I have not been ignoring the awards that have been left for me.  I’ve just been busy at work, which is usually when I do my blogging, so… Anyway, I’m taking a few minutes to do some thanks for the following rewards:

From Judi @ Where the Road Takes Us, and Emily @ Mama & Hustler???, comes the Butterfly Award:

The way it works: save this image to add to your blog. Then you get to award 5 of your favorite blogs to share in the fun! Remember to link back to my blog and the ones you award. Then leave them a comment to let them know how to retrieve their award!

The next award is from Julie & Jacqueline (see this post for my original thanks and their links) for the “I Love Your Blog” award:

Next are two tags.  First, from Judi @ Where the Road Takes Us:

Ok, I will at least try to participate as much as providing the seven things about me…

1. I love onion rings, but hate raw onions.
2. I have a strange fear of pointy/sharp things being anywhere near my eyes.  Even indirectly pointed in my general direction, and I have to close my eyes and turn my head.  It makes knitting socks very tricky. LOL
3. Ironically, I can put eye drops and, contacts, when I used to wear them – into my eyes with no problems.
4. I hate spiders (may have mentioned this before), but I don’t mind snakes.  I find them fascinating.
5. Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches are yummy.  No I did not pick up the taste for them while I was pregnant, I tried it long before that and liked it.
6. I lose enough hair when I wash it (every other day) that I could probably have enough hair to make a wig for a small doll in less than a month’s time.  I am surprised I am not bald by now. But my hair IS thin.
7. I sometimes only shower once over the weekend, usually on Sunday.  And yes I still go out in public on Saturday.

And the other tag is an 8 Things tag, from Cinnamon @ My Name is Not Mom :

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

So here is my list…

• I forget things easily, so when I go shopping, I always have to have a list. And sometimes I still manage to forget something, even WITH the list.
• I remember faces before I remember names.  So if someone from way back were to approach me, I would probably recognize their face, but I would most likely not remember their name. How embarassing is that?
• I used to be pretty good with watercolors in high school.  I haven’t painted in years, though.
• One of my paintings was selected by one of my state’s Senators to go hang in the halls under the Capitol building for a year.  That painting now hangs on the wall of our living room.
• I got to go to Washington D.C. with my mom & my art teacher to see my painting, along with several other students from across the country.
• Repetitive sounds annoy me – think pen clicking, barking dogs, habitual throat clearing.
• That is why I am glad I can wear headphones at work.
• The best part of my job is that I rarely, if ever, have to talk to any customers.
• The worst part is the 1+ hour one-way commute.

Ok, so that was nine things.  You get a freebie!

I am going to be really lame due to how busy I am, and neglect to hand pick other blogs to pass these on to.  Yeah, I know it’s not really in the spririt of having received them, but Ijust don’t have a lot of spare time while I’m at work ya know.  😉  So if you come across this post, and haven’t received one of these awards already – award it to yourself! 🙂  I won’t mind – just leave a comment if you do so I know you picked it up from my blog. 

The Kiddo is already super excited to see all of the different Christmas decorations that the stores are putting up for sale already.  W@l-M@rt has a tall Christmas Tree at each entrance with huge red & green unbreakable ornaments on them, and she always MUST go and look and inspect (and touch!!) the tree and its ornaments.

And, I think she wants a pink tree, too. LOL  Pink being her favorite color right now, this does not surprise me much.  I mentioned this to my husband and he kind of poo-poo’d the idea, saying we already have a tree, she can enjoy that one.  Still, I am considering getting her a pink tree, if just for her play area.  But I’d probably save putting it up for Christmas Eve after she goes to bed.  If I have enough $ leftover after gifts, I may get her one.  I think she’d be ecstatic at having her own, PINK, tree.  And of course I would have to get her some pink and white ornaments to go with it.  But we’ll see.

Of course when we put up our little 4 ft green tree, she will be helping put the ornaments on the tree. I’d still like to eventually get a taller tree to put in the front window, but that may have to wait until next year.  I may look into getting a 6 or 8 ft after the holidays depending on what is leftover with the sales.  I want to get a pre-lit, that is what our 4ft tree is and I totally like the fact that we don’t have to mess with tangled messes of lights during the decorating process.

I just hope that she can keep her hands off the ornaments once they are up.  I have a feeling we’ll have more trouble with her keeping her hands off the tree this year than we did her first and second Christmases combined.

On a side note, I think it’s bad enough that stores had their Christmas stuff up for sale the day after Halloween, but even the radio station that plays Christmas music exclusively each Christmas holiday, is already playing Christmas music.  Thanksgiving hasn’t even come and gone yet, people!  I know the economy is in the tank so stores want to make the most of their time, but really?  Christmas music on the radio? Please.  I like my share of Christmas music, in moderation, but this is just too early.  So we shall be avoiding that and any other station that plays Christmas music until we feel the time is right to start listening.

It’s picture day at her preschool today.  They did this earlier this year back in the spring, and those pictures turned out pretty well despite the fact that we totally missed the announcements about picture day and she wasn’t wearing anything special that day. LOL

Today I dressed her in a red shirt and a pair of black leggings with a Christmas theme – candy canes, bows, snowflakes.  We don’t have any black shoes for her right now that fit so she is wearing her silver shoes with the toes worn down. 🙁   Oh well.  I also gave her teacher a little redc velvet clippy that I made a while back to put into her bangs before the pictures are taken.  There was no point in me putting the clippy on her earlier since she would just take it out and it would get lost.  She likes wearing bows and piggy/pony tails and such but doesn’t quite comprehend that they’re *supposed* to be left in the hair as long as possible. Heh.

Anyway I hope they turn out well.  We’ll probably buy the whole package again, which last time cost like $65 for the entire pack of 10 sheets in various sizes.  I’ll have to post one of them after we get them back so you can see my precious little girl. 🙂

If the Kiddo has any faults right now, it is her listening skills.  Or, her lack thereof, shall we say.  We’re often repeating ourselves, although we try to limit it to no more than two or three times, with the threat of time out with the second repeat if it has to be said a third time.  That is not unreasonable is it?  For a going-on-three year old?

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Well, I guess she’s not quite a toddler anymore, I mean she’ll be three in January.

When the ToysRUs big toy book came in the mail, we gave it to her to look through to try to gauge what she may be interested in having for Christmas and her birthday.

The big hit was the page that had a lot of pink stuff on it, as that happens to currently be her favorite color.  Her comment was, “I want allllll of this” – ALL of the items in the pink section.  Oye. LOL

I know for certain I’m going to get her a cardboard playhouse – the kind the kids can color themselves with markers, to replace the beat up carseat box she’s been using since we had to buy a new car seat after our accident back in April.  And, based on her reaction to her cousin’s doll house (a HUGE Dora doll house, to which she let out a very excited squeal at the site of it), we’ll probably get her some sort of doll house, too, along with maybe a barbie doll (just one to start, since its hair will likely be a matted mess before Spring), or some other small dolls to use in it.  I thought about maybe getting a play set for some of her baby dolls, but I may save that for next year.  Or maybe the doll house for next year… I haven’t quite decided yet.

I do know we need to go through her toy boxes and eliminate a bunch of old toys that she would probably care less if they were to disappear, to make room for the new stuff.

I also think I may want to get her some kind of art easle, since she likes to use the ones at school and at her grandmother’s house.

Decisions, decisions… *sigh*

There are a couple of things that the Kiddo did recently that I keep forgetting to talk about here that are kind of amusing… So, before I forget again… 

The first thing happened one night after I put her to bed.  After about 15 minutes of quiet, we heard her open her door and she hollered at us about being ready to go.  Go where, I have no idea, but she was ready to go. (she can’t get out because we keep a baby gate on her door to keep her in at night, and she *knocks on wood* hasn’t figured out how to climb over it yet)

So I walk back to her room, readying “stern mom” mode, and see her poking her head over the gate with a huge grin on her face.  And then I notice, she isn’t wearing her jammies, but she IS wearing clothing.

The little stinker got into her dresser drawers, pulled out a pair of size 24 month pants and 24 month shirt, stripped off her jammies and put on the one-size too small clothes.  AND socks. LOL

I couldn’t help but laugh as I asked her what she thought she was doing, and explained to her it was bedtime, not time to go anywhere but to bed, and then helped her back into her jammies.  I still am not sure where she thought she was going to go.  But I do know she’d been constantly asking to go to Grandma’s all that week.  It’s a good thing we keep a gate on her door, I think if it hadn’t been there she would have strolled out with her blankie bear and tag pillow in head, heading for the front door! LOL

The second thing happened a couple days later.  When I went in to wake her up to get her ready for school, at some time during the night, she had put on one sneaker, and had a sandal on her bed. 

I guess on one hand it’s great to know she can dress herself and put her shoes on, but on the other I am starting to wonder if I should turn the lock on her door around so it’s on the outside and start locking her in at night.  If she ever figures out how to climb over the baby gate, I am almost afraid to wonder if she would actually make it outside and start heading to Grandma’s house at 2am!  (Yes, she can both unlock and open the front door! That is why the baby gate is in place every night!) 

Last night we had a first in our house.

Our first, “if your kid/s is/are too quiet, that can’t be good”, incident.  I have photographic proof, too.

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She has entered a very, VERY irritating phase.

“I can’t!”, which she says if she either a) doesn’t WANT to do something, or b) doesn’t THINK she can do something (when it is obivous she CAN) – which probably can really just be included in the first item.

Yesterday evening she tossed one of her baby dolls onto our bed, and it was just out of her “normal” reach, but if she stretched and got up on her toes, reaching it would’ve been very easy.  It was *just* at the tip of her fingers if she reached with no effort.  And I had a pile of clean clothes on the bed, so I did not want her to climb onto it to get the doll.  So instead of trying to reach the doll by stretching a little bit and getting on her toes, she just stood there with her arm outstretched on the bed, just within reach of the doll, whining “I can’t!”.

Then she decided to toss a small ball onto the bed, which WAS out of reach for her.  And went back to the corner of the bed, which she uses to climb up, and tried to use it an excuse to get both items.  I told her, no, she has to reach to get her doll FIRST, then she can climb up to get the ball.  (Yeah, I know, kind of against the reason I didn’t want her on the bed in the first place, but I didn’t tell her why I didn’t want her on the bed, so that really doesn’t matter in this case).

And you know what?  Just like that, she stretched a little on her toes and got her doll. I told her, “See? I knew you could do it! Now you can climb up and get your ball.”

Anyway, I think I might just go batty with this phase.  I’d almost rather deal with a tantrum than the pathetic “I can’t!” whine.  Ugh!

All last weekat school, the Kiddo did not have any potty accidents.  She had one at home on Friday evening, but I think she was distracted playing with her playdoh.  Otherwise it seems she has caught on, and has even been doing #2 consistently (except for that accident Friday) on the potty!  Yay!!  Yesterday she even was dry through her 2.5 hour nap!  It’ll probably be a while before she’s dry throughout the night, but I am glad that she’s doing so good with daytime!  That means less money spent on pull ups, and fewer icky underwear to clean up.

And she is so proud of herself when she goes on the potty, particularly #2.  Woot!  

Wow, I got an award from two gals this weekend!  Neat!

Thank you to Julie at Moma’s Life and Jacqueline at Mom to Three Sisters for the award.

I’ll have to do the “pass the torch” part of the award later tonight or this week.  In the meantime I need to get some stuff done at work lest the bosses think I am a slacker! 😉