The Toliet Brush Toy!

Why is it that as many toys as you buy L...her favorite things to play with aren't toys at all?!

Case in point...this week's toy of the week: toilet brush

So after a month of one toilet brush for the whole house I decided enough was enough and picked up one for every bathroom so I didn't have to haul the gross thing around the house and risk a drop of dirty water somewhere - yuk!

L was giddy in the Target aisle as I was picking out the brushes. Then we get home and immediately she gets two out the the bag and starts dragging them around the house "brushing" walls and what-not with them.

A couple days later, I'm in the shower and I see her walk into my bathroom, turn side ways to squeeze between the wall and toilet and pick up the brush. (YES - I haven't used it!) She squeezes her way back out and starts brushing the tub my shower door, the hallway, etc.

Then I'm at Home Goods yesterday with L finding a rug for the bathroom I just painted. Low and behold L walks two aisles over and pulls out two toilet brushes from their holder and starts scrubbing the floors and shelves!

And THEN this morning, I'm cleaning up breakfast and I see her go in the bathroom turn sideways to fit between the wall and the toilet and pull out the garbage can I had put there to block her view of the toilet brush, squeeze back in and...PULL OUT THE TOILET BRUSH! I couldn't help but laugh - it's her favorite thing this week!

Of course last week's favorite thing was the dog's leashes...ahh the simple joys of being a child - can't wait for next week's favorite toy!

No, You Eat it Mom!

Since turning 1 L has all sorts of new things she's doing...the funniest is her realizing she can mimic people! Most of the time we cut things up on her tray and she feeds herself. But one of her favorite foods is yogurt & even though she can spoon feed herself - it can get very messy so I often do it for her.

Now its her turn, while we eat dinner she'll point at what I'm eating, so I give it to her. What happens?...she feeds it to me. Ahhh the role reversal has already started!

Quicken is Great Software!

So I've always used Microsoft Money to track my finances, even back in the day when all I had was a checkbook and a bunch of tuition bills ~ thanks to my Mom! So after about 8 years of tracking everything I was pretty dependent on the software...and then this Spring I got a virus that erased my hard drive & completely shot my laptop! Needless to say it took all my finance tracking down with it! Just about everyone interrupts at this point in my story and says - "You backed everything up didn't you?!" Yes, I'm terrible at backing things up & I had even made it my New Years resolution...so I had everything backed up until January of this year. BUT Microsoft no longer makes their Microsoft Money software & I had to buy a new computer that came with Vista (agh) which lead to no customer support = no money back-up solution!

So I broke down last week, bought the Quicken Premier software & spent the last week re-entering information (NO I didn't go all the way back to 2001 - I'm not crazy). In any case - I LOVE the new software. Everything downloads into the program, even credit card bills...with a few click I've balanced my accounts and know where all the money has gone...HMMM it seems the expense category "Baby" runs high! Well... she's worth it!

Just wanted to give a thumbs up on this one to any Mom (or anyone really) that wants an easy way to track their families finances! Here's L checking my work :-)