Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Catching Up

Where, oh where, has December gone? Where has 2010 gone for that matter? A "Catch Up" post is necessary.

Emma's Christmas program at daycare. She sang Jingle Bells for two weeks straight prior to this. Everywhere we went she was singing Jingle Bells, only it sounded like Giingule Beullllllls. She has developed this very pronounced Southern drawl and is cracking me up with it as I simultaneously try to nip it in the bud.
The adorable boy in the cap is Em's "boyfriend", Travin. They hold hands when they walk down the hallway together. Hubs is worried. (Travin is the son of a friend from high school and we both think it is hilarious and adorable.)

I took vacation time the week of Christmas and had all these plans for getting stuff done around the house-nada. Accomplished absolutely nothing, but I had fun with the kiddos!

Seeley STILL has an ear infection. Pediatrician says if this third round of antibiotics doesn't knock it out we're ENT bound. Yippie. I was really hoping Mr. Big wouldn't follow in his sister's footsteps and need tubes in his ears. Cross your fingers!

Christmas!!Jeremy just sighed and asked me when I would stop dressing the kids alike.

Santa Hubs was good to me this year.
(Not pictured is a gorgeous new watch to go with my other goodies.)

Jessica Simpson Ruffle Me HoboTOMS gray canvas

My mom also helped me out with my storage space problem. Best solution ever!! This baby holds 3500 books and is the new love of my life. Perfect gift for a book worm.
Baby Weight Loss Weigh In:
13 pounds to go to pre-Seeley weight. Stupid holidays and their stupid chocolately desserts.

12 MORE pounds to go to pre-Emma weight.

14 ADDITIONAL pounds to go to pre-marriage weight.

That's right-39 pounds. Yikes. I'll take your prayers now.


Coming events in the Johnson household:

Possible New Year's Eve party attendance
8 Year Wedding Anniversary

Stay Tuned!!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Sick-mas

A little ditty on how the past few days have gone at the Johnson Zoo . . . .

On the 12th day of Sick-mas my kiddos gave to me

12 Explosive Diapers

11 Sick Buckets

10
Hours of Dora (!)


9
Bouts of Crying

8
Clothes a Changing

7
Painful Bruises


6
Fights over Medicine

5 Poopie Baths

4
Trips to the Doctor


3
Ear Infections

2
Missed Days From Work


And A Stinky Mommy With No Sleep!!

Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Catching Up

So I'm still catching up from my blogging absence. Things have been super crazy at work and since I have absolutely no spare time at home to blog, guess what that means! Crazy work= no blog. I'm getting my priorities straight though and trying to put blogging back on the "to-do" list since I've had some complaints, not to name any names but you know who you are! :)

Santa Train on our Hot Springs branch was its normal adventure and chaos. Remind me again why I subject myself to being the person in charge of this year after year? Oh, the kids. Riiight. This year Emma was super excited about it and begged to ride on the train. Since Jeremy decided to take a break from engineering the train this year he brought the kids to one of the stops and we all got on for a quick ride. Justin, B, and Parker rode with us and so did my good friend from high school Leslie and her adorable little boy Lyric. (I've decided that this is a new tradition for Leslie and I-riding the train with the kids. This is the 2nd year in a row and Lyric absolutely LOVED it!)

I coerced two of our MOW employees (maintenance of way-they do all the work on the track) into being elves and it was AWESOME!! I absolutely love any man who is secure enough to let me dress him up. They were even willing to wear tights but I couldn't find any at the last minute . . .there's always next year! They kept referring to the candy canes as their pimp canes . . .

Seeley thought Elmo the Elf was super, Em was not so sure. Elmo is his real name, swear.


And this is the BEST Santa and Mrs. Claus in the world. Brian retired from AKMD 6 years ago but still comes back to do Santa at one of the stops-14 years in a row! He and his wife are the sweetest couple and spent the whole train ride talking with the kids. Emma was so fascinated-she didn't hesitate to jump on Santa's lap. Her wish list from Santa is a baby doll, specifically the Baby Alive doll wearing purple pajamas) and a Tinkerbell dollhouse.

And since I always get asked the question about 100 times each year- the Santa Train is not a passenger excursion. There's only one way you get to ride on the train . . .you gotta know me! Ha! It's nice to have a little power trip once a year! LOL

I think I may have inadvertently caused a problem though because Emma now insists that Santa travels via "mommy's train". He absolutely does not ride a sleigh and she will argue with you about it until she's blue in the face. Whoops. I guess we'll work on the whole sleigh and reindeer concept next year!

We've hit a few bumps this month as well. Poor Seeley still has an ear infection. We're working on round 3 of antibiotics to try and clear it up. I have a call out to the pediatricians office as we speak to discuss the side effects of this latest antibiotic; mommy is not real thrilled with the way it is upsetting his stomach. I can only take being covered in diaper leakage so many times in one week . . . .not to mention the worry about dehydration. Hello pedialyte!

Also found out I may need surgery. Super. I'll know more by the end of January but more than likely I'll get to have an outpatient procedure during February or March. This does not make mommy happy either-I have this outrageous fear of needles. Having my blood drawn causes me to faint and IV's are pure hell. Ugggh!

On the bright side-Only 11 more days until Christmas! Yay!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

A month later . . .

Yes, I'm finally getting around to posting about Em's Mickey Mouse party. Sad right? I also haven't written anything in Seeley's baby book since his first day in the hospital-Shhhh!

I decided to be a good mommy this year and let Emma pick out the theme for her birthday party-after much debate between Tinkerbell, Disney princesses and Mickey Mouse we finally had a winner. Since our house is not quite large enough to accommodate a crowd we decided to have her party at a church in Hot Springs. I know that sounds weird, but this huge church has the cutest little playroom and they rent it out for parties. There's a great area to have the cake/refreshments and the play area is completely enclosed so the kids can't escape. Perfect! (Quick side note here- I rented the area for 2 hours and felt beyond rushed. The next destination birthday will involve a longer rent time on the room.)

The color scheme was based on this shirt, which I found on Etsy. (You know how I love me some zebra print!) You can't see it in the pictures but she has a pair of black leggings on under the tunic length shirt and red glitter "Dorothy" shoes. I so heart Target! A local girl that is on Facebook made matching hairbows for me.
Decorations/Food:The table looks a little empty and the balloons are all in one giant cluster, but I just flat ran out of time to do anything more. (Rent the room for 3 hours!!) I made the Mickey Mouse heads out of Styrofoam, scrapbook paper, and spray glitter. I now want to spray glitter EVERYTHING! It's addicting.
I made the cupcake toppers to go with the zebra/red/black color theme.

Peanut butter cookies with icing and edible Mickey Mouse Clubhouse designs. Super yummy!

It's a little hard to see, but these are chocolate Mickey Mouse head lollipops. Soooo easy to make!

Presents! (I love Baylie's face in the background. Mollie- I think she needs one of these Dora dollhouses for Christmas!)
Taking turns going down the treehouse slide!Seeley was even sporting a Mickey Mouse shirt courtesy of Personally Stitched. Sorry I didn't get a better picture of it Mollie! And yes, Jeremy just rolled his eyes at the matchy-matchy stuff.


We got her a Dora jeep! As you can tell she was way too excited and insisted on giving all of her friends rides. She still hasn't quite grasped the concept of reverse though. If she runs into something she still yells for me or Jeremy to come and help her.

Happy to be 3!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

I'm Baaaaack!

Yes, it's been a very long time since I've blogged. Sorry folks, I honestly can't say where the time has gone. Let's see if I can get you caught up- consider this like the lightning round in Jeopardy. Quick, down and dirty, skimpy on the details. Only difference-none of the following will be in the form of a question because that just drives me nuts!

10 Year Reunion
Memory card corrupted, no download on earth could save them, still waiting on tech friend to pull through for me and save my memories.

Pumpkin Patch

Em holding the "bestest pumpkin ever"

Hay Ride!

Matching shirts. Cause that's how we roll.
With Holton and Parker

Our little family

Golf Outing-Em's first mini golf adventure on Emma/Mommy/Daddy Day
She had sooo much fun. Jeremy beat me, but just barely. I still think he cheated. Have I mentioned that we are way too competitive?!

Halloween-Razorback Style!

I wanted to do a Sleeping Beauty/Prince Phillip theme and Jeremy shot that one down. Said it was too creepy to have Seeley as Emma's love interest . . . way to pervert Halloween buddy and ruin it for everyone!!

There's also a Mickey Mouse 3rd Birthday to cover, but that one will just have to wait. Running out of time and the Turkey waits for no one . . .

Happy Thanksgiving!




Friday, October 8, 2010

Blast from the Past-Part 2

This post is extremely late but better late than never right?

Friday before the festivities I broke out the yearbook and as I was reading through the notes just about everyone wrote "let's stay in touch" or some similar version. Do you know how many people that I actually stayed in touch with prior to Facebook? Maybe 5 or 6 and that was inconsistent at best. Sad right? I think I'll try working on that.

10th Grade- I can pretty much sum up this year with a few words- Athletics, boyfriend, no car. That's where most of my focus was spent. If you're like me and don't have a birthday early in the school year you're stuck with no car and no license to drive while it seems like everyone else does. Major bummer. My girl Julie P. took pity on a few of us lowly 10th graders and would take Camron, Michelle, and I to Sonic after school on days when we had home volleyball games. Those rides were a lot of fun because we would always leave the car with some profound Julie Wisdom.

I dated the same guy pretty much the entire year. And for high school standards that was a pretty long relationship. What can I say, I'm picky? I've never really bounced from guy to guy. My friends all congratulated me on my "good catch". He was a Junior, played football, and could drive. Apparently those were the three major requirements for a boyfriend when you were in the 10th grade. I just thought he was cute and nice.
I love sports. Am I the best player? Nope. Am I decent? Yes. But during 10th grade I decided to start pulling back from athletics slightly. This was my last year to play volleyball and basketball. The coach had a seething hatred for me that I still don't understand to this day. And while that sort of thing doesn't bother me, it made my sports involvement sort of miserable. And believe it or not I actually miss running the 5-6 miles per day that she insisted on with all of the rushing warm-ups and other drills. My ass has never been in better shape and that's a fact! Although I'm trying to work my way back to it now, but that's a story for another day.

The summer between 10th and 11th grade I got my first job-Sonic carhop. Don't laugh. When you're a girl and halfway cute you can make awesome tips. I NEVER came home from a 6 hour shift with less than $30 in tips. I also got my first car. A lovely 1992 Toyota Tercel, blue, standard. I didn't know how to drive a standard and spent two frustrating weeks learning to drive the stupid thing before I could actually get out of the driveway in it. Boyfriend and I broke up, started dating someone else.

11th Grade- Allison, Cali, and I were pretty much together during school hours and school events 24/7. When we weren't together we were with our respective boyfriends. To fill all the free time I had since pulling out of some sports I got into drama. And it was amazing how much free time I had! I did two plays that year- Little Women and Winnie the Pooh (I was rabbit). We did two plays per year-an adult and a childrens.And since I no longer had a coach breathing down my neck and keeping tabs on me, Allison and I were able to get away with murder during our free periods. Sneaking off campus, ditching classes, wearing masks and sneaking through the hallways. It occurs to me that I was pretty damn easy on my parents if this was the worst that I did. You always hear of horror stories, like girls gone wild type stuff. Hell, I was still on the honor roll for crying out loud. So apparently I didn't miss anything during those "away" times with Allison.

I started dating a 21 year old. I was 17. What in the hell were my parents thinking? At the time I didn't see anything wrong with this but parenthood puts things in a whole new perspective. If this were Emma Jeremy would have already killed the boy and buried the body. His brother the cop would probably have helped. So now way will she be allowed to pull something like this. Cause Mama knows. It only lasted about 6 months anyway. Close to the end of the school year Jeremy and I started dating. Here we are at Junior Prom. My dress was totally awesome by the way. Note his hand on my ass in the picture. Try explaining THAT to mom and dad.This was also the year that our Beta Club advisor (a certain teacher who shall remain nameless but always, always, always had hickeys on her neck) learned the follies of letting high schoolers roam the streets during a convention with little to no supervision. Did I mention that we were "good kids" so got away with murder?
The guy patting me down is an attorney now. Ironic?Bottom pic is Cali, Allison, and I.

12th Grade- I only needed two classes in order to graduate but I also took some college courses at the unholy hour of 7am. I got to leave school at noon and completely dropped out of sports. Athletics period was at the end of the day-didn't love sports enough to take 4 classes I didn't need just to stay for athletics.Stayed in drama and did two more plays. I was Kate in The Miracle Worker and an evil witch in a children's play that Allison and I wrote. This play was awesome and featured me and Cali as the evil witch and witch-in-training. We worked our evil spells and messed up Mother Goose nursery rhymes. There were sexual innuendos, cross dressing, and loads of other stuff pulled from our warped imaginations. Priceless. Senior year was great but probably best told through pictures so enjoy. (Break out your reading glasses-A lot of these pics were scanned from a senior memory book and cover several years and are crammed together.)