Here's What is New

Miss Peanut Butter is still in love with her castle. I am very happy with the purchase. Some of you have asked about it and I got it at Amazon. They have a more boy style one too. The only thing I don't like about it is some of the doors are very small and some of her figures/dolls get stuck. We are also in the process of moving most of her toys to her room. This would go a lot better if she was no longer in her crib, but alas she is not. In fact going to bed has gotten even worse here. She no longer lays down when you put her to bed but stands and begins the crib shaking and scream fest.
She is becoming quite the words worth too. She seems to be picking up more and more words, it is interesting to hear what comes out of her mouth sometimes. "Hurry!" and "GO AWAY" are a couple of my favorites.
I unfortunately have not used my Cricut yet. It took me most of one day to do a page on Sunday. Sometimes I get too wrapped up in watching tv than scrapping. That is my excuse anyway. I did win a Disney font cartridge on Ebay. I also used up most of the gift card J gave me for the scrapbook store since I'm sure it was the total lack of paper that was making it so hard for me to get any mojo. I'm sure I'll be ready to get down to business the next chance I get.
We are doing our normal get together hanging out with our friends over New Year's Eve and Day. Happy New Year's everyone. Is it just me or did the year just fly by?

Photostory Friday: Merry Christmas

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Merry Christmas

Miss Peanut Butter was excited to see all the presents under the tree this morning.

She ripped through presents like a tornado, even through a couple that weren't hers,
but no one minded.

She seems to love the castle we got her. I really like it myself.

When you have a castle, a prince and a princess, there is sure to be a happy ending.

J got me a wonderful present too. A Cricut, I cannot wait to use it.

I hope your Christmas was as merry as ours was.

If you want to see the Christmas pictures from Madrid check out my last 2 posts.

Some Christmas Lights

A few Christmas light pictures from Madrid. Here's to hoping everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Photostory Sunday: Nativity Scenes

Nativity Scenes

One of the things I noticed in Madrid is they love their nativity scenes. On the Saturday night we were there, we came upon this shed set up with a huge nativity scene in it. We though, "oh that's neat let's take a look and as we rounded the corner there was a huge line down the block to look at this scene. They were probably waiting at least 30 min to walk through a shed to look at a nativity scene. The next day we found this Christmas market in the Plaza Mayor. My Mom bought one of those hanging Santas that I showed last Friday. They had loads of ornaments, lights and trinkets for sale.....

They also had the motherlode of nativity scene pieces. You want a little clay bottle to add to your scene they had it. A big castle? check, any animal under the sun? check, palm trees? size small? check, size large? check. A plethora of kings, mangers, Marys, Josephs and of course Baby Jesuses. We aren't talking one or two stalls here either it was stall upon stall. Cutesy ones, huge ones, tiny ones, you name what you want they had it somewhere. I have never seen anything like it.

Here is one of the cutesy sets I saw. I didn't even look at prices on any of them I probably would have tried to take home a whole set.

This isn't a nativity scene, but I though it was a neat set of carollers made from chocolate. They had pigs made out of pastry and mice made out of something too.

Friday Miss Peanut Butter recieved a nativity set of her own from her Aunt. She loves pushing the top of the manger to play the music.


Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

I know it's Sunday and not Friday, but I'm behind on everything.

The Things in My Husbands Head

My husband got it in his head that a bunch of things around here needed to be done before Christmas and a whole 2-5 people come over and see the money pit. Number one on his list was the living room floor needed to be done. I'll admit it they did look awful, as this is the before photo.

He set it up were they were coming last Tues to start. The day after I got back from Madrid. Thankfully he had a friend come over and help him move all the furniture out. So from last Tues until yesterday we could not use the living room and on top of that J has the ceiling in the kitchen refinished too. So not only did we not have a living room we had no kitchen either and since the dining room had everything crammed into it we really couldn't use that either. We also seemed to be running, but doing nothing all week so nothing got done around here and I haven't found a chance to finish my Christmas shopping. But our floors look good.

In order to get this madness back to normal I'm going to post a couple posts today and try and catch up with you all, and try and stay sane over the next few days.
Have a Merry Christmas!

Santa Baby

We went and saw Santa today. Peanut Butter did pretty good. She was all excited when we got up to the house, but acted all shy when it came time to meet the guy in red. I really like this guy that does Santa. He looks great and is really nice. They were having problems with the camera and he came over and talked to the kids in line, warming up to them.

We also went and saw Bolt. We were the only people in the theater and PB ran around more than watched the movie, but I thought it was pretty good.

Home from Madrid

I made it back from a whirlwind weekend in Madrid. It is a very beautiful city, great old architecture. I love that stuff. The Christmas lights did not disappoint, I will be posting more on that on Friday. I definitely would recommend learning some Spanish before you go if you should. I tried to cram in some before we went, but I kept wanting to speak French and I'll I could remember was Donde esta..... We managed though and had a pretty good time. We must have been super jet lagged since we ended up sleeping until 2pm the first night. We thought my Mom's watch was wrong until we walked out into the lobby, oops. But Madrid is a night city and most things are still open until about 8 or 10 pm. People don't even eat dinner until 10 pm. We didn't do the tapas thing. I was not confident enough, due to our lack of Spanish, to attempt this and I don't drink either so sitting at the bar wasn't going to do it for me. We ate some pretty good meals, the night we had pallela was delishious. We even hit a Christmas market in Plaza Mayor which was really fun. The love their Nativity scenes though. I have never seen so many or so many vendors selling peices for them. We are not talking the basic little set, these are huge elaborate sets down to little bottles and tuffts of grass. It did rain one day but that was the day we slept til 2 so we hit the museums and by the time we got kicked out of the second one it was 8pm and clear. We walked around for probably another hour or so and saw the city all lit up. It was beautiful.

I did attempt to Skype with PB, but it didn't go very well, she cried a lot at ended up having a huge tantrum after we diconnected. I did miss her very much. J went on a huge cleaning spree and the house looks great. We are supposed to have our living room floor done today, but I have been waiting over an hour now for the guy who is going to do it. I think J has a bug that he wants to get the house in order to attempt to sell it. Who knows, but things are getting done around her anyway.

I will be posting more through the week about Madrid, I took over 200 photos before going through them, weeding out the bad ones.

Photostory Friday: Christmas Around the World

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Christmas Around The World

I have been lucky enough to have traveled to Europe, not only once but twice and as you are reading this I am probably in Madrid for a weekend with my Mom. The last time we traveled together we went to France in January. Most places still had their decorations up from Christmas. It was neat to see how they showed the Christmas spirit. I loved the fancy evergreen boughs and presents decorating the fronts of stores. This was a fairly common decoration and a lot of them were very pretty like this one. Lights we strung every where it was beautiful walking at night. The thing that cracked me up were the Santas hanging from everywhere. This little town we visited had them all over in odd spots "crawling" up the buildings. Some almost looked like he was hanging on for dear life. I am excited to see what Madrid has to offer. Their web site looks like they do the town with gorgeous lights.

The Tree is Up

We went out and got a tree today. I wish Peanut Butter was more into the snow so we could go look for one instead of grabbing the nicest one available in the barn. I will, however, give her some props, she did walk on the snow today. She really didn't want to, but was okay with it after she tried it out. I think this is by far the smallest tree we have ever had. We have been know to get a tree way too big for the space it needs to occupy.

J decided to take PB in to urgent care on Saturday while I was at work. We wanted to find out if she had the flu or not since she threw up again Saturday morning. It wasn't the flu, it is bronchitis. Poor thing. She wasn't really coughing until Friday night, but J and I have both been fighting some sort of chest congestion. We probably have it too. The ER doc also said she has eczema, which I had asked my regular doctor if she had it and he said no. This doc said if that isn't eczema I don't know what is. We got some medications for her and we didn't have any throwing up today, so I think that is a good sign.

I went to dinner last night with some friends I hadn't seen in years. It was a lot of fun catching up. We talked and talked like time had never passed. I felt really good just hanging out, it is one thing I miss a little. We ate at this nice little place and the food was great. I told J we'll have to eat there sometime. I figured I'd be home by 10pm or so, but we were just chatting away and poof it was 11:30 and I still had to drive 30 mins. I was a tiring ride home, but it was worth it.

The Perfect Ornament

I got this little gem in the mail this afternoon. A perfect selection from Kellie at This Blessed Nest for the Ornament Swap at Abbilyeverafter. I had no idea they made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ornament. I will say it was hard getting a photo of it. Someday if we ever get our tree up I will have to try again.

Fighting the Flu and the Flab

Today is my day off and I was looking forward to a nice long sleep without the worry of an alarm clock and things started blissful I fell right to sleep listening to Celebrity Rehab. Some day I will catch a whole episode at home or the gym. Around 1ish Miss Peanut Butter wasn't happy with her own sleeping arrangements and came to bed with us. Shortly after this I awoke to some gurgling and bolted up to grab PB as she was puking in our bed. Yep, a nice round of puke on the sheets and my poor electric blanket. We got her to the toilet and she heaved a little more drank some water as we remade the bed. And again went back to sleep like an angel. I don't know if she has some mild form of the flu since she has thrown up or had some diarrhea since Monday. J seems to think she gets too much phlegm in her stomach at night. I don't know but I am really hoping this is a puke free night since we did the nasty diaper this afternoon.

At least we got a nap in today. The gym kicked my butt this morning. I will still give my props to those of you who run. I don't know if it was because I already did 2.5 miles on the elliptical but I could barely force myself to run a couple tenths at a time and I was dragging the rest of the day until my nap. I'm beginning to think this whole gym thing is a sham. I am not losing any weight and have become substantially hungrier, which has been some how forcing me to shove cookies down my throat. But I am beginning to think about this whole giving up the diet soda. I love my diet coke, but they say diet sodas make you want more sugar, so I went with out it today and I didn't nearly crave as much sugar as I normally do. I did however still buy another case of it.

Photostory Friday: Mixed Emotions

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Mixed Emotions


It snowed again the other day. I thought I would show you just what
mixed emotions Miss Peanut Butter has about the white stuff.

Here she is after begging to be put in her jacket and boots.
She is waiting to go outside with Daddy, who is going to
shovel some snow.

She got very impatient waiting, but we set her out on the deck
as soon as Daddy was ready and this is what we got.

She may have perked up at the end of this video, but she reverted right back to
hating standing in the snow. Daddy came up and shoveled the deck and stairs off.
She then walked down the stairs only to be disappointed that Daddy wasn't going
to shovel a whole walk way for her where she wanted to go. Someday she maybe she
will actually want to play in the snow and not just admire it.

Trips, Slips, and Falls

We received another wonderful(hear the sarcasm) couple of inches of snow today. I quickly shoveled off the back deck and the front sidewalk after work. Around 4:30ish I get everything together for a fun filled workout on the elliptical machine at the Y, I then walk out the door carrying PB, my purse, a tote bag with my gym shoes, and a couple empty bags for our stop at the grocery store. I walk out like it is the middle of summer; I see my neighbor walking to his house from his car and..... whoosh from just about the top step, PB, the bags, and I go flying. I land square on my hinder and apparently my right shoulder hit the one of the stairs because I can now feel exactly where I hit. I thought for sure PB broke something; she was screaming. The neighbor asked if we were okay and I said I think so. I brought her back in the house and checked her out. She calmed down and appeared to be fine. We headed out again and I gave it all I could on the elliptical and as soon as I got off, I could feel every ache and pain. I am a hurting unit right now. PB hasn't alluded to anything hurting, so I'm hoping she is a-okay.
Last night was very interesting also. PB around 11:30 and I brought her to bed. J couldn't take her squirming around and took her back to bed. Around 3ish she starts crying again and J goes in and he yells she puked all over her bed. It smelled so disgusting, I almost yakked myself. Puke is the one thing I don't do very well, poopy diaper, which she also had, not problem, but puke just gets me. I semi showered her and got her redressed and brought her to our bed to which she blissfully fell asleep and woke as if nothing happened this morning from what J said. The sleep I was hoping to get a little of last night became 4 short hrs. Ugh.
I hope you had a better Wednesday than I did.

little of this, little of that.

The boy had a basketball game again tonight, he had once last night too. I thought after his first home game a couple of weeks ago we'd have it made. Miss Peanut Butter sat on my lap for almost the whole game. Ah, not so much the last two games. She has discovered she can make laps through the gym, down the hallway along the gym, back through the gym, repeat. I barely get to see any of the 24 minute game. But, The Boy's team won yesterday and today.

It has been an interesting evening. J is sitting in the recliner with PB watching the Princesses Sing Along Songs. He was doing fine until they said Pocahontas was a princess, now he's all up in his feelings about the whole thing. He is adamant about Pocahontas not being a princess, how all the other princesses are fake and Pocahontas is a real person. Apparently, she shouldn't be reduced to a disney movie.

I seem to be having some weird dreams as of late, it is as if my self conscious is feeling guilty about leaving PB to go to Madrid for a weekend. They have been all about abandonment and the like. It is driving me a little batty. I just want a good night of sleep.

Not Diggin' the Snow

Miss Peanut Butter likes how snow looks, but doesn't want to walk on or touch snow. She got all dressed up to go outside this morning in the new snow and was not happy once she got outside. She made it down the stairs after J shoveled the porch and stairs off. When he didn't shovel anymore she came inside.