so different

When I was a kid many of my toys were made of wood, and that was normal.  The new normal is eco-friendly.  I knew that was true for adults, but I never really thought about eco-friendly things in the world of kids before.  Last night we went to Toys R Us and saw a whole bunch of toys made from recycled materials, and toys to get you in the mindset of recycling, etc.  The cutest was a kitchen playset complete with a mini recycling bin and a hook to hang your cloth shopping bag on.  So cute!  Of course Jeff said all the kitchens were too girly (going so far as to liken getting a neutral colored kitchen to getting a pink barbie car) and he would rather Liam only get a grill set, but that's another story.  Besides, I'm planning on teaching Liam to cook and bake so matter what either boy says.  So there.

I could not make this up if I tried

I was looking up free novels for my NOOK cause I'm thrifty that way, when I came across a book so awful I might just have to download so that I can make more fun of it.  The book is "Susan Slutt Solves the mystery".  This was part the actual description given:

"Porkerville is hosting a sleuthing convention, and all the great detectives are there: Fancy Few, the Baccardi Boys, the Boobsey Twins, the Dinah Girls...."

How do books like this even get published?  All I can say is "wow".  This the the winner of my new award.  The "Worst book of the week" award.  Congratulations!

where'd the baby go?

Umm, I totally just found Liam crawling out from under my bed.  Random.

Thank Heaven for little boys

Why haven't I posted in a while, you ask?  It's because Liam doesn't like to allow me spare time.  I really don't mind because he is the funniest kid I've ever met, but downtime is really awesome when I get it.  How does Liam keep me busy?  Well, for starters his top four front teeth all decided to pop out at the same time.  That was a super fun teething process.  Also, Liam realized that he is tall enough to stand up against the trash can and reach around in it.  This resulted in him eating/ sitting on (somehow) chicken bouillon powder.  He had the powder all over his face and butt, and when I changed his clothes the powder flew everywhere.  At the same time, he also grabbed orange peels and got rather peeved at me for reaching in his mouth and taking them out.  Then he managed to find the only cabinet I forgot to childproof (the china cabinet of course), but luckily didn't break anything.  Yay!  ALL of my cabinets are now childproofed.  He also likes to take anything he can (DVDs, toys, etc.) of of shelves and spread them out all over the floor.

So yes, Liam keeps me on my toes, but he giggles at the drop of a hat, says "Dada" all the time, and is all around the smartest, cutest little kid I have ever known.  Man, I am so biased.  And also right.

Normally he makes an even bigger mess

I'm baaack!

So between us not having internet for like a month (ugh, right?) and Christmas being completely insane, I have not posted in soooo long.  Since today is Christmas Eve, I have a cute Christmas post.  This is an example of how totally adorable Jeff is.  I currently have two rolls of wrapping paper in the house.  One Christmas, one birthday.  I had them both out because I had a few December birthday gifts to wrap.  Jeff wrapped a Christmas present for me and didn't look at the paper.  He just assumed both rolls were Christmas themed.  Oops.

But he fixed it.

Now it says "Happy Birthday Jesus".  

why do I feel so guilty?

I caved.  Jeff was totally in the mood to watch Santa Claus the movie.  He always makes fun of me because I've never seen it.  So I agreed.  I have now officially watched a Christmas movie this season.  Before Thanksgiving.  So I'm feeling like a crazy person.  And now I really want to decorate my house all Christmas-y and break out the Christmas music.  And bake gingerbread.  Well, I will probably bake regardless... Off to the kitchen I go!

ahh, the joys of work

Working in retail near the holiday season is always "special".  The hours, the merchandise, and the customers all get weirder.  Last night I was stupid enough to agree to work from 9pm to 6am.  I seriously have not stayed up that long straight since college.  Even with Liam I can nap in the middle.  I dressed 16 mannequins in varying degrees of hoochy-mamma-ness.  In the last 31 hours I have slept for 3 of them.  Ouch.  Also, my store decided to go crazy decorating wise because last year the decorations were pitiful and this year they decided to make up for it by going off the deep end.  My store seriously set aside like a million hours of budget to decorate.  And what do our decorations look like you ask?  Yarn.  Lots and lots of hideous shades of neon yarn.  Apparently yarn bombing is super cool now so we have to wrap EVERYTHING in freaking yarn.  We seriously were given at least 50 balls of it for decorating purposes.  The other night I had a 5 hour shift in which I wrapped large numbers in yarn and made snowflakes and mountains of yarn on giant peg boards.  Seriously.  I would like to conclude this by showing off possibly the worst three items of children's apparel ever.

the colors are even brighter in person and the texture of the dress feels like a cross between a shower curtain and a raincoat

did someone say pinata?

I know it doesn't seem possible, but these are shorter and tighter in person.  They go up to size 14.  What parent would buy these for their daughter?

We do also have some super cute clothes that I might have to buy even though Liam's closet is already close to exploding.  But the ugly/ crazy ones are just more fun to show.  Please be nice to your retail cashiers this Black Friday.  One of them will unfortunately be me.