Dancing Queen

Posted in Isabella/Munchkin by teamtradermom

Isabella has always been a mover and a shaker. Even in the womb she was rolling and kicking a lot. The nurse joked at our first ultrasound that Munchkin was doing the can-can in there!

So it comes as no surprise that to this day she loves to shake her grove thing any time music is playing. She’s a lot like me that way. I’m “that person” who bobs and wiggles in their seat when good music is playing at a restaurant or bar. And just try and stop me from getting out on the dance floor when we go to the clubs.

Lately I’ve been fortunate enough to have my phone nearby when Isabella was “breaking it down” and have caught a few moments on video. I posted the one already from the Super Bowl party. Here are a few more for your viewing pleasure!

Warning: intense cuteness ahead!

Isabella dancing to the music from her toy lion.

Notice the fancy footwork she does in the middle and then her Bill Cosby hip action toward the end.

Here she is dancing to the “hot dog dance” at the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

The “Hot Dog Dance”–she even starts singing at the end!

And last but not least, today I caught her dancing to the music from her toy camera. She does some fancy moves in this one – using all the space and even mouthing some of the words. Look out Milley Vanilly!

She’s got rhythm, she’s got music…

I hope you enjoyed those as much as we did! We want them over and over mostly because Isabella likes to watch herself. But we never get tired of it either.

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19Feb2012

Polar Plunge (aka What the Hell was I Thinking)

Posted in Goals, Isabella/Munchkin by teamtradermom

I did it. Yesterday I waded into freezing cold water just for the fun of it.

OK so there was more to it than that. The Polar Plunge is a yearly event that sets out to raise money for Special Olympics. My work put together a company team of nearly 200 people and I was ~~suckered~~ talked in to participating.

The plunge started at 11 a.m. and we were told to arrive between 9 and 10 in order to get decent parking and breakfast.

There were 3 or 4 tents and my company had its own because by far we had the largest group of jumpers. The tent was heated but with all the people coming in and out, it was still chilly.

Isabella was a bit overwhelmed by all the people there. It was a lot to take in!

What she did like were all the characters present. This polar bear was the official mascot of the plunge.

Then there were a couple guys dressed up a super heroes. They actually wore those costumes in to the water! Isabella was really excited to see them! She kept saying, “Let’s go see the Green Lantern and Captain America!”

I don’t think they intended to be entertainment for the kids but they sure were for Munchkin!

We sat around for about 90 minutes waiting for the games to begin. Isabella started getting antsy but for the most part she did a great job!

Here’s the ramp leading to the water. We basically start at the orange cone line and head in from there.

A common misconception about the Polar Plunge is that you actually have to jump in the water. In fact, it’s just the opposite. There are signs all over the strictly forbid diving, splashing or running. Because the water is so cold (probably around 20 degrees) they want it to be orderly and safe for everyone.

As part of my shtick, I wore a shower cap and carried a rubber ducky with me. Next year some of us are going to get together and come up with a group theme like some of the other folks did. But since it was my first year, I didn’t really plan for much more than the shower cap!

Hot sexy!

At precisely 11 a.m., we headed outside to get started. I stripped out of my warm coat and pants because I was only going to wear a t-shirt and running pants for the actual plunge. The worst part was standing around waiting for your turn because it was cold and my nerves started to creep up. I started having second thoughts and wondered what in the world I was thinking when I signed up to do it. Then, next thing I knew, they were calling my group and it was time to run in!

I’m the one in the green shirt with the shiny head.

It took a while to feel the cold. At first it didn’t seem too bad at all! Then the frigid waters hit my, um, sensitive area ifyaknowwhatimean and HELLO! THERE IT IS!

We had to run out to a dummy set up on the edge of the ice and then turn around and come back. The whole thing took about 20 seconds.

The worst part was getting out of the water. Once the cold air hits the frozen water on your body everything goes numb. You can see in the above picture that I only got wet up to my chest. That was enough though!

They explicitly instruct you not to put your hands underwater because if you do, they would be too frozen to get your wet clothes off when you’re done.

That’s good advice.

It’s quite tricky doing the clothing change. For one, there are like 50 women shoved in this tent all franticly trying to peel off they’re frozen clothes as fast as they can. Then of course there’s the challenge of peeling off wet sticky clothes, drying off your skin and putting new dry clothes back on. There’s no way to do it fast. And forget about being modest. You have to pretty much strip down naked as fast as you can. No one really looks or cares. They’re too worried about their own frozen toes.

When I came out, I saw CJ and Isabella coming toward me.

That sight warmed me up more than my wool socks.

The whole thing wore Isabella out more than it did me.

All day she kept saying, “Mommy jumped in the cold water and went BRR!”

She also enjoyed wearing my shower cap.

All in all I’m glad I did it. The whole experience was a lot of fun and the actual going in to the frozen lake part wasn’t nearly as bad as I anticipated. I will definitely do it again!

Here is a link to the local news coverage of the event. You can see me and my green t-shirt pop up real quick in a few of the shots.

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9Feb2012

Looking In

Posted in Isabella/Munchkin, You Capture by teamtradermom

Do you ever feel like you’re on the outside looking in? I hate that feeling. Always have. Some people don’t mind it. They don’t feel the need to be included in everything. They’re fine going on about their lives and letting others do the same.

I am not one of those people.

I love the abstractness of this photo. It was taken looking in to the kitchen from through the backdoor. I like how the darkness of my clothing allows you to see in to the kitchen on one side, yet the bright snow pops up on the other side, showing Isabella all dressed up and ready to play. The weird yellow bits in the middle are my Pittsburgh Steelers gloves!

In grade school I felt the need to be in every friendship bracelet making circle. In high school, I was devastated if not invited to a sleep over. In college if someone had a study group or party and didn’t invite me, my world was turned upside down.

That’s just how I roll.

When I first started at my current job 4 years ago, I was put at a desk that was sort of by itself, on the outside of the “pod”. I could hear everyone chit chatting and laughing but was not included. It’s not that they didn’t want to include or didn’t like me, they just didn’t think of it because I wasn’t sitting with them. Out of sight, out of mind.

I hated it. I always felt left out and alone. It took 2 years for me to be moved to a desk within the circle and that was a happy day. Suddenly I knew what was going on. I got the inside jokes and invited out to lunch.

I would much rather be on the inside than the outside.

And so would Samson.

Samson looking in the backdoor during the snow storm. I’m really happy with how the ice crystals are so clear and defined while his fuzzy head is, well, fuzzy.

Maybe I was a Labrador in another life?

As an added bonus, I’ll include some video I shot of Isabella dancing during the Super Bowl half time show. She was standing up in front of like 30 people bouncing away! She wasn’t “looking in” – she was seizing the moment! The other kiddos joined in too! I was so proud of her.

My heart grew 10 sizes.

* This post was linked up to the You Capture challenge.This week’s theme was “looking in”. Head on over to I Should be Folding Laundry to see some more great photography.

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What’s This White Stuff?

Posted in Family, Holidays and Seasons by teamtradermom

No sooner did Puxatoney Phil see his shadow, did we finally get a winter snow storm here in Nebraska. In a normal year, we would have had several of these storms by now. But this year has been anything but normal. Early last week I was walking around outside in a long sleeved shirt and NO JACKET!

Let that sink in for a moment.

January 31st – in the dead of winter – and it was warm enough to not even have outerwear on.

I could get used to this.

But it looks like I won’t have to. Snow was unleashed on us overnight Friday and we woke up to this.

Everything blanketed in white. Samson loved it. He ran around out there like a crazy dog.

Jumping and digging and leaping through the wet stuff.

When you live in the Midwest, you have to own a snow blower because you know weather like this will happen. We, however, do not own one. We never have. Somehow we’ve managed to get by for 6 years owning a home without a snow blower. We either shovel or rely on the kindness of our neighbors. At our old house, we had great neighbors. They would always take pity on us and do at least our sidewalk for us, and sometimes the driveway too. However, we live in a new neighborhood and figured those good old ~~lazy~~ days were over.

We were going to wait for the afternoon, when most of the snow had stopped, to go out and start shoveling. But around lunch we heard a motor moving down our sidewalk and looked out to see our neighbor across the street clearing our sidewalks for us – and we live on a corner so that’s a lot of ground to cover.

We were really thankful to him for doing that. Then I looked out as he turned into the driveway and started clearing it! Seriously! He did our sidewalk and driveway, along with the neighbor’s driveway too! We were even MORE thankful and I vow, as God is my witness, to bake him cookies or something very soon!

Since we didn’t have to shovel, we had time to play! We bundled up and headed out to the backyard.

I look like I’m in pain there. I’m not. I was just being silly.

Isabella and I played while CJ cleared off the patio. Then we all worked together to build a little micro snowman on the steps.

CJ added some stick arms while I finished it off with raisin eyes and a carrot nose.

Do you see a murderer in that picture? Look toward the bottom corner. Literally 2.5 seconds after I took this photo, Samson ate the eyes and nose and knocked the head off the snowman. Isabella said, “Samson wrecked it! He ate it!”

And so was her first lesson in the cruel humanity of this world.

We had lots of fun and now I’m ready for it all to melt so that I can put my jacket away again.

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23Jan2012

I Had a Dream

Posted in CJ, Miscellaneous by teamtradermom

Have you ever had a dream that was so nice you didn’t want to wake up from it? And when you did wake up, you willed yourself to go back to sleep in hopes that you could pick up right where you left off?

That happened to me the other night. It was a very real dream and it actually made sense (kind of). Nothing like cars flying in the air or serial killers in my house or talking dogs.

Digression: I think it would be so fun if dogs could talk. CJ and I do this thing where we pretend we’re in Samson’s head and we narrate his thoughts. Like the other day Samson was staring at the buffet in our dining room and we went off on a whole tangent of how he was thinking. “Um, guys. Hello. My toys are in there. Maybe you don’t know that but I have toys in there. You should get them and play with me. Or give me food. Hey, do you see me? How about if I stare at you unblinkingly? Would that get you to play with me? Or give me food? Never mind that little hairless one you’re reading to. Play with me. Or give me food.”

Samson’s thoughts probably aren’t near as exciting or funny as we think they would be.

Back to my dream…

The setting: I was at a cabin in the woods with a friend, her crush, his friend and another couple. The crush’s friend was Gerard Butler (you know, the “We are SPARTA!!!!” guy in 300.

(source)

Though I personally enjoyed him in Phantom of the Opera as well).

(source)

The scenario was that my friend wanted to spend the weekend with her crush and his friends and asked me to tag along. This sounds like the beginning of a bad horror movie but it’s not. It gets good.

Late in the night, after everyone had gone to bed, I awoke and couldn’t fall back to sleep. So I wandered out to watch some TV and Gerard was out there already watching ESPN. He couldn’t sleep either. We had a healthy debate about football (turns out he was a Ravens fan which makes him my sworn enemy) and then started watching a movie.

I got cold at one point and he wrapped a blanket around me. I leaned against him and he put his arm around me.

Did I mention he had his shirt off so that I could see every bulging bicep and rock hard ab?

This dream didn’t suck.

Anyway, the movie started getting romantic and we were just about to kiss when all of a sudden…

Isabella woke me up with her crying. She wanted juice.

I calmed her down and then frantically tried to go back to sleep.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

But alas, I couldn’t recapture the magic.

Dammit.

Guess I’ll have to settle for my own hunky hubbie, who doesn’t take me to cabins in the woods but does get out and fill my car up with gas on really cold days.