Life with kids is never boring.

Whoa. I'm a slacker.

2011-12-13T21:36:00.006-05:00

So much so, that it took me two tries to log into my blogger account!

It's been a while since I updated, and I can't believe how many posts I haven't posted! So, I will do my best to back-blog and link back to this post so I can (hopefully) keep things in chronological order. But, for a teaser, here's a little overview of what's been going on in the lives of Nugget and Strip (and me and Hubs)!

I had a big birthday, that I somehow never finished the blog about (must be the old age!), Strip lost a tooth, Hubs ruined another relaxing beach vacation, shortly after Strip re-wrote a Berenstain Bears book, Nugget said the "F-word" for his preschool class, I re-organized the pantry, both kids started playing soccer, bought some new shoes and got put in my place at the running store, we ran (and FINISHED!!) a half-marathon, great-reader Strip discovered bathroom graffiti, we headed up to Tennessee for a sibling reunion and (almost) got some back-woods themed t-s to go along with the trip, I put a bunch of stuff in the consignment sale (and they lost our largest item!), Strip did her first diorama, we checked out the "super great" Children's museum in town, the Big Screen is back and we built a fire pit, the power went out and I had to get creative to get the car out of the garage, we went geocaching, the power went out again and I found a surprise in the garbage can, trick-or-treating sans Hubs, I almost got into a fight over some HDN's, my car got one-upped in the parking lot, Strip gets recruited on the soccer field, I got the most expensive oil change ever, I got the most painful eyebrow wax ever, Nugget dresses himself (using only 2 pairs of pants), Strip drops the F-bomb during family game night, Hubs and I took our second honeymoon, Felix came back, Hubs goes Grizwald on our house for Christmas, I failed at Christmas card picture taking, Strip (finally!) lost her second tooth, Strip and I got strep, took an acceptable picture and ordered cards just in time for a facial injury, Nugget touched Felix and Nugget put the smack down on politically correct Christmas songs.

Did you catch all of that? I've got some typing to do!

That's life!

2011-11-04T22:09:00.000-04:00

After meeting with Strip's teacher, I learned that she needed a parent volunteer on Friday. So, I declared Friday as my day off and told her I'd be there when she needed me.

I was excited to show up for my first day. I love school (now that I don't go there) and this age is just SO much fun. The parking lot was packed, so I kind of made myself my own spot at the end of the row of teacher cars.

I hopped out, slammed the door, started walking to the office, reached back and hit the lock button on my keys and glanced back to make sure it actually locked.

And that's when I saw this.

Yup. There's me, on the right, proudly displaying my 13.1 sticker! And there someone (I'm 99% sure this is actually Strip's teacher's car) subtly one-upping me with a 26.2.

Just a reminder that there will always be someone in life who is better than you. That's a fact. Just try not to park next to them!

Trick-or-Treat!

2011-10-31T21:49:00.000-04:00

No, we didn't carve pumpkins this year. But I did carve a turkey and cheese sandwich! So needless to say, Halloween this year was just insane.

Hubs was out of town on the actual day, so we'd done a family trunk-or-treat at a local church. Halloween was on a Monday (boooo) but not just any Monday!

I went to work, left Nugget in afterschool, raced across town for Strip's parent-teacher conference (she's fantastic! Only concern is that she's "too nice" and might get walked all over), scooted over to a friend's house to pick Strip up (who went home with the friend, thank goodness because there was a miscommunication and my poor baby was waiting at carline thinking I was never coming), raced back across town to pick up Nugget, then BACK across town to our house.

Did I mention Hubs was out of town?

Since it's our first Halloween and it was a school night, I invited some friends of ours over for dinner and T-o-T-ing in our 'hood. They homeschool their kids, so no worries if they're driving home at 9pm!

But they were coming for dinner!

Toss the kids in the house, start boiling some Halloween noodles, and pulling costumes together.

Strip was Dorothy (thank you, ebay seller, for allowing my child to not look like a stripper) and Nugget was Capt. Jack "Spiro" (thank you, other ebay seller, for letting my child be Capt Jack in the old school original Disney costume, not the polyester, flammable, see-through one!). Two years ago, Strip was Fancy Nancy and June Bug was her posh puppy. Last year, Nugget was Batman and Zoe was Joker. So this year, we decided to let Zoe go with Strip's costume. I found a bat costume, be we tied on her wings and declared her a flying monkey!

And for me? I was Elphaba. Yup. The wicked, green witch. Thank you, Strip, for suggesting I would make a "Great Elphaba!"

I found a gothic, black dress, on sale, in the jr's department of Party City and bought some green make-up/paint at Target for $.90. LESS THAN A DOLLAR! Who wouldn't let their kids slather green all over her for less than a dollar? I topped it off with a long black wig.

Then I looked at the three of us. All in wigs. Me painted green. Nugget with a beard and mustache. And our dog wearing wings. Great way to meet the neighbors!

We had a fun night going around the 'hood, came home to count our loot, said good-bye to our friends and I hosed off the kids and put them to bed.

Then I attempted to de-green myself.

Here's a little tip. If you don't normally wear a lot of make-up, meaning you don't need make-up remover, and you buy green face/body paint for under a dollar, go the extra mile and purchase a little make-up remover. Or something. Otherwise, you will take three showers with dish soap.

And still find green paint in your hairline the next morning. You've been warned!

Ahhhhh FREAK OUT!

2011-10-27T21:23:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned, sometimes our power just goes out. For fun.

The kids and I came home today, and when I pressed the button on the garage door opener, nothing happened.

I got closer, and nadda.

I assume the battery's dead in my remote, so hop out and hit the keypad. Zilch.

Yay, the power's out again.

No big deal! I had "clean out my car" on my t0-do list, so we broke into the house, let Zoe out and the kids hit the yard. I gathered some trash and headed over to the toss it in the can. The trash JUST came, so there's not much in the can, but as lift the lid to toss in some carbage (get it? car+garbage!) I notice something odd.

So I open the lid a little wider.

That's odd... We just took the trash out, and there's so much loose trash in the can...hmmm..

At this point, I open the lid, shove my head in a little more

Ew! Is that poop?! Who just THROWS poop in a garbage can?! I mean, when we pick up Zoe's poop, we toss it in here, but "just poop" would mean that someone picked up poop with their bare hands! Who does that?!

Now I have my head and shoulders peering into the garbage can.

And that's when my eyes met the beady little eyes of this fellow:

Yes. We like Chick-fil-a, but that's not the point! Oh my raccoon!!!! In the trash can! One centimeter closer and that thing's clawing my eyes out and giving me rabies!

So I did what any rational person would do.

I slammed the door and screamed, "OH MY BATHTUBS!! THERE'S A FREAKING RACCOON IN THE TRASH CAN!!!"

Which of course means that as I go to get my phone to take a picture, the kids are stacking up the recycling bins to peer in and get a peek, causing me to scream, "Get down! That thing will claw your face off!"

I'm guessing the jerk raccoon was making his weekly stop in our can. Unfortunately for him, trash was delayed a day for the holiday and he didn't get the memo. So where there should have been some trash to eat, enjoy and get a boost back out, there was one measly bag in the bottom and he couldn't get out.

Hubs, of course, was out of town, but told me to leave that jerk in the can until he got home (we have some issues with raccoons. And armadillos. And burrowing animals). But I felt bad for the stupid thing. But not bad enough to do anything besides tossing a little bit more trash in there. Not to squish him! Just to give him a little umph to get out of the can.

And the next morning, I stood on the kids' stacked green bins, peeked in and nothing there! He escaped!

And I will be forever afraid to open our outdoor garbage. As will many others in my life, including my mother.

Geocaching!

2011-10-24T20:56:00.001-04:00

The kids had Monday off from school, so instead of having a lazy day in our PJ's we decided to go geocaching. I honestly can't remember where I came across geocaching, it seemed like a fun thing to do that was like a treasure hunt and would get the kids and dog outside for a nice long time, so off to the park we went!

I explained how geocaching worked, pulled up the app on my phone, leashed up the pup and we were off! 25 minutes later, we'd found nothing, so I figured someone moved the cache and we were off to the next one. Thorns, stepping in holes, tripping over logs, and kids letting go of the squirrel-chasing dog, we failed to find #2.

And the kids were getting cranky.

And honestly? So was I.

WE'RE HAVING FUN! THIS IS A TREASURE HUNT! UGH, SOMEONE GET THE DOG!

I told the kids we'd walk to the park (about a mile away from where we were!), and as we got closer, up popped another one.

I convinced the kids to look for this one as the description lead me to believe it was pretty big and the location stated that it was easy to find. How could we fail!

We tromped along many paths and came to a clearing where we all felt it HAD to be.

And then, we saw it!

The kids found it!! And Nugget, while leaning on the log to get a closer look, squished his hand in bird poop.

They looked at me and asked what was in it. Only one way to find out (insert silent prayer that there was nothing scary, dead, alive or inappropriate hiding in the ammo box...)

TREASURE!!!!

The rules state that you have to leave something if you take something, and all we had was a poop bag, so we signed the book and found a new hiding place. And the kids were hooked! As we set off down the trail, I refreshed my list and up popped another one that was "for kids only." I told the kids they had to find it, traded my phone for Zoe's leash and let them lead the way.

Once we got close enough that we were close, but every step we took got us farther away, we took a left and headed into the woods (getting many strange looks from people jogging/biking/walking on the trail).

Nugget spotted this one, but they worked together to dig it out of the stick pile.

And when they opened it up, Strip's reaction was, "They weren't kidding! This one IS for kids!!"

TONS of toys that both kids were going nuts over! But, since we didn't have anything to trade, I let them both sign the book and start looking for a new (close) place to hide it.

So after our first 'caching experience, everyone had fun, I got fussed at for not bringing toys to trade out and no one got ticks. Or poison ivy. Or bitten by a snake.

So all in all, a successful afternoon! Can't wait to look for caches all over town!

Lights out

2011-10-22T20:35:00.000-04:00

In the great state of Florida, we sometimes have storms. And sometimes, those storms cause power outages. And sometimes, the power just goes out even if there is no storm.

And that's what happened today.

The kids and I were at home, enjoying our Saturday, and I told them we'd head to the Halloween store to get some costume accessories. No sooner had we gone out to load up in the car, out went the power.

Grrrrreeeeaaat.

What's the problem?

The problem is that my car is in the garage. And our garage door needs power to go up, allowing my car to back out. Now, I know what your saying. Giant eye roll and, "Pull the red cord and lift the door yourself, lazy!" Well, that's exactly what I did.

Unfortunately, the garage door element that holds the door up when said power is out was not on/in/around/a part of our garage door.

So, I'd lift it up. It would fall back down. I'd THROW it up. It would come back down. It would remain above the ground about 2 feet, but my car is a little larger than that. So there's the problem.

I could hold the door up, arms extended over my head, and standing on my tippy toes, but that would leave the kids in charge of backing the car out of the garage. Not a good idea.

If Nugget were to stand on Strip's shoulders, they could probably hold it up high enough, but that probably falls in the "Not a good idea" category, too.

I was left with one choice; get creative.

And the results? Well, they speak for themselves:

Yup. Let's see... trash can! Hmm that's not tall enough... Trash can AND a hard cooler! Nope, still not tall enough... Oh! Rolling trash can + cooler + empty trash can= Open garage door!

After I stabilized my tower, I locked the kids and dog in the house, cranked the car and prayed nothing slipped. A few seconds later, the car was out of the garage, the kids were safely buckled, our trash cans were back in their spots, and we were pulling out of the driveway!

And so what if the power came back on as we pulled away....

Reader, reader, what do you see...

2011-10-07T20:53:00.000-04:00

I see trouble looking at me.

Side note: Did you know you can buy public bathroom signs on ebay? Because you can.

Anyhoo, fall is here and that means it's time for the (almost) annual Hubs Sibling Reunion weekend in the beautiful mountains of Tennessee! We found a cabin two years ago in Pigeon Forge and it was PERFECT for our clan! We decided to rent it last year, but it was already booked, so we booked WAY in advance for 2011. Which meant we were traveling during the school year for a trip that we planned when the kids were in a different school system and one SIL was SUPER pregnant! Yay!

We got the kids at school pick-up and started making our trip north. If I were driving, we would make as few stops as possible, but Hubs was behind the wheel which meant we stopped for dinner 2 hours in and gas/bathrooms 1.5 hours later (because it would make too much sense to get gas and pee in the same zip code where you had dinner).

Hubs starts pumping gas, and I take the kids into the "store" to use the bathroom. We walked by a row of chain-smoking gamblers who were smoking (well, does it count as "smoking" if the cigarette is just dangling on your lower lip while smoke is swirling around you?) IN the gas station while playing the slots! Hello, middle Georgia. So nice to see you!

I corralled everyone into the Ladies room and found a stall to stuff everyone into. As I was helping Nugget to levitate around the grossness, Strip is looking at all of the writing on every wall of the stall.

Strip: Why would someone write all over the walls? 'Don't marry a man for his looks or riches, marry him for what's..'

Me: AHHH!! TURN AROUND! Turn around! Just stop reading and don't touch anything!!

Mind you, this was after the dinner stop bathroom discussion where she said, "Why would they have a trash can IN the bathroom stall with a sticker on it that specifically says, 'No Trash?' That seems silly! What do they want you to put in there?!"

If my sister-in-law could give birth at the cabin this weekend, we may win the prize for awkward moments.

13.1? DONE!

2011-10-03T21:28:00.000-04:00

Disney wine and dine weekend!! WAAAHHHOOOOOO!!!

The moment we'd been waiting for since I stupidly given my credit card to Disney in April and booked our hotel room! Ma was in town to hang with the kiddos and pups, UP was finally finished with class, a work dinner and was at the house and we were on the road!

I'd booked us a hotel on property at one of the value resorts. I knew we'd only be spending a few hours in the hotel and I wanted something we could take the bus to and from the start/finish line, so All Star it was.

The drive seemed to take FOREVER! Even though it was 3 adults and we passed the time listening to/watching stand-up, I wanted to just wiggle my nose and be there. We opted to not stop and eat so we could just get there, only to discover that the food court closes at a certain time (aka about 15 minutes before we checked in). We ordered a pizza and headed up to the room. A couple of slices later and we were all tucked in, ready for a good night's sleep.

The next day, half-marathon day!!, we headed over to the expo. I had no idea what to expect. We parked, and started walking. We stood in a not-s0-bad line and were ready to check in, get our bibs and be official!

Except for one little problem.

I'd filled out all the paperwork, and I SWEAR I would have caught this, but I had all of our "what we're called" names put on our bibs. That's great for me (who goes by my real name) and UP (who goes by his middle name), but not so great for Hubs (who goes by a nickname of his real name no way incorporated on his FL drivers license).

And the blood pressure rises...

We all flash our ids and the problem started. It's not the name on the list! This name doesn't match! I'm not sure.....

OH NO. You can NOT tell me that we (well, the boys) have been training so hard for this, and now, because of a southern nickname, Hubs isn't going to get to run!??!

Luckily, the "cast member" sitting to the left of check-in gal, had a name tag with her city clearly visible; Charlotte, NC. Come on, southern lady! Help us out!

She sat nodding in agreement the entire time we were checking in, and eventually, the official check-in girl deemed us "legal" to accept our bibs. We crossed the tag check, verified our names and ages and off to pick up our swag bags!

I must say, our bag was quite nice! A clear bag for our checked stuff, some gu, some samples and a sweet little wine and dine running shirt. We decided to walk around the expo and that might have been the biggest mistake we made all day. I just wanted to get a Wine and Dine something to remember the weekend by. What we ended up getting? 2 wine and dine wine glasses, 3 bags of apples, a pair of chiquita banana sunglasses and 2 tattoos, a new pair of headphones for me, a new powerband for Hubs and a set of Cutco knives. Yes, we went to run a half-marathon and bought a new set of knives.

After impulse buying our way around, we headed to downtown disney for a late lunch/early dinner/last meal. Then, it was back to the hotel to rest.

And since I was with 2 of the girliest guys, we also had to pick out and try on our outfits. After our ensembles were assigned, we pinned on our bibs, drank some water, packed our after-race bags, drank some water, filled out our emergency contact information, drank some water, charged our ipods, drank some water, packed our gu and gatorade, drank some water and got dressed. And then we hopped on the bus! At 7:45! Yay for early arrivers!

One of my biggest stressors was knowing there were going to be about 200 port-a-potties and knowing there was about a 200% chance I was going to have to use one at some point during the evening. If you were paying attention in the above paragraph, you might have noticed we were drinking a LOT of water. So it should come as no surprise that after we checked our bags into the u-haul, grabbed another bottle of water and found a spot on the lawn to enjoy the preparty, I had to pee. NOOOOOOO!

Off to the line of port-a-potties we went. Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew.

Although....

I must say there is a really big difference in using a port-a-potty at a Dave Matthews Band concert, lawn seats, and using one just before a half-marathon. People might as well have been walking in, flipping the lock and pouring bottled water into the hole filled with blue water. Not too bad at all!

But we still had two hours before the race started.

So we danced, watched some crazies jumping around, met up with UP's friends, and I finally faced my other fear and ate a cliff shot block. Ew. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn't because it's like the shot block adheres to your stomach lining and there's nothing to puke. We then shuffled into our corral.

Somehow, we managed to get assigned to corral C. Right in the middle! The national anthem was performed, we all waited excitedly and BAM!

Fireworks!

Cheering!

Confetti!

And about a minute later, we shuffled forward and repeated the process.

Finally about 12 minutes after 10, we were off. I mean, really off. The boys wanted to run together, and I was feeling a little wheezy so told them to go ahead and I'd see them at the finish line. They took off, and I started to try to pace myself. And then, something amazing happened.

I passed someone. Then another person! Then another group of three! And a few more people!!! I'm running in a half-marathon AND I'm running faster than someone (well 9 someones!)! If I can manage to not get picked up by the bus, I'll officially check my half goals off my list!

I clopped along down what felt like the longest road ever and finally came to the first mile marker. By the second mile marker, I could tell I was not running my best and was SO going to have to do one of these stinkin' things again. I kept trying to push myself a little harder, but kept getting caught up in the same group of slowpokes and could not get around.

The race was awesome though, and there were parts of the electrical parade all along the way, music blaring, character spots, it was great! And just when I thought I was never going to get there, I ran under the Animal Kingdom sign! YES!! Finally the first park!

And if I hated that park with a double stroller in 100*+ heat, it was 15 times worse at night with thousands of runners. I'd finally gotten up to a good pace and was feeling in the groove. I ran under a bridge, up a hill and knew the tree of life would be in sight at any momen---AHHH!

Well, the park is the same running. Just when I thought I was home free, the chick running in front of me (at a part where we were in a straight line) comes to a full stop, pulls out her camera and takes a picture of the tree.

I almost slam into her, manage to hop around her and the 12 others doing the same, and keep going. I kept telling myself, "You hate this park! If you stop now, it's going to take you that much longer to get out if it!" and somehow, I kept running! I made it past the point where the relay swap was happening, through a back lot and out into the parking lot, around the parking booth and I was on to the next park!

And somewhere around mile 8, I was running over a bridge and people were honking and I had to wave and smile. I was doing it! I was actually doing it! I was RUNNING a half-marathon! Oh if coach Sherman could see me now! The girl who could give everything for that one stupid mile it took to make the soccer team, complaining the whole way, was running a half marathon!

And at that point, it became a blur.

There was a green army man screaming at us as we climbed a hill to Hollywood Studios, my mind tried desperately to figure out where I was and suddenly I was at the Tower of Terror, I thought back to the race map, trying to think how much longer I had to go, and I was at mile 10. I was pushing, but had to stop and laugh at/with a cute couple next to me. I'd pulled my earpiece out of one ear for the water stop and I hear her say, "This. was. the. dumb. est. idea. I. ever. had." to which he replied, "Come on, baby! You can do it! We're at 10! Just a 5K left to go!"

Just a 5k! Shoot me now!

But suddenly, I was on the boardwalk then I could see parts of Epcot and before I knew it, I could see the finish line! THE FINISH LINE!! I knew the boys had finished way before me, so I slowed down a little to look around, hoping to see their smiling faces somewhere in the crowd. Not seeing anyone familiar, I pushed it on across the finish line, threw my arms up in the air and slowed it to a jog, then a walk. I went over to some awesome volunteers who put the (heavy!) medal around my neck. I did it.

I. did. it.

And because I needed to know, I looked back and saw a gaggle of people behind me. I did it. I wasn't last, the bus didn't pick me up, I finished. At that moment I wanted to cry. And throw up a little. And get some water. And pee. And sit down. And lie down. And find the boys. But my jelly legs just kept going where I picked up a bottle of water, grabbed a bag and some gatorade, a banana, a cliff bar, and some other stuff. Before I knew it, I was standing in line to get my official post-race picture taken. I did it! I'm holding my medal and I finished and I look great! (nope! No mirrors! I saw the picture, I looked like a sweaty mess.). I started to make my way over to the bag claim area and I saw them! The boys had finished, beating the 2 hour mark (amazing!), Hubs was 3 steps away from losing a toenail (which he nicely texted a picture of to me) and they were ready to party! We grabbed my stuff, changed (large open tent where I was pretty sure when I took off my shorts, I WOULD fall over) and headed into the wine and dine party.

This was the one disappointing part of the night.

It's the WINE and dine. And what do they hand me? A skunky beer. Boooo. But they did give us all a $10 gift card, so we wobbly made our way around the world to Italy where I was able to get myself a glass of wine and the three of us could pose for a picture with the epcot ball in the background.

We did it! We actually did it!

And I must say, the bling at Disney is so fantastic, I think we're hooked. Counting down the days until the next wine and dine! I think it's an annual thing now.

What has 2 thumbs and buys new shoes the week before a half marathon?

2011-09-29T20:40:00.001-04:00

This gal!

(and the above shirt is available at zazzle. Where I found the pic.)

So Hubs bought himself a new pair of shoes (and some gu and a shirt or 2 and maybe some socks) a few weeks ago. I was toying with the idea of splurging and buying ME some new shoes, but just hadn't gotten around to it.

But there we were, having lunch at a pizza place with Nugget on a random Wednesday and the running store we love happens to be next door. My phone had a full charge (which meant a solid stint of angry birds for Nugget), so after eating, Hubs convinced me to stop in.

Our store is owned and operated by runners. They know their stuff and are awesome, but they still aren't full of themselves enough to look at people like me, roll their eyes and push the most expensive shoes in the store. I sat down and kicked off my flip flops and fully admitted that my current running shoes were purchased solely because they were on sale and had the hole in the bottom where I could put my Nike chip. Store dude gave me a sympathetic smile, equivalent to a pat on the head, and gave me a pair of neutral shoes. He then lead me to the treadmill, set my pace and told me to start jogging.

I then ran, with my jeans rolled up to my knees (with a belly full of lunch, mind you) for about a minute. And if that weren't awkward enough, we THEN got to watch a video of my fat calves and flat feet slapping the belt.

Sweet!

He determined how much my ankles rolled and what negative arches I have, excused me to the chair and disappeared into the back. He appeared moments later with an armful of boxes and let my piggies play goldilocks in some new kicks.

I narrowed it down to two pairs. One was a puma that was so ugly, I'm convinced they would have made me run faster purely so people would not be able to look at my feet. But they felt like I'd shoved my feet into giant marshmallows.

The other pair was a delightful pair of brooks that felt a little like heaven and guaranteed that I'd never set sock in my nikes again.

And the boys all waited, ever so patiently, as I ran around the store in the first pair. Then the second. Then the first again. Then the second. Then the first on my left foot and the second on my right. Then the other way around.

Oh this went on for what I'm sure was hours in annoying-customer time until I finally decided on the Brooks' and went up to pay. It was then that Hubs pointed out the (as Nugget would say) ginormous poster behind me of Store Dude. Running. In the olympics. Nice.

They told me I should be fine as long as I put about 20 miles on my shoes before the 1/2, so the challenge was on.

And the next week (as in the week OF the 1/2), I went back into the store to get Hubs a few shirts to pick from for the weekend. He, not shockingly, didn't like the majority, so back to the store I went! I decided since I was already there I might as well treat myself to a little something.

Like a new pair of shorts.

And if you give a mouse a cookie...

20 minutes later, I was decked out in a comfy pair of shorts, a sports bra and running tank.

As I ran around the store in my new wine-colored ensemble, I struck up some half-marathon chat with running chick. She'd done Disney before, so she had some great advice.

Running Chick: Oh! You are going to love it!! Disney races are so much fun!

Me: Oh good! This is my first so I'm pretty excited!

RC: First half?

Me: Yup! And first 5k and 10k...

RC: Whoa!

Me: Yeah, I'm an idiot. So any words of wisdom for a first timer?

RC: Yes. Smile, enjoy yourself and smile for the photographers. They are all over and pretty easy to spot. Plus there's all the character picture spots, too!

Me: Yeah, but if you stop for a picture, your time keeps going right? I mean, if I stop to take a picture with Mickey, and it takes 5 minutes, that adds 5 minutes to my time, right?

RC: Yeah. But can I ask you something?

Me: Sure!

RC: Are you going to win?

Me: What?

RC: Are you planning on winning the half-marathon.

Me: Umm. Probably not...

RC: Yeah, so what's a few minutes for a picture?

OUCH! Umm. I'll take my purchases and go now. Thanks for the pep talk!

The F-word

2011-09-14T08:57:00.000-04:00

Strip is my talker.

If I pick her up from school (or in our previous life met her at the bus stop), by the time we get to the house, I know what everyone had for lunch, was wearing that day, what color they were on and then some. I can get a verbatim play-by-play of the entire 8 hour day, usually in one breath.

Nugget? Not so much. He will talk and talk and talk, but gives me NO information about what's going on at school. How was school? "Good." What did you do? "Nuffin'." What was your favorite part of the day? "Snack" (which I pack him). What was your favorite part of after school? "Eatin' lunch" (which I also pack him). What was your favorite thing about school that DIDN'T involve food? "Goin' outside."

So, I had to really control my excitement when, after getting in the car, Nugget said without prompting:

Nugget: Oh! Mom!! GUESS what happened at school today?!

Me: Hmmm Captain Jack sailed the Black Pearl onto the play ground?

Nugget: Noooooo You'll never guess!!

Me: Ok, what happened?

Nugget: I said the F-word for de WHOLE CLASS!!!

At this point, I am trying my very best not to drive the car off a bridge and also not freak out. Nugget thinks everything is hilarious, and the last thing I needed to show him was some crazy-freak out reaction to a four-letter word as to encourage him to say it again.

But my mind is racing.

No one said anything to me, but car pick-up doesn't lend itself to chats with the teacher, and another teacher put him in the car, so there wasn't really a chance to talk. No one's called me. No one emailed me...yet.

But more importantly, how does he KNOW the F-word, and on top of that, how does he know to refer to the F-word as "The F-word."

Stay calm.

Me: Really Buddy?

Nugget: Yeah, I said it really loud and good for de whole class!

Me: bracing myself Can you say the F-word for me?

Nugget: Sure! Fffffffffffffffffffff-ARM! FARM is an F-word!

Me: YES! YES IT IS! FARM IS A GREAT F-WORD!

Whew!

It turns out that the letter of the week that week was F. And when they introduce the letter of the week, they write letter words (in this case, F-words) on the board and the kids get to help think them up. Nugget had raised his hand and come up with "farm" on his own (no teacher hints like, "Old McDonald had a....), and the teacher was SO proud of him. She doted on my little buddy and it was right before pick-up, so it was fresh on his mind.

So glad I don't have the potty-mouth kid in school and will not have to write multiple letters of apology to all of the parents in Nugget's class!

Bad News Bears

2011-09-09T20:56:00.002-04:00

***Warning! This post contains offensive language! ***

This year, part of Strip's homework is to read at least 10 minutes per day. So that's like requiring Hubs to watch college football every Saturday. CAKE! But, something about the pressure of recording every.single.book was getting to me.

We were plowing through her bedroom library and she's rocking the AR tests, so when we met a friend at the local library to grab some soccer hand-me-downs, I told Strip to grab two books. She went off on her own to find what she wanted, and I grabbed Stone Soup and a beginning reading book for her to buzz through that night. The beginning reading book was The Berenstain Bears' Family Reunion.

As I've said, Strip is a great little reader. Her only problem is that when she's tired, she just makes up the story based on the first letter she sees resulting in sloppy reading. We try to do tested reading earlier, but she just loves to read before bed and REFUSES to write a book that Hubs and I read her in her reading journal. She sat on the kitchen floor reading the first half of the book while I cooked, then insisted on reading the rest before she went to sleep.

So here's a tired Strip on a Thursday, eyes rolling back in her head, reading to me.

Strip: We SHIT, we..

Me (interrupting): Whoa whoa whoa. Let's try that word again. What's at the beginning?

Strip: S-h. A blend. SHHHHH.

Me: Good! covering the s-h and what is that word?

Strip: Out.

Me: Great! Now just put the blend at the beginning...

Strip: Ohhhhh! Sorry. We SHIT OUT..

Me: SHOUT! SHOUT!! We SHOUT!

And while I tried, unsuccessfully, to hide my hysterical laughter, she asked, "What's so funny?!?!" Nothing, I replied. You just make me so happy!

Polar Opposites

2011-09-05T09:41:00.004-04:00

Strip is a thinker. And because she is a thinker, she is a worrier. That child worries enough for our entire extended family and then some. Nugget, on the other hand, is totally my kid. Not a care in the world, does what he wants doesn't care what anyone says, does, thinks. It doesn't even occur to him to worry about anything!

I signed them both up for soccer and it starts this week, so we were talking about the last minute things we need to get before practice. Nugget got a football jersey from Ma for college game day (woo hoo! Welcome back fall!), and wanted to know if he could wear his #3 jersey for soccer.

Me: No, buddy, you can't wear your football jersey. But I think they will give you both a special soccer shirt.

Nugget: Can I be #3?

Me: No, I don't think so. They assign everyone the numbers, so I don't think you get to pick.

Strip, AKA worry wart: Umm. Do they give you the numbers based on how good you are?!

Me: No, sweetie, they just give out the numbers.

Nugget: I wanna be zero.

Oy. Maybe they will rub off on each other and even themselves out a little!

Wanna be OCD

2011-09-04T23:33:00.000-04:00

Yes, I realize the correct phrase would be, "Want to HAVE OCD," but the "be" just flows better.

And yes, I have a pinterest board named that :-)

PaPa and Ma were visiting for college game day weekend and took the kids to their first "college" football game. I use the quotes because the team was Ma's alma mater, not mine or Hubs, so it doesn't really count :-)

The kids had a blast. Nugget was convinced that HE was going to get to play because he had a jersey. Strip started having a panic attack the minute that saw the teams warming up asking UP, "Won't they get hurt when they run into each other like that?" UP pointed out all of the pads and the helmet and she seemed to be OK. Nugget, still convinced he was going in, warmed up with team then promptly fell asleep near the end of the second quarter.

The kids enjoyed the game and since it was a holiday weekend, Papa and Ma grabbed the kids for a night on the Bus, leaving Hubs and I home alone!

What to do?!

Impromptu date night on the town? Nice dinner out and a movie? Go have coffee somewhere and chat?

Nope!

I cashed in some Bed Bath and Beyond coupons earlier that day, so while Hubs was watching football, I put the laptop on the kitchen counter, started streaming a little Netflix and reorganized my pantry.

Yup. Impromptu date night, and I'm organizing rice noodles!

Like I said, I want to be/have OCD, but it's always been a swing and a miss. I stumbled across a blog of a woman whose junk draw makes the most organized spot in my house look like Hoarders. So I channeled my inner neat freak and got to work.

First off? I HATE our pantry. Yes it's much bigger than the one we had in our old house, but it has wire shelves (which I hate) and it's just wide and awkward and full of wasted space (which I hate).

Second, I'll show you the before and afters, but keep in mind, the before picture was probably the WORST it's ever been. We'd been in and out of town, and the pantry became the dumping grounds. So please imagine that my pantry's before picture is kind of like the latest weight loss girl's before picture; kind of chubby, but you can totally tell she's sticking out her belly in the before and sucking in for the after.

After checking expiration dates, shuffling noodles, flour and sugar and arranging things by height, I finally had as close to an organized pantry as I was going to get.

Drumroll, please!

Before:

AHHH!! We're hoarders and there are probably some animals in there!!!!

And after:

You can hear the angelic voices singing from their acrylic pop lid containers!

Now what's the over under on it STAYING like this!

Adding to our kids' stability.

2011-09-03T22:46:00.000-04:00

It's not enough that we rip our kids out of their lives every 2 years and move, once we settle in the place Hubs says is for good (or at least a little while), we take them out of school the second week!

Yup, Summer came and went and life was just crazy. We were shopping for #2 pencils before we knew it and we really hadn't spent much quality family time together. Because of work schedules, we had a certain window we were aiming for to get away, but we also knew we couldn't monetarily travel too far or stay somewhere too crazy. So when some dear, dear friends said their beach house was retable for a week, we jumped. When we found out it was the week after school started, I hesitated.

We were going with our friends T and J and their kids L and A (Strip's BFF). They had no problem going that week because they homeschool! As much as I hated to miss an entire week of school before it was even September, we had to weigh the pros and cons. Sure, it's Nugget's last year of preschool and Strip's in 1st grade, but how much are they REALLY going to do during that second week? Especially when the first week isn't really a full week? And yeah, we could always plan ahead and go next summer, but next summer, we wouldn't be going with Nugget and Strip. We'd be going with kindergarten Nugget and second grade Strip.

So we got the week's worth of school work (which Strip finished in 5 minutes), packed up the car and headed for paradise.

And OH was it paradise! Secluded beach, plenty of room for all 8 of us (and then some), private pool and no reason to put on anything other than a bathing suit and some SPF.

Hubs and I have taken quite a few trips, but we've always had one problem. Any time it's just a relaxing vacation, he gets very sick and/or has to visit a doctor. Honeymoon? Lost 20lbs after eating sushi in Mexico and I thought he was going to die. Ski trip? Totally fine. Family reunion vacation at the beach? Loses a tooth eating a Milkdud at the movie theatre resulting in an emergency dental visit. Huff and puff through Disney World? A OK.

Hubs had been traveling the week+ leading up to the beach, so when he said he wasn't feeling too well, my response was, "Don't EVEN start!" I told him to up the OJ and try to get more sleep. When we got to the beach, he upped the brews and we stayed up late playing cards.

So, a few days into our trip, he said he REALLY wasn't feeling well. My loving response? "Yeah, well, you're probably dehydrated and need more sleep, stop complaining and drink some water." Later that day he asked me to look up where the nearest urgent care place was, to which I said, "Umm probably back home. We're in the middle of nowhere!"

But it looked like the Public Health Department was taking walk-ins and wrote out the address for him. And before ANYONE throws the "Bad Wife" card at me, need I remind you that I drove MYSELF to the emergency room while in anaphylactic shock.

During a blizzard.

Off to the PHD he went and a few ivs and an antibiotic later, Hubs came back and crashed for the rest of the day and most of the next.

I'm thinking I should go ahead and book us some high impact something for Punta Cana. Otherwise, one of us might not be coming back!

It's all downhill from here!

2011-08-21T21:45:00.004-04:00

Found this adorable gift on Pintrest! You can read more about it HERE!

So the big 3-0 is here! I had grand plans of how I would celebrate this day; weekend trip to Vegas, day trip to Chicago with Hubs, the very least a night out with the girls at my favorite downtown piano bar! So how did I celebrate? Work, take Strip to ballet, back to work, and dinner at the kids' favorite restaurant because it was late and they were exhausted.

Was it the night I planned? No. Am I upset? Not really. I think I would have been more disappointed had I wasted the almost 11,000 other days of my life worrying about plans I'd made instead of enjoying the life I was living.

So in honor of me crossing that birthday off my list, I thought I'd celebrate by compiling a list of things I've done in the past 30 years (what's the opposite of a bucket list?). Here goes:

was born!
Hit all of my normal milestones
embraced total kidney failure
rocked dialysis
got the old kidney's working again
learned to water ski
sang my first solo in church
graduated kindergarten
learned to snow ski
took ballet
took jazz
took tap
felt my way through elementary school
wandered into middle school
got braces
performed in Carnegie Hall (finger cymbal duet, thank you!)
braces off!
performed in Constitution Hall
braces back on
traveled to London and Paris
High School
made the boys varsity soccer team
Opera company? Sure!
toured Germany
braces off
drivers license
Met Hubs
Learned to drive a zamboni
Accepted into colleges (yes, that's plural)
graduated High School
off to college
met a pot-luck roommate who could have been my twin
took some classes
took some classes
took some classes
Started working at a jewelry store (with grand plans of moving to NYC and working at Tiffany's while starring on Broadway and winning a Tony)
Adopted June Bug
declared a major (because I was running out of classes to take)
Received my GIA diamond certification
Finished up BA
Started dating Hubs
Internship
Graduated!
emergency appendectomy
Hubs proposed!
Off to Prague with UP for 2 weeks
got a job as a parapro
moved into an EBD classroom...
wedding plans started!
party, party, party!
married Hubs!!
Honeymoon in Mexico (Don't eat sushi down there. Ask Hubs why if you REALLY need to know).
moved to NC
Had Strip
Moved to South FL
Impulse bought a house in a city we'd never set foot in
met some fabulous people
went to Disney World
got a job
went to Disney World
Had Nugget
Went to Disney World
promoted (or working more hours!)
Went to Disney World
moved up North (bought our second house in a city we'd never set foot in)
met some more fabulous people
went to a pumpkin patch (a real one!)
picked apples from an orchard
got a job
first visit to Chicago
visited our first Christmas tree farm
went into anaphylactic shock
discovered I'm allergic to all food
played in the snow
taught my daughter to ride a 2 wheeler
promoted (or working more hours...)
continued hanging with fabulous friends
sang at a wedding in Disney World
10 year high school reunion
more apples, more pumpkins, more Christmas Trees
Taught myself how to sew
volunteering at preschool
Said good-bye to June Bug
Said Hello to Zoe
Fought off a mouse in the house
started teaching preschool
Taught my kid to tie her shoes
Survived my child taking the bus
Settled into life and enjoying it
Taught my other kiddo to ride a 2 wheeler
Curve ball thrown and we're moving. AGAIN
Impulse bought our THIRD house in a city we'd never lived in
Went to Disney
Got a job
Met some MORE fabulous people
Went to NYC with my favorite 5 year-old
signed up Hubs, UP and myself for a half marathon
Went to Disney with just the kiddos (and lived to tell about it)
Started working more hours and a second job
Went to Disney

And I wouldn't change a single bullet point. Because changing one would mean changing all the ones after it. So, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the next 30+ bullet points have next to them!

The Tooth Fairy has landed for the second time in our house!

2011-08-20T21:52:00.002-04:00

Second visit, first missing tooth.

Yes, only my child could have Santa deliver presents to her baby doll AND try to trick the tooth fairy. A few months ago, Strip found a small, white rock that looked like a tooth, so she thought it would be a GREAT idea to stick it under her pillow and get see if the tooth fairy would leave her money.

The tooth fairy DID come, but left a note basically saying, "Nice try, that's a rock, I'm sure I'll see you soon."

And we finally had a wiggler! Her BFF lost a tooth a few weeks before (the very same tooth!), so I was hoping Strip would rip hers out, but no.

She wiggled.

And wiggled.

I remember letting my teeth get so loose they would twirl and still not letting my dad pull them. And it looks like my kid is going to be the same way.

BUT, tonight we were over at said BFF's house having dinner when the girls got to chatting about their teeth. BFF was telling Strip how she pulled her tooth herself, but Strip just couldn't do it. You could SEE the permanent tooth almost all the way in behind it, the tooth would flip all the way forward, but she would not pop that last root.

So, I suggested BFF give it a tug. And little miss nurse washed her hands and got to work! First she watched as Strip wiggled it to see how loose it really was. Then she gave it a couple of tugs, but it wouldn't budge. BFF's mom reminded her that she had a piece of toilet paper to grip her tooth, so off to the bathroom they ran. They came back, and I had my phone ready. Armed with a square of Charmin, BFF grabbed that little wiggler, twisted and pulled and...

WHOA!

Strip didn't even know the tooth was out, but BFF, looked down with shock as she was HOLDING STRIP'S TOOTH!! They both looked down, squeal-screamed and ran to the bathroom to look at their matching grins.

And Strip wrote a letter to the tooth fairy asking if she could keep her tooth (my kid is creepy!), but still get what BFF got.

The TF delivered! A sweet note, a tooth left behind, a crisp dollar, a travel tooth brush set and a new DS pen with the reminder to STOP CHEWING ON THEM!

Can't believe my BABY is old enough to have grown-up teeth!

Blogging A.D.D

2011-08-13T12:29:00.004-04:00

Here are some bright colors to keep you focused on this post :-)

Last night, I logged in to write about our recent mishap with the car GPS. I like pictures, so was looking for one to start the post.

Not finding one I liked, I googled "lost" to try to find an image.

And that reminded me of a funny email/blog post UP sent me a year or so ago.'

So I started searching my email for it and ran across some hilarity from www.damnyouautocorrect.com.

And because I had not looked at that site in a while, I clicked on over for some giggles.

Remembering I had a post to write, I went back to my email where I was SURE I'd found the link.

But it turned out to be a Josh Groban funny. I had not watched it in a while, so I watched it, giggled, showed it to Hubs, then we watched it again. Here is is for your viewing pleasure (and because I need an excuse to watch it one more time!):

I finally broke down and googled the blog I was looking for and found it:

http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html

I read it and cried I was laughing so hard.

At that point I was too tired and had forgotten completely about the post I was supposed to write.

Oh well! Maybe I can focus on actually writing tomorrow.

We've got ourselves a wiggler!

2011-08-02T21:59:00.002-04:00

Last week, we were on the way to a friend's house for family dinner/movie night. We stopped at Publix to pick up a few things to add to the menu and Strip mentioned that her teeth hurt. I immediately jumped to CAVITY!

I asked which tooth hurt and she pointed to the lower middle two.

So not a cavity.

"Oh! I wonder if you're getting a loose tooth!"

She told me that was something that a friend of hers at camp said, so I told her when Hubs parked and ran in the store, I'd crawl in the backseat and take a look.

She pointed to the "hurt" tooth and I put my pointer on it. And, shockingly enough, when I moved my finger back and forth, the tooth moved, too.

I couldn't believe it.

I knew she'd have a loose tooth eventually. I knew the movement they came in, she'd lose them, but I was NOT prepared for this.

Because I was sick as a kid, there are a lot of things I don't remember. Brains are awesome in that they can block out traumatic events, unfortunately, they take birthdays, Christmas's and First-days-of school's with them. So when I felt that tiny baby central incisor give when I pulled my finger a little, I was transported back to Mrs. Timmerman's class when I JOYFULLY announced to the first grade that I had my first tooth, and they smiled permanent or toothless grins and said, "So?"

My baby isn't a baby any more!

We called UP and PaPa and Ma to spread the word, then Strip started to lay into me.

"You know, Mom. When this tooth fall out? I will NEVER have ALL of my baby teeth again. This could be like, THE last time I have all of my baby teeth. Because when this one falls out, I'll have holes or big teeth, but never JUST my baby teeth."

Yeah, we got it! I called the photographer and set up a "last baby teeth" shoot for next week and instructed Strip to stop with the wiggling and NO eating apples! She said she wasn't going to eat anything hard because she "wanted to draw this out so she could enjoy eating corn a little longer."

Oh another note, what's the tooth fairy paying these days for teeth? She only brought me Susan B. Anthony dollar coins.

It's all about the Hamilton's, baby.

2011-07-23T16:59:00.003-04:00

I took Nugget and Strip (and two additional kids) to a birthday party at a bounce place today. 11:30-1:30. We made it another hour+, then I hit my wall and we had to GO. I dropped the additional kiddos at their house, then headed over to Hobby Lobby (I need some camo face paint for work (don't ask!) and HL seemed to be the ONLY place that had any in stock).

Both kids were over tired (and so was I), so I'd called ahead to make sure they had some. I told the kids we were going in and right out, so as soon as we walked in the door, I asked the cashier where we could find it.

Oh! You just called didn't you? See those two ladies right there (pointing to a sign on the back wall)? Just head right there and you'll see it with the kids paint.

As we walked to the back, Nugget kept saying, "Der are two ladies! I don't see the paints, though..." every time we passed two women shopping. We found the paint and started making our way to the front of the store, but I wanted to look for a shadowbox frame for something I want to do for the house. As we walked by some frames, Strip looked down and spotted a $10 bill crumpled on the floor.

Strip: Oh! Mommy, look! $10!

Me: Is that real?! Yup it is!

Strip: Can I keep it?!

Me: What do you think the right thing to do would be?

Strip: Umm kee..save...umm I don't know?

Me: Well, if you dropped $10, would you want someone to just take it, or turn it in?

Strip: Turn it in, I guess.

Me: Remember when you lost all your tickets today? You were sad because you couldn't get your prizes, but then that lady turned them in and you got your stuff? That felt good, right?

Strip: Yeah. You're right.

We went to check out and Strip told the cashier, "I found this money on the ground and wanted to turn it in just incase someone lost it."

The cashier was stunned.

"I have no idea what to do with it! WOW! Ummm hang on, lemme find the manager and see if she knows what to do..."

At this point, the guy in line across from us piped up with, "I think she should get to keep it!"

The manager came over and KeKe explained what happened, and the manager was flabbergasted. She didn't know what to do with Strip, either! KeKe took Strips hand and asked her what her name was. She told her that was the nicest thing she had seen and since she had such a good heart, she thought Strip should get to keep the money.

The manager agreed and said, "I think you should pick something special out and spend that money!"

No thanks! I'm going to take it home and put it in my savings!

Double stunned faces again.

Thanks, Hobby Lobby! We are now ten bucks closer to an over-priced American Girl tiki hut!

Reassurance

2011-07-16T21:34:00.004-04:00

When Hubs and I got married, we attended premarital counseling. The first thing we had to do, really before the counseling sessions even stated, was to take a test. I'll admit, I am a HORRIBLE test taker, so even though this scantron was all about us, I was still a little angst-y. Most of the questions, I breezed through, but I did pause when I got a few questions into it.

How many children do you want to have?

Crap! I knew MY answer (4-6). I come from a family of 2 kids and always wished I had more siblings. Hubs (fiance at the time) and I had talked about kids, and while I knew he didn't aspire to be a Duggar, I knew he wanted more than 1. But what if I put 6 and he puts 2? Or what if I put 2, because I think that's what he wants, and he puts 6, because it's what I want, and our numbers are WAY off and we have to spend half of our sessions discussing children we may not even be able to have anyway AND explaining that I lied on our test because YES I want more than 2?!

So I split the difference and just put down three (which would have never worked. I like even numbers).

And Hubs? He was having the same dilemma. So what did he pick? 3 as well.

We were lucky to have Strip and extremely lucky to have Nugget. After many shed tears and many chats with all doctors concerned (including a last minute, 12 hours before surgery emergency call to my nephrologist), we made the decision to end our biological family at 2 kids. Any more, and we'd be facing earlier preemies and possibly permanent damage/death for me.

Seems like a pretty slam dunk decision? Looking at the options of 2 more kids or 2 failed kidneys, you'd think closure would be the least of your worries. But I grieved the loss of 2-4 kids I never had for about 3 years. The solo Disney trip did wonders for me. Being a mom of 2 was very manageable. Taking vacations are easier and more enjoyable and we look forward to doing more fun things now that the kids are older (snow skiing, big city fun, cruise, etc).

But there was still that empty little hole. That "what if" spot.

Since moving, it seems we've stumbled on MANY friends who are either about to have a baby or just have had one. And that little what if spot started to turn into a gaping hole.

I'd already checked and our insurance covers nothing for adoption. ZERO. We can grow a baby in a petri dish, implant it into a friend or stranger and they'd cover a good chunk of it, but help us get a baby that's already cookin'? Forget about it! (NOTE: Anyone struggling with IF, please do not read this as a knock. I'm glad our insurance, and others out there, covers and assists couples struggling with this! It's an extremely costly and emotionally exhausting journey. But, it's not something we would pursue seeing as how I can get and stay pregnant, it's the whole carry them to term and not have failing body parts I struggle with).

So when a co-worker of mine needed someone to watch their baby baby today, I jumped at the chance. Hubs had taken our two kiddos to visit his dad and family, so it was just me and Zoe. Their sweet girl is a little over 2 months old, and she is sooooooooo cute.

I prepared myself for baby fever. Heck I was ready for baby malaria. For the mom and dad's sake, I'd hoped the afternoon would go well (nothing more stressful than leaving your first born with someone you've only known for a few months!), but for my sake, I hoped she would scream hysterically, puked on me, poop all over herself, me and whatever we were sitting on and leave me frazzled.

She didn't go my route. I told mom and dad to enjoy an early movie and grab a bite to eat if they wanted. Enjoy this fun day date! Sweet Pea and I settled into watching ceiling fans, looking at ourselves in the mirror, bottles, tummy time, cleaning bottles, changing diaper and basically getting nothing done. She was hanging with me for about 4 hours, and I was able to fold a half of a load of laundry and drink 2/3 of my cup of coffee. That was it!

I could see myself spending the rest of the afternoon mocking up blueprints on how to expand the house, contacting lawyers and greeting Hubs with my wild plans of how to expand our family. But when she left? I was ok. I played with the pup (who would go to the door every time she made a noise as if to say, "I think it's barking? Should we put it outside?!)", made dinner and did a little work to prepare for the week. I thought about my kiddos and thought about our future as a family of four (plus a dog) and was ok with it.

And while I think that "what-if" spot will always be there, I don't think it's going to rule the rest of my life. I'm not going to ~~keep~~ start aggressively pursuing adoption or be tempted to ask strangers for their kids. Would I turn away a baby or four left on my doorstep? Absolutely not! But I'm not going to let my family suffer because of something I can't control and will never be.

So thanks, little friend, for being a sweet baby, but also for reassuring me that our family of four is perfectly complete!

How do you unwind?

2011-07-14T20:47:00.008-04:00

After the solo Disney trip and sans-Hubs camping trip. It would have been nice to unwind, right? Oh if only! The kids went to Camp PaPa and Ma's and I got busy on a project at work. I'm part time, so normally bill about 48 hours per pay period. Between the added project and the added part-time summer job, I billed a little over 100 hours over my normal.

Yes you read that correctly.

Hubs was out of town, so we were ready to get the fam of four back together, celebrate our great work weeks and relax. I had penciled in "Run away from home" on my calendar and was ready to go out of town.

If you were in my shoes, how good does the above picture look?!?

But that's Tahiti. And we are in FL. And that's a long drive. I was thinking beach, but Hubs suggested....

The mouse.

I booked a last minute hotel and we packed up the car and kids. I was SO SO SO tired and out of it, half-way down, I thought, "Wait. What day is it? How long are we staying? Did I pack enough clothes for us?!"

Luckily, I can Disney pack in my sleep, so we were ok, but "Disney Vacation" in this house is an oxymoron.

We got down there Friday after lunch. I was thinking we'd hit DT Disney or just hang out, but Hubs? "Who has late hours? Let's go to a park!"

Yikes. I twisted his arm and convinced him to at least go into the room, drop off our stuff and make sure everything was ok before we hit the parks. And Magic Kingdom? Ghost town. We walked on to every ride with no wait. It was creepy. I kept flashing back to when we went in 2008 over the 4th of July and vowed we'd never do it again. I knew the crowds were coming.

The kids and I only had one day left on our non-expiration tickets, so on Saturday, we headed to DT Disney. We got there just before lunch service, so hit the T-Rex restaurant. How anyone can finish an entire entree there on their own is beyond me! We got our tickets, wandered around and headed to Hollywood Studios (the park formally known as MGM) and hit some of the favorites. We then went over to Epcot to wander around the world. We were waiting on friends of ours to come over and watch the fireworks with us, anticipating an early night. They texted us later in the evening, and the boys (Hubs and Friend Hubs) decided it was better if they just went over to Magic Kingdom and we met them over there.

So for those of you counting, as we hopped on the monorail, we'd conquered DT Disney, MGM, Epcot and were about to take on Magic Kindom all in one day. Now how good is that Tahiti picture looking??

And to add to that, we were delayed on the monorail because they were doing the special 4th of July fireworks a day early. We made it into the gates just as they were finishing. Friends texted us that they just got fast passes for Buzz Lightyear at 10:35. I looked at the clock, then at the crowd, and said we MIGHT make it to Tomorrowland by that time.

Cue Disney 4th of July Crowd:

Awesome!

Here's our texting conversation for the hour:

Yeah. It was awesome. Nugget fell asleep and Hubs and I befriended the only other non-angry family in all of Main Street who also happened to have a double stroller. We played a mean game of red rover and won. SO many angry people! The guy in front of us was SCREAMING at the poor girl attempting to direct traffic. How can you scream at an 18 year-old with a lightsaber and a giant Mickey-hand glove?! It took us about an hour, but we finally made it from Main Street to Tomorrowland. We rode some rides with our buddies then called it a night. Or morning? not sure at this point!

The next day was the 4th, and after seeing that crowd, Hubs embraced my idea of hitting a water park (something we'd never done with the kids at Disney before). We loaded up a cooler with lunch and drinks and headed to Blizzard Beach. We had a BLAST! The park is so big that even the rides (slides?) with lines weren't that long. My biggest angst was wandering around in a bikini all day, but after walking in the gates I immediately felt good about myself. WOW! So much skin and so little material. I'm 100% sure the first girl we saw at a pool was wearing a lacy bra and shorts and when we were in the Ski School pool with the kids, there was a woman just wearing a regular cotton tank top. Crazyness.

They do have delicious ice cream. Something about swimming all day just makes ice cream taste so much better! We all got a Pail (literally a sand pail full of ice cream and every topping they have in the shack), but Nugget was concerned that he wouldn't get any chocolate.

So this was his:

He finished it in about 3 minutes.

We showered off after a day at the "beach" and went to the Transportation Center to watch the fireworks (and saw an angry father almost get arrested because he "wanted to sit on the grass, damnit!") then went to hang out at Friends' house for the evening.

We hit DT Disney again the next day and took the kids to Disney Quest. I wasn't all that impressed, but they had fun! The biggest highlight was learning to draw Disney characters. I thought it was just going to be a coloring station type thing, but they have classes ever half-hour or so and everyone draws on computers. Hubs and Nugget got to draw Donald while Strip and I were writing and recording a song in the sound booth, so after paddling down a Dino-infested river and winning all the pirates gold we could capture, all four of us sat down to draw Pluto.

Nugget working hard at the animation desk.

The finished product: Donald, holding hands with Mickey (who is holding a balloon).

Strip's Pluto (with added sunshine) :-)

We headed home, and I was happy to have a couple of days off of work! I don't think I recovered from work on our vacation, but we had a blast! Now, who has a vacation hut in Tahiti we could use....

Summer Camp!

2011-07-11T20:48:00.004-04:00

For Nugget's birthday, he got a bunch of camping stuff from PaPa, Ma and UP, so after school was out, we decided to put it to use! Hubs was busy working, so another mom friend and I took four kids on a little camping expedition.

We loaded up the car with 6 sleeping bags, 6 pillows, 12 bathing suites, 2 tents, 4 flashlights, a pack of hot dogs, a bag of buns, chips, snacks, marshmallows, Hershey's bars, graham crackers, boogie boards, sand buckets, oh the list went on and on. We took just the bare necessities and still had her car PACKED and my roof pack filled. We hit the road and made it to the campsites just after lunch.

But why pitch a tent when you could play on the beach!

Before finding our site, we unloaded the kids to burn off some energy on the beach. Oh how relaxing! We lost a pair of goggles and my dermatologist would be horrified at my tan lines, but jumping the waves and building sand castles were well worth the peel.

We let the kids play until they wanted a snack and then we headed over to find our spot. One thing about camping at the beach? Everything is sandy.

We found semi-shady spots for both tents, rinsed off the kiddos' hands, unpacked some snacks and started to assemble tents. J's camped a few times before with her kids, so she had no problem setting their tent up. Out tent? Never even opened yet. As I broke the tag thing off the zipper, all I could think was, "What if it's missing poles? Or a section of the mesh?" Hoping we weren't going to be sleeping in the car, I spread everything out and with a little help from Nugget, successfully assembled our little 4 man tent!

After an open fire dinner, we all hit the showers to clean off before bed. Unfortunately, we are at the beach and the beach is in Florida. And it.is.HOT. We got as clean as possible and headed back to our site, but looking at 60 clean piggies and the site full of beach sand and ash made me not want to let the kids touch the ground. Thinking back, most of my camping trips have been in the fall, so everyone's been wearing real shoes. Sweaty feet and flip flops don't mix.

So I said, "You drive, I'll buy!" and we headed to the ice cream shop. The ice cream was delicious, but no one in the shop spoke English and the samples that everyone had before buying our cones? They totally charged us for! We enjoyed the nice breeze and cold ice cream and headed back to the site. We decided the best dessert after dessert would be s'mores and let the kids take turns igniting marshmallows and getting sticky, then made one last trek to the bathrooms before calling it a night.

Me and my two opened the sides of our tent and said, "Good night, moon!" to the real moon. Without lights or books, we made up stories and dozed off. At some point in the night, Nugget stood up and wandered to the door of the tent. Happy I was snoozing in front of it, I got him to lay back down. When the sun, and every bird in Florida, rose, all three of us had moved to a different position in the tent.

We were going to hit the beach again for a morning swim, but the kids were so dirty after breakfast, I insisted on showering them before swimming. Nugget's feet were so dirty, he looked like a different race. After 15 minutes of scrubbing them, I figured the ocean would get the 4 other layers of dirt and we broke down camp.

After a few more hours on the beach, we loaded up our stuff (and about 15 lbs of sand) into the car, passed around a picnic lunch and hit the road.

I miss our old house, our old friends and Chicago badly, but I'll admit, it's nice to wake up one day, decide you want to go to the beach and actually be able to GO. As for the camping? I think we'll hold off on that again until fall when (hopefully) it's a little cooler. And Hubs can come along, too!

Back to the gym and back to the blog!

2011-07-06T22:33:00.005-04:00

Yikes! My last post was in May. MAY! And I realized this today and then realized the last time I went to the gym was also in May. MAY!

It's now July.

Yikes.

So here's what's been going on since I last posted (and did side lunge presses).

Started out the summer kind of solo. Memorial Day weekend, Hubs headed to a golf tournament (that his team won!) and the kids and I headed to Disney. We had plans since we found out we were moving to meet some friends in WDW that weekend, so the kids were already pumped. Hubs got the invite to the golf tournament, but I figured I could meet my buddies down there and we'd be fine. Buddies found out they were moving to Cali, so we headed to see the mouse on our own!

And because we were using leftover days on non-expiration tickets, we decided to get the most out of our money. That means 4 parks in TWO DAYS!

We drove down on Friday and checked into our hotel. Some friends of ours here happened to be down for the weekend, too, so we met them at Downtown Disney for Dinner. The kids were excited to eat at Fulton's, but Nugget fell asleep in my lap waiting for our salads. He woke up later and said, "We waited all dat time on the boat, and we didn't eat nuffin!" Bless his heart!

The kids were excited about "riding rides" as soon as we got there, so I told them we could take the Disney bus from the hotel to DT disney. BIG mistake! After the big meal, and while carrying a still asleep Nugget, we huff it to the bus stop, hopping on JUST as the bus is about to pull away. Whew! I was feeling good about it until the bus made it second stop at DT Disney; right in front of Fulton's. Where we had just run from. Awesome. The bus driver then shut the bus off because at that time, it was the changing of the drivers. I've been to Buckingham Palace. I've seen the changing of the guard. That was like a high five compared to this. 25 minutes later, we were FINALLY heading back to the hotel. I managed to get both kids up to our room and at this point, Nugget emerged from his power nap. I remembered I left my razor at home.

I called the front desk only to find out that they have no razors at a value resort. So I looked at the kids and looked at the clock. We were approaching midnight. The next day was going to be an early start anyway, so why start it with a trip to CVS?

"Ok kids! Who wants to go for a ride?"

"I'd rather go swimming."

"Well, put on your suits and well go to the store. When we get back, we'll hit the pool!"

I called the front desk to confirm the pool hours (all night as long as you're not too loud -- so glad I didn't pay extra for a room facing the pool!) and we headed to the store. I was NOT spending the weekend with scratchy, velcro legs. We had a midnight swim then showered off and were out for the night.

The next day we headed to Animal Kingdom. Hot, hot and HOT! Every ride line is outside, every path is uphill and every road is paved with random groups of people, stopping in the middle of the road and staring at something. We started with the dinosaur ride.

Yup! That's us! In the back row. Nugget looking terrified and Strip with her head in my lap. GREAT start to the day! We hit all of our must do's, then hopped back in the car for a snack on our way over to the Hollywood Studios. We rode the Tower of Terror twice, headed over to the Toy Story ride, walked into The Voyage of the Little Mermaid right when it was about to start and then walked across to see the new Playhouse Disney show. They had JUST closed the door, so we scooted over to a snack stand and grabbed a box of popcorn and some water to snack on while we were in line. The new Playhouse Disney, well now Disney Junior, show is the same, but they took out Pooh and put in Jake and the Neverland Pirates. The kids loved it, but we had a nice family from France who kept telling my kids (in the front row) to sit down so their kid could see. I looked around and motioned to the 100 other kids standing and dancing. This was not the symphony. It's Disney World! Get up and move!

We wandered back over and did ToT one last time and the kids got hilarious Mater Teeth Suckers. I found them at World Market before we left

They almost look like pacifiers, but they are suckers with Mater teeth on the front. HILARIOUS! I noticed the Beauty and the Beast show was about to start, so my Maters and I scoped out a place to sit. We got half-way down the aisle and noticed some seats open on the other side. I asked the girl working there if we could cross over the very front row by the stage to get to the other side and she said, "Sure! But you could just sit in the front row if you want!" AweSOmE!

Mini Maters and I plopped down just as the show was about to start, and while it's nothing compared to Broadway, it was fun sitting right in front and watching the singers/dancers attempt to keep a straight face whenever one would catch a glimpse of my Maters!

It was getting close to Fantasmic time, so we grabbed a bite to eat and started walking up the big hill. The show starts at 9 and people had been standing in line since 6:30. That is just INSANE! The other option is to get a dining package where you eat at one of 3 restaurants (at 3:00 pm or something) and you get preferred seating. But the cost for the 3 of us to eat would be around $100. Cost of the three of us splitting snacks and a dinner? About $10. We were going to try our luck and see what happened.

Once we got to the top, the guys with the lights said it was standing room only. Ugh. I asked if we could walk down and come back if we weren't going to be able to see and the guy said that was fine. We got half-way down the hill and I thought that was silly and we'd just go back, get some ice cream and catch the 10:00 show. Just as we were walking back down the hill, or friends texted us that not only had they just walked in, they were sitting in the 3rd row and were looking at a spot in the first row! SCORE! We had great seats, and the kids loved the show. I loved it, too, just not $100 or 2.5 hours out of my life! We did a couple of more rides, then headed back to the hotel.

The next day, we headed to Epcot. We took the monorail, which was having some problems, so it took us a while to get over there, but we made it! Rode all the rides, walked around the world and enjoyed the nice day. The Must Do chick (looped show in the Disney hotel) always stops in Germany for Pretzel und Bier, so naturally, my 6 year-old wants a snack when we get to Germany. "Can we get a pretzel and a beer??" Thanks Disney!

We were heading over to Test Track when I remembered that Disney Visa card members get a special meet and greet and free photo, so we grabbed an autograph book and asked where to go. Surprise! LOTS of people at Disney world are Disney Visa card holders! So the line was kind of long, but we saw Minnie and Goofy in a room with just us, the photopass guy and the characters, so that was fun! When I went to get the picture, every one with Nugget, his eyes were closed. Thinking out loud, I said, "Geeze, you'd have thought they could have snapped ONE with his eyes open..." to which the photopass dude said, "Well, they took THIRTEEN!" Whoa. Someone's not having a magical day! And yes, that proves my point exactly. 13 pictures and not a single one with the kid looking at the camera with open eyes? So I just got one of Strip and Minnie. Because Visa was paying for it. And I went ahead and slapped a border and a date on it for good measure.

We hoofed it back up to the monorail which was, again, not working. So we did a quick change at the top of the ramp while we waited (my cousin opened her own sewing/embroidery/applique shop, so we had something to wear to every park!). We finally made it to the Magic Kingdom at about 7:00 when I realized I had the extra magic hours time written down incorrectly. They weren't open until 2 AM. They were open until 3AM!!

Nugget has always loved trains, and all the times we've gone, we've never ridden on the train before, so we did that first. We then hit all of our favorite rides. At the front of the line for Splash Mountain, they had to shut down the ride. No one would tell us why, just that they weren't sure how long it would take to get it working again. MAN some people get ANGRY about not riding the log! Lots of unhappy people around us! We hopped over to ride Big Thunder Railroad and then went back over to Tomorrowland to see if Nugget was tall enough for Space Mountain (not yet!). We were going to get ice cream and the kids were starting to fade. I asked if they wanted to call it a night, but NO!! WE WANNA STAY OUT UNTIL 3! As we stood in line, Nugget started swaying, so I picked him up. When I went to pay for the kids' cones, I set him down on the glorified granite check-writing ledge where he promptly curled up in a ball, leaned over and fell asleep! He perked up as soon as he saw the ice cream and they were ready to ride some more!

Sometime around 1, we went back to splash mountain which was working. Yay! Normally, after closing, they turn the big sprayers off, so I wasn't too worried about getting wet. I should have been. After the big plunge, I was sitting in a puddle so deep , the kids could have gone swimming in it! Nugget screamed, "I'm soapin' wet!!" We were all three drenched! My dress was so we, I could wring it out and as we walked, I could feel it stretching lower and lower in the back! We decided to start heading to the exit, but needed to do pirates for my little Captn Jack. NO line at all, so we hopped right on and BOY was that boat cold on our wet booties! We walked by Aladdin's magic carpet ride, and since it also had no line, we hopped on it. Then we let the camel spit on us and I suggested we head back to the hotel.

Strip: But what time is it??

Me: Almost 2.

Strip: But we were going to stay up until 3!!!

Me: Yeah, but mommy's tired! How about we head back and you can stay up at the hotel until 3?

Strip:Fine, but we really wanted to stay here until 3...

Me: I know, but I bet you $20 you'll both be asleep before we get to the monorail.

Strip: Nu uh!

One minute later, both kids are out cold. SO glad we had the double stroller! I managed to get them out to the car, loaded up, back to the hotel and up to our room.

We got up the next morning and spent and hit DT Disney for some shopping. Both kids had spending money burning a hole in their pockets. We had an early lunch at Rainforest Cafe then did some shopping. Both kids managed to spend their money on the things with the most small pieces. Yay. I told Strip I might as well put $20 in nickels on the floor and vacuum them up! But it was their money to spend, so we are proud owners of Tangled polly pocket-type set and a Captain Jack Sparrow/Barbossa action figures. I thought the pirates were ok until we got home and Nugget pointed out that the sword comes off! And the gun! And the hat! And the other hat! and the puppy! and his scarf! Ugh!

And while everyone thought I was crazy for taking 2 kids to 4 parks in 2 days alone, I must say it was the most relaxing and enjoyable disney trip we've taken! I hate that Hubs missed it, but it was fun just hanging out with the kids and taking things at their pace. It was also a nice reminder to me that this was totally doable with 2 kids. But if we had 4+ like I always wanted, there would have been no way it would have been relaxing and enjoyable. Win-win! Can't wait to do it another long weekend!

Saying so long to the Sac

2011-05-26T21:02:00.009-04:00

It's official. Our old house is now someone's new house.

We moved over Christmas, but the house had not sold. It sold a whopping 21 hours before the company buy out was to happen. OH to have all of those hours of my life back spent keeping it show ready!

That was back in January.

The new peeps didn't want to move until school was out (which I kind of understand, but I kind of don't because our school system ROCKS), so they've been slowly bringing stuff up on the weekends. Word on the Sac (as in cul de sac) is that they are finally moving in this weekend.

So here is an open letter to the newest occupants of one of the best houses in the most awesomest neighborhoods on the greatest cul de sac ever:

Dear New Neighbors,

Congratulations on moving into your new home! We hope you enjoy living there as much as we did. True, we were only there a little over two years, but we packed in enough memories to last a lifetime.

While it may look like any other cedar plank house in the town, there are a few things you should know. First, I'm not sure who was against overhead lighting in 1989, but as I'm sure you've discovered, it can get a little dark upstairs! If the outlets go out in the bathrooms, do NOT call an electrician. There is a reset button on a random outlet in the garage. Don't ask. It was probably the same guy who was against overhead lighting but all for white tile countertops in the kitchen.

You have an awesome tree in the front yard. In the winter, it will look like this

It's fantastic! It will stay this way from November until about March, and you will start to think that it's dead and will never come back again, but then you will go to Augusta for the Masters (ok, maybe not, but sometime in April) and see this when you return

And out come the most beautiful leaves you've ever seen that match the front door PERFECTLY!

Now about trees. In the back yard, you get to see this lovely, that is not technically yours, but you can sit on your deck and admire it

And the big tree that is perfect for climbing drops leaves the size of your kids' head! No kidding!

And as much fun as they are to jump in, be careful because a few good gusts and your yard looks like this

But enough about the trees! Well, one more, just because I love snow

Let's talk about the fence.

The split rail makes a nice neighborhood marker, but our, I mean, your fence in the back is a cute little one. I originally didn't like it and wanted to put up a privacy one like we had in Florida.

That would have been the biggest mistake ever.

Because on the other side of that fence are some of the greatest people on this planet.

Sure, the circle isn't made up of cookie cutter early 20's couples with 2 kids a dog and a cat, but that's what makes our, I mean, your cul de sac so great.

On your left, you have a fabulous family of six. They are awesome for multiple reasons. The older two kids give you a glimpse of what you'll be dealing with in a few years and you can learn from what they do, but there are still littles to enjoy playing with and pass your favorite outfits down to. You couldn't not get along with the wife if you tried and the husband is hilarious (although be warned, he HAS to get the last word in and will argue with a rock, but that's kind of his job!).

On the other side is another family, but with older kids. She is great to swap book ideas with, and he has the greatest smelling cigars on earth (and that's coming from someone who hates the smell of smoke). These are the people who will see you shoveling snow and bring their blower over to clear your drive and walkway without even asking. They'll watch your dog when you're out of town and sit on your back deck to keep you company.

Next to them is a lovely family who kind of keep to themselves, but are awesome. They just finished majority renovating their master bath and kitchen so they can help you out in that area. She is also a phenomenal cook!

Moving on around is another great family. They have older kids, high school and college, but love having kids running around the Sac. They even left their basketball hoop up and love letting all the kids shoot hoops (although the snow plow may have taken it out in December). He makes a mean loaf of pumpkin bread and she is super sweet. They got a new baby named Daisy a year or so ago. She's a golden and she's kind of nuts, but sweet and I'm sure she's calmed down by now.

And the last house on the Sac is another family of four. They have a fantastic driveway that is perfect for racing down. You never know what adventure will be going on in their front yard! It might be a picnic blanket of toys or a bounce house, but regardless, you're invited to join in the fun.

You're entering into a great group, so treat them well! We've been through a lot together. Celebrating the birth of a new baby, mourning in the loss of a teen, things that bring you together and make you realize what a family you've become. These are people who will watch your kids sleep while you drive yourself to the er, clear off your snowy driveway, mow your front lawn while you're out of town, shoot fireworks off in their driveway, come hang on your deck and watch movies on the side of your house, and share a margarita with you while you wait for the school bus on a not-so-awesome birthday declaring it "Margarita Monday!" They will celebrate your wins and cry with you on your losses. They'll support and encourage your kids and throw a tennis ball for your dog, help you build a swing set and let you cook in their ovens.

So play in the snow, jump in the leaves, curse the lack of lighting and bleach the kitchen counters, but get to know your neighbors. They are the greatest ones you could ask for!

Ode to a Strip

2011-05-18T20:31:00.010-04:00

And somehow, in the madness of the last few weeks, my baby, my first-born, my little angel turned six. SIX!

She's workin' on a whole new hand!

So here's to you, my sweet girl! Thank you for stumbling through this crazy thing called parenthood with us!

Everything about you has taken us completely by surprise! We joked that our little shoebox house was too small to have a baby in and the only way we'd be able to have one was if the dog were constantly in motion. In early fall of 2004, we told June to start shuffling around the house because there was a new kid coming to town!

I felt fantastic during my entire pregnancy with you, and boy did it show. I stopped looking at the scale when I hit the 55 pound gain, both because I didn't want to know the number and I was too big to see my feet, where the digital read out was!

The surprises kept coming when the doctor served you with an eviction notice at 37 weeks! After 24 hours in labor and a swift c-section, you were here! I remember one of the nurses saying, "8,

9!" to which I screamed, "S

he's 8lbs 9 oz?!? She was three weeks early!!!" but they quickly told me that was just your APGAR score. When I finally got a good look at you (after the ped on call telling me you had small, deformed ears that might never be normal - totally wrong by the way), we were surprised again to see that head full of hair! I expected a bald baby and could almost give you pigtails! And you were a thumb sucker from the start. Wanted nothing to do with a binkie, but would suck your thumb (or my pinkie finger) happily!

Not that I'm biased, but you were always ahead of the game. Sitting up early, waving, clapping, crawling, walking, all your milestones you hit early, which means I was always on my toes trying to catch up to you! You were always a pretty happy baby and loved discovering new things. You and Taylor got a kick out of the spinnie balls on your exersaucer!

You were one before we knew it, and became a big sister just

before you turned two. You took over your roll nicely and were always Mommy's little helper. You fell in love with your baby brother the minute you saw him and were always by his side.

You started school with Ms. Nancy and quickly wrapped her around her finger. You were the best puzzle putter together-er and cutter in the class. Your patience always astounded me. You would sit and just keep trying until you got whatever it was right, whether it was your putting on your sandals or snapping your car seat, YOU were going to do it.

At one point, you told me you wanted to be God when you grew up. When I asked why, you told me it was because you wanted to create lots of things. I told you God already cornered the market on that one and you've now settled for and author, illustrator and a teacher, but not a mom ("Because who wants to change poopie diapers? Not me!"). When I was your age, I told Ma I wanted to be a blue crayon, a teenager and a cheerleader. What can I say, I aimed high!

Your attention to details is crazy scary. Take for example the free art project you did in school a few months ago:

My computer, according to Strip

Which is hilarious because my actual computer? Looks like this:

An apple on the top and 900 windows open at all times. And I wonder why my battery goes so quickly!

Sometimes I worry that you take life too seriously.

You freak out if your brother is swinging on the swing set or if two people are swinging next to each other because he MIGHT get hurt, or the MIGHT bump into each other. Seeing kids get balloons makes you anxious because all you can think about is what will happen if they let go of the balloon and the thought of them being sad makes you sad.

Don't over-think things and miss out on some fun!

You transition beautifully. It's hard for me to believe that you've laid your little head down on your pillow in four different rooms in five years. You've moved more times before your 6th birthday than some people have in their entire lives. And in every step along the way you embrace life and find all new friends. At one point, after this move, you told me, "It' so weird how people down here remind me a lot of people I already know. It's like God gives us the same people, just different faces." You always find the good in people.

I've had so much fun getting to know you over the past 6 years and can't wait to see what the next year brings! Happy Birthday, Strip!

And the beat goes on...

2011-05-17T20:56:00.002-04:00

Training for the half has been going well. I've been hitting the pavement and have logged some personal bests in both distance and time. I've just started thinking to myself that I just might be able to do this!

Outside of work, Hubs and I have been hanging out with coworker of mine (J) and her husband (T). We were chatting up the half and got J interested. Hubs worked on T and the next thing I know, they've signed up to run it, too! Yay! We had also been talking about this crossfit kind of gym really close to work and J mentions how we could totally workout there together before work while the kids are in summer camp.

"Yeah! That sounds awesome! I've ALWAYS wanted to try one of those programs, and I know it will really help me with my half training!"

Next thing I know, I'm getting text blasts from her this morning about the training schedule and pricing. THEN she texts me to say, "There's an evaluation tonight and it's free, so I'm getting a sitter for the kids."

Umm. I think I just signed on for this?

So, while I was cooking dinner, Hubs put in 3 miles, I got one kid bathed and pj'd fed them both, Hubs and I weighed on the wii, and I got ready to leave. Before grabbing my water bottle, I decided to brush my teeth again as a courtesy to whomever I assumed would be resuscitating later.

We got there earlier to sign all of the paperwork stating that we wouldn't sue the facility if we had a heart attack mid-session. The saving grace was that the main sessions had ended, so the gym was pretty much empty. Except for the class of 5 high school boys doing v-ups and sprints.

It started out innocently enough. We had to take off our shoes, sit down, put our feet on this scale thing, lean forward and measure our flexibility. I did pretty well on this part! Then, shoes back on and we hit the bikes to warm up. We both got a little nervous when Fitness Man pulled out the measuring tape and medicine ball. We had to sit on the floor and chunk the 9 lb ball as far as we could without moving our backs. Awesome.

As we got a little water, he was saying something about a shuffle and left turn something. We walked to the other end of the gym and he spelled out what we were supposed to do.

"Oh! Suicides! That's what we called them in high school, anyway."

Exactly. Down and back, down and back, down and back. Now do it again.

Still doing ok. Back to the bike. Level 10, TEN, 3 minutes on the clock and go as far as you can.

Three minutes later, 2 sets of jelly legs wobbled over to the scale, because apparently it was weigh in time. J said they probably did it that way so we wouldn't fight it. You're just so happy to stand still you don't care that there's an ugly number facing you!

After writing down my height, I stepped up. Mr. Fitness was holding the digital readout, so I peeked over a little to see what it said, which lead Mr. Fitness to say it out loud, and I mean LOUD. I watched him write it down and then I told him, "That's the last time you'll see that number on my page. It's all down from here."

And back to the wall.

"Now you just need to run all the way down to that cone and back."

"Oh the farthest one?"

"Yup."

"Nice. Down and back?"

"You got it! 5 times, ready?"

I'm sorry, what? He was perfectly nice and cheery for us, but I've got to admit, I need someone SCREAMING at me. I need a good, "PICK UP THE PACE!" or "I'VE SEEN 70 YEAR-OLDS RUN FASTER THAN THAT!"

We got some water, and he started describing what the classes really look like. I'd like to describe them for you, but he just started sounding like the teachers on Charlie Brown movies.

But, alas, they have my debit card number, so I guess I'm in for the long haul! As we staggered out to our cars, J was pretty silent. When I got out of the shower, Hubs was laughing and said I had a text.

So I got home, said hi to my sitter and then

went straight to my bathroom to throw up.

Fun :-)

I texted her back about how awesome we were going to feel after the first two weeks and we'd be itching to work out, to which she responded, Ms. Optimistic are we? Um nope, but they have access to my money, so I'm GOING to get something out of this!

Now, apparently, I'll be crazy training 3x per week in addition to running. But as I told J while we were biking our butts off, "Just think! In a few months, we'll be sipping our celebratory beer before the boys even make it to the Animal Kingdom!" Boo yow!

Happy Birthday, Nugget!

2011-04-23T08:26:00.012-04:00

This post is a bit late, but the kid celebrated his birthday for so long, I feel like he should be 5 by now!

With Spring Break, I feel like I completely lost time planning for it, but things turned out great! I delayed sending out the invitations because I was HOPING we could have the party at the fire station. I had to get clearance from the city's head chief, and he wouldn't call me back, so I said forget it, we'll have it at the house and pray it doesn't rain. Late Thursday night, I remembered I had to send out the invitations, so I printed out these:

They didn't have just fire truck stickers, so some kids got a truck, some got the boots and hats and some got a hydrant. Not going to win an award, but better than an evite!

The next week, I had everything put together for the party, but I couldn't find any fire fighter

badges, so I called the station. They guys said to come on over and they'd have some stickers a

nd coloring books for me, and Nugget could tour the station. Sweet!

The ~~super cute~~ very polite fire guys let Nugget climb all over the truck. He got to go inside and push a bunch of buttons and climb on the front and look at every little thing.

They were SUPER patient as he pointed to EVERYTHING and said, "What's that?" and they

would answer. Then every answer was followed up with a "What does it do?"

I've never seen a kid so excited about the jaws of life.

He even got to go in the kitchen and they gave him a banana. As we were leaving, one of the guys gave him a purple glove blown up like a ballon and you would have thought he gave Nugget a million bucks!

So the next day was party day!

The boys took Zoe to the spa (because I didn't know ANY of these kids and didn't want one freaking out about a dog and having to deal with a scared kid and a Zoe locked in our bedroom. Plus, she needed a bath. Aunt T entertained the kids and I finished throwing stuff around. Here are some party pic:

We also had "Pigs in a Fire Blanket," but I didn't get a picture.

I thought up lots of fun, cute, fire themed games and activities, and while I won't share them all, I will share their favorite:

Yup. Uncle J had one balloon left and tied it to the bucket of water guns. The kids LOVED it.

Later, we let a bunch of 4 year-olds take out their aggression on a fire truck pinata (no pull string, just give the preschoolers a stick!), opened presents and had cake.

The kids grabbed a fire pail party favor, and we took the birthday boy out for some hibachi deliciousness where Nugget fell asleep at the table. Now that's what I call agood day!

First day of training in the books!

2011-04-20T20:33:00.003-04:00

Hilarious and available at Zazzle. I may have to get it. Or the shirt.

Not the greatest day, but I got it done. There were many points where I could hear God saying, "STOP! This is not for you!!"

I got up, got the kids up, slapped on my running gear and loaded the car (Strip backpack, Nugget backpack, Nugget lunch, my work bag, Nikon camera, video camera (Nugget had an Easter program today), workout bag, toiletries, work clothes, work shoes, heart rate monitor, heart rate watch, iphone arm band. I think that's it. Oh! I forgot to pack my lunch, so as I grabbed Nugget a snack out of the pantry, I snagged a sleeve of crackers and a jar of peanut butter. Rounded it out with a gatorade in the garage, 2 bottles of water and a cup of applesauce. Gotta love the day after a Costco run). Packing for Disney seems so easy compared to that.

Made it to Strip's school early, although I think we still could have gotten there a few minutes earlier. Scooted up to Nugget's school and this is where things went wrong. I thought I could sneak into the office, drop off my work stuff, unlock and drop my bags in the shower room, drop Nugget at early drop off, run, sneak back into the shower room and be sitting at my desk by 9:00.

I thought wrong.

I unloaded the car (see trunk description above) and dropped my stuff at my desk. Went to unlock the shower building and my key didn't work. Tried the second key and that didn't work. Lugged everything to Nugget's preschool, dropped off my clothes, bag and gatorade in the director's office (glad to have friends in high places!), plopped Nugget's stuff in his room, drug him down to the early drop off room ("Dat's not my class!!") then ducked in the bathroom to put on my heart rate monitor.

Time to hit the road!

Oh look! No sidewalks on my side of the road. After a fun game of frogger, I was cruising (and what a difference running with a fun playlist makes! Thank you, iTunes!). I knew I needed to rock out 2 miles which was good because I was about 15-20 minutes late starting. I had mapped out my path and knew where I needed to turn. Unfortunately, half a mile in, I turned down what I thought was Circle, but turned out to be Court, and I ran a tenth of a mile backtracking. Then there will hills. And very familiar cars.

By the time I made it back to work, I had passed 8 people I knew while running and STILL couldn't get into the shower. Three keys and a custodian later, that problem was solved. And in an impressive Superman-like move, I was showered, dried, re-hydrated, face made-up and dressed within 7 minutes. Why can't Disney have that kind of race?!

After today, the only thing I am thankful for is that there is still a lot of time left on that count down ticker! So ready to be able to be able to breeze through a 10k.

Every once in a while

2011-04-19T12:34:00.006-04:00

I have a good idea. And every once in THOSE whiles, the good idea actually works (that's grammatically correct, right?!).

Here is Strip's bed:

I promise there's a bed under there. We don't make her sleep on a bed frame and a plush wonderland. But as you can tell, she is quickly poising herself for a starring role on Hoarders if we can't let go of these stuffed animals.

I was a stuffed animal lover myself (as a child. They drive me nuts now as a parent), so I know where's she coming from. But her room is smaller than mine was, so the ratio animal to square footage is not so good. As I was cleaning and organizing her room the other day, I started to separate the ones I knew she played with from the ones I'm sure she's forgotten about, and they all ended up back on her bed.

If we can't donate them, we had to come up with a better way to organize them. When I was little, they had hammock type nets that you could hang in the corner of the room and pile them all up. Problems with that? 1. They are ugly 2. her room only has one corner where it would fit and it's over her dollhouse, so they wouldn't be easily accessible and 3 I'd give it 3 minutes before Nugget climbed on the roof of the doll house, crawled into the net and ripped it off the wall meaning we'd have to go to the ER (to patch up Nugget), Home Depot (to patch up the wall) and Costco (because you can't patch up a pressed board doll house).

Option 2, I actually had. It was an ugly, white, plastic chain that you could hang from the ceiling, then hang all of the animals on the chain. Problems with this? 1. It's ugly. 2. There's only one corner of her room where we could hang it (see above) and 3. If the kids thought the poles in our basement (that were there for support. We did not put poles in our basement nor are we pole dancing people) were fun, imagine their delight of climbing a chain resulting in a trip for 2 to the ER along with the above mentioned.

Option 3, Google.

After googling "stuffed animal organization" and passing the other 2 options, I found this bad

boy. It's by Boon and it's a plushy bag with a mesh "window." The kids can stuff it full of their animals, still know that they are there and it becomes a decorative

pillow/seat/whatever in their rooms instead of a gang of plush.

Problems with this? I worried with the way my kids played that they would rip the mesh where it attached to the bag and as much as I'd love another sewing project i have no desire to fix seams and reattach zippers.

Problem 2 is that many of the reviews said it was too big (and they have even bigger ones!). So if I got one for each kid, and they didn't fill them up, there would be a deflated bag of animals on their floor. And if we DID manage to have enough to stuff it full, where would we put the things?!

Problem 3? The price. They averaged $60 each so I would be paying $120 for fuzzy Flex Force garbage bags? I think not.

Garbage Bags....hmmmm..bean bags? Bean bag covers! That's it!! They are basically bean bag covers, but a bean bag cover is MADE to be plopped on and if I got ones like the kids already have, they have super reinforced zippers and seams. I AM A GENIUS!!

But... they just got bean bags for Christmas and the covers weren't cheap. LOVE the quality, but didn't want to buy 2 more. It was time to hit ebay.

I found some in a great selection of colors for less than $7 each. I then noticed they were bean bag OTTOMAN covers. I was about to close the page when I thought, "Even better!!!" I can get TWO per kid and they will be small enough to have little kid seating in their rooms to read books, play, whatever!"

I bought four (gotta love buy it now option) and the seller had them to me super quick! While Strip was at school, Nugget and I got to work.

Step one:

Assess the masses

Step 2

Get to stuffing!!

There's no method to this

madness, just grab an animal

and squish it until it's in the

bag!

Step three

Keep going! You might have to sit down, but keep shoving

those crazy animals/angry birds/grinches into the bag until

full. Then zip em up!

Step 4: Ta da!

Now take a breath of relief. All of those animals (and some who had fallen off the bed) are stuffed snugly into little seats! Out of site for mom, but kids know where they are when they need "students" while playing school! They are on the floor so they can sit on them when playing and are easy to open, get out the animals and stuff for clean up.

And I know what you're looking at. "What's with the unicorn? He's not in there,"

You are right. But he's a pillow, he's a pet, he's a PILLOW PET! So he didn't have to get stuffed in the bag.

Rooms are back under control, and I can now walk by Build-a-Bear without wanting to punch something.

Good idea on paper...

2011-04-16T15:28:00.006-04:00

Or it could be titled, "What was I thinking?!?"

This is the email I received at 10:30 last night:

Yes, you read that correctly. Three registrations for the Disney Wine and Dine HALF MARATHON! I know what you're thinking, "I didn't know you were a runner!" That's because I'm not.

I've always hated running. Even when I played soccer in high school, and we had to run for tryouts, I hated it. I thought people who ran track were insane. What is fun about running around in circles for hours? Running around in circles chasing a ball for hours, I'm totally into, but if no one's holding a cupcake ahead of me or a gun behind me, the idea of running for running seemed silly.

Around St. Patrick's Day, we did a family fun run, and Hubs ran the 5K. We had SO much fun! I had seen the Disney marathon in January and REALLY wanted to do the princess half last year, but that's about as close as I got to doing it.

But the more I thought about running, the more I wanted to do something. When I brought up the idea to Hubs, he informed me that "most people don't just decide they are going to run a half marathon. Usually, you start running. Then you run a few 5k's and maybe a few 10k's THEN you run a half marathon. You don't START with a half marathon."

So why start with the half? Why not! The thought of paying the registration fee and training to run a 5k just seems silly. A 10k, maybe, but if I'm trying for that, why not just do a half? And the biggest reason I want to do it? It's a goal I can set, and once I achieve it, I'll never lose it. I can tell myself I want to be a size 2, work like crazy, walk into the Loft and buy a pair of 2's that are loose, then walk into Nords and not have the 2's go over my knees. I could set a goal weight and NEVER hit that number no matter how hard I work (that number is 120 by the way. I think I passed it in middle school and haven't seen it since). And even if I were able to get down to a goal weight, whatever it is, there's no guarantee I'll stay anywhere near that.

But if I ran, and finished a half marathon, I'll always have that memory and medal.

And why three registrations? I thought it would be fun to challenge Hubs and since UP will be living in FL soon, I thought it would be a great birthday gift for him! Last Sunday, I ordered these from Bondi Band

(I got a purple one for me!) and three 13.1 car magnets I wrapped up the gifts and gave them to Hubs and UP a couple of nights ago. Monday, I bought a band for my phone. Tuesday, I downloaded the Nike+ app. Thursday night, UP and I planned out our training for the next 12-24 weeks. Then I mapped out neighborhood routes and put the final touches on my itunes wish/playlist. Last night I took the big step and actually REGISTERED the three of us and today, I bought a heart rate monitor watch. Basically I've done everything to prepare for this except for run.

Well, that's not true. Thursday, I ran 2.2 miles. Lance Armstrong said I set a new record, but I don't think my time was anything to brag about. This weekend, we've been training really hard on the wining and dining portion of it.

Real running starts Monday! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to figure out how to program my watch!

Ode to a Nugget

2011-04-12T21:11:00.003-04:00

I can't believe my sweet baby boy is FOUR! It seems like only yesterday I was sitting in my nephrologist's office hearing the words, "And if you decide to have anymore kids, we'll need to talk." My response? "Well let's start talking!"

I knew you were a boy from the beginning. With Strip, I gained 55+ lbs and felt fantastic. With you? I started puking at 7 weeks and didn't stop until you were born (literally puked in the OR). Once I started eating again (somewhere around 22 weeks) I remember wanted burgers at 9 am (thank you Grill and Chill for serving burgers at breakfast!) and fountain cokes. I never stopped moving, and neither did you!

You came out a few weeks early and gave us a scare there at first, but made up for lost time in the NICU. I thought because you were surrounded by noises and on a strict feeding schedule, you'd be a breeze. WRONG! Lightest sleeper ever and you'd wake up at 3 am refusing to fall back to sleep.

You were the smiliest baby ever. EVER! You started smiling and laughing early and haven't stopped.

And no one had to really DO anything to make you laugh. I remember crawling in the backseat during the last half hour of a disney commute and just looking at you. You'd giggle hysterically until you got the hiccups that only made you laugh harder.

You crack up all your teachers, the lunch bunch crowd and everyone you come in contact with. You have a great little sense of humor and roll with the punches so well. You're our laid back, go with the flow buddy!

You dare to be different. While most kids learn to crawl, you did the hop scoot. Once you figured out how to sit up on your own, instead of crawling, you'd push off of your ankles and scoot yourself backwards.

You have no fear. NO fear. Well severe weather freaks you out, but other than that? Nothing. A few weeks ago, a frog jumped in front of us, and without hesitation, you went after it with both hands. While your sister and I screamed and squealed, you turned around with both hand gripping a giant, slimy frog! After letting it go, you screamed and laughed hysterically that "he peed in my hand!" A few weeks ago, you came in the kitchen to say, "There's a spider in Strip's room." I told you ok. "Here!" you said as you placed a giant, fuzzy spider on the kitchen counter. I hope you keep that sense of adventure, but would still prefer you hold my hand while crossing the parking lot.

You are strong-willed, stubborn and loud and I wouldn't change a thing about you :-) You keep us laughing and pulling our hair out and I catch myself wondering what you are going to be like in high school and college and what in the world you are going to be when you grow up! These past four years getting to know you have been so much fun and I can't wait to see what the next 365 adventures bring.

Happy Birthday, Nugget!

Sticky Situation

2011-04-11T21:55:00.009-04:00

Recently, we've been letting the kids have gum. There's never been a reason before NOT to, but there's really not been a reason TO give them gum either. It started as a fun treat in the car, and I quickly realized neither kid should have it for opposite reasons.

Strip is just like me; can't physically chew gum without pulling it out of her mouth, stretching it on her fingers and twirling it all over the place which equals sticky, sticky kid.

Nugget? He just swallows it. Oh? We're about to eat? GULP! This piece lost its flavor? GULP! And may I have another piece now? I'm convinced his stomach is now lined with gum and do not see how the kid is still hungry or eating.

So Wednesday night, I'm driving the kids home from church and they ask for a piece of gum. We have to stop at Bed Bath and Beyond so I can get some kcups and we can look for Nugget's birthday present from Strip (a ladybug pillow pet), so I figure why not! And because I'm feeling good, I even let them each have a whole piece.

On the way home from BB&B, I glance back to see Nugget scratching his head...but not chewing.

When we got home? I discovered what I feared. The good news? He did NOT swallow it. The bad news? The gum now solved the cowlick problem...

Now what?!

The first thought that came to mind was peanut butter. The second thought was google. After a quick search, I found that the options were peanut butter, olive oil and ice. Figuring EVOO solved Baby Strip's cradle cap problem, I opted to go with that, so....

Step one: Cover with olive oil:

Step 2: Comb through gum covered area.

Key word? Comb. I looked all over the house and couldn't find one. I had NO desire to ruin an Aveda paddle brush, but then it hit me! BARBIE!

So, step 2a If you can't find a comb, enlist the help of Barbie and/or My Little Pony

Comb through the gum/oil until it's out of the hair (and thank your lucky stars your short-haired boy child did this and not your long-haired girl child.

Step 3: Grab some crusty Italian bread and sop up the excess

because even though your child is now gum-free? He will be oily for the next 2 days.

Nugget is now on a 2 week gum probation.

And you'd think that would solve all of our problems, however, when tossing them in the bath tonight, Strip asked me to help her with her buttons on her dress, which I distinctly remember NOT doing this morning.

"Yeah, my teacher had to button my dress for me!"

Awesome. I can't even get my kid dressed in the morning. I then turn my attention to Nugget who hopped in the tub. I picked up his dirty clothes, but no undies. Yay! He got in the shower with clothes on, AGAIN! I pull back the curtain attempting to snag his batman undies before they are stuck to him, but... no undies.

Back to the pile of clothes. Undershirt, socks, plaid shorts, shirt. No underwear.

"Buddy, did you wear underwear today?"

"I guess not!"

I'm going to have to start patting them down when I tell them good-bye in the morning!

Four years later and his birth is still taking me by surprise.

2011-04-05T22:18:00.002-04:00

You would think that a scheduled c-section for April 26th would mean a well-planned baby and birth. However, Nugget, had other plans, and although his official 40 week date was May 3rd he made us a party of 4 earlier than expected.

The picture above was taken when he was four days old. Almost four years after that picture, you'd THINK that his own MOTHER would have his birthday down. But, with Spring Break, NCY trip and craziness at work, his birthday, once again, totally snuck up on me!

I normally start brainstorming both kids' parties in the fall, but with the move, that didn't happen. I printed out Nugget's birthday invitations last week, gave them to all the boys in his class on Friday and started mentally preparing for his party this weekend.

Today is Tuesday and the RSVP count is zero.

Fearing my sweet baby boy wouldn't have any buddies to celebrate with on Saturday, I started planting the seeds of plan b.

Me: Hey buddy! Do you want to go somewhere super special on Saturday to celebrate your birthday?!

Nug: What?

Me: Maybe a special dinner? We can go ANYWHERE you want to for your birthday. You're the birthday boy, so we can go where EVER you want!!

Nugget: I fink....I wanna eat at home!

Me: Oh, buddy! You want me to fix you something special for your birthday dinner?

Nugget: Yeah!

Me: Ok! What do you want? I'll make anything.

Nugget: Cheese sam-wich.

Me: Really?? Anything in the world and you want a cheese sandwich? You had that for dinner last night!

Nugget: I know. I love it!

Bless his heart, if he stays this easy to please at mealtime, he's going to make a lucky lady very happy one day!

And what is with my kids and their choices of my favorite "cooking?" While in NYC, Strip exclaimed while eating REAL New York pizza, "This is good, but I like yours better!" When I thanked her, she followed up with, "Yeah, you set the timer just right!" Ha! I'm sure their second favorite culinary creation of mine is popcorn.

Meanwhile when I asked Nugget what he wants for his birthday, his list includes a cake with fire on it (check!), balloons (check!!) and a cheese sandwich.

I think four's going to be a great year!

No TV: one week PLUS

2011-03-17T21:09:00.016-04:00

And I caps the "plus," because I'm trying to stretch this as long as I possibly can (which will probably be tomorrow).

So the kiddos have been without tvs or movies since last Wednesday, and it has been SO nice. They are still crazy and semi-whiny, but the quiet, the playing outside, the playing with each other has been a nice change from the , "I WANT THAT!" when commercials come on, pillows being tossed off the couch and the screaming over who sat on whose bean bag that normally linger in the air in the afternoon slump.

I knew as this Wednesday approached, I needed to put on my game face to keep them from gluing their sweet faces to the screen. Yesterday was cake because we were so busy, there was no time for tv, so today? I decided we'd make cake!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! To celebrate we made Taste the Rainbow cupcakes. And a process that normally would take 20 minutes, tops, I managed to stretch into the entire afternoon!

Step one:
Poor cake mix into a bowl.

Step two:
Have kid 1 begin to pour a can of Sprite into the bowl (seriously! No eggs, no oil!) and have kid 2 scream, "Hey! No fair!" Sit Kid 2 on the counter and allow him to pour the second half while he attempts to let his new "pet" chicken help. Fish Chicky Chick Chick out of the batter bowl before he hits and stir cake mix and sprite until smooth.

Step Three:
Divide the batter into 6 separate bowls.

Notice for us, that's 4 salad bowls and 2 of our graduated mixing bowls. Thank you, Crate and Barrel, for discontinuing our everyday pattern right after we got married. Although we originally received/purchased 8 place settings, we're down to 5 bowls. Call ahead if you're coming to dinner and would like a salad. First come, first served!

Also, please note the original directions say to divide EVENLY. I did not do that. That will come back to haunt us in the next step.

Use food coloring to tint the batter 6 different colors. Let the kids count the drops (slowly) and take turns stirring.

Step 4:
Layer the cupcakes.

First, you have to put the liners in the pan. And to do that you have to find your pan. I had a six-cupper in the pantry, but where oh where was my big one?? Checked the kitchen. Nothing. Out in the garage? Wine glasses from Prague and plastic platters from Strip's second birthday, but no cupcake pans. Attic? A giant tub of clothes I SHOULD have sold last week in the consignment sale and an even bigger tub of hangers for said clothes, but still nothing for cupcakes. Thank goodness the things you need are always in the last place you look. The laundry room.

Herd kids and dog back inside and move their scooters out of the way so you don't back over them.

Starting with purple, layer each liner with all 6 colors. Unless of course, you've failed to divide the batter evenly. Then just fill them in the best you can. And notice how those bottom three are a wee bit fuller? That's not going to be good.

Step 5:

CLEAN UP!

Let the kids lick the bowls they made. Then let them argue over what colors they made. Then let them argue because, "Hey, I made the blue and I already licked that bowl!" "Yeah? Well there's still some left, and I'm going to eat it!"

Tell the kids to put the bowls in the sink. Then take that back because we're already down to 5 bowls, we can't afford to loose too many more.

Step 5a
Thank goodness you made him take off the new green polo and also pat yourself on the back for opting to buy the triple jug of bleach from Costco.

Step 6

Bake!

Even though you only use the dry cake mix and a can of sprite, you still cook it just like it says on the box. Here's Nugget checking in on the progress.

Oooooh Mommy! Dey look Booootiful!

Step 7
Remove from oven and let cool.

Remember how the bottom ones were a little fuller? Pretty easy to spot now, huh? Oops!

Let them cool completely. I managed to do this by throwing the last ingredients into the pot of jambalaya and then tossing the kids in the car for a quick trip to the grocery store.

We were out of milk. And Chardonnay.

Step 8

Serve dinner. Even if Jambalaya isn't their favorite, the fun, festive shamrock bowls I snagged on clearance at Target this morning will be a hit.

And green milk! How fun is that?! Green plastic forks leftover from Strip's last birthday, too! Yay!

And in case you're wondering, green milk spills and splatters just as
well as regular milk.

I swear, I'm just going to start offing my kids all-purpose cleaner with their meals. That way when it hits the table or tile, at least they are helping with clean up.

After everyone's made a happy plate, it's time for the cupcakes!

Pick the one you want and peel off the wrapper to reveal the rainbow! Top with a cloud (icing) and eat. Our clouds had sprinkles stirred into them because everything is better with sprinkles.

Yum!

Sweet, rich and delicious!

And after the kids are tucked away in bed and are snoring...

Add a few drops of blue food coloring to a glass of white wine, and...

Leprechaun vino!

And we managed to make it another day without TV!

Tomorrow, we're making play dough.

See you in April, friends!

2011-03-08T21:01:00.002-05:00

Lent completely snuck up on me this year. I was so busy overindulging in new old foods, I completely lost track of my days, and WOW! Ash Wednesday is tomorrow!

So the big question came up. What to give up or take on for the next 40 days? So I'm doing a little bit of both this year. And it starts with deleting an app. Bye facebook! It's a total time suck, BUT I love hearing/seeing what's going on with all my buddies, AND I'm friends with four different Chick-fil-a's in town, so there's free food every Wednesday thanks to facebook.

I'm also giving up booze which will be slightly easier since we have no Trader Joe's here and our wine supply has dwindled considerably.

Taking on? Going old-school Oprah and starting my gratitude journal again. Three things a day I'm grateful for and no cheating with things like, "I'm thankful I woke up this morning," or "I'm thankful for the air I breathe!" Physically looking for good things in the world causes you to create good things in the world, so it's a win win!

We were chatting about Lent and giving things up and why over dinner tonight and I asked Strip if she wanted to give anything up. She suggested desserts (which made me think of UP's bff who would always give up "dessert" but then would justify eating anything sweet as long as it wasn't AFTER a meal -- hello breakfast cake!). I reminded her that we were going to New York the end of the month and it might be hard to turn up the Big Apple's sweets! I told her when I was in school, we'd give up one thing per week during Lent, and she thought that sounded like a good idea. She mentally checked her calendar and has decided that this week, she's giving up tv and next week is dessert. We'll see how these couple of weeks go and take it from there!

So see you the end of April, Facebook! And blog/twitter followers, get ready for more from me in the next week or so. I'll probably be turning to typing to push through the facebook withdrawal.

Really wishing I would have held on to some of my maternity clothes

2011-03-01T21:39:00.002-05:00

Because I'm seeing a great need for stretchy pants in my near future.

A couple of years ago, I re-discovered my egg allergy. Then a few weeks later, I discovered I was allergic to everything else. But I always had the theory that I was actually allergic to the town. On my way home from the doctor, I drove past a wheat field on my left, a corn field on my right and knew there was a soy bean field up ahead. When I brought up the correlation of environment and food allergy, my allergist shrugged it off and encouraged me to continue not eating.

So the bright side of moving was knowing I was going to have to find a new allergist, and knowing they don't grow ANY of my major allergies down here, I was hopeful I'd be able to start eating again. With my epi pen about to expire, I made an appointment with a great allergist whose earliest appointment was in July.

Awesome.

I told the nurse to put me on the cancellation call list, and I was shocked when 2 hours later, they called saying there was a cancellation and the doctor could see me the next morning at 8:30 am. They prepared me that it would be a long appointment, and to be ready to stay an hour maybe an hour and a half. I let work know I'd be a little late, charged up the leapster batteries and Nugget and I headed to meet the MD.

While he's a great doctor, he looked like he was fighting REALLY hard not to roll his eyes at my previous doctor's diagnosis. He laughed off my list of food avoidances and when asked if I'd ever been allergic to anything in the past. I told him I was allergic to milk, eggs, poultry when I was younger, but kind of outgrew them and was able to eat pretty much anything except for straight up eggs from high school on up.

"You don't just wake up and become allergic to foods you've been eating for years."

Um. Yeah doc. Took the words right out of my mouth. Let's get this testing started!

The nurse came in with the trays of needles, I laid on my stomach and she began to draw. Then she ran out of room. Then she had to erase some lines and draw some more.

68 pin pricks later, I was instructed to stay on my stomach and try not to move. She looked at Nugget and asked if we'd be ok. I told her between my phone and his leapster, I'm sure we could make it for the 20 minutes I needed to be still. She told me she'd check on me and if I needed, she'd entertain Nugget.

10 minutes later, she peeked in, and Nugget and I were working on our letters with Mr. Pencil. She asked how I was feeling and I said I was a little itchy. She walked over to the table to take a peek and let out an audible gasp/shriek.

Me: That good, huh?

Nurse: Ummm.. did you know you were allergic to anything when you came in?

Me: Oh yeah, I'm allergic to everything.

Nurse: Oh thank goodness! I'll be back in 10!

And she was back in 10 with two additional nurses to help read off and record everything I'm allergic to. We celebrated in my negatives which include horses, red cedar and pine. So I can finally buy that pony and ride through certain forests. Yay!

Nurse 3 said she'd be back with something for the itching and swelling and nurse 1 took me down for my breathing test. These have also become more fun over the years! Now, they're hooked up to a computer that shows the image of a tree and you have to blow the leaves off of the tree (and there are little monkeys hanging out in the tree. Fun!). I failed that test. I had a feeling it was because I was having minor allergic reactions to 67 different things, but whatever.

Nurse 2 brought in a nebulizer, and I inhaled a little Zopenex and attempted the test again (10% improvement). Meanwhile, I inform nurse 1 that neither nurse 2 or 3 brought me anything for my my itching back and I was about to start scratching my back on the nearest tree. She brought me something to take for it right about the time I'm looking at my test results and realize she forgot to stab me with the corn needle. It became a race against antihistamines! She stabbed me with the corn needle and we waited to see if it was negative (and might be because I already had the meds in me) or positive and I was allergic even with meds.

It was positive.

In comes the doctor. He took a look at my chart and those rolled eyes popped wide open. We went over my results, and I re-stated my opinion about food vs. environment. He looked at my chart and said, "That makes total sense. We don't test for those pollens because no one grows that stuff down here, but looking at the way you react to pollens and grasses, you could have been fighting off them as pollen, then when you ingested them, your body just couldn't handle it."

Booyow! Just call me Mommychick, MD. He thinks, because I'm out of growing lands, I might actually be able to eat again. So I have my little list, and just like a baby, if I'm reaction free after a week of reintroducing a food, I can move on to the next. Because we know I'm not allergic to peanuts, he suggest I try soy because they have some connection. He has hopes that between allergy shots and tiny bites, I can be eating the majority of my list by this summer.

The ones I can't ever try? Eggs and Peas. Yup. PEAS! So every time my mom said, "You will sit at that table until you're finished with those," and she was talking about peas, she was killing me slowly.

Second Honeymoon!

2011-02-17T20:50:00.004-05:00

When the basement flooded we had it cleaned, sprayed with anti-microbial stuff, carpet and padding ripped up, dehumidified and fitted with nicer rubber padding and soft, delightful carpet. We HAD to do this because I have a severe allergies to mold, and we just couldn't take the chance. EVERY time we went down there to watch a movie, I would end up sucking down half a bottle of benadryl. I convinced myself it was all in my head.

Move on over to the new house and Hubs is going through basement boxes and organizing his office. He gets to a giant blue tub and opens it up.

Mold, mildew and memories.

It seemed there was a crack in the bottom of the rubbermaid tub, so while we thought it was fine from the flood, water had leaked in and ruined everything in the tub. Yearbooks from college, a scrapbook I'd started my freshman year, pictures, and our honeymoon pictures. Granted, Hubs spent more time puking in the toilet than hanging out with me, but about 3 hours before the Mexican sushi hit him, we were snorkeling, swimming with dolphins and paying way too much money for 8x10's of us posing with parrots. They were now ripply and covered with mildew/mold.

That settled it! A second honeymoon we needed. And just in time, we were headed out to Colorado for a ski trip! Woo hoo!

We drove up a night early so we wouldn't be rushed to get to the airport, and the Holiday Inn Express gave us a lovely room...with 2 double beds. Hubs called down to see if we could get a room where we wouldn't have to I Love Lucy it, and not only did they move us to a room with a king bed, we got this:

Nice.

Yup that's a heart-shaped jacuzzi tub in the room with a stability bar. Not enough bleach in the world.

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so Hubs got a shoe shine and I ran, well rode, to concourse E just to get a Caribou Coffee. Yumm. We met up with the other 2 couples at our gate and were ready to board. That's when we all pulled out our tickets to compare loading zones. Hubs got to go on first. Normally he would have just stayed behind to load with us, but with all of the charging for bags and more carry ons, he loaded first and took two of the group's carry on bags to get a good spot.

And boy did they.

I some how end up loading in the last group and look up from my ticket to see my sweet husband sitting in first class.

"I'm so sorry, I tried to get them to switch me and you, but the flight is super booked and they wouldn't let me..."

WOW.

I reported to the emergency exit row to find someone sitting in my seat. REALLY?!

"Oh! Do you mind? I was going to sit in the middle so we could sit together, but if you don't want the aisle, we can move."

"No, that's ok, my husband just upgraded himself to first class. Apparently I'll sit anywhere."

I settle in with my new friends, Chris and Christie, who prove that you may not be able to upgrade your ticket to first class, but you can upgrade your carryon to a mini bar. As soon as the drink cart came by, they requested oj and cranberry, then whipped out the mini-bottles. They kindly offered to spike my drink, but I figured someone on the exit row needed to be sober enough to pull the handle and push out the slide, so I stuck to my diet coke.

One thing I noticed on this flight? NO one is cranky on a flight to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. No one. Which makes sense. Everyone there was either heading back to a home they loved or heading out for an awesome vacation. And apparently, no one was more excited to get to CO than the guy sitting across from me. And boy was he popular. Every 2 minutes, some new booty was coming over to chat, and in an effort not to yell, every person would LEAN OVER providing me with a great view of their back pockets. Yay.

We land, grab our bags, hop on our shuttle and are off to the lodge. And it was amazing. So great! Fantastic view of the gondola, ski in, walking distance to the market, fire place, just wonderful. I wanted to write Florida a letter and ask it to send the kids and dog on over because I wasn't leaving. But the real test was skiing. I use to be pretty good, but I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I had nothing to lose. Get hurt? Sit out a couple of weeks of high school! Now? Kids, life, dog, cooking, cleaning, life. Too much in the way to risk falling and breaking something. So we took it slow. Like riding a bike! I have to thank p90x, because after a full day on skis, the only part of me that was sore was my ankles from where my under armour was cutting off my circulation.

We spent three fantastic days skiing and I think we need to do that at least twice a year. It was so much fun and Steamboat was just beautiful. It was like Disney covered with snow. Actually better! Wait, did I just say that?! My reason is, in Disney, you have all of these parents stressed about making this the once-in-a-lifetime-fantastic vacation and end up giving you a fantastic place to kick back and take in some light verbal abuse (You WILL ride the tea cups and you WILL like it! I don't care if you're tired, we're walking over to do Splash Mountain NOW because our fast passes are about to be up. You can almost hear the implied, "damn it!"). But a skiing vacation? "Great job!" "You're doing awesome!" "Way to keep those skis together!" "Go for that jump!" And adorable? Little kids in ski clothes. My only problem was the fact that mid-mountain greens included very narrow paths with very steep drop-offs. As in, off the side of a mountain. I found Hubs and I skiing WITH the 3 year-olds, trying to act like their safety net (but in reality, they were better skiers than we were. Got to love the low center of gravity and no fear!).

Perfect weather, perfect food, perfect accommodations, perfect company and it was time to go back home. At the airport, Hubs was upgraded to first class, and he kindly tried to get me moved to the window seat. In the exit row. But in the process of doing this, the gate attendant somehow deleted the entire reservation. Except me. So I'm in the exit row, window, Hubs gets moved up to first class, and as an apology, they move the other two couples to bulkhead. AND, somehow, I get to board AFTER the stand-by people. I shuffle to my seat to find that I am sitting next to the tallest man alive who is taking up all of my arm rest, and because I'm on the exit row, I don't have an arm rest on the left, just a lump of padding on the door that leads to the wing. I'd lean on it, but the door has a giant crack in it that looks to be held together with clear nail polish.

There was free in-flight tv which seemed to work on every head rest except for mine. So I pulled out the nook, but the battery was dead. Thank goodness Aunt Becky sent me a real book, so I had something to do on the way home.

So while skiing was FANTASTIC, as far as honeymoons go, I'm hoping third time's a charm!

Credit Cards roasting on an open fire...

2011-02-03T20:14:00.003-05:00

Let me preface this by saying I HATE credit cards. Hate 'em.

Hubs and I have been working through Financial Peace for about three years now, becoming credit card and medical debt free last April. Last year, I found the perfect father's day gift for Hubs, but since he would be looking at the bank account to pay bills, he would totally catch me. I had the cash in my automatic deposit account, but since I do everything online, I had no debit card or checks tied to it. So I did what every Dave Ramsey graduate should never do; I opened a credit card at my favorite warehouse store.

Now before you go throwing rocks at me, as soon as I got home, I set up the account online and tried to pay it, but you have to wait until the statement closes before you can (oh yes, now I remember why I hate this credit card company!). Not a problem! I set an alarm to remind me to pay it the hour I could, and that was that.

But I didn't close the account and carried the card in my wallet because I lost my warehouse card and you can use the credit card without actually having to charge your purchases.

Excuses, excuses.

So we move down here and we head to the warehouse store because we need a few things for the house. Those few things turn into an entertainment center, king mattress, cleaning products for the house. A tiny bit of money is in our old state bank account (that has no branches down here) and the other account where paychecks have been deposited, we have no debit card/checks yet. No problem! I say. We'll just put it on my card and I'll pay it off next week when we get all of our account stuff settled. We have the cash and then some, we just don't have access to it.

After Christmas, I go to get food to re-stock our bare pantry, freezer and fridge, and because I didn't check with Hubs about where all of our money was, I just put those purchases on the card as well.

A couple of weeks later, I go to pay off the card. It shows my 2 purchase dates, and a minimum payment of $19. I go to the "Pay Bill" section, and it is only letting me pay the first charge, not the additional groceries. I try to type in the full amount and it won't let me. I go back and look again and realize that the "statement closed" the day after charge 1, and charge 2 is on a separate statement. I call the company and they tell me that I can only pay off the first charge, and I can pay off the second charge Thursday. Grrrrr.

Thursday, we left to go skiing (more on that later), so I didn't get on and pay it. Tuesday, I get online to pay it, and I have a $25 late fee, and $26 in interest and fees.

I am not happy.

So I call. And here's the conversation. My favorite part is bolded.

Barry: Thank you for calling CC company, what can I do for you?

Me: I'd like to cancel my card.

Barry: And may I ask why?

Me: Yes, I remembered this month that I HATE your company and was reminded why I cancelled my card many years ago.

Barry: Ummm ok....can you be more... specific?

Me: Sure! (explain what happened with the charges/payments).

Barry: Let me see what I can do!

Me: Great!

*****hold music******

Barry:Ok! I will be more than happy to wave the $25 late fee.

Me: Ok. What about the interest on charges I tried to pay off, but couldn't.

Barry: I can't do anything about that, but I STRONGLY encourage you to keep your account open.

Me: Humor me.

Barry: Well, I'm looking at your account, and you're loyalty points are up at the end of this month, and CC company is going to send you a check for a percentage of your purchases!

Me: No, I get my percentage check from the warehouse in March.

Barry: Yeah, but WE send you one, too! If you keep your account open, you'll get $22 at the end of this month!

Me: REALLY BARRY?! If I let you charge me interest on purchases I tried to pay off immediately, you'll pay me back the cash back I earned making said purchases which will be less than the interest charges? So I get to pay you $4 for rewarding me?

Barry: Ummm...

Me: This is my problem, Barry. If I charge the account, I want to be able to pay it off immediately. Instead, your company doesn't let me do that and there for screws me with interest charges, is that correct?

Barry:Yeah, that's pretty much how our Credit Card company works.....

Me: Yeah, so I'm just going to cut my losses and be done with it.

Barry: hang on one more minute...

*****hold music*****

Barry: Ok. Here's the deal. I can't credit you the interest charges, BUT if you agree to keep your card open, we'll give you a $30 thank you credit.

Me: Fine.

Barry: I just have to get you on tape saying that you agree to the terms.

Me: Let's do it.

Barry: Credit Card company will credit MommyChick $30 as a thank you for your loyalty, if you agree, please say, "yes."

Me: Yes.

Barry: Great! Now, we'll credit your account the $30 if you are in good standing with your account at the time of crediting which will be in the next 8-12 weeks.

Me: Ha! Sure. I will pay it off right now and either set fire to the card or put it in my freezer until I get my $30 credit.

Barry: Ummm.. anything else I can do for you?

Me: Nope, I'm good. Thanks Barry!

Barry: Have a nice day...

I couldn't believe that the CC dude actually admitted, on tape, yup, we specifically designed this card to screw you over. At least Barry was honest. And as soon as my $30 credit posts, we'll be having ourselves a little bbq. No paper, just plastic.

Need for speed

2011-02-01T19:03:00.002-05:00

The other day, I was taking Strip to school. I was cruising down the road, approaching the school zone. When I looked down to check my speed, I noticed I was doing zero. Hmmmm.

So today, on the way home from her doctor's appointment, I felt like I was going a little slow, glanced down and it said I was going 65.

Something's not right.

The following conversation took place:

Me: Remind me when we get home that I need to tell Daddy I HAVE to take my car to the shop.

Strip: Shop? What shop?

Me: The car shop where they fix cars.

Strip: Why? What's wrong with your car?

Me: Something's up with the speedometer.

Strip: Really?

Me: Yeah, the other day when I took you to school, I was probably doing about 35 and it said I was doing zero.

Strip: What?!

Me: I know! And now we are barely moving and it says I'm pushing 70!

Strip: Oh my word!

Me: I know!

Strip: I have no idea what any of those words mean, but it sounds crazy!

Ha! On top of not knowing how fast I was actually going, I almost ran off the road laughing! She goes above and beyond the nod and smile!

And I know exactly where I lost that weight...

2011-01-25T10:10:00.003-05:00

(picture from wikipedia. pretty colors!)

My brain must be a few pounds lighter because I.am.an.idot.

As mentioned before, my Monday didn't get off to a stellar start. But, the kids had school, and I had errands to run. I spent Sunday shopping, so Monday was set for returning/exchanging, and to avoid the car seat pass around, I just took Hubs' truck out on my Sunday Shopping Spree.

Little word of advice; if you live in a snowy place and are moving to Florida, but know you are going skiing sometime after the new year, go ahead and buy your ski clothes and gear while up north. Florida has very little to offer in the way of ski apparel.

I was feeling good! Hit Sports Authority to return the extra UA shirt I bought, then over to Bed Bath & Beyond to return a broom and canister and swap out the k-cups I bought.

I pulled into the mall just as they opened and got a great parking spot that I could even pull through! I bought three pairs of jeans at the Gap yesterday (new favorites are Long and Leans which is odd because I consider myself neither long, nor lean), but I mistakenly picked up a sexy boot cut that looked not so sexy on me, AND Gap sent me a mystery coupon for 20% off my purchase, so I wanted some money back. Gap gal was super nice and we swapped everything out in no time.

Then it was onto the Banana where I needed to trade out a sweater because I think I like the lighter color better. In and out of the dressing room, even exchange, and I'm on my way! I had a few dollars left on my Starbucks gift card, so treated myself to a little something warm, then sauntered over to Bath and Body works. The Christmas candles I use in the dining room were 75% off, so I stocked up and ended up getting a free thing of soap.

This day's turning out better than I thought!

Knowing that I needed to start my way back up to get Nugget, I went ahead and dug out my keys continuing to sip my 'Bucks and savor these last quiet steps to the car.

Then I looked in my hand and noticed I was holding MY keys. Mine. Not Hubs'.

Hmmm. I dug around in my purse (which is really a glorified epi pen holder), and they weren't there.

I checked my gap bag. Nothing but receipts and denim....

Silly me! I bet I set them down on the counter at Gap and left them there! Good thing Gap's on the way back to the car!

Gap Girl: You ready to check out?

Me: No I already did, but I think I left my keys here. Did you find them?

Gap Girl: Nope! No keys this morning!

Me: Grrrreat. Mind if I dump my stuff out and dig here on the counter?

Gap Girl: No, go right ahead.

We dig and pat everything I have, and nothing. At this point, my head is reeling. He's going to kill me! I have MY keys and HIS keys, so he can't even drive over here and meet me. Knowing my luck, because I grabbed my keys, his car is probably still running with the key in it. Which means someone probably stole the car. Oh my bathtubs, what am I going to do?!?

Gap Girl: Want to call someone?

Me: Yeah, I'll just call my husband (pulls out my phone). UGH and now my phone's dead!

Gap Girl: You can use the store's phone if you want!

Me: I don't know his number! He got a new cell phone and I haven't memorized the number yet. I'll go check the car and see if I can see them....

Gap Girl: Good luck! Come back if you need to call AAA or something!

Me: Thanks.

Now I AM getting a leg workout today because I am kicking myself through the mall. Think. THINK! You had to have the keys in your hand because you locked the door and heard it honk. Visualize driving into the parking lot. Where did you park? Oh! Remember, there weren't spots RIGHT at the front, but you pulled through a spot near the department store. Yes! Because I remember saying to myself, "It is SO much easier to park my car than Hubs' car..."

My car. I am in my car today. Which explains why I have MY keys.

I decided to go ahead and get to Nugget's school early, just incase I forgot where I was going along the way.

Not gonna bring it...

2011-01-24T07:29:00.002-05:00

This morning was our "rest" day in the p90x week. So, Hubs got up at 5:30 and started poking/shaking me.

Hubs: Come on! We can do the stretching dvd. One hour of stretching!

Me: No. I'm resting.

Hubs: You don't want to do the stretch dvd.

Me: No, I want to sleep.

Hubs: FINE.

Me: Goodnight.

Hubs got up to stretch, and I so should have joined him. Strip, who had been in our bed since around 3 am, took Hubs' absence as an invitation to turn sideway. Zoe then turned into a dog blanket, stretching herself out across both of us. Nugget came in and wanted to chat. Then he wanted a tissue. I told him to go get some toilet paper out of the bathroom. Our bathroom doors are pocket/sliding doors, and Nugget loves to open and close and lock them while "playing Polar Express."

So he did.

About 5 minutes later, he wanted a tissue again, so I told him, again, to go in our bathroom and get some toilet paper. But, Mr. Polar Express locked the door and couldn't get it open. So he cried.

FORGET IT! I'M AWAKE!

I get the kids in the kitchen to have breakfast, serve up some oatmeal and was emptying the dishwasher. I was down to the last thing, a one cup Pyrex measuring cup, which slipped right out of my hands, crashing onto the tile floor. As I watched it fall in slow motion, I remembered watching a How It's Made about Pyrex. I think it was originally the brainchild of an engineer who was trying to protect the lights on a train (or something like that), and while it didn't work, his wife thought it would make rockin' bakeware. Boy was she right! It's virtually indestructible!

It is, however destructible, if you drop it on the cold, tile floor at 6:15 AM.

Yay.

Oh. Right before that happened, Nugget fed Zoe, but I could hear her lapping up water and not eating. Worried she was sick, I peaked around the corner to see that Nugget dumped 3/4 cup of dog food into her water bowl. I asked him to try again while I poured the dog food water down the disposal. When I turned it on, it made a HORRIBLE sound. I knew that the disposal that came with the house wasn't great, but I figured it could handle soggy dog food.

Ohhh, there's a spoon lodged in there.

This is such a Monday.

Hubs walked in as I shattered the measuring cup and offered to clean it up for me (THANK YOU HUBS!).

Before he got in the shower, he was going to weigh himself.

::Side Note:: Our scale broke a year or so ago, so we've been using the wii fit/board as our scale. I've gained every time Hubs has lost. Yesterday, I weighed and had gained 1.3 lbs. I was about to throw the board out of the window when it asked why I thought I had been gaining weight. Choices were along the lines of, "Eating too late," "Not exercising," "Late Night Snacking," etc, so I chose, "I don't know." Wii fit had the audacity to lecture me on the importance of exercising and how it can jump start my metabolism, blah blah blah. Oh, shut it, wii fit board.

Hubs asked if I wanted to weigh and I figured, why not. I had not worked out since yesterday and had a couple of glasses of red wine last night.

Down 3.6 lbs.

Wouldn't you know.

I highly doubt that I'll be able to tell Hubs, "No, I'm just going to sleep in and throw some stuff around the kitchen this morning. That will help me lose!" when the alarm goes off tomorrow, but we'll see.

BRING IT!

2011-01-22T20:53:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned before, ~~Hubs~~ Zoe gave me the p90x dvd set for Christmas (if you've never heard of it, you can read more about it, and other beach body workouts HERE). I tried plyometrics with UP when he was visiting and WOW did it work you. I decided to try plyo again after Christmas, and WOW did it work me again.

After hobbling around for a few days after, Hubs was intrigued.

Hubs: So what did you do?

Me: Plyometrics. It's a lot of jumping around.

Hubs: Sounds tough.

I told him to try it and I was going to sit on the couch eating cake while he vomited on himself.

In the end, I decided to join him. Hubs was hooked. Next thing I know, we're at Costco buying bulk ingredients to make our morning smoothies, and he comes home with free weights, a door mounted pull up bar and two sets of resistance bands. I've created a monster.

And to add to it, he decided that we need to get up and work out in the morning before the kids get up. Nothing like kick starting your day at 5:30 AM with the hardest workouts ever.

We've almost completed week one and I LOVE IT! Insanely challenging workouts. Things I would never do or try otherwise. And it changes every day! Day one had me doing pull ups. Pull ups?! IN the words of UP, "When was the last time you did one of those?!" Ummm second grade maybe? Back when I was doing jump rope for heart? But I pushed through and finished the dvd. Next up was Plyo again. I was impressed that I made it through the entire dvd and didn't fall over!

Day three was chest and arms with an ab ripper. I remember the feeling when I was pregnant with Strip and my abdominal muscles separated. Ab ripper was kinda like that, just over and over again, constantly for 15 minutes. Day four was yoga and I was SUPER excited for this day. Hubs did really well on yoga, too (which kinda shocked me as he'd never done it before and this was NOT easy). This morning, we did legs and arms with an ab ripper, and while I've been sore all week, I feel good.

On top of the changing workouts, I like the people on the dvds doing it, too. Wanna know why? They are in incredible shape, but are sweating like crazy and shaking on some of the moves. There is nothing more discouraging than attempting to do pilates, shaking and dry heaving, and looking at four perfect girls, with perfect hair, not even breaking a sweat. You can almost hear them saying, "I could do v-ups all day!" through their smiling, clenched teeth.

I told myself I wasn't going to weigh during the first few weeks, but Hubs wanted to, so on day 4, we hopped on the wii. He was down 8.6 lbs.

My turn! Up 1.3. Yay.

It must be all of the muscle I'm ripping.

It's going to be a fun ride for the next 86 days!

Hubs. The sweetest jerk I know.

2011-01-20T21:45:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas to the adults!

Like Nugget, Hubs wanted "Jus one fing" for Christmas. And I was SO excited to find it two days before Christmas. He wanted a heart rate monitor gps watch. Because he's an avid runner? Nope. But he couldn't BE an avid runner without a heart rate monitor gps watch! I was going to wrap up a picture, but I found IT! I couldn't wait for Christmas (all 48 hours!).

I really didn't have a lot on my list, but had decided with gift cards I'd been hoarding, I was going to buy myself a Nook. Just when I decided to do that, they came out with the Nook color, and I like it more, so I continued the hoarding.

Christmas morning arrived, and Hubs distributed his annual Christmas card, stocked with a few lotto cards. Mine, was especially thick. In it, I not only found a few lucky scratch offs, but a Nook color brochure! Hubs said, "Merry Christmas" and I may or may not have squealed a little. Then I thought about it.

Me: "So is this a, 'Merry Christmas, go buy yourself a Nook' or 'Merry Christmas, if you win big with these tickets, go buy yourself a Nook' kinda thing?

Hubs: rolls eyes Merry Christmas.

I won nothing. Who cares? I'm heading to B&N tomorrow. But this kinda sucks because Hubs will get to play with his new toy in about 30 minutes and I can't until tomorrow. Score another for me!

Next, I open UP's card, and in it is a gift card for B&N with a note saying, "Go by a book for your Nook, I hope?" Boo-yow! I said as I held up my brochure. New book for me on my Nook tomorrow!

I give Hubs his gift and he is beyond thrilled, that is until he opens it, and I discover I got the exact watch he wanted, minus one letter, which apparently meant it was just the gps watch, not the heart rate monitor. Oh well. His birthday's right around the corner, now I had a gift idea (side note, I found the right one at Costco a week later).

Next up, a gift for me! As I was tearing off the paper, Hubs stopped me, and said, multiple times, "This one is from Zoe. ZOE. This is from the dog, not me."

I had no clue why he was so adamant the dog get credit for a gift, until under the paper, I spied the words "beach body." HA! The one thing I did, actually, ask for was the set of p90x dvds. Hubs just didn't want to seem like the jerk who gave his wife a set of workout dvds! Thanks Zoe! New Year's resolution is ON.

A little while later, I open a card from Hubs. In it, a gift card from B&N and a note saying, "I hope this puts you over the top and you can go buy your Nook!" Gift Card Amount: $10.

You have got to be kidding me.

I sat there for a second, trying not to sound like an ungrateful witch, but still confused because I thought an hour or so ago, he gave me the nook. Now, it was more like he was giving me the finger.

Me: So I can't get the Nook?

Hubs: Yeah! You said you had a ton of gift cards, right? Did that put you over?

Me: Umm no that put me about $60 short.

And we moved on. Ok. Guess I'm not getting a Nook. Or I'm not getting it until our anniversary maybe.

After things were winding down, Hubs had one more gift for me. Wouldn't you know, it was a box with a Nook color, charger and cover. I'm sure I should have said, "Awwwe THANK YOU!," but I'm pretty sure what slipped out was, "You jackass!" So I used my gift cards to load some books on my new Nook (and then I had a glass of Pinot Noir and added a few more!), and have been pouring through books since the first of the year (another reason why I haven't had time to write)!

Any good book suggestions?

Merry Christmas, Kiddos!

2011-01-08T15:09:00.004-05:00

First off, Happy New Year! No, we're not dead, just crazier than usual with moving over Christmas.

Santa was good to everyone in our house. We spent it with PaPa and Ma and UP at the parent's house, and first, can I say that I've ALWAYS dreamt of a white Christmas? Lived for two years in a snowy wonderland, where it miraculously NEVER snowed on Christmas. Move to Florida, spend Christmas in Georgia and it SNOWS the day after Christmas. Madness! Although I had to laugh when Nugget looked out of the window and said,

Nugget: What's wrong wif da snow?

Me: What do you mean?

Nugget: Why it's not in da trees?!

I explained that Georgia snow was a little different than the snow we were use to and just enjoy watching it fall because that's about as good as it gets.

Anyway, Christmas morning!

Lots of people asked me if I was going nuts trying to shop and have things delivered where ever for Christmas. Nope! While patting myself on the back, I explained that I had ALL of my shopping done before we even found out that we were moving, so yay me! Then, there were a couple of problems.

1. Bean bags. Santa was bringing the kids bean bags for Christmas and he found them on Clearance at Target for $13 in August. Woo to the hoo! Who cares if they are black and not the greatest? They are going in the basement and the kids will love them! Only now, there isn't a basement and the kids stuff will be in full view... and the covers don't come off which are going ot make them hard to wash and monogram... Crud! LandsEnd to the rescue! I ordered them, had them delivered to GA. Good to go! Until I get an email stating that the monogrammed covers are on backorder until January 7th. Hmmm. No worries! I'll just get some letters and stick them on the white beanbags with a note from Felix saying their covers will be waiting for them when they get to Florida. But, as luck would have it, I got another email saying they were shipped early, and the covers arrived at the house ON Christmas eve. Hooray!

2. Nugget.

Here's Nugget talking to Santa. Wanna know what he's saying?

"I want ONE fing, Santa. Just one fing. A Polar Depressed train. Das it."

Well, I know they make a Polar Express (depressed) train. It's by Lionel. It's gigantic. And most importantly, it's over $500. I love you buddy, but NO! So I took him by the train store, we found the P.D. and he hugged the box for 20 minutes. Awesome.

So we found the train man who runs the store. I stood behind Nugget, OBVIOUSLY nodding my head yes while saying, "Don't you have to be MUCH older than three to get the Polar Express train? It's for big boys who are ten, right? You can't get that train when you are only three, can you?" nod nod nod nod nod.

The confused store owner looked at me, looked at nugget, back at me and said, "Uhhhh, yes?"

We went back to hug the box, and sure enough! Ages 8 and up. YES! I win! Pick something else buddy. But did he? Nope. Because Das all he wanted.

With 5 days until Christmas, I find a smaller version of the Polar Depressed that is not only cheaper, it's remote controlled, so he won't electrocute himself. Score! Only problem is it's in PA and I need it in GA ASAP. I click the two day shipping, kicking myself for waiting until the last minute. I figure it's Sunday, so hopefully they will get the order Monday, process it Tuesday and ship it Wednesday, getting it to us by Friday at the latest.

Ring! Ring!

It's PA calling. I'm petrified they are calling to say that the train is no longer available, and when I don't get to the phone in time, I wait for voicemail to pick up. One new message.

Hi! This is soandso calling from the Train Store in PA. I got your order, but when I put it in, it looks like UPS will deliver it on Wednesday with 2 day air OR ground, so if it's ok with you, I'll just send it ground and credit your card with the extra $40. Just give me a call if that's alright! Thanks!

Umm yeah that's ok! But problem 2 lead to problem 3. Strip! If Santa is bringing them even stuff, and now he's bringing Nugget the P.E. he has to bring Strip something equally as cool, too. Why did I even bother to shop before the last week of Christmas?! Under control! The Tangled Tower! She'll love it! She asked Santa for a second doll house so she could start a neighborhood, so this will be sort of close to that. AND I have a $20 credit to the Disney store! Come on, Hubs! We're heading to the mall!

Problem 4? Our mall doesn't have a Disney Store. What?! No problem! We'll pay full price at Target (yes, we have 2 Targets! Whew!). Unfortunately, not only do they NOT have the Tower, they don't have anything Tangled at ALL! So I suck it up and call Wal-Mart. Two left and Tony is going to hold one for me!

So, Christmas was a success! Nugget was right, he really did only want ONE thing for Christmas. He (and Hubs, and PaPa and Up) played Polar Express the entire weekend and he (knock on wood) hasn't destroyed it yet! Strip was slightly disappointed that she didn't get a second gigantic doll house, but agreed that the Tangled Tower would up the property value of the other doll house, so it was fine. Now the only question that remains is where are we going to put all of this stuff!?

Let the adventure begin!

2010-12-22T17:58:00.003-05:00

Well, we miraculously were able to shove everything in our house into one, giant moving truck, said goodbye to every room in our house and hit the road! We were left with a final snowy night and a little snowy drive, and were at PaPa and Ma's in time for a late supper. Hubs and I were hitting the road on Saturday, but weren't in any big rush. That is, until we were ready to go.

Hubs started getting antsy about getting a move on, but really had no good reason, just, "I wanna get there before...it's dark?" So as we were loading up (again), Ma announced that she needed to run a quick errand and she'd be right back. Cuz had just dropped off her 2 year-old to play, so we thought it best not to leave them all unattended. So we waited.

And waited.

Ma returned, I had to run a quick errand before we left town, and we were on the road! THAT's when it hit Hubs. We did a remote closing on our new house, so our realtor had dropped our keys in Hubs' po box. And our po box is at a place that closes at 5:00 PM. And a place that's not open on Sunday. Sunday would be the day the truck was arriving to the house we had no keys to, and according to Garmin, our arrival time was 5:04 PM.

We called the Postal Place, and the girl said, "No worries! Take your time! Call me along the way, and if it's after 5:00, I can just scoot back over. I live RIGHT around the corner." Now, if I owned a mail place and had someone coming just after closing, I would just stay until they got there, but whatever.

We pulled into the city limits and gave her a call. After 4 rings, the call went to voicemail. No problem! She probably didn't recognize the number. We left a message and continued toward the mail place. When we pulled up, we were greeted with the CLOSED sign and dark windows. So we called again. Not only was there no answer, her voicemail was full.

Uh oh.

Luckily there was a bonefish nearby, so we decided to hang out there while we waited. As we enjoyed a celebratory chardonnay, we started weighing the cost of a locksmith vs breaking a window. Then we remembered that ALL of our closing paperwork was with the keys, in the po box at the now closed postal place. And seeing as we had out-of-state licenses and out-of-state cell phone numbers, it was going to be hard to convince a locksmith to open a strange house on a pinky promise that it was ours.

Finally, after figuring out what window to break, the girl called us back and we were able to free our keys! We drove over to the house, walked around and figured we'd scoot over to the grocery store to pick up some staples to tide us over. $96 and a redbox movie later, we were ready to go! We turned right out of the parking lot and the blue lights start flashing.

AWESOME.

I was digging around through the glove box looking for the registration (which, since it's a company car, I'm not even sure it had been put in Hubs' name yet) and we were both trying desperately to figure out what law we'd broken after coming to a complete stop and driving 5 mph. Turns out, when Hubs had his oil changed that day, they hit a reset button and triggered his automatic lights so they don't come on any more. WHEW! He made sure we got the lights on, waved and said, "Welcome to Florida!" and we were off.

PaPa and Ma lent us their 2 twin air mattresses, and we bought a crackling duraflame log, so we were ready to spend our first night in the new house. We blew up the beds, got the fire going, plugged in my computer and were ready to watch a movie and relax. However, we had forgotten pillows and blankets. Oh well! It can't be that bad!

I fell asleep very early into the movie, but woke up at some point to Hubs saying (or I thought he said, anyway), "Move over, my mattress deflated." I'm not sure our two kids could share a twin air mattress comfortably much less the two of us, so needless to say, that first night's sleep was not the greatest. But I just thought about how much nicer our 32 year-old mattress was going to feel in the morning. Well, imagine my surprise when my alarm went off to glance over and see Hubs' mattress FULLY inflated. I asked him what the heck he was doing on my mattress and he said, "No, I didn't say it was deflated, I said it felt like it was deflatING." Ugh.

We made a quick trip to Starbucks and loaded up on espresso. We met the truck at 8 AM and worked non-stop until 5. We somehow managed to get just under 4000 sq feet of stuff into a just over 2000 sq ft house, and had about 80% unpacked and settled! We treated ourselves to dinner and were going to see a movie, but ended up back at the house and dead to the world before 8 PM!

And, as if we didn't have enough "stuff" in the house already, we spent Monday driving all over looking for two additional pieces of furniture and after finding them, treating ourselves to a new mattress and boxspring (Merry Christmas to us and thank you Costco!).

We tried to make up for lost time on Tuesday and finish getting everything in place. I had a job interview at 2:00, so was watching the clock. At about 11:00 AM, as we were changing out a ceiling fan in Nugget's room, the power went out. We called to report it (after I totally blamed Hubs) and found out there was a tree down and they had no clue when power would be restored. And there I stood in a t-shirt, scrub bottoms having not showered. And I needed to be clean and pretty in 1.5 hours.

The good thing about having a husband who's lived out of a hotel for the past 2 months is you can call and get a room for an hour with little to no problem. I checked into the Hampton Inn at noon, showered, got dressed and thought about calling in sick to the interview and just taking a nap in the luxuriously quiet room, packed my stuff and checked out at 1 PM. The marathon interview ended at 5, and it took me 20 minutes to get on the interstate. Not because traffic was bad, just because I kept missing the ramp. Home for 40 minutes, we loaded the car and were on the road.

LONGEST CAR RIDE EVER. We were both SO tired, but were pulling off the interstate at midnight. That's when I looked at Hubs and said, "You did get my green suitcase out of the closet, right?"

Umm no....

"But that's the suitcase I brought outside, wasn't it?!!"

"No, that was mine! You didn't get yours?!"

"I thought that WAS mine!"

So as I type, I am literally wearing Mom Jeans (as in my mom's jeans) and am thankful we threw all of our dirty clothes in a giant trash bag to wash here.

We're hoping when we welcome the kids and pup home, there will be a little adventure.

Eh, nobody's dying.

2010-12-08T15:03:00.003-05:00

We're closing in on the last few days here, and since the weather outside is ~~frightful~~ fabulous and snowy, we've been doing play dates at the bookstore. The one on Monday was so fun, the girlies decided they wanted an encore yesterday. So as soon as Strip got off the bus, she changed into her ballet clothes, I whipped her hair into a bun and we were off! The moms grabbed a cup of coffee in the cafe, then we headed back to the kids' area to play. Nugget went straight for the train table and the girls hit the books.

And it was time for me to get some sweet baby lovin! Friend Mom (FM) has an adorable baby boy who was born in October and I take every opportunity I can to get that sweet baby sugar.

I was standing up next to the trains, swaying back and forth (because you just HAVE to do that when you are holding a t-tiny baby) when an angry, older lady, came barreling past us to the computer to look up a book for a customer. I kindly stepped out of her way and continued chatting. The girls came over closer to us, and Strip knelt down to look at a book on one of the displays. Angry Lady started walking back to the customer and tripped over Strips slightly extended stabilizing leg. She caught herself, and turned to give us all the angry eye. I quickly apologized (not that it was our fault she wasn't aware there were CHILDREN in the CHILDREN'S section) and told Strip to watch her feet.

That was not enough.

Angry Lady turned to walk away, stopped and turned back to us. Glaring, she was desparatly trying to think of something to say. Unable to, her gaze shifted to the kids' sized picnic table where the girls had set up a Pinkalicious and dragon tea party with about 9 of the mini stuffed animals. BINGO!

"NO! NO! You need to clean this up! YOu can't do that! People can't even get to the table because of that mess NO NO NO!!!"

And she stormed away.

I was dumbfounded. We were the only ones in the back of the store, aside from the 86 year-old customer Angry Lady was assisting, and I'm pretty sure if she wanted to sit and read, she was going to opt for a comfy chair in the adult section over folding herself into the pint-sized picnic table. And it's not like we were leaving. We were sitting there, reading, drinking our coffee, enjoying the afternoon. Now before you start yelling, yes, I've worked in retail, and I know there is NOTHING more infuriating than setting something up only to have kids (or adults even) destroy it and leave. So, had she said, "Oh girls! Make sure you put those back, please," I would be fine, but YELL at MY baby? Oh no you didn't.

As she stormed away, I looked down to see a quivering lip. I quickly knelt down and assured Strip, "You did NOTHING wrong. That lady was not looking where she was going and tripped over YOU. And because she made a mistake, she had to find something to get mad at you about. You are NOT in trouble. That said, these are not your toys, so why don't you and buddy put all but two back."

Ooooh she rubbed me the wrong way! I looked back at FM and said, "Can you believe that woman?!"

I know. Nobody's dying.

I gave her a confused look, and she continued.

She went on to say that she thinks everyone should work in a nursing home or hospice care for a time in their life. It gives you a whole new outlook on your day. So after coming into work everyday to watch someone die and comfort grieving loved ones, retail stress just rolls off your back. 'OH! This display looks HORRIBLE!' Eh, you can fix that easily. 'These prices are WRONG!' We'll just re-do them. After watching someone struggle to take their last breath, you can pretty much deal with any bother in life.

So true.

Think before you type.

2010-12-05T20:48:00.002-05:00

**I didn't take this picture. It's a google image from access Hollywood. There ya go**

I managed to snap a decent picture of the kids and Zoe for our Christmas card and didn't even need to photoshop it this year! As I was designing the card (and by designing it, I mean dropping my picture into pre-made cards online), I was trying to think of some way to combine moving announcement with the card.

I've got it! Adorable picture of the kids and dog, ribbon running across the bottom middle of the card with the phrase, "We'll be (in a new) home for Christmas!" an obvious play on "I'll be home for Christmas." However, on second glance, it looked more like an announcement that HUbs and I were shipping the kids and new dog off as a packaged deal to a new home and we were done with them.

Think before you type!

On a similar note, Hubs has been back and forth, so we haven't been able to watch Glee together. A week or so ago, Gwyneth Paltrow was on and did one of Hubs' favorite (as of recently) songs, "F-You," or as they cleaned it up, "Forget you." The more Hubs would sing it, the more it got stuck in my head, so when GP Gleeked it up (and if you missed it, you can see it HERE) I immediately thought of Hubs (who was in some random city the night it aired).

Tonight, a friend posted the video on her facebook page. After listening to it on a loop, I thought, "Oh! I don't think Hubs ever saw it!" So, instead of emailing him the above youtube link, what did I do? Posted it on my page with the caption, "This is for you, Hubs!"

Hmmmm. Who dedicates the song, "Forget you!" to her husband via Facebook?! Just so you all know, that was NOT an announcement of our relationship status. It was just me, failing to think before I typed.

Off to download the Glee 4 soundtrack!

Nugget says the darndest!

2010-12-01T21:11:00.004-05:00

These are Martha Stewart's cupcakes. You can learn how to make them HERE. I didn't make these or take the picture.

But, I DID pick Nugget up from school today and noticed the remnants of a bakery box of cupcakes on the pickup table. We got in the car and were chatting about his day when I said,

Me: Hey buddy! What did you have for snack today?

Nugget: Cupcakes!!

Me: Ohhh That's special! Was it someone's birthday?

Nugget: Yes it was my friend JESUS' birthday!

I had no idea he was in their class!

Anyway, we head to the outdoor mall (because it was snowing, and I wanted to walk around a little) and were heading to a store where I wanted to check out something for the kids for Christmas. We get to the entrance and Nugget stops and says, "Hey! I can read that sign! It says, 'Balls!'"

Close buddy. Close.

Felix is back!

2010-12-01T07:40:00.003-05:00

Felix is our Elf on the Shelf and he arrived back at our house on Monday. The kids were SO excited to see him, and I was excited to see the, "Shhh! Felix is watching!" behavior that inevitably follows.

While Felix did bring the kids a couple of surcees, he seemed to have left his magic behavior wand at the North Pole. So, Felix did what any good elf would do, laid down the guilt trip.

Because of the move, we weren't really going to be able to decorate for Christmas, but Monday night, while the kids were asleep, Felix filled the house with Christmas cheer (and decorations!). The kids awoke to find Felix atop a Christmas tree on the mantle, and with him was a note. Felix explained that the first report he had to give Santa was not so great, but he told the big guy all about our stressful Thanksgiving and upcoming move, and he and Santa agreed that they needed a little Christmas cheer in the house. He also asked that the kids sign the back of the note to confirm where they would be spending Christmas so that he could submit his paperwork to elf relocation and meet us at PaPa and Ma's.

So, last night, the kids signed their names and went to bed. Nugget went to bed easily, Strip, not so much. Overtired, over stuffed with dinner, she screamed and yelled about anything she could think of, "I need another book! This pillow isn't right! I can't see out my window if it snows! AHHHHHHHH!" Lovely. Hubs was packing for another road trip, so I was hanging out upstairs with him watching last week's Glee episode. I was about to go to bed when I remembered that my blood pressure meds (yes, I'm really 72) were downstairs. Hubs said he had to go downstairs in a minute anyway, so he'd get them.

No, it's fine, I have to move Felix anyway.

I'll do it!

So Hubs finds my drugs and comes back upstairs. We go to bed and he gets up to leave before the crack of dawn. A few hours later, I wake the kids up, we make our beds, get dressed and get ready to find Felix. Hubs ALWAYS finds the best spots for him.

Guess where he was?

Still on top of the tree. Holding the note. I text Hubs is Felix Fail, and quickly try to cover.

Well, Felix only has a certain amount of time to get to the North Pole and back. Maybe he was waiting until you settled down last night so he could give Santa a GOOD report, and missed his opportunity to leave and get back. So he just stayed?

Strip sighed and said, "here we go again..." Thinking she meant, "LIES LIES LIES!" I asked her to elaborate.

"Here we go again. Another day trying to be on our best behavior."

Whew!

Right at that moment, Hubs called, and as he was talking to Strip they discussed Felix's non-movement. I could hear Hubs saying something about how he left SUPER early, in the middle of the night even, and he SAW Felix coming back down the chimney. Ugh, we have GOT to get our stories straight. After they got off the phone, Strip filled me in on the Felix spotting.

Me: Well, that makes sense. If Felix was coming back in when Daddy was leaving, he probably got scared and just hopped right back on that tree, not having enough time to get to a different spot. And then I bet he was scared to move because he didn't know when we'd be coming downstairs.

Strip: Yeah, and he probably didn't have enough time after giving Santa that looooonng report about how we were acting up in the restaurant last night, and then me not going to sleep, so I bet he just brought the note back and will give it to whoever tonight when he goes back.

Me: You are exactly right.

Whew! That was a close one!

Thanking God for road blocks

2010-11-24T14:28:00.003-05:00

Hubs and I married in April of 2004, and to say our life has been a whirlwind would be an understatement. I've always thrived in a chaotic, stress-filled life. Growing up, I was involved in as many extracurricular activities I could pack into a 7-day week. In college, I took as many hours as possible, while working at a local jewelry store and doing other random stuff like coaching a girls soccer team or singing for a local church in a quartet.

When Hubs and I started dating, I could see our life plans falling into place. We'd chat about life and love, and I knew happily ever after would be a breeze with him. The Monday after Father's Day, I awoke to the worst stomach pains of my life (no, this is not an "I didn't know I was pregnant" story, I promise). After being admitted to the hospital and running some tests, an emergency appendectomy was in order. Hubs rushed into town to be with me during my recovery.

He apparently was also asking Papa (then, just my dad), for my hand in marriage. A few days later, while still under the haze of pain killers, on one knee by my make-shift bed in the playroom of my parents' house, Hubs asked me to marry him. I had never really picture what my proposal would look like, but THIS for sure wasn't it!

We make plans, God laughs.

The following week, Hubs went back to work in his sales territory. We knew his company was making cuts, but figured he was safe. I mean, a company who makes its money on sales HAS to keep its salesmen, right? Wrong. Not even a week after I said YES, Hubs found out that managers were being moved down to sales, and the sales guys were out. Now wedding planning was put on the back burner as we took a deep breath and prayed for something to work out. I had no idea we'd be looking at in sickness and in health, good times and bad, richness and poor all in the same week (and 9 long months before we even made it to the alter!).

We make plans, God laughs.

Hubs found a good job and started the day of our engagement party. A few months later, we married in a beautiful ceremony, surrounded by family and friends. We spent our wedding night at the Four Seasons and flew to Mexico for our relaxing honeymoon. We arrived at our all inclusive resort and settled quickly in to our sun and fun routine. The second night, while enjoying a Japanese influenced dinner, Hubs had a few sushi rolls. Hubs then spent the following four nights romantically hugging the toilet in our room, while I sat in the in-room jacuzzi watching the Simpson's en espanol to drown out the sounds of Hubs' vomiting while pondering if I was going to have to take him to a Mexican hospital while fearfully envisioning him dying on our honeymoon. I had never really pictured what our honeymoon would look like, but THIS for sure wasn't it!

We make plans, God laughs.

A few days stateside, Hubs was 20 lbs lighter, but feeling better. We started our new life in a new town and started making plans for the future. I was dragging my feet looking for a job, hoping Hubs would be promoted to open his own office in a different location. We enjoyed being newlywed, going to dinner whenever we pleased, visiting friends and family and decorating our tiny house. While making plans for the future, we decided a tour of Europe was in order (especially considering I got slighted on the whole honeymoon thing), and we made the bold statement that we wouldn't have kids until we'd done Europe together. What came next? Two pink lines (well, actually 10 pink lines. I was convinced I was getting false positives).

We make plans, God laughs.

We welcomed Strip into the world in May (13 months after we got married, for those trying to do the math). I was feeling my way through being a new mom, and we were still waiting for that promotion. Hubs finally had enough and started looking for other jobs. He gave himself the deadline, saying if he had not found a new, good job by x, he was just going to quit and we'd move back to his hometown where he could farm with his dad. I've never prayed so hard in my life! I was standing in a Babies R Us bathroom, changing diapers with Alaska buddy when I got the call that Hubs got THE job, and we were heading to south Florida.

After suffering from sticker shock while house hunting, we found a place to call home and began feeling our way through our new normal as a family of three in SWFL. We celebrated Strip's first birthday and planned our first trip to Disney World. The discussion of kid number 2 came up and we starting thinking about expanding our family. Apparently, that's all we have to do, because we were soon staring at two pink lines, again (actually this time, it was four pink lines and the digital read out saying "Pregnant"). I had JUST accepted a job. We were just getting things settled.

We make plans, God laughs.

A long, vomiting 36 weeks later, Nugget arrived. This c-section was going to be different. I requested a mirror so I could watch and eagerly anticipated going to recovery with my tiny baby boy. After a quick hello over the blue drape, Nugget was taken into another room and we waited. And waited. And waited. He was not breathing well, so instead of wheeling us to recovery together, he was whisked up to the NICU and I was taken up to my room without my baby.

At this point, I've gotten the gist. I'm not making plans.

We busted Nugget out of the NICU a few days later, and thankfully, he's been fine, overcompensating for his quiet, still start in life by never stopping! Shortly after his first birthday, we got the news that we were moving up to corporate. And even thought I KNOW I said I wasn't making plans, this was something I had been envisioning since Hubs took the job. We found our house, our church, Costco, Trader Joes, friends and friends who were more like family. I slowly started to let my guard down. We were nearing the two-year mark on living there.

We started planning.

Planning for our future there. Planning on how Nugget would be riding the bus in a few years. Planning Strip's first performance in the Nutcracker next December. Planing for winters to come by buying winter coats a little on the big side. Planning for that European vacation. Planning on how we'd re-do the kitchen. Planning.

So it really should have come as no surprise when we had to put our house on the market almost two years to the day that we closed on it. I put on my brave face for the kids, focused on all of the positives for us, our family, our life.

But I was mad. Sad. Bitter. As my mother would say, I had my butt on my shoulders. We had it all planned out! WHY are we having to do this AGAIN. I once thrived in chaos and commotion, but I have kids. I wanted stability. For once, I wanted to do something to our current home, not impulse buy another one.

As the shock wore off, I've started to look forward to this move. This was going to be good. This was going to be good for HUbs and I as a couple and good for the kids. We spent last weekend with Hubs' brother and sisters and all the baby cousins. I smiled thinking about how many memories the kids would now have with their cousins instead of the few scattered memories mixed in with holiday travel.

We took a road trip to our Next Stop so the kids could see their schools and the new house. We were on our way back and were in the middle of nowhere. We were stopped at a light, and I was fixated on the car next to us. It had broken down and was on the shoulder. Two t-tiny dogs were playing next to the car and a tow truck was preparing to load it onto the large bed. I caught the light change out of the corner of my eye along with the steady crawl of a Mac truck pulling through the intersection in front of us, and continued to watch the puppies hoping they wouldn't run out in the road and debating whether to roll down my window and tell the lady sitting in the passenger side to put down her cigarette and pick up the dogs.

That's when I heard the crunch.

We looked around and noticed the blazer on our left was now scooted into the intersection and an older gentleman driving a sedan had plowed into the back of him. And I mean PLOWED. No breaks squealing, no swerving, just full speed impact. We made sure the man was ok, and the tow truck quickly went to work clearing the cars. We continued on our way. About two hours later, my neck was still hurting just thinking about the wreck when it hit me.

Thank God for the blazer.

Had that Blazer not been waiting at the light, that older man would have continued into the intersection at full speed, hitting the mac truck, head on, more that likely killing him instantly. And while I'm sure the driver of the Blazer wasn't thinking he was at the right place at the right time, I'm glad he was. Thank God for that road block.

And that got me thinking. The road my life, our lives, have taken has not been without it's own roadblocks. Illness, job loss, unexpected children, moves. All things we didn't plan on, but hit head on. And while I'm still not doing cartwheels about this change in our life, I'm trying to have a new appreciation for it. What would we miss if this didn't happen? What will we experience in the coming years? What new joys will we encounter?

When we head back home, we'll be embracing these last few days. Our good-byes will not be without tears, and it will not be easy to follow that giant truck. But as we thank God for our road blocks, I'm not planning for anything , just praying for happiness in our new normal. And while life has showed me that we make plans and God laughs, one thing I also know is that when we pray, God always answers.

Super moms

2010-11-16T20:32:00.003-05:00

Yup! This is an actual iphone case available at Cafepress.com.

One of the things I love most about being a mom is listening in on other moms' knowledge sharing. Today, I got another slice.

Three Super moms were standing around chatting about Evil School and how their precious babies are now always sick.

Mom 1: I KNOW it's the school that's making him sick. We don't go ANYWHERE!

Mom 2: You know you're right. We don't go anywhere either. It MUST be the school. All those germs!

Mom 3: Ugh. Tell me about it. We don't go anywhere either, and SuperKid has been sick twice this year.

Ok, pause. You don't go anywhere? ANYWHERE? You child has never sat in a cart at Target? Grabbed a sucker out of the sucker basket at the grocery store? Sat in a highchair at a restaurant? Set foot in a public restroom? Played at a park?

I see a problem right there.

So they continue to enthusiastically nodded at each other about how the real world is slowly killing their babies. At that very moment, SuperMom 1's kid stuck his head in a trash can. Entire head. In the can. And as if it couldn't get any better, SuperMom 2's kid picked up a random shoe and LICKED the bottom of it!

But school is totally the problem.

As a side note, when we pulled into the parking lot, Nugget unbuckled, leaned over my seat and as I turned to see what he wanted, he let loose a juicy sneeze right in my eye. Immune systems hard at work!

Fun with House Hunting Day 2

2010-11-14T20:31:00.003-05:00

Needless to say, after the first day of house hunting, I didn't sleep well. I told the realtor if it was in our price range and wasn't on fire, we'd go see it, so our day was filled with the second string (which was frightening considering what our first picks ended up looking like. Yikes.).

We got up early, and after spending the night looking at MLS pages, I was spending the morning looking at school websites. Hubs told me to hop in the shower and wandered over to see what I was looking at. When he saw the emblem for the Expensive Private School, he asked me, "Why are you doing that to yourself? You know we can't afford to send the kids there!"

And I lost it.

Well, first, I slammed down the computer and stormed off to the shower. Then I got out, started getting dressed, put on mascara and lost it. I was glad the kids weren't with us because (1) they would probably need to be vaccinated for a slew of fun diseases and (2) Momma needed to have a nervous break down.

Cue Veruca Salt's polar opposite.

Instead of the "I wannas," I let loose a string of "I don't wannas!"

I don't want to move here. I don't want to live in a house we can't afford. I don't want to live in a house we can't afford and have to do a lot of work to. I don't want to find something that will "just work" for a few years, and then deal with the stress of having to try to sell it on our own. I don't want to live in a new construction house with no yard. I don't want to pull the kids out of their schools to move here, and I don't want to uproot them again in a few years when we can afford to move to a nicer neighborhood. I'd rather live in a 600 sq foot town house, paying rent and send them to a private school just so they could have one FREAKING piece of stability in their life, something we haven't been able to give them in the past 6 years!

Whew.

I reapplied the mascara and we decided just to see what happened. If we didn't find anything, we didn't find anything.

We headed to starbucks where I decided I needed a venti mocha and a preemptive Tylenol (or 2). Somehow Hubs' name = Jim. Again, way off from his actual name.

We flipped through some real estate magazines, then decided to visit the schools and preschool. A MUCH better start to the day. After lunch, we met up with Realtor, put on our happy places and set out to see what we could see. The first house was ok. Nothing spectacular, but nothing we wanted to put an offer on. On to house #2!

As soon as I saw the pictures for #2, I remembered the first time I saw it. It was the very first MLS listing Realtor sent us, but somehow it became lost in the shuffle. We pulled up to the house which was located on a cul de sac (hmmm. Cautiously checking a box!). The house is as old as the one we have now, which means lots of beautiful, mature trees (could that be another check mark?) and the outside looked great. VERY well maintained. Looking MUCH better than the day before.

We walked in, and the house was adorable! Formal dining room meaning I wouldn't have to kiss my china good-bye! Nice sized kitchen and breakfast room. Great little family room with a fireplace (yay!!). Instead of a screened in porch, this one had an actual room off of the family room, separated by french doors. Smaller than our 1100 sq foot basement, but would make a great little play room for the kids (and as I reminded Hubs, as they got older, their crap is going to get smaller. Gone are the days of giant swings, push toys, learning tables). The master bedroom was a good size, with a closet I'm sure Hubs will take over in no time, and the bathroom was great. The kids' rooms are smaller, and their shared bath is smaller, but they would work. Upstairs was a perfect room for Hubs' office. Still in the house, but above all the noise of the kids. The backyard was even bigger than the one we have now, just needed a fence. AND, we noticed that the driveway extended back beyond the garage. When Hubs walked over, he found there was a plug-in for an RV (Next year, we WILL totally be Christmas Vacation!).

Downsides? The kitchen is very outdated, but still usable. Also? The washer/dryer are in the garage. When I made an, "Ergh" face at that, Hubs said, "But really? How big a deal is it to walk out here to do laundry?" Umm for the person who is doing the majority of the laundry? Kinda a pain. BUT, I'm not walking to a laundry mat, it's not like I have to go outside, and it won't be snowing and freezing in the garage, and maybe this will just encourage us to keep the garage clean and organized.

We kept it in mind and visited a few other houses, but decided that this was the one. We decided to sleep on it and see what we wanted to do the next morning. We took my step-grandma out for dinner, then headed back to the hotel where we both slept MUCH better. We were leaving town the next day, but wanted to visit the school the house was zoned for and go look at the house one more time. We looked again at the stats.

On the market for over a year. Last price drop was a while ago. Figuring they weren't going to get much more traffic, we were going to wait until we got back home, had all of our numbers in front of us and make an offer. We drove to Hubs' sister's house feeling pretty good. Enjoyed a delicious dinner out with her, headed back to her house, exhausted, and crashed. Saturday morning, we got up early, said our goodbyes and started driving home. About 4 hours from our house, we get a call from Realtor saying a couple was going for a second showing at "our" house.

CRUD.

I whipped out my phone and found where the nearest Kinkos was, ready to fax over an offer. We were able to submit a verbal offer to hold them off, but still raced to Hubs' office to fax over our real offer. We breathed a giant sigh of relief knowing we'd just have to watch the clock until 6 pm Sunday. Now it was just a question of how many counter offers it would take to get to an agreed amount.

Sunday morning, I got a call from Realtor. Excited, I answered the phone, pretty much expecting to hear, "Congrats! They accepted your offer!" Instead, I heard, "The other couple submitted an offer as well."

This was not good. Really?! The house has been on the market for how long? And it's kind of the ONLY one in our price range that will work for us. And of all the houses, someone else comes along and fall in love with it, too?!? ARGHHHH!!

We upped our offer and sat back, waiting for the clock to strike 6.

And oh how those minutes ticked by.

At 5:45 PM while watching Toy Story 3 with the kids, we FINALLY got the call saying we got the house.

WHEW!

Now we just have to figure out what to do with half of all our stuff. Craigslist, here I come!

Fun with house hunting Day 1

2010-11-11T21:06:00.005-05:00

Last week, I flew down to our soon-to-be home sweet state. I had done as much internet stalking of neighborhoods and houses as I could, and had a whopping list of 11 houses to see (and that was stretching it). There was really one house that we really liked, but i figured we throw in a few others.

Hubs picked me up from the airport and asked if I wanted to drive around a little before it got dark, and I said sure! He then told me, "'Your' house in under contract."

Crapper. That's the pool house. Now what are we going to do?! I sure hope our realtor has a few other options. We drove around a little and decided to hit a local wine bar to celebrate new beginnings.

The next morning, bright and early, we headed to the starbucks near the hotel. As we placed our order, the barista asked our names. Before I could answer, Hubs gave her our real names. As our drinks were being made (and double cupped for Hubs), I told Hubs about a little game my buddy, Iv, plays when she goes to starbucks. She gives them a TOTALLY random name and watches to see if they flinch, question or giggle at her made-up name.

"Double cup grande vanilla soy latte for 'Cuip?'"

We exchange glances, look behind us and realize that the barista had BUTCHERED Hubs' name and turned completely normal into Cuip.

Cuip and I scooted back to the hotel, met our realtor and were ready for the fun!

**Pause**

When we moved up here, the world was our oyster. We looked at about 38 houses in a DAY, and totally had our pick. We could say things like, "I don't really like that carpet, " or, "This lot is small," KNOWING that any house we looked at WOULD work for us, it was just a matter of IF we wanted it to work for us.

**Un-pause**

First house was in Pool House's neighborhood, and here's what it had going for it:

* End of a cul de sac

* Less than 4 numbers in the address

* Great school district

* Great curb appeal

* 4 bedrooms

* bonus room for an office

Could we find a winner on the first look?! Hubs and I stood on the front porch as Realtor got the key out of the lock box.

Man this yard is really overgrown...and the porch looks horrible. Is that post rotting....

And then the door opened. Horrible does not begin to describe the state this house was in. After carefully entering bedroom number 2 (while thanking God I had the smarts to toss TWO things of hand sanitizer in my bag), I looked at Realtor and asked

Me: So this one is a short sale?

R: (looking at the mls sheet) Ummm. Nope.

Me: and what's the list price on this one?

R: $70,000 more than the lovely home you now reside in (ok she really just gave me the number).

Me: Yikes.

R:Yeah and it has it's original roof and a/c units.

Me: So we're looking at another $20,000 on top of that?

R: Pretty much.

Me: Good gravy. It's nice to know you can let your house go to crap and still ask a ton for it.

R: Yeah, I had a guy, from your state actually, come down a while ago to look at houses. After looking around, he decided not to take the job. Hahaha!

Me: Yeah, we don't have that option. Let's move on!

Next stop was the pool house, and the owners were home. And it's a short sale. We went to see it both to put it out of my mind and to see it in case the offer fell through. It was lovely and exactly what we needed in a house, but we moved on because we couldn't wait around on a short sale even if there wasn't an offer on the table.

I should also add at this point, the 11 houses we were going to look at? 4 had offers and one was pulled from the market. So we're down to 7. Minus the pool house offer, 6.

They got progressively worse.

We saw the Jetson's house (super modern updated house). Unfortunately, ONLY the kitchen was updated, the house was filthy, there was an uneven roof overhang that even I would hit my head on when I walked outside on the deck, the wood floors must have been laid by a drunk, there was no light fixture in the half bath, there was a long hallway that I fully expected creepy twin girls to be standing at the end of, but instead, there was a chihuahua. No really. Renter (not owner), had her t-tiny dog chillin in a back room.

Next was a lovely home, again, with an updated kitchen. This one could have worked, but the floor plan was super weird. The backyard was awesome, but it was filled with random plants and pieces of what looked like a greenhouse. It was almost like someone who owned a nursery went out of business and said, "Crap! What am I going to do with all of this stuff?!" and his buddy said, "No problem! I'm moving! Toss it in my backyard." And while the roof was new, there was some sort of giant lime tree, literally growing into it. NEXT!

This one looked promising. Lake front view! Man cave! Fenced backyard!

Oh, MLS, how you stretch the truth. You can view the lake if your sitting on the roof, the wind blows really heard, all the trees in the lot across the street fall over and that house burns to the ground, there's the lake! Man cave (which we hoped would work for Hubs' office) was an open room three steps down and off of the kitchen. Also in the man cave? The washer dryer. Also, while not listed, it was fun to see the smallest sink EVER in what would be the kids' shared bathroom. Looks like someone got a great deal on a piece of remnant marble and just under-mounted a salad bowl. The backyard WAS fenced, so one point for that.

We saw some beautiful new construction, but they had smaller lots than we wanted.

I had a really good feeling about this one house on the east side. It had over 2.5 acres and looked really nice. Silly me! What have we learned about looks and real estate. 2.5 acres, yes. Probably infested with poison ivy and snakes. The farther back you walked, the creepier it looked. We noticed it had a shed for an rv, so that could be fun for papa and ma. Then I noticed what looked like some sort of animal grave stone peeking up from next to a large tree. Creepy. We walked into the sunroom and noticed the siding was different from the rest of the house. Realtor, who has lived in this town her entire life said, "oh! That's the siding that was involved in a class action lawsuit recently." WOW. Enough said.

The last house on our list looked a lot like our previous Florida house, but brick instead of stucco. New paint! Fire pit! Updated kitchen! The new paint? It was on the floor. Yes, the previous owners ripped up the carpet in the bedrooms and painted the cement slab. BUT, they left the carpet in the closets, so that was nice. The updated kitchen? Painted cabinets that they tried to "antique," but instead just made it look like someone swiped poop all around the edges. There was a pit in the backyard and I'm guessing you could toss a fie in it. The only good thing I could find in the house was a light fixture in the family room, and it was installed incorrectly.

The house was so bad, we had to drive around to see something, anything, just to have THAT house not be the closer of the day.

This was not going to be good.

Life's full of one-uppers

2010-11-06T21:41:00.004-04:00

What did your pumpkin look like? Yeah. That's right. Snow White is one of FOUR that Hubs carved. Boo yow!

Tuesday, my Mommy dropped me off at the airport, and I prepared to take my flight to do a 72 hour house hunt (once again, in our house, pancake mix requires a lot of thought, but a house? Yeah we give it three days tops and just buy something. That's how we roll). I boarded my flight, and settled in for my quick trip to Atlanta where I would catch my connecting flight. I settled into my seat next to the Culligan man (for real), and got ready to people watch.

Airport security was patting people down pretty hard, so I was taking in my surroundings to see if I needed to prepare myself to kick a little booty mid-air. Everything was going well, and I noticed a well dressed woman walking past me. She noticed a buddy.

Lady 1: Oh! Look who it is!

Lady 2: Oh my! Well, what are you doing here? Oh! I should have known! You're going to...

Lady 1: France! And that's right, because you're going to...

Lady 2: Italy!

Lady 1: Right! How long are you going to be there?

Lady 2: 2 weeks, you?

Lady 1: Only 10 days.

Lady 2: Oh, I just needed that extra time.

Lady 1: Well enjoy!

Lady 2: Thanks, you too!

Water boy and I exchanged glances and giggled. I'm not sure where his final destination was, but I'm quite sure we were both one-upped.

Last Sunday was Halloween, and although my blog poll showed an overwhelming majority to the Capri-Sun/water handout (thank you! All six of you!), Hubs trumped the vote and bought candy (Almond Joys. Guess what kids don't like? Almond Joy. Guess what we have a lot of left in the candy bucket?).

So we go trick-or-treating, and we come to the other house on the north side of the 'hood that gives out beverages and guess what? All the kids squealed with delight.

Look!!! Can I drink it now?! I wanna save mine!! What flavor is it!? Help me open the straw!!

Not even the full-sized candy bar house got that kind of praise. Hubs had already headed home to set up the bon fire and big screen, so I shot my I-told-you-so dirty look to a mail box.

But guess what! Capri-sun house was one-upped.

What could one-up Capri-Sun?

It wasn't the full-sized candy bars.

Not the "take as much as you want!" house.

It started with a neighbor who had affixed a 8x11 sheet of college ruled paper to their door with the simple, scrawled message: Come next door.

As we walked next door, we noticed two adults manning a card table and small fire. The kids neared them and said their Trick-or-Treats, fishing through a bowl of candy. After they found the good stuff, the guy looked at me and said, "Would you like something?"

Me: Oh, no thank you!

Dude: Are you sure?

Me: Yeah, I'm allergic to 99% of all candy. Thanks though! Have a great night!

Dude: No! I mean something to drink!

Me: Oh I'm ok, it's kind of chilly anyway.

Dude: I know. Want a beer to warm you up?

Total one-upper.

And to that, I say, THANK YOU!

So hard to say good-bye

2010-10-29T07:51:00.009-04:00

**first, just to clarify, for the t-o-ters, juice for kids, water for adults. Don't forget to vote!**

As much as THIS moving process has been hurry up and wait, the first "real" move-related

thing happened yesterday. The last time we were living in Florida, Hubs had a company car, so he sold his car. When we moved up here, he had to turn in the company car and we had to impulse buy another car. Since I had been driving my car since college, we decided Hubs would drive my car and we'd get me (and the kids) something newer (funny because we actually bought a car that is a year older than my jeep! HA!).

Now that we are heading back south, Hubs gets a company car again, so we were suddenly a three car family. The logical thing to do was to sell the Jeep.

PAUSE

I'd like to take this moment to say that 5 may be the death of me. My sweet, funny, caring, adorable, well-mannered baby has transformed into the biggest drama llama ever. EVER. She has a break-down crying hissy fit every time the wind blows.

Pouty Pants!

Prime example? Thursday, as we were heading out to the air port to pick up Uncle P, we were all loading up in th

e car. Nugget rides in the backseat, drivers side, Strip backseat passenger

side. As we were piling in the car, Nugget noticed the Jeep on the other side of the garage.

Nugget: Oh! Daddy leff is car ear!

Me: Yeah, but remember, he has his new truck in Florida, so we don't need that car anymore.

Nugget: Wha we gonna do wiff dat car?

Me: We'll have to see if we can find a nice family who wants to buy it.

At this moment, Strip closes her car door and erupts into tears and screaming. Convinced that she's slammed some appendage in the door, I unbuckle, hop out of the car and race to her side.

Me: What's the matter?! Are you ok!? What happened?! Where does it hurt?!

Strip: (SNIFF SNIFF) WE DIDN'T GET TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO DADDY'S CAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR (WAHHHHHHH!!!!!)

Me: W

hat?!

Strip: Daddy's caaaarrr. We didn't get to tell it good-byyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeee!

Me: You mean that car right there? (points to the other side of the garage.

Strip: (Sniff)(chuckle) Haha! I thought it was gone already! hee hee!

Bi-polar drama llama.

Anyway, yesterday we had the Jeep picked up. Knowing how attached Strip seemed to be to the car

, I reminded her that it would be gone before she got home from school (cue hysterical crying!) but told her if she hurried to get dressed, we could take it for a spin around the cul de sac before the bus arrived.

We all piled in Kermit for one last spin, and I'll admit, it made me kinda sad too!

I got the car when I was in college. It helped me move home after college, and got me to work safely every day. It delivered me to NC to visit Hubs when we were engaged. After we got married, we piled in all of our wedding gifts and drove it up to NC to start our new lifetogether. When I got pregnant with Strip, it took me to numerous doctors appointments and to fetch

whatever I was craving (Caribou Coffee and spicy chicken sandwiches at Jam's Deli. Yum! I wonder why I gained 55 lbs with her...). We put our precious sweet baby girl in it to drive safely home from the hospital and pack her and June bug in for many road trips to visit family.

Although we lost the battle of the airborne stick on the interstate, I somehow managed to steer Strip and I off to the side of the road, unharmed and continue to drive 85 miles home with the aid of a little duck tape covering the windshield (I have a picture in the basement that won't scan, but just imagine a gaping hole right at face level that a stick, going 70 MPH, plunged through. It was awesome). In Florida, we put TOO many miles on it. Then, came Nugget! Old Kermit provided numerous cup holders allowing me to carry a big fountain drink (which I craved) and an empty cup to puke into (which happened almost daily until he was born. Shockingly? Only gained 15 lbs with that one!). I cried when we left the hospital empty handed, and rejoiced when we brought him home soon after. It helped me safely evacuate during hurricane season and delivered me safely to my happy place (great aunt and uncle's beach house).

Two years ago, we loaded up the valuables (kids, silver, jewelry), the liquids (cleaning products and wine) and other un-movables and made our way north to the new adventure! Hubs made

it safely to work, even during a horrible snowstorm, and I moved on to drive the mom mobile. I remember one night, driving the jeep to work because Hubs needed the car with car seats. A song came on the radio and I was INSTANTLY taken back 7 years. It's amazing how something so small can spark such clear memories.

So we all enjoyed our law-breaking ride around the 'sac that morning. We all (for real) gave the car one last hug good-bye. And after Strip got on the bus, Nugget and I stood in the front window and watched a strange man load almost a decade of memories onto a flatbed.

If saying good-bye to a car that you had for almost 10 years was hard, what's it going to be like to say good-bye to a house, neighborhood and friends that you thought you'd have for just as long?

I'll let you know soon. Realtors come in the morning.

All's fair in trick or treat. Or is it?

2010-10-27T22:17:00.004-04:00

Not a lot to do with the post, but I find this picture hilarious! Captain Specific insisted on not only being Batman, but he had to be the blue batman with muscles. Mission accomplished!

Anyway, our first Halloween here, both kids got TONS of candy, and we had some left over. Last year, we put out a bowl, and I fully expected it to be GONE when we got home, but there was a ton left.

So, thinking ahead to this Halloween, I'm trying to get smart. I can't eat any of it, the kids don't need to eat all of it, we'll be busy getting things ready for the move, so my brilliant idea? Pass out drinks! Well, just water and juice boxes, but still, that could be cool, right? Right?! There is one house at the other end of the neighborhood who does this, and the kids (I thought) loved it last year. So, I brought it up with Strip.

Me: Hey! You know what I think we should give out this year for Halloween?

Strip: What?!

Me: Drinks!

Strip: Huh?

Me: You know! Bottled water, juice boxes, capri sun, whatever.

Strip: Oh mom, that is SO not fair.

Me: What do you mean?

Strip: We are going to go to all the houses, and we're going to get candy, at all the houses, and we can't just give out a drink to everyone else.

Me: Wow.

Here I am thinking we can not only give something out that's cool and fun and consumable as you go door to door, but any leftovers would TOTALLY be used up before the packing started. Guess I was wrong.

So, do me a favor and let me know what YOU think. Click to vote on the side bar (right hand side, scroll down a little) on whether we'll be the rockin' cool house, or the one getting egged.

Report card time (for real!)

2010-10-25T22:27:00.002-04:00

Or not really.

It was Fall Break, marking the first report card/progress report that Strip brought home from Kindergarten, aka the big leagues. I knew this day was coming and was totally NOT sweating it. She is sweet, smart, funny; there was nothing that was going to shock me on this card.

But...

What if I have a classic case of, "My kid is SOOOOOO advanced," and after the long bus ride, she just sits like a bump on a log all day an is a total dud?! What if (even though we know she can count to 100+) she only makes it to 11 (side note, in her 3's progress report, she could only count to 13 and when I asked her why, knowing she could count higher, she told me, "I just got tired of counting for my teacher." Awesome)?! Ahhh!

Well, the card came home, and she verified what I already know. She rocks. Hard core.

I only have 2 issues with the report card, which is a scale of 1-4 (1=no concept, needs work; 4=Awesomesauce):

1. She got a 3 in rhyming words. That kid could rhyme the pants off of anyone. She's been rhyming since she was a baby. She ROCKS at rhyming. Should have been a 4.

2. She did receive one 1 on her card.

When we picked up Uncle P at the airport and he was asking about it, she said, "I got a 1 in one thing. It was years of the month."

So yeah, we need to work on "years of the month," specifically making it months of the year.

I'm not concerned. I can have her saying them in French by Wednesday. I was happy to see she got 4's in social skills. Can't teach that in a day!

Hubs is ticked and thinks the Kindergarten should have given us a goal list. Strip asked if I was disappointed that she got a 1. I assured her that it was a mommy fail. When she asked why, I reminded her that I taught her everything on that list, just totally forgot about months (she knows what month her birthday is and what month other family members are in, but can't list them ALL and in order), so it was more my fault for not teaching her than hers for not knowing. I told her I was sorry and we'd pick out a calendar. Uncle P vowed to teach her all of them, but quickly decided it was easier to teach her to cross the monkey bars by herself (mission accomplished!).

Hubs is mad. He blames the school for not telling us we needed to teach her that by fall break. Now she has a one on her permeant record. So Harvard, if you're reading this, it's not her fault! It's ours! Don't judge the slacker parents!

Things you hear yourself say; stressed out crazy version!

2010-10-20T21:39:00.003-04:00

I made a short list of mommy-isms a while back, but thought I should revisit that theme with a crazy, stressed out version (but wait. Isn't that the definition of being a mom??).

Anyway, there are times where you catch yourself saying something that in ANY other circumstance would make no sense at all. Example?

Ugh! Why couldn't he have just been shot in the head?!

Don't worry, Hubs is safe, and I'm not about to be featured on the latest episode of Snapped. This was actually said about a friend's H. He was injured in a helicopter crash while serving our country in Afghanistan in early 2007. He's a rock star who has been fighting his way out of a coma with the help of his awesomesauce wife (Ry). Anyway, I was visiting with Ry and her hubs when a guy walked down the hall. Ry explained that Guy had been shot in the head about two months prior, and was getting ready to be released. We looked at her Hubs, who still had all portions of his brain, and I sighed, then said the above phrase and had to laugh! (Side note: Ry and her Hubs are getting ready to move into their new home! We are so excited for them and hope they settle into their new normal easily! You rock, Ry and S)!

As you can imagine, being told you are going to move to a new town in about 6 weeks can be a tad stressful. I can't do much from here besides stalk the MLS website, so that's what I've been doing. I have the area where I think we want to live because of schools, so I find one in our price range, stare at all of the photos, study the sales history, google map street view the address and "walk" around the neighborhood, then get directions from the house to various places I think I'll be going on a weekly basis.

Last week, while Hubs was out of town, I watched The Lovely Bones. I read the book a few years ago, so I knew what was going to happen, but my heart was still racing and by the end of the movie, I was looking up every sexual predator in our zip code and thinking about putting both kids in our bed. When Hubs got home, we were sitting around the fire pit with the neighbors and Hubs was talking about a neighborhood that he really liked while he was driving around, so I started focusing on that area in my stalking.

I found TWO great houses! One the realtor had sent us before and the other, I found. They were cute, great yards, waking distance from a really nice church and one was on a cul de sac! I emailed Realtor to get some more information about the houses and started "walking around" the 'hood.

Then it hit me that I hadn't checked for sexual predators in that neighborhood yet, so I did a quick search using my favorite house. Here is what I found:

Ok, yes, this is actually a before picture from Proactiv, but have you looked at the sexual predator's map of Florida?! Geeze!

And there was a big, red dot practically on top of "my" house. Not wanting to write off the house just yet, I clicked on the dot. I mean, if it's a guy who was 19 and convicted of having sex with a 17 year-old, that's not going to bother me as much. That could be more angry girl parents than sexual predator.

Yeah! This could still work! This house is going to be ok!

And then the page loaded.

POSS OF PHOTO/PICTURE SHOWING SEXUAL PERFORMANCE BY A CHILD

Um. No.
Followed by:
Produce Direct Promote Sexual Perform. by Child

Um. HECK NO!

Just then, my inbox dinged. Realtor sent more information on said house and noted:

I've shown this house before the only real negative is that the pool takes up most of the backyard and there are lots of trees in the yard therefore making the pool a maintenance issue.

I emailed her back, "Also negative? There's a child molester living 6 houses down."

So that one was out. I then pulled the address from the other house in the neighborhood.
It was across the street from the guy I just typed about. AHHHHHH!!

I looked around the neighborhood figuring there had to be something. And I found:

* Lewd or lascivious conduct victim under 16 years old
* Use Internet to solicit/attempt solicit etc. a child for sex/lewdness etc
* Lewd or lascivious molestation victim 12-15 years old offender 18 or older
* Unlawful Sexual Activity with Certain Minors
* Lewd or lascivious battery victim 12-15 years old
* POSS OF PHOTO/PICTURE SHOWING SEXUAL PERFORMANCE BY A CHILD

This was all in the same neighborhood.

I shook my head, stared at the computer and said, "Oh why couldn't you just be rapists!"

Needless to say, the house hunting continues.

Letting the cat out of the bag. This could get long!

2010-10-13T21:35:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to beat around the bush. I'm just going to go ahead and say it.

Yes, this is a women's long-sleeved t-shirt that is available to purchase. And this bad boy will run you $30. Really?! Who is buying these things? Although, I'm one to talk. I recently purchased a "funny" shirt for UP's birthday (you are welcome in advance, P. Sorry, but you own most of the apple store. What else could we get you?).

Anyway, the real reason for this post is to announce the latest crazy in our crazy life. We're on the road again! Yup. Two years ago this week, we closed on our house here. Within the next two months, we will have packed up and hopefully have sold it so we can be closing on our next house down south. Don't you just love it when you get all your ducks in a row, and God blows a duck call and they all just scatter?! For goodness sake, I JUST learned our home phone number!

Let's back up, shall we? A couple of months ago, Hubs told me that a position had opened in Texas and joked about us moving. It was at that moment that I realized I was SO not ready to leave here! Not just because I had no desire to live in Texas, but also because we were just starting to feel settled, making future plans for here, planning to upgrade the kitchen.

Friday before last was then end of another week of Hubs being out of town. We had planned to do an extended family movie night with the new Tinkerbell movie on the side of the house and invite some friends and kids over to hang out. Hubs got back home early, but had to leave for a late afternoon meeting with his boss.

He got home about an hour before our guests were to arrive.

I could tell when he walked into our bedroom that something was up. Then he said those magically words, "We need to talk."

I completely could not read his tone. It didn't look as devastating like, "I've lost my job," but not excited like, "we just won the lottery," and I was pretty sure it wasn't an, "I'm having an affair," considering he just came from a work meeting with a man. He told me we were moving, but this time we got to pick from two territories.

We sat in shock staring at each other.

I made the decision to simply put on our happy faces, not even talk about it, let it sink in and we'd start the discussion in the morning. So we did just that.

The next morning, we started looking at our choices. One choice was NC, the other was FL. This was a no-brainer. We'd lived in NC. We LOVED NC. I've always said we'd move back to NC tomorrow if we were given the chance. So I did the very responsible thing and googled "City, NC Trader Joes Costco." Two for two! Time to look at houses! But the more I looked, the more I worried. What if City was too close to the edge of his sales territory? What if they made us live in Small Town, NC? And Hubs was traveling all the time?! And I had to drive 45 minutes to everything again?! I can't go back to that!!!

When we moved here from FL, people asked if we would miss it or would ever moved back. I think I said we would when hell froze over. Or if we were moving to Orlando because I was working for Disney. We would not be moving to Orlando, nor am I working for the Mouse, so bundle up down there!

But the more I looked at it, the more FL made sense. We'd be a few hours from Hubs' parents, an hour more to mine, 2 to the beach, 2.5 to my great aunt and uncles and just a few short hours to Disney. Hmmmm. Throw in the fact that now is the time to buy real estate in Fl, and I think we have a deal. We agreed to wait until the work week when Hubs would have a chance to talk to some work buddies and get a better feel. In the meantime, I realize there's no Trader Joe's near our new location. Crud! Better stock up on wine and bbq sauce on our way down!

Hubs called me Monday afternoon to say that from a work perspective, he thought the FL choice would be better. We agreed to keep things quiet until we had more details from relocation, but working was killing me. I felt like I was living a lie, so Hubs agreed that it was fine for me to go ahead and call my boss. I came in Wednesday morning, completely prepared to break the news and the boss's office was dark. I asked the secretary (S) where she was.

"Oh! Remember? This is her daughter's wedding weekend! She's out until next Tuesday! I'm going to see her tonight, though. Want me to tell her anything?"

Crrruuuuuddd. I sucked it up and headed home to get my clean on. When I got back to school to pick up Nugget, I had the perfect three minutes alone to tell my co-teacher. After that, I figured it was the perfect time to tell S what was going on, since co-teacher could keep the kiddos busy.

That afternoon (between patching holes in the wall, painting, and finishing the rest of the 2 year-old honey-do list), I asked Hubs when we should tell the kids. After all, Hubs was starting the new job in 5 days and they were bound to catch on to something. So, we just decided to go for it.

Hubs: Hey guys. We need to talk about something. It looks like we are going to be moving.

Kids: Ok.

Hubs: Moving farther away.

Kids: Ok!

Hubs: But we'll be closer to all the family...

Kids: Ok...

Hubs: And I'll get a truck!

Nugget: YEAH!!! And it back up it go, "Beep. Beep. Beep!?!"

So far, so good. But Strip was still just doing her little worksheet, and I guess Hubs wanted to make sure she understood.

Hubs: So, that means we won't be living in this house anymore.

Strip: Ok.

Hubs: And you'll go to a different school..

Strip: Ok...

Hubs: And cul de sac kids won't be our neighbors anymore..

Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

I think it's always tough to see your baby cry. It's really hard to see them cry when you know you're a factor in the tears. Sure, I've seen them cry during strep tests and shots, but watching your baby dissolve into tears because of something you are saying and doing is just gut wrenching.

Hubs went to hold her and she punched him. Repeatedly. I gently removed the bobble-head skeleton pen from her hand, allowing her to continue to punch without puncturing or tattooing his shoulder. We tried to reason with her and focus on the good, but she just kept crying and saying she didn't want to talk about it. After a good shoulder sob, I pulled her in my lap and pulled out the computer. Who doesn't love google maps. I showed her the line between our house and Papa and Mas. Then the line between our house and Hubs' parents' houses. Then the line between our house and the beach, AC, UB and Snoozie. Then the line between our house and our old house (aka FL neighbors). And finally the line between our house and Disney. Next I showed them where our new house would be.

The lines were so much shorter.

And, that day, Strip brought home a beautifully written sentence, so I promised her we would get her some special stationary, and she could have lots of pen pals to write to up here.

After she got it together, she told me she thought we were moving. I mentally ran through sneaking around internet house searches and talking without talking about the move when the kids were around, and thought we were being pretty good, so I asked her why she thought we were moving.

Strip: Because we were getting the house looking nice.

Me: laughing So the only time mommy cleans is when our house is on the market?

Strip: Not clean, I mean fixing holes and stuff.

Note to self: Do the fixing up when we move in, not when we move out.

We are hoping to stay here through the end of this semester, for the kids' sake and for mine. In the meantime, if anyone would like to buy a lovely home, Jeep grand cherokee and four fantastic seats to Wicked for the day after Christmas, let me know. And if you have an idea of what to get Strip for Christmas that's BETTER than a night out on the town and her first broadway musical, I'm all ears.

I love people.

2010-10-10T19:39:00.003-04:00

**I don't know these people. Nugget took this picture at a concert last week. But I figured using this was better than stealing something off the internet. PS if you want to google image "people," don't. Or just make sure you're not on a work computer. Yikes.**

Today was spent spring cleaning. Yes, I know it's October, but it felt like spring (well, summer, really) and it needed to be done, so Hubs and I got to work. Hubs tackled the outside and I tore into the inside.

Sometime around 2PM, I was crashing. I was sick of hearing, MOOOOOOoooooOOOoomMMMMmMMM" every 11 seconds, and I was just getting cranky in general. I grabbed my keys and told Hubs I was heading across the street to grab a coffee and a paper.

After paying for my treat, I was heading out the door. I turned to look over my right shoulder and say goodbye/thank you to the greeter man, and noticed a woman barreling toward the exit as well. I took the automatic door closest to me and when I stepped outside, I began to saunter toward my parking spot. As I walked a little to the right, I wasn't really paying attention. Between the nonstop clean-a-thon and some other stuff weighing on my heart and mind, I was kind of in my own little world.

I was brought out of it by hearing some angry muttering/talking behind me.

As I "came to" I could hear the word, "RUDE!" which made me giggle because it made me think of the Bon Qui Qui skit. With a smile on my face, I turned over my left shoulder to see an angry old woman catapulting a cart away from me.

She was talking about me!

I stood a little dumbfounded trying to figure out what I had done. All I could figure is I stepped in front of her when we walked out of the store and because I wasn't cartwheeling toward my car on this lovely Sunday afternoon, someone got a little cranky.

I slowed my pace even more to see where she was going.

Oh, she was going to that brand new Lexus. Parked sideways. In a handicapped spot?

Judging by the pace she was keeping in those stilettos, she could walk just fine. She quickly threw her purchases into her car and sped away, leaving her cart in the middle of the handicapped spot she wasn't occupying with one of her four luxury tires.

Now that's rude. But thanks to the Handicapped Stiletto heeled lexus driving old lady. You brightened my day with your cranky pants!

It's Fall Y'all!

2010-10-04T07:05:00.004-04:00

Since the kids are starting pumpkins in school today, we decided to do our glitter pumpkins last night so the kids could bring them to school. Normally we wait to do this when Hubs is out of town as he has a fear/hatred of glitter. But, we were pressed for time and tried to sneak it in while he was working outside. He caught us, but was a very good sport. He even helped me funnel the extra glitter back into the glitter jars. That is, after he suggested dumping it in the trash can, and I gave him a look that said, "Are you kidding me?! Martha Stewart glitter does NOT go in the trash!"

After carefully transferring the glitter from the plate to a piece of news paper then into the jars, I happily said, "See! Now we have plenty left for next year!"

Hubs was thrilled.

The kids love to glitter their "Fancy Nancy pumpkins" as we've come to call them. Just look at the concentration in Nugget's tongue!

Everyone wants to know how we do them, so I thought I'd give away my secret; Michael's 40% off coupons.

Yup! That's it! Martha Stewart has a little kit that you can buy at Michael's that comes with three different glitter choices (this year was black, green and orange) and special glitter glue. Simply paint the pumpkin with glue, dump on the glitter, and ta da! Glitter pumpkins!

Martha does the big dog pumpkins, but we stick to the spunky's. Not only are they easier for the kids to handle, it makes the glitter kit last much longer!

The only problem has been that Nugget now thinks it's time to slap on his Batman muscles and heckle the neighbors for candy. The kid cannot accept that Halloween is at the END of the month. According to him, every day in October is, "Halloween Day!"

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have green and orange glitter to clean out of the kitchen counter grout.

Ground Shipping

2010-10-03T14:25:00.003-04:00

When we lived in Florida, we visited Disney World. A lot. One time we LOVED to go was during the fall and would try to hit a Mickey's not-s0-scary Halloween party. We all fell in love with the Boo to You music they played on a loop during the parade and as you walked around the park.

I could have SWORN that I'd asked when we lived there if they had a cd of the music and they never did.

Anyway, last year was one of the first years we weren't able to make it to WDW, but as we were doing Halloween crafts and pumpkins, I somehow googled the music and had it blaring out of the computer as we got in the Halloween spirit. The smart gal that I am, I bookmarked the site so we could listen to it again this year. Only problem? It's no longer at that site!

I emailed a buddy of mine who works for the Mouse, and he told me to call the merchandise people. Well that would be too easy, but I decided to give it a shot. When I described the cd to the woman on the phone, you would have thought that I said, 'Hey, yeah, do you have anything with like a Mickey logo on it?"

So yay! They had the cd, and I could order it! Friends of our are heading down that way in the next week, so I toyed with the idea of having them pick one up, but decided not to burden them with that responsibility and called back to order it.

Somehow, Disney had my name, address and phone number still on file. They do still love us! She asked if I wanted it shipped ground, and I said sure that was fine.

Great! I'm placing your order and it should be to you in the next 10-20 days. Thanks for calling Disney and have a magical day!

TWENTY DAYS?! Does ground mean someone is physically walking it from Disney to our house? The clock is now ticking and I'll be interested to see if we get it before Halloween!

Take my privacy

2010-09-29T21:41:00.004-04:00

Nugget has funny phrases.

Yes her do!

Here my mam!

And my all time favorite?

Take my privacy!

I think he's heard Strip say, "Give me my privacy," when she goes to the bathroom and just Nugget-ized it. So now, when he's using the bathroom, or wants to be alone, he says, "Take my privacy!"

Anyway, today, Neighbor Chick and I were hanging out with the kiddos after the bus dropped off. All the kids were outside playing except her napping baby. At one point, Nugget walked up on the porch and was going to head into the house. I stopped him.

Me: Oh no, buddy, you can't go in there.

Nugget: I gotta go to tha bathroom.

Me: ok, we'll go home (a whopping 40 yards).

Nugget: No, I gots ta poop. I go in der house.

Me: No, Baby is sleeping, we'll go home, it's ok.

Nugget: No, I ok...

And he runs off. I figure he really just wanted to go inside because Neighbor Chick has all the good food and toys, but keep an eye on him in case he started doing the pee pee dance.

Not two minutes later, Nugget runs two laps around their play set and starts heading for our side of the yard. Toward a tree. A really big tree. And then he disappeared behind said tree.

Oh no he didn't.

I hop up from the porch and sprint to the tree, peek around the corner hoping for the best, and see my child, my baby, my last born, with his pants and McQueen undies around his ankles SQUATTING behind the tree. Like a pro.

The only thing that would have made this better would have been if he had dug a hole first. Clearly he has some things to learn before becoming an expert camper.

Thanks for sparing us the visual, buddy, but if you scroll back up, you'll notice that from that side of the tree, there's nothing between a pooping child and the public but God's green earth and a split rail fence.

Awesome.

Luckily, I caught him before he fertilized the lawn, tossed him over the fence with the instructions to go straight inside and poop IN THE POTTY.

And to think, I imagined my life as the mother of all boys.

Mixing business with pleasure

2010-09-27T21:59:00.003-04:00

This picture has nothing to do with this post. But if you do a google image search for the above title, the results are frightening. So instead I give you this. I was cooking dinner tonight and Strip came upstairs to see what I was doing. Zesting a lemon. She asked what we were having, then asked if her "daughter" could eat with us tonight. I told her that was fine, but I only made enough for our fam of 4 and leftovers for me, so she'd have to fix her daughter's dinner. She came up a few minutes later with the above; lemon (zest) pepper chicken! And it looks like Alice fell asleep at the table.

On to the post!

I normally keep this blog about me, Hubs and the kids, but teaching preschool just gives me too many funnies NOT to share. Also, I have a sweet friend who is on hospital bed rest who could use a few laughs, so this one's for you, B!

Our group comes one day a week. But there are 12 of them each day. So 36 different littles a week. Some are potty trained, some are not and some are trying. The first day of school was nuts anyway. One little cutie had on his file "potty trained," so when he told me he needed to go, we scooted to the bathroom.

We'll call him B (not the same B who is chilling in an antepartum wing). B is adorable! And the first day of school? All decked out in his adorable duds. Tucked in little shirt, cutie shorts, a belt, oh he was just too cute! Flash forward to, "Teacher! I have to go pee pee!" We race to the potty and that adorable belt? Not so adorable in the heat of the moment. I get the buckle undone, and me, being the pro kid stripper that I am, grab his undies and shorts at the same time to save us some precious seconds. One problem. Kid's rockin' a onesie. No wonder he stayed so tucked in!

As I'm cursing the adorable clothing line in my head and praying that I don't have someone pee on me the very first day, it hits me; this is exactly the feeling Nugget's teachers must have had his first (50) days of school. Sorry, teachers!

And for the record, no one peed or pooped on me, so I call it a good day.

Today, one of my other adorables, we'll call M, was a little shaky at drop off. He pulled himself together and had an awesome day. Sometime around lunch time, M pulled me aside:

M: Ms. Mommy Chick!

Me: Yes, M?!

M: I not crying any more!!

Me: I know! (hug) I'm so proud of you! What a big boy! Isn't school fun?!

M: Yeah!

Me: And you've had a fun day today?

M: Yes!

Me: And we still have lots of fun things to do, right?!

M: Yes!

Me: and next week, when you come it, I bet you won't cry at all!

M: Well, I'll probably cry a little.

A man with a plan. I like it!

Fun with Math

2010-09-25T14:33:00.003-04:00

Back to the sale.

I really enjoyed selling a BUNCH of stuff this fall, don't get me wrong. But, on top of not understanding why some things sell and some don't, I don't understand why some people buy some things used instead of getting exactly what you want new.

So, I sold Strip's coat from Land's End (3-in-1) for $30, Strip's Land's End boots for $20 and Nugget's boots for $20. I totally forgot to pull Nugget's LE jacket, but let's say I tagged it, it would have been $30 as well. All three items sold, so let's also pretend that I remembered to tag Nugget's jacket AND it sold, too.

That would give me $100 from winter basics.

This week, I logged onto ebates and saw I could get 3% cash back at Land's End. Clicked the link and popped a brand new PINK parka in my bag for Strip, new grey/black parka for Nugget and a pair of purple snow boots for Strip. I found a pair of snow boots for Nugget for $4, so he didn't need any.

Grand total with delivery? $107.

And with 3% cash back, that would be $103.79 (oh plus $4 for Nugget's boots puts me back to $107.79).

So for $7 more, I get the colors my kids like, the sizes that will fit them this year and next, can shop in my pjs and can return them to sears if, for some reason, they don't fit the kids correctly.

Totally worth $7

House Rules

2010-09-24T07:39:00.004-04:00

Last weekend, the kids and Hubs were in the basement cleaning. I walked half-way down the stairs to toss them a few more toys, and Hubs met me in the middle. He then started play fighting/tickling me so Nugget would come over to save the day.

The end.

About 15 minutes later, Strip comes upstairs and announces, "We have a new rule for our house; No pushing mommy down the stairs!" That's a great rule! She then hands me a piece of paper that illustrates her new rule:

(Sorry, I can't get the picture to flip. Just tilt your head to the left)

Glad she didn't draw that one at school.

After looking at it for a few seconds, I asked,

Me: Who's who?

Strip: That's Daddy on the lower step, and that's you.

Me: Oh, well, what's this (points to the large circle between "my" legs and torso)?

Strip: That's you!

Me: yeah, but what's that? My belly?

Strip: Yes.

Me: Why is it so big?

Strip: I don't know, Mommy, that's just the way God made you.

Kids always have a way of making you feel good about yourself. Looks like I need to dig that free month at Weight Watchers out of the trash!