You might be an addict if...

Morgan has a journal that they use at school. Each day there is a question and the teacher writes down the kids answers in their individual books. The book has a space for the child to draw a picture related to their answer. Her class completed their latest journal and she got to bring it home. I was flipping through the pages and one entry in particular made me laugh. The question was "If you could give your family one special gift what would it be?" Morgan used a black crayon to draw a mug along with some circles colored in black. The answer written below: Coffee.

I'm think Mark and I might be drinking just a bit too much of it lately.

Number Two

My last post described how sleep is the number one thing Morgan doesn't like. The number two thing she doesn't like is meal time. This has been one of our biggest struggles since she started to eat solids. Meal times have always been a battle. At first, we would let it slide. We didn't want to argue about food since some of the *experts* say that will lead to some sort of an eating disorder. Once we realized that meal time was turning Mark into a short order cook and her diet was consisting of chicken nuggets, carbs and more carbs, we decided things had to change. But that change came with a price. A price of arguing and threatening and tears. So we sat down and came up with some written, consistent table rules.

1) Sit and stay seated during meal time. If you get up or don't come to the table when it is ready, you get a warning. Second offense is a time out. Third offense is straight to bed.
2) You must eat three bites of everything we are eating. You will sit at the table until you do this, or until your bedtime. If it becomes your bedtime during your hold out, you will go straight to bed without stories.
3)Mom and Dad will sit with you for 10 minutes after we are done eating. If you have not eaten your three bites by then, we will leave the table.
4) You must eat all your plate to get any other food.
5) Wednesday is Morgan's Choice Night. She gets to pick our menu for that night.

We have implemented this rules for one week now and here is the results:
1) She has not had a time out or had to go to bed for not sitting at the table.
2) She has eaten three bites of food with minimal fuss. We still gets some tears followed by I don't like this (even if she's never tried it) but it is short lived and less dramatic. She has discovered that she does, as a matter of fact, like wild rice, chili and squash.
3) Only once have we had to leave her alone at the table. The offending food was fish and it took her 20 minutes after we left to eat her three bites.
4) She picked (Surprise Surprise) Mac and Cheese for her night. Mark added a salad to the table and Morgan actually asked for some salad for herself. She ate a whole bowl of it!

I'm sure we will have some bumps in the road, but right now, this plan seems to be quite the success.

Weekend Update

The number one thing Morgan does not like is sleep. She gave up naps before she was two. She still has quiet time but only falls sleeps about 1% of the time. She won't even fall asleep in a car anymore. She purposely chatters away in the back to keep herself awake. When we are at friend's house late, we will put in a movie around bed time for the kids. All of them are asleep at the end except for our blurry eyed anti-sleeper. If she is up late, she is still awake at her normal time in the morning. There is no sleeping in. She simply does not like sleep! So when this girl told us on Sunday that she wanted to have a nap (and then did!), we knew we must have had a very busy weekend.

Friday I meet Sarah, Hannah and Caleb at Monkey Bizness since the kids had a day off of school. For 2.5 hours, the three of them played hard racing through the obstacle course, running up and down the slide and chasing each other through the nets. After Monkey Bizness, we headed out to lunch. Caleb and Morgan are still the cutest thing together. Caleb taught Morgan how to play tic-tac-toe. Caleb asked for a boaster seat, but Morgan didn't want one. That was until after he got his. Caleb was so sweet and gave Morgan his seat. After a while they decided they both wanted one so they hunted down the waitress together, to ask for another one. For two alpha and hyper kids, they play so well together every time.

On Saturday, we met JoAnn, Eddie and Logan at the Western Stockshow. We went last year, and Morgan sat watching cows being judged forever. Again, she wanted to watch the animals in the arenas. This time it was the horse weight pulling contest so it was a bit more interesting the cows. Every animal that we saw, she wanted to touch - even the long-steer cows which looked pretty intimidating. Her favorite thing was the pony rides. She did a great job walking around and looking at everything for the whole four hours. She really wanted to see the bulls, but those weren't out. We decided that next year, we need to get tickets to the rodeo show. There were tickets still available for Saturday night, but the show didn't start until 8 pm.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera for both of these events. I need to get better at remembering!

Wordless Wednesday - Skating Math

3 kids + 2 adults x ($9.00 per skate + approx 15 minutes to get skates on) = oh, about 10 minutes on the ice

For more Wordless Wednesdays visit here

Feeling the Bloggy Love

I received my very first blog awards this week and couldn't be more honored. Julie at the Cool Mom Guide bestowed unto me the following two awards. (If you don't know who Julie is, then you are missing out on such things as Pantless Sunday and Wii Fit Mommies)

The You Make My Day Award is passed on to the blogger who, well, make someone’s day!


The second award is the Smile Award.


The rules for the Smile Award are as follows:
1) Display a cheerful attitude
2) Love one another
3) Make mistakes
4) Learn from others
5) Be a positive contributor to the blog world
6) Love life
7) Love kids

I am passing on these awards to the following people:

1. Jamie who has provided much support through out the years. Although I have never met her IRL, I still consider her a friend.

2. Anonymom who, although I still don't know her real name!, is a faithful commenter on this site. She helps me know that I am not just talking to myself and for that I am extremely grateful.

3. Heather who I admire for her strength and determination. Not to mention she has the cutest little boy, who undoubtedly will be the next mouseketeer. You must check out his performance HERE.

4. Lilith who's blog is funny, informative and real. Plus she's from the same state as I am, so I have to show some Colorado love.

5. Tena who not only writes about her adventures with her three sons, but also does a second book review blog where she has an incredible goal of 918 books to read. I admire her ability to overachieve. She is also running for a Blog Award and would appreciate your vote HERE.

Four Going on Thirteen

We are in for a long tough ride with Morgan. She is only four, yet she's acting more and more like a teenager. Here are the latest examples:

1. Whenever she is mad at us, she tells us to call Grammie because she's going to live with her instead. I didn't realize that they tried running away from home this early!

2. We are at Dillards and she hops into a makeover chair at the MAC counter and announces she wants someone to do her makeup. Now first of all, if you know me, you know that I'm a pretty au-natural girl. On a rare occasion you *might* find me with some eye shadow on. So she didn't get this interest from me. When I tell her that she can't have a make over until she is a teenager, all hell breaks loose. HELLO! You are FOUR!

3. Morgan has started having fits when we leave a friends house. Normal four year old behavior but irritating as all get out. Last night was way over the top and she was completely out of control. This morning I talked to her about her behavior and how it's not acceptable and it needs to stop or she won't be able visit friends for a while. We discuss ways in which she can calm herself down or express herself more appropriately. She proceeds to tell me how she will try. I tell her she needs to do more than try. To which she responds, Well, I can try, but it might not stop. And then with a shrug of the shoulders she adds: It's just the way I am. How can she have this type of attitude already?

Ah yes, I see a long rocky road ahead.

Wordless Wednesday - Rockin It 80's Style

The real year was 2006, but inside it was all 80's.


For more Wordless Wednesday participants check out MomDot

Catching up with Old Friends

Terri and Brady were in town for a short visit and we were lucky enough to be able to have them over for dinner. Since Brett and Terri moved to Florida, we don't see them nearly as often as we would like. The last time we saw Brady was about 2.5 years ago, when he was a little baby. It was great to be able to see what a fun loving toddler he has grown into. Jo and Logan also joined us and we spent the night catching up on each other lives.

Morgan is 4.5, Brady will be turning 3 in a month. Look at their sizes side by side! We have such a tiny little girl.



I was pretty bummed that this picture was fuzzy, but I had to post it anyways. It's such a cute shot.

Hopefully it won't be as long between visits again!

Go Fetch... Morgan??

We've had Champ for a month now and he's really fitting into the family. He went back to the vet on Friday for a follow up. One of the reasons he was so skinny was because he had Giardia. Thank goodness none of us came down with it and he is now Giardia-free. He weighs 38 pounds now, but the vet would like to see him gain a few more pounds. We were able to get all his shots done so he is now able to socialize with other dogs.

We took him to the Cherry Creek Dog Park and he had a blast. There 12 square miles for him to run around on as well as many water areas to swim in. His number one favorite things to do is play fetch. You could even say he's ball obsessed. I don't think he noticed that there were any other dogs around with how focused he is on his ball. With all that focus and love, you would think that he would be good at fetch. For a lab, he isn't the best retriever. 80% of the time he would lose the ball after it was thrown. That's were Morgan comes in. We found out she also likes to fetch balls. She would beg us to throw a ball just for her to find it. We had two balls so we would throw one for the dog, and if he found it, we would throw the next one for Morgan. I never have seen a girl get so excited to find a ball before.

Yes, we have a strange one.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due - Snapfish Update

After my post about the problems I had with Snapfish I received a comment from Otto Imken, Worldwide Customer Support Manager for Snapfish. See post and comment here. I sent him my account information and in a very timely matter, I received the following e-mail from him:

I am very sorry for the trouble you had with Snapfish this season.

I checked on that order xxxxx-11L and it appears the calendar got caught in a known bug we have so that the details of your calendars were not transmitted correctly from our servers to the factory: we tried to resubmit several times automatically and it failed each time. The support agents could not tell what was happening until the order failed completely and was automatically cancelled by the system. This was a software problem on our side.

The agent you spoke with definitely did not give you the right answer, and should have offered to resubmit your order for free with expedited shipping when they saw it was not being processed at the factory yet. This is our standard policy for orders that do not get submitted by our servers correctly. I apologize for this failure and I will find out who you spoke with and follow up with their supervisor.

In case you would like to try Snapfish again the future, I have added a free credit for 8.5"x11" classic calendar - 12 months to your account.

Again, I’m very sorry for the trouble we caused and I will do my best to make sure it does not recur in the future with other customers.

If you have any further questions or feedback, please feel free to contact me directly any time.

While I do not think I'll be taking him up on the offer, I appreciate the fact that someone finally responded to my issues. I hope he is able to make sure this doesn't happen again with another customer. Hopefully Snapfish can get their customer service back on track.

Leg Warmers By Cutie Covers

I recently received the latest prize I won. I received adorable pairs of leg warmers from Cutie Covers. Morgan is always complaining that she is too hot in stockings so these are the perfect solution. They also can be worn on the arms to easily convert a short sleeve shirt into a long. These are handmade with great attention to detail including a double row of stitching along the cuff so they will last longer.



She loved the horse pair so much, she wouldn't stop twirling to get her picture taken.



For only $6 a pair, you should head on over and get your own.

And for those that are breastfeeding, Cutie Covers also makes Nursing Covers in a variety of pretty colors and patterns.

Final Christmas Celebration

We had our last Christmas celebration on Saturday with Mark's Mom. We also got to meet Rich's new dog. He is so far officially un-named but Linus (because he loves his blanket), Rewind (because he's always backing up) and Nibbles have been passed around. Isn't he adorable? He looks like a stuffed animal.

Once again we had too much to eat. Once again Morgan got a lot of loot. Once again we had a great time. Morgan especially loved her handmade scarf and hat Annie made for her. She wears that scarf everywhere.

Winter Activities - Take 2

A few days ago, April and I took the girls skating. I was waiting for the pictures before I posted, but it looks like it might be a little while before I get them (HINT HINT). While Keaghan really enjoyed the experience, I can not say the same of the younger two. As a matter of fact, I would call it a down right failure. It probably didn't help that they didn't have skates in Morgan and Kaitlynn's size. Morgan was coaxed into going around the rink a whole three times with me, complaining the whole time. She also thought it was fun to criss-cross her legs back and forth as I was slumped over trying to hold her up. My back still aches. When we were done, she told me she never wanted to skate again. That makes two of us.

Mark and I decided to attempt another winter activity with Morgan so we took her up to Frasier for some tubing. At first Morgan was pretty freaked out about tubing down a mountain. She was picturing a big, tree ridden, rocky mountain side. Once we got there, she was fine. You have to be 7 years old to ride alone, so Mark and I each got our own tubes and she would share with us. The first time we went down, my stomach was in my throat. It was intense! I was a little worried about her but when she jumped out of my lap, she had the biggest smile on her face. She loved it!

After tubing, we had some lunch and then wanted to do one more activity. Of course ice skating was out of the question, so we headed to Hideaway Park and their kiddie hill. The park offers free sleds for anyone to use. Even though the hill isn't as steep, Morgan enjoyed being able to slide down by herself. She even carried her sled back up all by herself.

It nice that she is old enough to experience and appreciate some Colorado winter fun.

Keurig Platinum Brewer Giveaway at Momdot

The ladies at Momdot are sponsoring another awesome contest. This time, it's for a Keurig Platinum Brewer. Notice it's called a brewer and not a coffee machine? That's because this machine will also make tea and hot chocolate.

About Keurig’s Platinum Brewer ($199):
The Platinum Brewing System is Keurig’s best single-cup brewing system for your home. This premium model offers discerning coffee drinkers the widest range of five cup size options for brewing.

The Platinum offers the full spectrum of features including Auto On/Off, Digital Clock, Adjustable Temperature Control and the “Set Your Favorite Cup Size” option. The largest available 60 oz. removable water reservoir holds up to ten cups before refilling and the removable drip tray allows for easy cleaning and the use of travel mugs. The sleek, award-winning design is a unique footprint among Keurig’s line of home brewing systems and includes both a blue lit water reservoir and blue lit LCD display.

So headed on over here to enter.