June 25th

I just wanted to put in an update on the rag quilt I am making for Vallerie. I am 1/3 done. It shouldnt take me long to finish. I can probably knock it out today.

After it is all sewn together, I will ship the seam parts (don't know what they are called) so when it gets washed it will fray and crumple up. It should look really neat once it's done.

The end :)

June 24th

We had a pretty good weekend. On Saturday we went and test drove a few more cars.

• Mitsubishi Outlander Sport -Hated the interior design
• KIA Optima - This is a contender! We can get lots of extras and it drives very well. Cooled and heated seats and a sun AND moon roof. Awesome!!
• KIA Sportage -  Decent. Liked it better than the Ford escape, but not as much as the Optima.

So, I think for now we are thinking of either the Ford Fusion or the KIA Optima. There's a deal breaker on the Optima though. The only ones they had available on the lot had beige leather interior. We need black or possibly grey. We're going to see if they can find us one with black interior. We also need to go back and re drive and look at the Ford. I'm not sure if we'll go to other dealerships or not.

We drove out to Monon yesterday to check out the Ford dealership there, but they were closed. Sunday. So we looked around briefly. Vallerie had an accident in her car seat and we had to get home... Ugh.

Speaking of Vallerie, she's been getting a lot better at letting us know when she has to potty. I hope she continues to do so. Even when we would ask her if she had to go she would say no. I am also super happy that she tells me when she has to go while she is in the tub.

I ordered a couple bookshelves and storage boxes, and they should be delivered this week. I hope that it is soon enough so I (Eddie) can put them together and get everything set up before my mom visits. I suppose if she's here I can kick her out of her room so I can do it. Haha.

I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday. It hurts a bit. Nothing major, but it's still uncomfortable.

We are going to set up the little pool that Eddie's sister gave us. We went out and got some pool supplies yesterday.

There's still a few things I would like to get done before my mom visits, but I'm not sure they will happen. One of the main things is painting the dining room. We've had the paint for like a month! It's just hard to get motivated to do that after Vallerie goes to sleep. It would be impossible to do it while she was awake I think.

June 20th

Yesterday I had a doctors appointment so we went to that. I asked to get my thyroid checked, so the lab work got ordered. I will do that sometime soon.

After that we went to look for a new automobile. We stopped over at the Ford dealership and test drove 4 vehicles.

• Mazda 6 (car) Not great
• Mazda CX5 (suv/crossover) Not great, and too pricey for what we would want
• Ford Fusion (car) LOVE it! Definitely on our list
• Ford Escape (suv/crossover) Very nice, might be too pricey for what we want, but it is on our list too

We still have to go to other dealerships to look, so we will do that this week/weekend. Our Ford guy said that if we wanted to do something we would need to do it before July 1 because that's when all the deals change. That's something we need to talk about too. This is so stressful!!

Our roof needs re-done, so Eddie called some roofers to come out and give estimates. We have one estimate, but it seems like it may be too high. Whenever we mention it to someone they always are surprised with how much it is. Hopefully we'll get some good news though.

The state is making a new sidewalk in front of our house that goes to the school (2 blocks up). They have to cut down a tree that's in our yard next to the road. Initially we thought they were going to re-do about 1/2 of the sidewalk that is in front of our house but now it looks like they are only going to do a little bit. It's disappointing because before we found out about the roof, we were talking to the city about replacing the sidewalk. It's really bad. Since we have to do the roof we'll have $0 budget for the sidewalk. We thought that we were going to catch a break with the state doing it, but it doesn't look like that now.

I saw this morning that Monsters University was playing at the theater in the town I work. Eddie and I were thinking of taking Vallerie to her first movie but didn't want to spend $50 or more on tickets when we didn't know if she would sit still. Luckily the tickets here are only $5 for an adult and Vallerie would get in free (I think) I haven't told Eddie yet, but I will tonight. I think he will be super happy. Maybe we'll go this weekend. Vallerie loves the movie Monsters Inc, and Monsters University is the prequel, so I think she will like it too!

Crafting: I have been making some little monsters out of clay. Vallerie sees them and says "You made this for me?" in her cute little sweet voice. I'll say "Yes, but they aren't done yet". So I think she's excited about them. I have also been working on Vallerie's rag quilt. I started it months ago, before Christmas I think. If I actually sit down and do it, I don't think it will take long to finish. I might be able to get it done before her birthday if I really get cracking. It's easier now to craft because Vallerie can be in the room and watch tv, color or play with "dough dough" (playdough) and not bug me too much. So, that's nice. Not to mention, it gets her out of Eddie's hair for a little while.

It's going on week 3 without soda. Weight lost... 0. Well maybe a pound or two, but nothing substantial. I am very disappointed. I know that I should also be exercising, but I guess I thought that I would lose some weight with just cutting out the soda. I mean it's all I drank before, and now its all water! I've even tried to eat better. I'll keep at it I guess.

My mom visits in a little over a week, it'll also be Vallerie's birthday and the 4th! WOW! Lots going on! Lots to do before my mom shows up! I am very excited for her to see the new house. I think she's really going to like it.

June 17th

We had a good weekend.

Friday evening we went to Eddie's sister Nina's house. They were having a birthday part for their son Ray. He turned 1 on the 12th. It was a pretty good time. There was cake. Yum!

Saturday we headed over to the Indy zoo. We had a good time. We started out the day with Eddie's sister Amber and her family. They had to leave early because they had an appt back home that afternoon. Here are some pictures:

Vallerie looking at penguins. She really liked it when they would swim past her.

Vallerie at the bird exhibit. This was her favorite part of the zoo. We spent the most time in here. She got so excited when a bird would fly on the little stick.

This little mask thing was after the bird exhibit. She had a blast acting like a bird. There was a flamingo on the other side, but it was too tall for her.

She stayed and watched the bear eat on the bone for a while.

In all we had a pretty good trip. Vallerie got a little fussy at times, but nothing too terrible. She wanted to see the elephants and nothing else for about 30 minutes. When we finally got to the elephants she didn't even look at them, and said she wanted to see the kangaroos... go figure.

We are planning to go again soon since we have the season pass. Maybe next time she will be more interested in things. If not, that's ok.

Sunday we stayed home most of the day. It was Father's day. I got Eddie a Pocket Hose. He's excited to use it. Vallerie made him a present. She colored on Popsicle sticks and then glued little fuzzy balls on them, then we glued them all together. I think Eddie liked it.

That afternoon we went to Walmart to get a few groceries.

I bought a printer off of a coworker. I hooked it up on Saturday and it works well. I printed off a few pictures. Now I can fill up the 10-15 picture frames I have at home with new pictures! I am actually pretty excited about that. It will be nice to put some decoration on the walls.

I haven't started any new crafts yet. I want to, but I just don't know what to do yet. Maybe I'll hop on Pinterest to get some ideas.

June 11th

There hasn't been too much going on lately, just the normal stuff.

We cleaned out the storage unit and brought it over to my gpa's garage. When my mom visits next month we are going to go through it. I think there will be some cool stuff in there for Vallerie. We already brought home the little piano that used to belong to my sister. Vallerie likes it. I am thinking abut painting it, but I am not sure.

This picture was right after we got it to my gpas. I have cleaned it up and it looks better. The keys are yellowed though. I was trying to look online to see how to whiten them, but I came up with nothing that was helpful. That's kind of why I am reluctant to paint it because I don't want the keys to look worse.

We went to the aquarium store yesterday. Not sure if we're going to get Vallerie fish or not. It'll be expensive and we can't decide between salt and freshwater. There are pros and cons to both. 

We were thinking of also getting Vallerie a kitten. We would want it to be declawed so we will have to call around and get pricing and such for that. We asked her what she would name a kitten if she got one and she said "Meow". She's not into naming things yet. Oh well. We may just end up with a cat called Meow.

A funny little story. The other day when we were asking her about cat names, she picked up a corn kernel and said look Papa a corn nut. Hopefully she wasn't saying that's what she wanted to name a cat. Can you imagine? What's your cats name? Corn nut...

I am making a co-worker friend of mine a birthday present. (Hopefully she doesn't read my blog because I'm going to say what it is) SPOILERS:

I am making a set of Dr. Who felt dolls. It's going to have all 3 (new) doctors, his companions, and some aliens. They will be "boxed" in the TARDIS. I have most of them made. I only have about 4 aliens left. I finished the TARDIS last night. It looks great. I m pretty excited. I know that she is an adult,but she likes Dr. Who and she has a 1 1/2 yr old son. She even said something so perfect on facebook. She said "Is it bad that all I want for my birthday are presents for my son?" So... yeah. I haven't taken pictures of any of them except the Doctors. I was going to take pictures this morning but I ran out of time before I came into work.

Eddie asked why I wasn't making any for Vallerie, and I said that I didn't think she would play with them, but maybe I will. Or I will just expand her princess collection. I just really wanted to make these and I thought that my co-worker friend would get the most use out of them. I just like making things for people what can I say.

That's really all that's been going on. If I think of anything else I will pop back in and post it.

June 3rd

I can't believe it's June already.
I got to thinking the other day that a little under a year ago is when we got Vallerie's swing set for her birthday. Then I got thinking about my grandpa and it made me sad. I wish that Vallerie could have known him better.

Last night Eddie and I watched "This is 40" it was a pretty good movie, but the whole time I kept thinking how terrible I look at 30. It just really sucks.

Enough of the bad things...

I had an idea for this summer. I am going to look on Pinterest and find some good toddler things to do this summer and try and do (at least) one each week with Vallerie. I think that would be fun. Depending how it goes, it could be the start of a new blog.

Speaking of little miss Vallerie, she has been getting a little more defiant lately. She is really pushing the limits on what she can get away with. For example. Last night at dinner we had AMAZING baked steak. Vallerie was not allowed to eat her applesauce until she had a couple more pieces of meat. Eddie told her to put her spoon down, and she did, but the she proceeded to touch it and scoot it across the table. She wasn't picking it up. So, Eddie told her not to touch the spoon. She then hovered her finger over the spoon and just gave us this prissy look like "haha I know what you said and I know what I'm doing". I think we're in for some trouble ahead. She's also been throwing food. I had to put her in time out the other day for throwing food. I don't know why all of a sudden she's acting like this.

My cousin Nicki (Micky as Vallerie calls her) stopped by for a quick visit yesterday before she went home. She gave Vallerie a little shell from FL. She'll be back in July. We had a nice little visit. I wish she could have stayed longer. Oh well.