Random Thoughts

What is it about the middle of the week that makes you want to do a random, catch all post? Well, here are my hump day thoughts...

- Miss A and I were out running errands and had to make a special stop at Braum's for milk. (Side note - there was a little Twitter discussion the other day about Braum's... If you don't have you in your city, I am sorry.) Anyway, whenever I buy milk, I always poke around and look at the expiration dates. You can always find a range of expiration dates and I always buy the ones with the longer expiration date. Granted, we usually go through 2 gallons of milk every couple of days, I just feel like this way it is fresher, longer. I am not the only one that does this - right?

- For the past two weeks, Miss A has been sleeping in her big girl room. She loves everything about the room, including her new, big girl bed. But, now that she is out of the crib, she has way more freedom when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning. Yesterday, she was in our room around 6:30... normally, she sleeps in until at least 7:30. She and I had a little chat about not getting out of bed until Mr.Sun wakes up for the day. If Mr.Sun is still sleeping and in bed, then so should you. So, this am she woke up before Mr.Sun, but just decided to sit at the bottom of the stairs until she could come into our room. The Mr. found he around 7:30 - I am not sure how long she had been sitting there, but I thought it was cute how she had listened to me the day before and was waiting to come wake up Mommy!

- I've tweeted or blogged about this family a couple of times - Jamesie beats the tumor. Kara and I are friends and she is in our Sunday School Class at church. Our class collected giraffes in memory of James and this past Sunday we tagged all of the giraffe stuff to get ready for donation. All of these giraffes are going to be donated to Children's Medical Center Dallas and they will be distributed to kids that are admitted for any length of time. I know this will make many, many people smile at a time they probably need it the most.

- As if I need one more project to complete before this baby comes, I have the bug to refinish another piece of furniture. We have this big, wooden storage 'thing' up in our game room and I think it would look perfect painted this rich shade of turquoise. Now, who wants to come help me? :)


- I remember this stage of pregnancy from the last time... you are sick of the clothes in your current closet. You longingly look at non-maternity clothing and start counting down the days until you can wear something normal. But, then you are faced with the kicker of wearing a crazy size, needing it to be nursing accessible and not wanting to spend a fortune on your temporary post-baby clothing. These couple of blouses look like they will be perfect for a post-baby body.

- And yes, I made a special early morning trip to Target yesterday. I picked up this cardigan for Miss A and I got the matching flats and infinity scarf. I am crazy and sometimes like to coordinate what A and I wear.

Hey Good Lookin', What Ya' Got Cookin

Over Labor Day weekend we had some friends over and decided to have an assortment of panini sandwiches for dinner. I gathered the ingredients for one sandwich and our friends brought the stuff for a different type of sandwich. (This would be such a fun idea for a larger party - multiple panini stations setup with various ingredients....)

The two different types of sandwiches were:

Prosciutto, raspberry jam and Boursin on sourdough bread


Rotisserie chicken, pesto and monterey jack cheese on sourdough bread

Both were tasty, but the raspberry jam one is what had everyone asking for seconds.


Next time, I think we should made a dessert panini - Banana slices and Nutella on challah bread. Yum.

Bambi does Dallas

Growing up, my brothers were always rescuing stray animals. Dogs and cats were the norm, but they would also rescue birds, squirrels, ducks, etc. My parents probably had the animal rescue organizations phone number on speed dial. And our backyard --- a graveyard of random animals. Family pets, as well as the random rescue animal all ended up receiving a proper backyard burial. Keep in mind, we lived in the middle of the city, not the country.

So, given my childhood, my evening last night seemed pretty normal.

Miss A and the Mr. were on an evening walk and all of a sudden a baby deer appears from inbetween 2 houses and starts to follow them. Keep in mind, we do not live by an wooded area or in the country ... we are in the middle of Dallas. The only non-domestic animal I have ever seen roaming our neighborhood is the stray bunny or dirty possum. Never, ever a deer.

Mr. calls me outside and this little baby deer is just hanging out in our yard. Not trying to run away, not spooked by us and definately not scared of the 2 year old that is directly on its level. So, we do what anyone with a deer in their frontyard would do - take pictures! We thought it was going to run away any minute, but it just stands by us and does not show any signs of running away.

By this point, I was worried that when the baby deer decided to leave our yard, it would get hit by a car. We decided to put it in our backyard and then tried to call a wild animal rescue group. The baby deer simply followed us as we walked back to the backyard and walked right through the open gate. It was the strangest thing. At this point, I start to think that maybe it is a family pet. But, a baby deer as a family pet?

By now, it is past 8 and every single animal organization we can think of is closed. Miss A is loving the fact that there is a "baby deer at our door!" Or, "the baby deer is drinking Jake's water!!" "Momma, look at the baby deer!!!" I knew that as long as baby Bambi was in our yard, there was no way of getting her in bed.

Finally, I ended up calling 311 and they put me in contact with the Department of Wildlife. They decided that as long as the baby was not injured, we should just open the gate and see if the deer would leave on its own. After a while, it did just that.

As I was putting Miss A to bed, she was still talking about the baby deer. She wanted to know if she could see it in the morning.... I had to think fast on this one, so I responded with "no, the baby has to go home to sleep with its Momma and Daddy." She was happy with this answer.

So, this morning as I am leaving the neighborhood, I was on the lookout for the baby or momma and I could not find anything.

Just a normal Wednesday night.

Hey, Stevie

I often joke around that Steve must be pretty annoyed with how his life has turned out.

He went from being the king of the house to having to live with a toddler that harasses/loves him and a wild dog that constantly annoys him. Actually, he is a very good natured cat and loves to be in the same room as Miss A and me. He loves to cuddle up next to you on the couch and is kinda protective of Miss A. And Miss A adores her Stevie. She is constantly loving on him, trying to pick him up and is always sharing her toys or snacks with him.

I started taking these pictures a couple months ago, documenting all of the ways Miss A 'loves' on Stevie. (His given name is Steve, but A calls him Stevie) None of these were staged.

"Stevie, want to wear my visor I made?"

"Stevie, time for tea."

"Stevie, it is sunny. Here are your sunglasses"

"Hey Stevie, want to sit with Elmo?"

"Steve, want to hide under my stool?" (He was not a fan of this one)

"Stevie, want to read?"

"Stevie, here is your juice"

"Stevie is like a baby!"

"Stevie, here is my butterfly hat"

"Stevie, are you hungry?"

"Look at my new flip flops Stevie!"

"Steve is wearing pretty earrings!"

And more earrings! She also tries to put bracelets on his tail.

"Steve, want some of my cereal?"

"Let me read to you Stevie."

"Stevie, lets play!"

"Stevie, want to read?"

Back to reality

Last week I was lounging with my feet in the sand...

And building sand castles with this sweet girl....

And eating dinner with this as my view.

Jamie the giraffe

I know a lot of people in the blog world were recently reading the story of this sweet little boy, James.

And I am sure you remember his love affair with giraffes.

Well, a baby girl giraffe was just born at the Dallas Zoo and the zoo is conducting a contest to name her. How special would it be for this baby giraffe to be named after James? Jamesie would be a perfect name, but since it is a girl giraffe, Jamie the giraffe is a better fit.

His mom and I are friends and I know this would mean the world to her if you would take the time to complete this form. Jamie the giraffe was born just a couple of days after James passed away.

Please help us get this giraffe unofficially named after James. If you can please complete the form below, suggesting Jamie as the new name. If you want to just email the completed form to me, I can then mail them into the Dallas Zoo. mrspreppy@gmail.com

The online form is located here, entries will be collected until August 21.

Mickey color wheel

We are in the middle of working of Miss A's big girl room, therefore we are making lots and lots of trips to Home Depot. Each and every time we go, Miss A grabs a handful of 'Mickey colors.' Disney has a line of Behr paint at Home Depot and some of the color chips have brightly colored Mickey faces on them. They are pretty cute and they definitely get me to stop and look at the Disney paint whereas I would normally completely bypass these colors and head directly to the Martha Stewart colors.


I decided to make some cute color flash cards out of these chips, versus having them scattered all over the house. Miss A knows almost all of her colors, but a little extra practice never hurt anyone.

I wrote the color of Mickey's face on the back of the color chip using that color Sharpie.

And then punched a hole in the corner and placed all of them on a metal ring.

Now, Miss A can play with her Mickey colors while working on her colors!

27 Weeks

Seeing as I am in the final stretch of this pregnancy, I should probably do a little update.

Right now, I am 27 weeks. I can never remember my exact number of weeks/days, so I use this handly little app on my phone to help me out. If you are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant, get this app.

We are keeping the gender a surprise. We did this with Miss A, and thought it was fun.... so we are doing it again. According to BabyCenter, #2 is a girl, yet according to TheBump, #2 is a boy. In my opinion, that hardest part about not finding out the gender is picking out 2 good names. And regarding names, we have a short list of girl names and we are still discussing a boy name.

Overall, I am feeling good. There are the standard pregnancy symptoms that I am experiencing, but nothing too major. Some symptoms are hitting me a little earlier this time, versus with Miss A, but that is normal. By the end of the day, I am physically beat. I have always been very physical mom - meaning, I am on the ground playing with Miss A, tossing her into the air, playing with her in the sprinklers at the pool, throwing her around the pool, etc. I have not really slowed down on any of those things that I do with her, so as long as I am physically able to give her an airplane ride through the air or let her ride on my shoulders, I am going to do it. This just means that I collapse on the couch or bed at the end of the day.

As far as the summer heat, well I know it is August and I live in Dallas... so it is going to be H O T. I am not shocked by this weather nor am I surprised that we are breaking heat records all the time. Actually, I am surprised that I am not hating the heat that much. Miss A and I are outside for a couple of hours everyday, and as long as we are at the pool I am ok. If I am going to be this big, I might as well have a good tan.

I have always heard that you show earlier and can get larger with each of your pregnancies. I can vouch for that. I think I was in maternity jeans 5 minutes after getting a positive pregnancy test. Here is a picture I took a couple of days ago.