One of Those Days

Today was one of those days when...

• Scott was gone from 8:30am till 9:00pm, and I really could've used his help!
• I tried to do too many things and felt like I didn't get anything done.
• Kirsten was into everything and I couldn't look away for 2 seconds.
• Kirsten wasn't happy unless she was into everything.
• I had piles of dishes to do... got a few of them done, but still more to do.
  
• I had piles of laundry to fold & put away, and more piles to do, and did neither putting away nor washing/drying.
• You want to have lunch but it takes you 2.5 hours just to get to eat.
  
• I felt like crying and did.
• I was happy to see the sun but was stinkin' HOT and wished I had A/C.
• Just when I thought it wasn't going to get any worse, I walked into the kitchen to find dog puke on the floor and on the carpeted cat stand.
• Kirsten should've gone to sleep by 7:30 but at about 8:15 I gave up and just let her play on the floor.
  

Thankfully, Scott got home and rescued me. And my day got a lot better. Scott got Kirsten to sleep in about 5 minutes. I ate dinner. At 9pm. And now I'm going to have a big bowl of Moose Tracks ice cream and then go to bed.

A Good Deal

We have never bought a new vehicle... until now. When our friend Wendy mentioned the "Cash for Clunkers" program, it got us thinking. Then when I saw an ad for a vehicle that looked like what we were interested in, for a decent price, it got me thinking more. On Monday, we drove to Charlie's Motor Mall in Augusta to take a test drive. Knowing that we could turn in Scott's old Toyota Tacoma and get $4500 towards a brand new vehicle made us very interested. We couldn't do anything that day since the program was not finalized. Things finally were finalized yesterday, and Chrysler had also announced that they were matching up to $4500 for qualifying vehicles. Ours did not qualify for the full amount, but it did qualify for $3500. After all was said and done, that means we had $8000 off the price for 2009 Jeep Patriot! Now that's a good deal... one that we decided would be a good one to take advantage of, especially since Scott has had his truck for 7 years and we had been thinking that it would be time to upgrade soon. Scott went and picked it up today. He says I can look at it.... haha. I am hoping to drive it sometime soon!

Another bonus: lifetime warranty on the powertrain, plus 3 year warranty on other stuff. And, it gets much better gas mileage than his truck did.

So here's a low-quality pic, but I'll post some better ones soon.

Beautiful Jewelry

I am so excited about this contest! You can enter to win $500 of free jewelry from this beautiful etsy shop. I am in love with this bracelet:

Here's to hoping I win! (Or, if you win, you can share the love with me!)

Sample Scrapbook Page

Here's one of my pages from a book I am working on. You can see why I love this so much!

Into Everything... and More

I am inspired by all my friend's recent blogs, and I realize that I haven't blogged in quite a while. That is probably because I've been busy keeping up with Kirsten getting into everything, working part-time, doing business, and getting Scott ready to leave for 10 days. Speaking of which, he left last night for Belize, so keep him in your prayers!

Kirsten is now 8 and 1/2 months old, and she is constantly pulling herself up to a standing position. She likes to stand by the rocking chair and the couch the most. She also likes to do a little swaying dance, which often results in a tumble and then the crying ensues. Thankfully it's fairly easy to distract her, and I find that stepping outside works the best for this. Although with the weather lately, we haven't been doing that as much!

Along with standing up, she is also crawling all over the place and seems to want cords, outlets, and other dangerous items the most. It is wonderful that she is developing so well and gaining independence, but she defintiely requires constant supervision!

We are still struggling with bedtime, since due to this newfound skill of standing, she often wants to stand up in her crib when it's time to go to sleep. Sometimes when she wakes at night, and I go in to nurse her, she's actually standing there! It's crazy. So we are working on trying to get her settled down more before going to bed, and that is working some of the time. Other times it is requiring me to go into her room several times to lay her back down and pat her back and help her to calm down. I asked for advice on this topic on facebook, and boy did I get responses! There are definitely tons of opinions on this issue, and I am finding myself somewhere in between the two "exteremes". Generally I let her cry for a bit before I go in, but then I also try to settle her down when I am there. But the best option is to get her much more sleepy before laying her down, and then she just falls asleep without much fuss at all.

Well I am off to give her a little bath and get her ready for bed. I'd love her to go to sleep around 7 or 7:30pm, but it's usually closer to 8:30 by the time she goes to sleep. Perhaps we will get there earlier tonight!