A Bad Case of the Gimmes

I've been meaning to get some video of Liesel when she's chattering because it's so adorable. When I pulled out my camera I remembered why I hadn't done it up to now- she always grabs for the camera. I thought if I gave her another equally exciting electronic she'd be set. WRONG! You'd probably agree my first attempt to capture the chatter failed miserably:



Take Two was much better. It still doesn't quite capture exactly how chatty she gets, but close enough. Call me crazy, but I think she knew she was being filmed.


Not that she's always such a handful. Liesel's usually a really good little girl. She can play happily on her own and now she's going through a phase where she likes to "help." If we leave a room, she's happy to turn off the light switch for us. She loves sitting on top of the dryer and helping me put the dirty clothes into the washer.When we finish loading the dishwasher she wants to help us close the door. She's normally a complete sweetheart. On Sunday she looked freakishly adorable and somehow she looked even more so in Brent's arms.

But she still hates the beret. Brent is holding her hands so she can't pull it off. I think somehow even the crying makes it cuter! Am I totally biased?

Bummer

It was about 8 PM when I was checking out Brent's bootie (I do this on a regular basis) that I noticed this:Brent is unsure of when or more importantly HOW it happened. It's not like it's subtle either, he really ripped his pants! After examining the damage I sadly told him it was beyond repair. It's like the fabric stretched and then separated because it's completely shredded.

Even after carefully reviewing his day Brent couldn't remember sitting on anything that could have caused it and didn't remember hearing a tear. He assures me his co-workers are the kind of people who would have pointed it out to him to keep him from embarassing himself. Brent added that most of the day he's been wearing his black leather jacket which covers it. I dunno, the thought of my husbands cheeks hanging out all over Boston still kinda bothers me... Apparently not enough to blog about it though :) Be sure to take the poll!

Scooper Bowl

There's no doubt about it, the Wuehler family LOVES ice cream! It was the first food item we moved into our freezer. It was among the first solids Liesel really enjoyed. It's no wonder we were eagerly looking forward to the Jimmy Fund's Annual Scooper Bowl last week.

In our humble opinion, the Scooper Bowl ranks up there with winning the lottery. We paid our flat fee of $8 per person, collected our spoons and headed off to the tents of cool deliciousness. Haagan-Dazs, Brighams, Ben & Jerry's, Baskin Robins, Hood, Garelick, Edy's, Breyers and a new favorite Spasso Gelato all had cups with tiny scoops of well, different flavors of heaven.

Liesel's young enough to get in for free but she ended up eating enough ice cream for a regular person. Brent had her in the Snugli and if he didn't give her ample shares of whatever he was eating she was sure to let him know about it. This was also Whitney's first Scooper Bowl and she was appropriately impressed. We walked away with the best of sugar highs. I wish I could say we do it for the good cause but the truth is we just do it for the ice cream.

My Little Tadpole

Despite my newfound low body image drummed up by a pornographic video Liesel managed to take of me with my cell phone (not a bloggable story, call me if you really want to know), I stuffed myself into a swimsuit Friday night and headed to the pool with my family. Liesel has been taking a Mommy/Nanny & Me swim class with Whitney this summer and recently has made some serious progress. We'd all had a tense few days and it was exactly what the family needed.

Before we even reached the pool, Liesel started kicking her legs and squealing. She was SO cute as she played with the beach balls and pushed Brent underwater. Liesel loved the slide and playing Humpty Dumpty. Whitney tells me she can sit Liesel on the edge of the pool and when she gets to "had a great fall" Liesel will push herself off the wall into the water. Sorry, but I think that's pretty dang cool. When Liesel gets really excited she just squeals and screams and there was plenty of that too. Sadly the family swim hours are changing from Friday to Thursday nights for the summer which is when we have our Addiction Recovery Group. With the swim lessons over, Whitney has promised to take Liesel to the beach to make up for it though.

As much as I love, love, LOVE Liesel's butterfly swimsuit with the fluttery straps and matching sunglasses, Gymboree has a new strawberry one. How freakishly adorable would my little strawberry blonde look in this? It's not only on sale, but an extra 30% off. Oh how tempting that is!!! But the pragmatic side of me says she already HAS a swimsuit, this one only goes up to 18-24 mo so by next year she'll have outgrown it. Even on sale I don't need to be spending money when we're paying off the last of the AZ house expenses. Truthfully, I'd much rather be debt free than almost anything in this whole world and this is a want, not a need. Not to mention the fact our landlord just notified us she's raising rent by $50. *huge dramatic sigh* I guess I'll just PICTURE her in it :)

Baaa Baaa Baaa Ram

Liesel's been particularly chatty lately. I know she has something to tell us, but I can't understand much yet. When we're in the kitchen prepping dinner or doing dishes she'll bust out in a very loud, "BABABABABABABABA!!!!" It's so cute. It reminded me of a well-known song by the Beach Boys so I started singing it to her and she'd get a toothy grin and bop up and down to my off-key music. I decided to just download it from iTunes rather than assault her poor, innocent ears. Imagine my surprise when I couldn't find it under Baa Baa Ram. Or even Bob Bob A Ran. Finally I did a google search using the few lyrics I was confident were in the song. Turns out it's called "Barbara Ann". Waaaaaa???? All this time I thought the song was about sheep and a ram. Okay, I realize that doesn't make much sense (especially given the verse about taking a chance at a dance) but this came from a generation who produced a whole song about a lollipop. Or IS it about a lollipop.... now I'm starting to wonder. But I digress. I downloaded "Barbara Ann" and listened carefully and I STILL can't hear that name anywhere in there. However, I can now hear the "Tried Betty Sue" which I thought was "Dried Petting Zoo" so I guess the song really is about a girl named Barbara Ann.

What songs have you misheard the lyrics on? Aerosmith and Michael Jackson always throw me off. They could be saying anything in their songs and I still wouldn't understand.