Archives for September 2013

You’ve come a long way baby… 100th Post!

It’s a big week to say the least.  For those of you counting (um, zero of you), the wait is over!

The 100th post has arrived !!!!!

Not sure who this little girl is, but sometimes when I’m excited about stuff I do this in my head! Thank you nameless girl for living out my dream!

It’s a big week of milestones and I didn’t want to miss this blogging milestone, so if figured I’d do a blog post full of the topics that float through my mind each day.  Most of them have already earned a blog post or two (or more).

Without further adieu, the ABC’s of Mommy McBlog.

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A – A blog.  It seems like just yesterday we were welcoming McBlog into the world.  And here we are 100 posts later.  She’s growing up so fast!

B – Baby.  A super cute baby girl names Makenzie Ruth.  She’s what inspired this blog.  We kind of like her and have written a post (or 99) about her.

C – College (go OU!).  My four years as an undergrad actually prepared me to be a mom, read about it here

D – Dear Makenzie… some notes I’ve been jotting down to our girl about ears, Lysol and lots of other randomness

E – Erin, that’s me.

F – Feeding time for the under 1 crowd aka breastfeeding.  This was a tough one to write but I’m SO glad I did! 

G – GOLF!  

H – Hanging with cousins!

I – Itsa Party

J – Journey with a Jeep

K – Keeping up with the, uh, McGees?   Toys R Us coupon drama and museum trips… Not quite exciting or glamorous, but what’s your other option right now, an E! rerun?

L – Labor & Delivery and the music to go with it.  Yikes!

M – Makenzie Ruth!!!   Ever since she came into our lives 362 days ago, our world has never been the same!

N – Nursery, aka The Kenzie Inn.  Check out where this little pumpkin lays her head each night.

O – Ohio University!!!!! 

P – Pregnancy and the fun that goes with it.  Apparently in my pre-baby days I had too much time on my hand and I created the pregnancy Olympics.  What was I thinking?

Q – Quiltys!!   I love these people.  This year has been a really sad year for us… we’re always keeping the people we love so much in our hearts

R – Remembering how lucky we are to be here.  It wasn’t always an easy journey

S – Stickers.  We Love those Picky Stickies 

T – The truth about Pinterest

U – Us, meaning me and my cute hubby.  We’ve been legally locked together for 5 years and so far, so good.  Sure we have days when we want to throw dirty diapers at each other, but he’s a best dad/husband/friend Makenzie and I could ever ask for.

V -View on Life – Changing Diapers or Building a Cathedral

W – Working Moms, phew!  Not an easy job.

X –X-tra quarters in the meter

Y – You!!  It means a lot that you stop by this blog on occasion.  Thank you!

Z – Zoo?  It’s all I can think of for Z.  I’m so glad we took her here or I wouldn’t be able to finish this post.

100 Posts and going strong.  I still love this blog for a chance to write down a memory or share some insight with other Moms. I hope you like it too.  Here’s to 100 more!

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100 Posts and a 1-year old baby girl.  What a week!

Join the celebration on Facebook 

Mommy McBlog

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11 Months – How’d that happen?

One sticker left… wow!  What a bittersweet feeling!

And it feels like it was just yesterday that I was saying the same thing about my pregnancy picky stickies.   We were just weeks away from meeting our Beanette… How was this post a whole year ago?

In just about a week and a half our Makenzie Ruth will be a one-year old girl!  I’m pretty behind with this post so I’ll keep it short and sweet…

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Happy 11 month baby girl!    I love love love when she’s fresh out of the tub and in her snuggly jammies. 🙂

This month seems like it’s gone faster than the others.  Maybe because we spent 10 of the days relaxing and enjoying vacation or maybe because it’s the countdown to our little pumpkin’s 1st Birthday.

Either way she’s been busy:

  • Almost walking – she takes a lot of steps on her own but still likes to hold onto Mommy or Daddy’s hands (we like it too)
  • Babbling a lot more – her newest word is “uh oh”
  • Eating real food for every meal – no more baby food, this girl can chow down
  • Barely drinking from bottles – Our big girl is down to just 2 bottles a day
  • Playing, playing and more playing!   She loves to explore everything!
  • And last but not least (drumroll)… She’s so excited for her upcoming birthday she’s not sleeping.  Wah wah.  We’ve hit a serious parenting plateau and the only thing we see for miles is the land of sleepless nights.  Stay tuned with this, we’re trying to get her back to being a good sleeper.

But if there’s anyone we don’t mind cuddling with in the wee hours of the night, it’s Makenzie Ruth.  She’s so sweet and fun and we can’t imagine our world without her.  It’s going to be a fun 1st Birthday celebration.  Stay tuned!

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Kenz-o is about to turn O-N-E, join the countdown on Facebook!

Mommy McBlog

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Excludes all toys… or does it?

A few days ago I got a little coupon from Toys R Us that made me wonder what the heck they were thinking.  You can read about it here.  Rather than wonder what they were thinking, I sent them an e-mail asking them what they were thinking.  Here’s what they responded:

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Dear Erin M:

Thank you for contacting “R” Us.  We would be happy to honor the $10 off coupon. Please contact us at the phone number below.  Thank you once again, Erin M, for contacting the “R” Us Family.

Sincerely,

Tonya 6025

Toys “R” Us Customer Service Team

1-800-TOYSRUS

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Thanks Tonya 6025.  Short and sweet, but at least they stepped up to accept the coupon.  And they did it within 24 hours of my initial outreach.  That counts for something, right?

So off to Toys R Us we went to check out their cozy coupes.  The pink and blue baby mobile wasn’t in the store but it could be ordered.  And they would price match Wal-Mart if we contacted the manager.  And they would allow me to use the coupon if I called customer service.  Phew, too many steps for this Mom.

So I stepped my fingers over to google and Bam, I found a sweet little cozy coupe from Sears (who knew they even sold toys).  Then I found another $5 off coupon on RetailMeNot.com and got free shipping if I picked it up at the store.  Score & score!

So there you have it.  Toys R Us fumbled and tried to recover, but at the end of the game they didn’t score my business!  I’ll be spiking my credit card in the end zone at Sears.

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Have you experienced coupon chaos?

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You’ve Got to be kidding me…

Maybe I’m just a wee bit overtired or maybe I’m a teeny bit oversensitive (because that’s never happened), but I just went to use my Toys R Us $10 off coupon to buy Kenzie’s Birthday gift…  then I turned the coupon to the back and read the phrase Excludes All toys.

Not ‘Excludes some toys’ or ‘Excludes certain toys’.  Excludes ALL toys.

Shut the diaper pail door Toys R Us.  You’ve just pushed my overtired oversensitive buttons.  And I think your customer service department needs to know…

Dear Toys R Us,
You have got to be kidding me…
I recently received a coupon that said “$10 a gift for you… our very special guest.”  I was very excited as I have a baby girl who is about to turn 1 in three weeks.  (You likely know this because I registered with you and spent oodles of money with your brand.)  I went on your Website to purchase her birthday gift (a pink cozy coupe) then turned over the coupon to read “excludes all toys.”   Seriously?   Your company, Toys R Us sent me a coupon that excludes ALL toys?  That’s sad and incredibly lame.  Please keep your coupons.  I’ll spend my money with a business that actually allows me to use their coupons on more than 2% of their products.
Many thanks,
Erin
Not Excited Moms R Us

We’ll see what they have to say.  Stay tuned!

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Cape May – the 1st official McGee Family Summer Vacation

Today we went back to reality – back to alarm clocks, back to schedules and back to real shoes.  It was the first day in about a week that I came home and didn’t find sand everywhere.  But despite being sand-free, today wasn’t nearly as good as the past week and a half.  Last week was the 1st official McGee Family Summer Vacation.

Beach, Sun, Sand, Strolls, Family Naps… the GOOD stuff of life!

We spent 5 days in Cape May, NJ, and we had a great time!  I could ramble on about our visit, but I think the pictures tell a pretty accurate story…

The McGee Mobile all loaded up and hitting the road (just kidding, it’s not our car but I wanted to make sure you are paying attention)

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Kenz living the dream – Baby Einstein, jammies, a paci and her big girl car seat. She was a rockstar traveler!

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View from Room 209. Not too shabby!

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And the lovely little views on Beach Avenue.   Cape May Is such a cool little town…

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Too cute!

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Voted favorite house on Beach Avenue by cute hubby.

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Voted favorite house on Beach Avenue by your (hopefully) favorite Mommy McBlogger.

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Happy little picket fence

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A snapshot of the houses looking out to the Atlantic Ocean.

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And the lovely little views of Mom-cam.

Say Cheese!!

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Makenzie’s 1st dip of her little tootsies in the ocean

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And Makenzie’s 1st dip into the pool (how cute are those chunky thighs?)

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She Loved the sand – playing in it and eating it!

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And she loved the view (so did I)      🙂

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We sure loved Cape May!!

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And it sure tired us out…

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See you soon beach, we’ll be back!

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Mommy McBlog – Apply liberally

SPF 50 – Waterproof

Won’t clog pores or cause breakouts

Mommy McBlog

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Dear Makenzie – Some thoughts about your ears

Hey Kenz girl,

It’s me, Mom.

You’re probably going to roll your eyes at this… but I want to remind you that you have absolutely precious, adorable, sweet, little, perfect baby girl ears.  They are so cute and they make me smile.   And the reason I remind you of this is because yesterday at the grocery store I saw a girl about 16 years older than you who decided she didn’t love or appreciate her ears in their current shape.  In fact she wanted to change the shape of her ears so much that she put giant plastic round spacers in them to create a huge permanent holes in both of her ears.

It’s possible that this girl thought that it’s cool to permanently put giant holes in her ears.  Or perhaps she put giant holes in her ears to impress people in her life.  But maybe, just maybe she decided to stretch out her ears because her mom forgot to remind her just how precious her ears were.

So if you ever think it’s super cool to stretch the crap out of those ears, just remember that your lame old conservative Mom thinks they are perfect as is.  Plus if you ever want to stretch out your skin, you’ll easily be able to do this when you have kids (which is of course not likely to happen for at least 29 1/2 years since you aren’t allowed to date until then).

If you have any questions about this, ask your dad.  He’ll be more than glad to clarify about this situation and what you are and are not allowed to do to your ears.

Much Love,

Mom

PS  While we are on the topic of things that we are not excited about in our house, don’t even think about dancing like Miley Cyrus did at the VMA’s unless you want to be grounded until you are 73.  That’s absolutely not what we refer to when we sing the Shake your sillies out song.

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