Rescheduled...Again!

The weather is becoming a bit of a problem here. I was supposed to take some of my music students to a choral event on Jan. 7. The weather interfered, and the event mas moved to Jan. 28. Once again, the weather has interfered, and the event has been rescheduled for Feb. 5. While I was initially quite excited for the event, now I'm just ready to get it over with already!! Stupid snow and ice....

Baby Bathtubs?

The seal between the wall and the bathtub in our main bathroom needed to be re-sealed, so I decided to tackle that project this past weekend. There had been a plastic adheasive strip seal thingie down, and I had to remove and replace that. I would have liked to simply have caulked the seam, but that wouldn't work. So, I ended up replacing the plastic strip and then caulking around it. When I bought the products I needed, I did my best to match colors; both the strip and the caulk were labeled as "bright white." The color of the two items, however, did not match. When Jimmy saw the finished project, he remarked, "It looks like the strip turned pink." I tried to hold in the laughter, but the only thing I could say in reply was "So does that mean we're going to have baby bathtubs?"

My Teething Toddler

My little angel is getting in a new tooth, and apparently this one's causing some grief. Most of her other teeth seem to have come in relatively easily...or at least there was relatively little crying and screaming to accompany the teething process. This time's different. Lily's been cranky and fussy, and naptime seems to be the worst. We fought about the nap thing for about 2 hours this afternoon, at which point I decided to give up and go pick up something I needed at the mall. Lily stayed awake for the car ride to the mall, and fell asleep almost as soon as she hit the stroller. Since I actually wanted her to take a nap, I spent an extra hour and a half wandering around the mall so she could sleep in her stroller....

"Where are the apples?"

My little sweetie is such a smartie.... We went shopping today; my goal was to buy two new pairs of shoes: black flats (a la maryjanes, or the closest thing I could find) and brown boots with heels. I bought two pairs of shoes, and at least one of them was what I intended on purchasing!! Anyway, as I was checking out at the shoe store, the sales associate and manager, both were very vivacious and apparently having a rather slow day, asked if I had any questions about their refund or rewards policies. I answered in the negative, and they then proceeded to ask Lily if she had any questions. She looked at them with a very perplexed look on her face and asked, in relatively pain English, "Where are the apples?" Thy guys in the shoe store were floored, and then couldn't stop laughing....

The Rhetoric of Soap Bottles

I was reading soap bottles in the bathroom today, and I noticed something interesting. Three different products had three very different statements regarding animal testing:
Product 1: "Never Tested on Animals"
Product 2: "This Finished Product Not Tested on Animals"
Product 3: "Against Animal Testing"
Products 1 and 2 are from the same company, which would seem suggest that some of their products, somewhere in the production process, are in fact tested on animals. Product 3 is from a fair-trade company that does not test on animals, but the label doesn't explicitly state that. It would be possible for a company to be against animal testing, yet still do it, right? Anyway, it seems that there's a cultural studies project in here somwhere...maybe something on the rhetoric of soap bottles and cereal boxes perhaps....

Bubbles!!

Lily got a bubble machine for Christmas. She and Daddy got it out to play with it. (However, Mommy has now determined that it is an outside toy. It made lots of bubbles and we ended up having to mop the floor to get rid of all the bubble juice after we were finished playing.)

Resolutions

I'm only making a few New Year's Resolutions this year, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep them....

Resolution 1: Write More
Several things fall under this topic. First, take better care of my poor neglected blog. My generally realistic goal is to post at least once a week. (I like my blog, I really do, but I just can't seem to keep it updated. I blame Facebook!) Second, finish my dissertation. I'm making slow progress on the thing, but I really want to have the thing finished by the end of this new year. And third, write Christmas thank-yous and Valentine cards. Since Christmas cards and letters just didn't happen this year, I'm going to try to do a big mailing of Valentine cards this year instead.

Resolution 2: Take (and Print) More Pictures
I got a nice new digital SLR camera for Christmas, and my goal is to take more (and better) pictures. Along with that, I also need to print more pictures to send to family members who don't have computer access.

I'm sure there are all sorts of other things that I should/shouldn't resolve to do for this new year, but I think I'll limit my formal list to two. The fewer resolutions I make, the fewer I'll be tempted to break!!

Decorating for Christmas

Today we helped decorate the church for Christmas. Lily spent most of her time running and playing with the other little girls that were "helping" whith the decorating. However, she also managed to do her share of the work....

Thanksgiving on the Farm

We're spending Thanksgiving in Kansas with my side of the family. This year Lily is old enough to play with the puppy and watch all of the animals. (One of her favorite farm pastimes seems to be moving the gravel around in the driveway by the barn.) The weather hasn't been too cold, so she's gotten to go outside quite a bit. We've taken lots of pictures, but I think this is one of my favorites....

Lily's First Haircut

Today we said bye-bye to the baby curls!! Aunt LB, who is a stylist, gave Lily her first haircut. We sat Lily in a high chair, pulled out the laptop, and turned on an episode of Tigger and Pooh; as a result, I don't think she even realized that she was getting a haircut! Lily sat perfectly still, and Aunt LB gave her a cute little baby cut complete with little layers.

"Apple, Apple, Apple!"

I bought Lily some little puzzles a few months ago, and she's really beginning to take an interest in them. One has fruits on it, another vegetables, and another sweets. When we put the puzzles together, I read the names of the items as she either hands the pieces to me or attempts (occasionally successfully) to put the pieces where they belong. Today, she apparently decided to "read" the piece to me; I heard "apple, apple, apple...." However, she was very excited when I gave her apple slices for supper.

Lily's also attempting to say her ABCs now. She can't say them very clearly, and I don't know that she manages to get the right number of "letters" in her song, but it sure is cute!

Library Book Sale Finds

The local public library has been having a book sale this week. We found out about it yesterday when we went to get a new stack of books for Lily. (She likes picking out new books and playing with all of the toys in the library.) Anyway, Jimmy and Lily and I returned to the library today to sort through the room of "for sale" books to see what all we could find. We spent about an hour and a half browsing books. (We went at nap time, so Lily fell asleep in the car and then slept in her stroller for about the first hour. She browsed and shopped with us for a while though...and she did a relatively good job all things considered.) We ended up with two boxes of books: a good assortment of children's books for Lily, some things to resell online, some things to keep, and some things to take to work. The treasure, I think, is a copy of the book Copland on Music that is autographed by the author, Aaron Copland. I haven't figured out how much the book would be work if I were to try to e-bay it, but I think maybe I'll just keep it.

Halloween

I had camera problems (a corrupt memory card actually), so I didn't get many pictures from Halloween this year. And I certainly didn't get many decent pictures!! Anyway, here's my little fairy princess....

Army Band Concert

Lily went to her first concert tonight. The US Army Field Band & Soldier's Chorus came through on part of their fall tour, and I got a pair of tickets for Lily and I. (Jimmy had to work this evening. It's not like we just didn't invite him....) Lily did well through the concert. We sat in an outside aisle seat near the back so we could make a quick exit if necessary. We didn't have to make the dreaded quick exit, but we didn't make it to the end of the show either. We made it through about 3/4 of the program (or about 1 hour and 15 minutes), so I was generally pleased. The music was amazing and it had been quite a long time since I'd been to a concert of this caliber. It makes me miss playing....

My Little Queen of the Remote Control

The little one has figured out that the remote controls make the television do things...and she certainly likes to experiment with them! She doesn't really much watch much TV (we try to limit her to Tigger & Pooh and Sesame Street), but we do have the television on sometimes during the day. Regardless of whether the TV's on or off, the remote controls still seem to be entertaining....