shoes – mauter.com

Good

We had a good week last week.

We spent last weekend at MamaLinda and Pop’s house. I think Sam really enjoyed the weekend. She also enjoyed Jolie’s baptism after party. She took a great nap every day and had fun playing in the garden, watering plants, feeding the cat, and looking at birds’ nests.

Sam took a good nap several days last week and had tons of laughs.

Brian’s grandfather got out of the hospital on Friday! He had a rough 3+ weeks, but is doing much better.

My dad’s finger is slowly healing, and it doesn’t look like he’ll have to have surgery. He has yet to show anyone (except my mom) because it ALWAYS has a bandage and I know it’s still very sore. I hope it continues to improve.

Brian and I spent this past weekend in Nashville while Sam stayed at MamaLinda and Pop’s house. From the pictures, it looks like they had a great time at the Botanical Gardens.

I had a work thing (mostly social) but we did get the chance to go to The Big Bang, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. It was lots of fun. I felt a little like Amy Poehler (except for the getting hit on part). 🙂 (I can’t find the video, but the link shows some pictures which might spark your memory.)

I bought some Crocs for Sam for this summer, and she liked them immediately. However, she always wanted to kick them off. It didn’t matter whether we were inside or outside, she wanted them off. I know she liked them, she just likes to go barefoot. Needless to say, one got lost. Now I’m trying to find a summer pair of tennis shoes that maybe she’ll keep on her feet and will still allow those toes to breathe. So far, I’ve bought 6 pairs of shoes and either they don’t fit, or she doesn’t like them (same as before – refuses to walk when wearing).

Since she doesn’t nap in the afternoons anymore, I’m considering just giving up and running my errands then. I wouldn’t have to wait until 8pm to do it, and then she can pick out her own shoes. I would finally get to those stores that close at 5 or 6 – the ones that I normally have to wait for the weekends. So when we’re out of town on the weekends, my errands just don’t get done.

We got an offer on our house last week. After we turned around our counteroffer, the buyer said we weren’t willing enough to work with her and withdrew her offer. Fine then. Be that way. I don’t want her in my house or near my neighbors if she’s going to be like that. The contract on the house we’d like to buy expires on May 1. Frankly, I can’t wait. I’m so eager to be finished with all this house stuff. Just let me get back to my junky counters and dirty floors. I’ll get 20 minutes of my morning back because I’m not picking up, in the off chance that someone will stop by. Maybe we’ll move in 2011.

And as if I didn’t have enough going on already, I’ve decided to get Sam potty trained for real. I know she’s ready, but I needed a commitment from our babysitter to help out before I could totally go along with it. Now that we’re all ready, we’re just going to hang around the house for a few weeks. Hopefully, by the time baby arrives, we won’t have any more diapers. Well, I guess we’ll still have diapers, but they’ll be the itty-bitty size, not the big size! Today is Day 1. We’ve been home for 2 hours and I’ve already changed her clothes 3 times. (And yes, she’s supposed to be taking a nap.)

At the Park

We went to the park last weekend to catch some much needed rays. We ran into the Turners and the Grissoms there! I think everyone had the idea to go to the park since it was so nice.

Samantha finally went down the big slide all by herself! It’s the big slide that’s enclosed and circles around as it goes down. She’s been standing at the top looking down for months now. Also, it was a bit windy that day, so someone brought a kite. It was a ladybug! Sam was really excited to see that big ladybug flying in the air!

(Oh, and she got some new blue Crocs earlier that day. So far, we haven’t had a problem getting them on her feet, so maybe we’re out of the shoe weirdness phase.)

Rain Gear

Those of you who have known me for a while know that I love me some rain gear. I was even known as “the yellow boot girl” in high school. That is not really an experience that I want to relive (nothing like high school public humiliation). However, I still have my knee-high bright yellow boots and will wear them again one day.

Apparently, I still have this desire to dress for the rainy days. Samantha received a cute lady bug raincoat for Christmas last year from her Nana. (I would link to the picture, but since we switched sites, I have no idea where our pictures are.) It was an 18 month size and she has really worn it. It’s been a great coat, well made, and cute to boot. Sadly, it has gotten a little small. She can still wear it (at 27 months), but I know it won’t last much longer.

Recently, Nana told me that the new rain coats had just been delivered at Sam’s, where the old one came from! I finally got a chance to run some much needed errands yesterday. Sam’s was one of my stops, so I had to check out the new rain gear. I found this cute green coat and the frog boots came from Target.

Of course, I had to let her try them on when I got home. She can’t stop talking about the boots and goes to her closet to pull them out every chance she gets. I hope she has many happy rainy day memories.

New Shoes: Reprise

Remember when we had the issue with new sandals in the spring? Well, it seems we’re going to have the same problem again this fall. It must just be new shoes. It doesn’t matter if you can see your toes or not, it’s just different. So, maybe after a few feet-glued-to-floor incidences, Samantha will be able to wear closed toed shoes again.

Samantha has really begun to talk these days. She’s even putting words together. “Where are you, Mommy?” She is getting new words every day, most of which are mostly intelligible.

Our tomatoes are coming along! Samantha enjoyed most of the first one, with Brian getting a few slices on a sandwich. I picked 3 more small ones today, but many more are almost ready.

Ramblings in March

I need to update all of our avid readers. I have been sewing lately – I know – show stopper. After my crayon roll experience, I figured I could handle a dress for Samantha. That’s equivalent, right? I got some Simplicity patterns and fabric. I finished her dress on Wednesday last week. I’m not sure if I’m finished with it yet, because it’s supposed to have a little trim at the bottom hem. I tried that, and it failed miserably, so I haven’t decided if I want to try again. This week, I started an outfit (top and bottoms) that Brian says looks like a girl scout uniform. Yes, it has green cotton, so it may possibly have hints of a Junior uniform, but it’s hardly solid green. I still need to add some embellishment to the bottom hem of the pants, but otherwise, I’m done. I’ll post pictures one day.

In other news, I am excited to be taking a trip to visit Lauren and Daniel in DC soon. Brian is, as usual, anxious of flying so I’ll have my work cut out for me to get him on the plane. I’m a little nervous about taking Samantha with us, but I think she’ll be ok. That is, if she starts feeling better.

Last Friday or Saturday, she started to get a runny nose and bad cough. We had a full weekend of errands, birthday parties and baptisms, so her nap schedule wasn’t what it should have been. I was worn out by Sunday night, so I know she was too. We had our new TV console furniture delivered yesterday, so the living room was in disarray when she got home from a full day at Paula’s house. (However, the shelves were not delivered, so we still can’t put the whole thing together.) She was in such a bad mood. Paula said she was really good all day and even acted like her appetite was coming back a little bit. Not the case last night. She was not satisfied with anyone or anything last night. I thought that because the house was a little out of the ordinary, that she just didn’t want to handle it. She went to bed a little early and woke up a little throughout the night just like she had been all week. This morning, Paula called and said she was running a fever so I took her to the doctor at lunch. She has a double ear infection that the doctor said looked pretty painful. That explains the acting up of the past 24 hours. I’ve got some numbing ear drops and a round of antibiotic, so hopefully she’ll start feeling better. Back in December, the doctor said that if she had one more ear infection, we’d have to go to the ENT to talk about tubes. Because she’s been sick since then and it didn’t develop into an ear infection, and because it’s been almost 4 months since the last one, the doctor said he would wait on the ENT visit. Hopefully, she’ll grow out of it soon.

In other TV news, our TV in the bedroom has a built-in DVD player. We’ve had it for a while and we really like it, but the DVD player is really sketchy. It’s not reliable and I may have been known to try to stuff 2 DVDs in at once. Just maybe. Since Sam’s still carries it, I thought we could try to take it back and get another one. So we did. Saturday afternoon, we start unpacking the new one and discover that it has a different bracket attachment on the back. It’s the same TV, but apparently a newer model. Brian finally ordered a conversion bracket for it, so maybe our bedroom will get back to normal (ladders and boxes out of the way) soon.

Well, I think that’s it. OH. I need to finish the shoe story. Socks with sandals didn’t work on Saturday, but I had some luck on Sunday night. She wore them around the house for about 2 hours! I’d say that it was success. However, Paula bought her some Crocs at the beach last weekend. Samantha has no problem with those. Crocs cover most of the foot, so maybe she thinks they are like regular shoes. I guess she can wear sandals this summer after all!

Ok, now I think I’m done.