That is, hands down, my favorite flavor of oatmeal.  Of course, I also add a sprinkle of extra brown sugar ’cause I’m just sweet like that, you know.  In fact, I bet right now you have a couple of boxes of Quarker oats in your pantry too, right?  Maybe some dried oats to make into oatmeal and raisin cookies or a box of instant oatmeal for breakfast on a cold winter morning.  If you do, go get them.  No seriously.  Run down to your pantry and bring the boxes back here to me and I’ll let you in on a little secret.  I’ll wait.

Hum de dum….  Doot doot do.

Ok, got ’em?  Cool.  Now click here – Quaker Facebook Page – and enter your barcodes into the box on the right.  For every barcode you enter, Quaker will donate a bowl of oatmeal to help end childhood hunger.  How cool is that?!?!  You don’t have to give them your email address or sign up for a newsletter or anything.  It only takes a second and you have the boxes right in front of you, right?  Now if you’re feeling extra specially giving today, you can take this one step further and call a friend.  Tell them to grab their boxes from the pantry and do the same.   Good job!  I knew I could count on you!

People warned me about 18 months but I didn’t listen. Come to think of it, I got lots of good advice/warning about babies that I pretty much tossed out the window without a backwards glance. Let me tell you, I hasn’t been pretty driving in reverse trying to locate all those pearls of wisdom.

But I digress. 18 months is it. It’s the tops. It’s the best of the best. The creme de la creme. Leina is fully mobile and talking but she hasn’t yet hit the terrible twos meltdown. She’s a little parrot and is even stringing words together. “Sit momma.” “More please.” And my personal favorite, “love you.”

Ahhhhh, if only this month could last forever.

But I can see around the curve. Already, she’s getting harder to distract and when her will is thwarted, she’ll stamp her foot and start yelling “no, no, no, no.” This is not a pretty sight. Basically, it’s the old story of the lion vs the bull. So far, I’ve managed to keep my feet under me but if she ever manages to knock me down, all Kevin will find is my mauled carcass with Leina sitting on the sofa smacking her chops.

So I’m trying to enjoy every single day of 18 months knowing full well that two is breathing down my neck. I have a plan though. It involves Auntie Suzy and a one way plane ticket. Hee hee hee.

Kevin told me the website was down and he was unable to fix it so I decided to step in.

I turned on the computer, launched my browers and voila! Site fixed.

So either I am a computer goddess or Kevin is a dork. You decide.

Chrissie’s been working on getting Leina to smile for the camera, so when she got Leina this new Christmas hat she had to show off her progress.

Say, “Xmas Cheese Leina…”

Merry Christmas!

The last package has been slipped into the mail and it is with a very joyful heart that I began putting away my Christmas wrapping paper. This is Kev’s last week of work and my parents arrive next week so it’s looking to be a truely wonderful holiday. All I have left are the Christmas cards and, once again, we captured a precious munchie picture. She’s getting so much harder to photograph. She’s more apt to wander off when you try and snap her pic. Getting her to hold still, look at the camera, and smile has become a major struggle. However, once we dressed her in her Christmas best and placed her in front of the Christmas tree, we knew we had a winner.

So watch you mailboxes ’cause this is once sweet child!

So I’m up here, surfing the web and waiting for Kevin to come home when I hear Leina begin to cry. Only it sounds really really far away so my first thought is..”oh my god I left the baby gate open and she has fallen down the stairs and is lying by the front door moaning.”

I rush from the computer room to find Artie curled in front of the securely closed baby gate right at the top of the stairs and then I hear her howl. And again, it sounds like she’s far, far away.

Now, I am convinced that Leina is The Smartest Child Every so immediately I decide that somehow, she managed to climb over Artie’s inert body, open the baby gate, climb down a few steps, and shut it behind her before she tumbled head first down the stairs. I’m just about to head down to look for her sprawling body when I notice that the door to her room is closed.

Odd.

As I walk over I hear another moan, this one definately originating behind said closed door.

Yes, my brilliant child and managed to close herself in her room. In the dark. And, to prove how wonderfully smart she is, she was pushing against the closed door in at attempt to open it. And so ensued a slight pushing war as I attempted to push open the door and free my daughter from her dark room and she attempted to push the door shut in a futile attempt to help me.

The Smartest Child EVER!