Daddy Daughter Day!

Sunday was our 2nd Annual Daddy-Daughter Day! We had such a great time, despite the fact that Little Miss had a runny nose, a HUGE molar popping through her gums and a low grade fever because of it! We headed off to Jenkinsons for an afternoon of cloudy weather (but NO rain yet) fun!!

We took Kiera to the aquarium first and she absolutely LOVED it! She would stand on the little shelf in front of the tanks and watch the fish with such innocence and enthusiasm. Those fish are funny...it's like they know that you're watching and come right up to you! She thought it was awesome. She wasn't into the sharks, but loved the coral reef fish...bright colors :) They had the biggest puffer fish I've EVER seen and it scared the hell out of me.

Then we took her to go on some rides. She had such fun on the carousel and loved the Dumbo ride...although Sean's stomach did not. Sean got on all the rides for free, so he was the designated ride guy. Finally, we had a really nice lunch at the Tiki Bar.

Today was the last day of school so I have eight weeks off with my peanut and I'm super excited about it! I just hope that the weather improves because I am completely over this rain! I have so many plans and none of them include RAIN!

My sister Danielle is coming down on Sunday to watch Kiera for me on Monday while I wrap up some curriculum work and I'm super excited to see her! She is THE MOST AMAZING Sister and Aunt and I'm so blessed to have her in my life. She's always made it her business to get down here, but since Kiera's been born she's really made it her business to be down here! I cannot even begin to explain the feelings I get when I see them together...Kiera just adores her...and the boys (her very first cousins). To think of not having both of my sisters in my life is painful...I hope they know how grateful I am to have them in my life...and Kiera's life, especially.

Quick Update on Our 14 Month Old!

Kiera is currently walking/running/falling all by herself :) She's been on the go for a little over a week now and it's super exciting! I love to see her "drunken" waddle all over. She tries to hold things while walking which is always fun. She's such a lovey dovey when she wants to be...kisses, hugs, laughing...but she can switch quite quickly to the big frown and crying. Sigh. But normally she's overwhelmingly happy and we can't get enough of it.

I'll be off for the summer starting next week and it can't come soon enough! I'm so lucky to have a job that allows me to spend so much time at home with my family. I'm very much hoping, however, that this recent rain STOPS! The weekends have been mostly clear, so that's great, but the weeks have been unbearable! I cannot believe how much it's rained this month. I want to be able to take Kiera for long walks, to the beach, to the park and outside in general. We bought her a baby pool and water table for the deck and I want to be able to actually use them.



This weekend is Father's Day...Yea! Kiera and I got Daddy the best present :) Saturday night is also "date night" for Sean and I. We're so hoping that the rain will not dampen our plans to eat at our favorite outdoor restaurant. Our neighbor's daughter comes over to sit on our couch and watch the monitor for twoish hours and it's joyful! Kiera's a very good sleeper...usually 7 to 7 or later...so Brianna usually has a great night of movies to look forward to :)

This has nothing to do with Kdog...except maybe her future...

I'm not usually a cause-head...those people make me INSANE and FRUSTRATED...but after seeing Oprah's Earth Day special so many weeks ago, my kids at school, whom I showed clips of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch to, have been psycho about recycling....so here's just a little update about what we've been looking into.

I don't know if you were unaware like we were, but plastic water bottle tops, and other twist on caps, cannot be recycled by most recycling plants! Not only that, but they can create a hazardous environment for the workers in the plants. They can cause the bottles to explode in the machines or they can jam them. I feel like I've been really trying to do my part and some of my part has now been negated...so sad. So make sure that you take the tops off of ANY bottle that you recycle...shampoo, laundry detergent, milk containers, etc. Look into your local recycling rules and whether or not they'll take the caps with your recycling or if you have to throw them in the regular trash. But either way, take them off your bottles!

Here's some information about bottle caps:

http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/plastic_lids.htm

My kids and I have been looking into things that we can do with our bottle caps. There are the obvious ones like use them to create a game or crafts, but how many games can you make out of the hundreds of caps we collect a week...and we have been collecting them. So one of my kids found a website from Aveda Haircare and they will collect your bottle caps and recycle them back into shampoo bottles! I'm enrolling my school for September, the Intermediate School already does it, and I'm so excited about it!

Here's the website just in case you or your place of work wants to get involved!

http://aveda.aveda.com/aboutaveda/caps.asp

And some fun ideas of what to do with them if you don't want to throw them away or get involved with Aveda:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2186733_recycle-bottle-caps.html

The Pugs Formally Known As My Kids...

Let me preface this blog by saying that I love my animals...all freaking four of them :) However, they are driving me up the WALL!! To go through the laundry list of nonsense that I have to deal with on a daily basis would take forever, but here are some of the highlights from just this past week...

• Molly and Rae Ann were over for dinner and we were eating in the dining room. We kept watching the dogs go up and down the stairs...clue to something being up...so I dash upstairs to find poop in the hallway and pee all over the shower curtain!!! WHAT??? They're seven and five!! They are outside all the time!!
• I brought animal crackers to the beach in a zip lock bag...you know where this is going...Kiera didn't eat them all, so in the beach bag they stayed. I come home from a walk to find the beach bag torn apart, the zip lock bag in shreds, and no animal crackers. Sigh.
• Yesterday I'm playing with Kiera in the living room and the dogs are futzing in the kitchen. All of a sudden I hear a rustling sound like they have paper...but that's not the case, Luke has THREE diapers that he managed to fish out of the garbage. I can't win!
• Finally, I don't have a whole lot of time or energy to vacuum, vacuum, vacuum...but last night I vacuumed for over a half an hour getting every last piece of animal annoyance that I can off the carpet in the living room...what do I come home to today you ask?? Poop on the carpet...not only do they enjoy pooping during the day (after I've let them out twice before I go to work in the morning) but they DIG in it...Nice, right??

Maybe some of those things are my fault...like leaving the cookies in the bag and the bag in reach of the pugs...but the others?? What else can I do??

And don't get me started on the cats! Sera hides out in the basement because she hates the dogs...I wonder why...and if we let her up at night, she scratches up the carpet so badly that we can't get it back to normal. This with every scratching post I can find showered with cat nip which she loves...Leia, well Leia, she's a pee-er...and if you've ever smelled cat pee, you wouldn't forget it. We can forgive Leia just a smidge because she has very bad back legs and has since she was a kitten...but she's constantly peeing out of the litter box...and sometimes will just be lazy and go on the floor...it's overwhelmingly gross. Our downstairs bathroom in covered in wee-wee pads like we have a puppy or she'll pee all over the floor.

Honestly, I just can't take it anymore! I'm ready to lock them all in one cage and let them work it all out themselves. Who would have thought that I would have to deal with this crap with two cats who are nine, and pugs who are no longer puppies. It's so frustrating! It's funny too because if we had stuck to one cat and one dog it would have been Leia and Luke...the worst of the four of them. Sera, other than the scratching is a great cat and Bella is wonderful too...most of the time...so I would've been SOL anyway :)

And believe you me...they get attention! They're always with us, Luke right now is laying with me and my left arm is resting on his back as I type. They also still sleep with us...which I wish with everything in me that I never started. He was just so damn cute as a puppy. Urg.

On the upside...Kiera loves them. She kisses them constantly, laughs when they play, and is getting really good at giving them pets. I also enjoy petting them and watching them do silly pug things. I wish it could always be like that...

Beach Babe

Kiera adamantly refuses to wear a hat at the beach. I have tried every kind of hat we have, I have tried to distract her with toys, ANYTHING, but she will not keep it on...so I spray her entire head with sunscreen :) It's worked so far. The beach itself is a lot of fun...and yet an adventure with Kiera Rita. She loves loves loves the sand. It's always all over everything, which is fine with me. I'm sure she's ingested quite a lot of it as well, but a little roughage never hurt...builds that great immunity she seems to have. I've been taking her on Saturdays when Sean works to a free beach that I love on the river in Pt. Pleasant. It's great because it's not crowded, the parking lot is a hop and skip away from the sand and did I mention that it's FREE! So I love it. She usually spends most of her time going from the towel to the chair and back again bringing a ton of sand wherever she is. But yesterday she decided that it would be a fantastic idea to crawl away from our blanket like a little crab. Sigh. I thought I was so lucky, but wasn't for long. She's exhausting...but she was also exhaustED because we went home and she slept for over 2 hours! All that after taking an hour and a half long nap in the morning, so that was the best part! One of my friends sent me a link to a Preschool Rock class for Saturday mornings that I'm also seriously considering. That would be so much fun...for me :) haha...Kiera LOVES music and dancing and making noise with things, so this may be right up her alley...I'm just concerned that it won't hold her interest for 45 minutes and I'll just be chasing her around. But if not this year, then definitely next.

I'm off to relax for a few minutes while she's napping this afternoon!

Little Miss Tude

Kiera has decided that it's cool to have a mini tude...it's simply adorable :) She knows exactly what she wants and moreso what she doesn't want and lets you know about it...quite loudly. She's also getting pickier about food, which is fun. Last week Donna was in and I made Kiera eggs and eggos for breakfast. She put a tiny piece of the egg in her mouth...by complete accident because she was going for the eggo and wasn't paying attention...and the milisecond it touched her tongue she screamed bloody murder. It was hysterical! She cried and cried and cried like her life was ending! I swept it out of her mouth, but the crying wouldn't stop and she wouldn't eat anything else off her tray for breakfast or lunch...I guess she thought I was trying to poison her. Freaking hilarious. Along with her mini tude she's also aquired the love of kissing. It's the cutest thing. She'll come over to you, lean in and put her lips on your lips...sometimes open mouthed which is super. She will also kiss the animals which I just love! Sometimes she will get mad at you, swat at you, feel bad, and give you a kiss. It's something else!

We had a glorious Mother's Day. We went to Allaire State Park again, as we did last year, and the weather cooperated this year! We walked around, took her on the swings, and ate some lunch and played in the grass outside the chapel that Sean and I got married in. I just loved every minute of it! The one piece that was missing was my mom, but Kiera fills my heart so much that I actually didn't cry this year...shocking.

Sean has begun a "new job" this week. He had to leave his archaeological job because they weren't paying their employees...sooo he's back at the Fudge Kitchen four days a week and two days with his professor at Monmouth University. So there are four days when I will be a single mom and it's exhausting! Sean's been away before, but there's always a light at the end of the tunnel...we're stuck here until October!! Urg. I know that it's what has to happen so that we can pay the mortgage, but I've never ever been so tired. I got up at 5am this morning, showered, got ready, got her up and out of bed, bottle, dealt with the dogs, got all our bags together, out the door to Nicole's by 6:45, 20 minutes to Nicole's, 40 minutes to work, WORK, WORK, WORK, meeting after work until 4:30, 30 minutes home, Nicole dropped Kiera off, PLAY, PLAY, PLAY, eat, bath, bottle, bed, CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN. I'm done. He'll be home late tonight and I'll have a hand tomorrow and then he goes away again...sigh. So I have to pull it together and know that this is what our family needs right now and just smile when he actually gets paid!

I'm off to finish watching American Idol...GO ADAM...and pop into bed!! Good night!

New Blog

I felt SO bad that I've been a complete Blog-Hog on my Motherless Daughters' blog that I've decided to create another one for strictly Kiera business...

There are so many days when I just want to babble on and on about Kiera and being a "working mom" and I feel bad laying it out there on my other blog when I should reserve that for sad "mommy days".

So check in here for doses of Kiera nonsense...working mom craziness...and rants in general :)

Kiera had a very hard week...she's had a runny nose, so we thought it was just because of her teeth, but it ended up being because she had a 102 fever and an ear infection :( Sean rushed home on Tuesday...because my job doesn't allow for such things like caring for your child in emergencies...and took her to the doctor. She's been on meds since Tuesday night and seems to be doing much better...phew!

Otherwise this weather SUCKS and I'm hoping for some sun tomorrow??!! We really need to get out of the house very soon! Cross fingers for me!