Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone! It is about 4 1/2 hours before the new year here, but I am probably going to fall asleep before it arrives (I have an exciting life) so I am greeting the new year early. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday! See you in 2009!

Happy

He may not be my Boo Bear anymore, but he is still so cute and very happy :)

No, I Am Not Boo Boo Bear...

Being a Mommy, I have lots of nicknames for my little man that convey all the love and affection I hold for him; but now that he is almost two, he knows everything, including the fact that the lovey names I call him on a daily basis are not his name or what he is.

Mommy: "I love you, Boo Boo Bear."

Peanut: "I not Boo Boo Bear, I the baby."

Mommy: "Oh. OK, baby."

Mommy: "What do you want to eat, Peanut?"

Peanut: "No, I not a Peanut, I a baby."

Mommy: "You aren't my Peanut?"

Peanut: "No, I Pauly the baby."

Mommy: "Oh. OK."

Not only does he not like nicknames anymore, he also knows EVERYTHING.

Mommy (pointing at a strawberry): "Look, Peanut; a strawberry."

Peanut: "No, it not a sawbry, it a mato."

Mommy: "No, it is a strawberry."

Peanut: "No, it a mato."

Mommy (pointing at a snowflake ornament): "Look, Peanut; a snowflake."

Peanut: "No, it not a snowfake, it for driving."

Mommy: "For driving? No, it's a snowflake."

Peanut: "No, it for driving." (moves it back and forth in his hands like a steering wheel)

And so on, with everything from mustard bottles being sugar to a receipt being a telephone.

Well, if he is going to know everything already, at least he has some imagination.

The Morning After

Christmas is wonderful; the day after Christmas is not. If there is anything I do not like it is a messy house, so I am off to do chores today.

Merry Christmas

It has been a long day and a lovely Christmas. I hope everyone had a great and fulfilling day. I hope everyone remembered to love everybody and share the joy that is Christmas. Even if you do not celebrate Christmas, the season is one of happiness and love, and those can surely be celebrated by everyone!

I'm IT

Holy Moly!!! I am so excited! I got tagged for a meme by someone! Not just anyone, either; it was by my most favorite blog writer EVER. Anyway, I was required to take a picture of myself right now, which is pretty scary since I am in PJ's and my bathrobe and have a child attached to my side, but here you are:


Now I am supposed to tag some other folks, so I hope these guys are in:
1.I Gotta Theory About That
2.U Can't Right This
3.Slush Turtle

The Shower So Far

Here is Peanut in the morning (no resemblance to his mom), and our shower so far. I am happy to have gotten this far, but we are still not even close to finished. We are working on the tile today, and perhaps the drywall, but anything is better than nothing. Hopefully we will be showering in our bathroom in a couple more weeks! Yay!!!

What's Up???

I have been absent for too long, but the holidays are the craziest time of year. I finished Christmas shopping two weeks ago (thank goodness, because I do not have time right now), but we have Christmas and birthday parties to attend, gifts to wrap, a bathroom to finish, new position at work to get used to and scrapbooks to scrap.

The presents are wrapped and under the tree (Daddy has not started shopping yet, but I have a feeling that all the men in the United States will be out with him on Christmas Eve). Today I start work as an officer; I am nervous about it, even though I have worked in the same building for a year and a half, but it seems like it is going to be totally new. Scary.

To relieve my stress about work I have been working on Peanut's first year scrapbook. I just finished it a couple days ago and I am going to start on year two. Very exciting. It was fun to go back and see all the changes throughout his first year. I think babies change more in that year than any other, going from newborn to little person it totally amazing. The second year is filled with cute stuff, but the changes are more subtle.

Peanut has been great, by the way. He is going through another climbing phase and is currently loving the cat tree and the rocking chair. Anything dangerous. On a safer note, we have been practicing a ton and now he can say the entire alphabet on his own. I am very excited about that, but it is still memorization. Now he must learn what the letters actually look like and the different sounds they make.

It is raining here, and I am going to build a fire because it is darn cold!

Nothing In Particular

I really have not had much to blog about lately, so I have faced the dilemma of either writing boring day-to-day events for you or just not writing. I have chosen to keep quiet as a reflection of life as I know it. Except for two things:

1. I got my promotion! Now I am a probation officer at the juvenile hall instead of just a glorified receptionist. I am very excited to be able to work with the kids and my fellow officers in close proximity instead of from in an enclosed box. Daddy is OK with it, since for now I have basically the same work schedule. I am going to start in my new position and be sworn in during Christmas week. So cool.

2. I tiled a wall in my shower. Yeah; haven't heard anything about the bathroom remodel in a while, have you? That's because we have not even opened the bathroom door in two weeks; but today we did one whole wall, and would have continued if uncle James did not have to go to work instead of babysitting Peanut. Hopefully we can get some more done when I get home from work tomorrow, but probably we won't work on it again until Wednesday. I think it looks OK, but I have a profound respect for anyone who works with tile on a regular basis. Everyone keeps saying how easy it is, but I do not think it is easy at all. I mean, it is not really hard, it just takes a while to get every tile perfect. Anyway, someday I will have a bathroom again; and it will be beautiful.

Nothing else going on. As always there are tons of chores to do and I still have some Christmas shopping to do, but I have been putting everything aside so I can work tons of overtime... bills to pay, you know.

Property Taxes...

seriously interfere with my Christmas shopping. Owning a house is lovely and all, but when the bill comes that tells you to pay several thousand dollars for the first installment in December and several thousand more in April, the damper is definitely on regarding the removal of the wallet from the purse. Sad, but true. Ugh. People are getting very little this year, but it's the thought that counts, right?
In better news, Peanut has not touched the Christmas Tree at all, except to admire it in passing, and nothing else has been broken since the first night. Awesome. Maybe I will not have to replace my pretty glass ornaments after all...
Also, I have been transferred to the position of DPO I and will be a sworn officer in a couple weeks. You should have seen me yesterday when I got the news; I have dreamed of being a sworn officer since I was 16, and I was ecstatic. Too awesome. Daddy is happy for me, I think. He says he is, but obviously he does not share my foolish happiness, so he keeps me grounded; I am on cloud 9 anyway :)
I have been working so much, but we have bills to pay and holidays are coming, so I cannot turn down any overtime offered, but I am tired. And I still have to tile the bathroom. I need another me.
Sorry, no new pictures of anything. The animals are all good; the place is a zoo, but everyone is so cute and what a dear family we make. I will try to post something like a family photo later.

The Holidays Are Here

Yay! Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is here. The month before Christmas is just lovely; I love all the excitement. Lights, music, church, shopping... the weather does not seem to be cooperating, though. It is absolutely beautiful here, if a little chilly. I want to see rain and even snow, but that does not seem to be the case this year.

Anyway, we put up the Christmas tree yesterday and one ornament is broken already. I have a plan set up to replace all of my glass ornaments with plastic ones over the next couple of years, but the tree may be bare by the end of the month. Hopefully Target has lots of ornaments on clearance after the holidays...

I have started shopping already. I have almost half my shopping done and I have not even left my house. I love online shopping!I will go out to get stocking stuffers and maybe a couple of gifts for people, but online is the way to go.

Peanut is calling for breakfast and then we are going to put a couple of strands of lights on the house. Then, I hope, if my diabolical plan can be carried out, I am going to tile the shower.

Too Ambitious?

So I am trying for a promotion at work, and it is making Daddy a little unhappy. Currently I have a great schedule; 12 hour days, but only 3 or 4 per week, so I have lots of days off with Peanut. Most important to Daddy, I have all Holidays off. I have to admit, it is an awesome schedule, but I am not a sworn officer and I really want to be. If I were an officer I would work four days a week every week (2 eights and 2 twelves), I would work any holiday that was on my regular schedule and I may have to work graveyard shifts; but I would be an officer instead of an assistant. If I were an officer I would get to work with other people throughout the institution instead of by myself in a little room for 12 hours a day. I would get to go to Use of Force and Pepper Spray training and learn cool new things and I would get to work with the kids instead of with their parents.

But Daddy doesn't like it. He will not hold me back, of course, but I do not want him to be unhappy with me. What do I do? I want this, but I think the happiness of my marriage is much more important. Do I back out and just stay where I am, or do I go for it and risk Daddy's feelings?

Your opinion, please.

Our New Baby

Check this out! Now I really do have a zoo in my house. Yesterday I got a new puppy. He was on his way to the pound; can you imagine! He is a long hair Chihuahua and he is 10 weeks old. He was named Boca at work yesterday, but Daddy did not like that name, so we have been trying different things. I think his name is Edward now. It's Edward or Scrappy or Dinky Doo. What do you think?

Spaghetti

Peanuts love spaghetti... and a bath after dinner.