My Forever Valentine

XOXOXO

Yo' Baby

When all else fails my picky eater...will ALWAYS eat yogurt...with a spoon...and all by herself. I can already hear her now, when she becomes more of a talker that is, chanting "self, self". I just know that's what my Mags would be saying if she actually knew what it meant. God forbid I take the spoon to help her out a little bit...

And don't forget the napkin. This girl must have a napkin after each meal to tidy up her face...of course, by herself!

Garage Makeover

If you know me, you know I can't resist a project...especially one that involves organizing. So when I headed out to my garage last Tuesday to grab an outdoor toy for Jack to play indoors, I took a good look around. This room could use a makeover--the organizing kind.

So from there, I called up my most fabulous cousin (so like a little brother to me) and offered him the job. Being the poor, hard working college engineer student (always a plus for this kind of gig) he is, he accepted it in his first breath. Gotta love my Jon! I know making some extra bucks was appealing, but I like to believe he really loves me that much.

We set the date, discussed the plans, and Jon was here and ready to work this weekend. I ended up getting two for the price of one because my Aunt (my other fabulous cousin's Mom) happened to be passing through town around the same time and decided to stay an extra day to help us out with the garage makeover. Talk about family bonding!

I'm sure you are wondering where Clay was in all of this. And yes, of course, Clay could have done the job. However, he works all week, helps with the kids non-stop, and to be honest we don't work super well together on projects like that anyway. So I gave him a hall pass for this one and he took it and ran....all the way to the Clemson Florida State basketball game. And he happily returned home to a beautifully organized garage.

This project wasn't quite as straight forward as it may seem. Many steps were involved--1)demoing the existing work bench circa 1960, 2) demoing all of the existing wooden shelving circa 1960 also, 3) cleaning everything out--toys, trash cans, tools, sports gear, paint cans (kindly left by the previous owners--not), and large lawn care equipment. My driveway seriously looked like Samford and Son for the entire weekend. 4) disposing of the rubble, 5) a long trip to Home Depot, 6) hanging new shelving and peg board, 7) organizing the remaining items (which I loved) and 8) painting the garage floor.

Since my lovely Aunt Scrub, (who is brilliant with numbers and a pretty good handy woman herself), was there I had lots of free time to take pictures of the work at hand. My 'workers' were not overly amused, so they (correction Jon) made it as hard as possible by not smiling. He had a never ending supply of goofy faces. I told him he would regret it when it all went online and keeping true to my promise here it is. I don't who's harder to get a decent picture of my 22 year old cuz or my 3 year old son...hmmm??

Gotta love some good ol' fashioned team work. Better them measuring than me--I didn't get that "brilliant with numbers/engineering" gene...not even a little bit.

And Ta Da!...a newly organized, freshly painted beautiful garage. Well, as beautiful as a garage can be anyway. And this is only one side--more organized shelving around the corner. The unfortunate part is we can't park in it for 7 whole days--so worth it though. Jack even agreed. He came out and said, "I love the garage!" and then followed it with "Do you know why?", "why Jack?", "because it is soooo clean". That's my boy!--we were cut from the same mold and I adore it.

Maggie Has New Shoes

I took my little cruiser shoe shopping on Monday. The crib shoes just weren't cutting it anymore. Although, she isn't walking yet, Maggie has torn through her little slippers...literally. Mags is always on the move and with her inventive way of crawling, she can do some serious damage to a pair of shoes.

I knew this would be a fun event for both of us. Shoe shopping with my little girl, what else do I have to say? But, what I knew would make it even more eventful is Maggie's LOVE of shoes. She is a girl down to the core. She adores shoes, especially shiny ones. Put her on a floor with a variety of shoes (i.e. the closest, the mud room) and she can keep herself happily busy. So I knew a store with shelves of shoes everywhere would be right up her alley. And did I mention, "shz" is her new favorite word? The girl will point to her closet repeatedly requesting a pair of "shz" whether we are going anywhere or not. Yes, she really likes shoes.

When we arrived at the shoe store, Maggie pointed at every shelf that lined the walls. "Yes, Maggie, those are shoes". And when she finally got out of my arms, Maggie made an immediate bee line to the nearest and lowest shelf she could find. She put her hands on the shiniest pair of red shoes within reach and started tapping them on her feet. As if desperately pleading, "put these on, please". Unfortunately, we weren't in the market for red shoes.

We did run into a little snag on our shoe adventure, Maggie bumped her head on the "shoe trying on" bench, not once but three times. It made for a very dramatic cry...not once, but all three times. Poor Magpie had some very red eyes for her first shoe shopping trip and pictures.

It was all forgotten though, when we finally found a pair of "cruising" shoes that fit her mobility level and were available in her teeny tiny foot size in a sparkling silver. I was trying my hardest to go neutral--silver for a girl is neutral, huh? Oh, but don't be too impressed by my frugality. Trust me, when this girl of mine gets walking, we will own ever color of shoe possible. The girl choices are just too endless and precious to resist!

The prize pair! After trying on about 5 other pair (which Maggie did not mind at all) we found a winner!

Please excuse the blur, I could not resist sharing this picture of my sweet Maggie after a long afternoon of shoe shopping. What a little trooper and my forever shoe diva (here's hoping anyway;).