See ya never...

Alright, so I love being outdoors. Yes, really cliche sounding and I am sure thousands of girl's facebook "about me" sections say the exact same thing but REALLY...I'm not lying here people-I LOVE being outside like LOVE it to where I could live in a tent year round and never go inside again. My family has a houseboat and most summers there would be a weekend to where we had 15-20 + people sleeping on the houseboat so some people had to sleep up top under the big pavilion tent thing-and EVERYONE dreaded it bc bats flew around up there and you wake up damp with dew all over you. Most people hated waking up all gross like that but my thoughts were just jump in, wash your hair with some shampoo and call it good. I mean, we are at the lake not the prom, right?! But mostly I didn't mind sleeping up there bc it was outside! Also, I went on TREK with my youth group when I was in high school and something about being outdoors seeing all of God's wonderful creations and being disconnected from everything else was so powerful! Was such an amazing experience and just made my love for being outdoors grow times a million :) Now, I wouldn't say I am a nature girl though. I don't like to bird watch or collect leaves etc./not a hippie so maybe I am just crazy. However, I will add that this girl likes her AC and relaxin in a big, comfy bed too.


Trek 2003. This is the last night when we all finally got to shower SO not really capturing our experience but this is the only pic I had on my computer.



Anyway, this past week outside has hated my guts. All started when I was running one night and I ran into an armadillo. This is the 2nd time in my life that I have done that so I overlooked it. Next thing that happened was I was mowing/weed-eating the yard and I got stung by a wasp AND a stick hit me in my front tooth. Ugh. After that, I was running another day and my mp3 player fell off its clip, to the ground, and I basically crushed it. Lastly, I was babysitting and one of the kids threw a jump rope in a tree, so I climbed up to get it and fell to the ground. Luckily I wasn't too high but seriously, come on. Yes, I am accident prone but this is nuts and all happened within a few days and all happened outside. So ya, that's right- See ya never outside. I am a little scared of you right now.

Good choice/Bad choice

My sis and I were talking the other day about how teachers use the word "choice" a lot during the day. This is SO true, atleast it was for me! I would use it in phrases such as "make good choices" "is that a good choice?" and so on.... All of my students new about this "choice" word and here are 2 sweet/funny stories I remember.

First story is about my sweet little boy named Tra'Quan (try teaching a 5 year old how to write that name, yikes). He was the most precious thing ever. He was SO shy and every morning gave me the most timid-stiff hug imaginable but I looked forward to it everyday. Anyway, yes, he was super doop shy but was quite the free spirit in his own little way. For instance, I occassionally let my students (the ones I trusted to make a good CHOICE) go to the restroom by theirself....YES this is a HUGE deal to them. lol. I once let sweet, shy Tra'Quan go to the restroom alone and he didnt come back for almost 30 minutes....and I didnt notice.....teacher of the year? He had gone to the library instead and was just hanging out-I thought it was funny, librarian did not. Fast forward some time and here comes Tra'Quan asking to go to the restroom again. I suggested he take a friend and he said "I promise I will make lots of good choices in there." AHHHHH, melt my heart/hilarious. Love him.

2nd story is about a little girl named Lily....I might still have nightmares about this child. She seemed to LOVE the time out desk, or so it seemed bc she was there everyday, and she loved to make bad choices....or so it seemed. One time during centers she was walking around the room, bothering every other student and not doing what she was supposed to do. So, I said "Lily, where are you going?" Lily said, "why dont you ask my shoes?" UMMMM excuse me little sassy? I looked at her shoes and said "Lily's shoes, you and Lily are making terrible choices so I need you to walk Lily over to the time out desk and take a seat" Head down, Lily's shoes walked her over and there she sat. BOOM! I probably shouldn't be proud of this but I am. Lily told me to ask her pencil what she was writing (Me, "lily what are you drawing/writing" Lily, "ask my pencil") and asked me to ask her brain what she was thinking quite often (Me, "lily what on earth were you thinking when you made that choice?" Lily, "why dont you ask my brain")......ugh!!!!!

Here is Lily....probably walking to the time out desk.

Despite all her craziness and sassy attitude, she was SO smart and is a good kid! She def. kept my 1st year teaching as entertaining as possible.

I miss it

This may sound a little nuts but I indeed miss my last year's kindergarten class. They were annoying, crazy, loud and precious all rolled into one. I miss all of the ridiculous conversations we had and seeing their little faces light up when they FINALLY understood something and learned a new thing. Every single student in my class spoke Spanish except for 2 little ninos who were both blonde as can be with big blue eyes. It just so happens that they were the 2 worst kids in my class BUT 1 of them stole my heart bc he was CRAZY....just plain crazy and I loved it. Since I am not teaching this year I think it is safe to say that I had a favorite and his name was Joshua....I called him Joshie, he hated that I did that so he called me "teachy" bc I said that my name was Mrs. Mobley and NOT teacher on a daily basis. He was clever like that. Anyway, here is one of my favorite convos between me and Joshie:

• 
  
  Joshie- "Can I have some glue?"


• 
  
  Me- "Why?"


• 
  
  Joshie-"Because I ripped my pants and there is a big hole now"


• 
  
  Me-"Glue won't fix that Joshie"


• 
  
  Joshie- "can I have some tape?"


• 
  
  Me- "tape won't fix your pants either, you are going to have to wait and have your mom sew them for you"


• 
  
  Joshie-"Ok, can I just have some sew then?"

I mean, duh, just give me some sew. It made so much since to him and he talked to me like I was the dumbest person for not just giving him sew. He is funny and surprisingly one of the smartest kids I know minus this conversation.

Time change

Nope, I am not referring to the daylight savings time change tomorrow...but make sure you do set your clocks forward! Raymond and I almost NEVER do which is ALWAYS bad. Anyway, onto my post.

The way I use my time has changed so much after having Ashton. For instance, tonight I loaded the dishwasher, cleaned up Ashton's dinner, made myself dinner, vaccumed and swiffered the bedrooms, and uploaded pictures to facebook all while Ashton watched a 30 minute Sesame Street movie. How you ask? Well, it went down like this:

-placed Ashton in his little chair with his sippy cup and turned on his favorite show...he was mesmerized.

-started uploading pictures to facebook and realized it was going to take forever SO I also......

- cleaned up Ashton's dinner

-loaded dishwasher

-made a sandwich and ate while vaccuming

I feel like in the pre-baby days those things would have taken me much longer because I probably would have taken my time, watched some TV while eating a much healthier (ya right) more prepared meal, etc. Now, I do what I can in the little time Ashton will sit down and let me. However, I wouldn't change a single thing because I now have this precious little face that I get to look at everyday. I love him more than he will probably ever know. He is such a blessing!

BB and B

I wish this post was about Bed, Bath and Beyond but it's not. The 3 B's stand for Birthday, bag, and belly flop.

1. Birthday- I turned 24 on Feb. 22nd. Uncle Brody and Aunt Katy said they would babysit Ashton while Raymond and I went to dinner and a movie...ya! Ray and I dont get to go out very often because of our schedules and baby so we used my birthday as the perfect excuse to have a night out. We decided to go out after Ashton went to sleep, which is at 8. Katy, Brody and I were just hanging out in the living room while Raymond was putting Ashton to sleep, which usually takes no longer than 15 minutes. WELL, it ends up being like 8:50 and Raymond is still in there. Katy suggested that maybe Raymond fell asleep. I thought NO WAY, we haven't had a night out in forevssss, no way did he fall asleep. Also, I didn't want to go check because one time I walked in on Ray and Ash during bedtime and apparently woke Ashton up RIGHT before Raymond was putting him down bla bla bla...Anyway, Raymond strolls out at 8:50 ish, looking like a zombie and yep, he had been asleep for the past 25 minutes or so. Awesome. AND he tells me that he tripped because his leg was asleep and kind of dropped Ashton in his crib. Kind of dropped him? I didnt ask many questions about that because he obviously landed on something soft and we were soo late (jk, I asked if he was ok and he said he was 100% fine, he didnt really drop him, just kinda...?) We didn't get to go to dinner but made our 9:20 movie, BARELY. I call this B strike 1.

2. Bag- Ashton puts everything in his mouth now....EVERYTHING. This EVERYTHING includes a small plastic bag. He seriously crawled towards me with this little plastic bag stuffed in his mouth, I had a brief heart attack and then pulled it out and checked his mouth like a crazy woman to see if he had chewed any small pieces off. He didn't thank goodness but def. strike 2.

3. Belly flop- Ashton usually wakes us up every morning talking and laughing over the monitor. A couple of days ago we heard Ash talking away over the monitor and then heard a big THUD...and then a scream. We jumped out of bed and ran to his room and there he was, laying belly down on the floor :-( Ashton had crawled out of his crib! He cried for a minute and then was just fine, laughing and clapping away. His mattress was already low but now it is as low as it can be. Ashton is quite the climber. Yikes, strike 3.

This was all in 1 week. I am just going to go ahead and give Ray and I an F for that week. Ashton gets an A+++ for putting up with us and for surviving.

P.S. We really don't suck as bad at being parents as I just made it sound. Everyone has an off week....right?! lol.

Vampire Child

Today was a pretty normal-ish day. Ash and I played, ate, cleaned, watched Ellen and Ice Age, ate, etc. I finally changed Ashton out of his pajamas at the early hour of 2 p.m. and put on his pretty (handsome/manly), white, Michael Jordan shirt; ***side note***-there is something about big people clothing in little baby people sizes that just gets me. Love it with all my heart. In case you don't know what I mean, little ducks and elephants holding balloons are in the wittle, cutesy baby clothes category and clothes that YOU reading this would wear, just in miniature form, are in the category I am talking about. Unless you wear shirts with ducks and elephants holding balloons on them, which is fine.........ANYWAY, yes, so I put on Ashton's big person looking Michael Jordan warm-up bball outfit (Not that any of what I just said has much to do with this story) and was on my way to giving him a snack. He is eating away and we are singing Itsy Bitsy Spider and clapping when all of the sudden a pinkish liquid starts sliding down Ashton's mouth. My first thought is that it is just his strawberry yogurt melts and then I realize that he is eating cheese and cheerios! I ask my brain what is going on and it has no idea. Did he eat a bug and that is the color of the bug gut juices? It's possible. That's creepy. I was a little scared of him for 3 seconds and then he started crying. I finally held his mouth open to investigate and poor baby's back molar tooth was bleeding :-( I have no idea if this is normal, I am new at the mom business. I googled it and called a friend and it turns out that it is normal, whew. So my creepy little Vampire child morphed quickly back to sweet little baby and was in major tooth pain. It was a dramatic snack time but we made it. As for the white Michael Jordan shirt, not so much. It has a nice little pinkish (blood and drool) color to it.

Thanks little girl

I was picked for having a cute blog from my sis, thanks!! I really have no idea what I am doing with a blog but here I am having one. SOO-7 things about myself:

1. I drink around 5 Diet Dr. Pepper's a day. So addicted.

2. I can't say the words "gifts" or "mail" correctly. Gifts comes out GIFS everytime, and mail comes out MELL. I can try really hard and say them but in a full blown conversation notta chance.

3. I could eat Pizza everyday and did most days (until I started Nutrisystem...)

4. I cannot go to the movies without getting a Diet Dr. Pepper and a snack.

5. I only make our bed when I know people are coming over. I just don't see the point (lazy?)

6. I have seen Gavin Degraw in concert 5 times and feel like he should know me everytime I re-meet him. ONE time he said he remembered me (ya right).

7. My favorite thing to do is to go to Hafer Park with Ashton and sit and watch the ducks. He thinks they are hilarious.

These are a few cutie patootie blogs that I like to read:

Jessica
Amy
Corlie
Courtney
Ashley

2 for 2

Today was a fun little day filled with gifts, love and gifts and food. My sweet hubs got me a mani pedi gift card AND some other gift cards to my fav. places (he knows the way to my heart is through a gift card). He also knows how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE baskets filled with my favorite things, food/candy things(we are a basket giving couple), and since he loves me so much, he did not get me a basket. Here are my 2 theories on the no basket this V-day:

1. He loves me so much and would never ever want to tempt me when I am hard core dieting and he knows how hard I am trying OR

2. He just paid the big bucks for this diet plan and isn't going to ruin it!

Probably a little bit of both-either way, it was a great day and I didn't cheat my diet...whew! I ended up making Raymond a basket with his favorite things which are also my favorite things-cheezits, oreos (double stuff!), gummi savers, reeses, a couple of shirts, GIFT CARD. etc.
Shopping for his basket was my fix for the day. Yikes. That being said, and getting to the point of my post title, I have lost 2 pounds in the last 2 days! Suck that Valentine's Day!

Mr. and Mrs. Creepy

This might be a weird post but I kind of think its funny/really weird.

So I have been having major problems sleeping. I stay up WAY too late watching netflix but I seriously cannot go to sleep! A few nights ago I was really tired at about 11 p.m. I was so excited because I thought I would finally get some sleep. Well, I did, but at about 3 a.m. I woke up, standing in the hallway, changing the temp. on the thermostat thing. WHAT?! I was apparently sleep walking!! There is something about sleep walking that really freaks me out. My sister used to do it a lot when we were younger and I was always afraid that she would sleep walk into my room and just stare at me (true story). SO, I was completely creeped out with myself. Well, last night around 1 a.m. Ray and I were laying in bed, I was awake of course, listening to my ipod and Ray was fast asleep. Then, he just sits up and is just sitting there. I asked him what he was doing and he wouldnt answer me. I was freaked out and stopped talking to him bc you never wake a sleep walker right?! Or so I have heard. He finally just laid back down and went to sleep. AHH! CREEPY. What is wrong with us???! Obviously we need to go to bed at a normal hour to get in a healthier routine to avoid sleep walking or whatever we are doing (I have heard that helps having bad dreams etc.) OR we are just really creepy.

At least we produced a perfect little baby though right?

Blair Witch baby?

JK. He is far from creepy-Just his parents...yep, just call us the Creepies.

First Snow

He obviously was not a fan. I think he hated wearing a onesie, sweat pants, sweat shirt, snow suit, coat, hat, mittens, and 3 pairs of socks most of all. It took us 20 minutes to dress him and we seriously were outside less than 5 minutes. haha! Poor baby.

Oh why not?!

I have read so many facebook posts and blogs about the big snow storm so OH why not write one too!? I have actually loved being snowed in. I love the feeling of being forced to just lounge around, watch movies and play all day! I dont want to get out of the house! In fact, I can't, because my car is forever stuck at my sister's apartment....The Links apts. really need to figure out a snow shoveling plan, it is bad over there! Ray, Ash and I braved the coldness and went outside to build a snowman but the snow was way too powdery AND Ashton hated the snow. What kid hates the snow? Apparently mine does REALLY bad. Poor baby. Snow is kind of scary I guess...right? lol. Anyway, he is a funny, little boy. Here is some info for my "in the works" baby book (yea right):

Ashton will be 14 months on Feb. 13th-

-He sleeps around 12 hours every night and takes about an 1 and a half to 2 hour nap each day. He officially is a 1 nap a day kind of baby!

- He weighed 24.8 pounds at his 1 year checkup, 31 inches long

-He is a crawling machine. Seriously, he crawls at super-turbo speed!

-He has taken MANY steps but walking is just not his main mode of transportation. He is bear crawling right now too. I think he is doing that bc it is a mixture of walking and crawling, haha.

- He loves to eat and does A LOT. His favorite snack are the Gerber "cheetos" (that's what we call them anyway).

- He is not a fan of milk. We are using the step 2 formula and slowly putting milk in with it hoping he will start loving it!

-FINALLY WE FOULD A SIPPY CUP HE LIKES! I seriously bought every brand and type of sippy cup before I found one he would drink out of. He was such a bottle baby until recently. He also loves "big people" cups way more than sippys.

-He says mama, dadda, duck, doggy, and ok. He is constantly talking jibberish.

-He loves to do the motions to the itsy, bitsy spide. He is pretty good at it when he wants to be!

- He throws a fit every time I have to tell him "no no". It is actually pretty funny. He will lay flat on the ground, face down, or throw his head in my lap. I am trying to ignore the fits but they are pretty funny. I might have recorded a few of them. I thought this stuff didnt happen until closer to 2 years old? Uh oh.

-He loves Sesame Street and Mickey Mouse Club house.

-He smiles a lot and thinks everything is funny!

-I could go on and on.

I love him so much!

My new favorite thing

Raymond and I have been putting change into one of Ashton's piggy banks, really just so we would have somewhere to put loose change....we weren't saving it for anything specific, just trying to be more organized! Anyway, I went to put some change in the other day and noticed it was SUPER heavy and I barely could put the pennies in. I usually keep the major change (quarters and dimes) in my wallet so this little piggy had mostly pennies and nickels. I decided to take all the change to CoinStar. I had never used CoinStar but it seriously was the coolest thing!! I used the one at Homeland and got 35 bucks out of it, who knew! You just pour all your change into this little slot thing and it counts and counts away. I feel like I should warn you though that it is the LOUDEST process ever so be prepared for people to stare at you. Ashton loved it....he loves attention. AND it has different giftcard options to places like Amazon, Gap, Wal-Mart etc. that you can use your change for. I chose the boring grocery voucher one but that def. helped out the ole Dave Ramsey food fund! So yea, new favorite thing!

What Ashton's flu has done to me

My little baby has the flu :-( It is so so sad when a baby is sick, and he is very, very sick. It has been a crazy couple of days. Hopefully this goes away soon! I am so sad to see my baby hurting but also I might be going a little bit crazy from it all, for example:

I.......................

-forgot to brush my teeth today-still haven't

-ate 3 bowls of ice cream

-screamed in a pillow

-drank 5 Diet Dr. Peppers

-lost my phone today, then found it in my pocket 30 minutes later

-wiped Ashton's snotty nose with my shirt and am still wearing it

Here is a picture of us taken by my hubs. I look worse than Ashton and I'm not even sick. It looks like we are watching a movie but we could be just staring at a wall, or sleeping with our eyes open...wouldn't surprise me.

And this was just today.....I am really scared for tomorrow.

Coupon Monster

I am going to my first coupon class tom. night. I feel a little bit 75 years old but I am all about saving the money!! Coupons scare scare scare me. That is probably weird but when I get to a check out lane and I have 107 coupons and I am trying to get them out of my wallet and figure out which ones I can use all while there are 5 people behind me rolling their eyes because I am taking too long and I start sweating and turn red and then just give up etc. etc. FAST NERVOUS HOT MESS. SOOOOOOOO with that long, stressful, no punctuation sentence perfectly defining my coupon experiences, I plan on dominating the stores with my future knowledge of the coupon world. I have no idea what happens at a coupon class but it has to help at least a little....right? I really hope they just hand out lots of awesome coupons-preferably to Target, Forever 21, and BABIES R US (shout out to the baby). If anyone has any coupon organizing/using tips I would love to know!