So I guess I am raising a bunch of Linus'

Nothing should come between a child and their blanket....

My oldest Mackenzie was given a Scooby Doo blanket as a baby shower present. For the first year or year and a half of his life he always had his blanket. My now 12 year old Skylar was given a quilt the day she was born at Gordon Hospital when she was in the NICU. My 5 year old William has many blankets. His baby blanket is blue camo with his name on it but he prefers his other ones...

I belong to a group on Facebook and her 11 year old's blanket was basically in threads and she wondered what should she do with it? I told her that's nothing my 12 year old has had hers since the days she was born and won't let it go. I don't have pacifier babies or thumb suckers I have blanket babies. Pacifiers you can usually find an easy replacement and of course your thumb is always connected to your hand but I think those habits are harder to break.

There was a time when Skylar would take her "B" everywhere with her and we went to Kroger. I was putting Skylar in the car and my significant (or Insignificant) other was putting away the groceries in the trunk.. Well he took the cart the cart corral and didn't notice Skylar's blanket was still in the cart! We got home and Skylar was asking for her "B" and it was gone. We rushed back to Kroger and it wasn't in lost and found. One of the employees said he just threw it away... REALLY? a homemade quilt? So we had no choice but to dumpster dive for her precious B and have it washed well.  After that we made a rule that has very little exceptions.. B doesn't leave the house LOL.
Here are pictures of Skylar and her B. Yes the cat has grown with her tooo.




William and his blankets. My friend Erica was PCSing and she left some stuff at my house until she returned from a trip to Washington. Two of the items which were blankets. I guess there was some misunderstanding about the blankets and they got left behind... I am kinda grateful but feel bad at the same time. These are just average Target blankets I am guessing half is silky and the other half is softy minky fabric... William loves them. We have them in two colors blue and red. Sometimes he wants one more than the other and I am trying to wash them enough to keep them clean but the minky is loosing its softness and becoming matted down. There was also this pink pillow he couldn't do without until it got so bad it just HAD to go LOL.. Those blankets aren't even his baby blanket!

I was talking with the receptionist at the school about it and she said her son used to rub the blanket between his fingers. William does this too since both sides have a different fabric he's been known to do it to my hair as well. She said her son now rubs his belt loops on his pants till they break LOL.

I had this blanket made with his name on it blue camo minky dot to match his crib bedding. 

and he came home from the hospital with this blanket and this outfit..

and when they don't have their respective blankets that don't mind sleeping with my oldest son's Scooby doo blanket that I mentioned earlier in the story...believe it or not Mackenzie's blanket has only needed one small fix. If all velour blankets were made this way... It is one of the warmest softest blankets ever as well.. Just not quite long enough to keep my feet warm.. You can find it on my bed most days.

I don't know if its crazy or what?

I quit smoking 6 years ago cold turkey. One addiction I have not been able to kick is my addiction to the liquidity sweetness of Coca Cola. Sure I obey doctors orders and try to curb my habit down to one a day or two with lots of ice during my pregnancy. When I was pregnant with Skylar my kidneys were trying to shut down so often I wasn't allowed to have anything but water and milk. I even craved orange juice so bad. I could almost never have Coca Cola. Afraid of being back in the hospital or doing damage to my unborn baby girl. At least some of the time I could afford sweet tea.. Until I was pregnant with William. I tried to replace my Coca Cola habit with sweet tea. I had horrible morning sickness with Skylar for the full 35 weeks of my pregnancy and I just merely thought it was the same with William. I then started to realize the trigger for my stomach was sweet tea. So I couldn't curb much of that need for coke anymore. Matter of fact I joke the one reason William didn't have colic and the other two did was because he didn't have to wean off of caffeine.

I wasn't allowed to have coke as much growing up unless we ate fast food which was pretty rare like only reserved when we traveled. When I turned 18 I started getting my addiction. My mom would yell at me for drinking a 2 liter a day. I never really let it go since. Of course I don't drink two liters anymore. I grew up in Georgia so I partly blame the influence of the city in which I am from for my addiction. Coca Cola was first sold in Atlanta and is a proud part of their history. It is one of my favorite companies and always has been. My dentist and his employees often give me grief about it to because I don't just chug a coke and leave it alone I am a sipper. I sip on the same one for hours so apparently between my epilepsy meds and the constant chaos of the PH balance in my mouth are wreaking havoc. I.have.some.control. I can feel when my kidneys start acting up and I start drinking more water in my diet. I cannot for the life of me drink 64 ounces of water a day I am just not that thirsty and I think that also goes back to me being a sipper.

Coke and I have had our ups and downs now... A few years ago they released a beautiful white can to help give money to the Polar Bears (Did you know Polar Bears will be extinct in the wild in the next 50 years yet they aren't yet endangered?)
Anyways remember these?

Beautiful cans... helps save the wild life which is something close to my heart... but the coke inside always tasted OFF... I called Coke about this problem. They have great customer service by the way. They said other people had some issues too. So after doing some digging the white of the can was causing more sunlight to get therefore changing some of the balance of the contents. You know how Nestea has that sickly sweet lemon taste? This was like mixing coke and lemon.. just an odd taste.

I already had issues drinking coke out of the fountain from most restaurant because I can taste the slightest variance in the mixture.. If the carbonation vs corn syrup mixture is off in the slightest yuck.. Flat even worse! It tastes like *deep breath* Pepsi. So my husband couldn't buy my addiction in a 12 pack or 6 pack even and I couldn't go get it out of a fountain. Frankly the buying a 20 ounce bottle a day was getting pricey again. I had a friend Kaila who was pregnant and all she craved was Strawberry Cokes from Sonic. I am like Strawberry what a what? She told me and I was forever even more hooked! 

Yes the coke comes out of the fountain but I think the fresh (err frozen?) strawberries and strawberry syrup can hide the inconsistency well enough to where I can't tell. I drank Strawberry cokes for the rest of the white can Coke campaign... 

Trying off brand coke wasn't completely out of question but my body could tell. I had horrible withdraws.. Is there really Cocaine in this? I feel guilty quite often about addicted I am. After the campaign was over I still have times when Rick will bring home a 12 pack and it tastes off so we can no longer buy soda from Kroger. Does it sit too long? Do they leave it in the sun? How is it handled differently? After all the source has to pretty much be the same? It tastes off ?? Its so strange I guess I am that sensitive to the different balances between canned, bottled, and fountain?

Then came the Coca Cola Freestyle.. because its a fountain I was a little hesitant... I knew that it wouldn't be like my Sonic Cokes because it wouldn't have fresh fruit in them. Not to mention they don't have strawberry flavoring? Hmm something Coke could change! I don't like cherry Coke usually from the can either the pre mixed stuff I prefer to add my own grenadine into my coke. Now I have gotten hooked on the Cherry Coke Freestyle so the few restaurants that have this... Thank you! 

Last year I even scheduled a trip back home so we could stop off in Chattanooga to get Coca Cola Cans with our names on them

Are you a coke, pop, or soda addict? What do you call it? What is your brand of choice? What flavor do you prefer?