Congratulations on your new desk plant.

Today I won Biller of the Month at my company. I didn't think I would ever win, but today I did. The WHOLE office comes together for an announcement and the winner has to "Spin the Wheel" in front of everyone. The "wheel" consists of a selection of prizes that vary from an iPhone to a panini press. I spun the wheel and won......

drumroll please......




a desk plant!

hahahaha. It's not much but I really do feel like I'm on a lucky streak. Perhaps I'll buy some lottery tickets.

hahaha, we won a contest!

This makes me laugh. I go to gabbafriends.com almost every day just to check out their blog and basically lurk all things Gabba. After Halloween I e-mailed them a couple of pictures of Olivia and Dennis dressed up like Foofa and DJ Lance. Well, I didn't know it at the time but the pictures got entered into some sort of contest for best "family costume" and WE WON!!

Check this out:
http://www.gabbafriends.com/contests-round-two

These are the pictures I sent them:

This is the prize I picked our for Olivia:

It's a Yo Gabba Gabba Dance Mat...she got it in the mail yesterday and loves it!

I just had to share this with you all. I am obviously pretty excited about this. Hey, I never win contests ok???

the plague...

...or gastroenteritis is wreaking havoc on my family.

On Wednesday at approx. 9:00 p.m., only one hour after a completely normal bedtime, Olivia woke up screaming. I knew something was wrong because she never wakes up only an hour after falling asleep...not unless she's sick of course. I walk into her room and she's covered in her dinner which happened to be this (see below) and pasta sauce:


Needless to say the clean-up was horrendous. Dennis was working which was a huge bummer since he usually deals with the clean up while I deal with sad little Olivia. To make a long and disgusting story short, my poor little girl threw up probably around 14 more times that night. The last time was at 4:00 a.m.

The next day I went to work (I had an important meeting or else I would have called in sick.)
I called my mom and she said Olivia was fine, just lethargic. By the time I get there at 1:00 p.m., she had just thrown up her lunch. And then a few hours later she threw up again. I called the doctor (I actually called the night before too and the on-call Dr. told me to call if the vomiting hadn't stopped by morning) and the nurse told me that this crazy strain of gastroenteritis is going rampant around our area. Oh and it's incredibly contagious so wash your hands, blah blah blah. She said that about 75 % of their calls the last 48 hours were for this exact same thing!

So the next day, I call off Olivia's party. I just had this nagging suspicion that I was going to get sick too and there was just no way I'd have her birthday party while we're both sick and contagious.

Friday, at 5:00 p.m. I started to feel nauseous. I knew it was starting. The whole night I was up with dry heaves and diarrhea. Sorry to be so graphic. My brother got it too, so bad he threw up all night and the whole rest of the next day. We stayed at my parents so I wouldn't be alone dealing with this. At this point, my brother hates me and we are both hunkered down in the living room looking like a couple of diseased people on their death beds. That day Olivia started feeling better, thank God.

Saturday: my brother and I still are dying...Olivia's party would have been today. :(

Sunday: we missed Parker's party today. :( So sad, it was Brobee themed which Olivia would have LOVED. I am feeling a little better, just weak as I've only had about 4 crackers in 2 days. Olivia threw up once today and is still looking a little pale. She just went to bed. Please pray that God lets her get through the night without vomiting. I can't take much more of this sickness!!!!!

Here is a link about gastroenteritis. It is pretty general since there are many strains of this virus.

http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/viral-gastroenteritis

Please be careful everyone. Wash your hands a million times a day if you have to. Don't touch shopping carts and wash your little one's hands after playing at the park. I would hate for anyone else to get this.

A day in the life of the 2 year old birthday girl...

Olivia turned 2 yesterday! I took the day off of work so I could spend a rare Monday with her and Dennis. Let's just say she started off the morning right with some homemade blueberry coffee cake and ice cream (my fault for mentioning that we'd go get ice cream later.)

I don't think she really knows what a birthday is yet. We kept singing happy birthday to her. I think she just thought we were singing a cool song. She literally sang "Happy Dirtday" all day to anyone that would listen.







We gave her a couple of presents, a Tinkerbell doll and some Gabba books. She STILL likes opening the presents more than the actual presents. She thought it was Christmas again I think. Except now she says, "Another one?" the second after she is done ripping the paper off.

She loved her Gabba coloring book! But I think Dennis liked it more...

Dennis is really into coloring right now. He will start coloring with Olivia and will continue to color an entire page even after Olivia is completely over coloring. He completely zones us out and has the most serious face on while he's doing this.

We took her to Doc Burnstein's for MORE ice cream. She ate every last bit and even shared some with me! mmmmm, Birthday Cake flavor. Our favorite.

Ice cream for lunch! Amazing!

Ama, Papa, Aunt Wee and Uncle Matt came over for cake...funfetti cake with rainbow chip frosting of course! She blew out the candle herself!















Thank you for all of the presents Ama & Papa!!!

The finale: ice cream for dinner!

Happy 2nd birthday my little Livi.

lonely nights and TV!

So Dennis has officially started working nights for the outage. I am already starting to anticipate many lonely nights without him. I am sure I will get a ton of stuff done (he has a way of getting me to lay on the couch with him all night so I can never get anything done!) HOWEVER, I also watch a lot of TV when Olivia goes to sleep so if any of you want to come over and watch with me, please let me know.

Here's a list of shows I watch:

24
House
Bones
Lost
American Idol
Fringe
CSI
CSI: Miami
Law & Order: SVU
Smallville

* I am probably forgetting some too. Seriously, who wants to come over??

Crazy.

I cannot believe what just happened. Olivia was getting cranky and of course when this happens I check the clock and it just so happens to be nap time. I get her drink, take her upstairs with her "guys" aka a million stuffed animals. I am changing her diaper while she chugs her milk and I ask "Do you want me to read you a book?" This is her response, "No! Bed! Bed! Bed! Bed!"... so I put her in her crib. She rolled over and said, "Goodnight." I literally just walked out of her room and she's sound asleep.

How sad, she didn't want to read or sing or anything. Sometimes I feel like she doesn't even need me anymore. :(

Our water got turned off...

...yes, I guess you could say we've hit a new low. I completely forgot to pay our water bill. I got a notice a couple of weeks ago that had a shut off date on it and I just left it in my car and totally forgot about it! So...yesterday we come home and our water is turned off. I called them at 4:15 p.m. and they told me they don't take payments by phone, I have to drop off a check only I am too late because they close at 4:30 p.m. I was pissed. The lady told me to drop a check in the drop box and they'd turn it back on first thing tomorrow. So Olivia skipped her bath, we brushed our teeth with Brita water from the fridge, couldn't flush the toilet...I'll spare you the rest of the details.

I look for my checkbook so I can write out a freaking check in the morning and guess what?? I'm completely out of checks. I have to go to work so I call my mom, she comes over to pick up Olivia and gave me a check to use. (Thank God for my mom.) I dropped the check in the drop box and went to work. About an hour later I call the water company and I just got a message.

I had a crazy day at work today. I didn't get a chance to call the water company again but I just assumed they had turned our water back on since the lady said they would! We get home at 7:00 p.m. and I say to Dennis, "Please tell me the water is back on." He turns on the faucet and it just drips. They didn't turn the water back on!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is only one stupid number to call for the piece of crap Nipomo Community Services District...I get the 24 hour "Emergency Answering Service." The guy told me that having your water turned off isn't an emergency so they couldn't help me until Monday! I hung up and completely freaked out. I called back CRYING asking how they could do this to a family with a two year old daughter, how can they expect us not to have water for an entire weekend, we can't even flush our toilet! The lady said she "understands I'm frustrated but she can't help me."

I walk downstairs completely defeated. I officially feel like the most white trash person on earth. I mean who gets their water turned off these days??? I asked Dennis if he could look outside and try to turn it on himself. He looked at me and rolled his eyes as if that was the most ridiculous idea I have ever had. hahahaha. He grabs a flashlight, goes outside and a few minutes later he comes back in...turns on the faucet...and it works!!!!!!

HAHAHAHAHA, TAKE THAT YOU STUPID IDIOT WATER COMPANY!

Now...let's hope we don't get arrested. With my luck, we probably will.

Bed.

I just have to write about a little adventure Dennis and I went on today.

We just got home from a very quick day-trip to Ikea. We got a gift card for Christmas and went to go get a new couch cover. However, we rarely make it Ikea these days and I have been dreaming about getting a bed for oh I don't know...YEARS. Before today, our bed consisted of mattress and box spring just on our bedroom floor. So we decided that today would indeed be the day to change our lives forever...on the bed front anyway. hahaha.

We get to Ikea, which was an absolute madhouse. I think the entire city of Burbank decided to refurnish their homes today. We met up with some old friends, which was awesome since I hadn't seen them in more than 2 years. We find everything we need and UH OH...the headboard doesn't fit in the car. I suggested that we just return the bed and come back and get it some other time. Dennis wouldn't have that. He decided it would be a good idea to strap the bed on top of the car...with the doors closed. Yeah. So we get on the freeway and the headboard is moving a little and Dennis has his hand out of the window just to be safe...I could only hold my hand out of the window for about 5 seconds because it was so cold. By the look on Dennis' face I could tell he was worried so we stopped at Wal-Mart to get some ratchet ties. After Dennis felt like the damn thing was finally secure we were on our way. But oh no! I had to pee. And we were hungry. We pull in to Del Taco and both have to climb out of the driver's side window. Dennis had to LIFT me out actually. If anyone saw us they would have thought we had completely lost our minds.

At least we have a bed now.

THE END.