Nonstop Girl Party at My House!

I spent last weekend with a borrowed camera to compare & contrast before upgrading.  So, imagine Alaina on Sunday morning in her pajamas with not one but two huge cameras around her neck, chasing Adrie around.  (I was still in pajamas because we spent our time making her look stellar.  Isn't she a doll?)  

Note the opaque tights?  They were necessary to cover up these:

She loves nights with her Dad :)  

In playing with the amazing D300, I also got this cute kitchen shot.  It may not look like much, but realize these are pictures in a fairly dim house with NO camera flash.  Sort of like magic.  I also love their insanely crisp quality with no photoshopping at all.  Thus, my camera is on the market so I can upgrade...

Anyway.  On to the history of the sticker chart.  At first I started with a grid system, like "Eat your dinner and you get a sticker, and when you have 5 stickers in a row you get to choose a piece of candy."  While it started the process off right, I quickly learned that she didn't care about the grid and she didn't care about the reward - she just loves stickers.  So, 99 cents later i had one large posterboard that she has added to one sticker at a time.  It currently looks like this:  

I think she's a creative genius.  I have not guided the placement of a single sticker on this chart - promise.  Hopefully in this picture you can see:  

• All bugs have a hat, a friend, and a food item of some sort. (Cake, sucker).  
  
• Most bugs have a wrapped birthday present in front of them.
• They are in "Families."  She can tell you who are the brothers, sisters, and "Just a friend."
  
• She knows which bugs need food or hats and seeks stickers to take care of them.

The result has been amazing - she listens better, she is willing to do things more often when I ask her, and she sometimes approaches me - "Mom, can I have a sticker?" so I'll give her a little something to do to earn it.  Hooray for bribery.  Or is it just conditioning?  Either way, life is better at our girl party house because of it.

"The Before Party" -or- "Trial Run"

Tiffany was in town and we got to have lunch as a cousins-and-our-kids bunch.  We filled that Arctic Circle playground, and it was so much fun!  I love the age Adrie is where she can run around the play area without assistance.  Those kids kept entertained for 90 minutes straight with minimal parent intervention.  It was awesome.

Can't WAIT for the family reunion in June!

Don't go to the grocery store when hungry

You just might come home with:

Doritos (cool ranch, in case you were curious)

a tub of Tollhouse cookie dough

a liter of salsa

Gogurt

chocolate fondue (with bananas for dipping)

Oreos (the "Spring" ones deliberately placed on aisle ends to tempt you)

a pint of Ben & Jerry's (peach cobbler flavor)

and peppermint gum.

Okay, okay, in my defense I did by vegetables for the lentil soup I will make as my healthy meal for the next week to cancel out all of these indulgences.

Throw in a Redbox "Nights at Rodanthe" and you've got one awesome Friday night.

Life is good, what can I say?

The iPhone Camera

I'm pretty impressed with this little camera phone.  Or is the term phone-camera?  Anyway.  Here's a snippet of the last two weeks, straight from iPhone to you:
     

  

We live!

I'm a little overwhelmed at knowing where to begin.  Life has been busy, I've had craziness at work, a surprising amount of photo business for this cold season, and my Adrie is amazing.  I spend every free second I can with her.  We've hit up the "hot pool" at least 5 times in the last 2 weeks - her whole face lights up and she becomes the happiest girl in the world when I mention swimming.

For history's sake:

• She alternates between obsessions with Thumbelina and the Swan Princess this week.  
  
• She wants to know the character's names, and often tells me the story in the car.  "Mom, what's the mean guy's name?"  "Rothbart."  "Rothbart, the mean guy, took her!  He turns her into a Swan!  And the prince comes to save her!"
  
• Pretend play is making its way into her world.  At naptime she told me she's Odette, and "You be the prince, mom.  Then you have to dance with me, and marry me."
  
• She still reads "Baby Adrie's Story" at least once a day.
  
• Lately it's "My eyes are blue.  They're gonna turn pink."  She has mentioned many, many times that she wants pink eyes.
  
• "Pink is my favorite."  "Mom, you like Purple.  It's your favorite."  (Hmmm... I didn't know that?)
  
• Sticker charts saved my terrible-two'd monster.  I'll write a whole blog about that soon.
  
• She won't let me "like" anything she does.  When we look at pictures in books and I say "Oh, I like that one" it's not uncommon to hear "No!  I like it.  You can like that one."  (Isn't that like a 6 year-old thing to do!?)
  
• There's a little cyst on her eyelid, and we went to see the eye doctor about it.  After practicing ahead of time "This is the nice doctor, he won't hurt you, he's just gonna touch your eye" she walked right up to that doctor and said clear as a bell "Hi Doctor.  Are you gonna fix my eye?"  He about fainted and the office staff swooned.  That's my girl.  
• She now tells me at least once a day, "The nice doctor fixed the owie in my eye!"
• Band aids are the greatest toy ever.  I have to hide them even more carefully than candy!  Then again, she asked me to rip one off today... hahaha, she might not stick any more big ones on her leg.  She was a little shocked at how much it hurt coming off.

We got to play outside for 30 minutes today... good excuse to play around with my camera.  I had such a hard time getting her to hold still!  "Hug the tree!" I said, and boy she did.

Friday's Thought

Reason #4 it stinks to live alone:

You can't rotate a mattress by yourself.  And it's hardly a reason to call the home teachers (not that I have any anyway).

But Kendall's coming to visit tomorrow.  Maybe I should re-name this "Reason #4 to invite other adults to come to my house" lol...

Find the humor in life

Just in case you were wondering, that little dent you put in your babysitter's garage door when you get out of the car without putting it in park will cost you $493.00.  

Is it bad that I've just been laughing to myself all day long about this!?!  

Gas Rescue/Free iPhone/Who would you call/Need your # please

This post could have many titles, like:

"Why a gas can comes in handy in events besides the world ending."

-or-

"Did you know an iPhone can be hacked to the Tmobile network?"

-or-

"Which numbers do you actually have memorized?"

So:  My day was awesome.  I got an early call at work of Tiffany giggling hysterically as she announced she'd run out of gas - 1/4 mile from work.  So I rescued her and drove home for my 5 gallon emergency supply, which needed emptying/replacing anyway.  Glad to be of service!

Secondly, I've been researching iPhones since I learned they are easily unlocked to any network.  I've been a little nervous to actually spend real money on one - they're still not cheap, even second hand - and voila!  Tiffany gave me her hand-me-down iPhone.  It's beautiful.

So, a little Craigslist action + late night drive to South Provo + Asian accent + $20 = a fully functional Tmobile iPhone.  Are you as amazed by this as I am?

Lastly:  I don't have a single phone number in my posession.  Holy hell, people.  When the world ends, I am in trouble.  TROUBLE.  Here are the numbers I could come up with:

Natalie, Kurt, Home in Oregon, Grma Wood, G&G's Salt Lake house.  And, uh, G&G's Bel de Mar house (what good does THAT do, nobody even lives there!), and childhood home 838-7539 and childhood home 345-7136.

So, please send/email/call/text/just talk to me and tell me your phone number.  Please.  I feel so handicapped.  Puh-leeeeze.  If we've talked anytime in the last two years chances are I just might want your number.

Plus, I have a new 8 gb phone to store it in :)