What We Have Been Up To Lately

This is going to be one of those out of order posts, babbling about things we have been up to.

For my Birthday Gary got me an electronic photo frame. Oooh, it’s awesome! I love it. And of course we filled it with pictures of our favorite little girl!!

This past weekend, my mom and I went on our annual lunch and shopping trip for my Birthday. Gary stayed home and spent some quality time with Brynn. One of the things I wanted to accomplish was to chop my hair off. Mission accomplished. I got it cut above the shoulder and I was able to donate my hair to Locks of Love. I was hoping I’d have enough and I did. That made me feel pretty good!

Speaking of donating, we had a benefit at work a couple weeks ago for a co-worker of mine. She has been battling uterine cancer and is not doing well. We had a bake sale and a gift basket sale. They also sold “walking tacos” which I had never heard of. Apparently to make a walking taco you open up a snack size bag of Doritos, crush up the chips, add taco meat, cheese, lettuce, etc. Then you stick a fork in it and take it to go! You learn something new every day!

I made some cookies, rice crispy bars and brownies for the bake sale. There were so many cupcakes, bars, and every kind of cookie you can think of there. They also sold hand-made washcloths, cards and jewelry.

The gift baskets were amazingly creative. There was a basket with hot cocoa and mugs. There was one with several different kinds of noodles and some gourmet spaghetti sauce. One had some DVD’s, microwave popcorn, and some candy. One had bath salts, lotions and massage oil. There where Easter baskets, pink girly baskets, sporty boy baskets. Home-made jams. You name it, someone had thought of it. It was so impressive. There were probably 75 baskets lined up for bid in the silent auction.

When all was said and done, we raised $6,109 for my co-worker and her family. I am so amazed at the generosity of everyone who participated. It made me feel really good to know people have such a capacity to give.

Yesterday, we went to the Learn and Play Daycare here in Chatfield and turned in most of our paper work. We also got to spend some time in the infant room with Brynn’s teacher Ms. Tracy and her Teacher’s Aide Ms. Alesha. We will go back next week again with the remaining paper work and spend some more time getting her used to Tracy and Alesha. I think that’s a cool idea that they invite you to come in and spend time like that. Brynn is pretty good around strangers, but it makes us more comfortable to know where she’ll be and who she’ll be with. Today we got a nice letter from both the girls telling us about themselves and how excited they are for Brynn to come spend time with them. I feel pretty good about the place. Alesha’s letter says she enjoys singing to the babies. I was just wondering today as I was singing to Brynn, and she was grinning from ear to ear, if anyone at daycare would do that for her. It sounds like they do lots of fun activities even with the babies. As soon as they are able to sit up on their own they let them finger paint :)

Brynn has been sitting up in her Bumbo chair. I’ll have to get a picture on here sometime. It’s pretty cute. She just loves sitting up so she can see everything that’s going on around her. She’s a very curious little girl.

Gary has been studying around the clock for his ASHRAE Certification for work. He has had a year to complete them but has let them fall by the wayside. (it HAS been a pretty busy year) They have to be complete today and he has 5 tests left. It’s all online and you can take them anytime you want before Friday night but it’s still a lot to get done. I’m nervous that it’s too much to complete in the time frame he has left. If he gets them done, it will be good at review time this fall!

I can’t wait for it to start being spring. Enough of this cool weather and snow. Pretty soon our crab apple trees should start blooming. I’m going to try to get a picture of them this year. They’re so pretty in bloom. The window of time to catch them in their glory is pretty small though. Once you start noticing them, it seems like the vibrant colors are already starting to dull. We've lived here four years now and every year I intend to get a picture of them and I have yet to do it. When we first saw this place when it was for sale, it was the absolute peak time of blooming beauty. They couldn't have asked for better curb appeal!

This post has sounded kindof like one of those end of the year Christmas letters people send out. I’ve never done one of them but this is a good practice run. Maybe I’ll do one this year. Or not.