We're Still Alive

I am going to just keep it short rather than try to post 2+ months of happenings into one post!

I have kind of run out of steam it seems! My business, Punkerdoops Diapers, is flourishing. This is a great thing for the business, but kind of puts a damper on "other" things. The little computer time I do get, I end up doing all "work." I keep telling myself that once I get my website totally where I want it and I have all of the products and inventory I want, that things will be less busy. But, I am guessing that business will just keep getting more and more of my time... Just what have I gotten myself into!?! It is nice to have something to put my brain power into - the business has reawakened my brain I think! I also enjoy meeting all sorts of new moms and encouraging them to not only cloth diaper, but also breastfeed, babywear, and attachment parent. I try to shine the love of the Lord too and sure hope that people see something "different" in me.

Jason and I also admit that with joining facebook and the popularity of it, we have tended to check that out versus blogs...

But, I want to get back on the blog bandwagon and even start a Punkerdoops Diapers blog, too! One of the many, many things on the to-do list.

My lack of blogging also enduces guilt as it was kind of my way of documenting Evelyn and what she is up to! Kind of my baby book as you will!

Evelyn lately:

• Singing: she does very well with singing. Her favorite is to scrunch up her nose and close her eyes and sing loudly "Ah-WAYYYYYYY!!!!" I am not sure what song that it, but it sure is cute! She also likes to chime in on lots of songs like "Jesus Loves Me" and "Twinkle, Twinkle."
  
• Talking A TON!: She is talking in a lot of short sentences and especially likes to announce what she does - "I sit." "I dance." "I jump!" It is awesome and amazing to see her blossom! My mom watched her the other day while I went to a conference and she said that she could understand almost everything she said - nice that it is not just me and Jason that can understand her!
  
• Jumping: Evelyn loves to jump with 2 feet off the ground. On the bed. In the grass. On the carpet. While she holds our hands. On hopscotch sqaures. In the baby Johnny Jump Up even!


• Bubbles: We must blow them at least 4 times per day. She insists on holding the bubble wand now too. Messy. At least it us just bubbles!


• The alphabet: About 2 months ago it started with her repeating each letter after I said it. Then, it was her saying the next letter after I said one. Now, it is her saying almost the whole thing without prompts. She can also tell you almost every letter when you show her one. Jason is convinced it is all of the Wheel of Fortune she watched as a baby. :-)


• Repetition: We do everything a billion times. Ring around the rosie. Songs. Finger plays. Puzzles. Practice makes perfect, right? We also talk about the same stories over and over. Our trip to see lambs and chicks is sure a favorite.


• Dancing: Especially "tapping." She has dress shoes that have a little heel that are too big that she wears around the house and "taps" with on the floor. A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E.


• Climbing: She loves to be outside (I am learning to like being out there more too) and loves to climb up the playset in the back (It is at least 6 feet up - gives me a heart attack) and go down the slide. Another thing that is repeated over and over.


• Going potty: She goes pretty consistently in the morning and after nap. I need to discipline myself to get her trained all the way before she is no longer "eager to please" and lured by pee pee treats (aka marshmallows and jelly beans).
  
• Being just so darn cute: I didn't know she could get cuter, but she does with age!

Well, I think I will head to bed! I will try to post more often so that it is not so overwhelming!

Oh, and as I bet many of your curious minds want to know, I am not pregnant yet. I know you all are wondering. I know I always wonder as soon as my friends' kids turn one. The wondering begins. We'll announce it. I promise. Hopefully soon! :-)

I realize that I also need to a)take more pictures b)download the millions that must be on the camera c)it is still hard to get decent pics of my busy toddler!

Randomosity and a Talking Toddler

Hammin it up! I need to take more pictures..pretty dismal selection from the past two weeks!

It finally warmed up enough to let Evelyn play in the snow. She liked it a lot. She doesn't have snow boots and I can't get myself to cough up $15 for a pair to wear a few times. She got really dirty and I had a hard time with it but kept telling myself that everything is washable!

I have been CRAZY BUSY with Punkerdoops Diapers. A really great thing for the business, a not so great thing for blogging! I need to catch up on 2 weeks of all of my dear blogging friends' blogs!

Punkerdoops received an awesome article in the local paper - a feature story in the Lifestyles section. It brought in a lot of customers and I am truly, truly thankful. If only I could get free advertising like that every week! :-) I have a few other marketing things coming up and I am hoping that word of mouth about how great cloth diapering is starts to get around in the community!

Evelyn is talking like crazy but is also in some weird funk where she cannot settle down to get to sleep at night and whines and says "NO" a lot... She is more determined than ever to get her way, but unfortunately Jason and I only understand about 27% of the words that come out of her mouth. The rest is in Evelyn-ish...far from English. She did manage to repeat "Gosh" over and over just like Daddy after he exclaimed it tonight in frustration. Our little repeater! Another favorite word is "strawberry" which sounds a lot like "strawberry" now - a few days ago we thought she had an imaginary friend named "Debby" that she talked a lot about while in her highchair. It all makes sense now.

Evelyn prefers to mostly eat various forms of "dips" lately instead of any real food. This consists of a lot of ranch and sour cream with some spatterings of ketchup, mustard, honey, and even Louisiana hot sauce. We found she eats best and the most when we go to Sam's Club for Sunday afternoon samples. She won't eat at home, but she'll chow down there. Her favorites are rotissere chicken and Cup-o-Noodles. Nice...

Another blog-worthy laughable moment was last week when we decided to be all spontaneous and leave the house ON A WEEKNIGHT. Yep, we never go anywhere on weeknights. Anyhow, we wanted a popcorn maker where it is a metal pan that has a turn crank handle that moves around the seeds. We heard that they sold them at a local store called "Farm and Fleet." Well, we had a gift card for $25 to a store called "Fleet Farm" where the closest store is a 30 minute drive away. (I am not making this up. The stores have different names but are like exactly the same store minus the name. Apparently it is due to some brothers fighting as they started a chain of stores!) So, rather than getting our stuff from a store 15 minutes away, we drove to the location that would take our gift card. We got up to pay and found out that the gift card was only for 38 cents. We must have used the rest of it a long time ago and had forgotten about it... So, we drove a half an hour to spend a 38 cent gift card. It was a nice memory though. Evelyn loves to run around in stores and she liked sitting on the big lawn mowers. Oh, and to top it off, we got gas at the attached gas station to the store before we did our shopping and when we checked out we were given a 4 cents off per gallon coupon! :-)

So, there you go, some randomosity and Evelyn cute-ness!

Target Redeems Themselves

This story over at Adventures in Babywearing totally redeems Target's horrible return policy. I know that I have complained about them, but taking back USED PREGNANCY TESTS shows that they are indeed worthy of my patronage! Steph is a great writer and has adorable kiddos - another great post from her!

Pretender

I was just doing dishes and Evelyn came up and grabbed the drawstrings on my lounge pants. She was happy and seemed to be dancing to the music from the kitchen radio while holding onto the strings. I looked down to get a better glimpse and saw she had the ends of each draw string in her ears and was singing and dancing. My girl was pretending she had an iPod! She knows what an iPod is from her daddy and her auntie who let her listen to their iPods. Proud mama to a good pretender!

Randomosity

Whoops, I haven't blogged for 3 weeks! Jason did the last post with the videos - some goodies for the grandmas! So, here I am, full of randomosity to throw your way!

I have been keeping nice and busy with a myriad of things; thus, I have neglected both blogging and reading blogs. I have been attempting over the weekend to catch up on y'all's archives, but I have been naughty and have not commented to anyone! Sorry - still love all of you! Part of it was that Jason has the Google account and he changed the password and I didn't feel like looking for it...so, I didn't log in and didn't comment!

A random assortment of information that is either swirling in my head or something we've done lately that I want to share!:

-I could cry at how big Evelyn is getting! What a joy it is to watch her grow and learn! She is working on shaking her head correctly to "yes" and "no" this weekend and she has mastered pretty much every body part including cheeks, knees, and elbows (which apparently my little brother didn't know his elbows until preschool...hmmm :-) I was looking at pictures on our computer and she just looks SO big in them. My baby is growing up too fast!

-Jason painted the living room while I was in MN. It turned out great and I am so appreciative for the hard work that he put in every night while we were gone. I have been working on finding curtains for the past two weeks and finally settled on some. The bonus is that they were on clearance! Woo hoo! I intended on getting these to kind of throw a funky twist in the room, but they were sold out because they had gone on clearance too. I think it is odd that online they are still full price. Oh well, the swirls of polka dots are felt-y and give a nice texture and some modern appeal (and can I say it again - clearance). After I have pictures printed for two frames and hang them, the room will be officially done and maybe we'll even post some pics!

-Speaking of curtains and painting, I found some curtains on clearance for our room too. I have always wanted silver curtains for our room to go with the silver hardware on our furniture and the shades on our lamps. I found some silver-ish gray ones that will work. I know I have complained about Target, but 50% clearances make up for their horrid return policy! :-) We hung them this weekend and I must say, curtains really make a room and complete it. We are going to paint at least two of the walls a rich orange color. Can't wait! Next weekend Jason is painting the entry way a mocha color and our room is up after that. Painting each room just makes the house "ours" even more. I love that feeling.

-I just got a good laugh going through our pics - without realizing it, I wore the same shirt every time I had my picture taken in November and December! Thanksgiving, Advent reading at church followed by an attempt to take a family picture, and Christmas. It is kind of hilarious as you go through the pic archives. I must really like that shirt! I have found myself with a closet full of work attire that is collecting dust, a bunch of zip-up sweatshirts and fleeces for everyday, and about 3 shirts that I wear to get more dressed up. That will just have to do for now! Good thing I was with different people at all three of those occasions, right? :-)

-I am really cold right now. The utility company estimated our bill WAY too low last month. So, we should've known something was up and budgeted accordingly, but instead are stuck with a bill 4 times the amount of last month because they read our meter finally and realized they undercharged us. Jason turned the heat down to 65 starting at 10:30 now instead of 12:30 a.m. Late night blogging and emailing will be cold events! I am not sure if I can feel my feet anymore...hopefully my fingers won't freeze to the keyboard. My hands, toes, and nose are always cold already.

-Punkerdoops Diapers is getting some awesome free promotion in a week! I contacted the local paper again a couple of weeks ago and this time they were takers for a story on cloth diapering! A reporter and photographer were out last week for a good hour interviewing me and getting some great shots. The story is going to be the cover of the Lifestyles section in next Sunday's paper. I am thrilled and hope this will be the start of a bunch of new business! I also wrote an article on Modern Cloth Diapering 101 that will be in another local publication and a local woman's paper/magazine is doing a story on me/Punkerdoops in their April "green" issue. I am so thrilled that the word is going to get out there! Thanks again to all of you for your support and prayers as I try to get this business going!

-Tax time...I am trying to decide what to do about taxes this year. I did my own Excel spreadsheet accounting thing for Punkerdoops this year and so I sure hope it will work for filing taxes. Between starting a business where expenses grossly outweighed revenues, selling a house and buying another, and Jason commuting for 5 months (which I hear is a tax deduction...), I am not sure how to go about taxes. We can't afford an accountant and I am trying to decide if going with a tax prep service like H&R is any better than what I have been doing the last several years at taxact.com. Any feedback? I am kind of avoiding this but know I need to make decisions soon. I also should look into QuickBooks too probably. Just another expense I don't want to incur.

-We bought a potty chair today! I am not getting it out for another month or so. Myself and several of my sisters were potty-trained around 18 months and Evelyn will be 17 months in a few days. I plan to take the next month to research the whole thing a bit before we jump into things. I know I need to be home all week the week I do it and that's about it as far as my knowledge goes!

I think I will leave you with that! Happy Monday, all!

Yep, she already can walk in heels!

One of my favorite recent pics!

Look at those curls! She is eating frozen peas - cutting tooth #8!

We play a lot of dress-up! Jason thinks she looks like a gnome in her cone princess hat.

I find she is in pj's when I take a lot of photos...anywho, notice the shoes again! My little girlie girl!

Evelyn is our little dancer!

Since Evelyn has a mommy who loves dance as well as 2 grandmas who teach it...it only makes sense that she starts learning at such a young age!

We bought Evelyn a new toy and she loves it! Hopefully this doesn't mean she'll want a real one eventually...(Sorry for the poor video quality)

To Evelyn's Grandmother's House We Go

Opening a gift at Gma and Gpa B's house Christmas morning. She loved her cousins!

Family pic after the Christmas Eve service. None of them turned out. Evelyn looks like she is about to fall asleep!

Before we saw Santa the week before Christmas. Evelyn was not a fan of his!

About the best pic I have of her lately...she is so hard to photograph as she is constantly on the go!

Evelyn and I are leaving for the week to stay at my mom and step-dad's house while they are in Aruba. I will be helping my next eldest sister (I am the oldest of 8 kids if you didn't know) cook, clean, shuttle to school, dance, scouts, etc, and generally keep the peace in the house. This task is overwhelming and even though there are two of us, we have some big shoes to fill. I am kind of an orderly gal who likes her peace and quiet and hour of TV at night...needless to say, I will be thrust out of my comfortable home environment.

But, I will try to check in on y'all through the week.

On another note, we are all feeling quite well - praise the Lord! I really do think it was all of your prayers for health that finally did it! And, all of the lounging that we did over the past week helped too I am sure! I am second-guessing my diagnosis of Thrush for Evelyn. I am still treating both of us with acidopholus, but I think that she maybe just has a nasty buildup of milk on her tongue. She had some cheddar Chex mix the other day and the patch of white at the back of her tongue turned orange...that, combined with the fact that no new spots have appeared, leads me to believe that we might just have some gross old milk on our hands. Nice, huh? She will not let me brush it either that little stinker!

I wish that we had a plethora of great photos to share from Christmas. I will leave you with just a few. We shared our Christmas Eve and Day with Jason's family. We then celebrated last Sunday with a day trip to my mom's house. Both were very nice time and Evelyn was blessed with an abundance of new toys. When I upload more pictures off of our camera I can share a few. My dad and step-mom gave us our gifts at Thanksgiving and we opened them at home as my step-mom and sister were dancing in the Outback Bowl and were not around! They had a nice time!

Enough of the rambling - I am off to bed! Take care, all!

Crud & Thrush

We have all been under-the-weather for a while. Evelyn started us off with an ear infection in early December and then Jason and I have had progressive random virus things that are spiraling into other things. We have had massive sore throats, swollen glands, goop coming out of eyes, and phlegm up the wazoo. I was really in pain from my glands being so swollen and was annoyed that swallowing was so painful so I went to the doctor on Friday assuming that if I didn't, I would end up in urgent care over the weekend because my sinuses would be totally infected or I had Strep somehow despite my 6th grade tonsillectomy.

Mrs. Doctor was "on the fence" about giving me an antibiotic, but since I had been sick for so long, she gave me an Rx for 5-day Zithromax. I know I have taken WAY too many prescriptions in my lifetime already and probably should not have gone in to get this one because lo and behold, I have taken 4 days and even though I think it took the edge off of my sickness, I am coughing now (yay), my throat still hurts, and now I think Evelyn has Thrush in her mouth from the antibiotic. Nice. And, since she's been sick the whole month I have been letting her nurse more and it has become a favorite pastime of hers to just want to sit and nurse. So, since Thrush sounds like a doozy to get rid of, I am wondering when I will get it on my ni**les (don't want my blog coming up on naughty Google searches!)

So, instead of a lovely Christmas wrap-up, I am asking my faithful bloggy friends to let me know any secrets you have to:
1) Dealing with Thrush (we both had some chewable acidopholus tonight and I am considering getting powder to make into a paste for E's mouth. Anyone tried the dr prescribed cure? I might get that soon is the acidopholus doesn't do the trick right away).

2) How to keep kids healthy and off of antibiotics? Evelyn has been on them three times already in her 16 months for ear infections (too much already in my opinion.) And, I am the queen of hand sanitizer already! :-)

4 Years of Wedded Bliss

Happy Anniversary, my Love!

You are already in bed, but for 10 minutes it is still our anniversary and I wanted to shout out at the top of the bloggy world how much I love you and am so blessed to be your wife! I will save the rest of the mushy stuff just for us - I said a lot of it in your card! But, I truly adore being your wife and I am so proud to call you my husband. I do hope and pray that I can always make you happy and that I enrich your life and fulfill my role as a help-mate to you.

I would say we had a great anniversary, wouldn't you?

Brittany was gracious and watched Evelyn last night so that we could go on a date (our whopping 3rd since she was born! :) Evelyn did great away from us and we enjoyed a HOT and a bit fancy-shmancy meal simultaneously and engaged in great conversation. We drove around and looked at Christmas lights on our way home - just like we did on the way to our wedding reception. Such great memories!

I loved your card to me and will always treasure exchanging cards as it is a time when we both sit and write a love note to each other - those words are always so tender and great reminders of how much we love each other and what we appreciate in the other person. I loved sharing bowls of Kemp's Candy Cane ice cream as we watched parts of our wedding DVD (oh-so-glad we have that) and talked about how great that day was, but about how the adventure of doing life together is even better than that one day in our past.

I love you SO much, Jason! Happy Anniversary!

Love your wifey who adores you,
Amber
p.s. Don't be surprised if I break out my wedding day tiara sometime soon - seeing myself in it makes me feel like getting my "princess on" someday soon!

BFF's

My sister Brittany and her daughter Sophia have been staying with us for a little while. It has been fun to have the company during the day and the girls LOVE having each other to play with! Sophia is almost 1 - the girls are one day shy of exactly 4 months apart. But, Sophia is already a great little walker, so they keep up with each other just fine. It is simply hilarious and so sweet to see them play - they'll talk baby talk to each other and will chase each other around the house. They do everything together now including snacking, bathing, and walking into dark rooms together on little adventures. Evelyn calls Sophia "Baby" and her favorite things are gently stroking the top of Sophia's head and trying to pick her up while saying "Up! Up!" They are also feeling comfortable enough with each other to play tug-of-war with toys or snatch things out of each other's hands...Jason said he's gotten a few glimpses of what it will be like some day when we have more than one child!

It has been so precious to watch these two playing and growing in their friendship! I just know they'll be Best Friends Forever! (And, I am hoping that also elevates me to Sophia's favorite Auntie too since I'll be her BFF's Mommy!)

She Takes Her Oral Hygiene Seriously

Apparently Evelyn hadn't flossed recently enough because on Sunday she was sitting on my lap when I felt a "plop" and realized it was the button off of my sweater. Evelyn had pulled the string all the way off and was flossing her teeth with it. This is me pretending to have a "stern" face while she continued to floss away!