Thursday Tip: Granite Cleaner

I am trying to think of more creative ways for me to keep up with my blog other than just Lilly updates. So I am going to try to post more often with different things.

We have granite counter tops in the kitchen and baths at our new house. I had just been using windex or whatever surface cleaner, but they didn't have the new shine anymore. I remember seeing granite cleaner at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but I hated to spend a lot on it without knowing if it actually worked. Luckily, I didn't have to!
My wonderful neighbor and new friend was given a formula for a granite cleaner by her sister. It's super easy and works great!

What you need:
-a large plastic spray bottle (I found one at the dollar store, but you can get them anywhere.)

-rubbing alcohol

-dish detergent (whatever brand you have is fine.)

-tap water

That's it! Fill the bottle to the neck with tap water, add a 3-4 drops of dish detergent, and 1/4-1/3 cup of rubbing alcohol. Shake it up and you are ready to go. You can wipe with a paper towel or any cloth.

Potty Training

Since my parents will be on a cruise week, I will be home for 3 consecutive days before the weekend. Brendan goes crazy being stuck at home on a weekend and we have just had too much going on to actually stay at home for a weekend to effectively potty train. She goes a lot of the time on the potty and is especially good about going "poo poo" on the potty and actually tells me some of the time that she needs to go now. If I put her on the potty and she has to pee she will, but she gets distracted and doesn't actually pay attention when she needs to go. Of course she is still in diapers so she probably sees no need to use the potty. She is usually dry in the mornings unless she wakes up in the middle of the night and always dry when she gets up from a nap. She can obviously hold it from the time she wakes up until I get her and take her to the potty.

So here is my game plan:
Starting Wednesday morning... She will wear her "big girl panties" I stocked up on some extras today at the store. I don't think pull-ups would be as affective because they are essentially just a diaper. I will probably use them at first when we go out of the house and at night.
I will take her to the potty at least once per hour and look for cues that she needs to go. I'm going to make sure all of my weekly errands are already done and the house work may fall behind, but if it works it will be worth it. I am hoping she will be potty trained by Saturday (at least during the daytime).

Wish me luck! If you have any tips feel free to share!

A cute story about Lilly. We go to the library about once per week and get new books to read before bed. They don't have a large selection at our branch library, but it changes weekly. I got one book about a duck going potty mostly because it was about a duck and Lilly loves "duck ducks". It's called "Duck Goes Potty" by Michael Dahl. We were reading it tonight and everytime we got to a page where Duck had an accident she said "uh oh!" and actually tried to pick it up of the page and put it into Duck's potty. When we are on the page where Duck's Mommy tells him there will be no more diaper she says "no diapers (in her own pronunciation) Duck Duck!" I think this week we will get another potty book if they have one.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

It has been so hot outside lately that it has been a task to keep Lilly entertained during the day. She loves to go outside, but I try to keep her inside until later in the evening. I have thought about taking her to the pool, but I worry about her getting sunburned so we usually go in the evenings. Thank goodness for my wonderful neighbor down the street who stays at home with her 4 year old little girl and 2 year old little boy. We switch off between houses for play dates a couple of times a week. They are all excited to play together and it gives us a chance to chat.

As usual we have been crazy busy lately. For example... Saturday Lilly and I left the house by 8:30am to take Brendan's car for an oil change and pick up a Birthday gift for a neighbors B-day party later in the day (I'm usually prepared in advance, but we didn't actually get the invite until Friday night.) From there we headed to the zoo for a Starbucks family day for the employees. Fortunately Lilly took her nap at the end of it since we left straight from there to get her to a Birthday party at 1:30. Next, (after a quick stop by the house to change) was my cousin's wedding at 4pm. It was a pretty wedding and the reception was really nice. Lilly had a blast dancing and seeing her distant cousins. You can see some of the pictures on my cousin's blog http://www.sweetsouthernprep.com/. I had a great time too. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera all day because I was worried that I would lose it. I wished we could have stayed at the reception a lot longer, but Brendan already told a friend we would meet him at the Blowfish baseball game. We stayed for the whole thing because there was a firework show at the end. Lilly was not a fan of the fireworks! She wanted her Mama and was gripped tight to me the entire time. She was also so tired she fell asleep in the car before we even got out of the parking lot.

Lilly is now 21 lbs! I still haven't turned her carseat around because as long as she's content rear facing I think it's the safest. Her vocabulary increases daily. She also has quite a temper. Her new favorite snack is fruit snacks. She refers to them as "snack" She is constantly walking around saying "Where oh where is (fill in the blank)" Sometimes she moves the "is" to the end, but she is actually speaking in full sentences some of the time.

We took her to the beach memorial day weekend and she loved the beach! She wasn't scared of the ocean and loved filling buckets of sand an picking up shells. I did get a couple of pictures at the beach.

This Friday marks Brendan and my 5 year anniversary! He got me a new Coach purse and shoes last week, but he isn't good at waiting to give presents so I have already been using them. My Mom is going to watch Lilly for us so we can go out to dinner.

Bed

.... that is one of Lilly's favorite words lately. Especially at bedtime. Too bad she isn't referring to her bed! She wants in our bed and has been teething so bad lately she has been ending up there for at least part of the night so we can all get some sleep. I can't wait this this last 15 month molar pops through and we can hopefully go back to normal for a while.

Other than getting no sleep Saturday night I had a nice Mother's day. We did miss church because we were so exhausted. Lilly and I curled up on the floor in the family room that morning. I took a nap while she watched Mickey Mouse. Brendan thought it would be funny to take a picture. We went to lunch at Yamato's with my parents, sister, and her husband. We spent the rest of the day relaxing. I got my Mother's day present early. A pair of wicker rocking chairs and cushions for the front porch. I love rocking while watching Lilly "color" with her sidewalk chalk in the driveway. This is one over her favorite things to do these days.

Brendan thinks he is going to be in big trouble when she gets a little older because she already points at things (especially clothes) and says "cute!". Hopefully this means I will have a little shopping buddy! Potty training is still about the same. I need to take a week and just focus on it and I may could have her trained for the most part.

We are hoping that the pool will be open very soon and we can spend lots of time there. That has also got me thinking that we really need to start eating healthier. Brendan and I have been off track lately. Don't get me wrong... we tend to like healthier foods in general... It's mostly the sweets! I think we are both addicted!

Did anyone else watch the Royal wedding? I didn't get up early to watch it, but when I got up at 6am Kate had just gotten down the isle and I got to see the ceremony. It wasn't something I thought I really cared much about, but I got sucked in! I thought her dress was ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL! I also like the idea of a real life fairy tale.

Happy Easter!

Lilly got to go visit her "Great Mama" and "Great Pop" Wednesday and go to their church's Easter egg hunt. She had a great time and loved seeing all the other children. Her Great Grandparents love her to death and she had loves seeing them.

I ordered blinds for the house and they started coming in this week. I have been working to get them put up, but it is a lot of work! I have to wait a little longer for 4 of them to be shipped. I will be so glad to have all of them up and be done with this project!

April updates

It's been a while since my last post, but I have been busy getting things unpacked and done at the new house. We are really loving it here. Lilly does, too! We go outside to play almost every afternoon and take a family walk in the evenings. she wants to "ride". Lilly will tell us She just recently got a cozy coupe and never gets tired of playing with it. She has made a friend next door and they play together everytime they are both outside. We are really looking foward to the neighborhood pool opening May 1st!

Brendan's 30th Birthday was April 8th and we had a few friends and family over to celebrate. He didn't want to make a big deal out of his Birthday, but I decided to suprise him and invite a few people over for dinner. Of course he snooped around in my e-mail and ruined the suprise. We still had a good time though. Isabell also celebrated her Birthday on the 13th. She turned 7.

Lilly has been practicing for an Easter egg hunt in our yard. She was supposed to have on at Saluda Shoals today that our church usually holds. The weather was supposed to get bad so I kept checking my e-mail and the church website for details. There were no updates, so we headed to the park (it still hadn't rained). We got there and were told that someone had just come by to cancel it. Poor Lilly!
She had gotten all excied for nothing. Instead, she got to help me plant flowers.

Her vocabulary grows daily and she is so sweet. She has really started liking carrots and asks for them. She also LOVES "pee-pie" or pizza. Sometimes she even asks for it for breakfast and I have to talk her into something else. She has started climbing more, but hasn't tried to climb out the crib yet. I hope that day doesn't come for a long time.
Here are some pictures of Lilly and the new house:

Finally moved!

Everything went well and we closed on our new house this past Thursday. I haven't gotten the camera out yet to take pics, but I will soon. We used Minute Man Movers in Irmo to help move most of the stuff, but they took 6 hours instead of the quoted 4-5 and didn't get as much as I hoped. I would probably use another company next time because at $78 per hour I thought they should have been moving a little more quickly. Did I mention that an hour of the time was spent driving from our old house to the new one? Brendan left 30 minutes after them and got there within minutes of them. They also finished up 15 minutes early and still charged for the full hour. Other than that everything has been fine. We have moved most everything over now and I have the downstairs and Lilly's room completely unpacked. I should have everything else done by the end of the weekend! Now, what to do with all these empty boxes?!?!

Lilly has transitioned well into the new house. She loves her new and much bigger room so she has plenty of room to play. She didn't sleep as well the first few days/nights, but seems to be pretty much back on track now. Another big accomplishment: She is FINALLY weaned! She hasn't nursed in over 72 hours now! She wasn't happy about it at first, but now she may ask and when I tell her all gone she sort of gives up and takes her cup of milk instead. I am glad this is done and it wasn't near as bad as I might have expected. She says so many more words now and picks up on everything very quickly. We were hoping she wouldn't figure out how to open the cabinets in the new kitchen since they don't have handles or knobs, but she walked right over and opened them right up. Oh well...

We love our new house and the area! We were also very blessed to get a very good offer on our old house Sunday night, that we of course accepted Monday! It is set to cose at least by the end of May (of course as long as everything goes okay). That will take a lot of pressure off of us and our budget won't be as tight. This just shows that God has his own timing for everything! I will post some pictures after I finish getting everything organized.