Happy 3rd Birthday Jenna

Jenna's 3rd birthday was yesterday, but we have truthfully been celebrating it for the past week. Last Saturday (one week early) we had a little birthday party for her with a few friends, then yesterday, on her actual birthday, we went to Going Bonkers and today we opened presents with my parents and sister. Overall, I think I've successfully jacked up her notion of what a "birthday" really is.

Warning: Overzealous picture posting...sentimental/funny stories may accompany them. Read on at your own peril.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Jenna when she's just 1 day old. My dad had just driven 21 hours straight from MO to UT because I told my mom I wanted him to "visit me while I was still in the hospital." Well, I didn't know he was going to pick up and leave when I said that, so I got antsy and checked myself out of Hotel UVRMC and went home a day early. Only to have my dad show up minutes later, exhausted and weary, saying, "I thought you wanted me to see you in the hospital?" Errr, sorry dad!
Blessing day: I love that dress. I swear I would wear it if it came in my size.
My Favorite Picture
Matt's Favorite Picture
First Birthday Party...finally starting to get some hair! Helping Mommy bake the cake for her 2nd birthday party...the official batter tester.
This year we actually let her have some friends come over for a "party." It really wasn't hard considering I had one rule...everything stays outside! She wanted a princess party and I told her I'd make her a princess castle cake, but that her "activities" would be swimming and playing outside. She was fine with that and so was I.

Thank goodness we did it on a Saturday when Matt was home. That way, I could stay in the shade and chat with my friends and Matt could be out in the sun, actually playing with all the kids. What a great dad! Jenna had so much fun and the other kids did too. When it was time for the cake, no one wanted to come over and sing and eat the cake. But after spending 3 hours baking/decorating the dumb thing, I was determined to have them eat it. "Get over here and eat this dumb cake!!!" Nothing like forcing kids to eat sweets, right? Going Bonkers: This is really all we did on her actual birthday...that and McDonald's for lunch of course.This is Jenna in time out at Bonkers for being rude. How a child can possibly want to cry and be unhappy in such a fun and happy place I'll never know.Sunday night: Opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa. One word: Spoiled. Oh, and here's another five: I Love Christmas Wrapping Paper!!!Well, there you have it. Jenna's 3rd birthday week at a glance.

Top 3 Reasons I Love Jenna (despite the fact that she is now 3 years old and has progressed from the terrible twos into the horrible threes):

1. She keeps me humble: Yesterday we were looking at baby pictures of her to put on the blog and of course I was in many of the pictures. Jenna says to me, "Look how much thinner your face is, Mommy!" It's sad...but true.

2. She encourages me: While I was slaving away in the kitchen making her Princess Cake she came in and gave me a hug and said, "I'm really proud of you Mommy. You're really growing up."

3. She loves me: When I was buckling her into her car seat the other day she reached her arms out and gave me a big hug and was patting my back. Then she said, "You're a really good mommy." Ah, melted my heart.

A Fruitless Attempt at Reconcilation

Riddle me this...how does a pair of women's, size such and such, jean capris go missing in a house that is only 1,400 sq. feet and cleaned regularly and quite thoroughly? My mom got me a new pair of capris for my birthday, I wore them once, and now they are MIA and I have seriously WRACKED my brain and Matt's trying to find them.

I have now looked:

• Behind and beside the washer and dryer
• Under all the beds
• In all the closets
• Under the treadmill
• In the trunk of Matt's car (??you never know why sometimes??)
• In the linen closet amongst the blankets (in case they got folded up in a blanket or something)
• In my kitchen cupboards
• In the pantry
• And every other imaginable and unimaginable spot in the house

They are nowhere to be found. If any of you happen to have experience with renegade jean capris, please lend me your expertise. I appear to have offended them (they are rather capricious you know) and as a result, they have ran away. I am offering a $10 reward for their safe return, alive preferably. Capri's, if you're reading this, I'm not mad at you, just please come home, I only got to wear you once!

A Day at the Lake/Pool

Great friends and great fun. And more importantly...great memories.

Swimming Lessons

Today was the last day of swimming lessons-Hooray! Jenna loved them, so I guess for her sake I'm sad they're over. But for purely selfish reasons, I'm quite happy. I feel like Jenna has improved a lot (whether from swimming lessons or thanks to Matt's tutelage I'm not sure). I'm happy we did it though because it's fun for her to have something to look forward to and something special that she gets to do.

I wasn't the only one that was worn out from swimming lessons. And yes, that is a Dingelhopper (fork) that she is clutching for dear life. She insists on getting one every time she watches The Little Mermaid.

Wood Refinishing 101

So here's the BEFORE: As you can see, our cheap Furniture Factor Outlet table had seen better days. The worst part, it's only 2 years old. Cheap FFO piece of junk...but I digress. The big white spot in the middle is from one of my beloved Bath and Body Works Wallflowers (oil inscent type things). Brooke had gotten a hold of it and it starting leaking, so I took it from her and set it on the table. Bam! 2 minutes later it had completely removed all the varnish down to bare wood. The rest of the scratches and weird marks were just from normal wear and tear...and I was sick of them! The Wall Flower mark was just the final straw! So last Saturday I had just had enough. I went to Home Depot (love ya HD!) and $30 later I had the fixings to create one newly stripped and stained kitchen table.

Here's the finished product. It honestly was not as hard as I excepted it to be. Sure, it's no professional job, but it only cost $30, so what can you except? This time, I put three coats of clear acrylic over the top, so hopefully there will be no more scuffing and chipping for a few years at least! Thank you HGTV, for making me believe that I too can have some redeeming creative/DIY type qualities.

Swimming Conundrum

So I'm at this moral crossroads, or maybe it's more of an frugal crossroads, either way, there's two roads and they're crossing. I signed Jenna up for swimming lessons this summer and we're half way through. Here's the damage:

Swimming Lesson Fee: $40
Parking in the Meter Parking at MU: $1.25 x 10 days =$12.50
Gas across town and back: 8 miles each way at 16 miles/gal=1 per day.Gas is now at $3.89/gal x 10 days = $38.90.
Suckers/Treats to bribe Jenna with: $1/day x 10= $10
Total: $101.40

This does not even include various other expenses related to being out and about every morning for 10 days straight (ie. thanks to swimming lessons I'm too tired to fix lunch so we're swinging through Taco Bell). So, here's the thing. I can't decide if swimming lessons are really worth $101.40 or if it would be better to just spend that same $101.40 and take Jenna to the pool every Saturday all summer long. We took her today and stayed for a couple hours and she seemed to make more progress working with Matt for 30 minutes than she has all week at swimming lessons. However, I do think swimming lessons are good for her because it's forced her to be AWAY from mom and take instructions from someone else. It also teaches her to wait her turn and to follow rules and such. So, herein lies the crossroads. In all reality, we'll most likely just end up doing both every summer, but it just really gets my goat to think that I'm paying $101.40 for swimming lessons, because I'm just not convinced they're worth it!

Crazy Eights...Tag! I'm It

8 Things I’m Passionate About

1) Starbursts

2) Pink Nail Polish

3) Headbands

4) Ankle Socks

5) Googling People/Things

6) Hip Hop Career

7) Putting my Eye Liner on in a straight line

8) Checking the Mail



8 Musicians/CDs I Can Listen to Over and Over Again and Never Get Sick of

1) Phantom of the Opera Soundtrack

2) Rascal Flats

3) Martina McBride

4) Lifehouse

5) Wicked Soundtrack

6) Michael Buble

7) Dixie Chicks

8) Michael Jackson/Jackson Five



The Past 8 Books I’ve Read
1. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
2. Beauty by Robin McKinley
3. The Memory Keepers Daughter
4. The Invisible Man
5. The Chosen by Chaim Potock
6. Ellen Foster
7. The Importance of Being Earnest (re-read) by Oscar Wilde
8. Pride and Prejudice (re-read) by Jane Austen



8 Things I Say Often

1) Maaaaatttttt!

2) JENNA MARIE MORGAN!

3) No, No Brookie.

4) Jenna, did you push Brookie?

5) Jenna, why is Brooke crying? What did you do?

6) Jenna! Don't sit on Brooke, she doesn't like that!

7) Hold on a minute.

8) Yah, I will, let me just clean this up real fast...




8 Things That Attract Me to a Friend

1) We can laugh together.

2) They don't pretend to be better or worse than they are...they just are what they are.

3) They don't care who thinks what of them.

4) They tell it like it is (I don't like things sugar coated...except cereal, donuts and candy)

5) They laugh at my jokes in such a way that I don't know they're faking.

6) They like Girls Night Out!

7) They're spontaneous


8) They have great talents I can hone in on and free load off of.



8 Random Things About Me

1) I floss

2) I HATE being tickled

3) I love PINK.

4) I love basketball and wish I played more now.

5) I was the inspiration for Sir Mix-A-Lot's most famous song.

6) I was on the speech and debate team.

7) I watch the summer Olympics like nobodies business, so don't expect to see me around later this summer.

8) I would like to get braces again...and this time I would wear my rubber bands (I promise!)



8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1) Get my PhD

2) Teach at a University

3) Write a book

4) Go on a mission

5) Run a marathon

6) Be a Grandma

7) Give someone totally random and unexpectedly a great huge wad of cash

8) Go to Europe



8 Things I’ve Learned This Past Year

1) Deductible and Co-Pay are two very different things

2) The Star Wars movies actually are good

3) I need at least 6 hours/night of sleep to function

4) I was not meant to be a single mother

5) I should leave wood refinishing to the pros

6) A moped is not that terrible of an idea

7) I look like a retard when I'm working out (I had previously thought I looked totally awesome and hot, until a friend sneakily got a video tape that had me doing a step class and totally disproved my previous notions).

8) Ebay, while dear and beloved in almost all regards, does not sell good snow cone flavorings.

Puppy Love....errr, I mean, Jaguar Love

Saturday we went to St. Louis to the Go Diego Go LIVE! concert/show. We went with Jenna's little friend Griffen and his little brother Max (and their mom too of course!) Jenna is so funny with Griffen, so thinks he is her boyfriend (or that she is his boyfriend, as she says). The other day we were going to meet him at McDonald's for a lunch date and my mom was with us and Jenna said to her in the van, "I don't know if you can handle Griffen, Grandma. But that's okay, because I'm his boyfriend."

Go Diego Go LIVE was really interactive and the kids had a great time singing along and doing all the actions and pretending to be baby Jaguar. At the beginning of the show I kept whispering and cheering in Jenna's ear and trying to help her participate. They would say stuff like, "Will you help us call Diego? Say DIEGO!" So I would lean over into Jenna's ear and be like, "Diego!! Say Diego Jenna." So after about 5 or 6 times of me doing this, Jenna looked me dead in the face and put her hand over my mouth. It was HILARIOUS. I was cracking up. She was basically like, Can it mom, I'm enjoying this without your constant commentary. Regardless of her totally shutting me down, I was yelling and growling and scratching with my paws like crazy. My sister asked me later, "did you really do all those corny actions and stuff?" Fetch Yes! It was pretty much the greatest day ever...gosh!To Jenna, this was a bonafide date...hand holding required. At one point Griffen didn't want to hold her hand anymore and she got her feelings hurt and ran away and cried for a minute. But like any good boyfriend (after some coaxing from his mom), Griffen came back and chivalrously held her hand again.
After the concert we went to Incredible Pizza and ate some not so incredible pizza and played tons of fun games and went bowling. It was a kids dream day!
See, what did I tell you? It truly was a real date...Griffen even drove. Although, his arm should be around her...right? We'll have to work on that for next time.

Thanks Griffen, Max and Jessica for a great date. Next up: Disney on Ice!?!