An Afternoon Spent at Petco

Today, Lilli and I met my mom for lunch at KFC/A&W.  I've always wondered if Lilli remembers my mom since there is often so much time between visits, but today it didn't matter.  She received such a warm greeting.  Lilli enjoyed plenty of french fries, but only after she dipped them in ranch, Wende's iced tea, NOT my lemonade and a chocolate pudding dessert, my mom just had to buy her, since she is in a far-off, very distant, way her grandbaby.

Then we headed to Old Navy to spend a $10 gift card I had and in a very unusual fashion after Lilli was out of the cart, she decided to walk on her own, as opposed to being carried.  She made it in front of PetCo and when the automatic door opened, she walked in like she'd done it a million times.  She found a cart just her size and began pushing it around.  She didn't not appreciate my hand on the silver pole helping to steer her, but I did it anyway because I'm the adult and I didn't want to cause any crashes :)

The first animal we found was a cage full of rats, and I really didn't know if she saw/noticed them, but she definitely saw the ferret in the next cage and didn't like it, which Marcel blamed on the fact that I don't like them.  Then we saw a huge display of books, (in the picture above) all of which had pictues of dogs on them, so Lilli began barking at them (She can tell you what a kitty cat, puppy, and cow says; when we read one of her books she moo's at the zebras, which I LOVE; and she's close to knowing monkey & snake even without the pictures from her books).  Then we saw a real-life dog and Lilli just froze, got super excited and blew kisses at it; she blows kisses when you say "I Love You" to her.  Guess she loved the dog.

She LOVED the fish, and enjoyed talking back to the singing birds.  She was also amazed by the turtles that would come up from out of the water, rest on a rock and then swim away.  I don't know how she feels about reptiles, because, while I can handle ferrets in a cage, reptiles and I aren't very good friends!

This was the first time around the store and only seconds before she was at the tank.  She wasn't afraid!

We had made it around the stores about 3 times, each time stopping by the adoption center and looking at the kitties, but the first 2 times they were all sleeping.  On our last visit the 2 in the bottom cages (just at her level!) we awake and sort-of interested in playing.  Lilli blew them plenty of kisses, and even gave them a few real kisses (through the cage and never getting all the way to the cage).  She waved hi and meowed at them, and stared at them as if in confusion as to why they weren't also meowing.

We had a great time getting out of the house and doing something fun!  We'll definitely be going back for more excitement :)

PS:  I used my phone to take these pictures so I could send them to Lilli's mom so I apologize for their poor quality.  I really need to remember to start using my real camera more often

PPS: I LOVE that I labeled this post "Jobs".  I was in fact working during this trip and I'm so blessed to have such a wonderful job!

January Updates

There has been no picture taking this month, thus no real blog posts, so I thought I'd do an update.  Not necessarily for all of you, but for me. 

MARYBETH

• I'm doing great on my "2011 goals".  I've found it very beneficial to use Lilli's morning nap as my Bible reading time.  I've tried to do it first thing in the morning, but since I'm far from being a morning person, my eyes may read over the words, but I don't really get anything out of it.  I've already finished a book this month, The Pact by Jodi Picoult.  I had read it before but once again it was so wonderful.  Now I just need to get myself to the library or I'm going to seriously fail on that goal. 
• I still love Miss Lilliana to pieces.  She's almost 16 months and is as bright as can be.  We struggle most days to find stuff she'll eat, but she'll ask for "cackers" (crackers) all day long, only as long as I put peanut butter on them. 
• I'm headed to Portland, OR this weekend for a girl's weekend with my roommates (people I tell this to here are so confused because Marcel and I don't have roommates, but I can't get myself to say anything like "college roommates" or "old roommates"; they will always just be my roommates!)  They were all going to come visit me here, but in the end we decided it was cheaper and probably more fun for me to just go there.  I'll take pictures there and then can have a real blog post when I get back!

MARCEL

• He's been working with a new mentor teacher at Skyview High & South Middle.  He's enjoying it a lot (at least that's my impression).  He and Mr. Garner seem to be working really well together and Steve is full of advice and tips that Marcel is glad to be receiving. 
• He still volunteers for church's creative arts & worship teams, which is going to pick up A LOT as we're about to start a second church on the northside of Nampa, thus the name: CFC North.

THE BAILEY'S

• We're both doing great on our "not-a-diet-just-eating-healthier" goal.  We're really working on portion sizes, and having more fruit and vegetables.  We're still eating about the same type of dinners, but tweaking them just enough to get more produce in them. 
• We just enjoyed our January date.  It was a stay-at-home date.  We made our own pizza roll and watched The Social Network, which we both really enjoyed.  We do watch plenty of tv and movies together, but since it was date night, there were no computers on our laps while we watched.  It was truly a night to spend together!
• We're both counting down the days until Marcel graduates, which is only 130 days away!  Doesn't seem that far away when I think about the days, but to say graduation is June 4th, makes it seem like an eternity.  We're both beyond excited for no more school!  Marcel still has a lot of work to do between now and then, but of course, it will all get done.
• February is the month we've been told to start looking for teaching jobs, so that is exactly what we're going to do.  This is the area we've been praying about most.  We want to follow God's will for us, and feel that a BIG part of that is where we'll end up living.  We're not going to be very limited on where we look for jobs.  We know we'll find the perfect job where God wants us to be.
• After finally receiving Marcel's paycheck for being the Skyview Marching Band Assistant Director, our cruise fund is fully funded!  At least as far as we can tell now.  We're still living cheaply (I'd like to say frugally but truthfully, cheap is probably more accurate) and adding any extra money we find to it, just to make sure we have enough saved so it is 100% paid for WITH CASH!  The best part, however, is that we don't need any of our debt snowball money for the cruise (read Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover for more information on the debt snowball) so we are now able to still save a little each month for our cruise, but also resume paying down our debt, which makes me so happy!

Goals for 2011

I have never really been too keen on resolutions for the new year, but this year I felt really motivated to set some goals for myself, so that is exactly what I did:

• DAILY devotional time
• Ability to allow God complete control in my life and marriage
• Read for pleasure
• Realistically, I'm aiming for 1 book per month
• Exercise and eat healthier
• I don't want to be on a diet, just be a little more aware of what I'm eating :)
• Monthly date nights
• This will require some creativity as we're not spending any money outside of bills and necessary expenses, but I know we can manage it!
• Monthly budget meetings with Marcel to stay 100% focused on what we've been working towards

There is still so much unknown about 2011, which I am kind of enjoying, but I know myself enough to know that sooner than later I'm going to want answers about our future (Marcel's job, where we're living, all sorts of big important things like that).  Hence, goals 1 & 2.  And the rest are just things either I've wanted to do or we've been meaning to do for awhile and am just now getting around to making it a bigger priority.