calling in sick

My computer is very sick right now. I think it may have caught a bad virus, and everytime I use it I think I make it worse. We're going to the computer doctor on Monday, so hopefully it will be good as new soon. In the mean time I am trying to keep my use of it to a minimum. Seeing as how I never backed up my photos I am in great fear of losing them, should the computer take a fatal crash.
I do go in to work tonight, and if it's slow, as I am expecting it to be, I will be catching up on my bloglines, otherwise I'll catch up with ya'll sometime next week!

Bath-time pictures

The other day I took some pictures of Anthony in the tub and I love how they turned out. I decided to get some of them printed and frame them for my bathroom wall. I just ordered 4 8x8 picture frames and now I have to decide which 4 I like the best. It's so hard to decide, so tell me which 4 do you like the best?

A

B

C

D

E

F
G
And here he is all clean...Playing on his eggplant.

finally...

When we bought our first flat screen TV 2 1/2 years ago they wanted to charge us $200 or something like that to install it for us on the wall and hide the wires. Todd insisted that he could do that himself. But for 2 1/2 years he has not gotten around to doing it, despite my occasional nagging about it.
Well today was the day, for some reason, he decided to fix it. It didn't even take him that long to do. Had I known he could actually do it, I would have nagged a lot more frequently.
Before picture: After picture:

So much better, don't you think? Although now the wall looks a little bare, I think I'll have to fix that.

Anyone else ever had to wait that long to get a job done?

PS I have a whole week off work (not by choice, there just aren't any shifts to pick up) so I plan to do some blogging this week. I have taken a ton of cute pictures recently of Anthony I want to share too.

Anthony at the Detroit Auto Show

Every year since my sister Natalie started dating Adam she goes to the Detroit Auto Show with his whole family. They make an event out of it, they stay for a long time at the show, checking out all the cars, and then all go out to eat Mexican food. This year Todd and I are thinking about getting an SUV, so we decided to drive over and go to the auto show with them. What better way to check out all your options in the middle of winter and stay warm doing it?
I was a little worried how Anthony would do staying up so late, I had told Natalie I was thinking about leaving him behind to stay with his Grandma and Grandpa, but she seemed disappointed that he wouldn't be coming, so I decided to bring him along. We got to the Auto Show around 6:30pm and before the group split up we made plans to meet back up to leave for the restaurant at 9:30. All I could think was Oh boy, Anthony's bedtime is 8pm, this should be interesting. I must say though, he was a very good little boy, in fact I think he really loved the auto show. He didn't last 15 minutes in his stroller and he wanted out. Every SUV we looked at he wanted to get inside and check it out. As soon as the car door was opened he was leaning over reaching for it to let us know he wanted in.
Here are a few pictures I took:

I started off getting into the cars with him.But really he just wanted to get in and check it out all by himself.He didn't just want to sit in them, he wanted to drive them too.

Here he's checking out the Mini Cooper. While he was in there a police officer came up to the window and asked to see his drivers license. It was pretty funny. Natalie got a good picture of Tony and the cop, but I missed it.

He even helped push his own stroller. And even though he didn't sit in it, it wasn't a total waste to have. We had that thing piled up with all our stuff.

He was all smiles the whole time.

Even though I'm pretty sure he was getting tired.

Anthony was also a hit with all the ladies working the show. Seemed like every time I turned around some pretty girl was talking to him.

Anthony and I thought this would be a really cool farm truck for Todd. It even has a nice big backseat for the two car seats.

He wanted an up close look at the Audi's. He has good taste in cars already.

Yes, I let him crawl on the floor. Don't judge me. He was being good, and the carpet looked pretty clean.

Auntie NayNay giving him a piggy back ride.

Here he is again in the mini cooper.
And this is the SUV that I liked the best. The Volvo XC90

This SUV was awesome, along with all the luxuries you expect with a fully loaded SUV it also had a Navigation system, rear entertainment DVD with two lcd screens behind both front seat headrests, and a refrigerator in the center console between the two front seats. How cool is that? You know for milk or yogurt for the kid(s), or diet coke for me. Oh and it also got the #1 safety award something or other too. Look how roomy it is inside, I really want this SUV!
My second choice was the Audi Q7, but I didn't get any pictures of it.

Here is Anthony all tuckered out as we headed into the restaurant around 10pm to eat dinner.
Here he is with his cousin-in-law, Leah. They didn't get to hang out and play much, but I think they would have had a lot of fun together if they had.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Anthony has always liked our dog, our dog, however, runs whenever Anthony comes towards him. The other day, Anthony finally found a way to bond with, and even touch Brewster, and really it helps him out tremendously because he doesn't like to eat, and Brewster does. I see a big problem with meal time in the future because of this. I already have to watch him while he eats, or else I don't know who ate the food, Brewster, or Anthony, but for now, it's cute.

Nobody tell Anthony that he is being used. He really thinks Brewster likes him now.

Not a juror this time!

Well after working all night and hopeful for the big predicted blizzard hourly weather checks, I still had to go to the courthouse this am for jury duty. I remembered from last time (when I had to throw out a perfectly good latte from Starbucks) that you can't bring coffee (or any drink for that matter) into the courthouse. What I didn't remember is that you can't bring cell phones in either. I told the security guy that maybe they should put that on the jury hotline for those of us who don't regularly frequent courthouses. He said "well there is a sign right there!" Um, a lot of good it does me inside the courthouse! Anyway, the roads were really slick and it took me 30 minutes to go the 9 mile trip, so I arrived 15 minutes late, and therefore of course had to park really far away. At any rate, I was none too happy to have to go back out in the cold, snowy, windy elements, all the way across the big parking lot to return my cell phone to my car.
All in all I ended up being 30 minutes late which turned out to be no biggie, sat in the courtroom for 2 hours while they selected and questioned about 25 jurors before they selected the final 14 jurors, and then the rest of us were dismissed. So thankfully I got to leave and was home and in bed by noon. Oh and $23.50 richer.

Jury Duty

I can't believe I got it again! Seems like I just had it, but really it was more like 3 years ago. Anyhow, I am supposed to work tonight and my panel got called for tomorrow. So I get to work all night tonight and then report for jury duty at 8am. doesn't that sound like fun.
I'm hoping it snows tonight more than the expected 3-6 inches and they will cancel due to weather since my back up plan of having someone come in for me the second half of my shift didn't work out.

They do jury duty oddly in my county. At least I think they do. Instead of getting a day of jury duty, you have to be on call for jury duty for a whole week (it used to be a month). So it isn't like I can just take the week off work just in case I get called in. And because I am "prn" at my job, I don't get paid either. So its a double "this sucks" kinda thing.

So everyone cross your fingers for lots and lots of snow tonight!

Making progress (13 month update)

Anthony at 13 months This post may be boring to some, but I'm writing this mostly for my own benefit. I'm afraid I might forget these things if I don't write them down somewhere, so the blog it is. If you don't want to read it at least scroll to the end for some cute pictures.

EATING

Anthony is getting better and better every day at the whole eating thing. His really likes nutrigrain bars which are surprisingly healthy, they even have fiber and real fruit filling (so they say). Sadly he gets about 2-3 bars a day, cause it's a sure bet he'll eat it and sometimes (most-times) I take the easy route. Fruit and yogurt are pretty safe bets too.
PB&J's, Noodles, and mac and cheese are iffy still, but occasionally he'll eat them, just depends on his mood. Gold fish and crackers are immediately thrown on the floor for Brewster who is always hanging out by the high chair at meal time eagerly waiting to catch any dropped/thrown food.
He is also starting to let me mix his bottles half and half with milk and formula. Every once in a while he will drink straight milk, but most times I still have to mix it, and it still has to be in a bottle. He refuses to drink milk out of a sippy cup. However he will drink juice just fine out of a sippy cup.
His all time favorite food is ice cream. He will never refuse it and if he sees you eating it he will ask for it by smacking his lips at you. Tonight we went to a Notre Dame basketball game with Anthony and he was on my lap looking at the people behind me. Pretty soon he started trying to climb over my shoulder to get to them. I turned around to see what was causing him to want to go to a stranger. Turns out these guys were eating ice cream. Anthony was trying so hard to get to them, then he started smacking his lips and spit the pacifier out. He was making such a scene, everyone was laughing. The guy started to feel bad, he even said he wished he had another spoon so he could share. Finally Anthony started crying he wanted it so bad, so we had to send Grandpa to the concession stand to buy him his own, and then he was happy again.

PLAYING

Anthony plays so well these days. He is getting smarter with the toys and knows what to do with them. It's fun to watch him figure stuff out. He is also a lot better at playing by himself, which is really nice for us. Not that we don't like playing with him, but it's nice to see him entertaining himself once in a while.

SLEEPING

Still not sleeping through the night every night. Usually about 50% of the time he wakes up around 4am for a bottle. The rest of the time he sleeps right through till morning. Bedtime is usually around 8pm and his wake up time is anywhere from 7:30-9am depending on my luck.

NAPPING

He still takes 2 naps a day most days, but I think he is getting closer to just needing/wanting 1 nap a day. Mommy and Daddy still desperately want him taking 2 naps a day, but usually it just ends up making bedtime more difficult if he gets that second nap. So now days we usually only give him the second nap if the first one was really short or if we plan on keeping him up later that night.

WALKING

Not happening yet, but we're not worried. He walks holding on to stuff, and can climb on the furniture without much difficulty. He is just starting to let go while standing to see if he will fall or not. He usually quickly sits down shortly after letting go, but this testing out his balance is new, and a sign of progress I'm sure.

TALKING

He has been saying ma-ma-ma-ma-ma and da-da-da-da-da for a while now, but I think he is finally starting to use them in the correct context. This morning when he woke up I went in his room and he said "ma-ma". It made my day, he is just so sweet. We think he is also saying ball, but it sounds more like "ba". He says it when he's playing with balls so we just asume that's what he is trying to say.

And now for a few pictures...

Here he is walking around with the cleaning ladys bucket on wheels.

He loves Brewster, unfortunately the feeling isn't mutual and usually Brewster runs away from him. Which is probably just as well. Little dogs don't have the best track record with little kids.

Here he is playing with his new play tent we got him for his birthday. He really loves it, and even though I thought it was a little pricey when we got it, it's turning out to be worth every dollar, cause he plays with it every day.

Oh and one more thing, he has 6 teeth, 4 on top and 2 on the bottom.

more pictures

And now I'm on a roll with the whole slide show thing. Okay, truthfully Francie made this one and posted it on her blog. But I stole it to put on mine cause she has some cute pics of Tony on it that I don't have on my camera.

Our Great Aunt Kate is in the hospital recovering from a stroke. Thankfully she is improving everyday. Francie, Tony and I went up to visit her this evening and these are a few pictures we took. Then Francie came over to my house and took some more pictures of him just before bedtime. For some reason he gets really happy and sweet just before bedtime. Almost as if he is trying to convince me to let him stay up later and play some more.

Kristen's 12th birthday celebration

Yay, I finally got it (the slide show) figured out. Although now that the birthday was 3 days ago, the desire to write about it is gone, but since I already made the slide show, I'll still share it. My sister wrote a sweet birthday post about her on her blog, so I'll just direct you there.