kids had a blast...it was their first birthday party that wasn't family, and there were kids EVERYWHERE. Jack kept asking when HE got to have his birthday at Old McDonalds. He was disappointed to find out that Anna, Dad and me all have birthdays before him. Here are a couple of pictures from the fair...