A Little Slow...

I bought a pair of pants and a pair of jeans on clearance towards the end of my pregnancy. I thought I could wear them for post-partum and then future pregnancies. Unfortunately, they were really big and never fit right. I thought the elastic was broken on the one pair and that the other pair was for the third trimester. Then I bought these jeans for my son:

They have an adjustable elastic that you can pull and button. They even have an extender elastic to make them bigger, though I doubt we'll ever need that with Ian's body type.

I pulled out my maternity clothes and looked at the pants and jeans and realized they were designed the same way. I didn't realize it because they elastic was totally retracted in the pants and there were no internal buttons, they must have broken off. On the jeans, the elastic was sticking out of one side only and I thought it had broken.

More than two years later, I finally figure it out. I pulled out the elastic and rethreaded it through with a safety pin on the jeans and did the same on the pants as well as added two buttons. So now I have two pairs of jeans and one pair of pants.

Items on the Pain List

Calling the Erie County Election Board about my ballot issue was one of the items on the pain list. Since that was resolved and
I spent the morning deciding on the local/state races, it is ready to go apart from a signature on the envelope for living overseas. I will get the signature tomorrow and mail it at the Post Office so I can see them post mark it.

I also went through my closet and moved all the summer clothes and most of my pre-pregnancy clothes. The closet is not big enough for all of our stuff and having it in there was making it difficult for me too see what I have. Turns out, I don't have much. Considering I spent the biggest part of my pregnancy during the summer, most of my maternity clothes were summer clothes. I did figure out that the two pairs of pants I have were broken. They are supposed to have adjustable elastic like Ian's new pants, but the buttons are missing and I didn't know that. I just thought they were really big. I need to dig the elastic out and attach some buttons so I can wear them.

I also have some maternity/nursing p.j.s that were really cute, but are too big and at least one pair of the bottoms needs to have the elastic replaced. I didn't figure out they were too big until after I had cut the tags and washed them so I couldn't return them. I thought I would be bigger than I was, so I bought some things that were too big. I need to either get them fixed or pass them on to someone who is slightly bigger in the bust than I am.

Some advice on maternity clothes, if you are like me and have small hips and a small butt and do not gain weight there when you do gain a little weight when you aren't pregnant, you will probably not gain a lot there when you are pregnant. I am usually a size S in tops and I am smaller on the bottom than the top. In Old Navy, I am an XS. I ordered some medium tops and small pants and both were too large. Motherwear tends to run large as well. The PX only carries large things which leads me to another complaint: Why do stores put the maternity section in the with plus size section? It is embarrassing and confusing for both groups. The latest order I placed at Old Navy, I ordered XS pants and S tops. I hope everything fits!

I wanted to clean up the house a bit, but Ian fought hard on taking a nap and then only took a short nap. I got my Hypnobabies listening done, but that was it. Tomorrow is our cleaning day, but the less surface stuff she has to do the deeper clean she can do.

Ballot Trouble Explained

It took me a week to get up the courage to call about my ballot. I hate dealing with bureaucracy, especially over the phone, especially long distance. But, I finally called and fortunately there IS an explanation. There is a court dispute involving a would-be candidate who is not on the ballot but fighting to get on so Erie County has not printed there ballots. Therefore, overseas voters have to use the write-in ballot because the court battle is preventing the timely distribution of ballots to overseas voters.
The person I spoke with was very nice and was able to ask the person responsible immediately and get the answer. I am grateful for that.

I wish they had put a letter of explanation in my packet, though. Adding to my confusion, they included the instructions for the actual ballot that say,"You must blacken the oval completely. Do not put a cross or check mark". The write-in ballot has squares, not ovals and the instructions,"Put a cross or check..."

I need to look over some things for the local issues and then get this ballot mailed back tomorrow or Wednesday.

In other political news, Ian's Barack Obama t-shirt came today. Pictures tomorrow...

Attempt at Family Pictures

We tried to get family pictures taken today. Ian was totally uncooperative. It was also outside. It was cheap, though. I don't have high hopes for very good pictures but I am wishing for at least one good one of the three of us and one good one of Ian by himself. We will be getting family pictures taken again in March when the baby is born so I didn't want to shell out a lot of money for these. It seems that off-post you can get beautiful, magazine quality images, but they cost the same as wedding packages in the States. On post there is a cheesy, blue-background picture place. Skip that. There are other options, but I just don;t have the time or energy to research them, so that is what we did. Better than trying to use the tripod and setting the timer.

After the Party

Ian woke up about 8am, but fell right back to sleep. Curt and I slept until 9:30am and Ian didn't get up for the day until after 11am. He fell asleep on the floor when we got home after he opened his gifts. He had a dirty diaper so I changed it, but didn't want to push my luck be getting him into his pjs.


He got off to a slow start:


Then, he got dressed in his new clothes and played with his new toys:

Yeah, he's cool:

Bowling Birthday Party

We finally had Ian's bowling birthday party today. He turned two a few weeks ago, but due to scheduling, we had to have it late. I was worried about how it would go because I invited five families with a total of seven kids. Everyone said yes until this week when two families with three kids backed out for various reasons. Two of the other families were traveling so I was worried they might not make it. Fortunately, I ran into someone on Wednesday that I had meant to invite but lost her contact info so I thought that at least two kids would be there for sure. I am happy to report that all four families who were supposed to come, came. Unfortunately, my friends from Singapore could not get on the base. Singapore is on a list of countries where you have to get pre-approval in advance to have citizens from there onto the base. I did not realize that. We felt terrible. I should have made sure that it was the same procedure. Luckily, we had the goody bags in the car so we were able to give Emma her goody bag at least. Too bad the cupcakes were already in the bowling alley.

The bowling went well. Ian didn't do very well with taking turns, but they bowled a lot. We took a break for pizza and there was only 15 minutes left of the 2 hours. There weren't any other parties after ours so we could stay at the tables as long as we wanted to but had to pay for more bowling time. We decided to do the cake and see how the kids felt. Jacob threw up. they just got back from traveling so they don't know whether it is motion sickness (that he gets) or illness. He was fine afterwards, though and everyone wanted to bowl more so they played again and had lots of fun.

I was very happy with the party. Two of Ian's friends, Jacob and Trinity, will turn two on Halloween and decided to do a joint birthday party. The cake turned out fairly well for not having my friend Heather to help and for both Curt and I having terrible headaches yesterday and part of today. The pizza was decent as well. I wasn't expecting much from bowling alley pizza. I ordered 3 pizzas originally and then changed the order to 5. We had two pizzas leftover, but at least everyone could eat freely and not worry about running out. The meat pizzas went first, followed by the cheese. The veggie pizzas were left. I put cupcakes in each box with the pizzas and sent the last two families home with them. We have lots of cake and fruit leftover, but the strawberries were a big hit as well.

So the cake:



We got the idea from here.


Bowling video. You can see the chocolate icing obscuring all the bruises he currently has on his face due to his crazy stunts (just in time for Monday's picture session):



Snacking on the lanes:



The wind in his hair:


We didn't open the presents until we got home. Easier and less trauma to the other kids. After opening presents and having another snack, I've been working on this blog post and Ian has just passed out on the floor.

Apart from my failure for my Singapore friends, it was a great day. It is also fortunate that at 2 years old kids really don;t have a great understanding of parties so her little girl was not disappointed and enjoyed playing with the bubbles when she got home.

Terror on the Set!

Ian had a modeling job on Monday. The little girl he was paired with had a rough day. Ian did o.k. despite the fact that they wanted them to do things that were a little difficult for little kids. By then, they took Ian into another studio and he turned on the charm. He could have kept going, but the only things left for him were two outfits that were meant to be shot with the little girl. The little girl was done and just not having it, so they decided to bring Ian back on Friday with another little girl. As we walked out to the agent's car, we realized it had been towed with our carseat in it. So we took a cab back to the base. Luckily, that was Ian's extra carseat. It was a rough day for the agent.

That bring us to today.

Ian was a terror and totally uncooperative. Crying and laying on the floor. Part of the problem is that they are shooting winter clothes and they get too hot. This shoot was also really early and he didn't get a proper breakfast. Whatever it was today, he was not having any of it. They had to shoot two outfits and they might have gotten something that they can photo shop, but he was awful. The other little girl was wonderful today, so it wasn't a total loss. Now kids have good days and days. He usually does much better than this.

But here's the kicker: We are walking out after an exhausting attempt to get him to cooperate. He gets into the elevator and says,"Had fun."

I said,"What did you say?"

He said,"Had fun. Dat fun."