Great video

Chris sent me a link to this video the other day. I loved it and wanted to share it with all of you. Enjoy!

Movie review: WALL-E

Chris and I had date night tonight while Emma played at Gymboree. We saw the new Pixar movie WALL-E. It was so cute! WALL-E is the cutest little robot guy. It seemed as if the movie was going to try to turn all after-school special about protecting the environment; but while they did use that as an underlying theme, they kept the tone lighter.

I don't want to get into it too much for those of you who want to see it. No one likes a spoiler, even for an animated movie. I really enjoyed WALL-E, and I highly recommend it to all of you.

We may try to take Emma to see it during a matinee sometime. That way it's more likely there will be kids there, plus it's cheaper in case she gets bored and restless and needs to leave. I really think she'll like the little robot.

Oh! Pixar had another animated short before the movie started called Presto. It was REALLY cute. Here is a little clip from it.


It looks like Emma's out of the woods now with the rash. It actually went away very quickly. I think she got lucky and didn't get it too badly. Whew! I'm glad we won't have to deal with it on our trip back to Indiana next week.

Speaking of our trip, while we're there, my friend from high school, Julie, is going to take some head shots of Emma. She recently started a new photography business, JVW Photography. Her photos are amazingly good. She is very talented. I'm hoping we can get some really good shots of Emma for me to send to agents. I will probably send another batch of them out to agents after we get back from our trip. Maybe we'll net some more agent meetings with professional looking pictures. Here's to hoping!

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Gotta love an animated robot who loves "Hello, Dolly!"

My audition

So Emma and I went to my audition today for Bingo America. We had to wait in a small room that was full of people. I tried my hardest to keep Emma occupied and happy, and it worked for a long time, but then it didn't. She got restless the longer we waited and began running around the room. One of the guys working there got a little fed up, I think, and he got all snippy with me and told me she couldn't run around like that. I, in turn, got a little snippy and said, "Then let me go next!" They said they'd make that happen. I apologized for having to bring Emma there, and I said we'd go wait in the hallway where she could run around. They said they'd come get me.

So while we were waiting in the hallway, Emma pooped in her diaper, so I had to change her. They still hadn't come to get us, so we then went back in the room. There was another Jaime there, and she had gone in next instead of me. Grr. So we waited in the tiny room again, and they let me get in there soon after. I had Emma in a chair watching Cars, and she was quiet and good. They called me in, so I told her bye and went in. Not long after I got in there, before we started anything, they came in and said she needed to see me. She was beside herself. So we tried having her in the room sitting by the wall watching me. Didn't help. She was upset. So we tried as much as we could to get her to calm down, but I had to take her out to calm her down. The casting people were SO nice about it. It was two ladies in there, and they were very cool about it.

So I calmed her down, then I remembered it had been over 2 hours since we'd been there and I was parked in 2-hour parking. They said we could move the car and they'd save my place, so we walked the mile or whatever back to the car and moved it. No ticket, wasn't towed. Sweet. I had a talk with Emma and told her I needed to go into the room and leave her out there with the nice people. She seemed to understand.

So we went back in there and I had to wait a few more times, and finally I got to go in. Emma was prepared this time, so she stayed out in the waiting room. I went in with a man named Andres. We introduced ourselves in front of the camera and told a little-known fact about ourselves that you wouldn't know by looking at us. Mine was that I played football in college. Chris came up with it. Funny. And I really did play football...powder puff intramural flag football, but football nonetheless.

Then after the introductions, we grabbed our buzzers and competed in the mock trivia contest. I answered many questions, and they told me to stop answering so Andres could answer some. LOL We finished and left. I thanked the ladies for being so understanding and apologized again for the trouble. They said it wasn't a problem.

When I got back out in the waiting room, Emma was on the floor with one of the girls working there erasing a dry erase board. She said, "Hi!" I was glad she was OK. She's so funny.

So we walked to the car with Andres, then we went home (3 hours after we arrived). Hopefully I'll get to be on the show. We'll see. I'll let you know!

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Waiting is SO MUCH longer with a toddler.

Funny Emma

I've compiled a short list of funny things Emma says. I know she won't say them like this for long, so I treasure each time she says them with her tiny, cute voice.

• "babing suit" = bathing suit (She even calls the super suit Mr. Incredible wears his babing suit. Only the red suit though. Not the old hobo suit [if you have seen the movie, you know to what I'm referring].)
  
• "sunscream" = sunscreen (She puts extra emphasis on the 'm' at the end, too... sunscreammmm.)
  
• "agedder" = together (She likes for us to all take a drink together at dinner. Then we have to say, "Ahhhh!" after drinking. Then she says, "We drink agedder!")
  
• "juss like eeyat" = just like that (She likes to imitate and/or reenact things, and after she does so, she says, "Juss like eeyat" and is so proud of herself. It's a riot.)
  

I noticed a small rash on her left palm after her nap today. At first I thought it was indentions from sleeping funny, but it was still there a while later, so I took her to the pediatrician, just to have it checked out. Turns out it's probably the foot-hand-mouth virus, which is apparently common in the summer.

Who knows where or how she got it. But since it's a virus, the only thing I can do is treat her symptoms, which is so frustrating. I feel so bad that I can't take away her pain. Hopefully it will go away quickly.

Oh! I have an audition Friday afternoon to be on Bingo America! Wish me luck! More details to come.

Did anyone see the new show "Wipeout"? I thought it was so funny. Watching people fall down is hilarious, and the commentators were mocking the contestants the whole time. I almost fell out of my chair I was laughing so hard. I highly recommend watching the show if you want a good laugh.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Kids are carrier monkeys for germs. So gross.

It finally happened...

...Emma pooped in her swimming diaper at the pool. And didn't tell me.


So, as we're getting ready to go, I had her stand up so I could get her cover-up on and I smelled it. I asked her if she pooped, and she of course said no. So I looked, and it was all over the place in her diaper, front to back. Who knows how long it had been there, but it was long enough to liquefy a lot of it and get it everywhere. Gross.

So we walked home and I cleaned up the nastiness and immediately put her in the bathtub.

She sat on her little potty as I was filling up the bath, and she pottied! Hooray! Then as I was putting lotion on her after her bath she was standing on her changing table pad and started to tinkle. She stopped immediately and I asked if she needed to potty, and she said yes. So we rushed into the bathroom and she tinkled again on her little potty! Then she was on her way back into her room and decided she needed to pee again, so she did it a third time! Holy cow!

So that was our afternoon. Gross and exciting, all at the same time.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: It IS as bad as you think it is when your kid poops in the pool.

Wall writing and applemelon

I was in my bathroom this morning, and I heard something that sounded like something scraping on the wall. Emma came trucking in, carrying a pencil. I asked her if she wrote on the wall, and she said no. I asked if there was writing on the wall, and she said no. I asked if I went out in the hallway I would see pencil on the wall, and she said no. So we went out there, and lo and behold, there were pencil marks on the wall. Hmm.

I got it off the wall with an eraser that didn't leave smudges, which is good. I should have taken a picture of the first offense, but I didn't think to. I'm sure there will be a next time, so I'll do it then. *sigh*

I was hoping to get to Wal-Mart this morning then go to Trader Joe's. I pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot, and Emma was freaking out, saying she wanted to go to TRADER Joe's (the always puts the emphasis on the first word) to get applemelon (what she calls watermelon). So we turned around and headed toward Joe's, since I didn't really feel like fighting with her about it all through Wal-Mart.

So she got her precious applemelon, and the cashier guy gave her a TON of stickers. She was in toddler heaven.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: While some murals are artistic and lovely, others are unwanted and unwelcome.

A new leaf

OK, so I'm going to try something new. I'm going to try blogging more. Honestly, I enjoy blogging because I get to write a little. Yes, I was one of those nerds in school who liked writing and English and grammar. I was in Spell Bowl for four years in high school, for goodness sake. If that doesn't say N-E-R-D, I don't know what does. I think the only problem I'm going to run into with blogging more is that I'm going to have to come up with more "Always remembers" at the end of my blogs. If it gets too difficult, I may have to change my blog-end format. I'm open to any and all suggestions...

I've decided to grow out my hair to donate to Locks of Love. I have been growing it out because I missed it being long; but Chris and I were talking yesterday, and as he's already grown out his hair and donated it twice, I figure I could do the same. I think he's considering doing it again, but don't quote me on that. I just want mine to be long enough that when I get it cut to donate, it's still long enough to put in a ponytail. Can't live without the ponytail.

We tried out a new church today, NorthPark Community Church. Really liked the music and the preaching, and the atmosphere in service was very organic and relaxed. Conversely, it was a little crazy and seemingly disorganized with the children's area, so next week we're going to go to the information desk and see what the protocol is for all that. That was my only concern. But Emma didn't seem to have too much of a problem with it. We didn't get paged to come get her, so that counts for something, right?

The church is actually being held right now in a strip mall. They're building a new campus on the other side of town, behind the Wal-Mart we go to. Neither location (neither the current one nor the new one) is very far from our place, which is great. So part of the confusion and chaos today stemmed from the fact that the space inside the place is rather limited, plus it's apparently a VERY popular church.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Hair can always grow back.........unless you're bald.

Heacock Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Roots - Family name history

The end of an era, the birth of a ballerina

As we were driving to free play at Gymboree last night, I told Emma we wouldn't be going to Gymboree as much anymore. I've suspended our account there, which is effective for three months; but I'm going to just cancel our account soon, I think. She seems to be outgrowing it. It's a great place for her to play, but she doesn't seem to get much out of her class, which is the whole point.
It's a little sad to end our time with Gymboree. It's been really great. That's how we met our good friends out here. But they're all in the same boat, too, and we're all kind of moving on from Gymboree now and doing different things. We still hang out during the week, though, which is nice.

Emma and her friend Emily are now signed up for a weekly tap/ballet combo dance class. They tried it out last Saturday. It was just the cutest thing, all those little ones in tutus. They started with their tap shoes on, taking their ballet shoes with them and putting them by the wall so they could change in the middle. Emma refused to put down her shoes, so she carried them the whole time. It was so funny. She was a little nervous (with a teacher she didn't know) and sad (mommy and daddy couldn't come in with her) for a while, but she lightened up and started participating. She loved the ballet, and she was really good at walking on her toes and doing pirouettes with her little hands above her head. She was such a cute tiny dancer.

A few of Emma's friends already attend dance class at a different dance studio, which we've tried out on a few occasions, but Emma didn't seem to like the class there. I'm glad we found her a place she likes.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: It's sad when things you like come to an end; but how exciting it is to begin new endeavors!

I almost forgot!

I told you to remind me to tell you about me being on Game Show Network ads for Bingo America. This is me finally remembering to talk about it.

Being the nerd that I am, I watch Bingo America every night on GSN and play along by printing out game cards from GSN.com. They play two games of Bingo per show, and then they have bonus numbers at the end. Every game card has three Bingo boards per game and two sets of two bonus numbers. You can print out a total of 10 game cards per day, so of course I print out 10.

Well, I matched bonus numbers one time and won $50. It took about 5-6 weeks to get the check in the mail, but it did actually come. After I received the check on Tuesday, I got a call from Angel over at GSN on Thursday asking if, as a recent winner, I was interested in talking about winning on camera for some ads they will use on GSN. They would give me a $50 gas card for my trouble of having to drive all the way down there.

I drove down to the GSN studios on Saturday morning. They were all set up outside under some trees in the parking lot, to make it look like they just stopped people on the street who were winners. It was really fun. I stood in front of the camera and the producer, John - who lives in Valencia about 3 minutes from me, it turns out - asked me questions about winning and playing along with Bingo America. Then at the end of the interview he had me repeat some taglines for Bingo America, GSN and GSN.com.

After I was all finished, John said I did great and will definitely make it onto some of the spots. So, apparently you can start looking for me on GSN on spots for Bingo America soon! Exciting, huh?

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: You never win if you don't play.

First agent meeting

Emma and I had a meeting this afternoon with a potential agent for Emma. I don't know if it actually even qualifies as a meeting, as we were there for only about 5 minutes. She wanted to see if Emma would chat with her, and all Emma wanted to do was look around the room and get used to things.

The agent said she was very cute, but she's a little too young still. She said casting directors want a child who can come in and talk with them and pay attention and not need Mommy to be right there telling them what to do. I have a hard time believing that casting directors expect TWO AND A HALF YEAR OLDS to act like adults, but maybe that's just me. The agent said to give her a call again in 4 or 5 months when Emma's a little older. We'll see.

So after a few minutes, Emma was done being there. I could tell she didn't like the lady and wasn't comfortable there. She isn't like that with everyone. Actually, she's hardly like that at all. So instead of being disappointed in Emma for not "performing well" for the agent or being discouraged, I was glad to know she can tell me in her own way when she is comfortable or not with someone or something. Plus it was nice to get that first agent experience out of the way.

We haven't gotten any calls from any other agents, but that's not abnormal. I'm sure they all have hundreds, thousands of photos to go through, and it has only been a week since I sent them out.

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Sometimes toddlers know more than you think they do.

Breadstick conspiracy

Did you ever wonder why, at Olive Garden, when there are, say, four people the waiter brings out a basket of 5 breadsticks? I've always wondered if there was some kind of conspiracy behind the scenes, and the wait staff just wanted to watch people fight over the last stick. Or maybe it's a sociological experiment to see how people react in such a situation.

Well, I was given the opportunity to ask our waiter that very question today at Olive Garden. Amy and I were eating at Olive Garden in Burbank (I will tell you why later), and our waiter, Randy, gave us 3 breadsticks. When he finally came back and asked if we wanted more (since we finished them quickly), I asked him if they give an even number of people an odd number of breadsticks on purpose. Randy laughed and confirmed that, yes, they do it on purpose. The first time they bring out the breadsticks, they are to bring the same number of breadsticks as people at the table PLUS one. Then when they bring out subsequent baskets of breadsticks, they are to bring out as many as are at the table. So I was right. It's all a conspiracy. Just thought you should all be aware of it.

Now, on to why I was dining in Burbank and Amy Cornwell, my good friend from Indiana, was with me in the first place. The husband of a friend of mine works at the celebrity news television show Extra. After seeing Amy's jewelry and her affordable prices, he suggested to his wife that Amy come sell her jewelry at his office, where they often have people come in and sell their wares. So Amy and Dave flew out here on Saturday afternoon, and Amy and I went down to Extra today to do the sale.
We got to meet a lot of nice people, including Dayna Devon and Mark McGrath, the hosts of the show. We got to go in and meet them while they were in makeup. Amy had made a customized necklace for Dayna with her children's names on it, so she gave it to her back there. Dayna loved it and immediately came out to see what other items Amy was selling. It was so neat. She bought a few of the cute barrettes Amy makes for little girls.

Later we got to go onto the set where they were filming the show and take a few pictures with Dayna. I even got in one.
It was so much fun! Dayna was very sweet, as was Mark and everyone else we met. Amy made several sales and took several orders for customized jewelry. Plus I got some free stuff for knowing the right people. :) Sweet.

Plus, Dayna's costume person put some items aside that she will probably be purchasing for Dayna to wear on air, so Amy's jewelry could be on Extra soon! How neat is that?!

So that was our day. Here are the photos I took.

Remind me to tell you later about the ad spots I will be in for Bingo America on GSN starting as early as next week...

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Even famous people are short and have thin hair like me. It takes a lot of extensions and very high heels to look fabulous for some of them. What a comforting thought.

As Seen on TV

Big news! The Heacocks are going to be on TV! More specifically, we're going to be on an episode of the new A&E makeover reality show, "We Mean Business". I don't want to get into too many details for fear of breach of confidentiality, but I can tell you a little about our experience.

Basically the show is like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition but for small businesses. A local business was chosen, and a friend of a friend of mine was looking for parents and children to be at a certain place at a certain time to help out with filming. Emma and I were there, and we got to participate a little. Emma was a big ham for the cameras, and everyone thought she was adorable. Then the grand re-opening of the store was the next day, so all of us (Chris included) went and were filmed there too. It was fun.

Emma charmed all the designers and the crew. Someone asked me if she had an agent because she'd be good on commercials. So, we may be looking into that. She loved hamming it up for the camera, so I think she might like it. Plus she's adorable. :) So I think we're going to look into getting her an agent. Wish us luck!

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: It's good being in the right place at the right time, but it hardly ever works out that way.