Catch up...fast!

Ok, so I haven't written anything in like a month but I have good excuses. I do! First I was cleaning and organizing the whole house, putting away decorations, getting rid of stuff, finding places for Laylah's new stuff. Then I was getting ready to go to Kelley and Wesley's wedding in Illinois, planning for snow, formal occasions, hotel stay, airplane, it's a lot to cram in. Then we actually went to the wedding, and then there was the day of unpacking and cleaning, and then the inevitable, I got sick. So, now that I am somewhat recovered, still have a cough and stuffy nose, I am writing again. For the most part everything went well over the past month. The wedding was better than we expected, and it was nice seeing so many people from Brandon's side of the family. Laylah got totally spoiled having soooo many people to well, spoil her. She did really well on the plane, the CARES worked really well, without it she would have been sliding around in the seat and totally squirmy. We rented it off Ebay, totally recommend it. After the wedding getting sick was not fun. Especially since it was the weekend of Brandon's birthday. I had all these plans to make it special and I was totally unsuccessful. I dragged myself to the store Friday to get some stuff for her birthday dinner at least, which turned out well. Getting ahead of myself, so we woke up and went to Mary Mac's Tea room, an Atlanta institution of Southern Cooking. DO NOT GO! It has soooo many reviews of being soooo good, and a tradition you can't miss, believe me, you can. First they only serve lunch and dinner, no breakfast of any kind which was annoying, And it was in Brandon's words, "Bad Cafeteria food." He had chicken fried steak that was lumpy and covered in tasteless brown gravy, I had ok fried chicken (supposedly the best in town but Wayside in C-ville is sooooo much better, no comparison) and the mac and cheese we got for Laylah was frankly inedible. The only good thing they had was their sweet tea, and really? how hard is that? Although northerners seem to think it's magical. Just put the sugar in while the water's hot, stupid. Anyway, it sucked, especially for a birthday breakfast that we were looking forward to and I dragged my sick miserable self to. Then we went home and passed out for three hours. Then Brandon called Lee and they thankfully went out to have some fun since I just couldn't. We were going to go to a museum or something but there was just no way. I think Brandon had fun with Lee though. Laylah and I stayed home and we baked a birthday cake, she picked out the type. Rainbow sprinkle cake with butterfinger crunchies mixed in with buttercream icing mixed with cool whip and more butterfinger crunchies on top with blue sparlky writing. She was a good helper. I took pictures. I also cleaned and got everything together for dinner. Brandon came home with Lee and they played around on the Wii with his new Resort game thing I got him and drank some more beer. When Lee left I made dinner. Grilled aspergras with lime, smashed red potatoes, and rib eye steaks with blue cheese onion cream sauce. It was stupendous. Oh and a salad. It was actually so filling we had it the next night too. The sauce is soooooo good, I think I'll do filets next time though cause the rib eyes the recipe called for were just too fatty for me. Very easy to make too. Brandon loved it. And then we had cake too. Brandon let Laylah help with the candles. We put her to bed and then watched something on TV I don't remember because I was practically comatose at this point, then we went to bed. Sunday I was supposed to go out with my mom friends to Maggianos and to see Leap Year. I was really looking forward to it and up till 3:30 I was really trying to feel better so I could leave at 4, but alas, I gave up and didn't go. Of course they had the best time ever and went to the Cheesecake factory after the movie too to get drinks and desert. Ugh! I would have loved that! I'm super jealous. I stayed home and tried to breathe. Oh well, next month. It would have been unfair of me to go anyway because I didn't go our with Brandon for his birthday so I would have felt guilty the whole time even if I had felt well enough to go out. Anyway, now it's Wednesday. So far this week I've been to the dentist again, yay. with a stuffed up nose, soooo much fun. And to the grocery store. We went to boobie wee today and a playground cause it was nice outside, which then led to getting lunch at Chick-fil-a. IN my defense she hadn't been in more than two weeks and had been asking for it since before the wedding, and I am going on a total cleanse four day diet tomorrow. Which will be my next set of things to talk about. I am not fasting, it's a cleanse, lots of fruit and veggies and fiber and brown rice. It's in this book called the "Four Day Diet" and so Brandon and I are going to try it. My idea is that since February brings with it my big dr's appointment to start trying to having another baby, I want to get a healthy start on it. Brandon agrees. Laylah will probably love the rice and bananas and strawberries but she's not doing it. K, that's enough for now. sorry it was so long. Hope you are all caught up. Fun Laylah fact, she has started putting her hand in front of her eyes at parts of movies that she doesn't like. It's so cute. I never taught her that, totally instinctual, not closing her eyes, covering the open ones so she can still peek. She's a cutie!

Happy New Year!

Bringing in the New Year with a very small child is always somewhat of a challenge. Since the holiday is primarily celebrated with adults in mind, (alcohol, parties till 3am, going outside at night in the cold, getting dressed up) celebrating at home with someone that goes to bed by 8:30 presents some interesting choices. First, finding a babysitter, even if you wanted to, is pretty much impossible because all people without someone to babysit, ie their own bundles of joy, have plans, big fat fabulous fancy plans. But, we did not particularly want to go out. We weren't invited to any parties because almost everyone we know either has kids and isn't going anywhere either, or knows we have kids and it's useless to invite us anywhere. And the option for outdoor celebrating, (meaning freezing among a thousand other stupid people to see something that you can always see better at home on TV), was the Peach Drop. Yes, a Peach. Suffice it to say, we stayed in and created our own partay! The day before Laylah and I blew up about fifty balloons of different sizes and colors, then I took two garbage bags, cut them each down one side and then sewed them loosely together with yarn. I then taped half the garbage bag to the ceiling and filled it with the balloons and then taped the other half up. This became a constant source of fascination for Laylah, "Want Boons Down!" But I told her that they were for the New Years party and she only asked every ten minutes until we actually did the balloon drop the next night. What patience my child has! We also made two noise makers from Pringles tubes which we filled with unpopped popcorn and balls of tinfoil, and put construction paper on the ouside that Laylah colored on. Then we made a sign for the wall saying Happy New Year! and we were set to go. The day of we stayed in, played with her new toys, made a slide out of her mattress because we changed all the sheets (I just like the idea of sleeping on clean sheets to start the new year) and she loves doing this. We balance her mattress on the otoman of her chair in her bedroom and she proceeds to slide down it, slide her cars, trains and animals down it, it's a great time had by all. We made twice-baked potatoes, cooked for eight hours with a hunk of ham so they are not at all healthy green beans, and some very nice tenderloin steaks for dinner. Brandon wanted to get a whole tenderloin to cook in the oven form a recipe he found in GQ, but getting a whole tenderloin was just way too expensive so I just got two steaks. I made really good horseradish sauce to go with it. We showered and dressed around 5pm, having spent the day in pj's. I wore a sparkly purple evening gown complete with fuzzy socks and thermal underwear, Laylah wore her pj's (she refused to take them off) plus a dress pulled over it, and flowers in her hair. Brandon wore his black suit with his new red shirt and red pocket square. We ate dinner with red wine for us and sparking blueberry juice in a plastic wine glass for Laylah. Go some cute pictures of her being a lush. After dinner we celebrated new Years in England, meaning 7pm. We did the countdown with Laylah's microphone, she helped by counting up as I counted down. Then the balloons pdropped, we stomped on big buggle wrap, shook our shakers. We ate our 12 grapes, drank rasberry champaign and wrote out our wishes for the new year and put them in our Christmas stockings so that we can find them next year when we decorate and see whether they came true. We danced, we sang. we popped all the balloons, mostly by Laylah sitting on them. Then we did the usual bathtime and bedtime ritual after talking to Tita and Tito on the phone. Then Brandon and I watched yet another episode of Dexter, soooo good. Brandon then promptly fell asleep at 10:30 and I stayed up to ring in the New Years at midnight on the couch. I did go give my two loves kisses at midnight but I doubt they noticed. Today we got up and had breakfast, went to the store to get more balloons, she's become obsessed. Then after Laylah's nap we hid gold chocolate coins all around the living room. She went around finding them. The idea being that finding coins is good luck, and finding chocolate ones on New Years Day has to be better! It think it's a fun tradition to start anyway. We also watched lots and lots of football and the Rose Parade. I think we made up some good traditions to celebrate New Years with little ones that we will continue for years to come. Hopefully Laylah will remember them fondly and celebrate with her children this way too, after she has a few years of going out to parties, dressing up all fancy shmancy and going to stand in the cold with thousands of other people and seeing something she could be seeing on TV better, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun, well at least until she has someone worth staying home for.