BI-cicle, BI-cicle.. i like to ride my bi-ci-cle...

It's a Queen song, not sure if yer man was really referring to
actually riding a bicycle but there you go. M purchased a little gift for E last week, not really sure if she'd like it because a) she hates wearing hats and b) she cries in the bath. So how was she going to do on a bicycle wearing a helmet? Well, curiously, she loved it! From the look of the photos. In the other photos I got, she was looking at her feet or trying to take the helmet off and because I don't want anyone reporting me to CPS, I'll show the one where the helmet stayed on. She kept coming back for more. I bet if she didn't have to wear the helmet, she'd want to be on that thing every day. Now, you may notice that I was not as successful getting my hubby to wear the helmet (I thought if he did it, she wouldn't hate it so bad but he refused saying he was only 'going up the street'. well, guess what? cars can run you over on our boring little stretch of neighborhood road too. and frankly, since some people tend to use our street as a drag racing strip, it's probably more often than not). Anyhoo, we are very much looking forward to being able to bike this summer when we go camping, especially if E continues to enjoy it! Yay!

Finished finally..

I just finished the application for M's 10 year green card. I can understand why there's so many illegal aliens in this country.... no one wants to bother getting all the crap together and then on top of that mailing a check for $545. It's not bad enough that we had to pay the first two times we applied - first for the f1ance v1sa and then for the adju5tment of status - but everytime we have to do something. Then if we decide to go and live in Ireland for awhile, we'll have to pay again, no doubt, to "save our place" or something silly like that. At this point, I'd say we easily have spent $1000 on this process. It's no wonder some people choose to be illegal, they.don't.have.time.or.money.to.do.the.paperwork... they are too busy working! I don't blame them.

You'd think having a little peanut would be enough 'evidence' but it's not. We have to provide all this other proof, no doubt I have gone overboard but the thought of getting a request for more evidence doesn't appeal. Sigh.

Little daredevil

We went for a drive this weekend, looking at houses yet again, and we stopped in a cute little town while the rain had stopped and went to the park. We discovered something new about our little peanut, she's a daredevil. She went to the slide and slid down face first and, as you can see from the photo, LOVED it. Now if only she liked the bath this much!

Oh summer, come back to us!

We were blessed the other day with a 79 degree day (about 25 ish to those Down Under). It was probably the first time our poor child has seen a day of warm sun where she actually didn't have to wear a coat outside, or socks or even pants! Like her mom, she got quite giddy and happy and truly blossomed under the rays of the sun. Unlike her mom, she seems to have retained that feeling the last few days even though it's back to 45-50 degrees (9-10C) and crappy. I just cannot rally when the weather is crummy. I want summer NOW!

We had some lovely people over on the most beautiful day of the year thus far, a couple we met in our P3ps group. Their son, F, is a beautiful and seemingly peaceful child. I was in awe of how he and E seemed to be kindred spirits - actually playing together and acknowledging each other's presence. Usually E plays on her own, or when kids this age are together, they kind of wander around from parent to parent or more or less ignore each other. These two were copying each other and chasing each other and it was lovely to see. Apparently, blogger doesn't want you to see it though as it isn't allowing me to upload a photo.

Oh, there we go!

I have finally put together a make shift slide show of M's work in the house to date, everything he has done. It's pretty impressive. I'm going to put it together in our application for 'removal of conditions' that he needs to go through to get his 10 year green card. Since it's essentially been his job, I need to show that he's committed to this place! Again, we won't be posting any photos at this point but maybe later when blogger starts working again.

above: my already messy office and the finished main room/bedroom

above: the master bath (if only you could see exactly how bad this looked in process, I took a photo of the toilet because I have a photo of all the exposed drainage/sewage pipes that I decided not to share here).

Did I mention, my hubby rocks?!

April Fool

I have never been one for joking around on April Fool's Day so
this isn't a joking blog entry. It's just the same ole stuff!
Here's my 17 mo daughter strutting her stuff with the newest
outfit du jour. We got these leggings - called Baby Legs, go figure - at a Baby Loves D1sco event and I just started putting them
on her around the house since she prefers not to have clothes on but it's too cold in our state for that! She has the latest in diaper accessories and a t-shirt that her auntie got her that says "Little Irish Dude" (not sure why) and she felt an immediate need to put on her favorite coat. There's also one with her favorite purple hat but she doesn't look as trendy as she does in this one.

Besides my child turning 17 months old today, holy COW, we are unveiling the, hopefully working, heated tile floor in the bathroom today. M said if it doesn't work (after laying it down (can't test it) and putting the tile down) he will go to a bar for the rest of the afternoon. If it does work, he will take off all his clothes and lay on the heated floor drinking Guinness all day. So either way, it's a drinking day for him. ;) I promise in the next few days to take updated photos and show off all the space. I just wanted to bathroom to be more completed before I started showing off his work. We love it.

Last weekend I used the last bit of a gift certificate that I received for my birthday in July last year. I had a facial and a hand/foot treatment at an Aveda salon. Usually I don't do facials because my skin usually looks worse rather than better afterwards but I thought I'd try something different. It was almost as relaxing as the 1.5 hour massage I had the week before (also on the gc). But now I'm out of the gift cert and I won't be doing that again any time soon! I think for my next birthday (the big 4-0h) I'd rather have sessions with my personal trainer. Or maybe a long weekend here. Again, a little more than I'd spend on myself but if someone wants to give it to me...... I'll take it!