Our NoJo Baby Bedding Arrived!

Last Sunday I posted my good news about winning a NoJo infant bedding set. Yesterday the set arrived in the mail so I hurried over to Em's house.  We were already surprised that I had won the bedding set, but we were even more surprised when we opened the boxes!

On the NoJo website, each infant collection (and they have many!) has a basic set with additional coordinating items available.  We assumed we were getting the basic 6 piece set, which on its own overjoyed us. I really could not believe my good luck in winning such a high-quality bedding set, especially right after Em had given birth. When Em started pulling the items out of the boxes, we soon realized that I had won far more than a basic set. I had won the mother-lode of NoJo Alexis Garden coordinating nursery goodies!

Included were a crib mobile, 3 fitted sheets, a window valance, a diaper stacker, a pink baby blanket, wall decals, a 3-piece wall decor set in frames, a bumper guard, a lamp, a comforter, a dust ruffle, a sheet saver, an infant-sized security blanket, and a hamper!

Miss Baby Elephant stretched out on her new NoJo Alexis Garden quilt.

Daughter Em with her amazing stash of NoJo swag

I was stunned that I received the entire collection.  Em loves the Alexis Garden collection because she is partial to reds, and it is not very often that an infant girl collection comes with red accents. [Notice that the living room wall behind the collection is red, hmm?]

Now you're probably wondering how you can score a fantastic baby bedding set for yourself, right? Well, if you're not a chance-taker like I am, you can go to the NoJo website to find a list of stores where you can purchase all the matching items needed to adequately spoil your newborn. However, if you're like me and believe that real people can actually win amazing prizes, then ENTER TO WIN RIGHT HERE a NoJo bedding set of your own!  

If you want to be updated about new products and contests or learn organizing and decorating tips for your nursery, then give NoJo a big LIKE on Facebook!  In fact, even if you have no need for nursery bedding, go give them a big LIKE on Facebook anyway, just because they were so generous to the Queen of Quang.  I know I'll be liking LOVING NoJo forever!

Snapshots

Do you ever wish you had a camera implanted in your brain so that you could capture those fleeting moments of joy throughout your day?  Those moments that happen so quickly that there is no way you could whip out a camera fast enough to save them forever?

I do. Then I would replay a few of those snapshot moments that happened yesterday.

1. I stopped at daughter Em's house for a few minutes last night. I was going through Chunk withdrawal. After two weeks of tending him while his mom recuperated from childbirth, I had to go a whole day without seeing him. (Computer Geek thinks we need to work out some sort of custody arrangement. We would be fair and let his parents see him fairly often.) The brief look on his face when he thought I was coming to take him to my house was priceless. It was a look of surprise and joy. I am so pleased that the thought of spending time with me caused him such happiness. Click.

2.  While I was there, Em was nursing Baby Elephant. (We're trying to think of a new blog name for her. We get it--it's a family term of endearment, but others might think that we think she's a little fatty.) All I could see was her scrawny little newborn legs peeking out from under the blanket. I held one in my hand and marveled at its perfection--weak calf muscles, smooth baby skin, and a minute foot encased in a pink sock. Click.

3. My pal Ekanela called me at 11:30 P.M. and asked if I was still awake. She asked me to come to my front door in one minute. When I opened the door, she gave me a 2-liter bottle of root beer and a new spray bottle. We had a conversation earlier this week in which we lamented being able to ever find a spray bottle that really works. She found one. Click.

4. Weston had just gone to bed. I was in the kitchen and heard him yell, "Mom, could you come here a minute? I need to talk to you."

I went to his room and said, "Yes?"

He said, "Give me a minute. I'll think of something."

Click.

What clickable moments did you have yesterday?

Enter to win NoJo Baby Bedding!

 Only two weeks old and already she's a winner.

A while back I entered a giveaway for NoJo baby bedding with this precious little sweetheart in mind. When I got an email with the subject line of "Congrats!" I was surprised to see that I had won a set of NoJo's high quality stylish infant bedding. Do you know how hard it is to choose from the NoJo collection?  Each one is adorable. I think Em was grateful that she could weed out half of them because they were boy-themed!  

The sets range from four to eight pieces. The one pictured below, the Alexis Garden collection, is the one I am getting. It comes with four pieces---a bumper guard, quilt, sheet, and dust ruffle. We can't wait to see Baby Elephant nestled snugly in her new Asian-themed surroundings!

You can enter to win a NoJo bedding set at their website. ENTER HERE through August 31, 2012.

Good luck!

Basking in Grandmotherly Bliss

Because of this girl,

the adorable Miss Baby Elephant,

I get to hang out with this guy--

the rambunctious, hilarious, heart-stealing Mr. Chunk.  It's a good thing Chunk likes his old Grandma, because we've been spending many precious hours together since the birth of his baby sister.  We go to the grocery store and ride the double-steering-wheeled carts and pretend like we are running into people.

We hang out at the park. The Orange park. Not the Purple Park or the Crazy Park.

We find cool things at the park, like those brown poke-o-nuts you see on the ground. 

I will never call them "pine cones" again.

We watch so many episodes of Dora that our eyes bleed and we must rest them.

We eat red popsicos.

And when Chunk freaks out on the way home to see Mommy because he left his three "points" at Grandma's house, Grandma digs three different "points" out of her car coin holder and says, 

"Oh look! Here they are!"

Grandma will be sad when it is time to give him back.

Introducing...Elephant!

While Em was pregnant, she frequently said, " I don't care what day she's born on, as long as it's not the 11th."  Her hubby's family has anniversaries and birthdays on the 11th, and Em didn't want to take away from their special days. Since her due date was the 19th, a birth on the 11th didn't seem very likely.

Do I really need to tell you that little Elephant [blog name chosen for her by her mother] made her entrance on May 11th? Nah, I didn't think so. It was too perfect. I envisioned little Elephant inside her mother's womb saying, "Did she say the 11th? I'm positive she said the 11th."

I would be a poor grandmother if I didn't post pictures, so prepare to be amazed at her loveliness.

7 lbs., 4 oz.

Around 5 hours old

2 days old, in her elephant-patterned p.j.'s

Grandma's hoping for brown eyes

Big brother Chunk adores her already

Can you see why Chunk has been spending his days with Grandma?

He's been described as "Dennis the Menace on steroids."

But it's a lie because he's always a perfect angel at Grandma's house--

besides I told him to go play in the mud.

This is only one of the reasons why I love having Chunk come over every day while his mama is recuperating. He was playing with Grandpa's flashlight and he aimed it at the corner of the wall saying, "Look, Grandma! I made you a heart."  

Happy Mother's Day to me.

Life's Little Things

Adulthood has taught me that cherished memories stem from seemingly inconsequential day-to-day events. That belief is the reason for my Robert Brault quote at the top, and the inspiration for most of my posts.

On Tuesday, I went with daughter Em for her regularly scheduled prenatal exam. While she was being seen by her obstetrician, I was in the waiting room wondering why such a doctor would have magazines like Popular Mechanics, Car and Driver, and other male oriented magazines in abundance. Where was People? Where were Martha, Paula, and Rachael? Finally, after going around to several magazine stands in the waiting room, I found one magazine that wasn't totally testosteronish--Reader's Digest.

Before I tell you about the gem that I found in RD, I must tell you what happens in my house every Monday through Friday, at 5:30 P.M. and again at 6:30 P.M.--Computer Geek and I position ourselves on the couch and watch Jeopardy!. I have loved this show since my mom got me hooked many years ago, back in the days of Art Fleming and Don Pardo. (Yes, youngsters, there was Jeopardy! before Alex Trebek.) Together, CG and I blast through the questions, combining our brains to beat the current contestants. We joke that alone, we would be an embarrassment to the program, but together we might score enough to be included in Final Jeopardy!. There's sometimes mild competition between us, but nothing worth causing a divorce.

Back to Reader's Digest. I read it in my usual manner, reading the funny anecdotes first, then going to the vocabulary section, and finally reading any stories that looked interesting. While testing my vocabulary knowledge, I came upon the word "polymath." I correctly guessed the definition as "a person of great and varied learning."  It was what I read right after that in the sample sentence that caused me to almost do a momentary dance of glee in the waiting room:

Yeah, so I had to take a picture so I could take it home to gloat. They even spelled my name correctly.

Today, two days later, I am having an afternoon phone conversation with the very pregnant Em. It went something like this:
Me: I just had lunch--bean soup with Nacho Doritos.
Em:  I was just saying that I wish I had some Doritos!
Me:  The grocery store has them for only $2.21 today. You should go get some.
Em:  Um...
Me:  Yeah, only $2.21.
[silence dragging on and on]
Em:  Um...
Me:  Are you trying to say you don't have $2.21?
Em:  Um...
[more silence]
Me:  Em?
Em:  Um...I think my water just broke.

I nearly threw the phone down, woke Computer Geek from a nap, and drove the 3 blocks to Em's house. She and her hubby packed their bags and I stayed behind to care for the Chunkster. He was quite disturbed to learn that he was being left behind, even though he was carrying around his toddler camp chair saying, "I got my chair. I get in the car. I go too."  He watched Mom and Dad drive away without him, and though he finally cheered up, I couldn't drag him away from the window for a couple of hours.

Ah, those little moments.
Randi acing Jeopardy!
"I think my water just broke."
"I get in the car."

Little snapshots of emotion that in the end, are the things we remember most.

Time to wake up...

Mmm...stretttch...yawn
Rub eyes...
Crack back...ah, that felt good.
Look around.
It's daylight! Oh no, did I oversleep?
Jump out of bed and step on my missing barrette.
Look at the calendar.
May?  It's May?
Check blog to see if anyone kept it going during my 3 month hiatus.
Hmm. Guess that was my job.
Dilemma...go back to bed or get up?
I think I'll stay up.
Who knows what incredible life events happened while I was snoozing?
Or even what little things passed me by...