Convoluted Brain Waves

Joining the throngs.

2006-11-14T08:16:00.000-05:00

So I am joining the throngs going to wordpress. It is totally an easier format to post. So Here I am. Come have fun with me.

the red crayon revisited

2006-11-13T17:34:00.000-05:00

So I was extremely happy with myself. I had used money we had been saving for a tv to restock Kevin's closet due to the face wash incident. I then spent the rest of the money we had saved for a tv and got him a playstation instead. We bought what we needed and still had the money to spend on something fun although granted it wasnt' the tv we were planning on . Kevin's closet needs were handled so I bought the ps2 We have had fun with our little toy. Lots of fun. Sigh. Lots and lots of fun. I went to iron Kevin's shirts (the ones that had not perished) to find little red spots EVERYWHERE! Ack! Blood was my first thought. Kevin! Why are your shirts covered in blood?! And why did they come home! Ick and double Ick. Alas that was not the case. Red crayon. Yep you know the story of the red crayon in the wash. Oh yeah. Several of Kevin's shirts found their way into that batch and I hadn't noticed yet because the spots are small albeit noticable. I took acetone to the shirt and only salvaged 1 out of 4 shirts. It just didn't work on some of the shirts. Sniff. sad sad world.

successful working mothers and the primary program

2006-11-13T09:02:00.000-05:00

So working as the secretary in the Primary Presidency has been an interesting ride. I love doing what I'm doing for the most part. I've had a couple of irritating things happen, more pet peeves or what not with individual memeber of the presidency. They are all wonderful women, seriously, I love them all. However, the irritating moments have all arrisen from one simple fact/action on the part of certain people in the presidency. What is the irritating behavior you ask? I am not a personal assistant. I am the secretary. If I have my hands full of doing something and you need one copy of a random sheet of paper and you've just been sitting there enjoying singing or sharing time and not doing anything yourself it is NOT cool to ask me, who has been going around doing the multitude of stuff that I have to do EVERY week and ask me to drop everything that I am doing and make a copy for you. Take the paper in your hand walk it down the hall to the librarian, they really are nice people, and have them make you one copy. Case in point. I arrived an hour early to church yesterday to do a whole bunch of stuff I was asked to do by the presidency (miking and seating arrangements, stuff that needed to be done the day of, actually I would have done it the day before but I had to work and between everything couldn't do it.) anyway back to my story. I arrived 1 hour before to help set up the stage. I was getting the programs together (with last minute stuff I might add that someone had asked me to do the day before), it was 20 minutes until Sacrament Meeting started, I had been scrambling for 40 minutes because NO ONE ELSE WAS THERE YET when an individual comes up to me while I am stuffing programs frantically because people are starting to arrive and asks me to make a copy for them because some teachers didnt' bring their copies of the program. I looked at said individual and said "The Master copy is in the cabinet." She said "I know but I need these done." I couldn't even say anythign I was so annoyed, flabergasted and what not. I just looked at her. She arrived 20 minutes before hand and wanted me to drop everything I was doing, which was everything that needed to be done, meaning there was nothing left for her to do and go make her a copy. My glare must have gotten my point across because she said "oh I guess I'll go make the copy myself." Um yeah, good idea. You see these individuals are extremely successful in their own respective work places. They are working moms with personal assistants, nannies and maids. It's not that they are purposefully trying to be offensive they are just not thinking that the church is not work. I am not your slave nor personal assistant. It is my job to make your job of caring for the kids easier. I take roll, make sure all the sisters get everything from the RS so they don't feel isolated in Primary, I make copies for the chorister and laminate everything, I also manage the bulletin board every month, make and hand out our primary newsletter, make all the assignments for talks and scriptures, and act as a liason for the parents. Yes the parents usually come to me when they have a question. I don't mind making copies for you too. Just not at the last minute, just not when I have to drop everything to make it for you, when you are not doing anything yourself. I don't mind helping you cut out the things you need for your sharing time just not when I'm balancing 150 copies in my arms and I have to find you the scissors, they are in the cabinet labeled scissors, just open the box, they are right there. Yes everything is labeled for your convienience. Yes all the master copies are in the closet. Yes I have folders put together for new teachers in teh closet. Yes everythign is labeled for you. Yes I know her parents, yes I will find them for you. Yes I'll get you the budget information, yes I have an updated roll. yes. ok enough ranting. I'm done. whew! had to get that out! On a different note entirely the primary program was AWESOME!!!! I mean completely totatlly awesome! The kids did a great job. We had the traditional kids the did their parts perfectly and we had the fun ones who livened it up. We had one child who wanted to expound on his part but couldn't think of anythign to say so he said his part 3x "Adam was a prophet". Hee hee. We had one snaffoo. The first song was to be accompanied by one of the little girls who was going to play the harp. She had to go to the bathroom at that point in time. Well she wasn't there when it was her time to play so they went on without her. She arrived 5 mintues later. Well they decided to have her song sung again at the end of the program. Well technically we were done with all the songs when one of the sunbeams who has special needs yelled out "and now for one more song!" Lol I lost it as did most of the congregation. I had tears in my eyes I was laughing so hard. But he was right. We had that little girl come down right then to play her song. It was awesome! And my little Megan knew all the songs. She was up there singing away, smiling at her mommy and daddy then watching Sister Betsy like she was supposed to. It was adorable. I loved it completely. It totally made up for everything that happened before. We also had people coming from all regions saying it was the best one yet. Why? It was miked. Oh yeah baby. That was me... actually and Brian and sound expert who brought his mikes and helped us set up everything and run tests so that you could hear all the little kids in the very back of the cultural hall. Yep yeah for us! After the program we had a silly singing time. That was fun because Betsy had a variety of manners to sing songs. The kids got to pick a song and then had to sing the song the way Betsy had them pick on tongue depressors. Then they had all the teachers get up and sing too. Haha! Some of the older girls that I talk to a lot came out and hunted me down to sing with the adults. It was fun, mostly because I'm not a reserved person. All the teachers were up there singing like "I really really don't want to be doing this". Not me buddy. Hee hee. We had to sing as if we were singing underwater. So everyone was kind of mumbling singing. I decided to act up. Yes I got to reinact my child hood. I did this in primary when I was a kid so hey to have free licence to do it again I was game. I started "swimming" with my hands and puffing out my lips and swimming back and forth. I got some pretty funny looks from the teachers and I had the kids in stitches. I then started wiggling my finger between my lips like you do to babies and singing that way. Hey it sounded like I was underwater. I got the men, alas not the women, to do it with me. The kids loved it and started singing with us doing the whole finger thing too. It was awesome. Yes I was a hit. They got me to sing opera too, which I have a distinct memory of being in primary in the Valiant 8 class and getting my class to sing opera. We got into big trouble but we kept doing it. Ahhh the full circle. I loved it. I then got to hook up the tvs to watch our movie. I'm pretty good at hooking up electronics so it was a breeze just linking the two tvs together to show the same thing. I got comments like "can you come to my house and hook up my tvs, I can't get them to work." I was pretty proud of myself. The kids got to sit on blankets and watch some "living Scriptures" movie. They got treats and stuff. I noticed one of the little girls wasn't eating. Then it hit me. She had sciliac disease, meaning she couldn't eat anything with gluten. We had forgotten to get her something! Then I looked up and saw her mom. She was crying. "Oh crud" I thought. I went to talk to the mom and she told me that it's ok but her daughter was goign to go home and cry about it and she hates that. I guess this past month with the holidays and stuff the little girl had several parties that she didn't get to participate in because of her disease, felt left out and went home and cried. I went into scramble mode. I ran into Betsy in the hall. She saw my face and went "what's wrong?" Oh man. We both took off running to the nursery to see if they had non gluten food there. We lucked out they had sliced apples for their snack that day. They said to take as many as we wanted. We did and the little girl's face was incredible when we gave her the apples. She was so thankful to be able to participate. I was so ashamed that we hadn't thought of her special needs when we talked about the snack. We won't forget from now on. Thank goodness for the nursery is all I can say. Overall though it was a good day. ONe to live in my memory (ok I just typed mammory for some reason and had to rewrite it. weird) for a long time. My baby said her part perfectly and sand ALL THE SONGS. Yeah for my baby!

Home again

2006-11-10T20:09:00.000-05:00

So I almost cried when Kevin came home today. Spencer wanted to play with daddy all day today (no I was not good enough) so when Kevin came home he was ecstatic. So was Megan. They played and got tossed around. Kevin's face was all lit up as were the kids. It was perfect. Seriously Perfect. It's no wonder the big thing about the church is families. This was heaven to me today. The kids were so adorable and Kevin was loving life. Kevin hadn't seen the kids for the last 2 days. He made it to kiss them goodnight 2 nights ago and they were asleep by the time he got home last night. I think they missed each other.

update

2006-11-10T09:18:00.000-05:00

So Kevin is in his Surgical Specialites rotation now. This is, unlike general surgery (the last 6 weeks) where he gets assigned 3 different specialites to clerk in. His assignments, orthopedics, ent and neurology. When he tells people what he got they just look at him. Out of all the specialites these 3 are the ones that require the most work. You go babe! Yep the poor thing is exhausted. He's doing his orthopedics right now. He said the surgeries are incredibly physical (he held up a leg for 6 hours yesterday). He's tired and sore and the poor thing comes home and collapses only to have to get up and research the next day's surgeries. Average sleep time this wek 6 hours. The poor thing!!! That would be 16 hours out of the house and 2 hours of study time. Ugh. I've been trying to be a good wife and provide dinners for him when he gets home. On a different note did you know that certain face soaps will leach into your shirts (if you wear collared shirts like Kevin) and then when you wash the said shirt it will bleach out the collar so can't wear those said shirts anymore. Yeah that's what happened. I was stressed because nice shirts are expensive but hey, we've been saving for a tv and we took that money to buy him his shirts and his birthday present. Yes I broke. I got him a playstation 2. No tv but that's ok he has his clothes and his very long desired playstation. I did well on the game choices too. Fun stuff. Too bad he hasn't had a chance to play it yet. That's what the weekend was for. To hear him sit at the table and say "I'm exercising restraint." and look longingly at it was worth every penny. Also to see him ask if I asked about a certain game he likes and me to say "yes it's right there next to the playstation" have him look at me like I had given him the best surprise and then have him run into the other room to look at it. Yep I done good. Talking about doing good. I haven't seen Montse post anything so I'll let you guys know she and baby are doing good!

Note to self

2006-11-08T00:56:00.000-05:00

Self, Do not fall behind on the laundry when your husband is in a surgical rotation. Especially when he has to go to work at 4:30 ish 5am in the morning. That means that unless you wake up that early in the morning with the clothes that he needs you need to be prepared and have it ready for him BEFORE bed time. Especially when he is so incredibly kind he would do it himself if he had the time. 15-18 hour days are not conducive to doing his own laundry. Self, seriously you are awake at 1 am waiting on the laundry to dry so your dh will have clothes to wear to work/school in 3 hours when he showers. At least you found a show on TV you like (top chef) and you've found out that diet coke does work for keeping you up this late. Too bad contacts do not. Blurry vision is not helping for the awakedness of you mind. Self you had a relatively easy day, sure it was a horrid day over all but seriously how hard is it to stick a load in earlier than 4pm? I guess that's what set you back self. The red crayon. Ugh. Work clothes would have been done around 10 had you not had to go to the store for stuff to clean the dryer so that other loads of laundry would not turn red. Still, yesterday was available as was the morning. Self, stupid stupid self we need to change and have a talk about procrastination. Laundry better be done. I am taking stupid self to bed. ugh. I used to do this ALL THE time in college? When did I get old? I mean seriously actually I was doing this 2 years ago... At least I think I was. Maybe I'm delutional....

did you know

2006-11-07T20:35:00.000-05:00

1. That when washed and dried red crayon WILL get all over the clothes and the dryer and stay there. 2. Wiping the interior of said red dryer with 100% acetone will wipe ALL the red crayon off. :-) 3. Apparently, not tried yet but will first thing tomorrow, Cold water tide mixed with a cup of shout will get all red crayon out of clothes. We'll try this whole theory tomorrow.

cuteness all over the place

2006-11-05T21:58:00.000-05:00

Like my little sassy girl before going to school? She's gotta have her skirts.

Following the Plan

2006-11-05T21:18:00.000-05:00

So apparently I have a lot to say this evening and Kevin is busy so I will post my day. Today I couldn't withstand, I couldn't hold back, I spoke, out loud. Sigh. I failed miserably. You see I am a very outspoken person. *what no? gasp Me? you say* Yes, sad to admit it I am. Well, at least in large groups I prefer to hold my tongue. Actually it's more of if it looks like things are going well without me I'll give them their head if not I can't stand it and will take over the situation. This goes with pretty much everything. Don't like sitting around, I'll organize something. People can't make a decision? I'll make it for them. People can't say what's going on, I'll verbalize it. Except at church. Why church you say? Well because I am the Primary secretary. If I did start talking I would be afraid of overpowering the presidency with my um... how to put this delicatley force of presense? Yes I'm afraid of taking over the show. It's not my place so I just do the paper work. Occationally I'll try to slip in a suggestion but I try not to because well it's their calling and they have the stewardship over the Primary (kids organization at church). Well today I failed. Badly I might add. Yesterday as well. Sad, I couldn't help it. I took over. I am ashamed. I am telling my side of the story before I call and apologize to the presidency so here it goes. I hate a poorly executed plan. I am more of a we have a plan, the plan is working, let's stick to the plan type of person (STOP LAUGHING MOM AND DAD AND MONTSE! I really am. really, the rest of you believe me right?). I've become more of such a person since teaching 7th graders for 3 years. Man if that doesn't make you stick to a plan nothing will. So I digress here's what happened. We were practicing for the Primary Program today. This was the final run through and I was in charge of sound (meaning miking the joint). Now you see I have NEVER ever set up mikes for anything in my whole life and all of a sudden here I am in charge of a crucial piece of equipment. Needless to say I did a superb job and the sound was just lovely (I must add that I had the opportunity to disrupt the Elders Quarum not once, not twice but three times just for sound checks, that was really fun because the men didn't think I could get it together. It sure sounded better than anything they've ever done before for us. hee hee). Anyway, our chorister is Betsy. This chicka is 25 and an EVENT PLANNER. I mean serious event planner. She is the COOLEST and if my brothers would get it in gear they should come out and marry this little lassie. Anyway I digress again. Betsy's first event that she planned professionally was the March of Dimes banquet. Her latest the Capital 4th of July. You know the one on TV broadcast throughout the nation, the one that had Elmo this past year. Well that's Betsy. It's all her. She planned it and executed it. She even ran the evacuation from DC when it started raining and the Secret Service or the NSF or something called an evac of DC that night. Yep that was Betsy. Well she's running the show. So when I say that things were WELL PLANNED AND THOUGHT OUT you get the idea. Well people started having different opinions and changing the plan. They wanted kids over here. Sing in a different order. Teachers didn't want to do it that way, the kids needed to sit in order and in certain places even though because they had to weave through chairs they would be out of order when they got to the pulpit and even though this was the last run through certain teachers were going to express their opinion even though they couldn't make it to the first run through yesterday when we had time to make changes.. yadayadayada. You see how it was going. It finally got to the point where people were just griping and not listening to Besty, nor Monica (the president). We have a couple of preggo teachers who people have been tiptoeing around. Anywhooooo so it just started escalating. Having been around LOTS of people and situations I can read people really well. I tend to peg when people have an opinion and start getting upset. I went into "teacher, loud outspoken, handle the situation mode". I avoid this state as much as possible but I couldn't take it anymore. I started talking to each teacher, individually then made the changes (running them by the leadership of course.... what they didn't know, or actually they did know is I made things go back to the original plan) Kids started acting up because they saw some adults commenting and I gave them my teacher stare. They got noisy and they got me. Someone decided to try to change the plan and they got me. On top of all that I solved problems! Go me! I did a little McGyvering on the chairs so they didn't pop up, causing less things for the kids to play with. I must say I just flew into a whirlwind. In rereading this I sound like I'm bragging. I am so not, I'm just trying to give you the picture of what I ended up doing and why I usually avoid doing this stuff. I take over. I mean really take over. I mean there is no room for confrontation, forget what you were going to say because you will not get a chance to say it here, it's my way or the high way, got a problem here's your solution take it or leave in your face kind of me. It's the me I don't like being but in a way I totally get a rush when I take over type of person. It's the A type obsesive part of me coming out. I usually hate that part of me and I try to repress that part as much as possible, I failed today. Miserably. I guess on a high note I did get a rush out of the situation, people at church know how much I have been holding my tongue while there and I made Betsy and Monica happy because I put their plan back on track. (Note: had Betsy been at work and not at chruch she would have been the one getting the train back on track, it's funny the different types of people we become when at church). Another Note: I think I made Monica like me a whole lot more. Hee hee I like that woman.

The hills are alive

2006-11-05T21:09:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah baby! I am training my kids early. They stand no chance. They have no hope. Today was fleshy day (as are all Sundays), meaning all children under the age of 5 are in their undies all day after church. OK this was not my mandate but that of the kids. Soooo anyway as I was saying, today was fleshy day so here are my children after their naps sitting on a towel on the carpet, eating Count Chockula cereal (I know I know wrong on so many levels) and I turned on The Sound of Music. It was awesome, the singing the dancing, the Spenc refusing to go potty because he didn't want to miss a minute of "high on the hill was a lonely goat heard ladioladio lady hee who". Yep he was dancing and dancing because he didn't want to miss a minute of it. I paused it finally and he dashed to the bathroom to appear in point 2 seconds with undies in hand ready to resume the movie. Man, they were into it. THEY WATCHED THE WHOLE THING! They were very concerned about the bad guys trying to get the family. We had that whole section with me holding Spencer and Megan (yes they were nervous) and we were all yelling at the tv "Get down and hide! Don't let them see you!" and "Run Run Run family Run!". Yes it was a great experience it was me and my kids and the Sound of Music on Fleshy Day. Doesn't get much better than that. (It might have been better with Kevin but he had to go to the Hospital. I only say might because had he been there the evening would have abounded with sarcastic comments. We'll convert him to the Sound yet!!! I'll get you my pretty! *laughing diabolically thinking of converting Kevin into loving the Sound of Music as much as I do ah ha hahahha!* OK I'm back to my normal self. continue on to your regularly scheduled programming).

SOOOOOOO Much fun!

2006-11-05T20:59:00.000-05:00

So I love new music made from old music. Yes I'm a fan of the remakes. Charlie recoreded his version of the Riverbottom Nightmare band. If it's not sounding familiar think muppets and Emmet Otter's Jug-band Christmas. :-) Enjoy!!

Please

2006-11-05T13:17:00.000-05:00

"Mommy can we watch 'Monsters'?" "Only if you say Pretty Pretty Please." "Pretty Pretty Please!" With a grin on her face. "Handsome Handsome please!" from the little boy with a perplexed look on his face. You see Pretty is for girls, Handsome is for boys. "Ha! Handsome Handsome please too!" Yes they got to watch Monsters and I got to laugh at their cuteness the rest of the day.

A pinch of this a dash of that

2006-11-04T17:02:00.000-05:00

So Jeanie and I had lunch the other day. Did I ever tell you how much I admire her cooking abilities? Anyway we ate pumpkin soup. It was delicious. Today I decided to make my own pumpkin soup. Following her pinch of this a shake of that recipe I made a batch today. OHHHHH sooo yummy so I pass on the recipe. one can of pumpkin one can of black beans one lg can of chicken broth left over rotisserie or whatever chicken you have on hand (about 2 handfuls) lots of garlic cumin 4 shakes of pumpkin pie spice salt red pepper (adds a smoky flavor) ** a touch of curry, not too much you don't want to create a curry, it just adds a little something. so I did this times two for the week and it is heavenly it. It tastes like a soup that you don't know what's in it but you can't identify what makes it sooo good. It's the pumpkin. Because after it's all done if you didn't know pumpkin was in it you just wouldn't know. But it is so yummy. This got a WHOA THAT'S GOOD from Kevin. Yes! Success!

rooms

2006-11-02T16:36:00.000-05:00

So I LOVE this bathroom. It will be mine one day. An OHHHH so pretty!!!

what kind are you?

2006-11-02T16:33:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Em for posting this quiz. I had to take it twice. The first time I took the quiz every single question had multiple answers for me, except the dancing, that one was TOTALLY tango for me. So after playing it conservative the first time and not liking the resulting rooms I did it again with my competing answers. The outcoming rooms were SOOOOO much better as an eccentric. Hee hee. I like the rooms much better.

Thanksgiving

2006-11-02T14:52:00.000-05:00

Is it too early to think about Thanksgiving. I was perusing my Cooking Light Magazine and I started planning my Menu. Then I decided that in order to cook everything I wanted to cook I was going to have to invite other people to attend our dinner because I would need to hand off the normal stuff like potatoes, yams, cranberry sauce just so I can goof off with the experimental stuff like stuffed butternut squash. I also want to cook a dozen different pie recipes (new one chocolate pumpkin cheese cake) so I'd need to hand off a couple of the apple and regular pumpkin to make room in my kitchen for the heavy duty stuff. Ahhhh the dilema. Now I need to come up with the guest list. I mean seriously who to invite to a family occation? Do I invite the other Med students and families? What about other couples that don't have families in town? Arghhhh decisions. They probably have to be made sooner than later though so that I should have save the date stuff prepared. Then there is the room factor. Not enough. hmmmm decisions decisions.

Happiness

2006-11-02T08:26:00.000-05:00

You never really appreciate health until you've been sick. And boy were we sick. Can I just say right now how much I LOVE the families I work for. Seriously, I really love them. On Tuesday I had to call everyone to come get their kids asap because Spencer became violently ill. We are talking there was throwup on every inch of the bathroom floor and kitchen (hey at least they got clean finally). The poor thing was just heaving, and dry heaving. This is the first time he's gotten throwup sick. He didn't know which way was up or down. Every one came asap and picked up their children, called that afternoon to see that he was ok and was just wonderful. Of course Spencer was aok after he had a nap and daddy came home. We weren't taking any chances so we didn't go trick or treating that night. Oh well Halloween will come again next year. So I've been battling the same thing the kids've had for this last week. It's a head cold with a post nasal drip thing that makes you cough nonstop. Well yesterday it decided to bowl me over. I guess I was just not taking care of myself like I should have been. Anyway when I went to get up yesterday morning it felt like I had been hit by a truck. I hurt in every part of my body. I got up to feed the kids and it HURT! I've never hurt like that before. I was dizzy in the head and it was crazy painful. I decided we were calling in sick (for the first time for me). My families were so nice about it. they asked to bring me things and lunch. I told them I just needed to sleep it off. which I did. Can I just tell you I have the most angelic little kids on the face of the planet. They seem to know when Mommy needs them to be on their best behavior and needs them to fend for themselves. Medicine was just not working for me yesterday. This is a first where dayquil, theraflu and advil haven't worked for me. I was a very sad puppy. I actually got up to get the kids food, turn on the tv and went back to bed. My little angels fended for themselves for the morning and around 1, after lunch went and took naps until 4:30. MY KIDS WENT WILLINGLY TO BED TO NAP WITH NO FUSSING OR FIGHTING AND ACTUALLY FELL ASLEEP! How crazy is that. I too slept with them... actually I kind of slept the whole day. Sad I know but it hurt to get out of bed. We all got up around 4:30-5 ish and I was feeling a bit better. I tried different medication (alieve... good stuff, advil didn't cut it for the first time. Usually I dont' respond at all to alieve. yesterday I did). My pain left me and I was able to funciton yesterday evening. Poor Kevin, I think he looked at me and thought to himself "you called in sick?" Because I was really soooo much better last night that I was during the day. Anywhoo my families were so nice. I really have a good life. Seriously very good.

Free Hugs

2006-11-01T10:07:00.000-05:00

Chrissie Posted this video I liked it so I'm linking you there. I loved the music. Free Hugs

For Grandma and Grandpa

2006-10-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

Sorry everyone who is not related. This is for Grandma and Grandpa. After a long wait we present you with..... Baby Spencer.... With accompaniment.. Note: for those who don't know Spencer plays that he is a baby and does this high pitched talk... Like a baby. We recorded this last night. Fun stuff for the fam. Other people may not appreciate home video though. Smiles to all.

supposed bad mother III

2006-10-27T12:01:00.000-05:00

So here it is. I got told that I was a bad mother today. Literally said you are not doing it right. Megan has started doing this thing when she doesn't want to do something. Eat dinner, no my tummy hurts. Pick up my toys, no my tummy hurts. Hang up her coat, no my tummy hurts. Take a bath, no my tummy hurts. Well you get the picture. Anyway yesterday she said "mommy I don't want to go to school anymore, my tummy hurts." Oh boy. What happened? After much prying an prodding we found out she had to go to the "peace table" (aka timeout). Apparently someone was pushing her and they both had to work at the purple tables. Um yeah. I asked her teacher about it today and Manju said that Megan was fine yesterday, except she didn't like going outside to the play ground. She really doesn't like playing outside. What?!!! My daughter. We went after school to play at the park for 2 hours. She had a blast. Megan not wanting to play outside?!!! So I told them that maybe something was happening during their recess time that Megan wasn't liking either with the other kids or something. They said they would keep an eye out for her. I told them I mentioned it because Megan did the tummy thing for school. They looked at me and said "well maybe her tummy really hurts." duh thought of that. However had she not been doing that with EVERYTHING I Might have been a bit more considerate with the tummy thing. I've thought that maybe she just needed a bit more attention, reading , songs with mommy. Ummm no that lead to throw 'em down kick down screaming fits with her. I told the teacher so and she was ok with it. The thing is if you don't know Megan she could sell you a bill of goods with out blinking an eye and then rob you blind. The girl is seriously gifted. Anyway I got a call today from the school nurse saying Megan was complaining about a stomach ache. I went to pick her up and the nurse proceeds to tell me how I put her in school too early, I was a bad mother, that she needed to stay home with me and not go to school. Um I mentioned to the nurse that we put her in after careful consideration, deep thought and major contemplation. Did she care? Nope I'm a horrid mother. I mentioned that we've comtemplated keeping her home one day a week and were actually going to start next week with that. Did she listen, nope I'm a horrible mother. Wow. I don't know my own children. So after we exited the doors Megan asked if we could go play on the playground. I turned to her and said "I'm sorry honey, your tummy hurts we can't play today. We are going to go home, have lunch and take naps." She started screaming at me and actually I just looked at the clock she has been going for ummmm 1 hour and 10 minutes. This is with me trying to hold her, give her lunch, talk to her, show her her new costume... Um I finally gave up about 30 minutes ago and sent her to her room to take a nap. She's still going. We'll see how long it takes. We are in another royal fit day. On another note I lost my voice. The phone rang and I answered and couldn't talk. Fun huh? The funny thing is normally a day like this would make me cry but I'm just sitting here kind of detached thinking to myself this is such a bizarre day. seriously.

nice

2006-10-27T08:47:00.000-05:00

So I stopped to talk to Megan's teachers this morning. We were chatting and I looked down and noticed that Spencer had somthing white coming from the bottom of his pants. "Nice." I thought, "toilet paper, nice nerd boy". So not thinking anything about it I reach down and pulled on said white object. Ohhhhh it wasn't toilet paper. It was his underwear. I look down mortified that I just pulled his underwear out of his pants.... IN FRONT OF SAID TEACHERS. They lost it. They were laughing so hard that Manju had tears running down her face. Spencer looked at me and said "Hey mommy, those are my drawers." I was laughing, crying, turning beet red, and tried to explain that I've been having Spencer put his undies and pants back on after he uses the toilet by himself (he still has to be naked from the waist down when he goes). I then looked at the teachers who one of which was almost falling of her chair and said "I wonder if he's..." I then looked down my son's pants. Sure enough he was going comando. Yep that one is mine. And that memory is mine forever.

oh yeah forgot to add

2006-10-25T13:17:00.000-05:00

So I can't really buy Megan anymore pants to go with her high water jeans and pants that she is presently wearing due to the fact that I spent the money on getting her a bed. She has been sleeping on an inflatable matress for the umm.... past several months and I've been keeping my eye out on Craigslist (which I love by the way). So I found it. Twin over full bunk beds, they seriously take up over half of the kids room but hey. They came with matresses and everything. They are beautiful. As soon as I get a picture I will for right now I shall post the closest thing to them. They are VERY similar to this except the slats go horizontal. Notice the price when you look at the similar item.... $749 - $849 sale price... list price $999-119. not including mattresses. So you ask how much did you spend on these rather nice, in perfect condition bunk beds that included the mattresses? What was the asking price that I had to jump in the van and pray that everything fit because they were coming home with me even if I had to bend the full mattress in half (which I did)? I'll tell you $100. Yep that's right $100. Heck the mattresses alone are worth more than that. I am proud of my purchase. My daughter is no longer sleeping on the floor regardless of how short her pants are. As I said my mothering skills are improving. :-)

bad mommy part II

2006-10-25T13:01:00.000-05:00

So I've mentioned earlier that Megan refuses to wear anything but skirts to school. As she again did yesterday. I really haven't been too concerned about it because it's been cold in the mornings but warms up nicely during the day. Ummm not so yesterday. The temperature dipped. So here my daughter is wearing her nice little skort ankle socks and mary janes to school. I did include a light jacket for her to wear in case it took longer warming up than expected. Knowing the days were getting colder, after dropping her off at school I went to target got her some knit tights, an insulated hat, everyday sweater and some gloves so that she could be warmer in subsequent days. But I digress, I just needed you to know that I'm not completely oblivious. Anyway, Yesterday rolls around. My daughter is wearing essentially shorts and a light jacket to school and it WAS FRIDGED!!! Yesterday, seriously down right cold. The temp dropped shortly after dropping Megan off and stayed low all day long. I have no idea what happened. To top it off I got the "you are a complete idiot" talk from the teacher. You know the kind "Um the weather is changing and Megan needs to wear warmer clothing." Apparently she was very cold at recess and they had to bring her in to change her clothes with the set we have there. Yes I am a bad mother. I must again note that I did manage to buy her some warmer stuff BEFORE I got the bad mother talk. Yes my daughter was quite warm going to school today. Because she still wanted to wear skirts/dresses we just stuck jeans on underneath and bundled her up. She was quite happy with herself. Now if only I didn't have the talk again from the teacher today becasue Megan was tired and I should make sure she gets enough sleep talk from the teacher I wouldn't be so bugged. *note: my daughter went to sleep around 7pm last night woke up with some nightmares around 11:00, 11:30 and midnight then slept until 7:30 this morning. It really wasn't my fault she was tired. But hey at least I'm getting better. I must say she even got a bath today before going to school.

a lot of catching up

2006-10-23T06:45:00.000-05:00

This weekend Kevin was able to be home on Saturday. It was a really long week and we were all happy to have him home. The kids went wild when they realized that no, he was not at school but lying in bed yelling at them to join him. They jumped on him and gave him huge hugs and kisses. It was so cute. It was really nice to have him for a couple of hours before he started studying again. (he wanted to watch wonderpets so that he would know what Spencer was singing all day long it was pretty cute) He has a big exam tomorrow so we only got him for a couple of hours but they were sure nice. On a different note he got to participate in some interesting surgeries. I'm thrilled that he's doing something he likes. It's hard on the family, I won't lie, but we want him to be able to do what he wants and enjoys. Actually we've been doing really well we just kind of melted on Saturday. It's funny how that works. I was fine fine fine all week long and so were the kids then Kevin comes home on Saturday and we melt. It's like Oh man we missed this guy and realize just how much when he's actually home. It's like we go into machine mode when he's gone. We get things done, we survive, and we manage but we sure enjoy him being there. But when he comes home and talks about all the fun stuff he's doing it makes everything worth it. It's hard to explain. You want him to do the best thing that he'll enjoy the most no matter how hard it is for the family. And if he chooses something else because it's more condusive to family life I'll feel like I've failed him. I want him to see that we are in for the long haul. Megan has her first little school bug. She has a wicked little cough and was sneezing too. We kept her home from school today so that she can get a bit better before she heads back so she doesn't get everyone else sick. Her new favorite thing is to type on the computer. She does this at school so she loves seeing her name appear when she types it. Right now she is dressed in full princess mode sitting on the red lego tub pretending to be a mermaid. Soooooo cute. I tried to run for the camera and she jumped off. sad. Yesterday she went into the nursery to go get Spencer turned to Kate (the nursery leader) and extended her arm like she was a model on the price is right and said "what a beautiful nursery you have here." Wow, Kate and I lost it we were laughing so hard! Man, the things that come out of these little ones. Another Kate story under Spencer Spencer driven by the desire to type his name as well on the computer wants to learn his letters. Since that day I told him he needed to know his letters before I would let him type he's picked up 4 new letters. Wow incentive goes a long way. Sundays are also his favorite day because that's the day that he's allowed to go belly! Going belly means shirtless. He laughs and says in his cute little voice "look mommy! I've got a belly!" cute kid. The other night during his prayers he said "thank you for nursery and thank you for sister kate!" He sure likes her. Since she has become the nursery leader he is all about nursery where as before not so much. I was informed the other day that surgeons use a lot of micro techniques and the best practice for surgery is video games and the best video game system was playstation so we should save up so we can get one. Hee hee. Right that's going to happen real soon (note the extreme sarcasm)

bad mommy very bad

2006-10-21T07:37:00.000-05:00

So Spencer needed a hair cut a couple of days ago. In attempting to talk my son into not screaming because of clippers I told him that he had a big ball head and we needed to trim his hair so that it looked better. Well he took it to heart. He LOVES his big ball head now and loves referring to it. Last night as we were saying our prayers Spencer said "Thank you for my toes and thank you for my Big Ball Head." Yep. Thank you, I do what I can you can get up off the floor now.

Embarrassing

2006-10-19T09:56:00.000-05:00

So I had the most embarrassing thing yet happen to me with the kids. I took the kids to play on the school "park" playground yesterday after picking Megan up. After a bit all the rest of the school let out and there were tons of other children running around. I decided to take my children to another park, one that had less large children running around. All the kids were up for the idea until we were actually leaving when Spencer started screaming bloody murder because he didn't' want to leave. Ummm he did this in front of 30 other parents. Yep, that's mine. He screamed as I grabbed his hand, screamed as I picked him up and hauled him under one arm, Sam under the other arm, backpack hanging on my elbow and coats linked through the sashes on the backpack. He screamed all the way down the road till we reach our van and the screamed while I loaded him into the van. He screamed all the way home. Nope, we didn't go to another park we went home and my son was put to bed, where he screamed for 10 minutes until he fell asleep for 2 hours.

Watching planes

2006-10-18T12:08:00.000-05:00

So I've mentioned here about the Arlington Alert system. For those who dont' have it they were in high panic last week due to the flyovers of many f-16s and stealth bombers over the houses of Arlington. See in case you missed the news the Airforce Memorial was dedicated this past weekend and the planes were practicing all week long. I must say it was incredibly impressive to sit on our couch with 4 little toddlers waiting for another one to fly by. The kids were concerned that they were "bad planes" due to the noise level. I had to assure them that they were very very good and very cool planes. On Saturday I took the kids to see the flyovers at the dedication. We were right across the way from the pentagon and could see everything. I must say I had way more fun than the kids. Here are the picts. I was only able to find one of the planes that we saw. They were very very cool though. They came in low and seemed to be able to just drop on us where we were. I could imagine the feelings of the Europeans as they saw the B-52 bombers and the mustangs flying overhead as they went to go bomb people. Quite impressive it was. Tired of waiting for the planes Spencer decided to do his own one man air show. I must say he had everyone chuckling because of how cute he was running around in circles with his cute little airplane he brought. The kids were tired of waiting after the first initial planes. They decided to take naps while I watched facinated at the blank sky. Here the monkeys are playing hide and seek whiling away the time. The big building in the background is the Pentagon. To give you an idea we are on the exact opposide side of the Pentagon where the plane struck on Sept 11. You probably can't see the little blips in the sky that Spencer is pointing at. When the planes were overhead to look at them you had to look toward the sun and the kids refused to do that so they watched the blips. One of the coolest planes ever. Stealth bomber. This is a B-24 bomber. This was a very very cool plane to watch. My camera just didn't do it justice. The view we had of the plane was extremely clear and close. I don't know why my camera made it look like it was far away. It literally glided just above the trees were were standing under. Here's a good pict below this one of what it really looked like. I think I need a better digital camera.

On being a Princess

2006-10-17T08:57:00.000-05:00

Megan had reached the stage where she feels that she needs to wear skirts ALL the time. Today I put some khaki's on her with a polo and she hollered, oh how she hollered. She couldn't wear pants because she had to be a princess at school. She needed a skirt. Not having one readily available (meaning they all needed to be ironed or were dirty, she only has 3) I told her that they were all dirty. She pointed to the one she wore yesterday and said "No mommy, I was careful, that one's not dirty." I however being the materialistic individual that I am would not let her wear the same thing two days in a row. I know I know, why not? It was a jean skirt. I'll tell you why not because we go to a school where everyone else is extremely wealthy and my daughter is already on the outs because she doesn't ride the school bus to school like the "cool kids" (when did this change? When I grew up the cool kids were the ones that didn't ride the bus) and she doesn't have strawberry shortcake yogurt for lunches. I was not going to doom her to wearing the same outfit. Anywho, I found a skirt that didn't wasn't too wrinkled and slapped that on her with some tights and some tennis shoes voila dressed for school. I think I'm going to have to make an excursion for more skirts later today. That or do more laundry which probably isn't going to happen. It's ok. I remember wanting to wear skirts. My favorite was a red one that my grandma made for me. It had red polkadots. I could twirl in it. hee hee.

Miracles

2006-10-15T12:07:00.000-05:00

Just call me Mommy the Miracle worker. Megan woke up and started getting after Spencer who was swinging around his little baggie that he found on the table when he woke up. She thought he had her baggie. I looked at her and told her that no Spencer had his bag. She ran to go check and sure enough her little baggie of candy was right where she had left it. Her eyes were huge!!! I can see the thoughts runnign through her brain "I prayed that Spencer would get his baggie back and Mommy didn't help me with that prayer and he did it!" She was very excited to say the least. :-)

The educating of Mommy

2006-10-14T20:15:00.000-05:00

Today we had a great ward activity. It was a Mexican dinner with pinatas. The kids loved the pinatas. Anytime with candy is a treat for them, they usually don't get any, cake for breakfast yes when it's around but not candy. Tonight there were 2 pinatas. One with candy pieces for the older kids and one with baggies for the little kids. Megan was in hog heaven because the older kids didn't go under the tables for the littler pieces of candy. She was quite willing to do the work for the candy. She was so proud of herself. She'd keep coming up to show me her new addition to her stash and she kept coming back with more. She then realized Spencer didn't have any and then started taking pieces of candy over to where Spencer was sitting and shared with him. It was down right adorable to see this sweet little thing taking care of her brother. Then the trauma happened. After the last pinata burst a nice young man came by and gave Spencer a pkt of candy because he was sitting on the side lines just watching. This nice young man also made sure that 3 other little side liners got a pkt too. Spencer took his pkt and went to go find Megan so that he can show her his "new candy baggie". The next thing I know is Megan's standing next to Spencer patting him and he is bawling. Another "big kid" had come and pushed Spencer and took his little baggie away. I was horrified and when I tried to get the kid to give it back he took off running. I was ready to chase him down, tell his parents when this other little boy came up to me. He had seen Spencer bawling and said "Oh do you not have any candy? Here you can have mine." He emptied his pockets for Spencer. Spencer stopped crying said thank you to this sweetin little 7 year old child and went on his happy way. The jaded mother in me wanted to chase the other little kid down and thrash him but this sweet little child sure taught me a lesson. What would Jesus do? The other child that took the candy was only 5 (knowledge is power, I'm the primary secretary). Spencer was happy so I decided to leave it and go. Then tonight as we were saying our prayers sweet little Spencer did the thing that tears at a mommy's heart. The kids like help on their prayers, more for ideas, then they interject their own ideas and go off on their own. Well I started him off by saying "thank you for church" and I was peeking at him just because he's so darn cute with his little arms folded and he started his tangent He stuck out his lip, hunched his shoulders and said "Hevenwy Father I lost my candy baggie. Please help me get it back." ooooooooooo the poor thing. After his prayer we talked about how sometimes big boys don't do good things but it was ok because we are trying to be like Jesus and we can share the candy that we do have like the nice other little boy. They didn't understand why anyone would take things. It was incomprehensible to them. We talked about it for about 15 mintues after their prayers when I asked Spencer if he was happy with the candy the little boy gave him. He said yes. Megan was the one disturbed because we needed to go and get Spencer's candy for him because he didn't have a baggie. They slowly let the conversation go and I said my goodnights to them. After I closed the door I heard Megan praying again ("please bless my family that they won't get hurt and die" thank you public school "and please bless Spencer that he can get his baggie back"). The faith of a child is a blessed thing. side note: Spencer has a baggie of candy waiting for him when he wakes up on the table, no Megan would not have let it go. So does that other sweet little boy.

sniff

2006-10-13T12:34:00.000-05:00

So I was just fixing the kids lunch. I brought it into the living room/dining room and looked down to see a huge pile of batting from my quilt on the floor. E who has been told repeatedly that he is not to touch, pull, swing and any other of manner of touching the quilt decided that it would be a great idea to pull all the batting that he could reach off the quilt while I was making lunch for him. I have gained my compusure. I was furious, still am, he is taking a nap for his own sake and I have to figure out how to import batting into the quilt without making it feel funny. sigh. kids. sniff. If you look at the picture of the quilt all the batting that you can see has been pulled off up to the first row of white sad, the pink was supposed to be the binding agent that brought untiy to the quilt and the backing. I can't just cut it short and off. Any suggestions?

diego

2006-10-13T07:36:00.000-05:00

We kept Megan home from school today. More of a mental health day for her. The poor thing is exhausted. I've been trying to get her to bed earlier, say in bed by 7 so she gets enough sleep but I work until then and if I'm going to get her in the bath I have to get EVERYONE in the bath which means that mothers of kids stay that much longer. We tried it a couple of months back and it ended up being that certain mothers would stay until 7:30, or until I was able to get everything going. It just didn't work. I'll try again next week. The problem arrises when I feed the kids dinner first, little E man will eat with them but he takes exponentially longer than the others to eat but will cry when I get the others in the bath at 6:30 and dont' put him in because his mother will be there any minute. Timing's a little tricky. I have to work that out. Anyway I've had to wake Megan up each day this week to go to school. Poor thing was just sleepy. Yesterday after school she just wanted to come home eat, brush her teeth and go to bed, right, after, school. Tuckered out. Anyway so I kept her home today. She seems to be enjoying it. She slept in until 7:45, about when I hopped into the shower. I came out of the shower to Megan and Spencer singing the Diego theme song. Not thinking anything of it (they usually sing songs) I went to my room to get dressed. I got dressed and walked into the living room. There is Spencer with the painter's tape trailing behing him trying to tape up Megan. He has the tape wrapped around her wrist and is holding the other end of it. Megan afraid that I might get after them for well getting into the utility closet jumped in with a explination "Mom, Spencer's Diego and I'm Dora, and that's Diego's rescue pack" With that she pointed to the tape. works for me. Ok Dieog and Dora have fun. I'm a sucker for imaginary play.

my quilt and my stands

2006-10-09T12:07:00.000-05:00

Here's my quilt I'm making and my stands that Kevin made me.

my men

2006-10-09T11:46:00.000-05:00

phone conversations

2006-10-09T08:53:00.000-05:00

Kevin was talking on the phone with his parents last night while I was putting the kids to bed. He had them on speaker phone so it was fun to hear them during the routine. It was also fun to hear them suddenly grow silent when they heard Spencer and Megan singing "Teach me to walk in the light" as they get ready for bed. Then I asked Megan if she wanted Grandma to help her with her prayers. She loved the idea (I think grandma did too). So Kevin held the phone up close to Megan and Grandma helped her with her prayers. Spencer waited quietly, thrilled and waited for his turn with his arms folded. Then he got his turn. It was cute to see their little faces lit up by the light of the cell phone. Must say it was something we will be asked to redo tonight when we get them to bed. I can just hear it now "brush teeth, drink water, sing songs, then prayers with grandma?" maybe on Sundays. It's my favorite time of day... and no not just because they are going to bed, we sing songs because and no matter how frustrated I am or wound up they are the primary songs calm everyone and we go to bed happy. The kids can be in terrible moods or very upset about something but once those songs get going everything is calm and they are at their cutest. So I will keep my nights, Grandma we'll call you on Sunday night for prayers with grandma.

squash

2006-10-09T08:47:00.000-05:00

I love squash. I must say the lovely colors of the peel/husk/shell, whatever you want to call it, the flavors and well the cooking. I bought some butternut squash Saturday and set to work creating in my kitchen. OOOOOOHHHH the love. I made a wonderful butternut squash and leek soup. It was heavenly, especially since the day was wet and cold. I was able to sit and curl up and eat my soup, which Megan refused but Spencer loved. Spencer also partook of my lovely creation. After putting most of the soup away in the fridge for another day I gave him the pot with the drippings. He is my son. Yep that he is. He sat there and proceeded to eat a half a loaf of bread by dipping it into the soup (which his dad had been doing previously). Oh yes, a complete half loaf of bread. Did I mention it was good? Today we are doing acorn squash (learned from a friend in college, halved, roasted buttered and brown sugared.... yummm)

How cute is too cute?

2006-10-08T12:04:00.000-05:00

So today I was holding a little baby girl. She was down right adorable. Seriously, she liked me a ton and was cooing away at me. Just when I thought it couldn't get any cuter Spencer comes along and says "Mommy, I want to be a daddy please." Translation: Can I hold the baby? So I had him sit down and he got to hold the baby. The baby girl LOVED it. She immediately started cooing at Spencer and leaned in to hug him and started sucking on his cheek to "kiss" him. All the time Spencer just giggled and loved it. After that Spencer went to go play and every time he came near this little baby girl would just follow him with her eyes and coo for him to come hold her. Which of cours he obliged and so it went for the next 30 mintues. Each time Spencer asked "Mommy, I want to be a daddy."

house hungry

2006-10-06T09:14:00.000-05:00

So I got house hungry. When I do I keep looking at the house I grew up in. Want to see it? Want to buy it? You can buy it and give it to me for Christmas!!! I would love that. Here it is. Although I must say mom, the granite counter tops and fridge are stellar. I hadn't seen them before. love it.

the bubble has burst!!!!

2006-10-06T09:06:00.000-05:00

Yipee horray! OK not good for all those who already have houses however for those of us who don't this is a good thing. Hopefully it will still be down by the time we get to buy a house. The houses around here were obsurdly prices. However just for fun I was looking at realtor.com and found lots of houses in great neighborhoods for under $600,000. OK most of us are saying what?! that much. Here in the DC area it's incredible. Most of those houses would sell for over $1,000,000 just last year. This is soooooo making me house hungry.

ice cream

2006-10-06T07:28:00.000-05:00

I went to the Relief Society opening social last night. We call it the opening social because our ward has so many new people that come into our ward during the summer and then many students and wives during the fall that the opening social takes place in October. There were a lot of people there but my favorite was my Jeanie. I sure had fun with her. We talked and laughed and it was just grand. Anywho, we had ice cream sundaes. We are talking about decked out sundaes. There were literally 31 flavors to choose from (I picke one scoop of chocolate fudge and one of raspberry ripple) bannanas, candy to put on top, brownines and chocolate fudge, cherries and whip cream for the top. I had two smallish scoops then smothered it with bananasa, one brownie, I skipped the candy because well I didn't want to... I don't know what I wanted just not candy. I then added hot fudge whip cream and a cherry. pretty tame if I do say so myself. I apparently haven't had this rich goodness in a bit. It was sooo sweet that I made myself sick. Yes it was a sad first for me. Normally you could call me Lorelai Gilmore in my fortitude for eating, but I got sick last night. It was an end to an era. How sad for me. I got sick eating ice cream. sad just sad.

coolest

2006-10-02T16:34:00.000-05:00

How cool is it that my daughter was reading her books on the couch and singing to Lenny Kravitz at the same time. Seriously, couldn't be much cooler than that.

beautiful bellies

2006-10-01T14:57:00.000-05:00

Is it bad when you don't even bat an eye at having your child run by you in nothing but undies... to be followed by her brother in nothing but undies.... 5 minutes before guests are due to arrive? I swear they were dressed last time I saw them. Yep their clothes are even on the living room floor still. You know what? I don't care. They want to go in their cute underweared tushies let them (my mom is secretly dying... sorry mom). I've just asked them to put their clothes back on and they said "No mom, baby spencer is sick and needs to lie in bed. He's sad because he misses his grandma and grandpa" (no I am not kissing up mom this is seriously what she said) undies babies for me all the way!!!

2006-10-01T07:51:00.000-05:00

So hairyshoefairy tagged me. I was reading her tag then without even thinking about looking at who she tagged I went on to read another blog... Hahahhaa. Here I am reading this other blog when it registered that my name was on hairyshoefairy's post. What? Hmm? I went back and sure enough there I am. Hee hee. funny how our brains retain things and then process them a bit after they are initially registered. What do you like most about where you live? The proximity to EVERYTHING. I can literally walk down the street and see the Washington Monument. I can also walk down the street to the grocery store and the library and I'm withing walking distance of 5 different parks. I can drive for a whole 6 minutes in traffic and be at my daughter's school, which is really good when I'm moving a bit slowly in the morning and we're running late. I also love the trees. Everything is green and living (without having to work on it, which is good considering I tend to kill all living plants that are actually cultivated) and Arlington works hard to keep the city beautiful. The streets and homes are lovely too. I just love the colonial style homes that are here in abundance. What's one of your all time favorite music albums and why? ooooo hard one. It's hard because I like the ways bands sound so I'll list my bands. I love anything by Better than Ezra, why? I couldn't say except I love their songs. I always end up singing thumping (thumping is what you do in the car while a really great song is on the radio, you know strumming the guitar with your fingers and playing the drumss... you know thumping). I mean seriously how can you not start dancing and singing to "oa oa oa oa oa oa oa oa oa oa juicy.... oa oa oa oa oa oa oa oa oa oa juicy". Click on Juicy It's one of my new favs. Also anything by Cake, I mean who can redo really old songs and just make them cool like Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps by Doris Day or I will survive by our dear Gloria Gaynor at the same time having very catchy newer songs (if any of you love me and want to buy me a great Christmas present cds or mp3 players so I can play my downloaded songs are welcome from these bands). I also really like how the Killers sound. Did you have a passion for something as a kid that you still have now? Does making a mess count? I love being creative. My mom tells a story how I couldn't learn to cross-stich because I was too free form. It seems to be the story of my life. I love working outside the box. Seriously I love going above and beyond in anythign I do. It's exhausting but hey that's me. I love anything artsy. yep that's me but if I have to follow rules with my artsy stuff forget it. I like free form artsy. What do you like most about having a blog? keeping in touch with my siblings. We aren't the greatest at it. I mean the calling each other, emailing thing but this way we can see what's up with each other and talk way more often because we know what's going on in eachothers lives. I also get to "meet" really cool people that I've enjoyed getting to know via their blogs (yes I'm sooooooo tagging you guys, actually I already knew Dave but it's fun to catch up with what you're up to). Who am I tagging? Tracy, Calandria, Athena, Montse and Dave

Following instructions

2006-09-30T14:11:00.000-05:00

So, Men and directions and instructions... Enough said. Except if you are in my family then it's a whole other, down right, hysterical and utterly lovable thing. Kevin is making me quilting frames. The guy is using his only day off to build me something. He drafted some plans then set to work. After making one of the legs he looked at it and out loud said "this doesn't look like my awesome drawing. I mean seriously my drawings were awesome." Ummmmm hee hee. He suddenly looked very sheepish. Yep he wrote the instructions, drew the instructions for him self then failed to follow the instructions. Typical male. Down right cute. Completely lovable. Hee hee. I told him "I am sooooo blogging this." He just gave me a cute smile and laughed. Then he went back to work. This time using the instructions he wrote for himself.

I knew it would happen

2006-09-29T12:17:00.000-05:00

I just thought it would be later rather than sooner. She hasn't even been in school for 2 weeks and I already forgot to send her lunch with her. In my defense she had it in her hand as I opened the door, it just didn't get in the car or to school. Bad mommy, bad mommy. The look on her face was utter betrayal as we got to school and she realized that no mommy did not have her lunch bag. She was completely embarrassed when we got to her classroom and she had to tell her teacher that she didn't have her lunch bag. Poor thing. I felt terrible. WEll until I got home to get it and found it in the hallway of our apt ready to out the main door. yep I think I'll keep a closer eye on that thing from now on. ON a high note I got to see her walking down the hall when we took it to here at school. She's so cute!

lunch box politicking

2006-09-29T07:07:00.000-05:00

Ahhhhhh packing a lunch. "mommy I want strawberry shortcake yogurt for lunch". Really? hmmm Where would I get Strawberry Shortcake yogurt? "At the Store". Hahaha if only it was that simple. I have no problems buying her this said yogurt. Mostly due to the fact that I'm already buying them yogurt and the character yogurts are not any more expensive. So a trip to the store we go (no not just for yogurt, we were out of milk too). No SSY there, nor at the other store we went to the next day. We did find Dora yogurt however it's not the same. Oh well she'll have to live with it. :-) She's adjusting to the exhausting pace of school and loving it. She'll come home chat about school then say "OK no more talking about school" and no matter how I try to word questions to try to sneak info out of her she's a smart cookie, looks at me and says "mommy no more talking about school." This includes, friends, food, play and work at school.

remembering

2006-09-28T09:45:00.000-05:00

MJ called today. She called to make sure I was doing ok with Kevin and Surgery. It was so nice of her because I really needed the call at that moment. Yesterday was a bear of a day. The 4 am mornings, even though there has been only 2 in a row then a 5 am morning got to me yesterday. I think phychologically as, well knowing I wouldn't see Kev until noon today hit a nerve. We have only been apart twice in our whole 5 years of marriage and it's going to be an adjustment. They did send him home yesterday because it was an extreamly slow day so he didn't spend the night there but he had homework/reading he had to do so he studied until he crashed yesterday around 9:30. Anyway MJ's also going through a bit but she made sure to call to make sure I was ok. That's what good friends are. They remember.

We are officially into surgery

2006-09-26T11:38:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted for a bit because we were trying to spend quality time together before surgery started. Well it started yesterday. yeah. I think that was supposed to be an easy day too because they had orientation in the morning then clinic the rest of the day. So Kev left the house yesterday at 6:30am and didn't come home until 7:30 pm. The kid were exhausted so they went to bed at 7pm. Kev walked in asked if the kids were down and went in to give hugs and kisses before they went to sleep. Poor thing. This morning it got worse. The alarm went off at 4:15 this morning. Kev left the house at 4:45. That poor guy. All I can say is thank goodness mom and dad got us a bed we can actually sleep on. I'm going to have the kids take naps after Megan gets home from school so that I can keep them up later so that Kevin and see them awake. I don't think he'll be getting home until after 7 each day so we'll see what we can work out. This is going to be a rough little patch until December. Melissa and I laugh because her husband Jon will be up at the DCVA hospital doing a rotation up there, the same place where Kevin will be. Usually when Jon's up there he has really long hours so she is also planning on not seeing her husband until December. We are already planning on having our support group together. There is also a med student's wife that just moved into our ward. She's going to be our friend too along those lines. Kevin is so cute he's making me quilting frames and Jeanie's given me more hours (money) to watch Caroline during the week, which we are using to pay for Directtv so I have somthing to do while he's gone. So I will be quilting and watching all these fun shows on tv!! You don't realize how cool reception is, especially when it is aquired without tin foil!!! :-) It also came with free DVR so I can record all of our favorite shows for Kev when he gets a chance (thanksgiving? or Christmas) to watch them.... not bad without commercials. hee hee. I already miss him though. He came home yesterday and had some reading he had to get done for this morning. Poor thing. I made a whole bunch of pasta salad though and put it in containers. This salad can be eaten hot or cold so he can grab it and go. I'm going to make a variety each week so he has hearty meals he can eat to keep himself going. His friend said that he lost 10lbs during surgery because he was only able to grab one meal a day, he was so busy. Newfound respect for mom for doing this for 5 years. whew! at least it will break me in for future residencies.

day 2

2006-09-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

Megan was so excited to go to school today she didn't go to the bathroom this morning when she woke up. Seriously this child has a bladder the size of Antartica. By the time we got to school she was dancing around. Said hi to her teacher and bolted for the "school potty". Ummm yep. She was excited to use that potty. Yesterday when we asked her what she did during the day she said "I took a nap and I went potty." Yep highlights.

High trauma

2006-09-19T13:55:00.000-05:00

My baby had her first day of school today. She's growing up. She could care less who her mama is. So this morning I gave her her finished Pinkalicious quilt (yes I finished it at 10:30 last night). We talked about it being a hug from mommy when she needed one she just had to wrap herself in the quilt. She loved that idea and started hugging it right away. When we finally got to the school it self was really exciting. There is one door that the kids are allowed to enter and a bus had just dropped off a ton of them so there were all these kids going to the doors with back packs on the school busses were right there. Megan was so thrilled she started running down the side walk yelling "I'm going to school! I'm going to school!". The only time she got a bit nervous was when we had to wade through the 2nd graders in the hall, but then she wouldn't hold my hand only Spencer's. When we got to the classroom it was like "mom who?" Yep. She gave her teacher a hug and immediately got down some sorting stuff and off to a table she went. Actually she was a bit shy with one little girl but then she started chatting and she was off. As I was leaving I asked for a kiss and hug. I got an air kiss, but Spencer got the full hug and kiss works. Sigh. She's growing up. She was so adorable there. She will do well and I am excited to see how her day has gone. Kev was able to come home early (fluke, the physicians had a meeting to go to so there wasn't any clinic) so we are sitting around pacing until we can go pick her up. I miss my baby. On the home front, Spencer is LOVING being at home with mommy by himself. He held my hand all the way to the car (which he never does when Megan's around). He also cuddled and snuggled during story time and over all had a fun and great time with me today. My house is quiet. Sad quiet. I'll be better tomorrow.

After Church

2006-09-18T06:44:00.000-05:00

Kevin got Spencer from nursery which is right by the Sunbeams class. After getting Spencer he collected Megan from Sunbeams. Megan had a bag of teddy bears and started sharing with Spencer. Luckily we had the camera. The would walk a couple of feet stop swap a teddy bear eat it and continue walking, talking about what they did in class. ONe of the pictures below was just such an exchange. Another is of Spencer holding up his bee craft and showing Megan what he did in class. They then walked down the side walk to the car holding hands. Could they be any cuter. I can't think of a way... unless it's Me making lunch and hearing from the other room... "Swim with Sister Yanni! Swim SWim Swim. Now help me Spencer Help me ! I'm hurt!". Sister Yanni is the sunbeam teacher. Today Megan's lesson was on the Good Samaritan. To personalize it Yanni told a story about her sister in law who runs triathalons. She described what a triathalon was by swimming and having the kids act it out, running and biking. Well during one particular triathalon her sister hit a rock coming down the mountain on a bike and fell, splitting her head open. She kept asking for help but nobody stopped to help her. She ended up having to use her cell phone to call for help (note: blood was running down her face and clothing) because no one would stop for her. She had one of the kids pretend to be hurt and then they each got to walk by the "hurt" person and see if they would help the hurt person. After church Megan was reinacting her class with Spencer. (I found what they were doing at a teacher development meeting we had that night and I told Yanni that my kids worship the ground she walks on saying they were "swimming with Sister Yanni". She then told me how cute that was and told me what happened in class. fun huh? Here are my cuties. After church we went home and made brownies. It was a great day.

new find

2006-09-15T09:14:00.000-05:00

So I got a new catalog yesterday. Can I just say I'm in LOVE! I'm already excited to start the fall baking, spice cookies, pumpkin/chocolate bread, pies, rolls and my HOMEMADE CHOCOLATES. Oh yeah baby, if you didn't know I know how to make hand dipped chocolates and truffles. So I picked up some goodie buckets and I am soooooo stoked to make them (note: if you would like homemade chocolates you may send $10 to me and I will send you some wonderful boxes filled with yummy homemade chocolates) Anywho, I digress, I got too excited with the whole chocolate thing. Anyway I got this catalog yesterday and I am in Love. It is called The Baker's Catalogue. Yes I am a baker. I love it. Not for myself or family, but for others. I love cooking for others. This has all the gagets and gizmos I want in my kitchen. I salivate at their mixes, I coo at their cheesecake pans (little popables for cute stuff, they have heart shaped too), their cake pans (cilicone sigh with pleasure), the ove gloves (don't buy some fam, you might be getting some for christmas!). As I said I'm in love.

You know you're doing something right Part II

2006-09-15T09:03:00.000-05:00

I've stated in the past how much my kids like eachother. Well last night we went to the Target to get them some socks and to window shop. It was actually a decompression trip becasue Kev went with us and we just sauntered around the store. One of my rules with the kids is when there are a lot of people around they need to hold my hand (so they don't have a panicky momma on their hands). Well there were not a lot of people at the store last night but everytime we passed someone they would rush to hold hands. Finally they decided that Mom was not cool enough (yes it's started already) so they walked throughout the store holding each other's hands. CUTEST THING EVER!! They were both wearing yellow shirts and they were just down right adorable walking hand in hand down the aisles. Yep things couldn't get better. Well then they stated playing crack the whip and hug wrestling, which if you haven't seen it's a thing to behold. They start by going "hug! hug!" which then turns into a sumo wrestle until one of them is able to knock the other one down on the ground for a pin. No, I know what you're thinking, they did not learn this from their parents. It is however one of the funniest things to see someone walking down the aisle see the kids hugging coo at them and then stare ahgast at the kids tackling each other in the store. Their faces are like a face someone would make watching a cute duckling in a pond only to have it swallowed by a croc a minute later. Yep those are mine, and you know what they sure are stinking cute. I can't help it, I think people's reaction to the hug wrestling is adorable and endearing because the kids are laughing the whole time and they are technically just hugging.

Quilting

2006-09-15T06:17:00.000-05:00

So creating is my thing. I love creating new or to be truthful taking other things and making them my own. I'm doing this with this patterns. Angelz (bytheway Motts they have beehives). My mom brought a book for Megan called Pinkalicious by Victoria and Elizabeth Kann. Megan and Spencer LOVE it. Seriously, Megan has started toting around the house so she can read it whenever she wants to. I just found it under my bed. She was taking her nap yesterday and had to have her books to sleep (she has an inflatable toddler bed we put in our room on the floor for her naps). Thus the book ended up under the bed. Anyway, I wanted to do something special for her for school. Well she has to take a crib sized quilt for her nap times. So I am putting together a "pinkalicious quilt" for her. It will have some cool piecing on the sides and some cupcakes scattered about on the quilt. I also will have 6 of the Angelz from the pattern on it. These are some of my Angelz so far. I really am having so much fun with this.

oral history

2006-09-11T09:11:00.000-05:00

So around here they've been encouraging everyone to go to the Library of Congress and record their histories of 9-11. The Library of Congress has decided that the 5th anniversary of 9-11 was appropriate due to the fact that 1 year was too soon but within 5 years you still vividly remember where you were, what you were doing, how you found out, but it's not so incredibly emotional. I still have immediate tears thinking of that day. I won't be able to make it down to the Library of Congress with my work schedule so here's my oral history. On September 10th I was pregnant. I didn't know I was pregnant but I was. I had been having these terrible migraines for the previous week. As I was getting ready for be another one hit me. I was up all night long with excruciating pain. Knowing that I would be useless if I went to work that next morning I called in sick. I taught 7th grade Language Arts and Social Studies. Dealing with 93 12 and 13 year olds while recovering from a migraine was not my idea of fun. So at 5 am pacific time I called in sick. Knowing that I didn't have extra lesson plans waiting on my desk I drove them into school at 7am September 11. I drove to school knowing something was weird. I just couldn't put my finger on it. We lived on the incoming flight plan into Sky Harbor airport. It was only later that I realized there were no airplanes. As I got to school I saw one of my students already there and asked how she was doing. I had ridden to school without the radio on so I was still clueless. She was all excited and said "A plane flew into the buildings." Not knowing what she was talking about I went into the office to distribute my lesson plans. As I walked in Several teachers and the office staff including assistant principal were all standing there around the TV. One of them turned to me and asked "Is this the reason you called in sick? Don't you know we need you?" No knowing what she was talking about (I couldn't see the TV) I asked her "What are you talking about? I've been up all night with a migraine." Seeing that I still didn't know she pointed to the TV. I stood there in silence, stunned for a good 5 mintues. That's when all the teachers went into action... except me. I went home. I turned on NPR on the way home to hear that the Pentagon had been struck. I listened as a reported ran through the neighborhoods close to the pentagon in order to see what was going on. The roads were closed near the Pentagon so he was running attempting to get close to see what was happening. I was in tears on the way home, finally realizing that there were no planes. I arrived home and ran into the apt. Kevin was still sleeping. As I turned on the TV I yelled for him to come in that "The US was under attack". Kevin came flying in from the back room. He saw what was happening and told me that he thought that I had meant via planes and such like Pearl Harbor. They were planes. We sat there in front of the TV all day long shocked. We cried as the towers came down. We were horrified as we watched Ashley Banfield on Fox as she huddled behind a car trying to get closer as dust cover police tried to tell people to get back. We watched as the clouds came billowing out obscuring the view to downtown NY. It felt like we sat there for days. I know I went to work and Kevin went to school but I can't remember doing so. We would come home and sit and watch repeats. This morning as I woke up I watched video of that day. I sat today in utter horror remembering what happened. It was like it was happening again. The memories were still that fresh. The emotion still raw. I can't imagine what it would have been like to be so close to the actual events. I look out on the street right by our house and I can see capital Hill. I can drive 5 minutes down the road and be right by the Pentagon where one of the planes struck. What an overwhelming feeling to be here now.

Grandma and Grandpa

2006-09-09T18:53:00.000-05:00

So we had the most wonderful trip with Mom and Dad. It was simply wonderful to be able to have them around. It was great to see my kids interacting with them and to see my parents reactions to these two monkeys. I loved it that Megan kept asking grandma to read the same book over and over. It was great to hear my dad repeating Spencer because he was too cute "ok"? That's Spencer's new thing. After he says anything he says "OK?" It was really nice that they forced us to go on a date (thank you! thank you! thank you!). BTW if you get a chance to go to the Melting Pot go. For dessert. If you go for the whole meal it's too expensive but dessert is honestly the BEST dessert I've ever had. Usually you get a great dessert and by the end of it you are overwhelmed and it doesn't taste as good as the first bite. Not here with their dessert. You are looking at it like... sniff I can't fit anymore (it's bottomless dippers). yummmmmy!!! It was possitively incredible to be able to talk to someone over the age of 3 during the day. It was great to have extra hands to help entertain the kids and wash dishes (I despise washing dishes but hey I'm a mom). You are already sorely missed mom and dad. come back come back!!!

a story for the ages....

2006-09-03T12:14:00.000-05:00

So every once in a while there comes along a story that goes on to live into family history of telling and retelling. Grandma and Grandpa were not even away from the baggage claim and another of our family lore has come into existence. So here's the story. We were late getting to the airport to get Grandma and Grandpa. We got there while they were waiting for their luggage. Due to the airport being 45 minutes away I took the kids inside to go potty and to go find Grandma and Grandpa. Well we found Grandma, said our hellos and were going to head off to the potty when we spotted Grandpa looking for his luggage. Thinking it would be really cute for Megan to go up and say hi to grandpa I sent her on her way to say hi to Grandpa who was wearing a yellow shirt (I was about 6 feet behind them). Anyway the view that I had was downright hystarical. Megan goes up to day and said "HI". Dad looked at her and had an "OH crud what do I do?" look on his face. He was like "there's a lost child coming up to me and saying hi." Then she went and gave him a hug. His face at that point was an "OH CRAP! Someone's going to think I'm trying to take their little girl!" look on his face. Needless to say I'm dying of laughter because it just looked soooooooo funny! Then I yelled out "Grandpa say HI". Then it hit him that this was his granddaughter. Well needless to say he was pretty sheepish.

Innocence Lost

2006-09-01T06:23:00.000-05:00

So the whole cookie monster branching out thing has taken a negative turn. In case you didn't know cookie monster has turned healthy. Unfortunatley now that Cookie Monster eats other things other than cookies we've got trouble in the land of toddlerhood. You see now I can't just say "Cookie Monster just eats cookies". Because Toddler little boys don't believe it, well because he doesn't just eat cookies anymore. So when a kind a loving grandmother bought and sent some shorts to my dear little man we had a problem. We didn't understand the problem until we put the offending shorts on Spencer. He was all excited for his Elmo shirt that went along with the shorts but the shorts were well, how should we put it? Offending? Scary? Torture? Why would my parents do this to me? OH yes Cookie Monster now eats other things. So of course shorts with an Applicae of Cookie Monster close to the hem of the shorts would incure the following screams from a 2 year old. "NO NO COOKIE MONSTER! DON'T EAT SPENCER'S TOES!" Oh yes, in case you haven't deduced. My son will not wear these very cute shorts anymore. He thinks that Cookie Monster, our fine furry friend, now eats toes. He continued yelling and started getting a bit hystarical after a bit until I took the shorts off of him. Poor thing.

princess party

2006-08-31T19:18:00.000-05:00

So the kids woke up the other day with the thought stuck in their brains that they were going to have a Princess Party that day. I decided to turn it into a Royalty party due to the fact that boys were present. Although no matter how hard I tried to tell them they were queens and kings they decided to overrule me and declare "No mommy we're princesses and princes" OK I stand corrected. Anywho this is the result of our party. My son is a ham and wouldn't stand still for the photo because he was dancing and posing.

And yes the court jester

My little girl

2006-08-31T10:04:00.000-05:00

had her school orientation today. HOLY COW!! My baby is off to school. sniff. Actually I am so glad they had this because I am so cool with her going to school now. I was nervous before but hey my daughter went in there grabbed the scissors and started cutting the little papers they had there for her to do. Scooping and sorting.... she had a wonderful time and actually said "OK bye mom." after 5 minutes. I had to explain to her that no she was not staying yet. She was a bit disappointed about having to leave. Anywhoo. She decided to wear her boots today. so she was wearing shorts, tee shirt and boots. Yep that's my girl. :-)

back rubs

2006-08-30T07:32:00.000-05:00

So Spencer just crawled up behind me on the computer chair. I turned to him and said "scratch my back while you're back there". Megan overheard me and said "scratch your back? what's this nonsense mommy's talking?" Me? Nonesense? Where do they get this stuff?

sniff

2006-08-24T07:56:00.000-05:00

So it broke. It, being the very nice, huge platter that went along with my china pictured in the back of the picts of my kids in the previous post. If you noticed in that picture by wall is now green. Yes, we spent the weekend painting our wall green. It looks really nice especially with the paintings I have up. I've been bugging Kevin to paint for a couple of months now and he's been telling me that "no way man". Because he'd end up doing a lot of it (Hey I can't help it if I don't reach the cealing). But they in-laws are coming the in-laws are coming so I got my wall painted. :-) Thanks mom and dad! hee hee. Anyway in the effort to move the china hutch the platter came tumbling down and has a huge crack in it. sniff. I bought it in Mexico. Who knows when or how, or where I'll be able to buy another one. Alas that's the price for a very nice looking wall. I'm not too heart broken about it but I will be come thanksgiving and such.

you know you're a mom when...

2006-08-22T07:49:00.000-05:00

you forgo your breakfast because your child wants it. Doing a swap you steal their yogurt that is not being eaten because they "don't like it" (especially if it was yoplait that was on sale that you normally can't buy but did because it was on sale) You forgo that said yogurt because another child comes in and "doesn't like his strawberry yogurt" and wants the stolen item instead (which is also strawberry yogurt but hey it's not HIS strawberry yogurt so it must taste better). You sit at the computer with no breakfast while your daughter eats your vanilla yogurt and your son gloats and eats 2 strawberry yogurts while you go hungry. yeah. sad. pathetic. I guess I'm going to have cereal seeing as how my on sale yogurt is being consumed by other little beings that live in this household.

splurge money

2006-08-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

So in case you don't remember the money I earn from babysitting Caroline is to be used to buy goodies for me. Not the family.... according to Jeanie, retail therapy. Anyway so I took that to heart and took Megan back to the fair and Ms. Judy's booth to buy another accesory. At the same time Megan, sweet thing was looking at the "pretty" ones, she didn't like the one I picked out. She saw one she liked and said "This one is Megan's?". Asking in an Oh so innocent voice. Ms. Judy's daughter laughed and said "yes it is" and gave Megan the braclet of her choice (it's a pink lady bug one). Ms Judy then came along and gave my daughter her first set of fresh water pearls (gasp, yes to a 3 year old). That's my daughter. She does me proud. She very gracefully wore her booty the rest of the day. And no she did not have to take one things off. ;-)

the fair

2006-08-19T09:39:00.000-05:00

So I got the pictures of the fair. The kids REFUSED to ride the pony at first. They raised a protest. Jeanie got a great pict of Megan and Caroline planning their sit in. Finally when we were about to leave they decided to ride. There is a pict also of my misuse of my double stroller. We call it the strollersuv for self explanitory purposes.

Mom and Dad

2006-08-18T18:20:00.000-05:00

My parents are coming! My parents are coming! My parents are coming! My parents are coming! Can you tell I am excited! I've been waiting for them to see our place and the kiddos. My parents are coming my parents are coming!!!!! We are going to introduce Dad to Charlie and "guitar room". Charlie's Guitar room includes a drum set and recording equipment. Jeanie said that she's going to get Charlie and my dad to cut a cd while they are here! Hee hee! So dad practice up! Choose your songs and get ready! Charlie can accompany on bass and drums. My parents are coming! My parents are coming! Mom hold onto your sewing room! It might be a guitar room soon! My parents are coming! I am stoked! Megan wants them to come tomorrow. Spencer wants to get on a plane and meet them half way. Yep my kids are excited too.

A favor

2006-08-18T17:57:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I babysat my dear Caroline, Jeanie's daughter. Jeanie went to go help another friend set up for the county fair. Ms. Judy makes the most gorgeous jewlery. She actually gets all her stones and stuff from whole sale stone jewlers (aka where the jewlery stores get them). Well because Ms. Judy really needed the help and because I was able to watch Caroline she gave me a necklace as a thank you for freeing up Jeanie (because Jeanie helped her). OH MY GOODNESS!!! She gave me the most gorgeous necklace. The pictures I'm posting do not do it justice. These are black pearls and they are swirled with purples, blues and greens. The white on the necklaces are fresh water pearls. They are exquisite. I soooooo want to buy another one of her necklaces. They go with everything. Jeanie has a set of copper pearls that Ms. Judy made. They are incredible. Anywho here are my new set of pearls. I also bought a set of earings that went with the necklace (with the babysitting money I had just earned **thanks Jeanie!). The pictures do not do them justice in any way shape or form. The flash throws off the color so I'm posting a couple of picts. One to show how it looks and a couple to show the coloring. I LOVE JEWLERY!!! Accesories, accesories, accesories. I LOVE IT!

"Band-aids"

2006-08-14T07:01:00.000-05:00

So my aunt Kimi sent us some Dora Band-aids, which I only let the kids have if they get a scrape. Megan made a "band-aid" out of playdough the other day. She came up with this long story of how she had jumped off the couch and hurt her toe. She then wrapped the play dough around her toe for a "band-aid". As I was exclaiming about her toe I saw out of the corner of my eye a little boy take off for the couch and launch (he literally flew 5-6 feet) himself off the couch "hurting his toe". He then "needed" a band-aid too. Interesting things happen for the thought of a Dora band-aid. He is sitting on my lap right now saying he wants to write a story about himself too.

Did you know that

2006-08-14T06:51:00.000-05:00

The Neuro rotation starts at 7am every morning? That the first bus going to Georgetown is at 7:15 every morning? That parking on campus for a neuro rotation every morning would cost $6 A DAY!? That wives and children can get up early to take husbands to school and an obsurdly early hour? Up side. Ummm I'm still think on that one...... Oh yeah! I get to talk to hubby in the morning!

Why do they have to be so darn cute?

2006-08-14T06:34:00.000-05:00

"Let's go mommy! Let's go! Hurry mommy hurry!" "OK sorry Cher, duty calls. Bye" "Mommy, Hurry Hurry. Gotta go potty!" run run run, gallop, skip, push push push and finally push the door to the bathroom open. "Ummm 'dis one. No 'dis one. No 'dis one." Finally deciding on a stall we decide on the second one. Strip from the waist down well because you can't do it any other way. "Hurry mommy hurry! Gotta go to 'ursery!" "Hands" "Um... ok de white one!" We wash hands, mirror, mom and everything else within shot of the water. Dry hands. Open the door.Bam I run out to see a 2 year old bolting down the hallway to 'ursery. "Hurry hurry!" I discover when I finally get to nursery (he's been there for a good bit before I get there) that he had to go potty before snack time. He got back just in time to sit and munch some grapes. His timing was perfect. FOR 3 WEEKS IN A ROW!

panic

2006-08-12T12:18:00.000-05:00

So have any of you ever had a couple of quasi panic attacks. I think the kind I'm talking about are the "during an emergency you are more than calm, you are efficient, excellent.. yadayada" but when you have a chance to realize what happened you start shaking and almost crying you are so panicky. I have only had this experience twice in my life. The first time was when Spencer was about 3 1/2 months old and we had just moved here. I had company over (our neighbors from above us) and Megan and their little girl were running around screaming. Spencer was sleeping in his crib in the back. He was a sound sleeper so I wasn't worried about him. I don't know why I decided to check on him for some reason (I had just put him down about 10 mintues before so this was unusual). I walked in to find my little guy on his stomach. The first time the kid decided to flip over on his stomach was when he was swaddled and couldn't hold himself up... of course he didn't do again for 5 more months but that's another matter. I went to pick him up and realized that his lips and face were blue. Luckily I had just gone through the whole child cpr thing that I knew what to do. He immediately started breathing and I held him up so we could get air moving again. OUr visitors immediately left. I was able to handle the situation, the kiddo pinked up immediately and we had no more worries. It was only after Kevin came home that I lost it. My baby was blue. The second time was yesterday. Lately we've had some of the drivers from the Toyota dealership right here tearing up our street. We live on a street labeled "no outlet" although there really is one. Anyway the drivers/porters have decided it's fun to peal out on the hill right here and zoom down our street. Ummm did I mention that I have 4 toddlers during the day. No no one ran out into the street. We were walking back from the library... up a huge hill and I tuckered out (I'll bet you would too pushing over 100lbs worth of baby in a 30lbs stroller). So on our usually quiet little street I had all the kids hold hands and we were walking literally the last 20 feet when a nice vehicle from the dealership came up the hill. Did I mention that we were crossing the street and the oldest child was 3? The guy stopped as I was attempting to usser the last 2 children onto our neighbor's yard BUT HE DIDN'T EVEN WAIT FOR US TO GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET. This jerk of a guy started weaving, yes weaving his car to try to get around the kids... in the middle of the street. Um lets just say 2 1/2 feet from a moving car is TOO LITTLE with 2 1/2 year olds. To make matters worse as soon as his back wheel got even with the last one in line the guy gunned the car and zoomed off. Toyota sure had one hot mamma on their hands. I was not happy. I called them and left a message. The lady though who called me back was equally as upset at what happened. I guess they've been telling them to stay off our road but have not had anything specific to tell them. Now she does. She may have been just molifying me but you know what I'm ok with that if it stops. Hopefully there won't be any more traffic on our street.

My artistic genes

2006-08-12T09:32:00.000-05:00

So I've loved art my whole life. Not very good but I love it. I must have passed it on is all I can say. This is Spencer and his "orange school". This is what he calls Georgetown when we go drop his daddy off. Notice the chapel off the side. Here's the real deal. Later he came up to me saying "Mommy, here this is for you mommy!" He was holding up a lego flower he had made. He refused to take a good picture. It was so cute though!

c-sections

2006-08-11T07:18:00.000-05:00

Megan was born 1/2/03. On Dec.31 I went in for an ultra sound to see how big she was because she was measuring huge. The doc said he wanted to see how long he was going to let me go to see if I was ever going to go into labor. Well the ultrasound place forgot to sent the weight to the doc. He didn't get the weight until 2 days later. I went in for the results and he said "If you tried to have this baby vaginally it'd tear you to shreads..." yep she had a huge head too. So in I went for a c-section.... this is after talking about it and praying about it and wondering if I should wait for natural labor. We felt good about going in.... good thing too. I went in that day for a 2:30 check in time. I was pretty calm after Kevin gave me a blessing. I started getting really nervous though after several nurses failed to be able to start an iv on me. Really nervous. I was also really tired. I hadn't slept the night before. Finally, my hero, my anethesiologist, Dr. Maras came in pushed the nurses aside, put the iv in and started doing mothering sounds to me. I don't remember her nationality all I remember is she had an accent. She rubbed my feet shooshing me and the nurses. She then wheeled me into the OR. She was right there with me the whole time. After scrubbing in she administered a spinal block. She was good, really good, I didn't even feel the needle. When I asked if it was going to hurt she laughed and said the needle was already in. Ummm OK I was good with that. Kev, came in all scrubbed and ready and the surgery began. The doc was amazing and fast. Out came the big blob of a child with absolutely no chin to speak of. She scored a 2 on the apgar test. I know, she was laid back. Aparently the nurse said that Megan knew what the nurse was doing but was refusing to respond (meaning deliberatly, not because she couldn't, she just didn't want to cry)..... ahhhh telling for the future. 9lbs 7oz. After that surgery I was tired and sore and the meds weren't working for me. When I asked for more they looked at me and gave me some Advil. Ahhhhh Advil the wonder drug. Seriously, I was on percocet, tylenol, nothing doing. They gave me a bit of Advil and I was just fine. I didn't need percocet after that, just the advil. Getting up and walking was a bear and I was sore for a bit after the c-section. Then came my second. Hee hee. If only I knew with my first what I know now after my second. 1. Stay up on your meds, even if you're not hurting for the first bit. 2. Get a girdle. 3. Walk as soon as your block wears off. Do those three things it will help more than anything else in the world. With Spencer born 4/28/04 It snowed on the day he was born. Ahhh the difference. I actually tanked in the OR before Kevin went in. I had a reaction to the medication and started vomiting uncontrollably. They had this hippy anethesiologist come in and he immediately made things go better. He said that I didn't react to the medicine it's just that my heart rate plumeted. Ummm.Ok good thing it came back up... is all I remember thinking at that time. Hee hee. I was pretty drugged. The anethesiologist was really nice. He kept stroking my head and arm and gave my happy medicine. I like him. :-) So they opened me up for Spencer and well if you havent' had a c-setion you wouldn't know this but the baby doesn't just pop out. They have to lean on the top of your abdemon and on your ribs to squeeze the little kiddos out. So yes you definitely have people literally jumping up and down on your ribs trying to get the babies out. Makes it hard to breath but knowing the drill I wasn't fazed with Spencer's birth. But then the nurse (I think she was little) actully was lying on my ribs pressing down as hard as she could. Then you heard the ob kind of chuckling saying.. "Um get me the foreceps". ON a c-section? OH yeah baby. We were having bets in the OR before it started on how big Spenc was going to be. I was calling it over 8lbs. He was a week early too. Because of the measurements the doc was saying he'd be lucky if he was 7lbs. I told him. Nope Spencer was all up under my ribs. literally. Guess I was right. Hee hee. 8lbs 4oz. That's my boy! This time as soon as the block wore off (meaning I could move my legs, if not yet feel them totally) I was up and moving. Hey I figured I'd get all the walking done while I was still drugged. The nurses came in and were like, ummm maybe you should sit down. OK but I need to get up again. So they helped. I was walking the hall that afternoon. WITH MY GIRDLE ON! Seriously the difference of with and without is immense. Without it, I felt like I was sore and achy... (which is a whole different thing after a c-section vs. normal sore and achy). With the girdle on it felt like a big relief... like hopping into the pool while in preggo status... it's the "ahhhhhh" feeling. I guess it was a good thing I was up and walking because Spence decided to stop breathing that evening (a constant theme in our house... another story, another time). I held him and went tearing down the hall to the nurses station. The took him. Checked him out, sucked out his nose and gave him back. They did come in more often after that but he was ok. They did look at me like I was crazy though. Not because of Spence but because I was going down the hall.... fast. Hee hee. Yea! for girdles and Advil. Seriously. After that the whole "you can't lift anything for 6 weeks other than your newborn" went right out the window. I had a 16 month old who needed me too. And we lived on the second story. And I had to go up and down the stairs about 2 weeks later. Without my girdle, not happening, with I was super woman. Hee hee. Seriously I could carry my 16 month old and the baby in his carrier up the flight and a 1/2 of stairs. I'd have to rest of 30 min after to be on the safe side but hey there it is. (I tried going down the stairs without once. I made it down 5 stairs then had to turn around. Not good) I was on Advil for about a month after the c-section but I never needed to take anything heavier once I got home. Now that I know what to do I am totally like "bring it on, I can take you down! grrrrr!" Not that we're preggo. But whenever we do have another I'm ready.

Arlington Alert!

2006-08-10T08:19:00.000-05:00

So after reading MoMommy's post on 9/11 and reminicing about that I went to check my email. Now if you don't know what an Arlington Alert is... it's the email equivelant of the public broadcast system. Also the DC area sometimes is at a higher alert leve than the most of the country. This was somehow distressing today.... I have to stop thinking about 9/11. eek! "The United States Government has raised the nation’s threat level to Severe, or Red, forcommercial flights originating in the United Kingdom bound for the United States. Thisadjustment reflects the Critical, or highest, alert level that has been implemented in theUnited Kingdom. To defend further against any remaining threat from this plot, the Department ofHomkeland Security has raised the threat level to High, or Orange, for all commercial aviationoperating in or destined for the United States."

How far have people sunk?

2006-08-10T07:16:00.000-05:00

So I was falling asleep last night. Kevin was on the computer when I heard him exclaim "What?! Stupid people!". Curious, mostly because Kevin usually doesn't talk aloud to himself I asked what was wrong. He told me he was reading this article that well.... Here are some exerpts. Seriously, how disgusting have people become. Is the need to win worth this? Are people just blinded and caulous? Apparently the answer is yes. Sick is all I can say. ERRRRRR! THIS MAKES ME MAD. ESPECIALLY SINCE I'VE GOT KIDS. ERRRRRR. Warning this article is not gross in the icky sort of way but it will make you mad and disgusted at some people's drive to win and relive thier fantasies by coaching little league. I'm posting the hook here. You can link to the rest of the article if you'd like. You make the call Is it good baseball strategy or a weak attempt to win? by Rick Reilly This actually happened. Your job is to decide whether it should have. In a nine- and 10-year-old PONY league championship game in Bountiful, Utah, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by one run. The Sox are up in the bottom of the last inning, two outs, a runner on third. At the plate is the Sox' best hitter, a kid named Jordan. On deck is the Sox' worst hitter, a kid named Romney. He's a scrawny cancer survivor who has to take human growth hormone and has a shunt in his brain. So, you're the coach: Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing? Wait! Before you answer.... This is a league where everybody gets to bat, there's a four-runs-per-inning max, and no stealing until the ball crosses the plate. On the other hand, the stands are packed and it is the title game. So ... do you pitch to the star or do you lay it all on the kid who's been through hell already? Here's the rest of the article.

fun day

2006-08-08T07:01:00.000-05:00

Can I just say how much I love my job. I mean who else can get paid for playing with toddlers? Seriously. Who? I have 4 toddlers during the day. We have so much fun. My little E and S are the cutest little things (We are now through most of potty training so I can say that :-) ). We had an A day today. We talked about the a sound and colored alligators, made anntennaes and drank apple juice. We then had apple jacks for a snack. What a great job.

Thought this was interesting

2006-08-06T20:27:00.000-05:00

I read this post a couple of weeks ago from MoMommy. I'm posting it here to make for easier reading. I then read from Jon's post the following. I recommend reading and watching the linked video. It's pretty interesting. MoMommy said: Mommy brain Let's say you have a small child, 3-5ish in age. What happens if they want something and you say no? Sometimes they throw a fit, right? When your child starts throwing a fit, do you give in just to make them be quiet, or keep them happy. Most likely not, because that leads to much bigger problems down the road. So let's just say that you tell your child no, they start having a hissy fit, and then decide to throw things at you. THEN are you going to give them what they want, just to get them to calm down? Uh, no. In fact, that leads to a much harsher punishment in our house than just pitching a fit would get. Does anyone here really think that giving in just to keep someone happy (appeasement) really works? Cause I have a 4 year old that leads me to believe it doesn't.And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how my mommy-life brain thinks of the current Israel/Lebanon conflict. I find that most things in the world can be compared to parenthood on some level, and this is no different. Except that the people involved here aren't 4, and they all know better. posted by Mo Mommy Jon posted this: Propaganda: Sifting the Truth from the Lies by J. Max Wilson I am not going to editorialize much here, but I did want to draw your attention to some disturbing material concerning manipulation of information coming out of the Middle East in the mainstream media. Of course every side in a conflict tries to spin the story in their own favor. But there is a point when spin crosses the line into outright lies. And often both sides lie as much as they think they can get away with. All of us have probably relatively innocently propagated falsehoods from the side we are more likely to trust. The larger problem, as I see it, is when the mainstream media is complicit in propagating information that they know is either incomplete, exaggerated, or outright false. First, read: Qana The Director’s Cut (WARNING: Contains Images of Dead Children) Then, watch the following disturbing video from The Second Draft entitled “Pallywood” (18 minutes long) : Now, with so many people lying, it is difficult to sift the truth. Perhaps the items above are themselves manipulations of the facts. If you have information that contradicts them, please let me know. But at first exposure, they appear pretty damning. UPDATE: Add the photoshopped photo from Reuters to the picture.

crop circles

2006-08-04T08:21:00.000-05:00

So I'm telling you they're crop circles. I always knew there were little green men who like little green veggies. You know they might even be baby aliens practicing for when they are big. :-) Yes this is the actual zucchini (look! I learned how to spell zucchini too!)

Beam me up zuccini?

2006-08-04T06:51:00.000-05:00

My zuccinis are doing crop circles. No really. My last zuccini had fun little spirals around it. I've loaned out my camera so just use your imagination. No really I have crop circles in my 5ft by 6 ft garden. cool huh?

The thinking of a 3 year old

2006-08-03T23:36:00.000-05:00

So this happened to the end of the day and I HAD to share it. Enjoy the thinking of a three year old. Watch the video to the end. Princess Megan Yes she was screaming when I ran for the camera and stopped when I started filming.

mommy rave

2006-08-01T12:08:00.000-05:00

New favorite thing. Mine, Kev's and Spencer's. Costco's taquitos. YUUUUUMMMMY!!! Spencer's doing a happy dance right now because he's getting a taquito.

barefoot

2006-08-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

So I had to take off my shoes before getting in the van today. Why? you may ask. Well we have tried very hard to keep our very first big purchase in stellar condition. We bought our van a year and a half ago Feb27 to be exact. Since then we still do not eat in the van (shocker I know, but lovely). We clean it out EVERY time we get out and still only have 6700 miles on it. But, I digress. So I had to take my shoes off before getting in the van today. My shoe melted, yes melted to the asphalt today. It's 103 degrees with a major heat index. ugh. sadly I must retire my favorite flip flops now. *sigh* Kevin will secretly, or maybe not so secretly be rejoicing in having to retire a set of shoes, but that is a story for another time.

what?!

2006-08-01T07:12:00.000-05:00

"Megan, I'm going to make you a special treat? Want to help?" "Yep! I want to stir." "OK, here we go!" "What's that?" "We are making Jello!" "Jello? What's that?" Silence. Stunned silence. Where did I go wrong? Laugher from the other room. "Please tell me I didn't hear that!" OH shut up Kev. I'm already feeling guilty for failing my child. Not knowing what Jello is. Isn't it instinctive?

Doing something right

2006-07-31T11:13:00.000-05:00

When you're exhausted from the everyday "I need to go potty" "No!" and "I don't want to take a nap!" it's nice to have you're husband tell the following story. Kevin went to go pick Megan and Spencer up from Sunbeams and Nursery respectively. He picked up Megan from class and took her papers from her along with a little baggie with 2 jelly beans in it. Then they went to go pick up Spencer. When they have retrieved Spencer from Nursery Kevin said Megan was very anxious to get her little baggie back of Jelly Beans (If you know 3 year olds you know why, I was surprised they had lasted that long). When she finally grabbed it from Kevin he said he was floored to see her happily give the bag to Spencer who didn't quite see what it was because she shoved it in his chest. My 3 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER SAVED HER JELLY BEANS FROM CLASS TO GIVE IT TO HER 2 YEAR OLD BROTHER. Sigh happy story.

Hail the conquering hero part II

2006-07-30T20:24:00.000-05:00

So Kitchen aid mixers apparently have an automatic shut off switch when they get too hot. Kev, went and tried it again and it works. Halleluia, I was not looking forward to the phone call. "Um, yeah, so my KA isn't working." "What's your product number" "I don't know but we bought it at macy's in April" "Are you registered?" "I don't know." "Do you have a receipt?" "UM No." Yeah thank goodness Kev turned it back on. After the whole smoke coming out of it thing I wasn't about to go near it. :-D

I killed it

2006-07-30T15:43:00.000-05:00

rwear, rwear, rwear, rwear, thunk. Uh oh that didn't sound good. What's that smell, it's kind of acrid. Ummm is there smoke supposed to be coming from there? I'm pretty sure I sent in the warranty stuff. I think. I better have I'm going to cry if I didn't. No I mean really cry It's supposed to be able to do the task? Why would it break? Panic. Warranty stuff, can't find. I'm sure I mailed it in. Positive.... I think. My beautiful red kitchen aid is dead. I was just making rolls (you know soft dough). It's supposed to be able to knead stuff. *sniff* I better have that warranty here somewhere.

fun night out

2006-07-30T12:33:00.000-05:00

So MJ took the kids last night so Kev and I could go out on a date. We did the whole po' people's date. We went window shopping! LOOOOOOVED it! We went to Restoration Hardware (of course) and then cruised around Talbot's Kids, which bytheway if I had money we'd totally buy our kids clothes there (hint hint grandparents). We actually took the money we were going to spend on a nice dinner and bought Spencer a tie to wear to church (if you click on the site, his is the dino one at the bottom). Way too cool if you ask me. He was pretty styling. If you don't know what 5 Guys is *gasp* you must find one and find out! This store only has the ALL TIME BEST BURGERS. Yummm.

the art of mommyhood

2006-07-29T12:14:00.000-05:00

So would any of you moms leave the house without a diaperbag if you were going to be gone say for 4 hours? Would you not take wipes (intentionally, we've all done it accidentally)? So Kevin just left with his first excursion with the kids for a bit. This is not to say he's never been out with the kids by himself just that he hasn't done it in a while. So they go trotting out the door. I look over and there is the diaper bag, which I convieniently packed for him sitting there on the couch. Diaper bag what?! I run out the door and hand him the diaper bag. He's looking at me like "what do I need that for?" and I'm giggling thinking I should have let him take off without it. 'nuf said.

dream homes

2006-07-27T16:35:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know me, there is something you must know. I am a fan of nice furnishings. I am also a new addict to Restoration Hardware. Seriously is this not the coolest store? Whenever I get a house however distant in the future I am so buying my furnishing from this store. This is a prime example. Is this not the coolest breakfast table you've seen. Seriously classy. Seriously

phycho immune systems

2006-07-27T16:07:00.000-05:00

Last week Spencer ran a weird fluke fever. High for about 2 hours and then it went away. No other symtoms or anything. Megan never got any symtoms. EVERYONE else on the other hand. hahahahahaha. I'm not sick. Kevin was for a bit but the other kids. hahahhaha. E, S and Caroline all were REALLY sick that weekend. High fever, spots, stomach ails and what not, Did I mention the spots? Caroline, poor thing 3 days later was having serious issues and had to go to the Dr.'s before her fever finally broke. The other 2 were fine by the time they came back to my house. Then the floor dropped. S was going out of town Wednesday but her mom got really ill that night and the subsequent 3 days. What was going on?! Spots, spots spots. On her hands and feet. OH yes, we had it the dreaded disease. Nope, not chicken pox. Hand, foot and mouth disease. Yep that was our house hold last week. ICK is all I can say. How in the world did Megan and I escape it (I hope I'm not jinxing myself right now)? The only thing I can think of is I had a crazy cool immune system after teaching and I breast fed her while I had that crazy cool immune system. Even Spencer had and extreamly mild form of the dreaded disease. Yeah! for crazy cool immune systems!

Hail the conquering Hero

2006-07-26T17:29:00.000-05:00

Got the board scores back!!! Whooooooo HOOOOOOOOOO! He did great! He'll be able to do what he wants to now! Whoooo hoooo We are off to celebrate!

Peaches

2006-07-26T08:02:00.000-05:00

Yesterday a couple of girl friends, their kids and I went peach picking. It was so much fun! We had to drive through Potomack to get there. If you are not from here well, Potomack is POTOMACK. This is a city where mansions are MANSIONS. You know the mansions that you see on the TV with their celebrities in them. It was actually pretty fun to drive to the farm we were going to only to see the mansions on either side of the road the entire way there. It was pretty cool. The peach picking was fun too. The kids loved it. Imagine George of the jungle swinging on a vine but then have George be my 3 year old daughter and the vine being a peach hanging on a branch. It was Megan's desired way of picking peaches, swinging on them to get them off the tree. It was pretty stinking cute. Melissa, one of my friends spent the whole time removing peach pits from the boxes. Her daughter thought it was pretty fun to fill the box up with peach pits (she's only 1). I kept having to remove the peaches E put in the boxes. He kept picking up the ones off the ground (gross). Hee hee. Spencer decided that he was only there for slave labor and decided he was having none of it so started throwing the peaches across the way. Yep, an overall successful trip. Needless to say we came out with a TON of peaches... only to have 1/4 of them left (Kevin took them to his co-workers). I'm ok with that because I've decided we're doing it again on Friday, with Kevin. The drive was fun, the picking was fun and they all came home and ALL 4 KIDS FELL ASLEEP AT THE SAME TIME!!! Totally worth the trip.

worms

2006-07-24T08:57:00.000-05:00

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me guess I'll go eat worms! Long, thin, slimy ones Short, fat juicy one itsy bitsy teeny weeny worms! So my sister is visiting my family right now for the 24th of July holiday. To console myself I called my grandparents and aunt who is also visiting Utah for the 24th, only to find out that EVERYONE was over there for dinner. I'M FEELING LEFT OUT!! *whaaaaa* I miss my family. *sniff* I'm going to read books to the kids now. *sniff*

gymnastics

2006-07-23T06:53:00.000-05:00

So we were finally able to get pictures of Meggie in her gymnastics class. She loves it, as you can tell in the pictures. Can you guess who's trying to be the teacher's pet. Yep! it's my daughter (she's the one in black and pink, I let her pick out her outfit)

Spencer's haircut

2006-07-23T06:51:00.000-05:00

So I gave the boys a trim yesterday. Here's Spencer with his haircut. He likes it.

story time

2006-07-22T08:41:00.000-05:00

So I took ALL the kids to story time yesterday at the library. It was soooo cute. I had 4 toddlers with me yesterday, one 3 year old, and three 2 year olds. We decided we were all going to hold hands so that no one got left behind. It was the funniest thing to see a whole pack of toddlers holding hands. The started laughing and giggling and then, then they started playing crack the whip. I was laughing so hard because I didn't realize that was an instictive game for kids. Needless to say they loved it and we had a great time. I was also introduced to a new childrens book which was really fun call the Cha-cha Chimps by Julia Durango. It is an awsome jumping on the bed type story that has the monkeys go down in number by having another animal come and cha-cha with them going oo-- oo, ee-ee, ah-ah-ah. The kids absolutely loved. I wasn't able to check it out after story time because another mom got to it first. Oh well. I have it on hold.

stem cells

2006-07-20T07:29:00.000-05:00

So we've been listening to several commentaries of the stem cell debate. It's interesting to note that more cures and advancements have come from adult stem cells. I found these articles and the commentary by Joe Carter interesting and fun to listen to. Cool article on adult stem cells and discrepency of media coverage Interetsting commentary by Joe Carter Bone and Neurological stem cells are able to be harvested from baby teeth. Here's the story.

library fines

2006-07-19T08:32:00.000-05:00

So who ever invented library fines. Seriously. If you are a mother with small toddlers or multiple kids you KNOW you will not be coming out of the library with less than 20 books. That's just the way it is. You see just one princess story will not do because then you will read that said one story at least 3 different times a day for the next 2 weeks and drive yourself completely nuts. Not only that you will then hate that particular book for the rest of your life. To avoid this problem you think "Hey I can get one book for each child, that way I'll have three books that I can rotate around in the reading pool." Oh Ho NO. That will not work because not only will you have to read so and so's book but their's as well. Then you will not be reading 1 book at least 3 times a day and thus hating that one book but you will be reading 3 books at least 3 times a day for the next 2-3 weeks thus hating 3 books for the rest of your life and not just the one. So you figure I'll get more. That way there will be a variety from the kids to choose from so you don't have to read all the checked out books everyday, multiple times a day. hahaha. That's where you will be in error because unless you get more than 5 books per child they will keep track of EVERY SINGLE BOOK and you will have to read EVERY SINGLE BOOK multiple times a day so instead of hating oh 3 books you will hate about 10-15. So awhile back in order to preserve my book loving status I set the number of books to check out between 20-25 childrens books every 3 weeks. yep that's what we do. It also has to be a set number that way I can count the books when we go back to the library so I know we are not missing one. Ahhh but here's the rub. If you have a hellish week and you can't make it out of the house to go grocery shopping let alone dragging 4 kids 3 and under to the library those library books end up overdue..... at $.20 a pop per day..... FOR 5 DAYS.... lets just say it adds up. We just bought the library several new childrens books.

an attempt

2006-07-16T18:57:00.000-05:00

at photographing myself is a pretty weird thing to do. So I had over 20 picts of myself trying to find a good one that a)I didn't look completely gross and b) showed my blond hair. Well we came to this. None of them showed the hair right but oh well.

And to redeem my picture taking stuff. I got a picture that will make everyone happy.

a montage

2006-07-16T11:53:00.000-05:00

So a couple of things happening. First off sorry about the feeling sorry for myself last week stuff. Monthy stuff... TMI. Anywhoo I'm back to my normal self now. Walked into church today and lo and behold who's there but Dave. It was fun to see him. He was a friend from college in case y'all forgot. Also we're going over to M and MJ's house for dinner and I'm sitting getting ready (actually just putting on some khakis) when I noticed it looked weird. Granted I haven't worn my khakis in a while but this was weird. So I took them off and on a whim I went and got my skinny pants. You know the ones I'm talking about the ones EVERY girl keeps in the closet... just in case. I FIT INTO MY SKINNY PANTS!!! AND IT LOOKS GOOD! YEA FOR JOGGING STROLLER!!!!!