Friday Fave Five

Here's a few of my favorite things from this week:



1. Y'all are the bestest! - thanks to all of you who left sweet comments about Sassy being sick (and me being a total wreck) this week! She is feeling much better and has 100% of her Sass back : )

 hanging out in our pj's on Monday{crappy phone pic}

2. Pin: Tater Tot Pie, Oh.My.Lanta! Tots, cheese, salsa-ishy filling...what's not to love? Must try to make this soon!

Source: houseofbrinson.com via Julie on Pinterest

3. Networking Tool: voiceBoks. Jessica over at Mom 4 Real told me about this site and it's pretty awesome. I haven't really had a chance to completely dive in but so far I'm loving it. I've discovered a lot of fun new blogs and it's a great way to get your blog "out there" as well.





4. Sassy Moment: There are actually two: First was on Monday afternoon, I could tell she was starting to feel better when I told her "no" and she looked at me stuck her hands over her ears and made that frowny face that's so darn cute. It was totally intentional and as if she was saying "You can't tell me no I'm sick". So much attitude and she's only 10 months old! The second: she now says bye-bye when she waves. Ok, it's more like buh-buh and she also says it when she wants a bottle or is taking a bath, but the combination of buh-buh and waving is saying bye-bye in my book!

5. I took part in my first #commenthour yesterday. It was a Pinteresting  twitter event. This made me realize that twitter gives me sweaty palms and I forget my name. I read somewhere that you should think of twitter like a cocktail party - well twitter makes me feel like I crashed a party where I don't know any one so I end up sitting in the corner talking to myself. Even though it turned me into Anxiety Girl, it was a lot of fun and I love that I was able to "meet" some fellow pinners.

I Scream, You Scream

Or in this case, you cry, I cry.

Our weekend went south at approximately 4:30 Friday afternoon when we received a call that Sassy had a 101.6 fever. She's a pretty tough cookie and this is the first time she's actually had a fever - even with ear infections and one evil stomach bug she maintained her usual 97.9 (she's cooler than most kids, like her Momma). Given that she's not one to run temp and she'd just had an ear infection 2 weeks ago, we called the doctor's office who was, of course, getting ready to close for the weekend. The nurse gave me the stellar advice of "give her tylenol" - wow, really I'd have never figured that one out on my own! And said that if it did not come down or went up to take her to the ER.
After a couple of hours it looked like the tylenol was doing it's job and her fever was slowly coming down...until around 10pm when we were getting her last bottle of the night ready. I picked her up to change her and she was scalding hot, her temp was 103.6 and she'd had a 2nd dose of tylenol an hour earlier. We immediately packed her into the car and off to the ER we went. I expressed my concern that the ear infection hadn't been knocked out by the antibiotics the previous week, she'd been holding her hand over her left ear earlier in the night. The doctor reports that her ears are "perfect" shoves a popsicle stick down her throat and says "it's probably strep", gives us a weak dose and prescription of antibiotics and sends us on our way. All day Saturday Sassy was still one hot chick, her fever bouncing back to 101ish whenever the tylenol was starting to wear off. As much as I hate to pump her full of drugs she was on a constant steam of tylenol Saturday and Sunday. Sunday she decided that she did NOT want to eat - anything. Hand her a bottle and she'd scream like you'd just made her drink razor blades. She was inconsolable, she was crying like I'd never heard her cry before, nothing seemed to make her feel better.
And that's when this Momma, who'd only slept about 4 hours in two days couldn't hold it back any longer. She was crying, I was crying. My baby was miserable and I was helpless. My mom told me once that babies can sense your mood and if you're tense or upset they will sense that and mirror those feelings, I don't know if that's true but I've always kept my cool when she was upset; if I'm calm she'll be calm or at least that's goal. This time, it seemed my crying distracted her - my sweet little girl looked at me, touched a tear on my cheek, then laid her scalding hot little head against mine.
This morning we went to see her pediatrician. Those "perfect ears" they are both rife with infection-y badness. That ER doctor...he's officially on my list of people to punch in the face.

Friday Fave Five

These are few of my favorite things from this week:

Pin:

Source: etsy.com via Julie on Pinterest

Blog Post:

Blog I just discovered & love:

Friend's FB Status:

Jeremy K
Sitting outside for free....in your face sauna owners!
Wednesday at 9:44pm via Mobile Web · Like ·

Photo taken:

Linking to these fun parties:

10 Things I Hate About You

Today marks 10 years that Mr. Pickles said to me "I don't want to be your friend anymore, I want to be your boyfriend" (awwww ::barf::).

And instead of waxing poetic about how great he is, how lucky I am, and how perfect our life is, I'm going to "keep it real". He is great, I am pretty lucky, but this here ain't no fairy tale!


So here's 10 Things I Hate About You {the husband edition}

• He drives past 2 Walmarts and at least 5 gas stations on his way home but will still call me and ask me to pick up Dr. Peppers on my way home.
• He eats chicken noodle soup straight from the can. No heating, no diluting, GROSS!
• He waters the grass without no regard for the water bill. I prefer my green in the bank not on the lawn Mister!
• He uses fifty-eleven (ok, it's more like 3) paper towels regardless of the size of the spill/mess/whatever.
• How he says "it's not your fault" when I say "I'm sorry" ie: (Him) I have a headache (Me) I'm sorry (Him) It's not your fault. 
• The way he thinks "your boobs are huge" is a compliment.
• How he rolls over and tells me he can't sleep every 20 minutes when I'm trying to sleep.
• The way he slicks down Sassy's hair with baby lotion so that she looks like a Greaser.
• The fact that he has no idea what a Greaser is.
• That he insists that he *has to* have the tv on in order to fall asleep. 

Ok, so really this is more a list of things that annoy the crap outta me but whatever...y'all know what I mean. I'm sure he could whip out a list of things that I do that annoy the crap out of him in no time flat, I'm not exactly easy to live with!

What does your husband/significant other/pet do that annoys the crap outta you?

Momma Says the Darndest Things

As I was being peed on the other night, { seriously, Sassy peed on my lap - that’ll teach me to take the diaper off before the bathtub is ready } I started thinking about all the bizarre sounding statements I’ve made since becoming a Momma, things that people without a kid would never have the occasion to say…

Like these for example:

1.        Get your foot out of your mouth so I can put your pants on!
2.        Carrots are not hair gel!
3.        Stop trying to stick your hands in the poop!
4.        OMG, you’re dancing in poop!
5.        Don’t let the dogs kiss you, they eat poop!

Source: theblackship.tumblr.com via Julie on Pinterest

Right now you’re probably thinking “wow, there’s a lot of poop talk in this post”; Well, for those of you who don’t know: Momma-hood is full of poop, lots of it! { And yes, I am a total loser who says OMG( the letters) out loud.}

What are some crazy things your kids (or pets) have made you say?

Cookie Monster

Sassy had her first Arrow Root Cookie the other day...

Cookie Eating is messy business! I'm not sure if she liked it or not, I think mostly she just enjoyed playing with it.

Development Milestones can result in some interesting Googling

If you've ever taken your kiddo for a "well baby" check up you know what I'm talking about. The doctor or nurse will rattle off a list of things your kid is supposed to know how to do based on their age, can your kid smile, roll over, sit, fetch, recite the Gettysburg Address...you know, the usual crap kids do.

Usually, I'm the uber-proud Momma who's saying "oh yes, she's been doing that for awhile" while thinking "Are you kidding, Sassy is the world's cutest and smartest baby!".

Cute Baby Evidence: Exhibit A

But at her 9 month check up a few days ago the list had my number.

• Crawling: check
• Pulls up to stand: affirmative
• Waves Bye-Bye: sometimes
• Plays Patty-Cake: uh.......I don't know how to do patty cake and I'm 32, what's that say about me?

So, I went home feeling defeated by the vile, evil patty-cake milestone but determined to defeat it with the help of my good friend Google. 

Here's what I learned:

1. Make sure you have your safe-search enabled before googling Patty Cake images. No, really! 
2. There are some very interesting rap videos entitled Patty Cake
3. There are several videos of cats playing patty cake 
4. It's easy to get distracted from your original goal when there are videos of cats playing patty cake

I never actually learned how to do patty cake and I just decided that we'll work on clapping and the Gettysburg Address instead. Take that Milestone List!!

Speaking of milestones, Sassy is competing for votes in the 2011 Gerber Generation Photo Search on Facebook - we'd love it you would pop over and vote for her! 

A cute little dish towel

In my efforts be cheap and a wanna-be hippie green, I've decided that paper towels are no longer welcome in my home. They're not cheap {especially since my husband thinks you need at least 3 any time you use them} and you throw them away after you use them once...not very green!

So I made a trip to Walmart and picked up two 5 packs of Flour Sack Towels. They look like this:

Via

What I didn't know is that they are huge. So I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to put on my crafty-pants and create not only some cute dish towels but also some napkins, 'cause ya know we're going to need to wipe our mouths too.

The master plan was to cut one towel in half to create 2 dish towels and one towel into quarters to create 4 napkins. Since I have 10 of these suckers that's a lot of towels and napkins! After washing & drying the towels I ironed them forever only to realize they will never be wrinkle free and maybe it would have been smarter to wait to wash them until after I'd trimmed them down. I finally got them all ironed, cut, and pinned so I could sew the raw edges from my trimming. And yes, I pin the bejesus out of stuff because I suck at sewing.

This one's a napkin :)

Now to make them cute! First you need some fun, colorful fabric. The ones I used came from AC Moore because the choices for fabric stores in Charleston are Hancock Fabrics (which has crap for a selection) or a small "quilt" shop that's a bit out of my price range.

I used one of the FQs to make a trim for the bottom 4ish inches of the towel.

I used the pieces from the charm pack to make letters for each day of the week. I printed out the letters in a font that I liked on my printer, cut them out with an exacto knife, then traced the letters onto the back side of the fabric {note: you have to trace the letter backwards so it will be correct on the right side of the fabric - yeah I did it wrong the first time!}If you're super cool and have a Silhouette or a Cricut obviously you can be super cool and use your fancy-schmancy machine to do the work for you.

I decided to attach the letters with Heat & Bond but someone who actually knows how to sew could probably sew them on lickity-split. This is where I had to scold myself again for my lack of forethought - a smart girl would have fused the Heat & Bond to the fabric then cut traced & cut out the letters but not me! Noooo, I have to do this crap the hard way! Anywho, after your all cut out and heat & bonded you can attach the letter to the towel (somewhat in the middle) by removing the paper and ironing on your ho-made applique.

Then you wonder when you're ever going to have the free time to finish the other 6 for the remaining days of the week...

Linking to:

June Photo Hunt

These seem to be getting harder each month! Maybe it's because it's 1,000 degrees outside and strolling around town at lunchtime everyday has become a stinky, sweaty, excursion. I still enjoy my photo-hunting time each day, dripping with sweat or not! Here's what I came up with for June:

Tree Branches ~ The Angel Oak


Such an amazing work of nature! Huge doesn't even describe how big this tree is. At over 1,500 years old this beauty is said to the be oldest thing east of the Rockies. The City of Charleston protects the Angel Oak and anyone can visit for free but this tree is not for climbing, there's a nasty fine if you get caught trying.

View Right Outside Your Door

You can pretty much always find a bad dog who's stolen my flip flop. He doesn't chew shoes up but he sure loves to steal them!

Elephant

Thank goodness for baby toys! I didn't come across any elephants while I was out and about this month :)


Farm Animal

I didn't know what these were when I snapped this pic. Later I discovered (thanks to a lot of googling) that they are Guinea Hens.


Childhood Memory

I think everyone had one of these!

Cutlery

A whole drawer full!

Wheel Trim

Rusty old bicycle tire

Starts with a Z

Zipper bows on my shoes.

Night

I discovered that I have no idea how to take a picture at night! The moon was really red on this particular night and out of probably 50 shots this was the best one. Must get more practice with night photography!

Architectural Detail



I couldn't pick just one for this one. Both are from the same house. This house fascinates me, it's huge and has the potential to be stunning but instead it's literally falling apart - not something you see a lot of in it's prime location on the Battery in Charleston.

Something With Your Town's Name

Carolopolis Award - these are awarded to buildings that have gone to great lengths to preserve and restore the architectural history of the site.

Cheese

Shredded Parmesan on Rotini

That's all for this month, don't forget to head over to Postcards from the PP to see what Kathy and the others came up with for this month's list!