Brandon's Puppy

I finally went to an allergist last week, something I should have done a long, long time ago. I had a hunch I was allergic to the items I had a reaction to, but I’m glad it’s confirmed through testing so that I can avoid exposure (if possible).

Here’s my arm after the scratch test. The red blotch on my upper forearm? Allergy to grass and tree pollens. The irritated area by my wrist confirmed my allergy to weeds. No wonder I immediately get contact dermatitis when I help hubby clean up the backyard!

Intradermal testing confirmed the allergy to grasses, and also concluded that I am also allergic to dustmites, mosquitoes and cockroaches. I was definitely not surprised about the dustmites and mosquitoes, but roaches? Ewww! Good thing I prefer to be as far from them as possible anyway.

I’m now on a daily antihistamine, and hopefully that will help ease the frequency of my allergic reactions. The doctor also recommended allergy shots, but I think I’ll stick to the little pills. With peak allergy season coming up, I’m really glad I went.

Haven’t done one of these in a while…here are the sentences Brandon wrote today using his vocabulary words.

I would love to go on an expedition.
Once I got spattered with paint.
Everybody has a unique personality.
I was astonished when I saw the rides at Disney.
I have never seen a porter before.
Santa Claus is very stout.
My grandma used to live in a portable.

The last one made me laugh because it’s actually true…my in-laws lived in a trailer until they bought their house last year!

We celebrated the boys’ birthday this past Sunday. We planned a “small” party (if you consider 45 people “small”) at home, with just our family and closest friends. It was thrown together in just over a week, as the day after Brandon’s birthday is when we decided we were having it. The boys picked their party theme right away, Super Mario Brothers/Mario Kart. Given the popularity of the games and characters, I thought we’d have an easy enough time buying party supplies and favors. But that was very presumptuous of me: the only place I could find Mario Bros. party favors was online, and there just wasn’t enough time to order things to arrive on time and not spend a fortune on shipping. So the light-bulb in my head lit up a few days ago and we improvised.

I bought plastic plates in red and blue, and plastic tablecloths in blue and green. The goody bags were red, blue, and green. Inside we put Mario stickers (fortunately they had Mario sticker sheets at the party store), packs of Mario fruit snacks, a pencil, a small bottle of bubbles, and plastic gold coins.

I ordered 4 dozen cupcakes from Publix, a dozen each with red, blue, yellow, and green frosting. I borrowed a tiered cupcake holder from a friend, and we placed the cupcakes around it in alternating colors. In front of it I put a plastic Mario and Luigi we found at Target in the toy section, along with a mushroom candy thingy we found at the party store. I put racer toothpicks on each cupcake, leftovers from their Cars party a few years back.

We had a couple of party games, including Pin the Tongue on Yoshi (my friend W, who is uber creative, made it last fall for her son’s party) and the prizes were the KNex Mario Kart characters.

The kids alternated between playing outside with the bubbles, bikes and scooters, and playing in the playroom. The adults mingled about, with most of the men watching football in the living room. My house was full of the people I love, and the boys had a blast. I don’t think it would have gone as well had I planned it over a few weeks’ time.

It’s hard for me to believe that nine years have passed since you came into our lives. In the blink of an eye you’ve gone from our tiny little 5 pound, 3 ounce burrito baby to a handsome third grader. You’re the sweetest (not so) little boy I know. You are noble and kind, and are sweet to your little brother (most of the time), even when he’s being a pain to you.
You love to read, like your mommy. You like history, like your daddy. You’re independent, shy, loving, smart, and caring. You love Disney, Mario, your DS, our Wii, books, math, Spiderman, animals (especially Sandy), your two favorite stuffed animals (Puppy and Shadow), going to the zoo, hanging out with your cousins, pizza, horseplaying with daddy, bananas, Christmas, swimming, your family. You are our monkey, and you changed our lives for the better the moment you were born.

I love you forever, I like you for always.
As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.
-R.Munsch

(last day as an 8 year old)

I couldn’t find the shoes I mentioned in this post, so instead I settled for these (in dark natural leather). They are cute, and sassy, and they make my in-progress runner’s legs look fabulous. Let’s see if I can get used to them, I’m not a “heels” kinda girl…

The boys started playing soccer on the second Saturday of December. They had just two weekends of games before they went on winter break. I am not exaggerating when I say that they asked me at least 10 times during the last three weeks when they got to play soccer again. Today was our first game back, and Matty was the star of his team. They won the game 9 to 2, and he scored all but one of the goals. He was even the only player on the team for a little while. He’s in the ages 3-5 team, so it’s full of little ones that get easily distracted. At one point, three of the kids were sitting out, another was kind of wondering off, and Matty was the only one on the field with the opposing team. He ended up scoring twice during that time!

Not only does he love the game and is good at it, but he’s also very fast! If you’ve ever seen Matty run, you know those little legs can move. We never really thought about it before, but he might have a potential sports career ahead of him. As long as he keeps loving it, we’re going to encourage him and help him reach his full potential as our little soccer superstar.

That’s today’s SmartMamaLUTION, and it’s so easy! I saw Caroline’s post this morning, and made up my mind to try it when I got home today. Unfortunately, I did not get home untiil roughly about an hour ago due to a project at work. I gave the boys baths and put them to bed, and was going to get ready for bed myself when I remembered today’s task. I figured I could stay up a little while longer, and went ahead and followed the instructions.

1. non-plastic, microwave bowl
2. fill halfway with water
3. add lemon, lime, or orange slices. Add a bit of vinegar if you have it (I didn’t).
4. Microwave for 4 minutes
5. Wipe down areas with paper towel or dishcloth
6. Repeat if needed.

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These, right here. Same model, different color. And platform. I saw them at TJ Maxx about two weeks ago, but they did not have my size (9) in the color I want. They did, however, have them in other colors in 9, so I know they’ll fit. But, I’m hung up on the particular color, and so I’m asking for your help, dear readers. I’ve been to two TJ Maxx’s and two Marshall’s in my area, a DSW, as well as did multiple google searches, and I can’t find them. I am looking for the copper-ish color (it’s not the chocolate brown, or the taupe, it’s in between, and has a little shimmer to it. But, not patent leather) with a platform heel. My sister saw them last week, but they were not platform, which were not as comfortable as those with the added inch. At four inches high I tower over hubby, but that doesn’t matter, they are fabulous!

Help? Please? If you find them, I’ll PayPal you the money, plus shipping!

As mentioned in my previous post, I’m participating in Smarty Pants Mama’s SmartMamaLUTION. Today’s task was to make a do-it-yourself memory box. I loved the box SPM chose, and I had seen those boxes at Target. But when I went this morning to get one, they did not have any colors I liked that would lend itself to this project. They had the glittery red box, and the glittery green box, but they looked too Christmas-y for this. I was in line waiting to pay for our other stuff (lines were out of hand! Reminded me of Black Friday…), and I told Brandon to run over to the kids’ storage stuff and bring whatever small box he could find. I didn’t know what designs they had, but he came back with the perfect box. He is so proud that he got to pick the box for this special project!

For less than $4 (the box was $2.99 + tx, and we already had index cards, surplus from our back to school shopping), and less than five minutes, we put it together. We filled out two cards, one for yesterday, and one for today. I told him we’d think about the day’s memorable moment throughout the evening every day, and write it down just before bedtime. It’s going to be our new routine tradition.

What do you think? I have to go the the office supply store and get the recipe box dividers to separate the cards by month, but I love how cute and easy it was.

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday week! 2012 is here, and with it come a few goals I’ve set to make this year even better than the last.

I need to get back to running, and fast, as my 2nd half marathon is quickly approaching. The ING Half is on January 29th, just four weeks away, and I haven’t run since November 5th. Time to step it up and get my training on.
I haven’t yet set any race goals for the year, but besides the ING, I’ll definitely be running the Twilight Tower of Terror Ten-Miler in September with Claudia and WB. I’m excited about my first Disney race!

I’m also going to get back to scrapping. I’m ashamed to admit Matty’s book still only has about six pages. At least once a month, I plan to sit down on a weekend and scrap the day away. I’ve got a few new supplies and embellishments to motivate me.

Also on the list is more quality family time with hubby and the boys. When hubby isn’t working we do spend a lot of time together, but it’s usually out and about running errands. The goal here is quality not quantity: play outside with the boys, or walk over to the park, or even hold a family game night. This resolution was already put into action last night. We played one of the board games the boys got for Christmas until bedtime, and they had a blast!

We’ve got a few other goals, like getting a new closet system for our master bedroom, cleaning our backyard more often (We’re sooo lazy about this), and if finances allow planning another vacation by end of year.

Along with my own personal resolutions, I’ll be playing along with Smarty Pants Mama, participating in SmartMamaLUTION. She’s got some great ideas up her sleeve this month for health, home, and family. I’ll even be guest posting, so follow along on her blog! The first great idea was posted today, a DYI memory box, perfect for recording everyday memorable moments. Cute, right?

So what are your goals this year? How do you plan to make 2012 better than 2011?