April 24th

Lately Vallerie has been taking the junk mail from me and getting a kick out of thinking it is for her. A couple times in the morning before work I have left a little note for her and Eddie. Just saying "good morning" or whatever. Well, yesterday I decided that Vallerie should have mail every day! I made a bunch of little notes with pictures I drew and put them in envelopes, and plan on leaving one out for her each day.

Then today I decided to go one step further. I made up 5 characters that are all going to "send" Vallerie mail. Now, she wont get something from all of them each day, but she'll at least get 1 letter a day. Here are my characters:

Princess Penelope: She lives in Friendly Castle Land and always writes on pink paper. She loves to talk about things that are happening in the castle and what it's like to be a princess.

Mr Gnomely: Mr. Gnomely is actually the garden gnome that resides in our yard. He likes to write on bright orange paper, and writes to Vallerie about what kinds of things he sees outside in the yard. He also draws pictures of the things he sees.

Punky Penguin: Punky lives at 123 Igloo Lane and his paper color is blue. He likes to talk about fish. He always includes a drawing of a fish in each letter.

Tully the Tiger: She lives in Jungle Town and likes to tell jokes about animals (mostly tigers). Her favorite color is green, so that's the paper color she chooses. Sometims she ill draw a little picture.

The Coin Fairy: The Coin Fairy lives in Fairy Forrest. She is a little fairy that finds coins out in the world. She likes to send them to Vallerie to add to her piggy bank. Even if she doesn't find any coins, she will write Vallerie a letter and let her know that she's still out there trying to find some. She likes to write on yellow paper.

Ok, so I know it's a little corny, but I think Vallerie will like it. It's really neat to see her little face light up when she gets mail, so this should be fun. I also made fake postage stamps for each of the characters letters.

Hopefully she likes it, and I continue to do it. It's fun. I wonder what Eddie will think. HAHA!

April 19th

Today Vallerie wanted to be a princess. She put on a tutu, blue tank top, and tiara. She put a tiara on me and called me the queen. She put it on her dad and called him a princess. (haha)

After I  left for work Vallerie decides she wants to pretend to be me. She asks Eddie for her Mommy Doctor coat, which is just one of my fleece jackets, and she says "Going to work now". She then opens the door to my office and sits at the desk. I wasn't working at home today, so there was no computer or anything in there.

Apparently Vallerie thinks I am a doctor. I am not. Not even close. I am honored that she wanted to pretend to be me however.

Here is another Vallerie moment that happened a few ago.

Vallerie and Eddie were at home while I was working. Our cat Dalmo really wanted in my office, so he was meowing. Eddie yells at Dalmo to be quiet. Dalmo keeps meowing. Vallerie says "I'll handle it" and goes over to Dalmo and gets in his face and yells "BE QUIET" Then kicks at him*. As she is walking away she says "jerk".

*Yes, we tell her to be nice to Dalmo and not yell and kick him.

April 18th

Things have been pretty uneventful lately.

Vallerie (and Eddie and I) learned that you can in fact color on carpet with crayon. Who knew??
She got put in time out while I cleaned it up. I used carpet cleaner and it seemed to work. So far she hasn't attempted it again..

Vallerie is also scared of storms. This is new. Last year she was fine. This is going to be a long spring.

Speaking of spring, the weather is getting so nice! It's a shame I have no freaking warm weather shirts to wear. Seems like I have grown out of all of the ones I wore last year. I have been trying to drink less soda and more water, but... anyway.

I was thinking that this summer after Vallerie turns 3, Vallerie, Eddie and I will get some professional pictures taken. Mostly they will be of Vallerie, but I figured it would be nice to have a couple family pictures too. She's only gotten professional pictures taken once and she hated it. It was when she was 5 months old and they were for Christmas.

April 9th a Tuesday

Easter was good. Vallerie got quite a bit of candy. She was a great egg hunter. She didn't want to sit on the Easter Bunny's lap, so she gave him a high-5.

This past weekend was very nice. We went to the park and played outside a bit. Eddie put the water table together that Vallerie got for Christmas from her grandma. She had fun playing with it. Eddie bought sand for it. For some reason, the sand looks a little orange, so when it gets wet it sort of resembles... cat puke. But that's ok. Vallerie likes playing with it. We got her some little trucks to drive around in the sand. It is definitely a messy toy.

We had Eddie's sister and her family come over for dinner last night. Eddie grilled out. It was delicious (as always). Then that night it stormed. No leaks in the roof. And we turned on the Ac (it works!)

Still trying to get the house organized and all cleaned up. I have made a bit of progress in the office/craft/spare room. Now it's just a matter of putting things together and making it look decent.

My "new" craft is making flower hair bows with embroidery thread. I am also considering making Vallerie a butterfly hanging mobile. Not sure how that will turn out.