Toddler Response to Pop Culture

So, the early childhood intervention people are coming tomorrow to evaluate Frankie, since he was a preemie (by all of three days, you know.) The fabulous Dr. Beno keeps asking me if we've had the boy evaluated, so I finally decided to comply. I guess it's better to catch any troublesome signs earlier rather than later. Anyway, I was discussing this with my mom on the phone today and she asked if I was reading to Frankie (one thing they're going to gauge is his language development.) I said of course, and then I remembered that I took the following photograph the other night. Now, keep in mind, this was supposed to be a photo of Bridget, but she wouldn't pose, and Frankie happened to pick up the magazine. (Warning: there is a swear in the photo - if you don't like swears, you might want to move on.)

I don't think that this is exactly what Grandma had in mind! I picked up the magazine last week because I was at the Barnes and Noble letting Frankie play with that danged train set. I picked up a magazine to read with all of the other hipster moms (this was in Edgewood, you know) and the article about fembots sucked me right in, so, of course, I had to make a purchase. It's the wired issue! (I'm fascinated with the robotic/digital replication of the human body and its implications on the future of self-image.) So it's all academic, right?

And I promised that I would mention that Annabelle and I tried to make friends. By the time she left on Sunday, we were warming up to each other. But that doesn't mean that she didn't bark while we were trying to watch Godspell last night, which totally delivered on hippie weirdness.

Housewares, or, Stained Glass on Parade

I know that some of you are following the progress of our "little" remodelation project here in Atlanta's West End. (Yes, I know remodelation isn't a word, but I saw it on a contractor's website and have kind of adopted it.) I've been scouring craigslist and ebay lately for fixtures and other items for the house. You've already seen the stained glass windows, and they're already installed and look fantastic, I might add. I've also purchased three stained glass light fixtures for the house.

We drove to Woodstock for this one, but since it was only $15, we thought we could put up with the exburbs. It's going to hang in the six-foot-wide, fifteen-foot-long hallway. I still need to find two other stained glass chandeliers to go with it.

This is a flush-mount ceiling fixture for the foyer/entryway. It has a dropped ceiling, unlike the 11-foot-plus ceilings in the rest of the house, so it won't look weird and too small for the space. Unfortunately this one arrived with a few cracks from shipping, so I'm not sure if it's going to make it or not, although the glass is all still in place and appears tight.

I have no idea what we're going to do with this one, but I do love it! It's a bit too small for the hallway, so we'll have to find some place for this beauty. Also, does anyone know how to re-wire old fixtures? This one still has cloth wiring.

We also purchased our kitchen cabinets this week. Holy cow those things are expensive! The good news is that our kitchen will be amazing when finished. If you follow this link, you can look at our cabinet style. Countertop color is here.All in all, things are coming along nicely, considering the amount of work we're doing ourselves. We're aiming for a June move-in date.

Serious Trouble.

This weekend, we're dogsitting. A small list of the dog's offenses: peeing on two of our rugs, chewing up all of Bridget's toys, getting into the garbage multiple times, eating two dirty diapers from said trash, drinking out of the toilet, barking all night, and hopping the baby gate (good thing I hadn't turned on our alarm's motion sensor.) She's also escaped from our backyard a couple of times. The first go round, she about gave me a heart attack but came running when I called her name from the front door. I guess I was swearing at her in my sleep last night, which is never a good sign. This dog is too much drama.

Annabelle:

She really helps me appreciate my passive, lazy, and positively gorgeous Bridget:

Juston also wanted me to mention our trip to the outer circle of hell, aka Acworth, Georgia, to buy a saw from some guy on Craigslist. Don't let the photo of happy children and puppies on the website fool you. First of all, it's at least a thirty minute drive from the outskirts of Atlanta to Acworth, so it's considered the 'exburbs.' Second, it appeared to have fallen victim to lots and lots of unfinished roadwork, meaning long trips on crowded roads with really ugly scenery. Third, the guy lived in a subdivision where every single street was some derivative of the same name, i.e. Sable Trace Dr, Sable Trace Way, Sable Trace Circle, Sable Trace Court, you get the idea. All of the houses looked *exactly* the same. We got very very lost in this subdivision and had to wait for another car to finally drive on the eerily empty streets to lead us out of this suburban nightmare. Lesson learned: never go to Acworth.

The latest in ice cream news

Okay, so it's not free this time, but it *is* cheap. On April 30, Baskin-Robbins is having 31 cent scoop night. It's a Wednesday night, so it sounds like a great youth activity for those of you strapped for ideas. There's one in midtown off of Ponce de Leon (You know, across from the Police Headquarters and in the shopping center with the Whole Foods for those of you who like that kind of thing.) There's also one in the Greenbriar Mall. If you go there, you might be lucky enough to pick up a pirated copy of First Sunday - someone tried to sell me one when I went to the Georgia Power office there to turn on the power at the under-construction house. What's worse is that I was standing in line when it happened and the dude even had the audacity to try and sell one to the lady behind the plastic barrier (bullet proof? possibly) at the counter. I love my neighborhood. :)

The online rumor mill has Ben & Jerry's free cone day on Tuesday, April 29th. I will confirm when I get the date from a reliable source. Two days in a row of ice cream? Playgroup ladies? I think I might go into sugar overdrive!

We love Easter!

I know that some of you have anticipated this post for at least several hours. Without further delay, I present to you Frankie in plaid pants, better known as the Easter outfit that we can only pull off when our kid is too young to know better.

Frankie outside with the plastic eggs.

And again with the plastic eggs.

A snickers-filled egg. Delicious! (This one also had the advantage of being 'wrapped' to look like a soccer ball.)

So happy it's Easter. So happy for candy.

An Easter day recreational car ride through the living room.

Ears! And a tool set!

Easter Photo Shoot

So we got out the rabbit ears on Sunday. Last year, he kept them on his head nicely. This year we weren't so lucky.

Daddy 'assists' with the photos by holding down Frankie's wandering hands.

Mostly it just looked like this.

Of course, the only photo I actually got of him with the ears on and looking at the camera was cut off at the top!

My shirt has it's collar up. Boo yah!

Tagged Again

Julie tagged me on her blog, and as I'm always a fan of giving out free information :) I thought I'd take her up on the challenge! These questions are all about my 'significant other' and our relationship, and that's not code speak for my dog, but my husband.

What is his full name? Juston L (yes, Juston with an O!)

-How long have you been married? 5 1/2 years

-How long did you date? well, we only dated like 6 months total, but we did write each other weekly for two years while we were on missions and we were best buds for awhile before we started dating. We got married about 3 1/2 years after we met.

-Who eats more sweets? Is there other kind of food worth eat? We both eat a lot of sweets!

-Who said I love you first? I don't remember

-How old is he? 29

-Who is taller? J-dawg

-Who is smarter? I'm more 'book smart', Juston is more 'creative smart' - but we're both intelligent :)

-Who can sing better? I do - and I don't think he'll argue with that.

-Who does the laundry? Usually myself, since I'm home more.

-Who pays the bills? I do the point and click, we both make the money but he does make a lot more

-Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Me

-Who mows the lawn? We both do

-Who cooks dinner? I cook, he orders the pizza sometimes

-Who drives? We both have licenses and cars....but he *likes* driving more than I do

-Who is more stubborn? I plead the fifth

-Who kissed who first? I do not remember this either.

-Who asked who out? We mutually decided we were an item. We never really did the awkward early dating thing because we were already together all the time.

-Who proposed? Juston proposed, but we had already figured out that we were gettin' hitched.

-Who has more siblings? We both have four.

-Who wears the pants? We both wear pants, literally. Figuratively, we both wear the pants as well. We try to be equal.

Thank you all for reading. Anyone else care to join in on the little game?

We're still here

And we still have power! The tornadoes that ripped through Atlanta Friday night and yesterday were a few miles north of our house, and roughly a mile north of our new/old house. Our thoughts go out to everyone who was affected and we're hoping to find opportunities to help those who were hardest hit.

Also, does anyone know of any fun Easter-y type of happenings around the city of Atlanta this week? Our Frankie would love to try his hand at an Easter Egg Hunt this year.

More Pictures, Less Structure

I'm not very good at updating the ol' blog as of late. I've been really busy and never feel like uploading pictures to the computer. But I'll stop making excuses because, really, you just want to see the toddler.

Our beautiful bathtub! Tub love <3

Frankie in the kitchen, or where we will have a kitchen. Frankie's playing round about where we'll have the island.

Even Bridget finds piles of laundry depressing.

Frankie finds the weeds in our front yard endearing.

Frankie feasts on a Samoa. Delicious.

Is loving Girl Scout cookies such a crime?

This is another one of those "I have a backlog of pictures" posts.

I've been a busy girl for the past few days, so you'll have to forgive the lack of blogging on my part. I've been working at the preschool, working at TCM, parenting, babysitting, buying stuff online for the house, and getting ready for a baby shower. Thus, I have a lot of photos that should make grandparents very happy since they are almost all of Frankie in various stages of cute.

This first one isn't really of Frankie, but proof that little kids actually *like* being in cages. Whenever anyone under three feet tall comes to my house, they make a beeline for the thing and climb into it. If there are any other children around, the other ones usually bang on the sides of it. This particular little bandit is Abram.

This looks like the beginning of a very bad habit.

Frankie mimics mommy's new hairdo, but this time with bubbles!

Frankie's got this new habit where he likes to line all of his cars up in a row. Either he's going to be a very particular person, or he just really likes the train set that we play with sometimes at the Barnes and Noble and he's trying to give us a hint.

Frankie and Juston having a good time. If you think this looks like fun, just wait until I get a video of them playing with the little basketball hoop.

This is a pretty typical mealtime. Does anyone have practical advice on how to get a child to not throw food all over the place?

This is what we call a pug muffin top, not to be confused with a human muffin top. I will not be posting a photo of mine on the interweb. Sorry.

And as one last thought, is anyone else really upset that Danny Noriega got 'voted' off of American Idol last night? He was the only one that was any fun to watch, which means that the rest of the season is going to be a snooze fest. I'm subsequently removing it from its current 'series recording' status on my DVR - no point to watch anymore.

It's been awhile, I know

Nothing photo worthy has happened in the past week. Well, we got our clawfoot tub, but it was night and I wasn't able to take a decent photo of it. I'll definitely put one up in the next couple of days because I *love* it. I also bought a pair of stained glass windows for the guest bath on ebay yesterday, so I'll let you have a peek at those.

We're going to put them next to each other to make the illusion of one window, just above the clawfoot tub. I'm really excited about it; I think it's going to look great! And we'll have to have people over so that the bathroom can get some use since we're spending oodles of cash on it.