Reason #1 You never have to feel bad about letting your kids watch too much TV. In fact, if you take your granddaughters on a two day camping trip, feel free to bring your computer loaded up with cartoons and let them watch it in the tent. At 10pm.

Reason #2 You never have to worry about silly things like pajamas, modesty or privacy.

Reason #3 Also do not need to worry about bathing suits.

Reason #4 Powdered donuts for a midnight snack while watching a laser show with about 3000 drunk people is perfectly normal.

Reason #5 If you tire them out, there are no fights at bedtime.

Reason #6 Beautiful granddaughters.

(This was just the TINIEST recap of my parent’s 2 day “cousin camp” they put on each year for their TWO preschool granddaughters. This year was a camping trip complete with mountain climbing, train ride, crafts, swimming, ropes course and more!)

oh, and part 1. also, last year’s camp primo.

Why Being a Grandparent is Apparently Better Than Being a Parent Part 2 is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I feel like I’ve been posting long drawn out posts lately. Or short strange little things. Or stuff about other people’s stuff. While I know, deep down you’ve all been wondering about the randomness of my days!

So, here goes…

1. I’ve had McDonald’s to eat two nights in a row. Before that, it’s probably been six months since I visited the Golden Arches. I think my arteries are upset.

2. I finally picked out some bedding for the pirate. I’ve been eyeing it but hoping I could see it in person first. The reviews on Target.com said it was cuter in real life. Let’s hope they aren’t lying…or blind..

Here’s the skirt:

And the bumper:

The quilt isn’t all that. But you never use the silly thing anyway. So, I’m thinking of painting one wall in the nursery chocolate and the other two light blue. What do you think?

3. Lydia was at Camp Primo last weekend. (Post coming ASAP, I promise.) And while she was there, Les and I pricelined the Westin in downtown Atlanta. That means I got to sleep until 10:30 TWO DAYS IN A ROW. Heavenly, indeed.

4. I forgot about my Healing Choice giveaway winners. Only 4 people entered! Based on the comments, I’m going to give away my book, too. So we’ll have 3 winners. AND I just emailed Random House to see if they happen to have a 4th book lying around so everyone can win! So, I’m about to email my 3 winners. And if Random House is up for it, I might be emailing a 4th winner soon!

5. Don’t forget about the tetanus-vaccine-widget. I’d love for you to copy it onto your blog! Leave me a comment if you do, so I can thank you properly.

6. I haven’t been answering emails or visiting blogs lately. Somehow I’ve been online but not being able to do what I want online. I’m going to try to remedy that this week. You know, between cleaning, playing doctor with Lydia and trying not to fall asleep because of the pirate.

7. Oh, I went to the doctor last week. For my THIRTY-TWO week appointment! ACK. And I talked to the midwife AT LENGTH about natural childbirth, etc. I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER. I feel like I got permission to tell them exactly what I want and the understanding that I WILL get what I want. She kept telling me, “I think you’ll have a much better experience than last time.” Yay!

8. In case you didn’t know, bee had her baby girl!! She still hasn’t posted any pictures….grrr….but I guess she’s a got a pretty good reason. But still, you might want to leave her some congrats (and some gentle nudging in the picture department.)

9. Let’s see…uh, my house is a mess. I went to a luau last night at Kristen‘s. I spent $100 at Whole Foods today. We’re selling our gas-guzzling truck today. I decided I don’t want Lydia to take gymnastics after watching the Olympics. I think reading would be a better sport.

10. That’s it. I’m sorry. It’s all I’ve got. If you made it to ten. You are just…well, bored.

WAIT!!!

ONE MORE!

11. JOSHUA WON SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE. The world is a wonderful place. *sigh*

Random McRandom is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I told you before about my bird name at camp. Puffin.

Now how did it become #2 on Yahoo Buzz? The 2nd top search today on all of Yahoo is Puffin?!

Are my old campers looking for me?

Seriously, why? Who’s doing yahoo searches on a flightless bird?

Puffin is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I know I’ve mentioned camp a few times already. I can’t help it! It is one of the most wonderful memories of my growing up years!

I went to 2 different camps every year–one was Camp Cherith, the campy camp with cabins and horsemanship and rope courses! The second camp was our church denomination’s youth camp. It was basically just the playground, swimming and church services. Honestly, it wasn’t the best camping experience if it hadn’t been for my friends! Oh, the crazy inside jokes and stupid things we did! My most embarrassing moment happened at that camp. I hope I can relay this so it is seems sufficiently embarrassing.

Our Youth Pastor was the video guy one year at camp. That means he basically ran around camp all week shooting us at the activities, interviewing us, etc. Then each night there’d be a video showing that day’s stuff. At the end of the week, you could buy the video. So, we thought we were kinda cool because we knew the video guy. Basically, we could get on the video anytime we wanted.

At this camp, there were some college kids singing at each service. I’m pretty sure every girl at the camp had a crush on the guys that were in this group. One night at “Fun Time”…(I’m not kidding, that was the name of the activity hour right after the evening service & right before bed where we did…uhm…fun stuff) these college guys sang a dcTalk song. And we were basically in love with dcTalk so we thought it was the best thing ever!

The next day Staci, Becky & I approached our Youth Pastor (with the video camera) while we were wearing matching dcTalk shirts and asked him to film us singing the song from the night before. (I’m already blushing!) We planned it all out and said into the camera, “<Insert College Guys’ Names>, you think you know dcTalk, but you’ve got nothing on us!” Then we proceeded to RAP…yes, I said RAP the dcTalk song.

For some reason, we didn’t think another thing about it. We actually thought it was great, that we did a good job and we were cool. That night, I was sitting with my banquet date (oh, for you who’ve never been to camp before!) and when that video came on, I wanted to crawl into a hole. I remember covering my face with my hands and leaning forward so my head was in my lap! Imagine you and your 2 best friends on a screen 12 feet tall RAPPING in front of 1000 teenagers. Did I mention I’m WHITE?!

Oh. My. Lord.

It was horrible. Our Youth Pastor saved us a little by doing weird lighting and effects on the camera. But I still get butterflies when I think about it. However, it is a wonderful camp memory. Becky & Staci, anything you want to add about our rapping debut?

So, do you have a camp story to share?

(oh, and if you want to read some more camp memories, go visit Annie‘s!)

Down with the DC Talk is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I’m having a hard time blogging today. This always happens to me on Monday. I have lots of things to talk about but I just can’t get them down in an interesting, creative or even grammatical way! So, do you mind if I ramble for a bit?

I had lots of family in town this weekend. My aunt Paula and cousin Staci were here from California. My Aunt Laurie and her family were here from NJ. They all came for Camp Rocks. So, when camp was done we got to hang out a little bit. I miss my family. I wish we were closer together! That’s what heaven is for, I guess. (I’m not trying to be funny, I really think about that! When we get to heaven, we’ll get to be together forever!)

We had a Neighborhood Block Party at our house last night. Big slices of watermelon, homemade lemonade (2 whole bags of lemons, folks!), a baby pool and sprinklers for the kids! It was fun. It felt…Americana!

I just reread Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This is the 2nd time I’ve read it since it came out. I had forgotten so much of it–mainly that (spoiler alert) SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE! I knew Dumbledore died, but I just forgot it was Severus that did it. Oh. I’ve been in Harry-Potter-land ever since then because the last and final volume, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows comes out in 11 days. I just don’t think I can make it! (btw, if you have a thing about Harry Potter, just remember I’m not reading it to Lydia, I don’t have a magic wand and click here if you need to.)

Lydia is tired and cranky. I’ve always said, there is nothing wrong with Lydia that a nap can’t fix. She sleeps generally 12-13 hours a night plus a 2-3 hour nap during the day. This past week with camp and the 4th, she was out late lots of nights, playing hard during the day and she’s still tuckered out! I’m looking forward to this week of doing nothing so she can catch up on her sleep and stop being a little crabby. No naps coupled with her new word, “noooooo” equals some fun times.

In bloggy news, Annie awarded me with the sweetest award. I’m still reflecting on it and will post about it this week.

Over at Musings of a Housewife, dcrmom decided to take down all her kids pictures and start using initials instead of their real names. It’s got me thinking. I want to protect Lydia more than anything. But at the same time, the whole point of my original blog was to show my family Lydia’s life. My mom, dad, brother, cousins, sil and best friends link to my blog. If I went incognito, they’d have to do the same. How can you ever be completely safe? I mean, Chloe O’Brien can hack into any computer and find anyone she wants. If a freak wanted to find us, they could. What’s a girl to do?

And that’s all she wrote.

Trudging Along is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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I told you my mom is directing camp this year. Her staff includes my dad, my aunt, my brother, my sister and 4 of my cousins. Not to mention 2 of my best friends. I’m the odd man out. So, she recruits my dh and me to drive the apartment kids to camp & then back home. We have to use our own cars, but no problem. Then my hubby has a genius idea. Maybe we can borrow the van from his dad’s church. We call and it’s a done deal. My mom is rejoicing. So, my dh picks up the kids and drives them to camp. (See, I told you he was sweet!)

I ended up going up to camp a few times to help teach a class (we made friendship bracelets, necklaces and an awesome cool memory book, in case you were wondering.)

Today was the last day of camp. Mama asks again to borrow the church van. No problem, I just have to meet the youth pastor to get the key. Then I’m off to camp, load up the kids and drive 45 minutes home. Now, all the kids are gone. I’m in a hot dirty van all by myself. I decide to head to the gas station to fill it up & vacuum it out. When I pull in next to the pump I realize the tank is on the other side of the van! UGH. So, I get back inside and start…uh oh, I mean attempt to start the van. It’s dead. I walk inside and ask an employee to help me. He was so nice and came outside with his car. We spent 10 minutes trying to open the hood. He jumps me off and we’re good. I drive to another pump and leave the car running. And here’s where it gets better, the gas cap has to be opened with the key from the ignition! And if I shut the car off, it will die! What in the world?! I hop back in the van, drive away cursing the makers of this stupid van, then stop at ANOTHER gas station to vacuum up the smashed pringles and mini marshmallows.

As I’m driving away to drop the van off and pick up my car, I roll up all the windows to eek out as much almost-cool air the air conditioning will give me. And soon I have a throbbing headache. Can you get carbon monoxide poisoning while driving a car?

I don’t know if there is a moral to this story or not. But I don’t want to set foot into a church van for the next 100 years.

Try to follow this one… is a post from: ohamanda.com
Happy New Year! Here are some of my favorite resources to help you make the most of 2012! One Bite At A Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler, an ebook by Simple Mom!
Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule, finally get your house under control!
E-Mealz, online meal-planning with shopping lists! {20% off with code SKINNY when you choose one of their healthy menus}
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