Back to school!

Miriam Update It's that time of year again when you head out and get your child ready to start another year at school. This is year number 2 for Miriam and although we have yet to get her school supplies I went wardrobe shopping this evening. I was going to wait for tax free weekend for everything but put it off because I wanted to get a hand at the good clearance stuff. As many of you know I am a SERIOUS bargain shopper, only for the girls I like to bargain shop clothes that are a bit better quality than Wal-Mart. For some reason Wal-Mart (which is the only bargain store we have here) has horrible made clothing for girls Miriam's size which is a 4T (a very popular size for school age kiddos hence the early shopping). Don't get me wrong every now and then I find something cute but it isn't often. So I went to Bealls and it was perfect timing. I got a nice hand at the 70% off clearence "hot sale". My 200.00 Miriam budget (she has outgrown EVERYTHING, including shoes!) went within 30 minutes as I was ripping adorable clothes off the rack like crazy. All in all my loot was WONDERFUL with clothes ranging in price from 3.00 to 16.00 for a 3 piece outfit (Polo at that)!

Here is my list:

3 Polo dresses
3 Polo 3 piece outfits
6 baby doll tops
3 pairs of Jeans
2 pairs of Denim jeans
3 belts
2 Pairs of Mary Jane shoes
1 pair K Swiss Sneakers (10 BUCKS!)
16 pairs of socks

Total 172.73 Savings (500.00)



I think I did well! We have enough left over for school supplies and they weren't even included in the clothing budget. :-)

Georgia Update Gia, my baby girl is a neat freak! I think I might have mentioned how she goes around cleaning the furniture with babywipes which she pulls out herself for the job. But did I mention she picks her toys up when they begin to get "too much"? Well that could be because I had no idea she did. Today we were playing with her bag of mega blocks, building pretty "things" when mommy decides "well, it might be a heck of alot easier to just dump the blocks out". OH NOOOOO, Gia did not agree with her slob of a mommy. The blocks hit the floor and Gia looks at me like I am absolutely INSANE. I couldn't figure out the face until she started throwing the blocks back into the bag. She filled that whole bag back up with the most serious look on her face that I had to record it. I also got her to clean our livingroom table for you. Granted she didn't get as into it as she does normally , you get the picture.

BLOCKS!


TABLE!



Sorry all the videos are so dark, they upload that way and its driving me nuts!

Teletubbies.

SO "that's the teletubbies", YIKES! After years of fear and hatred for these creepy little antenna-like creatures it seems I may have to give in to them. At 12 noon I allow Gia to watch TV for 1 hour of educational TV. This gives me a time to get the house straigtened and get myself together. The last few TV times she has watched teletubbies ,the show that has actually given me nightmares in the past. Why do I let her watch this creepy little show you ask? Because it is the only show on TV where she actually interacts with the TV for a FULL 30 minutes. She laughs, dances, talks and does "something" to every word and every move they make. How can I deny something that holds a 1 year olds interest for 28 minutes longer than a 1 year old is supposed to hold an interest in 1 thing? I never understood how parents could allow their kids to watch something so "weird" but NOW I KNOW. I guess this means I am a sellout to kids entertainment? For 30 minutes of happiness for my child I am happy to sell out I just wish it had better compensation for mommy (the show just doesn't cut it), I could really use a new pair of shoes.





EDIT: 5:22 PM

I have added a few pics of Miriam eating her apple today at speech. She did VERY well using her words today and got the pleasure of eating another apple. This one threw her for a loop because it wasn't the same texture (the skin was tough) as her last apple and offered her a bit of a challenge which she was happy to take.

Also below the pics you will find a video of Georgia walking in the living room. Of course she has a way to go before she masters those little legs but she will get there. As I was writing this the phone rang (telemarketer I didn't pick up) but it was on the couch and I am at my desk. Gia walked all the way to the desk in the other room and brought it to me. I wish I had gotten the video of that!


Miriam and her monster apple!





Georgia walking!

3 Month Bump!

The time has come to share my first baby bump. I am only 14 weeks along as of now but I am not so sure "bump" is the right word.




Somewhere in there is little Thomas or Olivia. (fingers crossed for Thomas)

Oh and I added a few previous posts that I saved but did not publish (pregnancy brain remember) See 2 posts back Funny Faces and June 25th Gias birthday, both have pics.

Joy!

This is such a selfish blog but I felt the need to come online to say how awesome of a husband I have. After a little negotiation he has ok'd a purchase of a new washer/dryer. I am SO excited as we have never had a "new" washer/dryer before. We usually craigslist it or do the hunting game. It is a front loading package which is higher up than most washer/dryers making it easy on my already huge pregnant body. We were going to wait until the job change BUT since I am pregnant and laundry is not easy we are taking the plunge. 2 weeks and they will be home.

Here they are!




I am making an oath that my family will never want for clean clothes again! You heard it here...lol

I already want to wash some clothes!

UPDATE: We cannot afford the washer and dryer because our Vacuum blew up and we had to buy a new one so we had to spend two months worth of payments. :(

Apples and Tracks!

The girls have had a wild day full of apples and walking, exciting stuff! Miriam had her speech today , it was a day of eating and naming. She was presented a food got to take a bite then had to name the food. WELL, for the first time ever she was handed a whole apple. I don't know why she has never been given a whole apple,I guess perhaps because all the toddlers I have known prefer them cut up so it has become a habit. Such a habit I seem to have forgotten she is no longer a toddler. When she was handed the nice juicy COLD red apple, she felt it all over then bit intoit. Once she used enough force to break the skin she went insane, turning and biting with an almost animal force, she was so funny but she LOVED that apple. The girl LOVES her apples, I thought she couldn't like them anymore but she ate that apple right down to the stem. We sat there for 45 minutes watching her devour it in absolute amazement. 45 minutes of speech talking to her about the texture, juiciness and taste of an apple. WHO KNEW you could say so much about fruit?Miriam said her apple was sticky, juicy and when she went to eat the core she said "eh, nasty"..lol BUT SHE ATE IT ANYWAY... children amaze me but she amazes far more than any child I have ever seen.



Now onto Miss Georgia. She no longer goes with us to Miriams speech, instead she stays at home with our friend Joanna and her little girl about Gia's age. Her baby walks really well andeven though wehave seen Gia walk she won't doit. Well since Joanna has been coming Gia has been walking more. Tonight she really surprised us by walking across the whole livingroom to get to her daddy. We were so happy.

There are photos to come, I just have to upload them onto the desktop which hates me right now. Not that the laptop is doing any better. Tom spilled a drink on it and now the spacebar sticks and the backspace doesn't work which makes it very difficult to type anything. I am sorry if you are reading this andyoufind a bunch of words written together. I tried toget them all but I have pregnancy brain and most likely overloooked something..lol.

Funny Face(s)!

I had to share these photos of Gia. As you can see she is not shy in her effort to make funny faces.











No, I am afraid I would not say she was shy...lol

Mouthy 3 year olds = Mouthy 1 year olds!

Words are rampant in the Bramlett household these days although at times they send chills down our spines. Miriam, uses "no", "shut up" , "i'll bite you" and "hush" to the point Webster is seriously considering banning them. But what do you do when a child who hardly ever talks talks? Tell her no? That's what we do, along with a nice punishment if she repeats the word/phrase. Which being as she is very stubborn usually does just to get the last word. We love hearing the sound of her voice but we would much rather it be in the form of a nice sweet "I love you mommy/daddy".

And to top it off Miriam is rubbing off on her little shadow Georgia. We tell Gia no these days and we get the loudest , most hatred baby talk in the world. Full of teeth and claws! Most of the time it is so funny you cannot help but to laugh, this 1 year old you know is finding some way to curse us. If only we knew what she was saying we could determine the punishment.

Plumbing problems lead to divorce?

We have been having some serious kitchen plumbing issues which have been driving us absolutely batty. We cannot use our washing machine, we cannot use our kitchen sink or  dishwasher which means I cannot cook. We have spent loads of money and time trying to avoid the dreadful plumber and we have wasted our one day a week together dealing with it for 2 weeks.  Last night was the icing on the cake. Tom and I lost it! We plunged, we snaked, we used "friendly" chemicals (yeah I said friendly "chemicals"..lol) , Tom climbed the roof to snake the clean out, we fired a rocket off See KLEERDRAIN Product, we went to and from the store only to end up with a house full of black gunk and a nice chem burn on Toms psoriasis.  

What else did we do? We BLEW UP OUR GARBAGE DISPOSAL!  We were so excited to blow off the KleerDrain CO2 bomb we had just bought we were practically salivating.  (really ;) So we shoot the thing off into the drain of our sink then BOOM the water flies everywhere. Apparently the main line of the disposal connected to the sink connection had RUSTED.  We had been working for 6 hours on the plumbing and once it blew my pregnancy hormones kicked into overdrive. I began to cry and scream "I give up" over and over again. Poor Tom pleading with me not to do it because he needed me only led to more crying. It was insanity in The Bramlett household.  

But this issue really was driving me NUTS. My kids were stuck in their rooms because I couldn't watch them. Everything smelled and Tom and I were both filthy with black sludge covered gloves on our hands. I kept thinking how this day I look forward to all week was ruined. 

In the end it all worked out because that's what things do but not without completely making us crazy. We fought, we made up, we fought again, all day.  The girls finally made it out of their room and in the end........WE ARE HIRING A PLUMBER.  

Lesson learned: Hire a professional! 

My perfection issues!

Let me tell you, starting this family blog has not been an easy task. Not only does it mean I have to find the time to write each post but due to the fact I am a perfectionist I could not figure out how I wanted the blog to look. It still is not as I wish, I need to edit the collage to match the page and add a few things here and there. I haven't been wanting to share until everything was just right BUT I am tired of it just sitting here as if our lives are not changing.