I Want To Be a Craft Girl When I Grow Up

Well, it is official.  Carissa is potty-trained.  It has been over a week now and she is doing great!  I am so so so proud of her.  I am doing a happy dance right now.  On my roof.  Shouting out "I'm not buying diapers!  I'm not buying diapers!"  Okay, not really on my roof since it's covered with four inches of snow but on the inside I am definitely singing. 

Maleah has had two snow days off from school this week.  She was excited about that.  Who doesn't love a snow day??  It is an unexpected and beautiful interruption in your routine.  Maleah has been loving it.  We all went sledding at Charley Brown Park on Tuesday morning.  It took us forever to get all four of us ready to go.  We were all bundled up.  I made Carissa wear a diaper for this even though she didn't want to.  There are no bathrooms open at the park and who wants to squat in snow?  Not me.  Although I did make Maleah squat there two years ago in the snow behind a bush.  She would've been three and wouldn't you know it, as soon as we got there she had to pee.  She had just went before we left the house.  It never fails though, if you're all bundled up in lots of layers, plus super-duper excited about something, you just have to pee.  She couldn't hold it long enough for me to drive out of the park and all of the park bathrooms were closed for the winter.  (Which, by the way, I think is ridiculous!  There are still people out there even though it is cold and I know that they don't turn the water off or anything.  The park staff still uses the bathroom.  So why not just leave it unlocked?  Huh?  Huh?)  So, anyway, Maleah had to squat behind some bushes in front of the swimming pool.  She didn't really mind.  She's cool like that.  But I didn't want to traumatize poor little Rissy who is just learning so she had to wear a diaper.  She also didn't want to wear mittens.  So she cried and screamed "NO!!!!!!" every time we tried to put them on her.  It was freezing out and there was no way she was going to sled without them so she and I sat in the car.   She screamed and I programmed my car to quit telling me that I needed to change the oil when I didn't need to.  She screamed for 30 minutes.  She really really wanted to sled with her sister and her Dad.  She would've loved it too.  She's such a little risk taker and isn't scared of anything.  But, oh well.  I couldn't calm her down so I just had to listen to her scream.  Jason and Maleah had a ball.  I took my camera with us but since I had my hands full with Little Miss Cold Hands/Loud Mouth in the backseat I didn't actually take any pictures.  I think she learned her lesson though because when we got ready to leave the house on Wednesday morning she went and put on a hat and her mittens without even having been asked.  I don't think she wanted to miss out again.  I love it when I win. 

Maleah has been doing more crafts this week.  The one she worked on today was a sand art kit given to her by Uncle Craig and Aunt LuAnn.  I was a little leery about this one, to be honest.  I pictured colored sand all over my kitchen instead of in the the cute little jars where it was supposed to be layered.  It actually turned out great and there was virtually no mess.  So thank you Craig and LuAnn for today's entertainment.  It was a wonderful way to spend a snow day.  Maleah loved it.  She is so artsy craftsy.  If you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she says "Umm.  I'd like to be a designer.  Or a craft girl.  Or a sew-er.  Or a basketball player.  And I'd really like to have my own closet full of ribbon, just like my Mom."  It all sort of fits together, except for the basketball player part.  I have no idea where that comes from.  She gets her coordination from me so I don't really see that working out for her.  We're going to focus on the "craft girl" part for now.  That seems to be working. 

I've started working on some genealogy and learning about my ancestors.  Here's a neat story for ya.  Years ago, back in the early 80s this guy from Highland, Illinois wrote a book about our family descendents.  Even I am listed in the book.  My Mom had a copy of it and so did my Grandma.  But now neither one of them can find it.  They each think that they let someone borrow it and never got it back.  (Shout out to the Oestreichs:  Do one of you have this book???)  Anyway, Mom and I were talking about the book and she googled the guy's name who wrote it because I thought we could just write to him and ask to buy another copy.  She googled him and found out he had died a few years ago.  I googled the name of the book the next day and found out that there was one used copy of it for sale on Amazon.com from some small bookstore in Illinois.  Well, guess who is now the proud owner of this Descendents book?  ME!!!  Yep, I bought that puppy pretty darn quick.  It is a very interesting book and I found out that I am even more German than I thought I was.  (And I thought I was very German to begin with.)  So now I just need to learn more about my Dad's side of the family.

It really is amazing what you can find on the Internet, isn't it?

Have a great week everybody!