Goodbye 2008, Welcome 2009

With fondness, I look back on 2008.
Littlebit celebrated her 1st birthday, learned to walk, is trying to talk, went swimming for the first time, and had her first camping trip.
Lovey went fishing with Grandpa, started his second year of preschool, swam to the bottom of the pool, and learned he is allergic to grass (after having his eyes swell up) and cats.
I started working part time in the summer and started my third year of not teaching - I miss it. My husband studied for his PE test and celebrated the 1 year anniversary of his new job.
I organized a block party for my neighborhood this summer. Those that attended seemed to enjoy it and hopefully we will talk to each other more.

With anticipation, I look forward to 2009.
Lovey will start kindergarten which means school everyday.
Littlebit will get to be with me everyday. Hopefully Littlebit will start swimming lessons too.
Hoping my husband will pass the PE test.
I'm looking forward to my new nephew to be born in 2009 and possibly a trip to go see him.

Happy new year!

Walking in a winter wonderland or I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

Snow! For awhile I wasn't sure if it would ever stop snowing. It just kept snowing and snowing and snowing. Everything around here shuts down with just the appearance of snow, so Lovey has had an additional week of Christmas break. Lucky me! Even my husband has gotten some time off. Our roads by us do not get plowed or sanded so on Friday on our way to the doctor we had a little fun.
Lovey: Mom, why is the car going this way?
Me: We're sliding sideways.
Lovey: Stop, there's a sign.
Me: We'll stop eventually. (And we did safely)

Littlebit has a bad cold that is in her lungs, but she want to play outside if Lovey is and I prefer to keep her inside and quiet. We've been to the doctor twice and I don't plan on going any more since they are calling for more snow. We'll see if we have guests at Christmas, but at least this year we will have a white Christmas.

These are a few of my favorite things

I love my ornaments. From the ones students gave me to my Christopher Radko each one tells a story. I started out with a wonderful collection because my grandmother has given my an ornament every year when I was younger.

This ornament is one my grandma painted. It is beautiful.

I can't believe my grandma made one of these for each of her grandkids. There are fourteen of us.


My mom made this ornament after Lovey was born. I keep telling her I need a new one because now we have Littlebit.

This one a student made us as a wedding present.

Ah, a tree full of memories.

Oh Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree is up and beautiful. Every year it is always a bit of hilarity when we get and put up our tree and why should this year be any different.

We had planned to get our tree over the weekend and when we saw the weather report for snow, we decided that Friday would be the day. Our plan was to run our errands in the morning, grab Costco hot dogs for lunch, pick up Lovey from school, and eat in the car as we drove to the tree farm. We only accomplished most of our errands and when I went in to pick up Lovey he told me he had a headache. Now Lovey says he has headaches a lot, but today he told his teacher and was mopey. I was a little worried, but he said he wanted to get the tree.

Now all morning it had been raining hard and the wind was blowing. The rain let up when we reached the farm, but it was so cold and the wind was blowing really hard. It was muddy and Littlebit had a great time stomping through the mud until she fell. We finally found our tree and I wanted to take the kids picture by it, but Littlebit was mad because it was cold and kept running off. I spent most of the time chasing her while Lovey waited to shout timber. Littlebit cried about her "owie hand" (her hands were freezing) as we were pushed by the wind back to our car.

We bought new LED lights for the tree this year, but each one was a slightly different color. The color gets warmer as you go down the tree. One hundred feet of lights was not enough for my 6 foot tree, so we had to add some regular lights too, again a different shade of white. Hmmm... We have a lot of ornaments, which I love and when I look at them I remember the story to them and how special they are. I refrained from telling too many of the stories, but hubby just smiles and nods politely when I do.

Now the tree is finished and beautiful.

Alone in the kitchen

Lovey likes to be in the kitchen. He loves to bake cookies with me and even helps make scrambled eggs. This summer he received a kid's cookbook as a present. I was stumped for meal ideas for this week, so I asked Lovey to look through and pick something out for us to make together.

His choice: Bacon and Onion Quiche and Lemon Cheesecake. Okay. Now he doesn't really like onions so his choice puzzled me a little, but he is my child and anything with bacon in the name makes us stop and forgot everything else in in. All we hear is bacon.

I had it all worked out for us to make it on Saturday. Daddy could occupy Littlebit while Lovey and I cook. But then Lovey came home from school on Friday with a headache and feeling rather miserable. He toughed it out in the cold, wind, and rain to get our Christmas tree, but we didn't want him anywhere near our food. I was bummed. Lovey, on the other hand, says I can make it by myself. I don't want to, but I spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. Alone. Bacon and Onion Quiche and Lemon Cheesecake is on the menu tonight.

Angel ornament

Glue gun, acrylic paint, four year old.

I think I might be slightly insane.

I thought Lovey should make the gifts for his godparents, grandparents, and teachers. So instead of doing what I originally planned with the many baby food jars under my sink, I thought of doing a project that I used to do when I taught fourth grade. That should have been my first clue that I was going crazy.

Now even with fourth graders I was slightly crazy to do it and maybe with the present I should have included the following note:
Merry Christmas - Hope you enjoy the angel ornament. You might need to shop at the uniform store over vacation because we got acrylic paint on your child's shirt/jumper/sweater. Oops, sorry. Oh and the burned fingers should heal before we return to school, so your child will still be able to hold a pencil and do their work. Again Merry Christmas!

Actually I used the glue gun, so there were not any burned fingers and miraculously no one painted their uniforms.

Lovey did really well too. He painted the ornaments and I did all of the gluing. Now he can't wait to give them.

Presents for Santa

Lovey adores giving people presents, especially pictures he has drawn. So why should I expect anything different when he told me after school that the papers taped together in his backpack were a present for Santa. That night we went to see Santa and Lovey marched right down to the dock where Santa was, handed him his present and gave him a hug. Now where is my camera when I need it.

That weekend we went to go see Santa at The Barn Nursery and Lovey drew pictures for Santa in the car on the way there. He drew a picture of Santa and Rudolph and me. Why I was in the picture with Santa, I'm not sure, but maybe I should be flattered. This time I had my camera and I took some great pictures of Lovey showing Santa the drawings. At least this year he wasn't shy. Littlebit, on the other hand, wanted nothing to do with him until he offered her a candy cane. Then she ran over, grabbed the candy cane, and ran back.

Christmas gift ideas

I just found this website called GiftyBox. There are experience gifts to give the person who has everything and best of all, they are already packaged for you. What a unique idea! I liked the wine tasting and the adventure boxes. How fun and better yet, you have the anticipation of the gift, which lasts beyond Christmas day. If you choose the classes, you might even learn something. If I hadn't finished my Christmas shopping already, I might have purchased from this sight. Even better Almost Frugal is having a giveaway for a giftybox!

Giveaway on SimpleMom

One of my favorite blogs to read is SimpleMom and she is having a giveaway that ends Friday, December 5th. I so want to win one of these beautiful necklaces. The Megan necklace and the one from The Fine Art of Family are my favorites. I have given my husband the website and three choices of necklaces I want from Lisa Leonard (no hinting here), so hopefully one will be under the tree for me. Now that I've seen these I want them too. I want, I want, I want. Hopefully I'll win!

Ouch... Where has the time gone?

So it has been almost 2 months since my last post and in that time we were told:
-The computer would be a good boat anchor, need to buy a new one. Recycled old PC and should get a Costco card for it.
-The car needs new brakes and still does. Merry Christmas to me?
-We won the dirtiest washer of the year, despite that I clean it weekly. It seems Calypso washers have issues, a class action lawsuit, and are no longer made. Aaaarrggghhh.
-The dishwasher stopped draining completely and the little $15 part that took 2 minutes for the repairman to install cost $200 in labor. Excuse me?
-Noticed I had a flat tire (in my new tires) while getting everyone in the car to take Lovey to school. Learned how to use the air compressor quickly to fill it to drive to school and then to Les Schwaab. ($15 well spent.)
-The kitchen sink leaked, was fixed and leaked again.
Most of these things happened in a 2 week period.

Now I'm back and I have been busy sewing and getting ready for Christmas.


This is a picture Lovey drew of himself. Here is the "dolly" I made for him based on his picture.


And a few things I have made for Christmas:

Christmas pillowcases for Littlebit and Lovey

Pajama pants for Lovey. I'm still working on Littlebit's nightgown.

A taggie blanket for my nephew due in March.

Fabric boxes

and beaded letter ornaments.

Muffin Tin Monday

So today is my first day with the Muffin Tin Monday lunch. Lovey asked me what I was doing with the muffin tin and he also wanted to know where the cupcakes where. (I rarely bake muffins, so he associates the pan with cupcakes and wasn't pleased when I said there weren't any cupcakes.)


We enjoyed apples with peanut butter for dip, two kinds of goldfish crackers, raisin and cream cheese bagel and turkey and cheese bagel. I think that kids liked the muffin tin and there was less for me to have to clean up.

Too Hot Tot Bling Giveaway

I wish Littlebit was a litte smaller for the cute onesies at Too Hot Tot Bling. Blissfully Domestic is having a giveaway that ends on October 12th. I want one!

Blessings

So after my whining about my disasterous dinner and complaining about colds, I feel I should think about all of the things I am thankful for. Things could be much worse and my family has many blessings. I am thankful for:

*Healthy children, really it was a little cold.
*A home
*A job
*My family. I have great parents, in-laws - who take the kids for an entire weekend, a brother, his wife, my nephew and his future sibling.
*My friends
*My husband who is painting our bedroom right now and I'm not. Lovey is helping him and it is a true test of husband's patience. Littlebit who is sleeping and allowing mommy-time.

There are so many more blessings in my life, but after my whining last night I thought maybe I should focus on the blessings and not the roadblocks.

Dinner Disaster

Let me start out with this has not been the best of weeks. It started out beautifully. I was refreshed and energized after the kids had spent the weekend at their grandparents, but that soon ended. Lovey's runny nose, that he had on Monday, turned into wheezing, can't complete full sentences, and needs a breathing treatment. Thankfully I still had my mother-in-law's nebulizer, which I forgot to give back over the weekend. It saved me a trip to the doctor, which was completely booked when I called anyways. Then Littlebit caught the cold which meant another night with little sleep.

Then today Littlebit decided to climb into her high chair while I was making lunch. (She figured out how to do this when the tray is off.) She instantly stands in her high chair and as I move toward her she steps backwards and falls with a loud thud. Thankfully she is okay.

Now on to dinner... I decided to try a new recipe of crispy eggplant with the eggplant we received from our CSA and rutabega fries also from the CSA. Two new foods for the kids (rutabegas are new for me too), so I decided to make some pasta with the pesto sauce mentioned in a previous post. As I'm thinking things are going well, I might bake brownies for dessert, I cut into my eggplant to find that it is bad and then I smell an awful smell and see smoke. The oil on my rutabega fries has dripped onto the bottom of my oven and is burning. I can't use the oven, the eggplant is bad and the pesto sauce is bland and soupy. I cut open a watermelon to go with the pasta and it was partially hollow. Tonight was not my night. We were meant to only eat pasta I guess. So as I sent the kids with daddy to get ice cream, I mopped the floor (oil dripped on the floor) and continued to air out the house. Ugh.

Dear Neighbors, fellow shoppers, and generally anyone in a one-mile radius of us,

Little did you know that when you moved into your home, went to the store, or went out for a walk, you would be serenaded with the high-pitched shrieking of a little girl. She has a fascination with her voice and the shrieking can happen at anytime. She shrieks when she is mad, happy, tired, etc. It's awful I know. I'm sorry if you have to listen to it. She thinks it is funny, so we ignore it. The doctor says it's a phase, but she can scream and throw a tantrum with the best of them. So please, if you hear shrieking coming from my general directions, I apologize and would you kindly bring me earplugs, I believe I may lose my hearing soon.

Sincerely,
The family with the shrieker.

I can't decide which I like better

I was reading Simple Mom's blog today and she is having a giveaway for a necklace. The one in the giveaway is cute, but I really love the tiny squares necklaces and the wish necklace by Lisa Leonard Designs. I hope Santa puts one of these necklaces in my stocking this year!

Yummy recipe...

This is the first year that basil has done well at my house, so well in fact, that I have been giving it away. Finally today I made a lot of pesto with it and used some of the pesto to make Grilled Chicken Pesto Farfalle from Cooking Light Magazine September 2008. Yummy. My husband said that the sauce was good and did I get it out of a package. I glared at him and said it was from scratch. Okay so maybe that was meant to be a compliment and today was not a good dinner preparing day. He was over 2 hours late (which I knew about it advance) and I had a very defiant child and another who likes to scream while I cook. With all of this going on I burned the garlic and had to start over, but the sauce was REALLY GOOD! I highly recommend it.

This is going to be a long school year.

Littlebit misses Lovey when he is at school. It is only his second day, but as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, she started crying. She cried when we got back in the car and wanted me to hold her the entire time he was gone. She is done with a morning nap, so I can't get anything done. She didn't do this when he was at camp this summer, so hopefully this is a short-lived phase, or it is going to be a long school year.

And he's off...

Today was Lovey's first day of preschool. This year he goes 3 days a week and he is so excited to be a "big kid." I have been asked everyday since school ended in June when he would go back and today was the day. Backpacks were packed, art projects were made for his teachers and new clothes were hanging in the closet. There are a lot of kids in his class this year, but not his friend from last year. I'm sure he will find someone new to play with. Littlebit had a hard time adjusting to him being gone and wandered around calling for him. Since it was his special day, he picked out corn dogs for dinner (yuck) and I made a brownie pencil cake for dessert (yum).

Great deals to start my day

I've been putting off my grocery shopping for a few days now, so I finally went this morning. I went to Target, Albertsons, and Safeway.

Safeway: I spent $10 and saved $8. They had eggs BOGO and Jello was $0.17.

Albertsons: I spent $37 and saved $43. They have the 10 for $15 after $5 off at the checkstand on Cheerios and other products. In my 10 items, I had 3 boxes of Cheerios. I used 3 $1 off coupons from the 6 week challenge and $1.50 off coupon from Albertsons. This made the cereal free. (These were the big boxes!) Buying 10 items also gave me a coupon for 20 box tops that I will donate to Lovey's school tomorrow. I also got a bag of tostitos chips for free with coupon. Taco salad will be on the menu this week, as well as tomatillos salsa from our CSA and tomatoes from the garden.

Target: Luvs family pack diapers were $15 dollars. I bought 2 and received a $5 gift card. I had $8 in coupons, but didn't notice until I was leaving that it rang up as $7.

Shopping is done for now. Food will be enjoyed by all and littlebit was in need of diapers.

Who ordered the rain?

Okay maybe my complaining about the heat in the previous post has come back to bite me. We had a lovely day planned with a trip to the zoo. Lovey was so excited because Daddy was taking the day off and we were going to the zoo. He has been counting down the days and then it rains. We prepared him saying that we may have to go another day, but once we got there, the sun was out and it was beautiful. Both kids were great. We were able to see them feeding the fish and the walruses. The rain held off for three hours and the sun was even out. When it started to rain, we knew it was time to go. What a great day!

I hate hot weather!

Today is the second day of 90 degree weather and I am hot. The upstairs of our house is at an uncomfortable 88 degrees and we have 5 fans just pushing the hot air around. It is still in the 80s outside, so there is no cool air to bring in. Yes, I know that it is hotter in other places, but I have lived in the Pacific Northwest my entire life and I live here for a reason - the mild climate. I hate to be hot. I hate being sweaty and having my clothes cling to me. I dislike having hot, sweaty little children cuddle up with me when I'm hot, breathing their hot little breath on me.

I hate to cook when it is hot, so we went out to eat tonight, but it was hot in the restaurant. We drove around after eating, since the price of gas was worth staying in the air-conditioned car longer.

I know it can be hotter, it reached 100 the other year. Three years ago we went to New Mexico in June and July. We landed in El Paso, TX and when the doors of the airport opened sending in suffocating heat and sucking out all of the air-conditioned goodness, I could help but say, "Who in their right mind would live here?" Now my husband's grandparents and aunt, who live in Texas and New Mexico, where standing there. Oops. I was also in a foul mood because I hate flying, it was a turbulent flight and I had been up since 2 am., but that is beside the point. We spent the entire 10 days, running from one air-conditioned space to the next and by the end I could stand a little bit of the heat. Still, I will never live there.

My brother and his family spent the last year living outside of Death Valley. Now they have moved back to St. Louis. I won't be visiting in the summer.

Summer is my favorite time of year, but leave me with the temperatures in the 70s and I am happy. I hate being hot!

Latest shopping deals

Staples: Elmer's glue: Free limit 2 Notebook Filler paper $0.09 Rite Aid: Befine skin care $-2.84 (I did have to fight for the coupon to work and the lady behind me was not happy, but I can't help that they only had one lane open. When she said she couldn't accept the coupon, I said I didn't want it, but she called up a manager to help run my gift card through (I took advantage of the prescription transfer coupon), the manager said to accept the coupon because it didn't specify the size. Target: Crayola 24 count crayons: $0.22 Crayola watercolors $0.47 after $1.50 coupon I received in the mail. Lovey was very happy with all of the new art supplies.

Blessings of summer

One of my favorite things about summer is berries. I'll take any type of berry: strawberry, raspberry, huckleberry, blueberry, blackberry, marionberry, etc. I try to stockpile berries in my freezer so I don't just dream about them all year, I eat them too. Littlebit and Lovey devour blueberries, we were out so fast last year, that I am determined to have more this year. Lovey is a great blueberry picker. He has picked blueberries (or been with me) since he was 4 months old. This year I took him to an organinc blueberry farm in town to pick berries. It was a little early and the berries were small. We picked for over an hour and only were able to get less than 2 quarts. I'll either resign to buying a flat or trying my luck later. Mmm... I am already dreaming about frozen blueberries. Yum!

Tres Fun giveaway

Tres Fun is having a giveaway of the cutest leggings from Bon Bon Cupcakes. These leggings have a ruffle around the bottom and they are too cute! I love the brown and pink dot leggings.

Look what I made...

So I finally finished this dress for Littlebit. I've had the fabric for quite a few months, but knew I wanted to make a summer dress with it. I even made little korker hair bows to go with it, but she keeps taking them out of her hair. The dress took me a little longer to finish than I'd hoped. Here it is the middle of July and I only have one dress done. I guess I will have to limit my sewing to do list. I used Simplicity pattern 4243 Style F without the applique. I made the dress last year too. I think I did a little better this year. I think she looks so cute in it too!

What a deal!

The past few weeks, I have been trying to use my coupons more effectively. I have always used coupons, but it was more a savings of a few cents here or a few cents there. Now I'm trying to save even more. Today I went to Rite-Aid because they had some good rebates with the P&G coupons that just came out. Here's what I got: 1 Oral-B Stages Toothpaste and Toothbrush ($1 off of 2 Q and $1 rebate off toothbrush) Herbal Essence Shampoo and Conditioner ($3 Q and $2 rebate) - with free mani/pedi offer Venus Razor ($2 Q and $5 rebate) Crest toothpaste with free floss and travel toothpaste ($.75 Q and $1.74 rebate) Oral B Pulsar ($1 Q and $4 rebate) I spent $22 oop and will receive $13.74 in rebates for a total of $8.26. If I hadn't used my coupons, rebates, and sale items my total would be $36.33. Not bad for one of my first tries at this and I get a free mani/pedi!

Happy Birthday!

Today is my husband's birthday! We decided to bring treats to his work and then take him to lunch after going to the market. We brought oreo truffles to share with his coworkers and then went to Tasty Morsels for lunch. We sat outside and ate our scone sandwiches - yummy. After we took him back to work, we went home to finish the cake. My son helped me unwrap 2 bags of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. (I used more than it called for.) Thank you Bakerella for the wonderful idea. I meant to take a picture of the cake, but it was gone too fast. We invited friends over for dinner and had a great time. The thunderstorms this morning were great! I love a good thunderstorm. My son thought they were a little scary. We decided that it was God and the angels bowling. He asked if they could bowl quieter next time, so we went outside and yelled to the sky to keep it down. Oh, four year olds. The weather is definitely not as hot this weekend as last (almost 20 degrees difference), but it is a little muggy. Our little backyard pool is getting a lot of use and so are the four sunblocks I have purchased this year. I certainly hope that the nice weather continues this summer.

Seven Wonderful Years!

Yesterday was our 7th anniversary! I don't think we've ever gone out for our anniversary, but we did this year. We got a babysitter and went out to dinner. Two and a half hours of just the two of us. We went to Mercato and sat outside. It was a little windy, but it felt nice after such a hot weekend. My pear mimosa was great and the calamari was wonderful. We both had pasta dishes and then shared tiramisu. What a treat to go out and celebrate seven wonderful years.

Our first CSA delivery

Today was our first CSA delivery. I am so excited. We have radishes, pints of strawberries, lettuce, chives, parsley and some other things. We even got something new - garlic scapes. They gave me a recipe for garlic scape pesto. Let's try something new. Yippee. This will compliment our garden which is only producing spinach right now. I can't wait to go plan our menu for the week around our fresh local organic vegetables!

Delights of summer

One of my favorite things about summer is the berries. The strawberries are finally ripe and ready to be picked. Since we have had a few days without rain, I thought it would be the perfect time to buy berries. After our bike ride, we stopped at Spooners to pick up a flat of strawberries. They were beautiful. We stopped at the store for lemons so I could make lemon cloud with strawberry mint compote for dessert. Yummy... I thought that I had pectin at home for my freezer jam, so I didn't buy any. After lunch my dear husband was kind enough to slice all of the berries, but I realized I only had a small container of pectin. So after 3 trips to the store and one wrong pectin purchase, we were finally able to make about 12 jars of freezer jam. It was a whole family affair. My son loved smashing the berries and even my one year old had a turn at stirring! We didn't use the entire flat of strawberries because we wanted some for enjoying and for our dessert. So for about $12 ($ 9 half a flat and $3 in pectin) it comes out to about $1 a jar. Not bad when I know what is in it (except for pectin) and that we had fun making it. We can't wait to eat it and make more, as last year's supply ran out in May.

Secret Dream Jobs

I have to confess that as of this moment I have two secret dream jobs. The first is to be a farmer. What?! I know, you'd think growing up on a farm where I helped hay in the summer this would not be a secret dream of mine, but I love growing my own food and picking it just before dinner and we do quite well. The spinach crop is wonderful this year. The lettuce is not doing so well, but should improve with the weather and maybe some compost. (Yes, one of our Christmas presents this year was a composter.) The zucchini should yield a nice crop again and hopefully we'll get a pumpkin this year. The onions, shallots, broccoli, and carrots are growing slowly, but the peas and beans need help.The strawberries have pretty much taken over the second bed and three of the four pots of blueberries look fantastic. (Now if I can just keep a little boy from eating all of the fruit, we'd be golden.) We've acquired a new huckleberry bush and the 4 combo fruit tree has fruit! All of these wonderful things have just caused me to dream of owning acres of my own fields with lots of vegetables, but the truth of the matter is that I never will. I will always stick to my little backyard garden, even if we buy lots of land. Why because I am kind of lazy. Lazy as in, I would much rather sit and read a book all day (which I have been known to do). I also don't like to get dirty. I don't like the feel of being dirty, um, gloves please. Even then I feel dusty and dirty, so I guess being a farmer will have to be a dream. My second dream job is to be a fancy baker and own my own shop. Now I have taken cake classes, but they are not anything amazing. I just wish they were. I wish I had tons of time to practice baking desserts and making fancy cakes. I also wish that I had the money and storage space to buy all the fancy things for baking (like the cupcake cake pan I am drooling over at Williams Sonoma - I just may have to use my Christmas gift card to buy it). My problem is that I can't cook or bake without tasting and heaven knows I don't need anymore sweets, nor do my kids who seem to move in fast forward. So again I leave this as a secret dream and hobby for when there is a need or time. It feels nice to have dreams.

I've been swallowed by a whale! Twice!

All day today, my son has wanted to play pirate. His ship sank and he had to come aboard my ship (my rocking chair - I was tired). We tried to be quiet, but that seems impossible in my house. I guess since we weren't quiet, we woke up the whale and we were swallowed. After getting out, we were swallowed again. Yikes - twice in one day. We even had to go on a treasure hunt. I guess I need to make him another treasure map (Thanks to Nana.) This fascination with pirates and whales I'm sure has nothing to do with the books we have been reading over and over and over and over: Pinocchio and Pirates Don't Change Diapers.

Sand in my dryer

I can't believe that it is summer vacation already. I'm not ready to be home all day with both kids. We'll see how many activities I can dream up. The never ending question of "What are we going to do tomorrow?" has already started. Even though it is vacation, I still have chores and today is no exception. On my list today was washing all of the linens, but as I was taking out the jeans from the day before to fold, I discovered a dryer full of sand. Hmmm.... a certain little boy's pants must have been full of sand after playing in the sandbox. Despite my vacuuming and general clean up, I still hear sand when I start up the dryer. Aaargghhh... (This after I just picked Kleenex remnants off of another load. I feel like a broken record about emptying pants pockets. Like father, like son though, as his dad left the garage door opener in his pocket one time and we washed it.) How can I be mad at my lovey though when the same little boy asked me to pick him up and when I did he looked at me and said, "Momma, I like loving you." Ah, melt my heart.