Ohio is AWESOME!!

My brother and Brad have told me I have to stop saying that. My brother because he lives there now but still likes Michigan better. Brads reasoning is because I only have one point of reference to back up that statement.

So, let me rephrase myself. Franklin Park Mall is AWESOME!! This mall happens to be in Ohio though so excuse me.

I would definitely go there again for one reason and one reason alone. I am actually thinking of writing to the powers that be at that mall to PRAISE them. As a new and young mother-heck even as just an aunt of two rambunctious little girls this mall REALLY impressed me.

I have always wanted to breastfeed any children I have but I never knew how difficult the rest of the world would make it. After seeing a woman whip her boob out in the front row of church one day while I was in college I knew that I would never do that. I don't mind covering Caroline up or excusing myself from the room AT ALL. I do what I have to do in order to feed my child. I really don't want to make anyone uncomfortable or make a scene either to 'stand up for my rights'. Whatever. But, sometimes it is hard because not every place I go has a place for me to nurse. I am not about to go and sit on a toilet to feed my kid...would you make yours eat their dinner there just because they eat solid food or from a bottle? So, unless there is a chair where I can sit I usually have to stand and cover myself or go to the car. Even in most of the 'family restrooms' I have been in. Some of them don't even have more than a diaper changing station and a adult and child size toilet so they do me no good anyways. Those that do have a seating area usually have it out in the open so I still cover myself. Lately this idea has not flown with C baby. She constantly pulls it off her head. Which makes it interesting when she wants to see what is going on. So, every time a mom bring her kid into the family restroom not only does my child fling off the blanket but she unlatches and looks around. Causing me to be embarrassed. And, EXTREMELY embarrassed when a dad walks in to take his child to the potty and there I sit with the girls hanging out. Yes, I happen to be a bit more modest than most of society today.

But, this is not the case at the Franklin Park Mall in Toledo, Ohio. Have I mentioned how AWESOME they are. I actually took pictures of my experience there to demonstrate to you the level of awesomeness.
This is their 'Family Restroom'

!!!!! There is a sitting area for moms and dads with magazines even! Brad even found a 'manly' type magazine to thumb through! And,see those cubicle things in the background?? Those are private nursing areas!!! I was able to sit in that chair and pull the curtain and not have to cover C's head! Plus, there are three of them available in case everyone gets hungry at one time.
This is the sink/diaper changing area. If you can't tell there are many faucets and in between each one is a little curved inset where you can lay your child to change their pants. So great! Also in the picture you may notice there is a diaper warmer! I dont use one of those at home but how thougthful of Ohio to think of it for my child! And, there is a microwave in case you have to warm anything up for your kids. Genius!!

Finally, they even take care of bigger kids.

There are these toys on the wall to keep them occupied. And if that doesn't work there is a tv mounted near the ceiling with cartoons running nonstop! A perfect way to occupy toddlers while you take care of everything. There is of course a room here as well with the toilets in it but I didn't want to seem too weird taking a picture of that. I must say I enjoyed my experience here and wish I could find more places that were this nice to families. Kudos to you Franklin Park Mall. If any of you reading this ever go to Toledo think about stopping in there. They are nice to you AND your kids!

Boys and their toys

Forgive me but I had forgotten how many things I had stored up to blog about so I am going to do a few entries today while I have the time.

As I mentioned before, I am a garage sale addict. I believe I inherited this problem from my parents. Both of them. It is so bad that my mom doesn't even like going to them anymore with my dad. They come home with too much stuff! That and my dad usually buys tacky gnomes and plastic cats sitting on a birdbath statue things for his garden. Oh, and they are also solar powered so you can enjoy them at night too. Yay, since I can't get enough of them in broad daylight.

In order to go on with the story I have to tell you this story. Back when I was a bride to be one thing I really looked forward to was registering with Brad. And, by 'with Brad' I mean the only thing I was allowing him to do was use the scanning gun. In all honesty we did pick everything out together. But, one thing I took to heart and the ONLY piece of advice I usually ever give people in this situation is to register for anything. If you want it and think you will use it then put it on there. It doesn't mean you are going to get it or that someone has to buy it for you. But, you don't know what your guests are capable of or what they are willing to do. After all this is the only time in your life you will probably have this chance so take it. If you get it, yay! and if you don't you can probably live without it. But, that one frivolous thing to you may be what several people pool their money to give you as something fun, lavish and silly. That is how I ended up with a Kegerator. And, I will also never forget the people who gave it to me.

So, on to my 'pre story'. Brad and I did just the above scenario and along with the famous kegerator we registered for a Rumba. One of those robots that goes on its own and vacuums your house for you. At $200 we weren't sure if we would get it and if we didn't we probably wouldn't buy it for ourselves anyway. We didn't get it and we also didn't buy it either.
**Back to the original story now**
However, a few weeks ago my mom called from a garage sale. She and my dad had found a Rumba at said garage sale. Never used, never even taken out of the box. For $40. They bought it. They called us because there were two more still in their boxes too. Did we want one? For $40 we were willing to try it.

Oh boy, do I wish Brad would get this interested and excited over the upright that is in our closet. I swear he doesn't even remember it is in there. But, the Rumba? He took that bad boy home and charged it right away. The next morning while we waited for our new furniture since there was no furniture (except the camping chairs we were sitting on) in the room he ran it.

OH.MY.GOSH. You have got to be kidding me!!! He was all over the room making sure to get out of its way and getting all gung ho about it. I can only imagine how he is with the robots at work! Now, this thing goes on its own and if it bumps in to somehting it will stop and change directions. Yet, still he wanted me to hop up and move my chair to get out of its way. I stared at him like he was crazy as I let it hit my chair. I would pick my feet up though when it passed me! It takes an hour to do a full size room but in that hour I was able to make and eat my own breakfast, make and feed Caroline hers and put her down for a nap and touch up a few other messy areas in the house while my little robot took care of the living room for me. An hour later and my floors looked FABULOUS! I have yet to try it with all the furniture in the room but I have no doubt in its ability. If it isn't as great there is always still my upright. Maybe I can interest my husband in becoming reunited with that one :)

Give Peas a chance :)

We have been steadily working our way through trying all the solid foods. Her first reaction for most of them is pretty much the same. She sits there with the food on her lips and the tip of her tongue and doesn't move. She looks disgusted. But, eventually she will eat all of it and not complain much. So far we have gone through:
Rice cereal-ehh, not a big fan. We put bananas in it last week. Still not impressed.
Oatmeal-likes it even less than the rice cereal.
Peaches-started putting them in her cereal yesterday. Likes it so far but boy do they smell awful!
Peas-kind of indifferent. didn't love them but never really gagged so to speak either.
Sweet potatoes-was a little more interested in getting this one
Green beans-we can't get them in her mouth fast enough! She was actually lunging for the spoon in Brad's hand the other day.
We still have squash and carrots to try yet but are pretty confident she will eat those up too. So far, she hasn't seemed to inherit her mother's picky eating habits...but she is still young ;)

Oh, I almost forgot another way our little Miss C is gaining ground! Brad stood her up next to the couch and let go and she stood on her own! If she is holding on to something she can stand. But, she wants to go so bad that she usually only lasts about 10 seconds before she collapses. Don't worry we are right there to catch her. Sitting up is going well too....with all the practice we do she will be there soon!

Hello, my name is Monica and I have a problem.

I am an addict! I am addicted to garage sales. If I see a little sign with an arrow pointing down the street to a sale in progress, you can betcha I am probably turning down that street. Who can resist the deals? I mean one mans junk is my goldmine!

Last week I had noticed that one of the subdivisions in our area would be having their sub wide garage sales on Saturday morning. I couldn't wait for it. I had a mental list of things I was looking for and things I could always keep around. Thanks to Caroline we were up early and were able to get ready and I dragged Brad around on his first marathon garage sale experience. I think he had a lot of fun.

We were able to pull into the sub soon after the start time and the first few blocks were disappointing and I began to fear things wouldn't be good this year after all. But I need not fear. After moving the car to the next set of sales I met Brad who was walking our sleeping child (I swear she was born without the female shopping gene). He was already heading up a driveway but I detoured him to the other side of the street to start. My sights were set on the first item on my 'looking for' list. He didn't see it at first but as soon as he realized what had caught my eye he fell in right behind me and we both headed in to check things out.

It was perfect and exactly what we wanted; SCORE!!! The only bad part was that upon deciding we wanted it my hunny bunny pulled the money out of his wallet before I could talk down the price about five bucks. Oye, he had much to learn. But, still with the higher price tag we got a good deal on this gem:


Caroline had one without all those toys attached to it and we would just put her toys on the tray for her to play with while she bounced. She is the only one who enjoyed things this way. We would constantly have to stop what we were trying to get done while she was in there so we could pick all the toys up that she had thrown on the floor. I think this was her favorite feature of the exersaucer. She played with one like the above at a friends house and LOVED it. We looked into it and it retails for $120!!!!! Not going to happen. But when we found ours with a $25 price tag we were so happy. I would have been happier to walk away with it for $20 but whatevs.

We bought a few more small things and headed out toward home. We had already spent about 2 hours garage saling. We of course saw a sign one street down for the sub and had to turn and check it out. It kind of perturbed us because it was off the main road we were on but we had to go ALL the way down to the end of the street, make a turn and follow a curve around to the end of that street. But, as we parked I got SO excited I jumped out of the car to investigate our next possible purchase. I walked up the driveway and as I saw the price tag I almost jumped for joy. Brad was carrying Caroline in his arms as she was through with both the car seat and the stroller at this point and as I told him how much we both knew without discussing it that this thing would be coming home with us:


Are you sitting down? Do you want to know what we paid for this beauty that retails for over $300????? Get ready....we got it for $20!!!!! I wasn't even going to haggle that price. We paid the sweet mom of now teenage boys and felt like we were stealing from her. Brad dropped us girls off at home and went back to dismantle it and bring it home. I can't wait until C is old enough to use it.

The most fun purchase of the day was the last. My parents and brother had come out for some dinner and hospitality. Brad and Larry wanted to take the boat out fishing so my parents and I loaded C in the car and went out looking for more goldmines. I found one. I had let something just like this slip through my fingers at another sale but this was an even better deal so it must have been meant for me! Of course though we were in my dads little car. Like five seat, four door, tiny trunk little car. We managed to wedge this in the passenger seat and had to be my mom's eyes while she drove us the short trip home:


I know! Can you believe all of the treasures I am bringing home? I stopped at one today and got a BOATLOAD of clothes and shoes for C and her cousins for next to nothing. I can't wait for tomorrow and Saturday when more sales open up. Anyone need me to be on the lookout for anything? Sometimes having something specific to hunt for makes it even more fun!

I didn't know how good I had it.

I changed my first poopy diaper in over a week this morning. It was glorious. I mean the moment I realized how long it had been was glorious. The diaper was disgusting. We can definitely tell we are on solid foods now. Last week Brad was able to take off from work. We found this out about a week before hand but we only had about 4 hours to decide which week out of two that we wanted. No pressure or anything. Since this was so last minute we decided not to go anyway in terms of a 'trip'.

BEST. DECISION. EVER.

The week was so fun. The week was so relaxing. The week was so enjoyable. The week was too short. The week was poopy-diaper free for me. Brad seriously took her everytime since I am the one who usually has to handle it. AH, a poop free vacation. Twas lovely.

I have put together a pictoral presentation of the highlights of our week. So much actually happened so expect a few more blog posts this week as well.

Day one (Saturday) was spent shopping for furniture. ART VAN rocks my world!!! I finally committed and made a decision and decided to give yet another furniture company a big wad of money for living room furniture. Second time in less than two years. Yeah, this is waaaaaay better than the hunk of crap our stuff from 'that other' Michigan based company turned out to be. It came Wednesday and I am so happy.


Day two took us to the East Lansing area to see my BFF. She has a nephew about two months older than Caroline and even though they had been together before Lucas was a little wary of this new kid his family was paying attention to and letting play with his toys. But, he also couldn't help but try to hold her hand or grab her arm or take a whack at her either :) Such a fun visit and can't wait to do it again.


Day three had us heading up to Frankenmuth for the day. While everyone else ate their chicken lunches Caroline gnawed on her newest treat. She has begun gumming teething cookies. She seems to love them. She has some work yet to do in figuring out how to keep a hold of it but she is getting there. Boy, are these things messy.


Day four and five are kind of a haze. Probably because we just hung around the house and got stuff done. Maybe a nap or two in there. Mommy got some reading done this week thanks to daddy being able to help with everything. I finally finished the book I started when I was pregnant.

Day six took us to Toledo. Brad wanted to take Caroline to the zoo and the one in Toledo has an AMAZING aquarium in it so since she had already been to the Detroit zoo we made an event out of it. We even booked a hotel room wit a king size bed and a big pool in the hotel and everything. It was a treat for all involved. We had good weather, the animals were great (they have a baby polar bear AND a baby giraffe!) and we even popped in to see Uncle Larry's new apartment while there.


Day Seven was spet travelling home and then we got in the car again to head to GP since I was so bored and restless after the exciting week we were having. Day eight we hit a BUNCH of garage sales but that was so unbelievable that it will get its very own post soon.

So, today was a rough one for all involved. Caroline was fussy. Mommy had to take care of things all by herself. And, poor daddy spent all day at the office. But, we know he does it so we can have times like these once every year.

I'll have to decide when I want the next one to be. Maybe when daddy can take a whole week to potty train his little girl :)

We love long weekends!

Whew, what a fun filled looooong weekend we had! I am sure we will spend the next few days recovering from it. We kicked it off with the Tigers Baseball game on Friday night for my moms birthday. It was the first time Brad, myself and Caroline would be going to a game at Comerica park. It was hot but we enjoyed ourselves; it would have been better if the Tigers would have won but the fireworks after the game were awesome and Caroline was mesmerized! We worked on our landscaping on Saturday (pictures to come) and I very happy with it. We spent Sunday and Monday with my parents and sister just having fun, bbq-ing and swimming. We had LOTS of fun. We are really looking forward to Summer kicking into high gear!