Merry Moose!

A visit from Grammy especially means one thing to the girls -- a visit to Build-A-Bear! On Black Friday we went to Build-A-Bear at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. The girls all got to pick out the Merry Moose but Macey fell in love with the kitty and begged and begged Grammy for that one. She's a little spoiled!

What Would Help. . .

Today I was suckered into visiting Old Navy because they were advertising a "buy one, get one" sale. Oh, could anything be better?!?

I walked in and found something that I liked. And something that would work with my growing tummy. It took awhile to find these things, and I have to say that Macey and Molly were darn patient considering that this was the fourth stop of the morning and it was only 10:30 am.

But then a crazy thing happened at the check-out counter. The girl said that "clearance items" were not included in the "buy one, get one free" special. Which makes no sense to me. Instead of taking two, regular price things, I was taking one regular price and one clearance. The way I was looking at it, I was saving THEM a bundle.

So after the time it took to give Old Navy my email address, tell them I did not want a credit card, and then discuss the clearance debacle, Molly had managed to knock down not one but two of their manequins.

I know it was my fault; I know I should have been watching her closer. But with Molly there's no "watching". There is merely "trying to contain the tornado that she is". And I know I failed.

But still, dearest Old Navy, what would really help in the future is if you would not ask for my email, not try to sell me a credit card, and appreciate the fact that I was saving the store $$ by including a clearance item in the "buy one, get one" special, see me coming with my cart and my young kids and just check me out and get me out of the door.

Thanks much.

Who? Who? Who? Who?

One of Molly's favorite songs (don't ask why, she's also a Lady Gaga fan, I'm also confused about that one) is "Who Let The Dogs Out". She likes to say "who?who?who?who?"

We'll sing it in the car with her but add different verses. Who let the pirates out? "Argh!argh!argh!argh!"

Or, who let the cats out, "meow!meow!meow!meow!"

We've also come up with verses for all of the kids. Molly's is: Who let the Molly out? "Waa!waa!waa!waa!" (She cries a lot).

We were coming up with a verse for Miss Macey, and she came up with her own.

Who let the Macey's out? "Mama!mama!mama!mama!" I had to laugh. It's so true -- she has a lot of middle child in her and her favorite word seems to be "MAMA!" in her most whiny voice. At least she recognizes it. That's the first step to recovery. . .

A Rookie Mistake

This year was a big year for the Cunninghams as Garry put lights on the house for Christmas. Okay, it does not look like the Griswold home, but he did suffer a Griswold moment. After putting up 150 lights, we went to plug them in and, well, some of them worked. And a big old strand didn't ;) He trusted Lowe's quality and forgot to try them out before he put them up on the roof. Ah, well, rookie mistake.

Stop Speculating!

On Thursday we had an ultrasound. I've had one at 10 weeks and 14 weeks and was disappointed that this one at 22 weeks (let's just round up to 23, shall we?) was on the same bad equipment. Sigh.

But, I loved the nurse who did the ultrasound. She really took her time and showed us everything. Well, almost everything. We told her that we did not want to know the gender and she told us when to look away in case we saw. . .something.

At the end of the ultrasound she gave us a CD of all the pictures that she took. The equipment is old and not very good, so we really did not get anything that good. Disappointing after some cool 3D pictures we got of Molly. But, the nurse suggested that we not look at the CD because especially in one spot we might see something that would ruin our big surprise.

Which makes me think that it's a boy. I mean, boys are obvious, right? And girls are a lot harder. So it seems we would be more likely to 'accidentally' discover that it is a boy versus a girl. Right?

This is the conversation I had for a long time with my sister Celeste. And then I realized that I need to stop trying to find out. There's a reason why we want to be surprised, and so I just need to let it be.

My Fashion Expert

Once upon a time, I cared about clothes. And I think that I will again. But most of the time right now, not so much. Especially when almost everything does not fit anymore.

Take Monday, for example. I woke up to more snow and was a little worried. Garry was at work and Macey had to be to Pre-K in a few hours and that meant I would have to shovel a little bit (Garry did a lot before he went to work at 0-too-early but the snowplows had created a drift right at the end of my driveway). And, oh ya, I'm pregnant. . .

And I'm pregnant with bad feet. No, really, I have bad feet. I have had a toe that has been infected since August and literally bleeds or oozes all day. So I usually wear comfy socks until I absolutely have to put a real shoe on.

And that's what I did on this morning! I wore comfy socks and just slipped on some crocs to go conquer the snow. I came inside and Macey looked at my feet.

"Mama," she said, "Why are you wearing crocs? Why are you wearing socks with crocs?" Okay, she had a point -- it was pretty hideous -- but should I have to take this abuse from a four-year-old?

It's c-c-c-c

On Monday we bundled the family up and set off to find a Christmas tree. It was cold! It was around 20 degrees and dark and cold, but we were determined to find a great tree!

By the time we reached the tree lot Emma & Macey were asleep, lulled by the warm vehicle and the moving car. But Molly was wide awake and ready to go! One thing about Molly, she HATES being left behind. She has a gigantic abandonment complex all wrapped up in her little body. So I stayed with the big girls and Garry took Molly to look at the options.

Poor little thing. About five minutes later Garry brought her back to the Jeep. I jumped out to get her in the warm Jeep and all she could say was, "Mama, it c-c-c-c. . ." She couldn't even form the word cold, she was so cold!

We didn't find a tree there, but we did find one down the street. Wahoo!