I have a new blog! I’ve finally moved this blog over to my domain, which is something that I’ve been wanting to do for AGES. I didn’t have time to figure out WordPress while I was working though. Yay new blog!

I’ll still keep this one live, but I won’t be updating it anymore, so please update your blog readers, bookmarks, and any site links you may have to www.colleeniscreative.com/mommypanda. Thanks, and I’ll see you over there!

This is going to be a pretty random post, sorry. I could have written my topics up as three different posts, but I don’t know if your blog readers would have liked that. 😉

1. GRAD NITE IS OVER. Sad face! For those of you who didn’t go to high school in Florida, Disney World would close the park early and let high school students in for a few hours towards the end of their senior year. It was a big deal. The students got dressed up, there were bands, and it was an all around good time. Well, it’s done with. Disney is discontinuing this tradition and I’m sad about that. The above crappy picture of a picture is John and I with our friends Amy and Ben at the 2001 Grad Nite. John and I look so awkward, lmao.

The Munchkin was FASCINATED with the colors on the frame, lol, and cried when I took it away from him. Ah, that frame. That frame is one of the first (I think) instances where I let John into my crazy. I sat at the display for those frames, looking at every. single. one. trying to find one that wasn’t beat up at all. I remember John saying “It’s going to get scratched anyway, so what does it matter?” and I replied “If I get one that’s not too scratched up, when it gets scratched up, then it won’t be so bad.” Yup!

2. My house is cold. I have my warm PJs on, which are usually too warm to wear…ever, and a sweater over that. The Munchkin is wearing PJs that he’s never worn before because I thought they were too hot, but bought just in case. The baby monitor has a temperature gauge on it, and it says the nursery is 59 degrees. I’ve tried to raise the thermostat, but it won’t budge. It claims the house is 63. Lies. 63 is even too cold. Looks like I have a call to make tomorrow!

3. I didn’t make it into the top 5 for the Vice President of Pop Culture contest. The two other people that were picked (above) had videos in there since the contest started, which I kind of disagree with/feel like there was no point in entering, but I would have been mad at myself if I didn’t even try. Thank you guys for your support! I’m actually really proud that I got as high as I did in a week. I got this form letter from “Ashton”:

Hi Colleen,

I want to personally thank you for applying to be our vp of pop culture. Your creativity and engagement was amazing and inspiring.

As you know, we announced the 5 finalists today, and we’re introducing our new vp sometime next week. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard it is to think about picking a winner!

But I was so impressed with the talent that emerged, we’ll be looking for opportunities to showcase more of the other videos and ways to involve as many of you as possible in the world of pop.

Thanks again for all your energy and creativity!

Cheers,

Ashton

Some of the videos were not creative at all, so I kinda hope out of principle, that they split the people up for form letters, but I doubt they did. It should be interesting to see how they’re going to “involve as many of you as possible in the world of pop.” Popchips, if you need someone to hang out with and interview celeb moms on mom stuff, I’d be more than happy to do it! 😀 (lol) Celeb play dates! Sounds like awesome blog stuffs to me!

That’s it! Depending on the weather tomorrow, I might bundle the Munchkin up and head over to downtown for the St. Patrick’s Day parade! We have a Twestival sign hung up outside of Easy on East, and I can’t wait to check it out. Oh no, I don’t have any way for him to wear green…not too many options once he’s in the bear suit. Boo.

These pictures are not from today. Today, all of the snow has melted and the yard is a big muddy mess. I am not pleased. This means Kipp needs to be showered every time she goes out now. Blah.

The Munchkin and I have to run a lot of errands today, so I’m not sure if we’ll really do anything of interest. SO, here is Kipp in a sweater:

I got this sweater and a couple others super cheap (like, we’re talking $2.50 each cheap) at PetSmart a few weeks back. Yay end of season sales!

She wanted to go out, so I let her. I didn’t really think about snow sticking to the sweater, lol.

She didn’t mind it; just wanted to go back outside, but I took it off of her anyway so it could dry.

Hope the weather is nicer where you are!

Using the random number generator from random.org, I put in the number of comments, minus mine (49) and the result was…

Congrats, Melanie! I’ll send you the wet bag and the pop chips later today!

Thanks to everyone who voted and signed up for the contest. The results for the top 3 were just announced:

GASP 11,676 votes for the first guy, and LOL @ Simon Rex, amirite? I feel like he and Ashton should already be friends. ANYWAY, they’re going to announce the other two, judges’ choice people tomorrow, so I’ll let you guys know who they are when I find out!

Squeaking in at the last minute; barely making it into Wednesday, is our Vloggin’ Vednesday submission: “Rooms in Your Home”.

Check out the other people’s vlogs:

Linked up with:

• The Life of Rylie & Bryce
• Shibley Smiles
• Project Alicia
• Live and Love Out Loud
• The Florida Hogans
• Angelica’s Awesome Adventures
• Baby Baby Lemon

We made it to my personal goal of 100 votes! I couldn’t have done it without you guys, so thanks. Not only that…

WE MADE IT TO 150!! (I’m actually at 152 at time of publication.) So great! I am on page 18 of voting out of 40, which isn’t too shabby for only having my video up for a week. I would love to be in the top 15 pages, but I would need almost 200 votes total. Heh, not sure I can jump up 50ish votes by 11:59pm. I’M GONNA TRY THOUGH!

You still have through the end of the day to sign up for the wet bag giveaway! So feel free to head on over there and put in your comments!

♥♥♥ And thanks again everyone!! ♥♥♥

I am a big believer in encouraging kids to read. For my baby shower, I asked guests to bring a book along with whatever else they were going to bring, his Grandma P signed him up for a Dr. Seuss book club, AND my co-workers got him more books at my surprise work baby shower. The Munchkin has quite the little library going in his nursery!

I feel bad, but we haven’t been reading a lot lately. With all of the hustle and bustle as of late, and all of the sickness before, reading hasn’t been too high on the list of things to do… But, here are the books we’ve read since last time:

• “Miss Melody Kitty’s Daydream Adventures” by Dianne Eason (ISBN #978-0-9840573-0-6) *review for this below*
• “Bambi Grows Up” from Disney’s Wonderful World of Reading (ISBN #0-394-84235-9)
• “Go, Dog. Go!” by P.D. Eastman (ISBN #978-0-394-80020-2)
• Some of “Happy Baby Palabras (Words)” by Roger Priddy (ISBN #978-0-618-53822-5) – Ok, so maybe I just read the English words… I don’t know how to say the Spanish ones.

Spirit-Led Designs sent a copy of Miss Melody Kitty’s Daydream Adventure to review for the site. It is a story about a kitty who likes to daydream and help others. The Munchkin loved the bright colors of the pictures, and preferred to hold it himself than have me read it to him, lol.

I think this book would be good for older kids, as the story was a little long for The Munchkin’s 8 month old brain. 😉 I was able to read it to him in three parts though.

The illustrator was nice enough to sign the book and write me a little message! 🙂 It also came with a cure memory matching game too, which I’m sure The Munchkin will have fun with when he’s older.

End rating: 3.5 out of 5 hearts!
Overall, I think the book was good. The story was a little long for my little man, but I think it would be enjoyable for older children. The matching game it came with is cute, and I like that there is an ipad app for the book too, so neat! I don’t have an ipad, so I don’t know how the app is, but I haven’t heard of many books having a corresponding app, have you? This book will be added to our book rotation, as The Munchkin loves the colors and illustrations.

Spirit-Led Designs may have sent me the book to keep in exchange for this review, but all opinions are my own, and I was not otherwise compensated for them.

Ha, I say that I’m going to post more about The Munchkin this weekend, and then I don’t post at all! Mommy fail. But, this weekend was not like most others… this weekend was full of MOVEMENT! I took lots of pictures though, and backblogged Saturday and Sunday. So…kinda counts, right?

This Steppin’ Out Monday is brought to you by:

• the fact that my camera batteries died on Saturday, and by the time they were charged, The Munchkin was asleep.
• the fact that it snowed on Sunday, and that bummed me the crap out. Can it be spring already? I’m not usually one to lament winter, but COME ON!
• the fact that I’m tired of pretending that I’m not a total bitchin’ rockstar from mars. (Think that last one’ll up the google searches? lol.  I thought it was appropriate, as we both have an edgy look today.)

Look at my little punk rocker with his faux tie and skull shoes. ❤ I bought that shirt at Macy’s in like…October, and was so excited to see that it fit. This means that I have to go through his clothes now and see what fits and what doesn’t, because this was in the “next size” box!

You can kinda see the skulls here… the whole thing is a bunch of skull and cross bones. I got my boots on clearance at Target on Saturday, and I kind of love them. A lot. I’m not sure why. Is it the military look of them? The fact that they’re kind of unique? Or the fact that it looks like I chopped the top of some thrifted boots off with scissors? Who knows.

On Mama:
Tee: Scott Pilgrim/Sex Bob-omb promotional tee from radio station
Cardigan: thrifted
Jeggings: Target
Boots: Target

On Baby:
Tee: Macy’s
Pants & Socks: Walmart
Shoes: Marshalls

Moving right along with this weekend theme of OMG MOVEMENT, do you see that picture up there*? With The Munchkin standing? HE DID THAT ON HIS OWN. He was sitting at the dragon, grabbed the top and side, and sloooowly pulled himself up. I almost stopped him because his left leg was at such an angle I thought it might break, but he wasn’t crying or anything, so I let him be. Once he was standing, he just started spinning that yellow fish like nothing had happened. O.o MY BABY!

*He I spilled food on the brown pants and he needed a change, hense the navy pants in that picture. You didn’t even notice the difference, did you?

The Munchkin’s favorite thing to do for a while has been standing. It used to require me holding his hand, but could also be satisfied by putting him in the exersaucer or Johnny Jump up. Not any more. I made the mistake decided to see if he could hold himself up on the edge of the exersaucer, and that is all he wants to do now: Play with the exersaucer toys…while standing next to the exersaucer. Yay?

I moved the exersaucer back to it’s “hideaway” position in the corner of the living room, between the two couches, and that was not a problem for The Munchkin. Slowly, but surely, he made his way over to the couch, just like he did when the exersaucer was next to the dining room chairs. (I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to hold on w/o something he could wrap his little hands around.) It was going well, but as with all good things…

…They eventually come to an end, lol. Faceplant in Mommy’s lap.

But my little man wasn’t done! He surprised me by turning himself around and attempting to scoot over to the exersaucer, presumably to pull himself up and start the whole process again.

He ended up scooting back to me. We’re not quite there yet. 😉