Thursday, October 30, 2008

Frugal Google Cuts Perks

Full article here: http://www.nypost.com/seven/10302008/business/frugal_google_cuts_perks_136011.htm

The highlights:
They're losing their afternoon teas on Tuesdays, and "Additionally, Google is shaving a half-hour off the dining hours for breakfast, which has been scaled back from 90 minutes to an hour, as well as lunch and dinner which have been trimmed from 2 hours to 90 minutes"

WTF?!? I had heard they had some perks, but come on, if you take what they had before, that amounts to FIVE paid hours a day for meals!

And we're not even allowed to wear costumes on Halloween.

There's a comparison for you.

No pacifier - Day 2

This isn't bad at all! Amanda went right to sleep last night, no problem. She did wake up early this morning (7am instead of 8), and instead of playing in her crib she began crying, but Mike called me around 7:30 and said she had pooped and had HORRIBLE diaper rash, so it was probably more because of that than because she didn't have her pacifier. So far, so good!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

No pacifier - Day 1

Last night I finally decided to take the plunge and take away Amanda's pacifier. I don't think they allow her to have one at daycare, and I don't give her one during the day, so it was just taking it away at bedtime. I've been telling her for several days that she's a "big girl" and only babies get pacifiers, etc. I don't know if she actually understood, but it seemed to work. She cried for a bit, but then laid down and went to sleep. I kept telling Mike I can't believe how easy that was, what was I worried about?!?! Of course this is day 1, so things could take a turn for the worse... we'll see.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Weekend update

Sorry it's taken a bit for me to post something new. I've been fighting a cold now for close to 2 weeks, so most nights I try to go to bed early. Here's some pics from this weekend though...

Amanda's Halloween costume (minus the wings). She's not thrilled about the tutu, but at least she'll wear it. The wings on the other hand... I'll be lucky to get her in those on Friday...



Our newly planted "baby" avocado tree. This came from our old avocado tree, probably a squirrel that planted one of the avocados that they stole along the far length of our backyard. Mike refused to kill any of the ones that sprung up so we have about seven now sitting in pots waiting to be transplanted. If anyone wants to try their hand at raising an avocado tree in their yard, let us know. Mike's always trying to pawn them off!



This is my mom's idea. I took a pic of Amanda next to the baby avocado tree (they're about the same height now) and I'll take more as they both grow... see which one grows faster *lol*



Amanda playing in the backyard.



And at the water table (her favorite spot)


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Halloween costume

So I finished Amanda's wings this weekend:


But she does NOT like them. She grabs at them and tries to take them off constantly. Halloween is gonna be fun...

Quick update

So last Thursday I had a parent conference at Amanda's daycare. They had nothing but good things to say about Amanda. She's the first up to start dancing when they put on music. She recognizes her sheet & blanket and knows to bring them out for naptime, and where to put them back. She loves school and runs in to class and gives the teachers hugs every morning. She knows all her body parts, and is learning her colors. She is able to convey her basic needs to them...

Then yesterday I picked her up as usual and found out she had BIT another child!! Oh my, I was so embarrassed, but what do you do with a 21 month old? That's how they communicate when they're frustrated. So I tried to reiterate to her last night that biting other people is bad... we'll see how she did when I pick her up today...

Friday, October 17, 2008

Reading, tutu's and shoes

Amanda LOVES to read. Her new favorite book is an Elmo bedtime story book I found at Target. What's funny is when I got it home, I noticed there's supposed to be a little electronic thing in the corner that plays Brahm's Lullaby, but was missing from the one I bought. I had intended to bring it back and get a new one, but Amanda is *so* attached to this book, I don't think she'd let me take it away for even a minute!





Over last weekend Andrew showed Amanda how to put on adult shoes (still waiting for Aunt Ilene to send me those pics), so now she does it all the time. Here she is trying on my tennis shoes.




And last night I finished Amanda's tutu for her Halloween costume, so we tried it on. I'll put her in her entire costume this weekend probably after I make her wings. She's going to be a fairy princess.



I have had a kids potty in our bathroom for several months now since I heard you should have one that they can get used to before you actually potty train them. That way they aren't "scared" of it when the time comes. Well, up until now Amanda has been scared of her potty and I haven't pushed it since we're still a ways away from potty training. Well, last night after her bath she randomly asked to sit on her potty and began playing with my shoes (big surprise!), so I had to take some pics! She didn't actually "do" anything, but I'm glad she's not afraid of the potty anymore!







Tuesday, October 14, 2008

First cold weekend of the year!

Wow, it got cold here - FAST this weekend! One day it was 80 degrees, the next it was 60!

Anyway, we had a fun weekend at my parent's house. Saturday night they watched Amanda while Mike and I attended a friend's 30th birthday party. Then Sunday we celebrated Aunt Ilene's 26th birthday.

Aunt Erin & Uncle Jason brought their dogs, so Amanda had fun chasing them around the house and backyard.




And eventually she made her way into the computer room where somehow she kept figuring out how to bring up the "Investor Toolkit" software. That coupled with playing on a calculator... I think she's going to take after Mommy and become an accoutant!




Meanwhile, Uncle Jason took a quick catnap with the dogs.



And SOMEONE got into the cake frosting while we were serving cake! (Andrew)

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Bikes & the avocado tree!

Amanda finally figured out how to ride the bike Aunt Ilene gave her for Christmas. Here's a few shots of her riding it down the block.

Amanda 035


We had an old avocado tree in our backyard that I loved, but it turns out after we installed a sprinkler system, we watered it too much, and we ended up helping to kill it. According to a few "experts" that came out, the moist soil probably bred a whole lot of eathworms that ate away at the roots, and eventually killed it. So yesterday we finally had it removed. Here's where it used to be:



And here's what it's been reduced to:



And here's Amanda in her relocated swing, on another tree in our backyard:



These are from tonight, we played outside for a while with Sophie in the neighbors yard:



(My new favorite picture of her)



And running down the block:

Saturday, October 4, 2008

And now for something completely different...

Sophie! Our cat was looking so cute, cuddled in Mike's lap last night I had to take a few pics...




During the summer months, we seem to get a lot of spiders around our house. Most of the time, they are small and we don't even see their webs as we walk into them, throughout the backyard or near the trampoline. But Mike discovered this HUGE spider right outside our front window last week. Seriously, he was the size of a large grape, and he had HAIR all over his body! His web spanned the entire length of our front room windows (probably close to 6 feet across), from bush to bush. I grabbed some pics:


And now, back to our regularly scheduled program...

A few random pics from the last couple of weeks:
Helping sweep up the floor under her high chair:



Talking on the phone:



Putting sunscreen on:



And these are from this morning, getting ready for swim class. My little Pippy Longstocking!