Party. My Bed. 3 am. BYOM

That's right - Bring Your Own Mouse. It's true - there's a mouse in the house. More specifically - a mouse in the bedroom that I am sleeping in. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but nonetheless, there's a MOUSE. I hate mice. Mice terrify me. Forget the fact that I am 1,000 times taller and, um *more* than triple the mouses weight. Or even that "he is more scared of you than you are of him."
Try telling that to my grade four teacher. Her daughter and I were very close friends, so I was often over at their house. I have a very vivid memory of said teacher standing on a chair in their kitchen screaming and flapping her arms because a mouse ran by. I think she imparted on me a fear for these little creatures. I don't think I have ever flapped my arms over a mouse, but I have had my share of screaming over these creatures and have woken a good number of people up because of it.
Like early this morning ... Judah and I are sleeping in my sisters room and when this now infamous mouse started his racket I awoke right away, turned on the light, and woke my sister up. We made noise, threw coat hangers and flashed the light several times, all in an attempt to scare him away. Didn't work. I wouldn't budge out of bed so my sister (yup, *younger* sister) got up and started the radio and turned the dehumidifier on so that it would run all night long. Brave girl. It did the trick though and the little mouse did not bother us again.

Judah and the things he's been up to...

Monster Baby

Aunt Essie and Judah

I have to keep reminding myself that there really was a time when my baby was a charming, sweet, loveable baby. One that I was proud of, and would happily claim as my own. I don't know where that baby went to, or why he disappeared ... he has been replaced with this monster that I would rather have not ever met. This monster wants to eat around the clock, cries for no apparent reason and wants to be held all of the time - which wouldn't be so bad considering he's got his doting grandparents and uncles and aunt here, but he wants to be held by ME all the time. If he is teething he picked a rather bad time to decide to do that... if he isn't teething than I haven't a clue why he is acting this way but I do hope Prince Charming returns soon and Royal Pain goes away!

Today Judah is exactly 5 months old. Even more exciting than that though is that I am 22 today! Happy Birthday to me! And to Sarah Coston- and Jonathan Ip! I can't have a birthday without thinking about my birthday buddies, even though I haven't seen Jonathan in YEARS. He gets thought about every June 27th!
So anyways, mum was going to do a birthday dinner for me, but instead I have opted to go out to dinner with the bride and groom to be. Craig arrived in Toronto last night (it was suppose to have been Monday night ... but four stitches later he flew in Tuesday night.) so tonight he'll get to meet the Monster. Hopefully Judah will put on some charms and try to win his Uncle Craig's heart!
We are going to go out to a Greek place and then find a coffee shop with big enough tables that we can play Settlers of Catan on!

The Strawberry Festival is this weekend - I haven't been to it in years so I am rather excited about it! I am attempting to get Judah registered to be in the Cutest Baby Contest. I may be too late to register... Spencer was going to find out today! It would be fun to take my sweet, happy baby to the festival, if said baby decides to make an appearance before then!

I got to Nintendo Wii today with Ford, the boy my mum babysits.
SO much fun!! I want to get one for us now =)

Bridal Shower

Here are some 'safe' pictures from Amanda's shower Sunday night!

The Bride to be opening her gifts


Scaring her younger sister
Judah got scared too!

One of the games we played was "Wedding Day Makeovers" Three of us were blind folded and had to do entire makeovers on the three other girls - including hair! We had so much fun that when the first three got their makeup done they did the makeup 'artists' makeup too. The results were rather funny!!


The six of us with our blind makeovers.

These are my 'adopted' grandparents, making them Judah's great-grandparents! We stopped in to see them in Buffalo on our way up to my parents.

We're Up Here!

What should have been an easy 18 hour drive up to my parents turned into a 32 hour adventure. Up until the border everything went well - no major traffic issues, Judah was content for the most part, we were making good time ... then shortly into Ontario I told Spencer I *needed* a Tim Horton's coffee. We pulled into a Timmy's and Spencer said the brakes weren't working well at the exact same time the light started blinking on the dashboard saying the brake fluids were low.
Spencer checked, and sure enough, we were leaking brake fluid. He let the car sit for a moment to see how much leaked, and then tried using them and they were totally shot!!
So there we were - two tired adults and one hungry baby at 11:30 at night sitting in a car without brakes.
I called our handy dandy road side assistance to see if we were covered in Canada, and sure enough we are! They said that they would send a tow truck, but that it was only able to take one adult with the vehicle. It is so neat to see how God was caring for us through this - it just so happened that in the Tim Horton's plaza was an Inn! So Spencer ended up going with the tow truck driver and sleeping in the car in the parking lot of the car repair shop and Judah and I spent the night in the Inn - checking in at 2 in the morning. Hotels should seriously consider pro-rating rooms!
Spencer was a little bitter about having to spend the night in the car while I got to sleep in a cozy bed with pillows, but he was a good sport about it and, other than Paul, I can't imagine having gone through that experience with anyone else!! The car repair dudes were able to look at the car as soon as the garage opened in the morning and the problem was resolved with $56.99 - a lot less than I had feared!


A few travel tips for road trips:
- Take your own coffee cup with you. Stop at gas stations to refill your own cup and you will save lots of money! Some places have free refills, others charge about half of what it would cost if you used their cup - either way it's lots cheaper! And gas stations have great coffee! Especially BP with their Bean Cafe ... or something like that.

- Invest in a Power Inverter for your car. Paul bought me a Black & Decker one for my birthday and it has been so very handy - from keeping my laptop charged to running the pump so I can pump milk for Judah rather than stopping and nursing him ... the inverter has been well used!

- Keep garbage bags in the car. Somehow garbage just piles up when you're driving along! It's ever so handy to have an endless supply of garbage bags to keep on top of the junk!

- Make sure you have lots of change on you - toll roads pop up all over!

- Travel with someone who has a good sense of humor, sees the silver lining on every cloud and that you wouldn't mind being locked in an 8 x 5 foot cell with for a few hours... because if you run into car problems and you need to wait for assistance that is exactly what will happen.

- If you're traveling with a baby don't even bother dressing him! He will puke or poop on whatever you dress him in. If he's naked somehow he doesn't find it as fun to do those things on his bare skin.

- Another baby tip - if he is naked (well, with a diaper!) or not make sure to put something under his bum in the car seat so that when he does an explosive poop - or two - the mess is a little more manageable. Even better? Use a cloth you don't care about and toss the whole stinky mess. In one of those handy garbage bags you've stashed in your car.

Life

Yesterday Spen and I went to the canal. I absolutely love the canal!! It is so very beautiful!

Judah had a doctors appointment yesterday, and his doctor was just thrilled with how he is doing. He weighs 13 pounds and is in the 10th percentile for weight, but that's what he was when he was born, so she said he is doing great! He is 25 1/2 inches long, and she said he is really strong and somethings he does (like standing at the couch on his own) are things that six month olds are doing (he is 4 1/2 months).

He had his first immunizations yesterday. When I told the nurse that I wanted him to get his shots, and that he'd not yet had any you would think I had told her I abused my baby. And then I told her we weren't getting all of the recommended vaccinations, just three of them she went on and on about how dangerous it can be to not give them all. I was proud of myself, because I looked her straight in the eye and said "This is my child, and I have researched my decision and you are not going to change my mind." Judah's doctor was actually quite pleased with the fact that we'd decided to wait so long to give him the vaccinations and that we were only doing some of them, so I am glad we have her on our side!!

Tomorrow Judah, Spencer and I are heading up north! It is going to be a long drive - somewhere around the 18 hour mark! I am really looking forward to the trip, I love long car rides!! And so does Spencer, so he is good company for the trip. Hopefully Judah will love it too!

Since I am going to be gone over my birthday Paul decided to celebrate it last night. Spencer agreed to babysit Judah, so we headed out to eat. We wanted to go to this Mediterranean restaurant, but when we got out there we discovered it had recently closed down! Bummer. I so wanted Mediterranean food! We wound up going to Macaroni Grill though, and it was rather delicious! We could order just one dish and have enough food for the two of us... but for some reason we never learn, and ended up coming home with an abundance of food!
I got to open some of my birthday presents early - Paul got me an Ipod!! Except that it's still in the mail on the way here - hopefully it comes today! He got me accessories to go with it, so that's what I got to open yesterday!

Here are some pictures of Spen and Judah at the canal yesterday, and a couple of me and Judah.

Uncle Spenny is here!

Last night my brother Spencer flew in! Paul just happened to be working in the city that Spen was flying into, so I picked Paul up when work was over and we went out for supper and then just drove around a bit waiting for the plane to land.
We got some terrific Chinese food! And we had enough left over that Spencer could have his fill of it too!
On the drive back to the apartment Spencer said "You know, I heard babies stare at attractive people ... I must be pretty good looking because James* hasn't taken his eyes of me." He is so full of himself. He doesn't need his nephew staring at him to make him feel any more confident of his good looks!!

*About the James thing - Judah's full name is Judah Spencer James. Spen decided he doesn't like the name Judah. And since he is Spencer he can't call his nephew that. So he refers to him as James. It's pretty annoying, but he is pretty consistent with it! If it continues up until Judah can talk than Judah will refer to his Uncle by his middle name - Kelvin.

Happy Father's Day!

Tomorrow and Sunday are both busy days, so for fear of forgetting to do this, I am posting this Father's day tribute to Paul from Judah (Judah worked hard on it ... =)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

How Square Can You Go?

Shelly from THIS ELECTIVE LIFE had a brilliant idea. She wants to crochet squares that can be stitched together to make afghans for children with cancer. Great idea, eh? But there's a problem! She needs YOUR HELP! She wants to make enough afghans to give one to each child at CAMP SANGUINITY which would be 6,720 squares. I can't crochet anything, let alone a perfectly square object! But if you would like to help with this project check out the POST WITH ALL THE DETAILS and THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE SQUARES.

Last evening Judah and I were invited to the Jewish Community Center where the Friendship Caravan had a dinner and show. We got to eat Israeli food (yum yum! Though those from Israel thought it was gross! All those who had never lived in Israel loved it!) After dinner 10 scouts - 5 guys and 5 girls ages 16 and 17 - did some dancing and singing for us. It was so much fun!! Paul was away on an overnight mission, so it was especially nice to get out of the apartment and be near other human beings that could actually talk to me!

Judah has started shrieking and it drives me insane. It's happy shrieking, so it's not like I can be totally upset when he does it, but my goodness ... he sounds like a wet cat in a potato sack being tossed around. I managed to capture in on movie, so soon I will upload the shrieks and you can enjoy them too!

Thursday Thirteen #23

Who doesn't love FREE stuff? Here are thirteen free samples that you can get simply by filling in your name and address. Cool deal, eh?

1. KNORR SIDES a veggie with rice or pasta side dish.
2. PAMPERS diapers - you can get swaddlers and cruisers. Chose from size 1 - 4
3. PANTENE PRO-V haircare products
4. MAXXIMUM DOG OR CAT food
5. TAMPAX PEARL tampons
6. CONNECTIONS GREETING CARD - thank you or thinking of you
7. GAS -X STRIPS - for gas relief
8. GOODY'S HEADACHE POWDER - in cool orange flavor
9. TENA BLADDER CONTROL PADS
10. CLOROX DISINFECTING WIPES
11. ACT II POPCORN scroll down to see the sample link!
12. DOVE ENERGY GLOW lotion
13. DOVE COOL MOISTURE SHAMPOO AND CONDITIONER
    

And since I am on a roll six bonus freebies!
DOVE DEODORANT
BOSE IN EAR HEADPHONE ACCESSORY
OLAY AGE DEFYING FOUNDATION AND LIP COLOR
CHOCOLATE COVERED SHREDDED WHEAT - enter the sweepstakes then click the "yes"box when it asks if you want a sample
HEALTH BAR - click on FREE SAMPLES, fill out the form, then enter code 4000
GLUCERNA CEREAL - enter the code JOURNAL or HOUSE

Don't forget to vote for me today! CLICK HERE and then click on the "VOTE FOR JESSICA MORRIS" Thank you

Hot & Spicy

This is one of my favorite snack recipes - it is so easy and delicious! You can add more of the spices if you like things a little spicier!

Hot 'n' Spicy Nuts
1 egg white
3 cups mixed nuts (pecans, almonds, cashews, etc.)
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

1. Preheat oven to 250 F and grease cookie sheet

2. Beat egg white until foamy. Add the nuts, toss to coat.

3. Combine remaining ingredients in a medium bowl.

4. Mix nuts and spices together, tossing to coat well.

5. Spread nuts in a single layer on greased baking sheet

6. Bake for 1 hour, stirring once

7. Cool slightly and break apart. Cool completely and store in an air tight container for up to two weeks.

Life Right Now

Today was 'one of those days.' Ya know, the ones where you wonder why on earth did I bother to even get out of bed??
I should have clued in when I woke up and went to brush my teeth and the water was shut off - yuck! No clean teeth for me this morning.
Then I decided to drive on base and walk that track. I had just started on my walk when the thunder starts rumbling and little rain drops start falling. I only got to finish 1 mile of the 6 I had intended (and desperately needed!) to do. As disappointed as I was at not being able to finish the walk I was quite happy when the rain POURED down a minute AFTER I had gotten the stroller, baby and self into the car! Perfect timing!
Since I'd rushed the mile I was sweaty and yucky - and desperately looking forward to a shower. But, as my life would be, the water was STILL out when I got home! And remained out for the majority of the day leaving all the laundry and dishes just sitting around with nothing to do.

Judah Movies Again!

Judah when he's suppose to be napping! He LOVES his hands by his face!



Judah standing with support from only the couch!

Blog for a Year

I am currently in EIGHT place!! Hurray!! I am 61 votes away from seventh place ... and still THOUSANDS away from first!! Still haven't figured out how the blog in place #1 got there, but it IS possible for me to get up there! EVERY single vote counts so THANK YOU so much for yours!!

Batch Cooking

In attempt to be better organized I decided that I would make a large batch of dry pancake mix - so when I want homemade pancakes all I need to do is add some of the dry mix, water, eggs and oil and *presto* pancakes! The mix worked well, except that the powdered milk I bought for the mix was buttermilk powder, and I discovered the hard way that I am not a fan of buttermilk pancakes!!
Since I have such a large amount of the pancake mix I didn't want to waste it, so I played around with a few things and discovered that vanilla flavoring mixed in with the liquids makes it tastes great!!

We don't have much extra space in our freezer so doing batch cooking for the freezer is not an option, but I do want to do more dry mix things in large quantities - does anyone have any tried and true recipes for dry mixes?

I got the pancake recipe from the cookbook MORE WITH LESS - it is a Mennonite cookbook and I just love it SO much! Very simple, but good, recipes!
That is probably my favorite cookbook.
What is your favorite cookbook and why?

SGT Morris

This picture is two years old - Paul doesn't even wear this uniform anymore, he's got the new one. But I don't have any pictures of him in the new one. BUT that doesn't matter - a man in uniform is a man in uniform, no matter how recent the uniform may be =) And there's not much better looking than a man in uniform!

But I didn't post this picture to ramble on about the uniform. Paul found out today that he was promoted to SGT! Yay!

~I am so proud of you babe! Congrats!~

Back at the Canal

Judah and I took Paul to the canal yesterday. Somehow I missed this sign last time I was there, but it made me laugh so I had to get a picture - the red arrowed one is my favorite =)


Isn't this just gorgeous?? We have a guest room if you want to come visit and see all the beautiful scenery!

Paul walking down the path


Judah and me

A picture Paul took

Dippin' Dots

Yum! When we lived in Oklahoma we had a Dippin' Dots right by our house and just yesterday we discovered one right by us here!! So of course we had to try it out! It wasn't as enjoyable as it should have been, due to the fact that I had four fillings this week! But it was still good! It is a different experience - not really comparable to ice cream! It's a little expensive - the "medium" size bowl (below) is $3.50, but it is fun to try!!

Coke Commercials

These are commercials we saw at the World of Coca Cola

Photo Hunters - shoes

I haven't been participating in any memes for the last little while - I miss doing them! So hopefully this is the start of me committing myself to them again! Todays theme is shoes. Yesterday I just bought a new pair of shoes, so I thought I would show that pair a little love and post them online. Actually, I want to know if you think I am insane for buying them. Paul wanted me to own a pair of stilettos, and I was in need of a black, open toed pair of shoes for the wedding I am in this summer - so I thought I would be smart and combine all that into one pair of shoes (plus, they were on sale!) So, what do you think? Nice shoe? Or return to the store and try again?

Get the code and join the Blogroll here!
View More Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt Participants

Don't forget to vote for me today! CLICK HERE and then click on the "VOTE FOR JESSICA MORRIS" Thank you

Hot stuff

It is so unbelievably hot here!! After all the excitement with the maintenance men this morning the air conditioning STILL does not work! It is 92 F INSIDE our apartment! We are two degrees hotter inside than it is outside. It is almost 10pm - I don't see it cooling down too much through the night!
Since the maintenance men couldn't fix the unit they sent in an actual AC man this afternoon - he said that a certain part is broken and he can't replace it until MONDAY - so we will be living in this insane heat until then!! It won't be good for our chequeing account as this means I will be spending lots of time out of the house in air conditioned stores!
It is so hot I can't even stand to nurse Judah - our bodies just stick together. Yuck! So we fill the bath tub with all cold water, I sit in there and hold him, and he eats in the cold water =)

This evening I spent a good three hours at the mall to get away from these heat ... there were so many sales! I just adore a good sale. I bought Judah three things from Gap Baby - a hoodie for $3 down from $20, a white dress shirt for $3 down from $25 and a dress jacket for $4 down from $30. I just love sales like that!

Thanks for the Warning!

Our maintenance men at the apartments here have this thing with warning you they're about to come work on your apartment. Our AC has been temperamental at best the last few days , so Paul left a message asking them to come look at it.

They showed up this morning while I was still asleep (granted, I slept in!) and I was awakened to them BELLOWING from the door "Maintenance! We're here to fix your AC. MAINTENANCE! Can we come in?"

Ok, so the embarrassing thing about this is that they KNEW I was in the apartment! Our bedroom door had been left open and the bed can be seen from the hallway and I was wearing ... not much. So they must have knocked, entered on their own, gone to the hallway SEEN ME, then went back to the door and hollered till I woke up.

I woke up, covered myself up, and closed the bedroom door, while telling them to come in and mumbling about being sick (which I wasn't, but it sounded like a good excuse for still being in bed!!)

There is something about this apartment and being walked in on ... just after I moved down here in January I had just gotten out of the shower and was sitting on our couch putting coca butter over my tummy and thighs (trying to avoid those stretch marks!) I was not wearing any clothes. Just a towel around my head. Suddenly our apartment door opens and this mid-twenty year old walked in with a dog! Except she walked in backwards so she didn't see us right away, and the dog had run in ahead, and was down our hallway. Paul and I sat on the couch with our mouths wide open. Ok, well my mouth was wide open! Paul was running down the hall trying to get the dog out. It all happened in slow motion. The woman turned, saw me, in all my naked, greasy pregnant glory. She looked around the apartment, recognized it as the wrong one, her eyes grew huge, she turned bright red, and started stammering about how she just started dog walking and she was new here and she hadn't meant to walk in here - all the while trying not to look at me, who was trying to use my tiny, very wet, hair towel to cover up my very big pregnant self.
As soon as she left Paul just cracked up laughing - he couldn't decide who was more embarrassed - me or her.
I think, to date, this is the most embarrassing story of my life!
I dare you - will you share yours?

Don't forget to vote for me today! CLICK HERE and then click on the "VOTE FOR JESSICA MORRIS" Thank you

Don't forget!! Eight - Midnight is when Sonic's is giving out their FREE root beer floats!

Paul and I just finished watching the coolest of movies (for anyone interested in adding to their Netflix queue!!) It is called 'The Lost Room." It is a rather complicated movie to describe but it is worth watching.

Thanks again for all the votes!! I am currently in tenth place! CLICK HERE to vote for me and then click on the "VOTE FOR JESSICA MORRIS"

Pain in the Teeth

I had a dentist appointment today and was given four fillings. It took them nearly two hours to complete and Judah just hung out enjoying whatever thoughts entertain his little mind. He was *so good* and made me so proud with how well behaved he was!!
But now I am at home in pain. I have never had many issues with teeth - in fact I have only ever had one filling and one wisdom tooth removed, so today was a rather traumatic day for my mouth! I still need to go back this summer to get another filling and a wisdom tooth removed. And *then* hopefully all my teeth drama will be over!

These are the times that I wish I lived closer to my family so that I could just drop Judah off and not worry about having to care for him! I am very grateful that he is so good natured, but it still isn't very fun to have to care for someone else when I just feel like curling up and sleeping till the pain goes away!!

Barefoot in Atlanta

Yesterday morning -bright and early I might add - we dropped Amanda off at the airport. We got a few hours of sleep in an IHOP parking lot, then went to explore Atlanta. I think it is the most beautiful city I have ever been in! I LOVED it!! The traffic was rather insane, which meant finding a parking spot was a challenge, but once we found a spot all was good.
If you ever have the option of going to Atlanta DO IT!! We started out going to the underground mall, which was pretty cool to see! We spent the rest of the day walking through the city exploring and enjoying the sights, tastes and sounds!


Judah hung out in his stroller most of the day.

In the 'Olympic Park' (or something like that) - it was a gorgeous park and had these cool fountains for people to play in!

A picture made of brick - kind of hard to see all the details! If you click on it to enlarge it you may be able to see it better.


This man is the coolest man!! His name is Copper and he is a construction worker. On the side he makes bracelets out of the scrap metal and wires he gets from his job. He sits in the park and sells them to whoever wants to buy them. He also sits and reads up on his constitutional rights - he gets harassed by the police a lot, so he keeps a book of his rights next to him to show whoever bothers him!! If you are ever in the city look for this man and buy something from him!!
He uses these supplies
To make these:

We ate at Ali Baba's - a Mediterranean cafe - for lunch. The food was amazing!! I recommend checking this place out too!! Their baklava was delicious!
We walked about ten blocks to get to the new World of Coca Cola. When we got there we saw that admission was $15/person! Yikes!! We'd thought we'd pay about that much for both of us to get in, so we were rather disappointed that we'd walked so far for nothing. But then we had the brilliant thought to inquire about military discount. They are temporarily offering FREE admission to members of the military! So that meant we only had to pay for me. Sweet!! We walked through and looked at the displays, watched a 4-D motion show, did some taste testing and watched some commercials from around the world for Coca Cola - we got some movies of those, which I will upload shortly.
The first room you walk into has TONS of adds for Coca Cola from different countries from over the years.

Our family with the Coca Cola bear!


They had a room devoted to tasting Coca Cola products!! YUMMY! Paul was smart and only tried the ones that looked good - but I tried every single drink in there! There were 54 different flavors from all different countries - mango tea, mint coke, melon coke, etc. You can drink as much as you want of whatever in there that you want! And then when you leave they give you a glass bottle of coke, bottled in Atlanta within the last few days.


When we were walking back to our car it started to POUR!! We managed to get under a covering for the worst of it, and hung out there until the rain calmed down a little - which is when we made a run for our car. Running in wet flip flops doesn't work so well, so I ran through Atlanta barefoot. Kind of icky, but oh well - it didn't kill me!
Some people were adventurous enough to brave the rains, we enjoyed watching them and taking pictures of them!