Shootin' The Poop

It's time to say good-bye!

It has been a hard decision, but we are taking the leap.  We are closing the blog down at the end of the month.  The luster has faded and life has become busier (ok, really Facebook has just sucked us in) and we just haven’t had the drive or the interest to make time for the blog anymore.  Thank you to everyone for your friendship over the years here and on chicksthatchat.  We have had a blast and we will miss you! 

 

We aren’t falling off the face of the earth though… we will see you over on your blogs and on Facebook!

 

Adios and Thank You!

 

A kick in the pants from our friend Chino Valdez

Nicole and I received this e-mail yesterday...

Dear Shootin' The Poop Moms,

Umm...what's going on? I understand that you all lead busy lives, I do. But this is getting a little ridiculous. Those of us that don't have children like to live vicariously through your stories. Every day, I go on your blog for an update and almost every day, I leave disappointed. I want to know how Andrea is doing. I want to know about MK's kiddo's first games this season. I want to know about Nicole's possible brush with the Swine Flu. Please, oh please, make this happen. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Chino Valdez

Hummmm....Do you think this should be our motivation to get posting again weekly?

The Funky Bone

This kid is killing me lately!  Her latest thing is that when she bumps into something she says "ouch!  I bumped my funky bone"!  I can't even tell you how hard Alan and I laugh when she says this.  Most things we'll correct her on but not this one because seriously... the funky bone is just plain cute!

Life has been busy around here although I'm not exactly sure what we've been doing that is keeping us so busy.  We still have a list a mile long of stuff to be done around the house, so it's not that.  I guess it's just life...

We've been working a little bit on potty training and the consensus is that this girl is ready to not wear diapers any longer but we just need to put the poop part into motion.  Not sure what it is that makes going poop in the big potty so terrifying.  We've promised her a trip to Downtown Disney as soon as she poops in the big girl potty so hopefully that'll be happening soon!

In the meantime, Maddie has been going crazy still for "arts and crafts" and I am having a ball doing them with her!  Here's a picture of her from last week posing with her little egg carton guys.  How cute are they all?  The kid and the egg carton guys, that is!

My beautiful little lady:

Craft Day

For the past few months I've been meaning to stop by the craft store to get some fun stuff for Maddie and I to do on my days off and weekends.  As much as we both love Play Doh, it's just getting old and we need some variety.  Today we finally made it to Michael's and picked up a boatload of stuff.  We spent about $50 but the stuff that we got will last a long, long time and we can do so many different projects.

Here's what we purchased:

foam shapes w/ adhesive on one side (shown below)

construction paper

finger paints

make your own animal foam sets (shown below)

wood birdhouse

paints for birdhouse

pipe cleaners in lots of colors

googly eyes

colorful cotton ball type thingies

sparkly gems

glue

tissue paper

And, there's more but that's all I can remember right now.  We came home and got right to work on a few "arts and crafts" (that's what Maddie calls it!) projects.  Today she stuck about a million of the foam shapes to construction paper and then colored around them with a marker.

After that, we made a few of the create your own foam animals.  Now that was fun!  Her favorite part were the googly eyes of course!

Next up will be a tissue paper tree, painting the birdhouse and some egg carton bugs!  I know I'm no Martha Stewart, but the kid sure thinks it's fun and so do I!

PS... crappy phone pics, sorry!

What's Pissing Me Off Today

Those AIG bonuses.  Disgusting.  Just disgusting.

Those asshats gave out $165 million in bonuses after receiving a $170 billion bailout from the government.  

Budget Living... At It's Finest

Some of you may or may not know that the husband was laid off from his job about a month and a half ago.  Other than the not having a job and not having a regular paycheck coming in, it's not that bad.  Without going into it too much, it's hard but I know in the long run it'll all work out for the best.

In the meantime, we've tightened the budget belt... tiiiiighhhhtttt!

A sure sign of the times is how so many businesses are offering discounts/incentives right now.  This will probably be supremely boring to most of you but perhaps it can help even one person?  Here are some things that have helped our budget:

• $10 monthly discount on our existing DirecTv service plus free HBO.  All I did was call and say "my husband got laid off and I really really want to watch Big Love can you make that happen?" and the nice lady gave me the $10/month off for a year plus free HBO for 3 months.  Woohoo!
•  Called the asshats at Time Warner Cable eleventy billion times begging for a price reduction for our high speed internet.  Was told no each time.  Threatened to leave and was still told no!  So, I...
•  Checked out the DSL pricing with our home phone company and low and behold it's half price of what we were paying.  Total PITA to get it all setup but in the long run worth it.  While going through the PITA setup I almost gave up.  The nice people at the phone company really wanted us to stay with them so they discounted the already low rate to 50% for the next six months!
• Went through our home phone and cell phone bills and discovered we could were paying for more than we needed. 
• Just found out that our cell phone company offers a discount to employees at my organization. 
• Any eating out is now done with a coupon and the coupons are plentiful right now!
• I set up a second email address that's strictly for junk and have signed up for email lists for all of our favorite shopping/restaurants that we love which results in A LOT of great deals being mailed out... along with a lot of junk mail! 

I Kid You Not.

Here's a post from "The Bump".  For those of you who don't know what The Bump is, it's an offshoot from The Knot (wedding planning) and The Nest (newlyweds).  I think it's safe to say that some people need to have a better relationship with both their OB and their bodies?  (Thanks for the wording, Andrea!)

Here's her original post:

Are any of you guys using birth control while you're pregnant?  I've heard of Irish twins (sorry if the term offends any of you I don't know the medical term) and actually know 2 of them and I'm wondering if DH and I should be concerned about it.

It's not that I'm not thrilled I'm pregnant, I just don't think we are ready for 2 babies at the same time.

And if you have a few minutes to kill, here's the whole post.  I love the replies...

BC while prego?

The Many Faces of Maddie

Getting up at the crack of dawn every weekend day can really bite but at least the kid makes it fun!  She loves to snack on cereal and orange juice until Alan gets up.  We watch Playhouse Disney, drag a million toys out and color while still in our jammies.  So fun!

Here are scene's from this morning.  Think this girl is going to be a drama queen, or what?

 

Hiatus

Not like you couldn't already tell but we're taking a little hiatus. MK and I are busy at work planning our yearly big event. Andrea is busy because she got a job! Stacey is busy being mom to a newborn. We're resting up and plan on returning in November for NaBloPoMo. Hope you all have a great October!

TTFN
KIT!

Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

Love this!

Nicole, if you were born to Sarah Palin, your name would be:

Ammo Canal Palin