PSF - raise your hand if you think I'm being played

At her insistence, we moved Melody into a "big girl bed" a few weeks ago. The first week she was fine. She pretty much stayed in her bed, snug as a bug as we say. At bedtime this week she's been fine. Pretty much right to bed. Naptime, however, has been a different story.

Which makes me wonder: Does she get the idea of the big girl bed or not?

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In other news, my BFF Lauren had her baby today.
Many of you voted on what she was having. 62% of you voted girl and 38% voted boy. Check out her blog to see who was right!
**For the record, I voted BOY!**

ww - finally warm enough for summer jammies!

Melody's version of recycling

Recycling has been a big topic around here lately. You've all read what Jack had to say on the subject. Now Melody seems to have her own version. We were at the park yesterday and Jack walked up and asked where Melody got the crackers. I looked across the playground and spotted her sitting under a slide. I walked over there and sure enough she was eating some animal crackers. I'm guessing she got them from the pile of crackers mixed in with the wood chips at her feet. A perfect example of recycling, I guess!

**I said, "Ewwww, Melody! That is so gross!" and she promptly spit them out. I'm not sure yet if that was good thing or not!**

avocados

Charlie has developed quite a love for avocados. Avocados is one of my favorite fruits and Charlie is the only Powell baby to enjoy eating them. And he can't get enough, apparently.

The other two (less adventurous children) are happy to stick to apples and applesauce.

bathtime at the Powell house

This was actually pretty tame compared to most nights!

Just Jack

Jack had quite a big week this week. It started on Wednesday morning with his class field trip to the recycling center. He had been talking about recycling all week. When I asked him if he knew what recycling was he said, "Sure. It's like when you're having a snack and you throw it away and then later on you want some more or your friend wants a snack and so you get it back out of the garbage."

So, just a little tip, if Jack offers y'all a snack, think twice before accepting.

Wednesday afternoon was his choir recital. They sang; He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, Father Abraham, Who Did Swallow Jonah, Only a Boy Named Davis, Jesus Loves Me, and Praise Ye the Lord. It's pretty fun watching a bunch of four year olds sing their hearts out.

Here they are doing "Praise Ye the Lord"
And Jack and his buddy Cole doing Father Abraham
Thursday was his unbirthday party at school. He's had an unbirthday party every year since he has a summer birthday. Melody, Charlie, and I got to go and celebrate with him. (Melody was thrilled to be there and joined in on all the preschool fun!) We got to watch Jack do his leader duties which include the weather, date, cheering his name (to work on spelling, phonics, etc), the Pledge of Allegiance, and show and tell. He wanted to bring Zebra cakes (since their class is the Zebras) and doubled checked several times to make sure we had enough for his teachers too. I wonder if he's that considerate or if the teachers remind students to bring enough for them?! haha. He wore his unbirthday crown all day long too. It's hard to believe my little guy will actually be 5 in just a few weeks!

At the front during circle time

He brought some cars for Show and Tell (shocker, I know).

One of his teachers, Ms Dale, told his birthday story and said just the sweetest things about Jack.

Notice Melody right there in the action. She was not about to miss out on cake.

PSF - the antics of a two year old

Pretty much one of the funniest videos you will ever see....

Yes, that was Melody in the walker intended for Charlie. For all you overly paranoid cautious moms out there; yes, I know walkers are no longer considered safe and no, there are no stairs around. ;)
Melody discovered this fun little recreational activity the first day we were at Resort Mitchell and ended up enjoying the walker a lot more than Charlie did!

And just in case you didn't laugh quite hard enough to pee your pants the first time..

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ww - the best part is licking the spoon!

smiling babies are the best!

There's no real reason for this post except that I wanted an excuse to show off this precious little guy. I don't know how it's possible, but he seems to get cuter by the minute!

victory!

We had complete success with Melody and the big girl bed last night. After her brief act of rebelliousness, she stayed in her bed all night.

This is I found her when I went to bed.

And this is how I found her this morning; she was playing nicely (and by playing nicely, I mean ripping the flaps off the Where's Spot book) in her bed.

Hopefully naptime will be just as smooth as bed time was! If all goes well, we will be taking her crib down this weekend. It makes me a little sad that my sweet Melody is growing up so fast! I can't believe that I will only have one baby in a crib! Although, as my mom pointed out last night, one baby in a crib at a time is how it's most often done.

a big girl and a big girl bed

For the past several days Melody has been whinning begging pleading to have "mah own big gur-rel bed!" Our evening have been going something like this;
Take a bath, brush teeth, and get jammies on. Then we crawl into Jack's bed to read a few books. Afterward Melody will say, "I sleep in Jack's bed." To which I say, "No, you have your own bed." This statement will ensure a lot of hysterical crying to the tune of "I wanna a big gur-rel bed!"
So today we borrowed another crib mattress from a friend and got our toddler bed out of the attic. Melody was thrilled. Beyond thrilled actually. When Alex was finished putting it together, I called her upstairs, "Melody, your big girl bed is finished." "Let's see it!" she replied rushing upstairs. She immediately climbed in and said, "cover me up, I go sleep!"

Here's our little practice session.

After bath time, Melody was anxious to get in the bed. We read books in the big girl bed, said prayers, covered her up, and sang a song. Everyone kissed her good night. We left the room. I walked across the hall into the laundry room and heard Melody's doorknob try to turn. I opened up the door and she turned an ran right back to her bed. I told her if she got out of her bed again, she would have to go back into her crib. I haven't heard a peep since!

This is how I left her. Sweet dreams!

We already know he looks good in orange

About a year ago, Alex went to work, as an analyst, for a new hedge fund, Williams Financial Advisors. It was quite an adventure for him, and despite their best efforts, the economy got the best of them and WFA closed at the end of February. He has been on a job hunt ever since then. He has interviewed at many places and considered many possiblilties but as of today, he is officially a Home Depot employee. Beginning on Tuesday Alex will be a Senior Financial Analyst for Home Depot supporting the Home Services division. An added bonus is that HD corporate offices are just 15 minutes from our house!
Alex is very smart and a hard worker and I know he'll be a great asset to HD. We are very proud of him!

psf - my book

A few weeks ago when I turned 30 24 my mom made me this fabulous memory book. It was so sweet and full of pictures and letters from dear friends and family.

This is one of my favorite pages. Every picture is me kissing a baby! Who knew I kissed my babies that much!

Thanks, Mom! Definitely one of the best birthday presents of all time!


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just a random post

So, there are just several small things that I want to blog about.

For those of you who are interested, Operation Bye-Bye Passy has been considered a success. We are well over the 24 hour mark, and with two problem free naptimes and bedtimes, apparently the addiction wasn't as hard to break as we thought. The passy did seem to have a calming effect, which will be greatly missed, as she has started jumping up and down in her crib before going to sleep. I'm thinking that we're going to be holding off introducing the "big girl bed" until that stops.

It seems that Geek Squad has been able to retrieve all my data and I can pick it up tomorrow. I have a new computer complete with a docking station. And hopefully I'll get my files and such transfered without any major gliches. And, yes, the first thing I will be doing is backing up all my data.

My allergies have just been terrible. I have been sneezing all over the place and my eyes need some serious cucumber therapy. I used to have horrible allergies as a child and then they improved somewhat as an adult. When I am pregnant I have no allergy issues at all. Two years ago, Melody was a newborn, and I guess I was still reaping the effects of my pregnancy induced allergy-immunity. The following year, I was also allergy free as I was pregnant with Charlie. Maybe that's why this year is so bad; they are making up for lost time. I took Claritin today. Claritin clear is not really all that clear. Despite their convincing advertising, I'm still walking around in a fog. I'm not sure what's worse, feeling the effects of the pollen or being drunk off the meds.

Our friend Lindsey came over today to visit and brought Baby Grayson. He's just a month old and is absolutely adorable. He looks just like his daddy too. I had forgotten how loud newborns can be with their noises. The whole time we were talking, he was just grunting away. Melody wanted to hold him and actually sat there just looking at him for several minutes. This is the first time Charlie has met Grayson. Alex and Webb have been close friends since they met in college, and I know Grayson and Charlie will grow up to be BFFs too.

I just had to post this video of Melody. This is her new catch-phrase that she says constantly. She's such a Southern Belle, isn't she?

A big change is about to happen to our family. No, it's not that...heehee. I'm not at liberty to say anything just yet, but hopefully I'll be blogging about it within the next few days...so stay tuned.

passy broke

My little Melody has had a passy for a long time. Since birth actually. You might not be aware of this, since I try to avoid taking and/or posting pictures with the passy in her mouth, but she is totally addicted to it. In fact, passy was her third word, although she called it a "bossy" then.

See?

Don't get me wrong. I love passies.

The Nuk is our favorite style.

All of my children have had them and passies definitely are in the top five list of "best inventions of all time". But there's a time and a place for passies.

Ok, I know she's only two, children have their passys for longer than that, she won't go to Kindergarten with it, yada yada yada. That's fine, but for us it was time to say good-bye. I didn't mind her having it when it was just a little bit around the house and during naptime and at night. But, lately she's been whinning for "mah passy" a lot. Way too much in fact. It's getting to be a real pain.

Since I don't like to have to get up in the middle of the night to find a dropped passy, my children have 6+ in their cribs. We have slowly been taking Melody's away one at a time. When we got down to three, they started "breaking". They break when mommy cuts the tip off. A few weeks ago we had gotten down to just one, but I just wasn't brave enough to let it go. Well, as we were leaving Music Class today and I was listening to Melody pitch a fit begging for the passy, I got the moment bravery I needed to end it. Yep, we got home and I got to the passy before Melody did and cut the tip off. She picked it up and said, in this sweet, angelic voice filled with shock, "My passy bwoke." And then, if it could get even more heartbreaking, walked over to Alex and said, "Daddy, fix it." He told her he couldn't and she said that she was going to "thwo it 'way." And she did. I did have a brief moment of weakness when I begged asked my husband to go to CVS and buy another one. Fortunately, he remained strong.

I knew the real test would be at naptime. When I put her in her room, she did ask for it. I asked her what happened and she recalled the incident. I left the room and didn't hear a peep for about two hours. She was a little fussy when she woke up, but a little snuggling and an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse fixed that problem. She did, at one point, walk over to the garbage can to look for it, but I told her that the garbage man had already taken it away to which she replied with her new catch-phrase, "Oh we-yull." (Which, by the way, sounds just adorable). We had a fun afternoon at the park and she's now back in bed. She didn't even mention passy this time.

So, it seems, that is that. Another milestone gone. My sweet little Melody is turing into such a big girl.

oh the things they say!

My kids have been saying some pretty funny stuff lately.

These are my current favorites.

Jack learned the Peter Cottontail song at school. This is his version;
Here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bumpy trail...

Melody is into her body parts. Specifically her belly-button and what she calls her nipple-buttons.

She has also started asking people, "What's your name?" And she says it with a very ghetto accent. It doesn't matter if she already knows your name or not. For example, I went in her room after her nap and (as she was jumping up and down in her crib) she said, "Hi, Mama. What's your name?"

What are some funny things your kids say?

Happy Easter

Happy Easter.

Or as Jack has been saying, "Hallelujah, Christ is risen!"

Here's a few cute pictures of my crew in their Easter finest.

And, just because I'm sentimental like that, Charlie was wearing the same outfit Jack wore on his first Easter.

the winners are in!

Alright, random.org generated 3 winners for me today...

Winning a shirt from Neko Knick-Knacks is comment number 27.
CarolSue said...
I follow you
digicat{AT}sbcglobal{DOT}net
March 29, 2009 10:05 PM

Winning a shirt from Bling it On is comment number 35.
Summer said... Hey girl!Alright...I just HAVE to get me one or 10 of these shirts!!! hahaFor the Neko Knick Knacks, I like the "A Vampire is Forever"For the Bling it on shop, I like "Bitten & Smitten"For the Embroidery Impression, I like the "Twilight" baseball shirt..Thanks! Soooo cute!And, I LOVE your baseball shirt!!!!!-Summer

Winning a shirt from Embriordery Impressions is comment number 72.
coriwestphal said...
I like the Bitten Tee. Thanks!
April 11, 2009 1:21 AM

Congratulations to our winners! Please email me with your info and I'll get your shirts to you!

Here's a little consolation prize for those of you who didn't win.

crashed

Well, my worst fear has come true. Ok, not really my worst fear, but still something I really didn't want to happen. My computer crashed. Yep. It's currently at Geek Squad getting the data pulled off the hard drive. Hopefully there will be not problems with that as all my picture are on there. And, since I know you're all thinking, "surely she backed them up." The answer is no. I know, I know. I actually had them backed up on our desktop and then my husband and his computer genius buddy, Webb, decided to wipe our desktop and use it for storage and as a server. So, yes, the crash happened in the few weeks that my backup system was actually in maintenance as well. As to what will happen to my computer after the data is retrieved is still a mystery. Right now I'm just concerned about making sure I have my data. I'm not sure what I would do if I lost all my pictures documenting my children's lives. Well, ok, I do know what I would do. I would survive and just start over, but I would be majorily upset for a while.

I do have a few drafts ready to be published. But new stuff will probably be scare on my blog until I get this sorted out. I'm currently mooching off my husband's work issued laptop. Apparently it's a pretty high-tech system, however I like what I had and keep messing things up with this one.

I don't know how much time I will have for blogging in the near future though as I now have three mobile children. Charlie has figured out the army crawl and is pretty darn fast too. That newfound skill, combined with Melody's new thrill of opening doors (such as the door to the very steep steps of the basement) are keeping my eyes and ears elsewhere.

Don't forget that my Twilight giveaway ends tomorrow. I'll choose three winners using random.org tomorrow afternoon so you still have about 24 hours to enter.

psf - put on your Easter bonnet

With all the frills upon it...

Melody made this Easter hat in school last week.
It's absolutely adorable. She wore it all day and kept running around saying, "Mah haa-yat! Mah haa-yat!" My favorite part is how her little ponytail sticks out the top!

Is she cute or what?!


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek