Thanks, Mom!

As a person who studied psychology in college, I understand nature vs. nurture. No surprise when both Charlotte and Elijah took up thumb sucking considering both Greg and I sucked our thumbs when we were little. However, I was quite surprised when Charlotte cried out today saying she hurt herself, and upon furthering questioning, discovered that she hurt her finger. And what I saw when she told me she hurt her finger was a fingernail in the other hand and a very little stub of a nail left of her hurt finger. Now, where, oh where, did she pick up this nasty habit of biting her fingernails down to the stub? Yup, my mother, Charlotte's maternal grandma.

You need to understand though that my mom no longer bites her nails, and has beautiful fingernails, but there was a time long ago that wasn't the case. (She either almost got blood poisoning or did get blood poisoning.) Let's hope it doesn't get to that. This is now where nurture comes in and we have to teach Charlotte not to bite her nails.

Adorable

These pics were taken on Sunday when Eli decided to have a super short nap, and Charlotte was still sleeping. I figured he has been shafted far too much being the second child, so I pulled out our little Olympus to take lots of random shots of him. These are the best three. Imagine the damage I could do with a super big digital SLR (hint, hint, hint to my family for a birthday present this year!)

I've turned into my gramma

When my grandparents moved and my cousin and I were unpacking the pantry boxes we joked about how much of one product my gramma would have, like 5 bottles of tartar sauce. Seriously, how much fish could you eat??? Or, a wide variety of salad dressings-like one that would put Jewel to shame. My gramma's response-it's on sale.
So, do you think 28 cans of cranberry sauce is overkill? Well, they were on sale. And by sale I mean 25 cents a can!!!! (Regularly $1.69 by the way.)

Oh! Blah!!

So Charlotte and I were looking through photos on the camera today when we got to a picture of Elijah (a very adorable one by the way that I'll post later.) So Charlotte said Oh! Blah! Not a big deal since she often goes into random ramblings. However, she then said, "What is Blah doing?" So the endearing nicknames continue.

We can live without 2, but not 11!

So we finally got the digital converter box set up in our house (yeah, I know, we are probably the only people in our generation without cable) only to find we don't have channel 2. Bummer since we do love The Amazing Race, but that's the only show on CBS we watch. Then today Charlotte wanted to watch Martha (as in Martha Speaks-a dog that talks, not Martha Stewart.) No problem! Oh but wait, we don't have channel 11 either! (My first thought was how could this be? Charlotte must have watched TV this week since we installed the box!) Oh crap, NOW we have to get cable for:
1. Mommy breaks
2. Friday date night (since we can't afford to go out we go out vicariously through Check, Please!)

Good thing this conversion doesn't happen until June now, because I just turned off the box and Charlotte was able to watch Curious George for the above mentioned mommy break! I do have to focus on making dinner after all!

My Target Deal

We were in desperate need for diapers today (Eli was wearing a size 6 diaper this morning) so a Target trip was in order. And boy did I struck gold! The Huggies jumbo pack was on sale for $9.99 (which I usually do not buy because the jumbo pack is the one with the least amount of diapers so a higher cost per diaper.) However, I had a $1.50 manufacturer coupon, plus a $2.00 Target coupon (you can stack store coupons and man. coupons) to bring the cost of the diapers to $6.49. Yes, a pretty good deal, but it gets better! When I picked up the diapers, there was a coupon attached for getting a container of Huggie wipes for FREE (normally $2.39). So diapers and wipes for $6.49-not bad!

On the other hand, I did spend $10.99 on special Nature Baby diapers, because Elijah has a NASTY diaper rash that will NOT go away and we are willing to do anything and everything to help it heal, including spending $10.99 on 34 diapers that are all natural with no chemicals.

Ultimate Game Night

On February 7, we welcomed friends into our home for our 2nd annual Valentine's party, which was an Ultimate Game Night. 28 people were there (and Jason and Roxanne, you were there in spirit!) We had a fabulous time eating yummy food, playing fun games, and Greg and I had an especially fun time since we won third place!! (can't help but mention our competitive spirit!) Special rockstar shout outs to Kimberly for creating the trivia so Greg and I could participate, mom for making and shipping her oh so delicious truffles that Charlotte loves (by the way, I asked Charlotte what she wanted for breakfast today and she said truffles! Forget the fact that they were gone by Sunday afternoon!), and Rebekah and Swen, our host and hostess who made the evening so much more fun for us. Save the date for next year's party, which will be Saturday, February 6, 2010!