Ok... I Sound Pathetic!

Holynd is crawling.... EVERYWHERE! 90 miles an hour sometimes.

She's pulling herself up on things... She pulls herself to standing and JUMPS up and down in her crib when I come into her room.

She's also eating everything. Seriously, everything.

This morning I was listening to myself while she was playing. I was doing housework and trying to keep a close eye on her. Every ten seconds I was saying one of these phrases....

"Holynd, don't eat that!"

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"No, give mommy that. You can't play with that!"

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"Oh Holynd! You'll fall!"

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"I told ya you'd fall..... Wait, don't you want to cry?"

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"Are you sure you don't want to cry?!"

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"Holynd, you can't pull the dogs tail like that!"

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"Holynd, that's Mommy's! Don't play with that."

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"Oh Holynd! You'll hurt yourself."

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"Holynd! Don't eat paper!"

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"That's Mommy's laptop. That is a NO NO!

(It may be time to baby-proof my house.)

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"What did you put in your mouth? Ok, well whatever it was... it's gone now!"

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"How did you get under there?!"

(Holynd is stuck underneath her crib.)

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"I'm sorry it was scary while you trapped underneath your crib..."

(Holynd is crying hysterically.)

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I feel like I'm starting to sound like my Grandma Faye.
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PS! School started. I'm elated. It's my last semester for my undergrad. YAY!
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PPS! I've always committed to making dinner for Matt and now since I'm in school all day Wednesday I thought I'd have to give up my committment. HOWEVER, I found this dandy recipe and with a few tweeks... it turned out awesome!

I'm calling this.... "If you need new shoes, make this! Beef Brisket."

-1 beef brisket (2.5 lbs) -This will feed you and your husband for dinner and lunch the next day.

-1 tablespoon Veggie Oil

-1/2 cup chopped onion (The recipe called for a 1/2 cup of chopped celery, but who wants to ruin a perfectly good recipe with CELERY!?"

-1 can of beef broth (The recipe called for 3/4 cup, but I'm wierd and can't let anything go to waste.... So I just used the whole can.)

-1 small can of tomato sauce

-1/4 cup of water

-1/4 cup of sugar

-1 packet of Onion Soup Mix (The recipe called for 2 tablespoons.... but who has time to measure that out when you are trying to get ready for school. Use the whole packet.)

-1 "bloop" of cider vinegar (Again, the recipe called for 1 tablespoon, but I just opened my bottle of cider vinegar, put a "bloop" in and called it good.)
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-Thaw your brisket out overnight. Then in the morning (I started mine at 10am, knowing that Matt nor I would be home to eat it until 8pm that night. This would also be a great overnight/during morning-church lunch recipe) brown each side in a skillet. Remove the brisket and transfer it to your crockpot. (I had to use my BIG crockpot.) Then in the same skillet saute onion (and Celery, if you must) for 1 minute. Add your broth, tomato sauce and water. Bring to a slight simmer. Add sugar, soup mix and vinegar and let the marinade come to a boil.
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-Pour the marinade over the brisket
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-Here's the tricky part.... I left mine in my crockpot for close to 9-9.5 hours. It was falling apart and I could shred it easily with a fork. If you want a brisket you can actually slice and eat on rolls, only cook it for 7-8 hours.

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-Add a yummy (quick) salad and your set!

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TADA!

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The "If You Need New Shoes, Make This! Beef Brisket."

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PPPS! This is soooooo not what mine looked like. It was so good Matt and I were eating it right out of the crockpot. We did eventually dish up.

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PPPPS! I don't like meat.... and I liked this!

The Other Day...

Holynd is really good about playing by herself.

Every morning she wakes up, I change her and get her dressed (or not dressed if she's being extra squirmy). Then I set her on her bedroom floor to play while I take a shower.

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Even now that she's crawling she usually stays in her little pink room completely fasinated with all her little toys.

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However.....

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The other day I was in the shower, when all the sudden the shower curtain started to move! It scared me to death and for a split second I thought that the dog had somehow made it back to to Matt and I's bathroom.

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NOPE! I looked out the curtain and there was my little Hol-E-Wood sitting up on her knees smiling at me.

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She came in to tell me my shower was over.

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I still can't believe that she knew exactly where to find me.

Words....

Who woulda thunk that my two favorite words out of all the words (and sounds... I guess) in the English language would be.....

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"Dah, Dah" & "Mem"

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Holynd loves to talk about Dah, Dah when she is playing and having fun. For some reason she only wants to talk about Mem when she is sad, upset, tired or hungry.

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She calls for Mem while she's trying to go to sleep. It gets really heartbreaking when she's having a hard time going to sleep and starts calling out, "Mem!!!" while crying.

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I wish I could just freeze her at this exact age and hear, "Dah, Dah" and "Mem" everyday for forever!

Better Start Now!

Holynd has grown up (That sounds funny to say since she's only 7 months old!) watching Mommy do yoga almost everyday.

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She's so addicted, she's started working on her flexibility. She's so serious about it that she sleeps in her straddles. (Matt and I are hoping that we'll get some Wheaties box endorsement money when she becomes a gymnast.... We like to dream big!)

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I can't believe everything she's learned how to do. She can go from her tummy, to her back, then back to her tummy and then up on her knees.... She can't quite figure out how to crawl yet, so she just kinda stays on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth. I suspect we will be posting a video of her crawling in the next week or so!

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Sometimes when she's playing in her room alone, I go in to check on her and she's three feet from where she started sucking on her crib dust ruffles. She's also developed a wierd fetish for remotes. She loves to play with the remote. We finally gave her an old remote without batteries in it. (We got sick of her changing the channels with the regular remote!) She also has a walker that she loves! The dog doesn't care for the walker very much. Mainly because Holynd just wants to chase the dog around and yank his tail.

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PS! We do try and dress Holynd. She's such a stinker though! We can't hold her down long enough to dress her. (No lie! She squirms and rolls and wiggles away!) I've given up dressing her when she's just hanging out at home.

For Use In Ears Only...

Matt and I like to get together at his mom and dad's for cards. We love to play Sets and Runs. (And if the truth be known, Matt and Art are really REALLY competitive!)

Sunday night Kathy invited Matt and I, along with Matt's brother Brandon and his wife Angela, over for cards and dinner. We were really excited! You can't beat good food and cards right?

Well, we ate dinner outside, it was nice and cool because of the overcast weather. After about an hour of being outside the wind kicked up really bad and drove us inside.

We dealt out the cards and it didn't take long for us to notice that the wind had given us all a heaping helping of allergies!

Angela asked for some eye drops and everyone agreed that they would need eye drops for their itchy eyes in order to make it through the game.

Kathy went and grabbed a little green bottle and gave it to Angela for some relief. She blinked a couple of times and said, "It stings! But the itching is gone!". Angela then handed it to me.

Now, I wear contact lenses and most eye drops will read, "Do not use with lenses." if they'll ruin your contacts. So I read the label over. On the front of the bottle there was some print that read:

"FOR USE IN THE EARS ONLY!"

I looked at Angela and read the label out loud. Kathy looked at me and said, "Oh no! You're kidding!"

Angela then commented about how she was wondering how eye drops could actually have an after-taste! We all had a good laugh and continued playing cards.

Angela retained her eyesight for the duration of the game. I'm sure this event will be an on-going joke during cards!

Apparently Kathy was more competitive then we thought!