Happy Birthday Dear Livie.....

Livie has been so excited for her birthday, she's had it all planned out for the last couple months. She said she wanted to be a "beautiful princess in a beautiful dress with a magic wand" for her birthday. And she wanted presents. When I asked her what kind of presents she wanted, she said "Pink and purple ones." She said she wanted cupcakes and to sing "Happy birthday to ME!"

So what did I do? I went to the store and bought her a Cinderella dress, that happened to come with a wand. I got all the decorations for a princess party, and deep down inside I was so excited for a princess birthday party. (One of the things I love most about having a little girl is that I get to live vicariously through her.)

Here are some more pictures from her party - she had a great time being the center of attention, eating cupcakes and opening presents. Happy Birthday my sweet girl!!!!!

Alivia's Favorite Things

My sweet baby girl turns 3 tomorrow - which is really crazy for me think about. Seriously, when did 3 years go by? It's like I blinked and...

So I decided to make a list of all her favorite things - as I know that this time next year, a majority of them will have probably changed. Right now, Alivia's favorite things are:

• Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches - no crust.
• Bubble baths
• Her "nuggle blankie"
• Mama singing to her in the rocking chair
• The itsy bitsy spider
• "Cowboy Take Me Away" by the Dixie Chicks
• Going to TT's to see her friends (her drop-in daycare)
• Books. Lots and lots of books. She will just sit and flip through the pages forever.
• Pretty braids/ponies in her hair.
• Taking pretty braids/ponies out of her hair
• Spongebob Sqarepants
• Daddy's licorice
• Wiggles
• Being a princess
• Dressing up
• Getting into my makeup
• Cranberry juice
• Chicken McNuggets, with honey
• Being tickled
• Brushing "the buggies" off her teeth. (She'd do it 27 times a day if I didn't stop her)
• Laughing with Andrew
• Being "Jus like my bruddor"
  
• and, last but not least - her Daddy

The Ice-Cream Man

As I'm sitting here on the computer, avoiding that load on laundry in the dryer, I hear an old familiar noise. I think to myself....no, it couldn't be.......yes, I think it is. It's the Ice-Cream Man! I hear his lovely truck cruising through our neighborhood playing the most appropriate song for springtime: "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." He's so with it!

When I was a kid, I remember being so excited for it to be summer and to running around outside with my neighborhood friends. Then the Ice-Cream Man would pull down our street and we'd all wave/chase him down and pay our $0.50 for a fudgesicle, choco-taco or ice-cream sandwich. It would melt fast and make a sticky mess and it was great!

Then we moved out to the BL - and the first summer here, I was quite pregnant with Andrew. One hot summer day, I hear the Ice-Cream Man pull down our cul-de-sac. Yeah!!! I grab a couple bucks, and quickly waddle outside to get his attention before he drives away, and this is what I'm faced with:

This is NOT the nice old Ice-Cream Man I remember from my childhood. This isn't even close. I come to a screeching halt. He sees me. Oh, crap! We've made eye contact. He slowly circles around and rolls his beater truck up to me (which has some really clever advertising - the word "ICE CREAM" painted on the side with spray paint) and now I feel obligated. I'm trapped. I feel like I must complete this transaction because, well I've got cash in hand, I'm pregnant and I ran outside as fast as my swollen feet could carry me.

He gets out, saunters toward the back of his truck, where he opens a Coleman Cooler full of god knows what, and asks:

"What would you like today, little lady?"

I think to myself: "How about a non-child molesting ice-cream man? Ya got any of those in your Coleman cooler?"

That's what I really wanted to say.

But instead I ask for the first thing I see, pay the creepy man and waddle back inside my house just as quickly as I came out. And promptly threw the half melted treat in the garbage.

When Andrew was old enough to know what the ice-cream truck was, I lied to him. I told him that truck wasn't so much an ice-cream truck as it was a music truck. And then we started talking about "stranger-danger." As long as we live here, I will not let my children purchase a darn thing from the Ice-Cream Man.

Plus, although I don't have concrete evidence, I'm pretty sure that this man's truck doubles as the Meth-Mobile during the fall and winter months.

(Disclaimer: The picture shown above is not of our ACTUAL Ice-Cream Man. The man in the picture has teeth. My Ice-Cream Man does not. However, I'm fairly certian that the two men are in fact related. Possibly first cousins. Who would have gotten married if one had turned out to be a girl. But the truck? Oh, that's the real ice-cream truck. Or Meth-Mobile. Depending on which month it is.)

Stuck...On Hold

Right now, we are a little bit stuck. We need to move. Out of this house. For a couple reasons.

1. Jason was recently transferred to a job in Poulsbo - and for those of you who don't know, that's 1.5 hours from here. He does this twice a day. 5 days a week. He used to get home between 6:00pm and 6:30pm. That gave him just enough time to sit down for the family dinners I started cooking regularly and enough time to spend with his kids who so look forward to him coming home in the evening. Now, he gets home between 7:15pm - 7:30pm. That leaves him just enough time to tuck the kids into bed. And eat the family dinners....oh, yeah, that's right. I stopped doing that once he stopped making it home in time.


2. Baby Who Has Yet To Be Named is coming. SOON. That makes three little rugrats total. And two bedrooms to house said rugrats. I know, things could be worse. Atleast I'm not living in tent city, right Mom? But, I'm not going to attempt to move the older two into a room together, when oh, that's right: We're moving. And God willing, into a bigger house.

We're moving........just as soon as we sell this house. See, that's the tricky part. The real estate market is really not my friend right now. Our house has been on the market for over a month now....with two, that's right TWO showings. No offers. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

And we had found the house we wanted to buy. It was great, it really had everything we were looking for in a house. So, we put in a (contingent) offer, and after some back and forth, we all finally agreed on a price. Yeah!!! Then our house sat for a few weeks with not much activity, and the owners of the house we wanted to buy got a higher cash offer. So, they took it. BOOOOOOO!!!!

I know, I know, I really don't blame them. Like us, they needed to sell their house. The market sucks, they had to do what they had to do. No hard feelings toward them one bit. However, we are now without a house to move into, and frankly I'm a little hesitant to make yet another contingent offer on anything, just to have the rug pulled out from underneath us.

I've been feeling really discouraged, because I don't know what the future holds for us. Will we be in this house forever? Will it sell next week? When are we actually moving? Are we really even moving? My life is just on hold. I'd like God to go ahead and answer my call now. The heavenly "on-hold music" compilation is really giving me a headache.