I Fell Off the Bottle Feeding Wagon

I finally weaned Adrian from breastfeeding... for two days. I thought I was doing it fairly gradual, but I woke up yesterday morning in such pain (you moms know what I mean.... even if you didn't breastfeed...) that I gave in. He was doing so well, getting bottles all day long and nursing in the evening. It's me that is struggling with it. When I weaned Rhiannon, at 6 months, I was working full time, taking care of her, and taking care of my 85 year old grandfather. I am home with Adrian all day so I feel like I am being selfish. I know I'm probably being silly anyway.. he will be 8 months old tomorrow. I would never go past a year for sure, but I felt like I was ready to quit now. Those teeth are a little intimidating too! Well... maybe I'll try again tonight.

"Awww Mom! What do you mean I get no more boob?!!"

Frogs and Pools and Bubbles Oh My!

The stressful weekend is coming to an end. Sorry, but I don't feel like elaborating right now. Anyway, here is a layout I created using Steel City Scrap's (aka Rachel) Spring Bliss kit. I am slowly but surely chunking away at a mountain of photos from past years. Here is another one from 2003.

Don't Do the Crime if You Can't Do the Time!

Back in January my husband had an 18 year old fella work for him for about a week. I'll call him Nimrod. Nimrod had worked for us for a few months back in the summer of '07 , and seemed to be a pretty good kid. This time he only worked with us for a total of eight days... five of which he was late for, and one that he called off completely. Corey kept telling him not to be late, but the final straw was Friday morning when he called at 9:30 am claiming car troubles. Corey informed him that he wasn't born yesterday. If your car doesn't start you are aware of this before you are supposed to be on the job site, not an hour and a half after you are supposed to be on the job site. He told him not to bother showing up on Monday... he wouldn't need him anymore. Nimrod came to our house that evening to pick up his check. Monday morning Corey arrived at the job site to find that all of his tools had been stolen. Hmmm. Who the hell do you suppose took them? Luckily they had not begun the tile installation process so he only got away with the floor prep and subfloor tools. Still worth $2500, it could have been a lot worse if his tile saws had been on the job. First thing I did was put a stop on the check. All of his other checks had been cashed at a local podunk beer joint, so chances were good that I still had a chance to keep the money from coming out of the account. The stop check took 24 hours to complete, but my attempt was a success. He either cashed it there or at a check cashing joint like Checksmart. My second call was to the police department of the very small and very affluent community where he committed the crime. We are talking 8 square miles of homes that are in the millions. Keep in mind we live in Northeast Ohio... a $200k house here would cost a million and a half in California. After giving them all of his information they began their investigation. He ended up confessing to the crime and returning two of the stolen tools. He sold the rest of them. They didn't arrest him on the spot, which Corey just could not comprehend, instead they filed the paperwork with the courts and served him with a direct indictment about 10 days ago. Of course he didn't bother to appear for his arraignment so they issued a warrant for his arrest. Being the busy body that I am, I had noticed that he was scheduled to appear at a court in our county for some other business. I called his probation officer to let him know of the warrant in the other county. The probation officer was not aware of the warrant and told me to call him back this afternoon for an update. I just got off the phone with him, and he has been arrested! So, he is facing two fifth degree felonies, whoever cashed his check is going to want to get paid eventually, and our insurance company is seeking restitution to the tune of $2500. Nimrod is facing a max of $5000 dollars in fines and up to 2 years in prison. I'm sure he won't get the max... but still. If he is ordered to pay restitution to the insurance company and fails to pay, they will suspend his driver's license. Last but not least is the "bad" check that he cashed that will probably haunt him until he pays it back. Tsk tsk. Pretty stupid act of vengeance on his part. He should have just dragged his ass out of bed and made it to work on time. Instead he thought it would be cool to steal from someone who truly does work his ass off to earn every cent we have. What a nimrod!

Rhiannon's First Girl Scout Campout!

Rhiannon went to her first outting for Girl Scouts this morning... an overnight stay at Camp Lejnar in Leroy, Ohio. I shouldn't say it's the first outting, they did a dry run at the troop leaders house last month, but that is still just a tad different. She was so excited she could barely contain herself. My little Rhiannon will be seven on June 30th, but she is somewhat of a peanut. She tips the scales at a whopping 40 pounds. She has been petite since she was a baby... never making it out of the 10th percentile for height and weight. It was pretty amusing to see her with her backpack and camping gear. Her bag is bigger than she is... check it out..

On Thursday we took Torino to see his new girlfriend. In case you didn't read the older posts, we are trying to breed him with a female bullmastiff... well.. not much happened. Their vet told them to try again today, so they brought Vegas over this morning. A little more action but still not quite right. They ended up taking him home with them for a sleepover. Keep your fingers crossed.

Drum Roll Please...

Adrian's first little tooth has busted out! It was like pulling teeth (pun intended) to get a peek, but there it was... his bottom left tooth! I felt it after he grabbed my finger and bit down. We are doin' the tooth dance! In other news... Rhiannon comes home today after an eight day stay at her dad's house in Maryland. She is pretty excited to see what the Easter Bunny brought her.

We had a pretty calm weekend here. Saturday was our third wedding anniversary. We went out to dinner with Vickie and Russ. It was a good time but unfortunately my taste buds were on the fritz because of my head cold. Bummer. After dinner we went to Babies R Us to get Tewk (as Corey has been calling him since he was born.... Corey has a nickname for everybody he knows..) some new Jammies. He is seven months old wearing 12 month clothing. We also got him a Bumbo seat, a new Baby Einstein DVD, and another Fisher Price crib aquarium thingy since the one I had stopped moving. All in all it was a good outting!

Here are some layouts that I did over the weekend. They were for a challenge at StoneAccentsStudios.com, but unfortunately I have been experiencing some technical difficulty uploading them to their site so I will have to show them off here. The first one was for their Sas-Y Self challenge. You had to scrap a photo of yourself as a teenager. Please don't laugh at our huge hair... we were very chic for the time. lol. This is one of my favorite pictures of my mom and me. It was taken, in our front yard, six months before we fond out she had cancer. I was a junior in high school.


Designer credits: Those Irish Eyes by BooLand Designs

My next layout is my first two pager. There is nothing more amazing than watching your children grow. Too bad it happens so fast!

Designer credits: Cheeky Charlie Monkey (Animals of the Zoo Collection) by Scrappin' Happens Digital Designs... Journaling tag from Sweet Honey by Verena Karolyi and Doreen Stoltz

Teething

Well it has finally arrived. Adrian's pearly whites are trying to force their way out, and the poor little guy can't get any sleep. That of course means that mommy and daddy can't sleep either. A couple days ago I pulled a box of Rhiannon's baby stuff out of storage. I found the Fisher Price aquarium that attaches to the crib. I tell you what.... here's to you Mr. Fisher Price aquarium thingy inventor... your contraption, with it's wiggly fishys and lifelike (smirk) wave sounds, has made my baby forget his pain... even if momentarily. We salute you!

Our Easter was so uneventful it was wonderful. The most exciting thing we did all day was rent Superbad from Pay-Per-View. I laughed the whole time! Truly not a movie to watch if you don't have a sense of humor. You know who those people are too. They're the ones that after you have asked them... "hey did you see insert funny movie of your choice here?"... they purse their lips and retort back with something about how stupid that movie was. Well no shit. It was intended to be stupid and slap stick. They weren't looking to win an oscar or be known as intellectually stimulating. Give me a break. Life is too short not to have a sense of humor. Add that to my pet peeve list: people with no sense of humor! I am fortunate to have some great friends with great senses of humor. Love you guys!!

Here are a couple of layouts I did. The first one is to commemorate Rhiannon's first lost tooth! My friend and digital scrapbook mentor if you will, Rachel, created this coordinated kit just for me to use with these photos. I absolutely love it. The link to download this kit is on her blog at http://www.simplyracheluncensored.blogspot.com/. There are plenty of other elements so it can be used to scrap photos that are non tooth related. The next layout is another years' past layout. Rhiannon was 3 years old and sitting amongst the fallen leaves, in our front yard, picking dandelions. I shot so many photos that day and I had a tough time choosing my favorites for the layout. I just might have to make this one a two pager. I love how children see beauty in the simplest of things. When we see our lawn full of dandelions my husband runs to get the lawn mower to get rid of the nasty things... you know before the neighbors start to think we don't "maintain our lawn". Rhiannon on the other hand sees a yard full of pretty little yellow wild flowers. The world would be a better place if we all thought like children once in a while. I did create an Easter layout, but I'm not happy with it. I spent all morning downloading a huge Easter kit, just to find that I don't like it at all. See... size doesn't always matter. ha ha. I will find a better kit and rescrap those photos.


Designer credits: Under My Pillow by Steel City Scraps

Designer credits: Autumn Splendor by Christy Lyle

Rhiannon's Easter Masterpiece...

Just wanted to share a few things real quick while the baby's taking a siesta. Rhiannon just left for a week long stay at her dad's house in Maryland. She drew him this picture, which I just thought was too cute:

Yesterday my friend Vickie stopped by and brought us this awesome Easter Bunny cake. All that's left are his ears and half his bow tie!! If only he wasn't so yummy! Thanks Vick!


This morning we had a visit from some really nice folks that have a female bullmastiff. They want to breed their Vegas with our Torino. They are going to be some gorgeous pups. I just hope my hubby and I can keep our willpower up and take the money instead of a pup! If not I'll have to come up with a cute destination name somewhere midway between Torino, Italy and Las Vegas, Nevada. Our pug's name is Sicily and I often wonder how many people "get" the names.........