Happy Birthday Pickle!!

How can my little Pickle be 3??? It doesn't seem possible, but it's happening--and although I'm sad that the baby days are pretty much behind us, I am excited about all the mom/daughter adventures in our future!

We are going to have a birthday lunch at American Girl Place and I'm going to let her choose a doll as a present. She is VERY excited about this! Tonight we chose a dress and shoes for her to wear tomorrow and when I wasn't looking she took off her pajamas and was attempting to put the dress on.

She was so bent on doing it that I helped her get it on properly and she REFUSED to take it off. At one point, she was hiding behind a chair crying that she wanted to wear her dress to bed.

But I finally got her to sleep (in her pajamas!) and I have to admit I got a little teary when she gave me her last goodnight kiss as a two year old.

I've been terrible about taking pictures lately, but I'll be sure to document our birthday adventures.

Happy Birthday Pickle!!!!

Birthday Week!

A little bacon-loving girl I know is having a birthday this week (Friday to be exact) and she's fully in birthday mode.Notice that she's wearing a princess birthday hat (with a bow) and carrying a princess birthday crown? She's ready to go!

Unfortunately, I don't have anything spectacular planned since we are still mired in the move and construction. See--look at the background which is my living room:

See how the floors are covered in paper and everything is covered in plastic? That giant thing looming behind Pickle is what I call the "plastic cage":

There's kind of a cool story behind why that's there, but I'm saving it for when the project is complete and I can do the proper unveiling.

But back to Pickle--my mom was planning on hosting a party for her this weekend somewhere away from all this mess, but we just found out that one of my sister's kids has the dreaded "coxsackie virus" (Kerri--if you're reading this-remember the Coxsackie Grandma!?) also known as hand, foot and mouth disease. Apparently it is highly contagious and the poor thing's mouth and throat are covered in blisters--so I think it's best to postpone the party until everyone is healthy and non-blistery.

So we'll have some kind of small family thing on her actual birthday and her bigger extravaganza in a couple of weeks. Which is just as well because she can't make up her mind on a party theme--she's gone from My Little Pony to princess to Strawberry Shortcake and back again.

In other news:

--Gooser was diagnosed Thursday with DOUBLE pneumonia (he is much better now but it was scary.)

--He threw up all over the Persian rug at the x-ray place.

--Then he threw up some more right after we gave him the much-needed antibiotics.

--I think my foot is broken.

--My wicker furniture for the new screened-in porch was delivered today.

--I now know that a "curbside" delivery means a bunch of giant boxes are taken off the truck and deposited on the sidewalk--fun!

--But it's really nice--pictures soon!

--Because my stupid dogs can escape from our new fancy fence, I had to waste money on purchase an "Invisible Fence" to restrain them.

--Today was Day One of "training."

--Apparently my dog, Cosmo, is immune to electrical "correction."

--He stood in the force field, oblivious.

--I use a lot of quotation marks.

--I just got into a fight with Don about what temperature to keep the thermostat on.

--I know you would all side with me in this argument!!

Check Out My Spine!

Over the weekend we went to one of those salvage stores that are filled with stuff removed from old buildings and houses that are about to be torn down--we were searching for some period lighting to use in our new (old) house.

We didn't find anything that panned out, but when I saw this old model of a human spine, I knew I had to have it! It was salvaged from the basement of a hospital that was torn down.
I have it displayed in my new dining room (you can see the color we chose in the background: yam. Likey?). I like the way it looks with my funky old bejeweled lamp.

Here it is a little closer:

I love the red and yellow and green representing the nerves and cartilage and whatnot. It's totally a cool sculpture!

And a bonus pic--this is the dinner I made on Sunday night:

I was so happy to FINALLY have my kitchen back to myself (painters are done in there now) that I went whole-hog and made Julia Child's cheese souffle. I found an old PBS video and cooked along with her--it was fun! And very delicious--I highly recommend it.

Have you guys seen the Julia and Julie movie? It inspired my to try some of Julia's recipes. I got the fixins for the Beef Bourguignon so I'll be making that one next.

Way Overdue

Man, this move is ruining my blog!

That's right, we've moved--and I'm living amongst piles and piles of boxes and lots of confusion. And there is extra confusion because the painters are still here (even though they started almost a MONTH ago!) so the piles of boxes are covered with plastic and tarps.

The house i s a complete disaster area, but I'm hopeful that when the painters are done with the kitchen, I can at least set up a base there and make things semi-normal for the kids.

Oh the kids--they STILL haven't started back to school! Which has made the moving ordeal seem so much more chaotic. The school decided to do a huge renovation over the summer that dragged on (and on) so they postponed the opening. But they will return on Monday and hopefully some kind of routine here (that will include blogging!) can be established.

I'll leave with a few blogworthy highlights (well, really lowlights) that I haven't had time to write about:

--The movers were here for over 15 hours!!! Translation: the move was waaaaay more expensive than we anticipated.

--There was a mix-up and we were phoneless/Internetless until a day ago.

--Something I learned: If a box of cocoa powder explodes in a box packed with paperwork and other miscellaneous kitchen items--it's nearly impossible to clean.

--Another thing I learned: I have way too many boxes of cocoa powder.

--We installed a new fence in the yard which the dogs promptly escaped from.

--In my frenzy to catch them, I slipped and fell flat on my back and twisted my ankle in the process.

--We painted the family room purple!

Thanks for being patient with my logy blogging practices. I promise I'll be better soon...