Oh but did you know that when you are in a bad mood and a cute little someone starts dancing in their raincoat while watching their reflection in the oven glass it almost makes it all better?

Anyway I have been tired lately and busy trying to get ready for the cruise. I hope to get some pictures uploaded soon from a wedding last weekend.

Magic House playdate with Addison

Botanical Gardens- it was so hot… it got a lot more humid than I expected and what was supposed to be an overcast day turned into a muggy, sweaty day. I don’t do summer in St. Louis, I melt when it gets above about 85. Just ask anyone who knows me IRL, I quit coming to playdates last year for the month of August, unless they were at the pool. I am thinking this year we might potty train in August since we won’t leave the house!

But we still had fun with our friends- Ella, Kaitlynn, and Brady (whose mom just started selling Avon too!)

Also she might lose a lung at any moment the way she is coughing. Minimal clear snot, no other symptoms. Completely dry cough. I am chalking it up to allergies again because of the recent warmer weather. But we will see, if it gets worse it’s back to the doctor’s office to spend another copay being told she’s JUST FINE. And I am tired. She coughs all night in her sleep. She sleeps, I don’t. But I just rocked her to sleep for nap. She was so tired that she actually let me. It was awesome.

On Sunday we stayed home from church since she couldn’t go to the nursery, and we all needed some rest! It was nice to have a morning at home all together, since we were so busy with the wedding on Saturday. You can especially tell in this first picture that Bailey wasn’t feeling well.

And I just had to share this one because I thought this was weird. Bailey really needed some new undershirts (a.k.a. onesies) to wear under her sweaters and shirts that don’t tuck in. I figured onesies are the best because they stay down and she isn’t really pottying anyway. It is SO stinking hard to find onesies in her size. Gerber makes them in 18 and 24 months but they look like they might fit a Cabbage Patch doll. I don’t know why their stuff has to run so small. I finally found some Carter’s ones that looked like they might fit all the way around her middle. I should also add that it was $24 for a 5-pack, so I WISH the Gerber ones fit!!! They are sooo much cheaper. Anyway, tonight after her bath, I put on one of the new shirts for under her jammies. Why is it so long? What 24 month old is an entire foot longer in the torso than Bailey?

By the way, the greasy look is Aquaphor lotion on her face. She gets completely covered in it at night so her cheeks don’t get chapped!

When we were passing the Walmart in Rolla by the way, we stopped to get Benadryl for B. There was a display of their alli diet pill thing. I have actually heard some decent reviews about that stuff but of course from companies or “sources” and not real people. Have you heard anything?

So then they decided that they would come here over Christmas. I told them they could not come actually ON Christmas Eve or Christmas day because we were spending those with my family this year (we alternate years). They said they were going to stay at our house and Jonathon’s brother was coming too. Well we live in a split level and there isn’t really a “guest bedroom” since we made the fourth bedroom into Jonathon’s office, and the third bedroom is my office/Avon sorting area. I told them that was too many people to sleep out in our living room and would just not work well with Bailey playing in the living room and with her sleep schedule and whatnot. So they pouted and decided they weren’t coming.

Then Jonathon’s brother was trying to convince them to look at priceline.com or one of those other travel sites. There are only like a million websites to compare hotel costs and seriously if you want to go cheap, there’s a Days Inn and a Motel 6 about twenty minutes from here. They leave the light on. The only thing I told them was, if they use one of these services to make sure to use one where you know what hotel you will be staying in before you make the final reservation. I would be nervous just choosing a category of hotels and then letting them decide based on the price I submitted. Anyway, apparently that was not a good solution for them either.

The latest? They are going to buy a pop up camper so that they can save money when they travel. You know, because it’s always best to spend over $10,000 in order to save money on hotels. When you travel twice a year. And have already purchased a timeshare that was NEVER used. Stay tuned to find out what will actually happen if or when they visit.

By the way, if we got pregnant this month, our kids would officially be two years apart. Not that we have any plans for that, but we always said we would NOT want them any closer than two years. I know people do it, but I also know my child and I know myself. And being pregnant again doesn’t sound at all appealing to me yet. I’m sure that someday it will sound fun and exciting and I really will want a new baby. For now, Bailey is enough. We want more than one child eventually, but not now. So stop speculating on when I am going to get pregnant, those of you who have been asking since Bailey turned one!

Here are some pics I took the other day while Bailey was being Crabby Tooth Girl. Doesn’t she just look pitiful?

I am also curious if anyone knows anything about authorize.net or other similar services. They set you up so that you can take credit cards as a merchant. I was wondering if I could use something like that instead of Paypal, when people buy stuff from me online like greeting cards or when I do calligraphy.

But here is my little girl, dancing and twirling. No matter what, she makes me smile.

I won’t get into all the details but basically while we were there the woman did not look at Bailey or speak to her and was very rushed and kind of rough with her. At a kids specialty shoe store. Great, huh? Then about a minute after I told her that I wanted a shoe she could wear all summer, she said something like, “And some people are really weird and want their kid to wear the same shoes all summer!” Thanks for making me feel like an idiot. Bad first impression, and they didn’t sign me up for their customer club thing so that was also part of my reason for calling, to get added to that.

The exciting thing? My grandma came with us and surprised me by paying for the shoes! All $42 of them… for a pair of toddler sandals… but aren’t they cute?

And the other thing our check is getting spent on? A new part for our air conditioner. We were lucky and Jonathon found a guy to do it after work at his cost plus just a flat $75 for labor. Jonathon always finds nice people who want to help him. He’s just a likeable guy Seriously though this is still going to run almost $500. So now you can see that we have no stimulus check left once we’ve paid for these two things. That sucks. There goes my dreams of shopping, vacationing, pedicures, The Melting Pot…

So moving on to say this: My aunt and uncle come to town regularly to visit. They say that they are coming to visit “everyone” yet they stay with my uncle’s mom for the entire visit. They eat with her, shop with her, etc. They stay in town for anywhere from 3-7 nights and usually go to my grandparents house once or twice  for the afternoon and then take them out to dinner once. So they spend about six or so hours together during a whole week. I don’t think my grandparents are wrong to be upset over this. They get really hurt that my aunt (their daughter) and uncle basically schedule time to hang out with them.

We are having everyone over tonight for dinner. Dinner… you would think 6 or 6:30, right? Well they have informed us that they will not be able to get here any earlier than 7 because they made some other plans. You know, they are only in town for a week and have a lot to do. But don’t worry, because they can stay until 8 or 9. I’m so glad they penciled us in. And did I mention, this is the only time my mom will be seeing her sister during their entire visit?

When we see them, they talk a lot about their gourmet meals that she cooks, and their third car which I guess is a BMW and I know they already have a Jag and a Porsche… so it’s not so much that they are bragging but more like they just go on and on and on about this stuff. Like my aunt complains how my uncle doesn’t want her to drive the Porsche to the mall because of the parking  yadda yadda. They talk about how they don’t do all-inclusive trips because the restaurants usually aren’t very nice. It’s like they forget that they are talking to family and they are trying to impress us. When we would all rather just have a pleasant visit. My mom says sometimes she is amazed that they are sisters and started out the same.

Also it is supposed to rain on the day of her birthday party, and the day before, and the day after. Isn’t that awesome? Gah.

Why is this coming up now, you ask? Because today when I was at Target, an especially chatty saleswoman told me their policy was about to change. I said something like, “So it’s going to get less crazy?” She said, “No, I think they are going to stop allowing ANY returns without receipts. There’s just too much fraud.” Die, Target. You greedy fools.