Rainy Days and Wednesdays (And Pinterest!)

I'm feeling a little down today. I think the sleep deprivation and gloomy weather has finally gotten to me. I hate feeling like this and can't wait to snap out of it!

So what makes this grumpy girl smile? CRAFTS! I saw this idea on pinterest:

And loved it. So I whipped out an old cookie sheet, painted it turquoise and added a ribbon. Then I took my makeup (99% of it was free with coupons!) and stuck some magnets to the back of them. The end result...

It's cleared off my counters and it's so much easier to find the color I want. Pretty and functional!

Now excuse me while I go listen to the Carpenters and look wistfully out the window...

Your melancholy Mighty B

Hey! It's Okay Tuesday!

It's Okay...

MMmmmmm....Come to Momma!

• To not know what a cider doughnut is, but be certain I would love it.
• To just throw the pajamas away when dealing with a diaper explosion.
• To eat more Gerber puffs than the baby does.
• To be annoyed that I can no longer buy books through my Kindle app. I do most of my reading in bed. If there is something new I want to read I don't want to run out to my laptop, buy it, then try and get cozy again.
• To be thankful for Fall Break on Friday because it means I don't have to drag the kids out of the house to take Riley to school.

Do You Elf?

I love finding new Christmas traditions for my family, but I'm a bit disturbed by one I've been seeing a lot of lately.

Hellllooooo

The Elf on the Shelf. I love the idea of it. The elf comes to your house to watch and make sure the kids are good, then reports back to Santa. Each morning, the kids can look for the elf in a different place. Some of the poses I've seen online are really pretty funny!

But I'm not to sure of his little smirk. Is he a scary elf that will come to life at night and kill me in my sleep? Or maybe a pervy elf who will hide and watch me undress? Will my kids like it? Or become paranoid that this thing is watching them?

I both love and hate the Elf on the Shelf. Do you have one?

Today...

• I have strep throat. Again.
• The dog had me up at 5:30 so she could go investigate what was outside. (By the way, it was just the rain. Stupid dog.)
• I busted the zipper on Riley's winter coat. It's not fixable.
• I lost my car keys ("in the great big foam" - inside joke!) which caused us to be late dropping Riley off at school.
• The cat puked in the dining room.
• My sweater got caught on the door and now has a lovely hole ripped it in.
• The trunk lid fell on my head when I was loading groceries. And then my kids got to hear mommy curse loudly in the Meijer parking lot.
• Tried to pick up my coke from Wendy's to take a drink while driving and the lid popped off and I dumped coke in my lap. While still driving.
• Something broke at work, so my poor husband hasn't gotten to come home yet. He's been at work for almost 16 hours.
• My kids were like cracked-out monkeys all night because they were upset daddy wasn't home yet.
• Oh yeah, I turned 31. :)

Not the best birthday I've ever had, but it certainly could be worse. I just kept laughing wondering what was going to be next  (maybe that's a sign of maturity?) and singing this song in my head.

"This is the stuff you use to break me of impatience, conquer my frustrations. I've got a new appreciation. It's not the end of the world!"

Half-Time Show

Brenna LOVES to dance and is determined to be a ballerina one day. Riley is participating in a basketball camp this month and Brenna thought the crowd (about 20-30 parents and siblings) needed a little sideline entertainment.

What a performer. No idea where she gets that from. :)

What Gracie Sees

Looking up is something new for Grace. Because of the pressure of the extra fluid in her brain and her low vision, she normally keeps her eyes downcast. Seeing her look up makes my heart sing.

Grace recently had her follow up with the opthamologist. We still don't know how much she can see, but the nystagmus (eye's shaking) and strabismus (eye crossing) is getting better. He asked if I think she is seeing better and I wasn't sure how to answer that. Sometimes I feel like she can absolutely see. Other times she won't look at something that's right in front of her. She seems to see better with her peripheral vision and when it's especially well lit, but tends to hold toys very close to her face often.

Grace looking at her ring. It's hard to know if she does this because she can see them better
this close or if this is just a quirk. She does this frequently.

So many things about Gracie's condition are "wait and see". Will she be able to see normally? Will she need to learn braille? Will she be able to attend school without special assistance? Will she run into things a lot when she starts crawling/walking? There is no guidebook on what to do when your child is visually impaired. No "What To Expect - The First Year with your VI Baby".

Maybe I should start writing one...

Happy Pin-Day!

Pinterest is my new favorite way to waste time. I've gotten so many good ideas from there (Follow my boards here!) but was worried that I would never actually implement them. Thankfully I have friends who aren't afraid to call me out. :)

I actually tried the "Egg McMuffin in a Muffin Tin" idea. What it was suppose to look like was this:

I greased up my muffin tin, cracked in my eggs and it looked like this (I forgot to take a picture right away, so this was after like 30 seconds in the hot oven):

Not to bad, right? The "recipe" tells you to take a muffin, slap on the egg and cheese and you have yourself a sandwich. What they failed to mention is that the eggs DO NOT COME OUT OF THE MUFFIN TIN. And the yolk doesn't cook all the way so it looks weird.

The sandwiches were okay. The biggest downfall was in the middle you would get a bite that was only yolk *BLECH*. And I am still trying to scrub that egg out of my muffin tin. I'm seriously considering just pitching it and asking Santa for a new one.

I am considering the Muffin Tin Egg Muffins my first pinterest fail!