It’s been a busy few weeks

Marin is now officially three years old! She picked out an ice cream cake for her birthday. It was pink with a grey kitten on it which I was pleasantly surprised about since at the shop it was brown in their cake book. But that is what she picked so I went with it to make her happy. The cake was very good. It had been a while since I had an ice cream cake. Yummy! 

She received lots of gifts: more Legos, Kai Lan toys, coloring books and a bunch of games. She is starting to really get into the games. She has a Little Pet Shop board game I bought at a garage sale for probably 50 cents. We have gotten our money’s worth and then some on that game! For her birthday I bought her a Spongebob memory game and a Mickey Mouse yahtzee game. She is still learning the concept of yahtzee since its for 4 yr and up ages but she is good at the memory game. She has beaten me several times playing it and I don’t even let her win. It’s pretty embarrassing when a 3 yr old beats me fair and square. She had her annual checkup with her doctor. She weighs 35 pounds and is 37.5 inches tall. The doc told me she needs to be eating more fish and fruit. Good luck on the fruit! Marin does not like fruit even though she ate it when she was younger. I think her mind set is “Why do I need fruit to satisfy my sweet tooth when I can just eat candy?!” So I am trying to get the candy out of the house so she only has the fruit option. Let’s see how that works…(if you could see my face right now you know I don’t look optimistic!) But I think the fish part is somewhat doable. We went to Fish City Grill the other night and I asked her what she wanted to eat...of course she said mac n’ cheese because that is always her answer (I don’t know why I ask anymore)…so I started naming the items off the kids menu. To my surprise she chose catfish! I didn’t even have to coerce her into it. I’m thinking she eats fish at school and I am none the wiser about it. So I was very happy to know she likes fish…of course it has to be fried which defeats a little of our purpose but she is still getting the nutrients of fish! I decided to start buying fish sticks to put in line for her dinners. She tried some last night and loved them and now I think I will try and see if she likes tuna. So far so good on fish…fruit is definitely going to be the bigger battle. 

We are starting to get involved in our HOA lately. We joined a committee for activities and communications for the neighborhood. We have another meeting tomorrow night at our house. We are planning a Spring Fling in April. I’m in charge of volleyball and horseshoes. Hopefully it will be a success. 

I am enjoying the winter Olympics! Eric and I always love watching the games. Of course, my favorite is the figure skating but I like the skiing and snowboarding events, too. We want to actually attend an Olympics one day but don’t know when that will be. We seriously thought about the London games in 2012 but it’s just so expensive and such a short amount of time to save up the money needed to go since you have to make reservations way ahead of time. Maybe someday… 

We have been on a home improvement kick lately. A couple of weeks ago we replaced our sink with a single basin sink and a new faucet. I was so tired of the double basin because I couldn’t fit any big dishes or pots in it and those items are the only ones I actually hand wash…everything else gets put in the dishwasher. So I am very happy with that purchase. This past weekend we just spontaneously decided to paint the office. Eric was already moving his desk to a different spot so I just told him he ought to move it to the middle of the room so we could paint. We always talked about doing it but never really planned it through so this was a perfect opportunity. We also chunked the ugly black curtains that were in there and bought new ones that look really good with the wall color. We will probably paint the guest room at some point. Next in line will be French doors to replace the sliding patio door in the back of the house. And then my big project that I feel is a must is making a true bar area out of that opening in our kitchen that looks into the breakfast nook. I can’t believe the builders didn’t just go forward with that so it would actually be functional. It will take some time and money so that is on a backburner for a little while. 

We had eight inches of snow a couple of weeks ago.  Like everyone else, we all decided to have a little fun in the snow.