Giveaway and Mary Kay

I have six free one-month passes to Curves up for grabs for anyone who lives in the West Lafayette/Lafayette area. That is a $34 value! First six commenters get the passes! If six people don't comment in a week, I'm putting them up on the corkboard:).

Also, I will be placing an order for Mary Kay on November 30th. If you are interested but haven't gotten me your order, please get it to me soon. You can shop here and the order will come to me or you can email me. Don't worry if it gives you the retail price. I will apply the 20% discount when it gets to me. If you have any questions about the products or would like to try a sample, let me know!!

H1N1 flu shot

We went to the County Fairgrounds this afternoon to get flu shots for the kids (Thanks, Lori, for the heads up!!!). When Eldon heard we were going to get flu shots. He said, "I am going to be brave. I'm not going to cry." I told him it's ok to cry. He said, "but I don't want to. I want to be brave." We get there and line up for the vaccine. I ask him who he wants to go first and he promptly says Lilly. He stands there watching Lilly get her shot and then she screams. He goes red in the face and big tears start to fall. He turns and runs. I have to give Lilly to the nurse and chase him and hold him while he cries. When we get back to the car, Eldon says, "I cried and I didn't want to. I wanted to be brave." It was so sad, but he got to ride in a cop cart back to our car. The policeman pulled over and asked the kids if they would like a ride. We must have looked a sad bunch. Our lesson from this one is sometimes things don't turn out as you would like them to, but you need to focus on what was actually accomplished.

Any lessons you guys learned from today's experiences?

4:30 am

This morning Lilly woke up at 4:30 am. Her diaper had leaked (she still wears one at night) and it had leaked all over her bed, and most importantly on her Snow White dress, which she wears all day long over her clothes and all night long over her pajamas. She does prefer being "nakey" underneath her dress but I don't allow it when we go out. To make it worse, she had soaked her blankie too. The next hour, while we washed a load of laundry, was miserable and I lost my temper. Finally the beloved articles came out of the washer, damp and cold (it has gotten pretty cool around here during the night), and she demands that we put it on. So she wears it and I say, "Lilly, you are going to be so cold! You shouldn't wear that!" She whimpers, "No, it's fine. I'm fine, Mama. Now, I'm fine!" So the moral of the story is that it is better to be a cold wet princess than no princess at all and if you cannot be a princess, you must AT LEAST have a blankie, and if you can't have either than wail and scream and pound on the door. The end.:)

We love you, Lilly, inspite of our frustrations...

Conversations between Eldon and Lilly

Eldon: Let's go kill the bad guy! Let's get him.
Lilly: (confused pause) No, I'm Snow White (sweet smile).
Eldon: Now, you're the bad guy and I'm going to fight you!
Lilly: (confused pause) No, I'm Snow White (sweet smile).
Eldon: Let's pretend Momma's the bad guy and go kill her.
Lilly: (confused pause, shakes head, mutters) No.

***Just wanted to add a disclaimer to this post that I don't teach or encourage my young son to go around pretending to kill people. He's just really into comic book superheros and I let him read them. I also wanted to say that from time to time Eldon will play princesses with Lilly and Lilly will run down the halls pretending to shoot; however, more often than not they seem to gravitate toward the above roles.***

And, Lilly is completely potty-trained!!! Yay! She's been potty-trained at home since she was two, but she just recently decided she doesn't want to wear a diaper out anymore. For the last week she hasn't had one accident. We are OUT of diapers! I hope;). All of us:).

Christmas gifts

I've been thinking of different ways to earn a little extra pocket money for a long time. If you've followed our blog, you know. Recently, they had a promotion at Mary Kay to join for half-price and a friend convinced me to try it. I bought make-up from her last Christmas. I really liked the make-up and time-wise skin care set--they say you should start using an anti-aging product at 21! I wasn't able to buy the starter kit so I don't have product on hand, but if you would like to place an order with me, I will give you 20% off for helping me get started. Please visit my website www.marykay.com/julia.mason to shop and let me know what you are interested in. You can email me at julia.mason@marykay.com. I will be placing a large order on Nov 30 (so get me your orders before then!). It will take 3-5 days (Dec 3-5) for the product to come to me and then, if you are in town, I can deliver it right away. If you are out of town it would then take 3-5 days (Dec 9-11) for it to get to you once I ship it out. However, this way you would get the 20% off and shipping is on me! This is my special "help me get started promotion" for friends who read my blog! There are great products for men, stocking stuffers, and indulgences for you at a great discount from me:)! Let me know!:):)

Evening with Daddy

Aaron stayed home this evening (after much encouragement). We went on a walk and raked leaves, but we had a really fun evening. It makes all the difference to have a friend to share something with.

Eldon has been telling me this for quite some time. We babysit a little boy on Fridays and when I try to get Eldon to do something that he does with Sam he tells me, "it's not as much fun without a friend." I completely agree.

Sleep!!

It always seems to be an issue, right?

So these are my predicaments:

#1 My husband and I never sleep in the same bed. Why did we move to have extra room? I sometimes wonder. After much cajoling we can get Lilly to fall asleep by herself, but she inevitably wakes up during the night and insists on sleeping with her daddy. Being tired, I often decide it's better that Aaron sleep with her than to listen to her wailing. Then sometime during the night I often go sleep with Eldon (when he wakes up whimpering) or he scampers into our bed. We're going to visit my mom during Thanksgiving and she said, "we only have two rooms." No problem that's all we need. One for Aaron and Lilly and one for Eldon and me. Maybe this is just a season. I sometimes think that. This will pass and I will miss those days when I get to snuggle with my kids.

#2 Sleeping during the day makes Eldon grouchy (!) and then he’ll fight to stay up until 10pm (if someone doesn’t lay down with him). I think maybe this is a sign that he doesn’t need the nap anymore? I'm not quite sure what to do or what to do with him since yesterday afternoon he said he was sleepy, but wouldn’t fall asleep. Maybe he just needs some time to adjust to not sleeping in the afternoon? He didn’t take a nap yesterday and was exhausted (!) at 7:30pm. I have no idea how to negotiate this transition between one and no nap.

Any suggestions?