I'm Back!!

So, did you think that I fell off the face of the earth? Came pretty close to it but luckily I pulled back at the last second. Actually, Blake has been out of town for a week (just got back in on Friday night). And I didn't even turn the computer on for the entire week. It was kinda nice. The kids and I ate "fun" dinners and got to have mom and kid time (we even did the movie night with a BIG bowl of popcorn). Of course I didn't sleep for the entire week. Why is it that I can't sleep without someone beside me? When did I turn into a big old chicken? I burned out the back porch light because I left it all all night, every night...and the front porch light too. I was probably announcing to the world that I was home alone and scared but it did make me feel better and I was able to get a few hours of sleep. Friday, I slept like a rock and was sound asleep by 10. Blake is never allowed to leave for that long again!!

We are all getting ready for Halloween. I'm going to have a vampiress and a Power Ranger this year. Oh for the days when I got to pick my children's costumes. We have 2 carnivals/trunk or treats to go to on Sunday but we are still looking for something for Saturday. Remember the days of just one night of treat-or-treating door to door. Not anymore. Now we have to get as much use out of the costumes as possible. Sharla's church puts on a fun carnival so we will go there on Sunday night. Oops....no church for us. Is that an excused absence? Technically, we will be at a church. Hhhmmmm.

Well, Mom left yesterday and, I assume, is now home safe and sound. I wish her trip could have been longer but I'll take what I can get. Anyway, now that I'm not running up to Sharla's everyday and getting home at 9, I can blog again. But not today. I'm tired.

Well I had to take my first official day off from work yesterday. Andrew managed to get a fever on Sunday. Rules is: no pre-school until they are fever-free for 24 hours. I was really tempted to take him anyway (hoping it wouldn't be too bad on Monday morning) but I decided to actually follow the rules seeing as I work there and, besides, my honest little boy would probably tell them, "I have a fever but my mommy gave me medicine this morning". Honesty can be way over-rated. He seems to be better now though. The fever came on suddenly on Sunday while we were at the store and ran until Monday morning. Then just went away. No other symptoms or anything. I guess I should be grateful it wasn't worse. But I still hated calling into work. I always feel like they think I'm just "playing hookie".

Blake couldn't work from home that day either. He had to go to a mandatory seminar on "Giving Presentations". Of course in two weeks, he will be going to Chicago for a week (wish me luck with that single parent thing) to give a seminar on "Giving Presentations". Hhhmmmmm. Now that is just way too logical. I am so not looking forward to this trip (but then neither is he). The longest trip he's taken has been two days. How am I suppose to sleep for a full week? I hear every single noise when he's gone. Fun fun.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " ( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( ) Okay, I feel better now. I just realized that I keep using quotes and parentheses. How annoying. So on that note, I'm off to get the kids ready for bed. Night all. THREE DAYS TIL MOM GETS HERE!!!

End of the season!!!

Guess what??? The Ranger season is officially over. Yeah!! It will be nice to have a husband again. So on Friday, we used the last of the free tickets for this season. Andrew wanted to go to another game but I just couldn't go when it was 100. Friday was only 86, so off we went. Ally invited a friend from church since we had an extra ticket. While we were there we ran into two other families from church. What are the odds in a stadium that big? We had been in our seats for exactly 15 minutes and the chorus of "Can we go yet?" began. Apparently baseball is not for the girls. I really didn't believe that they wanted to go since they also began chanting for nachos and cotton candy. And we had JUST eaten dinner and I know for a fact that none of the children really like cotton candy. Anyway we got some things to munch on and left before 9. A little bit of baseball, a little bit of nachos, a little bit of $4.75 coke, a little bit of 3 children belting out Hilary Duff songs to and from the ballpark. All in all, not a bad night.

Today's List

Things that make a normal Monday a little bit better.....

1. Teachers luncheons. Where parents bring yummy homemade food for all the staff. Sure beats a sandwich.

2. Mid-day hugs. Walking through the school doing boring work and stopping by your son's class to get an unsolicited hug. If you have to work, this is the way to do it.

3. Being known as "Andrew's mommy". Walking into above said class to a chorus of "Andrew, it's your mommy!"

4. Brownies. Both the girl scout kind and the gooey chocolate kind.

5. Chocolate!

6. Ice tea!

7. Fearing all day that you made a huge mistake at work, giving wrong information to the 200+ families and realizing at 2:30 that the mistake only effected about 5 children (they are just very vocal).

8. Air conditioning.

9. Being a mommy to two wonderful children who picked up their rooms without being asked. Okay, so without being threatened.

10. Having a wonderful husband who folded laundry yesterday so I didn't have to. Now if he would just get his socks off the floor. One step at a time.

11. Coming home to a clean house!

Today's Pet Peeves

Things that bother me on an otherwise beautiful Sunday....

1. Children who suddenly can't live without Mommy's attention during the 30 minutes I want to take a nap (read: no nap today)

2. Little boys who are as stubborn as their daddy and refuse to take care of all bodily functions themselves (no details since this is a family friendly site)

3. LAUNDRY

4. Preachers leaving (for understandable health reasons) and a congregation starting the much dreaded "preacher search" (and no, we do not want Garth, but thanks for asking)

5. Super glue that, no matter how hard you try, gets on all your fingers and annoys you the rest of the afternoon until you can pick it all off, removing half your skin in the process.

6. Meteorologists who warn us that Rita "leftovers" are coming our way this weekend, get ready, stock up....and we get squat. No rain, no cooler weather, no nothing. Okay, we got clouds. Yipee.

7. The Texas Heat...again!

8. Football season. Ugh. I mean really. How many hours can a man watch a game?!? "But honey, this is the pre-game to the pre-game to the game that starts in 9 hours."

9. Surfing through blogs for some easy entertainment and only getting to the ones in foreign languages which are, although pretty cool, totally meaningless to me.

10. Tomorrow is Monday.

11. Laundry. Yes I know I already said that one but I really really really mean it.

12. Looking at this list and realizing that I'm coming across cranky when really I'm in a very good mood, just venting (and avoiding that dreaded "l" word--see above) .

And to think, this all started with the dumb super glue incident.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Busy Busy Busy

This is the first time this week I've been able to get on the computer. Monday was my Pokeeno night. The only 2 hours during the month that I am not "mom" or "wife". Of course at 3:30 that afternoon I still had no gift. So the kids and I ran to two different stores trying to come up with something clever. I ended up making a fingernail polish basket (for under $7--yeah me). I think it turned out cute. After all, a person can never have too much fingernail polish (says the girl who owns 312 bottles).

On Tuesday, Andrew had his 4 year old check-up (yes, I know I'm late). So he ended up getting 3 shots, poor thing. But he was a very brave little boy. About half way through the appointment, he figured out that the doctor was talking about giving him shots and he started to tear up. I felt so bad for him. After the doctor, we got to come home for a whopping 45 minutes before it was time to go to a fundraiser for Alyssa's school at "Pump it Up". They have converted a warehouse-type place into LARGE rooms with about 7 inflatable bounce houses, obstacle courses and slides. So for 2+ hours, the kids ran and jumped and climbed until they could hardly move. Needless to say, by the time we left, they were very tired and very stinky! They did go right to sleep when we got home though (after a quick bath, of course)

Tonight is "catch up on housework and homework" night. Not doing too well with that though -- as I sit here at the computer trying to type when I am so tired that I can't make a coherent sentence. So tell me, when did I get so old that staying up until 11:00 wears me out like this?!? I guess I'll go take my walker into the kitchen for my evening prune juice and nightly Dominoes game.

Enjoy the pictures of my sweaty children.

Okay, just let me say one thing.....I AM TIRED OF BEING HOT!!! Tell me again why I live in Texas. It is mid September and we are still near 100. That is just so wrong. The human body was not created to sweat 9 out of 12 months. Whine whine whine. At least I wasn't working at the ballpark like a certain person I know who will remain nameless (stinky and sweaty but nameless).

Question for all those mothers out there. Let's just say you have a sweet and wonderful little girl who is about, oh I don't know, 8 years old. Is it normal for her to tell you word for word everything she has said and done all day - even if it just happened two minutes ago and you were in the room? Even if it was the dialog from a TV show that you really don't care about because you are older than 12? You try to be an attentive mom but sometimes enough is enough. But I guess she has always been very "vocal". I remember using the phrase "No more words" quite a few times. I think this is very unfair that I am raising two talkers. They must get it from their father.....Mr. Talkey Pants. After all, their mother is the shy reserved type who never ever talks. (Can you hear the sarcasm there or do I need to redo that sentence?)

Okay, are you ready for our big news? We had nocturnal visitors in our yard last night. Blake was outside watering the grass and came running in yelling for me to come outside. So I stopped putting the kids to bed (after all, what is more important.....growing children getting a good nights sleep or running outside in the dark.....hmmmm) But I digress. So outside, playing in the sprinkler, are three baby skunks! They were so cute! Kept making some kind of grunting noise -- either because of the pure enjoyment of playing in water after it was so hot all week or because they were getting mad that we were flooding their home. Couldn't tell which. Anyway, we didn't want to stay out too long since we figured where there are three cute baby skunks, there is sure to be a stinky mommy skunk somewhere close by.

Blake kept shooting water at them to get them to leave but it didn't work. Apparently, they have made a home in a hole that was beside our driveway. We got a closer look at the hole today and I think they have been busy digging themselves a new condo. So now we have a nice family of stinky (but very cute) skunks living UNDER our driveway. Anyone want to come mow our grass??? I tried to take pictures but it was 8:30 at night and there was NO WAY I was going to get too close just to get a picture. We called the city today and they said that they would rent us a trap.......for $50 dollars........in two weeks!!! I assume that after we catch the little critters, the city will send someone to pick them up. At least I hope it works that way since there is no way I'm getting close enough to a caged skunk to pick it up. Looks like that's what we're going to have to do since we really don't have any other ideas or options. Enjoy a laugh at our expense.

Thought everyone could use a smile today. I know I can. Nuff said.

Downer of a day

I think I have decided to just erase the last 48 hours. We have been watching so much about the hurricane victims that I just feel so overwelmed. I can't even imagine what those people are going thru. I remember when the tornado hit our neighborhood...that was bad enough and it was only one street destoyed, not the whole city. At least tonight I got to help a little bit. Sharla's church is getting about 200 refugees and we (Sharla, me, and Ally) went to go help sort thru all the donations. Ally wanted to go help the people who "don't have homes anymore". She was up very late but I figured it was okay just to give her the experience of helping people. So I am very tired but feel pretty good. I e-mailed Sharla the pictures we took tonight to give everyone an idea of what we did. So hopefully she will put them on her site soon. (My camera but her church so she gets the pictures.)

Yesterday we got a call from church and found out that 4 of our members were killed in a car wreck. Two members lost their spouse and one married couple was killed. Our church will have a hard time on Sunday. They were all very involved members and will be very missed. It still seems so unreal. I don't know if anyone remembers my friend Amy who sang at our wedding but the couple who was killed were her parents. I just can't imagine what she is going thru tonight. Please pray for Diane who survived but lost her husband and for Bill who lost his wife and is currently in ICU but expected to be okay. And of course for Amy and her husband John and their three kids.

Needless to say, I really have nothing uplifting or clever to say tonight. I think I'll just go to sleep so I don't have to deal with everything for a few hours. But tomorrow is a new day and I'll spend the weekend hugging and playing with my children so things will improve.

What a day! I swear there is something in the air today. All the kids at school felt it. I had a ton come to the clinic with everything from tummy aches to sand in their eyes to fevers to throwing up. Then we had a group of older boys (2nd grade) who just decided that they were not going to listen to the teacher and just went and sat down by a tree. The nursery class all cried this morning so I had to call parents and they all spent the day in class with their kids. One Kindergardner forgot his lunch and none of the parent phone numbers were working except one and no one answered that one. Told you....something in the air!

And yet, no matter how stressful my day, I am grateful that we don't live one state to the east and that all my family and friends are safe and dry. A few people at work are still waiting to hear from family members. Remember all those people in your prayers tonight.

In case I haven't told my family today, I love you all and miss you! (Time for me to go to bed before I get anymore sentimental and end up crying and calling everyone).

New Family Member

I'd like you to meet the newest member of our household. This is Max. A lady at work was looking for a home for him because he was a gift to her daughter who is going to live in a dorm. He is about 12 weeks old and long and skinny. I've never had a skinny cat before. Gotta fix that! He's a sweet kitty but still very frisky. In fact right now he is in the garage because he just knocked over a lamp. Apparently the lamp tried to attack him, along with the vicious plastic bag that was sitting beside it. His favorite toy is a rabbit's foot that he found in Alyssa's room. He carries it around in his mouth like a dead animal and throws is around. Very smart kitty.

Took Alyssa to her first Brownie troop meeting tonight. We have a really good troop. But Girl Scouts is not selling calendars anymore. Instead we are selling nuts and candy. Not too sure how I feel about that. I think I like calendars better....fewer calories.

Up and Running

Okay, I think I figured out the picture thing. I made the kids "pose" for a picture to put on here. See how much Andrew loves his sister.

Andrew starts his first full week of school on Monday. We'll see how he does. I think I'm more nervous than he is. Five days just seems like a lot. But I know he'll have fun. He has met both of his teachers and seems to really like them. Of course, one is his "real" teacher (the one he met first). I'm not sure what that makes the other one....maybe the "fake" teacher?

Alyssa is loving 3rd grade. They changed the schedule over the summer so now the kids go to PE everyday and rotate thru Art, Music, Computer, and Spanish. I like the physical activity but I hate that she only gets the others maybe once or twice a week.

Here we go!

Alright...caving into (family) peer pressure, I am trying to create my own blog. Wish me luck!! Not having an easy time with the picture part though. AAAUUUGGGHHH! Frustation already. I'm giving up and going to watch TV until my husband comes home from the ballpark. Maybe the kids and I can figure this out tomorrow. Sounds alot better than doing the dishes and the laundry. I think a clean house and non-smelly clothes are over-rated anyway.