The Super Mom

Exciting stuff

2010-10-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

Mom finally got a CELL PHONE! Shocking, I know! Chris and I (and probably others) have been bugging her to get one. The pay-as-you-go-no-frills-granny-phone she had before didn't count...
We texted today for the first time ever, LOL!
The move into her new place also happened this weekend. It's cosy! And now she'll be able to TEXT everyone photos of it!

Eric and I drove out to inspect another parcel of land we thought we'd like. It's 17 acres, has a stream running through it, wooded, already perced and has a well... it sounded perfect!
We got there and realized it was too damn far! Plus we liked the land next to it better... oh well. Our search continues for the perfect spot to build a house on!

Elle had a friend sleep over again. Pinky is starting to want to have sleepovers now. I told her she could have one next weekend!

Renn Fest!!

2010-09-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

Ah, we love going to the Renaissance Faire... and yes, we dress up! It's that time of year again and we decided to go on pirate weekend! The kids received several compliments on their outfits and the weather was great... all around a perfect weekend! It's too bad that the drive is an hour, otherwise I would buy season tickets! But as it is, it's just too far away to go as much as we really want to.

SO, this is the 'famous' Johnny Fox. He's a sword swallower who has put on magic shows for 30 years at the MD Renn Faire. We love him and the kids wanted a picture with him.

Elle in her Renaissance dress (or so we told her...), and Eric in his stylin' new hat!

These two guys were doing magic tricks with he kids...

The funny magic duo.

This gem decided to come lay right on the bench we were sitting at. I took this pic because her boobs were literally hanging out of the top of her dress, she didn't care at all. We had a good giggle!

I've finally joined the rest of the world

2010-09-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

I joined facebook. Shocking I know... I'm so ANTI facebook! The job that I have is very pro Facebook and they do most of their correspondence through it, as well as network with other Paul Mitchell employees. It was my time I guess. Although, I'm starting small... only family and really good friends. I'm not interested in friends I only knew for 5 minutes like seven years ago!
Honestly, I have NO idea how it all even works anyway... I just sort of finished a profile. It's pretty pathetic, hopefully I'll get the hang of it and have fun... but for now, I'm still totally amateur!

New Job

2010-09-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

I've been really busy lately! As soon as the kids started school, I went full force into finding a job. I spent hours a day sending out my polished resume! I had 3 interviews and got all three jobs... I narrowed it down to 2, then from there made my final decision.
I started working this week.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! It's at a cosmetology school I worked at several years ago. Doing basically the same thing I left off doing when I left! I am teaching the Core class (the new students up until they have 350 hours, then they move onto the clinical part of their schooling... but while their new, I have em!)

I work almost 30 hours a week and the schedule works out great with the my girls' school schedule. I'm extremely happy and feel right at home there! I feel like I never left... except they are now ALOT more busy and they are also a Paul Mitchell School now (YAY!) which I love because I graduated from a Paul Mitchell school and really like their system. When I taught as this school before, they were just a normal cosmetology school, so they have definitely raised the bar and made things alot more professional! The students tuition has also gone up from 7,500 to 17,500!!! I'm so glad I went to school when I did because Paul Mitchell Schools are super expensive now and when I went it was only 5,000!

My dress code (all PM dress codes) are black. I didn't really have alot of black stuff, so I've been shopping alot! It's fun to dress up everyday again and look... not like a mom!
Plus the added bonus of having great hair all the time!

So, with the kids in school, me working and Eric, who has some very exciting things going on (not sure if he'll let me post anything yet... I'll have to ask him first!)... we have a pretty different dynamic all the sudden!

First Day of School!

2010-08-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

This was it! My baby's first day of Kindergarten... it was bittersweet. She was so excited and it helped that her sister and sisters best friend were there holding her hand. Elle was really nervous to start 3rd grade, she said she wished she could stay in 2nd grade forever.

I had a fun time buying her school supplies! I have memories of starting school with the boring school stuff; boring wooden rulers, plain yellow pencils, white notebook paper... I would see the cool kids with their popular glitzy/glittery colorful tools, and I wanted them SO bad! One girl in particular came to school with hot pink notebook paper... I would have given my right arm to have that pink paper back then!
So, now that I have my own kids (and lucky for me they're girls and like the pink glitzy stuff AND because all that stuff that was popular when I was in school, is popular again today!) we have a ball picking stuff out!

I basically let them have free reign and they bought the coolest of everything they could see. They can never say I never let them buy trendy things, because that's ALL I buy them, LOL! Is that the best thing to do if I want to raise price conscience kids? Definitely not! But I want them the have the best experience they can have and if buying a pale pink, glitter, lock box with hearts and mirrors all over it instead of a standard pencil box will help... then I'm going to do it!

SO, here come the pictures! Here they are eating their breakfast this morning. I think they were too nervous to eat because neither one wanted to eat anything... very unusual for them!

Pinky all set to go!

Both my girls about to head off into the big, bad world of Elementary school.

Trekking to the bus stop

Elle's best friend lives a couple houses away, stopping at her house to pick her up is part of the routine.

Right before the bus comes.

Getting onto the bus... I *may* have gotten a little teary eyed here.

I'm excited to get updates on how the day went!

My weight loss journey

2010-08-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

So, I've been pretty lax about going to the gym the past few months and didn't go at all while I was on vacation. Towards the end of my trip I noticed my pants didn't fit anymore and upon returning home realized my BELT wouldn't fit around me anymore!!! I was appalled! Literally NONE of my bottoms fit me at all. I was the fattest I've ever been in my entire life (aside from being pregnant). That was a sad thing to realize...
I was 20 pounds heavier then I was two years ago at my fittest. TWENTY POUNDS! When did this happen???

So, coming home with my darker, chopped up hair and being too fat for my clothes was the worst point! I felt so incredibly ugly in every way... oh and it didn't help that I quickly got like 2 giant zits on my face.
I vowed right then and there that I was going to be a hot babe again.

So, for 3 weeks now I've been working out 6 days a week. I've really amped it up and I work out really hard. I hate dieting and can never do that, but I HAVE been eating 'less'. And so far I've lost 3 pounds!! YAY!
Today I'm wearing pants that three weeks ago, I couldn't even button up and now they fit great! I'm even wearing my belt with them!

3 down... 17 to go!

Ear woes

2010-08-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

Poor Naomi has had quite a difficult run with her ear problems lately. We got back from vacation and she developed an ear infection in her right ear. No big deal, I took her to the ENT who checked and said her right ear needed drops but her left ear was normal.

Well, only a few days after that appt. she was complaining about her left ear hurting. I thought I'd better play it safe and I started doing the drops in her left ear as well.

The right side cleared right up with the drops but the left side seemed to be getting worse. I took her in to the doctor again who said her left ear is indeed VERY infected in and around her tube. He prescribed an oral antibiotic this time instead of drops. A few days of that and still it got worse!

It got so bad that her ear was leaking pus! it was the nastiest thing I've ever seen! it was just literally dripping out onto her clothes. She had to constantly hold a tissue up to her ear. She also hurt so bad she couldn't lay on her left side or even touch that side of her face. She couldn't open her mouth very wide because it hurt, so I was making her smoothies alot since she couldn't eat.

I took her back in to the doctor a 3rd time, when she woke up one morning and her face was puffy. I looked up ear infection/puffy face on the Internet and apparently that's really bad! The infection had started to leave her ear and started to travel around her head. Luckily it hadn't started to go upwards into her brain yet (but that would be the next phase...). So I went to the doctor again, who then prescribed another, stronger medication.

It did get slightly better but she still was having issues, so back to the ENT we went. He said even though she has stopped dripping pus out, the tube is completely blocked and now needs to be unblocked. So, she now has a 4th medication to help clear out the tubes! Poor thing!

She starts school in 4 days and I hope it's cleared up by then! While we seem to be on the mend at this point, it did get a little scary there for a bit with the infection starting to spread.

Watch out New York... here comes Elle!!

2010-08-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

Eric travels... ALOT. One of the places he frequents is New York and since school hasn't started yet, he thought it would be fun to bring Elle along on one of his trips! Oh boy was she excited!

They were gone a few days, Elle tagged along and met several of Eric's clients. They ordered room service and watched movies. Eric took her to see the Statue of Liberty. She got home and was talking a mile a minute about all the things she did and how fun it was!

Arriving at the hotel.

Heading to Ellis Island

Smile, we're in NY!

Missing Persons

2010-08-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

I have never met another child who loves animals as much as Naomi does. It's really more of an obsession... a really weird obsession.
She prefers to get stuffed animals, plastic animals, rubber animals, animal books, coloring books and animal printed clothes over Barbie’s and baby dolls any day!

If we are outside and she spots someone with their pet, they better watch out because Naomi is on her way over to love that animal (even when the owners say no!)

She has been known to chase down ducks, geese AND chickens to try to hold them and in the process has been pecked several time because flying animals don’t like to be picked up!

She will sneak attack squirrels, chipmunks and other creatures we find in the yard, to grab them and pick them up... again, they don’t like that!

She picks up frogs and will hold them for literally hours until we force her to let the poor things go. She will capture and 'play' with any bug she finds (she's befriended everything from ants to cockroaches!)

This child has even chased down a snake and picked it up by the tail. She didn't just pick it up and let it go either... she picked it up and dragged it all over the yard! She even tried dipping it in the kiddie pool. Finally, I had to make her let go of that too!

Yesterday though, she scared the crap out of me. Naomi has a bad habit of wandering away from the house. She sees no need in asking for permission before deciding to go exploring outside. Sometimes I'll think she's in the basement watching cartoons, when really I find out she's been outside playing for an hour (then I feel like a bad mom). Although, usually she's out with other kids or just across the street in te woods playing in the dirt.
Yesterday was one of those times where she had gone exploring alone. Elle and I set out to find her as usual... but she wasn't in any of the usual spots. I actually got really worried and was about to call 911 if I didn't find her in the next 30 seconds!

Luckily we found her safe and sound! She was way down the street... knocking on every door she passed, asking to play with any of their pets! WHAT! Who does that?? When I saw her I freaked out! Anybody could have taken her into their house and I never would have known! One of the houses apparently had rabbits that they let Pinky hold. And there was a couple sitting outside, who when they saw me, told me they were worried because this little girl was wandering around house to house! I felt like the worlds worse mother! Oh my gosh! This is a new level of obsession for Pinky! When I got her home, I yelled... alot! And sent her to her room until dinner was ready (a good two hours!)

Oh, and I neglected to mention the OTHER incident we had earlier in the day! Not only does she love live animals, but also dead ones. I have to be fast to make sure she doesn't touch dead things we find on the road. But yesterday morning, both the girls took Loki out into the woods to play. I didn't know this until later, but Naomi had found a large bird/duck thing dead in the woods with its ribs beginning to become exposed. This kid, grabbed the ribs and dragged the dead animal all the way home and left it right outside my back door! EWWWWWWW!

5th birthday party!

2010-08-12T12:06:00.000-07:00

Pinky's party was at a bounce house! It was fabulous, in that I just payed and didn't have to do a thing! All the entertainment, food, drinks and goodie bags were completely taken care of for me! They even dealt with the gifts and loaded them into my car! Fabulous! Seriously, birthdays are SO stressful and usually pretty expensive, this was the first year I was 100% stress free and everyone had a great time!
Here are a few pictures from the party.
ENJOY!
P.S. Turn your speakers up, I included videos too...

This free picture slideshow customized with Smilebox

Five Years Ago!

2010-08-12T12:02:00.000-07:00

So, Naomi is 5 years old now! If had any doubt before about her being a 'baby', I surely don't now! She is officially NOT a baby anymore and in two short weeks will be in full day Kindergarten. I could cry.

I looked back through her life in pictures and have posted a few of each of her birthdays up through today!

Here I am hugely pregnant with her! Elle is three years old in this picture.

Awwww, newborn Naomi!

How did my little blondie ever have jet black hair??

Her first birthday!

Birthday number TWO!

Third birthday at the beach!

Fourth birthday (first haircut)

Here she is today!

More Utah!

2010-08-10T08:24:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to uploading my pictures off my phone. Here are a few good ones. The second half of our trip was sans Eric, who had to fly back home. So, the kids and I hung out with my dad, Alison, Chris and Joyce.

Here are the kids playing video games with Chris and Joyce... they had all the cool games and if they lived closer, I'm sure my kids would spend alot of time at their house playing games!

Video games zombies...

There was also a tea party for the little great-grand daughters to have with their great-grandma Stamm. it was such a girlie day!

Grandma Stamm at the tea party...

Hammock time...

Dad and Alison like to hike up City Creek Canyon, so the girls and I went along. It was beautiful! The kids were mostly carried by Dad and Alison though, LOL!

Another things the kids loved were all the books Alison had from when her sons were little. She had a giant box of them and the kids tried to read every one of them. They mostly liked being read to!

My dad and Pinky...

The last picture I will ever take of myself with white hair. On my last day there I got it cut and dyed brown! It had to be done! I'm not quite used to it yet, so I wont post a pic... but just know, this is not what I look like anymore!

Back

2010-08-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

The girls and I got got back last night from vacation! I have several pics and lots to say... but not right now! I'm still trying to recover from the time difference and getting back to normal life!
Stay tuned!

What I've been up to.

2010-07-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

We've been on the most awesome vacation. This coming Thursday Eric will fly home but I'll be staying another 2 weeks. I'm in vacation mode and I'm loving it!

Our first stop was Vegas; we stayed at the Luxor a couple of days. We swam, shopped, saw a Vegas show, gambled and ate too much. Our next stop was St. George. That's where we are now. It is hotter here then I've ever experienced in my life. Everyday has been around 110. Eric’s parents rented a large beautiful home for all of us to stay in during the 2 weeks we are here. The cousins are enjoying the pool mostly and hanging out with each other all day.

There are some really fun things do to here. Snow Canyon was one that we hiked around for two days. The rocks are east enough for kids to climb and they feel invincible.

Zion’s was our next attraction. Eric and I took the kids and hiked the Narrows. I've never done that before and it was fun. You basically hike through a river for miles and miles. The scenery is stunning and the water is nice to be in because it's SO hot out!

As we were driving around Zion’s park, we saw a mountain named Angles Landing. It's a steep mountain (5700 feet up) with a gorgeous view at the top. The appeal of this particular climb is that it's so steep and you climb up the ledge of the mountain. The first half of the climb is all switchbacks. REALLY steep and REALLY narrow. The second half of the climb (the top half) is all rock climbing. There are chains provided so you don’t fall off the ledge. It took us several hours, but we made it to the top and took a billion pictures.

We've also seen a few plays. There's an incredible outdoor amphitheater right on the mountain side here where they have AMAZING plays. We saw Cats last week and several days later we saw Tarzan. Both were SO artistic and well done. My mother in law and sister in law and myself also took off one night and went to see Pride and Prejudice. That was super fun as well!

In two days the reunion will be over and everyone will all go their separate ways back home, Eric included. But the girls and I are heading up north for two more weeks to see my family. I love vacations and I'm bummed out that Eric won’t be with us anymore in a few days. We've never been away from each other for so long!

Now for some pictures!!!

SNOW CANYON:
Mountin hopping Elle:

Eric on the side of a mountain:

Family Pic:

Finding shade from the 112 degree heat that day:

HIKING THE NARROWS:

Wading through the shallow part:

Getting deeper:

Family picture on a rock:

Amazing scenery!!:

Pretty narrow:

Squeezing my fat butt through a small waterfall:

ANGELS LANDING!!!

Notice Eric teetering on the mountain ledge...

Here I am hiking up, notice the cliff next to me:

Climbing climbing...

Enjoying the view:

Sexy Eric checking out the view:

Here we are near the top:

On my way back down, carefully trying to not slip and fall down the cliffs on either side of me!:

KIDS:

Here are the kids at the ampitheater:

Ampitheater picture:

The kids with cousin Lucy taking a pic with one of the cast. Elle had a crush on this cat, he's a 10 year old boy... you can tell she's totally blushing in this picture

Here's me with one of the Cat casts:

The girls with cousin Rachel in a bedroom from St. George rental house:

One of the MANY times Pinky fell asleep at the oddest times. Vacations wear a kid out!

Happy Birthday!

2010-07-07T08:20:00.000-07:00

Eric is 37 today! We're going to go out to dinner and also celebrating in Vegas this weekend possibly with a show or something as well!

The kids made him super cute gifts and I ordered a few things that were supposed to show up either yesterday or today... I'm getting a little nervous!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIC!

I guess it's time...

2010-07-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

I've been dying my hair platinum for 5 years now and I really love it because it's such an unnatural color, it really stands out which is one of the reasons I love it so much. For the past year or so I've been telling Eric that I'm only going to go platinum ONE more time, then I'll start doing a more natural color. But each time that point comes along... I just can't bring myself do actually follow through and I end up just continuing to go white.
The prospect of having a more natural hair color is a little scary for me because I feel like I'm surrendering to getting older... if that makes any sense at all. Having white hair is something I can do that makes me feel and look like I'm I'm still hip and young. I get compliments and questions about it almost daily from people because it's such a weird unnatural hair color. For me to have normal hair will make me feel like I'm blending in to society and will have nothing that stands out anymore. I'll look like any other mom out there. I'm just not ready!

But the decision has been made for me I suppose. I once again dyed my hair last night and my poor strands have had enough! Bleaching and toning hair is one of the worst things you can do as far as the integrity of your hair. It weakens it and LOTS of it falls out simply because it breaks off or is too damaged to stay connected. My hair looks awful when it's wet because it's so far gone. But with alot of tender love and care (and gobs of product) my hair looks super cute once it's dried, straitened and smoothed out. You'd never know after I fixed it up just damaged it really is.
But yesterday was the last straw. My hair gave me the ultimate sign of being finished with bleach... it melted together! At the nape of my neck was a chuck that fused itself together. I've bleached my hair into oblivion! Fortunately because my hair is in such bad shape, I was able to simply pull lightly on that chunk and the whole thing pulled right out without any problems (scary huh???) A smaller chunk also melted in the very front of my face and when it fell out, it gave me nice bangs...

Okay I get it! No more bleach! I'll succumb to normal hair, I really don't have a choice. One more time with bleach and I'm afraid I'll be bald! It's been a fun run but my youth is truly over! I'm going to go cry now over the loss of my funky youthful hair. Although I do look forward to having strong healthy hair again that I don't have to spend an hour on every morning.

Fun 4th

2010-07-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

We had a fun evening with friends and family on the 4th. The fireworks were a hit with the adults and most of the kids... Pinky could have cared less about them and was more interested in finding out how the glowsticks glowed. We realized she was successful in her endeavour when she started crying in the pitch blackness, and all we could see when we looked at her was the inside of her entire mouth glowing green.

Everyone panicked for a bit and tried to make her swig and spit water to get all the glow out of her mouth. I was mostly panicked because she said it burned. Although, while we were busy scraping green stuff out of Naomi's mouth, Eric was busy testing it himself to see if it in fact burned. He only dabbed it on his tongue but he said it made his whole mouth go numb. So, I'm sure Pinky was very uncomfortable!

After the fiasco had settled down, we couldn't let the remaining perfectly good glowing goo go to waste! Eric and I dabbed it all over our arms like glowing tribal paint!

Someone in the group made the comment after watching us do this, that it's no wonder Pinky wanted to break it open and play with it... it must run in the family!

Testing...

2010-06-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at the pool right now watching the kids in their swim teams... I thought I'd test out writing a post from my phone.

It's been super hot lately and usually I enjoy tanning myself at the pool, but more and more I'm joined the ranks of moms hiding themselves in the shade!

I think I'll try to post a pic from my phone next!

Lots O Pics

2010-06-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

Elle had her end of the year Girl Scout trip to D.C a few weekends ago, Naomi and I tagged along. The bad part about going to D.C with a group is that the group gets there by taking the Metro... I despise the Metro and usually, when I go with the kids, I drive in. But with large groups, Metro is the way they go. So I had to suffer through the train rides! The good part was that it was alot of fun! Perfect weather and lots to see.

Here's a picture of Elle with her troop. All these girls are 8, I don't know why Elle is so short! I don't look at her and think she's a shorty but she is teeny in this group of girls.

After hiking around outside, the kids made me stop at a vendor and get 10 dollar Popsicles!

Even though Pinky is too big for a stroller, she still gets worn out and I had to carry a sleeping (almost) 5 year old for several hours. She fell asleep twice during our outing and boy was she tough to carry. Here I am sitting down for a minute with her because she was killing my back. Ah, the joys of motherhood!

What fun outing post wouldn't be complete without our hiking pictures! It's hot enough now that we can stop and play in the lake. I don't know who loves it more, the kids or the dog!

lake swimming

Eric didn't mind getting his shorts wet, so he took them father then I did.

Satisfied after an eventful swim

This is what a wet Loki looks like!

Heading back to the car...

Cleaning

2010-06-15T05:44:00.000-07:00

So, on my journey to find my cell phone (before I accepted the fact that it was in fact taken by a friend of mine... I didn't want to believe it at first) I tore my house apart! Room by room I emptied out closets, cleaned under beds, looked behind dressers, cleared out cabinets. No stone was left unturned! The kitchen was the worst! I can't believe I'm even posting these pictures, LOL!

The first pic is all trash that I cleaned out from my kitchen cabinets. Yes, those are contractor trashbags... full of crap! How embarrassing! But at the same time, how liberating! My kitchen is SO simple and clean now. I can open a drawer and see everything that's in there!

Okay, the next pics are even worse! We have a freezer-on-the-bottom type fridge (which i HATE by the way and will never get again!). I decided to clean it out because a few soda cans had exploded in there the day before and there were frozen drink chunks all over everything. Upon taking all the food out of the freezer, I was appalled to find that it looked like THIS: AAAHHHHHH!! That's what I get for having a type of freezer where you just dump stuff into it. Plus, I've never cleaned it out before.

But after much scrubbing, I made it sparkle again! (If my friend Brittney is reading this, I hope you averted your eyes!)

I guess the good side of this whole ordeal is that my house looks fantastic now! The other good side is today I'm going to go buy the new iphone4! I guess if I had to have my phone disappear, now is the best time. The new phone is literally the coolest thing I've ever seen and I can't wait to get my hands on one!

I have so many more pictures to post and more to write. I'll have to get back to that later today!

Updates

2010-06-07T13:53:00.000-07:00

Pinky is out of school for the summer, her graduation was pretty darn cute. Elle still has two more weeks but is enjoying the 'fun' school days at the end.
Eric and I are... surviving. We're having one those 'when it rains it pours' couple of weeks. I don't even have enough fingers to count how many different things we're dealing with right now that are taking a toll. We find solice though, in the weekends! Eric built the kids two really cool tents to sleep in a few days ago. The kids loved that! We've done lots of hiking and outings. And last night we had an asian feast for dinner with some friends. Eric cooked up all sorts of things, it was awesome! I love when he gets all Japanese on me!
My iphone went missing on Thursday... I'm pretty sure it was taken and I know who took it but I can't accuse someone of taking it without knowing 100%... which I don't.
Well, it's 5pm, so I better start dinner. I'm in the mood for fajitas tonight!

Cupcake Love

2010-04-29T11:24:00.000-07:00

I have been craving cupcakes since yesterday, which is unusual because I hate cake and I hate frosting even more. But I would literally sell my soul for a cupcake right now.

I searched the internet for a cupcake bakery in my area. There are none. A simple cupcake from the grocery store wouldn’t cut it either, I wanted a REALLY good one. But surprisingly (or maybe not, I don’t know) there isn’t anything like that within an hour of my house! I found a few up north in Baltimore and a few down south in D.C, but my little suburb sat bakery-less!

I was complaining about it to my mom when she mentioned that Starbucks now carries cupcakes! That’s where I headed first thing this morning because while we lack in bakeries, we have a multitude of Starbucks… this seems backwards. Who cares about lattes, I need cupcakes people!

Cupcakes were the first thing I saw when I walked in. I wasted no time in ordering it, paying for it and running back to my car where I sat with the windows down and music playing, eating the best cupcake I’d ever tasted!

There are pictures of me sitting in the parking lot eating my prize. Pathetic? Yes. Delicious? YES!

Activa... don't buy it!

2010-04-29T07:06:00.001-07:00

I’m pretty brand loyal to most things and recently discovered why I’ll be more diligent about this self imposed rule. On a routine trip to the grocery store the other day I picked up some yogurt because my kids love it and it’s relatively healthy. I usually buy the Danimals or GoGurt. I wouldn’t touch those things with a ten foot pole myself, but the kids can eat 10 a day. The abnormal fluorescent colors make me nervous…

Upon going to grab my usual brands, I noticed that one particular brand was on a huge sale. The sale made the price nearly half of the kind I was buying. What the heck, we’d try a different brand this time! I picked up 4 cases of this yogurt. This yogurt also known as Activa had a nice natural color to it and actually tasted awesome. I had no qualms about eating several that first day. Pinky also liked it and had about 3 a day for next 2-3 days.

It was soon apparent why the store had offered this ‘yogurt’ at such a steep discount, they were trying to get rid of it because it’s side effects are awful, nobody would actually pay a normal price for it.

Activa, I found out (after buying it) has an intended purpose, which is to help your intestinal track in some way. Some way that is really bad if you have more than 1 a day. I was hurting that night and Pinky is too young to make the correlation between why she’s in the bathroom 20 times a day and the fact that she eats these yogurts like they’re going out of style.

Once I realized what was going on, I halted consumption altogether and slowed hers way down to about 1 every other day. I feel ripped off. I don’t want my snacks to double as medicine for my health track. I want my snacks to be tasty and (as most snacks are) not too good for you. To snack companies… Keep your medicines and probiotics out of my food! Now I’m stuck with all this yogurt in my fridge I’m afraid to eat.

Weekend

2010-04-29T05:29:00.000-07:00

Another great weekend, another great chance to hike! This time we ventured through a new trail we discovered while just driving around in the country the other day. The trail is 3.5 miles in one direction, by far the best one we've done. My mom came long this time.

The walk path wasn’t a wide as other hikes we’ve done but the scenery was a lot more beautiful, most of it was wooded although it did take us through a giant field. I felt a little vulnerable walking out into a wide open area after being enclosed and hidden by the woods for most of the walk.

Eric and I are pretty picky when it comes to what we consider nice land but this seemed to meet our qualifications. The giant stream which emptied into the Potomac River was a highlight of the walk, or at least Loki though so. His favorite part of any walk is the swim.

Another highlight was coming across somebody’s old lean to. It looked pretty old but has to have been built really well to last this long.

At one point Pinky was attacked by a patch of Stinging Nettle in an attempt to catch a frog, which she successfully caught and held for several seconds before realizing her hand was burning. Another downside to this particular path (but one we can overlook and will just have to be more careful with next time) is the fact that it was crawling with ticks. It wasn’t until we got home that we realized just how many we’d given a free ride too. Pinky had two attached, plus one that was roaming around her. Elle also had two attached and we found two more in her bedroom. YUCK!!! The lesson learned here is to CHECK CHECK CHECK ourselves and the kids when we get home and immediately hop in the shower. Ticks, Chiggers, Stinging Nettle, Mosquitoes, thorns… all crappy things to deal with but come with the territory.

And what fun weekend isn’t complete without a little rock climbing!

First Cavity…

2010-04-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve been taking the girls to the dentist regularly since Elle turned 3. While Pinky seems to effortlessly glide through her visits with little more than a cleaning, poor Elle has suffered the brunt of the dental experience.

From a young age I was told Elle would need braces because her mouth was very small and her teeth were squished. Sure enough she’s needed braces as well as a whole gamut of other things. It seems every time I go in there’s a new problem. Their cleaning visit yesterday was no exception. Pinky’s cleaning went great and I was told again, how perfect and strong her teeth are, her spacing is great for when the adult teeth come in, I was told Elle on the other hand, had a cavity.

According to the dentist the culprit is soft teeth. I’ve been told numerous times over several visits that her teeth weren’t as hard they should be, so I knew this day was in the works. I also suffer from this unfortunate problem. I have no idea why my teeth are so crappy but I’ve apparently passed this wonderful issue down to my daughter. Soft teeth (there is a more scientific name but I can’t spell OR pronounce it) occurs when the outer layer of the tooth never hardens correctly the way a normal tooth should during childhood. Chipping of the outer layer is very common as Elle has a few chips in her back teeth. Cavities love soft toothed people. The way it was put to me was that Pinky would be fine with normal brushing but Elle would have to work 100% harder than everybody else to avoid getting cavities. Yikes.

Her drilling is scheduled for May and frankly I’m nervous. Not so much because she’s being drilled, she has a great, competent dentist but because Elle has an aversion to needles (drills will fall into that category soon). Shots at the doctor require no less than two nurses holding her down. She’s only 8 but incredibly strong when she’s terrified of something. I threaten the kids with getting cavities if they don’t brush their teeth but suddenly that doesn’t seem fair anymore seeing as how Pinky will most likely be fine and Elle will most likely get one or two every year!

Because I have soft teeth like Elle I know from personal experience that it sucks. I constantly got cavities which was disappointing because I keep my teeth cleaner then anyone I knew! My routine consists of flossing every morning (sometimes twice over just to be sure), then brushing for a LONG time, then I use either mouthwash or a tongue scraper, and top it all off at the end with chapstick. Seriously, WHO does that everyday?? Me, I do! I do and I still have had a cavity in every tooth I have except my front ones. The worst time was when I was 22, I went in for a cleaning and had twelve… you read that right TWELVE. Having 6 done at one time and the other 6 done two days later really messed up my bite for a long time because it changed the way my teeth met when I closed my mouth. You know the feeling you get when you have to get used to a new filling fitting into your ‘bite’, well imagine that times 12 at one time. It didn’t feel right for about a year.

On the bright side though, Even if Elle is destined to have her teeth drilled for the rest of her life; at least they’ll be strait! 

Funny Things Kids Say

2010-04-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Pinky has been discovering new things she’s able to do daily since her surgery. Usually these discoveries are good things like being able to hear me talk to her, even when she’s in the next room (she has supersonic hearing now!) This morning however, she discovered she could not only hear people around her but also people in her own head. She asked me this morning where Elle was and when I informed her Elle had left for school hours ago her response was “I keep hearing Elle talk to me in my head. I don’t want to go back to the surgery doctor because he’s freakin’ me out; he made people talk in my head!”

While Pinky is busy learning about life around her, Elle is learning how to effectively use wit and sarcasm in conversation. She’s getting pretty good too. Yesterday she asked me something, I can’t even recall what it was but my answer was a sarcastic one. Her response was an eye roll followed with “Thanks for that kind response, it was much appreciated…” LOL

Laziness vs. Coming to Terms with Reality

2010-04-19T13:41:00.001-07:00

One thing that stands out more and more as I approach my 30's is my slowing metabolism. The wonderful genes I was born with that allowed me to eat whatever, whenever I wanted without consequence, are no longer as spry as they once were and I am now reaping the unfortunate effects of my lifelong sugar binge.

I look forward to all that goes along with getting older, being taken more seriously, no longer being lumped in with the societal misfits of 20-somethings. However, the downside being that my days of carefree eating are gone.

Time keeps chugging along and I get zero say in it. All I can do is drastically change my habits and perhaps work out harder

Along the way I’ve discovered some unpleasant things about myself. Laziness stands out. In my head I always have an excuse for why I don’t get things done or why I don’t follow through with tasks I need to do. But in reality, I’m just too damn lazy. I can’t sugar coat it anymore, though not for lack of trying. (Get it? Sugar coat! I crack myself up)

Laziness is a bad quality to have when you’re trying to be more health conscious. Working out and eating right takes effort and if I’m being honest with myself, sometimes I just don’t feel like it. So I don’t. After skipping a workout or eating cheesecake for lunch is when I instantly feel guilty. I know that what I have done (or not done) is a direct result of my being LAZY. It’s a quality I loathe in myself, yet haven’t figured out how to change. I suppose I could just power through it. The problem is, laziness is stronger than my desire to power through anything.

Procrastination is another loathsome quality I have. Sometimes to pacify my guilt about skipping the gym, I tell myself I’ll go tomorrow. Whatever I have neglected out of laziness, I will surely kick out the next day. Somehow in my mind, the next day consists of me suddenly not being a lazy ass anymore. Right.

I guess what they say is true; the older you get the wiser you become. Except by wiser, they really meant understanding the gaping-personality-flaws-that-can-no-longer-be-ignored-because-you-are-not-a-selfish-20-something-anymore. Getting old is harsh.

I’ve easily put on close to 5-10 pounds of blubber over the past year. This is when my journey of self discovery began, when I noticed the weight wasn’t being shed in its usual fashion. A lifestyle change is required but is hard when you’re lazy and procrastinate everything. This is really a catch 22 here, with the moral of it all being; if I can control and master my newly discovered problems, I can control and master my weight.

I have a few options going forward. Continue to ignore my problems, which will lead to disaster I’m sure, or tackle my issues head on, smashing them into the ground, and come up being a better person in my 30’s than I was in my 20’s, with the added bonus of looking fabulous again. I prefer the latter.

No Dignity

2010-04-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

Being at the bottom of the family hierarchy has obvious disadvantages. Just ask Loki who on a daily basis is forced to participate in girly games thought up by Pinky. Some days he has to endure the embarrassment of wearing headbands around his head or pink socks on his feet. Being a dog, he doesn’t understand what he’s being make to endure but being the manly German Shepard that he thinks he is, he knows enough to feel incredibly emasculated when these unfortunate events occur. It’s obvious by the way he sulks around the house when Pinky decides to play with him, almost as if he were embarrassed to be alive, no doubt praying to God that none of his dog friends walks by and witnesses him swaddled up in a purple blanket.

Notice the look of desperation on Loki’s face below. I walked into the room and noticed Pinky had once again, wrapped her beloved play thing up like a burrito. Poor Loki has learned to deal with it gracefully, that is by not fighting it. He’s tried to wiggle his way out of tutu’s or play bite as a show of his dislike, but those actions were met with swift reprimand by higher members of the pack. He’s surrendered to his role in this house, to let the little one play as she pleases, within reason. Burrito wrapping and hair bows are within reason.

Wow, best commercial ever!

2010-04-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

Never before and never again

2010-04-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

I am about to do something so crazy, your mind might not even be able to comprehend what I'm about to tell you. I'm going to let you in on a shameful secret I recently discovered I had. I say shameful because, well, I'm ashamed of it. Every fiber of my being is screaming at me to keep my stupid mouth shut but I can't deny the awesomeness (I mean embarrassment) of what I am about to say. This really goes against all that I am, all that I encompass. Or at least what I thought I encompassed. Really it’s done nothing but make me second guess views on life as I previously perceived them… not really, but it is making me question my loyalties. You’ll see what I mean.

Anyone who knows me knows what a brand name snob I am. I would rather spend more money to get something with more prestige then spend less and get a bargain/ generic brand. I pride myself on having my children and myself look great at all times. Frankly, I should be more embarrassed admitting that but I’m not.

Hey, I like a deal as much as the next person and get pretty excited when I see an expensive item on massive sale. That’s an even bigger score to me then paying retail. I said I liked expensive things, I didn’t say I liked paying for them! In fact, some of my most favorite items were purchased from thrift stores. I love finding that one (or two) incredible deal at second hand shops. So, as you can plainly see, my issue isn’t with brand new vs. used, it’s with brand name vs. generic.

Because of the way I am, there are a few stores I refuse to shop in. Namely Wal Mart. Even my kids know I will NOT go into a Wal Mart to save my life. I can’t speak for them all but the one by my house looks as it hasn’t been updated in 20 years. I’m almost scared to drive in front of it, for fear I might run over some woman and her 10 children trailing behind her, or be accosted in the parking lot by a homeless man wanting a few bucks. Why on earth anyone would beg for money outside a Wal Mart is beyond me but whatever.

I was gifted a few Wal Mart gift cards recently and seeing as how I’m not one to turn away a gift card, I was very grateful and accepted it. Not knowing it would change my LIFE! My first attempt at patronizing the Wal Mart was futile; I just couldn’t get out of the car. I gave myself a pat on the back for effort and decided to brave it again the next day.

The next day proved easier and I walked in to what is now my favorite place to grocery shop! Turns out the inside isn’t so run down after all, it’s pretty decent. The best were the aisles and aisles of food. Most of it brand name and ALL of it incredibly cheap. I loaded up my cart with the normalcy’s I usually buy as well as a few treats for the kids I usually don’t buy. My total was less than 100 dollars. After food shopping I waltzed over to other aisles and was equally impressed with the selection of home goods, arts and crafts, bedding, beauty products… I could go on. Everything I could ever want in one store.

I loved it so much I have been back three times since then, including this morning. Each time I dress extra nice in order to distinguish myself above the typical Wal Mart shopper, which I clearly am not... Cleary. I haven’t told anyone about my secret love affair with Wally World for fear of well, I don’t quite know, rejection, judgment, shock, disbelief? Maybe writing it out first will make it easier to vocalize later, after all, acceptance is the first step to recovery.

While I still haven’t (and if I can help it, never will) bought clothes at Wal Mart, they have a plethora of other things worth buying and worth going in for. So there it is, I’ve divulged my dirty secret. Now that you know, you must never speak of this again. I will deny it if ever brought up in company and look at you like you are crazy for even thinking I could possibly like shopping there. There will be no further evidence of this confession. This post will self destruct in 10 seconds…

Lessons learned this weekend.

2010-04-12T05:50:00.000-07:00

There are basic rules in this life that one follows. Simple, little things like; if you don’t want to get wet, avoid the rain or use an umbrella, if you don’t want to get burned then don’t play with fire or touch the hot stove, or there’s the rule my daughter didn’t follow and suffered the natural consequences because of it. This rule would be, if you don’t wear long pants and/or socks whilst hiking in the woods, bad things are 100% more likely to happen to you then to others in your hiking party who are adequately dressed.

The weather on Saturday was beautiful, perfect hiking weather. We of course went out for a few hours on a trail, let the dog swim in the stream and stopped to have snacks before trudging back to the car. Elle insisted we go again the next day. Why not, it was an even more beautiful day the next day and we had nothing formal planned, so later the next day we all got our hiking clothes on again. Everyone except Elle that is. The weather was warm but bordering on hot and Elle didn’t want to be bothered with the inconvenience of sweating since she refused to wear pants and instead put on shorts. I told her she’d be happier in pants and informed her she might regret it later. No, she assured me she would be fine. I did draw the line however, when she came down wearing flip flops and made her go back upstairs to put on socks and sneakers. Once again under dressing, she came down sockless shoes. ‘I hate socks, they hurt my feet, I never wear socks, etc…’ We were all ready to go at that point so I didn’t fight it with her.

The hike started off innocently enough, until we had to trudge through some thorns. Everyone made it to the other side without incident except Elle who made it through with several scratches on her shin, probably realizing at that point that shorts weren’t the smartest thing to wear.

Fast forward about 20 minutes when everyone who had come hiking with us was engaged in friendly conversation, when all the sudden we see Elle up ahead screaming and flailing about, yelling that there was a tick on her. Sure enough, there was a little tick trying to attach itself to her shin. Vocalizing the fact that again, pants would have prevented this, didn’t need to be said… it was silently understood.

The last and final straw happened when we finally sat down to have a snack. Both the girls were sitting on Gramps’ lap. For the third time this trip Elle started crying and holding her ankle. I could tell she was genuinely in pain and therefore it might be pretty serious. Apparently Pinky had rubbed Stinging Nettle on Elle’s leg. It was an accident, obviously Pinky didn’t know what it was she was smearing all over her sister and unfortunately for Elle it was Stinging Nettle. Also, unfortunately for Elle she was not wearing socks, which would have prevented the whole thing. Before my eyes her ankle started to get red and splotchy then the white bumps started in. Yikes, I remember touching that stuff once… it was one time too many! Luckily we were sitting right next to the river, so Elle washed her foot off which helped for a few minutes but the walk back to the car was a hard one!
Here’s picture of her ankle. It might not LOOK like much but anyone who has experienced Stinging Nettle knows how awful it is to touch it… let alone have it rubbed into your foot.

So upon getting back into the car, I asked Elle if she had learned an important lesson today. She had. Her response was “Always wear pants and socks while walking around in the woods”.

Easter

2010-04-07T05:09:00.000-07:00

We had an action packed Easter this year. Eric's sister and her family came out and the cousins had alot of fun together. Erics mom had a big Easter egg hunt for the grandkids, my kids loved it because I'm not a very fun mom and have never done a big one before! I only hide a few eggs for them on Easter morning around our living room. They dont know any better, so they think it's great, LOL! Having a 'real' egg hunt this year will make it hard for me to do my normal ones in the coming years...

Here are my kids in the living room after finding their baskets:

Here's Pinky after the FUN egg hunt... she's surveying her loot!:

Elle in her Easter dress:

Pinky is clearly ready to eat Easter dinner. She didn't want to wait around for everyone else!:

Elle and her cousin Rachel:

Pinky and gramps (Pinky commands his full attention at the swing everytime they go to the park). After Easter dinner we all went to the park to work off the ham!:

Swinging with Elle:

ALl the cousins:

So Far So Good

2010-04-06T04:03:00.001-07:00

Well, Naomi is home now and slowly recovering from her triple surgery. She was pretty excited when we arrived at the hospital, we'd been talking about it for days and trying to explain it to her but she didn't get it and was looking forward to the part where she 'goes to sleep'. She kept asking when she would get to "go to sleep".
When the time came, I carried her back into the cold, sterile operating room... talk about uninviting! I wanted to turn around and run out! I held her on my lap while she had the mask on her face to fall asleep. I was expecting her to close her eyes and slump over on me but instead, her eyes were wide open and she had a blank stare. The nurses lifted her off me and layed her on the table. It was actually pretty awful for me. They were all swarming around her and she just layed there with her eyes glazed over staring at the ceiling. I was escorted out of the room at that point so they could fully put her out. The whole thing was nerve racking!
Here's are the 'before' pictures!

We had nothing to do at that point except wait. Which we did for about 45 minutes (not long at all). When the doctor finally came out, the first thing he said was "She needed it!". He explained that when he went in and inspected around, he saw pus... all over! There was infected pus all in and around her adenoids, all over the back of her nasal cavity and in her nose and also pus clogging up her ears. He said he's never seen so much infection in one little head before! Her left ear was completely blocked off from pus and other nasty stuff he described. To him, it looked like it was just one giant infection that just cycled over and over, that never would have had a chance to heal on it's own. She would have completely lost her hearing eventually, among other unfortunate side effects of having a bad infection in your nasal cavity,throat and ears canals.

When we walked into the recovery room to see her, she was still sleeping. All the nurses kept telling us that it's normal for the little ones to wake up fighting. I was expecting that to mean that she would be really cranky and out of sorts. Nope. She really woke up fighting. Throwing kicks and punches, throwing herself up against the bed bars, arching her back so much no one could pick her up, yelling and crying... she was twisting and turning so much that her tubes were getting all tangled up around her and the nurses had a heck of a time un-twisting her because she wasn't the least bit cooperative.

After thrashing about, she finally sat on Erics lap where she fell back asleep. She slept for about an hour or so. Waking up the second time was easier, she was still super upset but she at least wasn't fighting anyone.
Here she is asleep on Eric:

Waking up the second time:

Elle spent the day hiking around and playing at a friends house. She didn't come home until pretty late at night. Which was good because she would have been really bored with us all day! After we got home we layed Pinky on the couch and she alternated between sleeping and watching SpongeBob. After several hours she was feeling good enough to get up and be a bit more active. At one point she looked at me and said "MAMA, watch this!" and she breathed in really hard through her nose! She goes "I can SMELL"! She was so excited to now be able to breath through her nose. She went into the kitchen and started smelling all the food we have! She really liked the smell of the peanut butter but I think her favorite smell was my candle! She always 'smells' them when I go pick one out, only this time she truly COULD smell it now!

Her hearing is also completely better. I flicked on the light switch and she whipped her head around to it and asked me what that sound was. Another time we were sitting on our deck swing on the back deck, which faces the woods but a car drove past the front of our house, you could barely hear it but she asked me what that sound was. I told her it a car driving past the front. The ultimate one though was when she went to the bathroom... she came out crying and when I asked her why she was crying she replied with "I flushed the toilet and it was too loud".

Her smell and hearing are 100% better then they were before as well as her voice! She is still pretty inflamed in there, but you can tell a difference in the way she talks now vs. before. She no longer sounds like she has a perpetual cold. She words are alot sharper. it's really strange foe me and almost sounds like a different kid when she refers to me. Yes, I'm a little sad and miss her old voice, but her new and improved one is fantastic! She's the same kid only now she can hear, smell and talk better!

Today she is practically back to normal. She will be inflamed for about 6 weeks and her nose is still bleeding on and off, but as long as she's taking it easy, you'd never know she went in for surgery yesterday. I have to be diligent with the meds though, if those start to wear off, she switches pretty fast into painful crankiness. So with medicine and chilling on the couch, she's okay. It's hard to stay on the couch though because it's 88 degrees outside! I so want to go do something active! But the most avtive I'll be today is swinging with Pinky on the deck swing!
So far so good!

Daddy daughter date night

2010-04-03T15:15:00.001-07:00

Elle's been interested in our guns since we got them. We obviously don't let her play with them and they are kept locked up. Recently though, Eric has started teaching Elle gun safety, gearing up to take her shooting one of these days. Well, that day was yesterday. We have some family in town so Eric took Elle shooting with his brother in law and Ells cousin Tyler. Elle was completely excited and almost couldn't contain herself!

When they arrived home, Elle seemed even more hyper then when they left. I think it was the adrenaline rush you get from shooting. She told me she loved it and I heard all the details. I was curious if she would still like them after shooting them, but Elle loves them even more now! She is definitely our daughter! She shot the XD9, Sig 226, and the AK-47. She shot the ceiling a few times (ooops, the rangers don't like that, LOL!), but overall had a great first experience!

My cute singing children!

2010-04-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

So, the closer it gets to Pinky's surgery, the more I'm reminded I need to videotape her talking and singing before it's all gone! Of course she'll keep talking and singing but her entire voice will be changed forever. I'm excited for the 'new' her, but she's 4 and having this done and having her voice change will suddenly make her sound alot more grown up. I know I'll really miss my little baby.
With Elle I can't remember the specific time when she officially changed from baby to big girl, it happened slowly over time until one day I realized she was just so old! With Pinky, I know this will be the defining moment of her not being so little anymore. I feel like crying every time I think about it! I'm done having kids, I've purged my house of all things 'baby' (clothes, toys, etc...), I sinisterly laugh to myself when all my friends around me have baby strollers and diaper bags because I'm FREE of all that stuff. So I really relish those last stages in Pinky, knowing they are my last!
All weekend I've been following her around with the video camera, which mostly annoys her but I managed to get a few cute shots. My goal was really to capture her talking and singing in her little cute albeit, nasally voice that I will miss so much!

This video that I'm posting is a funny one! Both the girls decide to sing songs to each other and it's really funny to see their facial expressions, then in the end Pinky tackles Elle. AH, sisters!

You'll notice while you watch it that Pinky sounds a bit funny. What you hear as funny though, is what I will miss terribly!!! Also notice that wierd pink ring around her mouth... that would be shimmer lip gloss she put on herself before I started taping.

Spring Break!

2010-04-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

This has been a really fun week. Last year, I was homeschooling at this time so Spring Break wasn't too exciting and the year before that the kids were too young to notice. This year they are old enough to really understand and enjoy that they have a week off of school. I tried to stuff it as full as I can with fun things! It makes things easier when the weather is so perfect. This week has been in the high 70's and low 80's.

Spring is in the air! And you know what that means... Cherry Blossom time! This is PEAK Cherry Blossom season right now. The one in our front yard always blooms before any of the others for some reason, people always comment on how pretty it is. It also confirms to me that winter is indeed behind us when the blooms come out. Here's a picture of our front yard Cherry Blossom Tree! Unfortunately later this year we are going to have to cut it down! I'm really sad, it's been a source of awesomeness on our street for years but it's getting so big the roots are growing into our foundation. It's makes it hard to have grass when your yard it's one big knot of bumpy roots! We haven't had grass the whole time we've lived here because the tree roots take over the yard. Our beautiful tree is ruining our yard and house. it's bittersweet really.

Eris and I walked the annual Epilepsy walk in D.C again this year. That;s always fun, except it was FREEZING! It was in the low 30's and SUPER windy. However, as soon as the walk was over it warmed up to like 60 and has stayed there ever since! Go figure.

So, this fun week with the kids has included things like play dates with friends, fort building, sleepovers, doctor appointments (oh wait...). We spent a day in D.C museum hopping. I don't take the kids there as often as I should. I live 20 minutes from the nations capital and really should take advantage of it more then I do. The American History museum recently underwent a multi million dollar renovation, so we stopped and checked that out. I have to say I have fond memories of the 'old' museum and don't like one bit how they;ve changed it. They've taken out all the things that were memorable to me going as a kid.

It's interesting to me the differences in the kids that I noticed. Naomi was fascinated by the exhibits and really looked and studied them hard. She had a piece of paper with exhibits to find and she really clung to that paper and focused on finding everything on it. Where as Elle is more like me... it's cool to look at but she really didn't spend a lot of time looking at stuff. She's more hands on, which is why she loved the hands on science room. She really was in her element in all the experiments and craftiness of the kids science room. When Pinky went into the room, she could have cared less about all the stations. She found it far more interesting to crawl on the floor on all fours searching the room for little plastic beads that were scattered from someones broken bracelet I think. She had lightning focus and I think, found every bead in that whole big room! Here's a picture of the girls in front of the original Dumbo ride (notice Pinky is holding her paper!)

Another fun thing we did was rock climbing. There's a mountain here that has all sorts of natural rock walls and its really fun to climb! I call it a mountain though, because to our county it's like the closest thing we have! To those who live near 'real' mountains, you would scoff at our 1200 foot molehill!
I precariously balanced the camera on a rock to take this picture of us.

Then we stopped for a bit to have a picnic on the cliff. Notice the view behind us, it was really pretty...(for 1200 feet up, LOL)

Erics sister is visiting and the kids have several of their cousins here to play with so I'm sure we'll be doing something fun this weekend with them! I'm excited for Easter, I'll post pictures of my tye-dye eggs after I do them later today!

And don't forget Pinky is getting surgery first thing Monday morning. I need to stock up on ice cream and Popsicles.

Housekeeper update

2010-03-26T10:12:00.001-07:00

So my housekeepers came this morning at 8am. They scoured the main floor and the upstairs and at noon they had to stop because they both had other jobs that started at noon and they were late for. So, I payed them only a portion of what we had agreed upon because they weren't able to do the basement.
BUT what they DID do was amazing! Although I'm a very clean person and clean everyday, my house has never ever looked cleaner! My appliances look brand new, I can see my own reflection in them! My house has the 'cleaner' smell, which I love! Even the bedrooms have that smell... I don't know what you'd use cleaner for in the bedrooms but whatever they did I love it!

I can never go back to NOT having a maid, now that I know what true cleanliness is... The kids are at school right now and Eric is still out of town, I'm afraid to have them all come home because it wont look as clean, HA! I need her to to come every other day and work her magic!
I'm hooked, maids are the best investment ever... if only she had time to do the basement!

What a Kick Off

2010-03-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Our family officially started off Spring by camping! Over the winter we had acquired quite the array of camping tools/supplies and were chomping at the bit to use them. So, when the camp sites opened up again and the weather warmed up... out we went!

The new tent worked great, our sleeping bag padding was really comfortable. My new cast iron pots and pans were awesome, although I still haven't learned exactly how to clean them! They're really high maintenance but great for camping! Eric bought a special camping hammock and slept in that. He said he liked it better then the tent. Once he set the hammock up, the kids couldn't stay off of it! They played in it for hours. Who knew a hammock could be so fun!

This week is the last one until Spring Break for the kids. I had aspirations of putting them in some kind of Spring Break camp, but I never got around to it, I'm not sure what we'll do to keep ourselves busy, most likely we'll spent 90% of it outside somewhere.

Elle is more then half done with the 2nd grade. She really loves her teacher and has great friends. This year though she really has started to have trouble in the math department. She's always done really well, but they are now moving past the stuff she did well at and moving into things she isn't so sure about. It also doesn't help that she seems to have a hard time focusing and paying attention. Her memory is really awful, she literally can't remember an instruction you give her, 5 minutes after she's given it. I'm starting to get a little worried about it. But she is a very sweet little girl and very kind hearted and loves to make people feel better. She's always the one that helps kids at school who don't have many friends. She always tells me how she felt bad for so and so, because they was being picked on, and she decided to be their friend at recess. She makes cards and notes for anyone and everyone she knows! She also joined Girl Scouts last month and is fitting into that nicely!

Pinky is loving Pre-K. She gets excited when I tell her it's almost time to leave for school. I think I've mentioned this before, how her teachers don't think she's ready for Kindergarten because she's the smallest and very coddled and babied by the other kids (which she loves by the way!). She's SLOWLY learning how to write her name. But I think she'll be ready if I keep working with her. She really tries hard and that's the important thing! Pinky sometimes blows me away with how observant and intelligent she is. She really pays attention to what ticks me off and is VERY good and getting around it. It's hard for me to remember that she's only 4 sometimes! Her memory is a steel trap, she literally never forgets ANYTHING. And I'm ashamed to say that my 4 year old might even have a better memory then ME! Which is why I think it's so strange that she can't identify letters/numbers yet, or write simple words. She's SO smart in some ways, I just I just expect that to spill over into other aspects of her life.
Although she has been having a few issues at school lately. Her teacher has been having problems with her beating up on the other kids. Not just a little hit now and again but like wailing on them, leaving marks on them, eyeing her victim across the room and running over to body slam them... remember I said she was the smallest one in her class...?? Her teacher says she thinks it's because she is acting out of frustration with her loss of hearing. She really has trouble hearing things lately and I'm sure she gets frustrated. It probably doesn't help that when she talks, no one can really understand her. I'm just hoping that next week when she gets her surgery, all this will be cleared up! So we're just biding out time!

Eric is being kept busy at Universata. Being the president of a company sounds glamorous but he will tell you differently! Lately he's been traveling alot, several days a week. I don't like being home alone at night, but I feel safer knowing anyone who broke into my house would have to face one of our 8 very scary guns... thats if they can get past our fierce German Shepard attack dog first! Eric comes home exhausted and beaten down. That poor man needs a vacation! He works harder and longer then anyone I know, he literally doesn't have an off switch. He is like a superman!

As for me, I'm doing well. Still going to the gym 3-4 days a week. Love that. I'm spending alot of time researching what I have plans to do with both kids in school full time this fall. I have two things I want to pursue. I wont share them though, because I have a bad habit of getting ahead of myself or overly excited about something and telling the whole world, only to have it NOT happen. Then I look and feel like an ass! So, this time I'm keeping my projects to myself! But I'm very excited! I succumbed and got a housekeeper. She starts on Friday. YIPPEE!! She was a good deal and a referral from a friend of a friend, hopefully she works out and cleans the house to my standards! I'm very picky!

So happy Spring everyone!!!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

2010-03-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

The girls and I got our nails done last night... it's the most awful color of green, I know! But it's a cute thing to do for ONE day! Tomarrow I'll go back to my usual color... pink :)

Well, the snow is all melted, the lake is thawed and we are enjoying weather in the low to mid 60's! The hiking has resumed, here we are over the weekend...

I forgot what sunshine felt like...

2010-03-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was reportedly the brightest and warmest we've had since NOVEMBER! I believe it though, it was beautiful! We went hiking and took total advantage of the high 50 degree weather.
Today is even warmer at around 60 degrees. I know that in 4 months 60 degrees will seem cold, but after a freezing winter, I was ready to put on my tanktop! I even had the car window rolled down!
Even though it's warming up, there was enough snowing for so long, that there are still piles of ice everywhere amd the lake is still frozen! After a week of awesome temps though, it will hopefully feel and LOOK like Spring soon!

Coming up...

2010-03-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

All of Pinky’s health issues are coming to an end. I have to say, I’m a little sad. I’m thrilled of course that she’ll be normal but will miss being called ‘baba’ instead of ‘mama’. Those of you who don’t live so close might not know the extent of it, here’s the lowdown.
Pinky has had issues with her speech since she was able to talk. She was always very nasal sounding, as if she were plugging her nose when she talked. She also isn't able to make some letter sounds. For example, being called ‘baba’. There are several other sounds she can’t make as well.

I didn't realize this was a medical problem, I just assumed how she talked and I loved it. People would make comments, but I ignored them.
It wasn’t until her teacher this year informed me she thought Naomi would benefit from some speech therapy. Her opinion was that Naomi wasn’t progressing in speech and everyone had a very hard time deciphering what she said. Even the teachers themselves couldn’t understand what Naomi would say to them. What, really? I guess because I'm her mother I understand her perfectly and don't get how others can't!
I considered speech therapy but then decided it was worth a shot to try an allergist first. Since part of the problem is that her nose is stuffed up 24 hours a day. From the time she was a baby her nose was either stuffy or runny for no reason at all. Since Allergies run strongly in Eric’s family, we thought that surely must be the problem. She’d get on allergy meds, her nose would clear up and her speech would be just fine.

Well, she was tested for all sorts of things and surprisingly has zero allergies! BUT the allergist said that he thought she was a shoe in for enlarged adenoids. The dead giveaways were the nasal talking and the fact that she mouth breaths (because she can’t breathe out of her nose...)
So, off to the ENT we went, who X-rayed her and sure enough he said her adenoids are as big as they can get and can't get any larger. They are 100% obstructing her ability to breathe through her nose. She also had no airway from the front of her nose (nostrils) to the back of her throat. AND her ears were all messed up from the adenoids as well. Her hearing is a little below normal and is full of what he described as 'airplane glue'. Yikes!

So, all this time she has hasn't been able to smell. This is funny, because I used to take her to Yankee Candle with me and she’d want to smell the candles I was getting! I guess she just saw me doing it and wanted to try, but she actually couldn’t smell anything! Also, she has mouth breathed her whole life. I’ve never really noticed. But since getting a diagnosis, I’ve watched her and it’s true, she can only breathe through her mouth. Poor thing!

This unfortunate circumstance will soon change when on April 5th she's going into surgery to fix everything. She is getting her adenoids taken out (that will then create a clear passage way from the back of her nose down), but there’s still the problem of the front of the nose air passage. For that, the doc will take an instrument and basically create an artificial airway into her nostrils that then connect to the newly created passageway in the back of the nose, make sense?
Then to top it all off... she getting tubes in her ears.
So, all in one day she's getting the ability to hear better, talk better, and smell better!
Think good thoughts for my little 4 year old going under the knife on April 5th!

Really Quick...

2010-02-18T07:20:00.000-08:00

We lived through the snow. Now it's just the nuisance, I'm waiting for it to get warm enough to melt! But it's still freezing temps here...

I had a birthday last week. I turned 29, the last year I can officially say I'm in my twenties!

Eric got sick over the weekend with some kind of short lived 48 hour flu! Luckily he's over it and it didn't last long. Although it lasted long enough to be passed on to me! I got sick the day he felt better. It's now been about 48 hours for me... I'm feeling alot better, but still very sluggish and tired.

Elle got her report card and did fantastic! Better then last time! Pinky is also doing really well. Although I'm now second guessing myself as to whether or not to put her in kindergarten this fall. She's turns 5 in August... so it's RIGHT on the line! Her teachers this year in pre-k don't think she'll be ready. They say she's doing just fine, it's just that she isn't matured enough...? They said that she can't hold a pencil right, and can't identify letters and numbers (even though she knows the songs, she can't identify a specific letter or number). She can't write ANY letters and barely recognizes her own name. They are working on all that with her but say that it's a maturity thing, not a learning problem. So, hopefully she matures enough between now and August when school starts! I don't know, maybe I'll wait a year... I'm still deciding!

That's the quick version of my life for the past week. Just writing this has made me want to take a nap, LOL!

I hope we survive...

2010-02-08T19:46:00.000-08:00

According to all reliable sources, we are expected to get ANOTHER 12 to 18 inches of snow tomarrow and Wednesday on top of the 4 feet we already have! We've been lucky enough to not lose power or heat so far (alot of the county is STILL without power and there are shelters set up all over for those families). Hopefully our luck will continue! We've burned so much fire wood this winter, we only have enough wood left for a few more nights. This by far is the most cold and snowy winter I can remember... we've been burning fires almost every night!
Last winter we had alot of firewood left over that we added to the ton we bought for THIS winter. Well, soon we'll have none! Too bad, I like having fires.
SO, wish us luck. If I don't update my blog within a few days you'll know we are miserable and without power!

SNOW WEEKEND

2010-02-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

Just as predicted we got several feet of snow. Maryland isn't equipped to handle this much so the whole town shut down. Grocery stores to gas stations alike... it's like a ghost town. We know this because Eric and I went driving around surveying the damage. Quite the winter wonderland! The only other people out were fellow 4x4 SUV owners, also just checking things out. Half the county was/is without power. Luckily we have our power and heat working just fine!

Elle's two best friends live on our street, so she has no shortage of playmates today! The three of them have been out since about 9:30 this morning. They play for hours then retreat inside one of the houses to warm up and eat, then they're back out for several more hours...
Pinky was feeling left out, so we went and picked up a little friend of hers to play at our house. The two of them had alot of fun! Although, unlike the big kids, the little ones only liked playing outside for maybe 30 minutes max. They mostly played barbies up in Pinky's room.

Eric is like superman! It snowed maybe 2-3 feet with snow drifts up to 4 feet, he dug our cars out and shoveled pathways for us to walk. After he finished our house he helped out some of the neighbors and then went down and dug out my friends car. It took him several hours because the snow is so wet and heavy. He's taking a nap right now as I write this! AH, what a good day for a nap!

Okay, I took a billion pictures but have picked a few choice ones to illustrate how crazy it is here! Lets begin, shall we?
This picture isn't from this morning, it's actually from the snow/ice storm we had a few days ago. I walked down to our lake because it was frozen and looked really neat! (BTW, there's no way in hell I can walk down to the lake NOW because the snow today is like 3 feet high!) SO, this is the frozen lake behind our house with the frozen forest across from it!

Okay, THIS is from today! As you can see, I'm safely in my house looking out onto our deck! Barbecue anyone??

I am still somewhat safe in my house, peaking out the front door to my neighbors tree...

Okay, I'm definitely outside now! This is after Eric shoveled the sidewalk looking towards our front door.

In this picture I am in the same spot I was in for the last picture, only instead of facing our front door, I'm facing my left... there USED to be a sidewalk there...

My wonderful husband digging out the cars!

My husbands cute butt! Here he is, after he did all around OUR house, he went and started on a neighbors car.

This is a shot from the street looking up st someones car. This is what they ALL looked like before the owners came out to dig them out...

Looking down my street... it's still snowing buckets in this picture!

I made a snow fort for the kids, but it looks like the dog likes it best!

The snow height compared to Pinky's height!

One Year Ago today!!!

2010-02-02T11:11:00.001-08:00

Today is the one year mark of something worth celebrating! Eric has been on his diet for a full year now! In that 12 months he has lost 55 pounds! And is now a sexy 175 and in size 34 pants (I don't know if it will bug him that I'm putting his business out there for all to see..) but I'm so PROUD! He looks fantastic and is a super babe!!!!!!

Metal Head

2010-02-02T06:38:00.001-08:00

Man, poor Elle... as is she didn't already have enough going on in her mouth. She has an extender glued to the roof of her mouth to spread it out, a lip bumper on the bottom teeth AND braces!
Well, add to that her newest addition... HEAD GEAR! I'm totally serious! Her teeth are straitening out perfectly, but she has now developed an overbite which is help with headgear. When the orthodontist yesterday told me this, I had to turn around so Elle didn't see me laughing. I almost had to leave the room because I literally couldn't hold in my laughs! I know that sounds awful!
So, Elle is no longer just a metal mouth but now a metal head! POOR THING!!! Luckily things are going fast, and she wont need any of this stuff much longer. I'm thinking around April or May.
Fortunetely Elle is at the age where it's still 'cool' to have stuff like this... so she isn't bothered in the least. She wore it with pride last night, LOL!

Baptism

2010-02-01T07:22:00.000-08:00

Today my little Elle got baptized! It was really neat! We wanted it short, sweet and simple! We asked that it not be announced in church because we didn't want alot of people we hardly know to show up! This is not a free for all! We invited a very small number of close friends. And the way we did it was a little unorthodox.... but we didn't care, it was just right for our family! Here are a few pictures! Eric looked smoking' hot in that high waisted jumpsuit!

And here is the cake we had made for it. My good friend Katie makes cakes and I asked her to make a girly CTR cake, it turned out fantastic and was a big hit!

A good time was had by all and afterwards we went to dinner with the grandparents. Elle picked the restaurant, she picked IHOP. The food was awful and the waitress sucked! But at least we were in good company with each other!

It's so strange to me that I am the mother of an eight year old. And having my child get baptized was something I always thought was years away. It's really mind boggling that my daughter is 8 and my husband just baptized her tonight. On her next birthday she'll be 9... that's almost TEN... that's almost a teenager! OH MY GOSH! My daughter is almost a teenager! Good grief, I need to calm down...

PINKY

2010-01-29T07:33:00.000-08:00

Pinky was MIA for a while yesterday. I could hear her playing games on my phone, but couldn’t see her. Finally I found her, crouched down in my laundry basket (after dumping out the dirty clothes). I found her curled up with her blankie playing games. It was super cute! Then she decided to start singing...

Snow Tubing!

2010-01-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Elle told me this was the best birthday she's ever had! We took a friend of hers and went snow tubing. I mostly have pictures of Pinky because as soon as we got there, Elle and her friend ran off and I hardly saw them again. I could occasionally here them screaming down the hills... I stayed with Pinky the whole time, she did great! I was a little worried but she LOVED it!

Big Day!

2010-01-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

Elle got her ears pierced last night! She was very excited!
In this picture she was hiding her face. Somehow, hiding your face makes it not hurt so much...?

As soon as they were done, she was in shock from the small amount of pain there was.

Then after a minute, she got over it and loved them!

Happy Birthday ELEANOR!!!

2010-01-19T07:45:00.001-08:00

Elle went to bed last night a 7 year old, but woke up an eight year old. She declared she felt ‘bigger’ walking down the stairs today for breakfast.
In lieu of a party this year (I convinced her big kids don’t have ‘parties’…) she is picking a friend and we’re taking them snow tubing tomorrow night. I love snow tubing, I’m glad she picked it!
And now a walk down memory lane…
Tub picture of Elle at 1 week old

1 month old

1 month old

10 months old, tub ahot again...

10 months, first Halloween (yes, I made that costume myself, LOL)

10 months old, yet another tub shot (they're cute what can I say!)

1 year old

1 year old Halloween

2 years old

2 years old (when Eric and I got married)

3 years old

4 years old

5 years old

6 years old

7 years old

A week ago!

The 12 hour date!

2010-01-18T05:19:00.000-08:00

SO, Eric's parents offered to take the kids overnight on Friday night. We took full advantage of our time alone and went snowboarding! It was my first time this season but Eric goes pretty regularly. Having this hobby is hard when you kids because it takes several hours.
Here are two pics and a video of us.

We finished around 9:30pm and went out to dinner. Flying down a mountain for 4 hours makes a person hungry! The night was still young when we finally arrived home at 11pm! We pitched our new tent in the backyard and did a little winter camping! It was cold, but with the tent heater, we were toasty (for the most part). And to top off our date, at 7am we got up and went to the gym to soak in the hot tub! I was SO sore (still am) so the hot tub was great! AH, long dates rock!!

Good to Know

2010-01-15T05:39:00.000-08:00

Maryland, according to the newest study of school rankings by state, scored the highest overall in education in the country. Yay Maryland! The next ones in line were Virginia, Massachusetts and New York. Interestingly, Washington D.C's score came in at an embarrassing 51st place. YIKES!

In other news, I've successfully completed my first week at the gym without incident and oddly enough without any soreness. Usually the first week is agony (I was bracing for this) but it never came. In a few weeks (if I’m brave enough), I’ll post my before and after pictures.

Dads visit

2010-01-14T05:23:00.001-08:00

My dad had some training out here a few weeks ago only a couple hours away from me, so he stopped by for a visit! I took him to the range, he was a really good shot. He beat me every time!

The kids enjoyed it! They went to the pretzel store and my dad even took them to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. Which is great because I would have rather had my eyes poked out then watch that!

New Year

2010-01-11T06:15:00.000-08:00

With the new year here, I find myself doing a few new things. Although, I hesitate to call them resolutions because nobody ever keeps those! What I am doing are simply 'little things I'm trying to do differently' :)
One being that I joined the gym again. I used to be diligent and went 5 days a week. I loved it but after 2 years I got burned out... and took a 12 month break from the gym! I've been getting restless lately and feeling frumpy and 'mom'ish. I kept threatening to join again... Finally, I think Eric got sick of me talking about it and convinced me to join so I would shut up about it.
It was like visiting an old friend when I stepped in that first morning. I occupied my old locker and showered in my old shower stall. There were a few people there I recognized. It was great. This is the little change in my life I needed!
As I was driving home in my toasty warm car (it was 20 degrees this morning!), I passed several die hards out jogging on the street, SUCKERS! I love the gym.

The other tiny change I'm making this year is to save more money! I like to spend money, in fact I crave it sometimes. Weird I know but I crave shopping like some people crave chocolate. I am funneling every spare penny I have right now into savings. SO far so good. One paycheck down... 23 more to go this year, LOL!

I have a few other things I'm working on but they aren't worth mentioning. Take care!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2009-12-25T13:04:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas! I hope everyone else did too!
We went to a gingerbread party:

Pinky had her Christmas program at school:

It SNOWED!! And by 'snow' I mean a blizzard!!!!:

We spent Christmas Christmas Eve with Erics parents, we had a great dinner:

Then Grammie played holiday songs on the piano:

Gramps read the Nativity story and the kids acted it out:

Christmas morning was a blast as always!

Then we had dinner at my moms house:

Where the kids got more stuff. Elle got roller skates!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Cavity woes!

2009-12-11T07:40:00.001-08:00

So, I had my six month dental check up recently and had to fill a few cavaties. Bummer.
I've had cavaties filled before... no big deal right? Well, it had been several years and apparently in my old age (HA!), my teeth are getting harder to numb.

I went in for one appt. last week and they did one side of my mouth, some on the top, one on the bottom. The top was fine, it numbed right up. But my bottom teeth just weren't getting numbed. The dentist did more shots... still nothing. She finally did a third shot (and when I say 'shot' I mean she jabbed my jaw multiple times and multiple places, OUCH!). Finally everything was good and numb. When she started drilling though, I instanlty flinched because it I could still feel it! My face was so numb though, it was going up to my eye sockets, so I just told her to go ahead and do it! It hurt! I got through it by deep breathing. After all the numbing wore off I was SO dang sore from all the shots in my jaw bone.

Fast forward to yesterday... I had the OTHER side of my mouth done! I only had one cavity on this side, but it was on the bottom, so I was scared! I kept rescheduling because I was afraid. I finally went in yesterday. And it was worse then it was the first time.
She tried the normal shots... nothing. she tried two more times. And the third time she was super aggresive and jabbed me ALL over in the back, she even stuck my in the roof my my mouth (??? not sure why). Anyway. I was numb again ALL over my face, but not my teeth!
I told her once again, to just go ahead and just get it over with.
This hurt WAY worse then the last one! It felt like lightening had struck my skull. I was flinching and jumping though the whole thing. I instantly got hot and flushed, my face went bright red. Those clear goggles they gave me to wear fogged up because of the heat coming from my face. I was doing okay (despite flinching the entire time in pain...) until she stopped for a min to ask if I was okay. Then I started to CRY! Not total sobbing, but my eyes filled with tears and I was obviously crying. HOW ENBARRASING! I couldnt stop. I told her to hurry and finish. She tried to tell me that while the cavity doesn't touch the nerve, it's very close and the nerve was inflamed. Super.

So, not only was the entire left side of my face 100% numb but I could ALSO feel every single thing she was doing. It was the worst dental visit I've ever had in my life. And after the numbness wore off, I again am in agony from all the shots she gave me all over my jaw bone and I can feel the one she did on the roof of my mouth..

I'f you'll excuse me, I'm off to floss and brush for the 4th time today... I'm never getting another cavity. Ever.

It's been a while!

2009-12-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some noteworthy happening in the past few weeks...
Thanksgiving was super fun. We went out to eat! I vote we do it again next year! We each had like 10 plates of food, and didn't have to clean any of it!

We traditionaly set up the tree on Thanksgiving night.

So, here's a great story. The other day I was driving home with Elle and we passed a crippled homeless woman begging on the street corner for money. I see her around occasionally. Elle felt so bad for her because this woman was crippled... she wanted to give the woman money, she said she couldn't stop thinking about that lady. I told her that giving a begger a couple of bucks wont help them. And if she really wanted to help, it would be better to actually give the lady things she needs. Well, Elle took that to heart. She came home and began making a bag of stuff for this lady. She had hot pink wrapping, and she wrapped up a bunch of food (hot chocolate packets, crackers, tuna packets, noodle bowls, popcorn, etc...) in this pink paper, then we put the 'presents' in a big bag. Elle asked me to drive her back to the woman. How could I say no????
She sat in the back seat with her bag of stuff, and she rolled down her window and called the lady over to us. She stuck her head out the window and said "I thought you could use a treat". The woman almost started crying! She was go grateful. Afterwards, Elle told me she felt good now. Here's Elle with her bag o' goodies. (Thats her best friend next to her)

It also started snowing two days ago! The kids played out in it almost all day!
After the kids and some friends finished making a snowman, Eric handed them a can of spray paint to make hair on it, as you can see from the bright orange!

We also have been going hiking still most weekends. Look at the difference from just two weekends ago to this past weekend!

Hiking in the snow is fun! Except it was freezing! Eric walked across a creek... and Elle followed! Man, Elle got wet up to her knees. We headed back to the car after that, HA!

TEAM JACOB

2009-11-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

Edward who...?? It's all about Werewolf Jacob now! Especially since I found we share the same birthday (only 11 years apart...)
Boy do I feel old.

FUNNY

2009-11-23T07:01:00.000-08:00

Black November
When I was a young turkey, new to the coop,
My big brother Mike took me out on the stoop.
Then he sat me down, and he spoke real slow,
And he told me there was something that I had to know.
His look and his tone I will always remember,
When he told me of the horrors of . . . Black November.

"Come about August, now listen to me,
Each day you'll get six meals instead of just three.
And soon you'll be thick, where once you were thin,
And you'll grow a big rubbery thing under your chin.
And then one morning when you're warm in your bed,
In'll burst the farmer's wife, and hack off your head.
Then she'll pluck out all your feathers so you're bald'n pink,
And scoop out all your insides and leave ya lyin' in the sink.
"And then comes the worst part" he said not bluffing,
"She'll spread your cheeks and pack your rear with stuffing".

Well, the rest of his words were too grim to repeat,
I sat on the stoop like a winged piece of meat,
And decided on the spot that to avoid being cooked,
I'd have to lay low and remain overlooked.
I began a new diet of nuts and granola,
High-roughage salads, juice and diet cola.
And as they ate pastries, chocolates and crepes,
I stayed in my room doing Richard Simmonds tapes.

I maintained my weight of two pounds and a half,
And tried not to notice when the bigger birds laughed,
But 'twas I who was laughing, when under my breath,
As they chomped and they chewed, ever closer to death.
And sure enough when Black November rolled around,
I was the last turkey left in the entire compound.

So now I'm a pet in the farmer's wife's lap,
I haven't a worry, so I eat and I nap.
She held me today, while sewing and humming,
And smiled at me and said, "Christmas is coming . . ."

I'm one of THOSE people.

2009-11-20T08:42:00.000-08:00

I went with a few friends to go see the midnight showing of Twilight. It was really good and left me hanging at the end!
I counted only a handful of other moms there, the theater was mostly packed with 14 year old girls! It was a fun experience though, all the screaming and hyperventilating... myself included.
Don't judge.

THANKSGIVING

2009-11-12T11:17:00.000-08:00

Man, do I feel a million pounds lighter now. So, this year my inlaws will be out of town, my dad lives in Utah and my mom will probably (even though she denies it) spend it with her boyfriends family. This is the FIRST year we wont have anyone over! We were debating on who to invite over so it's not just the four of us!
Eric and I thought more about it and decided to say "SCREW IT, WE'RE GOING OUT!" Man, an I excited! We were thinking of the melting pot, Ruths Chris, or a dinner cruise (somewhere really nice). As soon as it sunk in we were NOT in fact cooking any sort of Thanksgiving meal, I literally felt lighter! The holidays are SO stressful with all the shopping, gift giving, expectations, etc... (don't get me wrong, I LOVE the holidays and I LOVE Thanksgiving... but this is a nice charge!) it's nice to have a break this year and just go out with my family to a nice restaurant and not have to spent money on a menu, cooking, or cleaning up afterwards. This might possibly be the best Thanksgiving we've ever had, LOL!

Report cards

2009-11-12T10:56:00.001-08:00

Well, both the kids got their report cards this week. Well, Pinkys was more of an evaluation...
Pinky's said she is focusing on learning letters/numbers, learning to write with a pencil and cut with scissors! She makes friends easily and her favorite toy is the vetrinary bin!
Elle did fantastic! Her teacher said I did a great job homeschooling her. I said I wasn't so sure sometimes, LOL! But apparently she is one of the best readers in the class, and has a mature sense of 'higher order thinking' she called it. She tried explaining it, it made sense at the time, but it wont make sense if I try to explain it on here! She also got the highest math score in the class. The teacher said she doesn't give out high grades for math very often, but Elle is exceeding, YIPPEE!!!
Her report card showed her exceeding in most things with a few 'on level' sprinkled in there.
I'm so happy, I wasn't sure what to expect with this first report card since being back in school.
Eric gave a couple bucks for each A and A+ she got... he gave her 26 bucks. Man, was she excited, you'd think she'd win the lottery!

Hiking

2009-11-04T08:35:00.000-08:00

Hiking is a family pastime we enjoy doing. Our dog loves it just as much too! I wasn't up for this this last time though, so Eric just took the dog and Elle. (Pinky and I stayed home and napped!).
They got some super cute shots though...

Fall leaves...

2009-11-04T08:31:00.000-08:00

There are so many leaves right now it's hard to tell where the street is! Here's a shot from out my dining room window! Just this morning they cleared the street... but all this past week it looked like this!

Elle and her best friend

2009-11-04T08:27:00.000-08:00

This ones for you Megan! Here are the girls at their school party...

Halloween

2009-11-04T08:18:00.001-08:00

I've packed up all the orange decorations, and I'm ready for FALL decor now (soon to be replaced with CHRISTMAS stuff...). But I have to post a few hallowenn pictures!
Here's gramps with the girls.

Here's Pinky at Erics office party, so cute!

Ummm... what is she doing??

Here's all of us at a party. This was the first year that Eric and I both dressed up with he kids!

New edition to Elles mouth...

2009-11-04T08:12:00.001-08:00

It's true... my 7 year old has braces!... she also still has the extender glued to the top of her mouth and the lip bumper glued to the bottom of her mouth. It's alot of metal in that small space!

She takes it in stride though! The dentist let her pick out colors for the braces, so she picked black and red ones. At least we are getting it all over with now so when she's 12 and 13, while all her friends are getting them, she will have already been the done that!

Just call me Martha Stewart

2009-10-30T13:33:00.003-07:00

I made these candy corn cupcakes for a Halloween party tonight. Man, I'm good, HA! (actually I'm not! I copied the idea from a food blog I read...). I WISH this were my recipe! I bet they'll go fast though!

I won something!

2009-10-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

For anybody who knows me, knows I love food and can eat/snack on good food all day. The older I get the less forgiving my metabolism is!

My aunt Bell got me a magazine subscription to EVERYDAY FOOD, which is a great catalog, I cook from it all the time (I will be making some of those pies they have in it this month!) When it comes in the mail I get excited because I know what I'll be doing that evening, LOL!

Well, now I will be getting another cooking magazine! There is a cooking blog I follow and it held a contest last week. The winner got a years free subscription to TASTE OF HOME. I checked her blog today and saw that I'd won, YIPPEE!!!!! Here's the link to it so you can see!!http://dinner-inspiration.blogspot.com/
Where it says 'the cool family' won... yeah, that's me :-)
You can also clink the link in the list of blogs I have on the left, it's the one called Pinks Dinner!

Too bad it isn't here today... I have ground beef thawed and not a clue what to make with it.

Songs I love

2009-10-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

I often jump from favorite song to favorite song. Here my three favorites this week!
These are REALLY good, listen to them!

This first one is by a singer I recently discovered on Pandora (which I listen to all the time!). She's sort of on par with Enya, maybe a little Enigma mixed in as well. Great voice, great song and looks like a fun concert!

This next one is a classic. And here's something I didn't know... Andrea Bocelli is blind. Am I the only one on the planet who didn't know that? I don't know why, but it sort makes me like him more... Here he is singing his famous song with Sarah Brightman.

This next one I love because it's just a fun song. Makes the kids and I get up and dance...

Watch these, they are worth your time and they'll put you in a good mood!

I'm no tree hugger...

2009-10-21T17:37:00.000-07:00

I'm about as far away on the spectrum from 'naturalist' as you can get. And while I love the outdoors and trees... and hugging, I'm not the tree hugger personality. I do my part to drive gas guzzling SUV's, buy processed food from grocery stores, use harmful cleaning products and immunize my kids (except the H1N1... not doing that one!) Some people are more holistic in their approach to life and I think that's awesome, it's just not me!

Which is why I was surprised at myself... when I started looking for 'alternative' ways to treat my 7 year olds Tourettes Syndrome. There is alot of medication out there for symptom control (there is no cure or treatment for Tourettes). But I just don't have a good feeling about putting her on meds. We were even told by a neurologist that the side effects almost didn't make it worth it. Um, I don't know about you, but I'm trying to help my kids problem go away... not replace it with other problems.

Besides medication there is also the psychiatric approach. Which works well for some, but insurance doesn't cover that, and as most know, is SUPER expensive. I love my children and want the best for them but I'm not made of money. Especially when I know there are still other ways to try first.

Eric actually got the ball rolling with this one when he sent me an article he had found about the great effects of Omega3. How it really is amazing for the brain and really helped people with ADHD, tic disorders, OCD, stuttering... things of that nature. Most people are deficient in Omega3. It's a very vital supplement. Also recently I've been looking more into it myself, and I joined a few Tourette Forums online. And there have been entire pages from people about how they've read similar things and have started trying it on their kids who suffer from Tourettes. About about a month of consistently taking it daily, there was a significant reduction is motor tics. Flax seed also had similar effects with the vocal tics. Lots of people took both Omega3 and flax seed everyday and have noticed a huge difference in themselves. One lady said that that her Tourettes got to be unbearable, so she had nothing to lose by trying this approach, and after 30 days there wasn't any difference, she wanted to stop taking it but she kept going, then after about 2 months the tics virtually went away and her brain was calmed down and not so frantic and obsessive about them. She described it as night and day and she shared her whole story. It was inspiring to hear about an approach that wasn't medical. This certainly isn't a cure all and I know it doesn't work for everybody (sort of like that movement to cure Autism with a special diet... it doesn't work for everybody, but for alot people it positively impacted them). I'm certainly open to the possibility and crossing my fingers!

Eric and I have been giving the kids Omega3 vitamins every morning for only two weeks or so, not enough time to notice a significant change yet, but hopefully soon Elle will be able to be herself again. I'm hoping it will help Pinky as well, who stutters slightly.
Who knew taking your vitamins would be so beneficial! I've never really taken, or cared enough to look into vitamins, but I guess they ARE important!

FALL

2009-10-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

The colors of fall are just begining here, I love it! If you can dress warm enough to not be bothered by how cold it is outside, then going out is fantastic! I've already had to rake the yard once this season. AH, FALL! I've also already replaced my summer scented candles with Spiced Sumpkin scent from Yankee Candle. NICE!
(disclaimer: that photo is not my yard, LOL! I wish!)

Well that does it...

2009-10-19T12:43:00.000-07:00

I'm fuming now... as any mother would be! Elle's tics are getting really bad! To the point where her neck is sore from flinging it around and her nose is raw from other tics she does surrounding that, etc... I'd even say it's about as bad right now as it's ever been. (I'll be taking her in to the neurologist again). But at school today, or rather on the bus, she told me that she was sitting there on the way home and she was doing some tics (where one of them involves rubbing her nose really hard and sniffing) and some bratty girl yells really loud "Ewww, she's picking her nose!" Elle said all the kids around her started backing away from her going "Ewww she's so gross!!"
When she told me that I looked at her and she was crying, she said it hurt her feeling. I just held her for a minute while she got all the crying out. GOD, I'M SO PISSED!! What a brat! I was literally seeing red and wanted to go beat up on this little kid (probably NOT a wise move). But Elle is SO tender hearted and sensitive, it just makes me so mad that other kids are starting to make fun of her. I want to put her in a bubble!

Cleaning my kitchen!!

2009-10-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

I need some motivation this Monday morning... maybe posting a picture of my messy kitchen will help me to CLEAN it! Hopefully soon, I'll have an AFTER picture!!
BEFORE:

Okay, I finally got around to it. Here's the AFTER:

Camping!

2009-10-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

Camping on Friday night was awesome! Despite the freezing temps and the rain, we got a cozy fire going and had a great dinner! We then huddled in our tent with a tent heater and stayed snugly warm all night until morning, when I got up and made a great breakfast!

All of that is true, except the part where we slept all night... around 10:45 Eric woke me up because the tent was leaking... we decided to abandon ship and take the kids home. We left everything there and went back in the morning around 6:30 to pack up. When we arrived back at the site in the morning, the tent was collapsed over onto itself and the sleeping bags were filled with water. Eric estimated there was probably 50 gallons of water in the tent! Good thing we didn't stay all night!! We spent alot of the next day drying stuff out and tossing stuff in the dryer!

It WOULD have been fine if our tent had been waterproof or if the waterproof panel had done it's job! Oh well, we all lived and it was a cool experience!
I wish I had a picture of the tent fallen over on itself, that was pretty funny, Eric and I saw that and just started laughing!

My wonderful couch!

2009-10-19T07:32:00.001-07:00

Well, our couch came finally, it looks fantastic! We had some company over the weekend, and we lounged on the new couch with a fire going... NEVER again! My couch is only two days old and already there were crusty things on it from kids' dirty hands and a water ring from someone putting their drink down on my NEW MICRO SUEDE SECTIONAL!!! Who does that?? I was pretty upset last night! Although, I have to call the store, because they were supposed to scotch guard it to repel water... not leave water rings!!! No one is ever allowed to sit on it again unless they wash their hands and if they have children... leave them at home!

Getting new furniture is making me want to unclutter my whole house! We actually got rid of ALOT of stuff this morning. We donated it and most of it is sitting in our yard waiting to be picked up. We have two couches, 5 reclining chairs, a chest, a hutch, and coffee table, a lamp and a massage table! My living room is SO empty now! But pretty soon I'll go buy all new furniture, YAY!

Furniture!

2009-10-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Eric and I have been on the lookout for a couch to go in our basement for a while! We've had an oversized couch and recliner chair down there for years. Eric had it when I met him. It was a product of him last marriage... maybe that's why I never liked it, LOL! No kidding! It just doesn't fit our style, plus it's a blah color. We wanted to buy something we'd love and keep for a long time. Which is why we've held out and looked for so long.
Well, finally last week we found it! We had the kids with us so we couldn't buy it right then, but I went back on Sunday and bought it. It's being delivered today!!
Last night Eric and I moved our existing couch out onto the patio to make room. And our basement looks HUGE without furniture! I almost hate to fill it up again. Although once I see my NEW COUCH I'll be glad we did it!
I'll post pics later today I hope!

UPDATE: well I called the store because no one had called to confirm delivery, which the salesman said would happen. And wouldn't you know... My couch never made it onto the delivery truck for the day!! The lady apologized and said the soonest they could have it here would be Saturday! I'm not sure how I will pull that off since we are camping again this weekend! I got pissed off because of their mistake and told the lady I wanted the shipping charge refunded to me. Which she did. So at least we have free delivery... But still! I wanted my couch today! It's freezing here and we wanted to have a few fires to break inthe fireplace this season, Lounging on the new couch before we spent the weekend camping in 30-40 degree weather. Oh well, we now have fireplace nights AFTER we get back to look forward too!

Fall Hiking

2009-10-11T17:58:00.000-07:00

SO today I woke up to a beautiful fall day! I didn't feel like going to church (plus the kids and I slept in until it was too late to go anyway). So, we decided to have our own church (haha) and went hiking instead! It was a great day for it. A nice sunny, mild day.

Eric estimated we walked about 1.5-2 miles. The kids did really well. I was afraid they'd get tired and cranky but they didn't! Although they stayed entertained by little things like the walkie talkies, the occasional snack, and an attempt to free a backpack that was hanging in a tree about 25 feet up! We tried climbing the tree...
Here I am 'attempting' to climb the tree, it was alot harder then it looked.

We also tried throwing giant sticks at it, nothing worked. I guess we'll never know why that bag was so high up and what was in it!

Loki was in heaven, although he always is when we're in the woods. He chased sticks the whole time and ran back and forth between everybody.

Here are the kids getting their first taste of a machete. Eric showed them how to hold it and chop things with it. All kids love sharp objects.

Snack break:

SO today was a good day! After we got back to the car, Elle made the comment that she would rather do this every Sunday instead of church! Don't temp me...

BATH TIME

2009-10-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

I can't resist these tub pictures! Pinky wanted to take a bath in my bathroom this morning. I could hear her talking to herself and playing with her toys, so I had to sneak in and capture it. Although, she saw me sneaking...

Camping Is Super Fun

2009-10-07T05:09:00.000-07:00

I lost my camera (yes, again!). Which is why it's taken a few extra days to put these up. But all is well now, I've found the camera!

We were one of five families that camped together over the weekend. Luckily we all get along great and it was really fun! The weather has been cold here, but it warmed up for us that Friday and Saturday!

I got to the site during the day to set up and get ready before Eric got there. If you can believe it I set up the tent by myself (never done that before).

When Eric got there he decided it was time for a fire! Here he is using his special fire 'enhancer' (you're going to have to talk to him directly to find out what it is). I'll just say... it left me temporarily blinded to look directly at it!

Two other familes brought dogs so Loki was in heaven. We let the dogs roam free all weekend. They stayed close to camp. They played, ate and slept together. Very cute!! P.S. That is not Erics leg!

Between all the familes, there were about 10 kids. Pinky had a great time because they were ALL her age! Poor Elle played with them a little...

But mostly she was too cool to hang with the 'babies'!

We hung around the campfire until about midnight.

Then I tried sleeping, but had my first lesson in tent setup... clear all fallen acorns away from tent pad site! I was up all night rolling on acorns. Eric bought me a pad to sleep on, but LOKI slowly pushed me off! I ended up on the bed of acorns and he lounged comfortably on the pad all night. Stupid dog!

Here we are making breakfast and cleaning up...

Ah, another successful camping trip. I mean... Ah, our first successful camping trip!

Hump Day

2009-09-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

Today is Wednesday.. need I say more??
Over the weekend we all had bouts of sickness. I was teetering on the fence of the flu... I had a low grade fever for a few days and a sore throat, luckily it didn't turn into something worse. After three days it was totally gone and I felt great! The kids got it worse though, Pinky had a fever on Monday. But, like me, they woke up on Tuesday completely fine! Eric got a little feverish on Sunday, but that's it! YAY! We have outsmarted the flu... this time!!!

I've been getting ready for a camping trip we are taking this weekend with some friends. I fully intend to cook gourmet camp food! No hotdogs for us! I'm making fajitas over a fire! And since we haven't camped in... well, ever! I have alot of work to do to get ready. We pretty much have all the stuff we could need. But gathering it up, bringing it over and settling it up will be a challenge, LOL!
I'm super excited. And trying not to think about the day after, where I then have to pack it all up, bring it home and put it away.
That.
Will.
Suck.

Take care blog friends! Until next time when it's not the blahest day of the week! (yeah that's right, I said BLAHEST!!)

Overdue Pictures!

2009-09-29T06:13:00.000-07:00

I finally have a photo from Pinkys first day at Pre-K! Here she is in the cubby area! She LOVES her school.

All I have to say is... I can't think of another 4 year old who plays video games to pass the time while she's on the potty!

Here are a few from the Renaissance Faire...

And lastly... LOKI down by the lake.

I've decided I could never leave this house, because where else can I get a house I love, with no neighbors ever home, on a fairly secluded street where the kids can ride bikes all over around because there are hardly ever cars, tucked into the woods... and not just any woods, but a STATE park... tucked into a protected state park, with a giant lake in my backyard, oh and a PINK Cherry tree that blooms every Spring!!... You find me another house like that and I suppose I'll THINK about leaving here!!
Here's a shot standing at the edge of the lake

Here is the view from the woods

Updates

2009-09-21T18:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I have several photos I was going to include in this post, but I'm having issues with my USB port right now. SO, they have to remain on the camera for now...

The weather is getting cooler. I'm sorry to see summer go, but at the same time welcome the coolness! It's nice to run around outside with my dog and not have to rinse off in the shower when I come inside.

Elle still loves the second grade and is fast at making friends. She's not to keen on waking up at 7 in the morning though.
Pinky is enjoying Pre-K. She told her teacher (Mrs. Williams) that she loved her! She likes to come home and show me all the art she has done that day.

The girls are REALLY getting into Barbies lately. We've always had a few, although they never were on the forefront of favorite toys. But recently, when they aren't playing outside, the kids are playing barbies!

Eric and I are great. We went to the Renaissance Faire recently. Elle really dressed up! (I have pictures... too bad they are stuck on the camera!)
We like to hang out on our deck after dinner. Now with it being cooler in the evenings, it's about time to light up the fire pit table. Pretty soon it will be full on fireplace time! YAY, I love chilly nights!

I know its early but I bought Halloween costumes already. Every single year, I wait till the LAST minute and the kids have to choose something from the slim pickings that are left in stores the day before Halloween, LOL! Not this year! This year I was prepared and struck while the iron was hot! Elle is being a gothic vampire fairy thing (sort of like last year... last year she looked awesome though!) and Pinky is being a leopard. I LOVE Halloween, even Eric and I are dressing up this year!! :)

Pinky gets her cast off finally this Friday. I cant take much more of it. It was okay the first few days... but after two weeks when we went back to (I thought to take it off) get it Xrayed, I find out she needs it on another two weeks... I about died! It is SO dirty and I can't get it clean, believe me I've tried! She also shoves things into it. On her last Xray you could see she had shoved a marble deep into it! The doctor couldn't get it out. She has since shoved other things into it, that I'm sure will show up on her next Xray (although hopefully it will be coming off this week! 4 weeks is LONG enough!) I hope this is our last stint with casts for a long time!

Elle is having crazy dental work done! She's had a lip bumper now for about a month or so. And a few weeks ago also got an extender on the roof of her mouth. Which I have to extend every night for her with a special tool! The poor thing is a total metal mouth right now. She can hardly eat and really talks funny! In the next few weeks she'll also be adding braces to the mix to complete her robot mouth transformation! By the time it's all said and done though, she'll have perfect strait teeth! But right now it's pretty funny looking... poor kid! Oh, she also recently impaled herself in the chest with metal handlebars (from an old bike without the rubber grips on the end...). She just crashed and the metal end rammed into her chest. it looked pretty nasty. She still has slight bruising at this point.

Peace out.

First day of school

2009-08-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

Who knew going into 2nd grade would be so hard... on ME! I tried to look strong in front of all the parents at the bus stop, but I did get a bit weepy as the bus pulled away and I could see Elle waving at me through the window! I'm such a baby!! She's never been on a bus before. Even when she was in Kindergarten, I drove her everyday. There's something about you kid getting on the BUS for the first time...

I'm as excited for her to come home and tell me all about it and she was to GO to school. We went to her open house on Friday and she has the teacher I was HOPING she'd get!! There were 3 teachers she could have gotten, but I REALLY wanted her to have this one, and she ended up getting her YAY!! She's also in the same class as her BFF Afton... there desks are even right next to eachother! Afton only lives 5 houses down from me... I didn't think it was possible for those two to be any more inseparable... but I guess it IS possible!

Walking to the bustop

The dynamic duo again...

Boarding the bus... when I started crying:

First broken arm!

2009-08-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I've never broken a bone, neither has Elle. SO this was my first experience with a cast! Pinky was playing around on our VERY heavy bar stools... swinging around on them. I kept telling her she was going to get hurt if she didn't stop...
Well, she finally did get hurt, it toppled over on her the other day and it landed right on her wrist! She really screamed! She continued to use it, even though she held it tightly to guard it. And after a few days she was still not putting pressure on it and would hold it tight, plus it looked wierd, not like the other wrist. I took her to the pediatrician, then to to the radiologist for an X ray, then back to the Pediatrician, then since it was broken, I was then had to go to the orthopedist. I had a busy day1

Pinky liked the cast though. They let her pick out a color, of course she picked pink. In two weeks we'll go back to have it X rayed again.

Elle is in the process of getting braces right now, she got 4 spacers put in last week and had an appt. this morning to get her brackets put on, but we had to reschedule due to broken bones!

Other crazy stuff has been happening, but I don't want to turn this into a whiny post! So, I'll stop here and update later!

SCHOOL

2009-08-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

School starts in less then two weeks, I'll admit, it will be strange for me! Elle will be in second grade and Pinky will be in a preschool. People keep asking what I'm going to do with all my spare, non-kid time. I have no idea! This year isn't so bad because, while Elle will be gone all day, Pinky will only be gone three hours a day. SO at least for this coming year I wont be changing much of my routine... except now I will have three hours a day by myself. But it will be NEXT year that they will both be in school full day, that will be really different...

I've thought about possibly going back to school part time, or taking some classes just for fun. Nah, never mind, if I take classes I want it to be towards a degree, not just for the heck of it. I'll also have time to volunteer in the girls' classrooms, go on field trips with them, stuff like that.

Loki and I are getting along swimmingly now that he's home all day with me. In July we decided it was time to have him home all day like a normal dog rather then continue to go to the dog sitter. Man, it is alot harder then I thought owning a dog! Before, I could just drop him off at the dog sitters... which we did 6 days a week! Now though, it's all on me! And because he's such a big dog, he needs ALOT of exercise, it's kept me busy. I have to run him every morning and then again later in the day, then some sort of exercise again in the evening. I think he enjoys being home, he follows us everywhere and just plops down on the floor watching our every move, LOL!

Have a good Wednesday!

A girl and her guns.

2009-08-18T19:03:00.000-07:00

Here I am at the range tonight. I took my mom shooting for the first time in her life! I brought three of our shotguns. She tried them all out! We shot the Saiga, the Mossberg and the AK... I think she liked it...

Birthday time!

2009-08-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

Pinky recently turned FOUR!! I can't believe how wierd it is to not have a baby anymore! She is fast to tell me that she is a big girl! We held an Ice Cream Party for her. All her little 4 year old friends came over and built their own ice cream sundaes. I had an ice cream toppings bar. I also baked cupcakes in cake cones, and topped it with swirly icing and sprinkles, it totally looked like an ice cream cone1 Elle told me I was the coolest mom ever for making those!

Here are all who attended!

Present time!

The best gift of all was from daddy and I, she was upgraded from a baby bike to a little girl bike with training wheels:

As you can see from the look on her face... Pinky is thrilled to be wearing this dress up outfit!

Home defense...

2009-08-11T07:42:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a funny picture! Here's all the safety and security we need right here!

Entrepreneur

2009-08-06T08:42:00.000-07:00

Elle the other day decided to open a lemonade stand with a friend of hers. She thought it was high time she earned her own money! They took stools outside and to make the surface bigger, they layed boogie boards on top of them. Which is why I wasn't surprised when they tipped over the instant she put the lemonade on it.

They used plastic cups from my kitchen and a giant pitcher of Crystal Light. After they made a second batch (because the first one spilled all over the sidewalk!), they figured out how to precariously balance it so it wouldn't fall, and they sat down to wait for the money to roll in...

If you've been to our house you know it's pretty secluded. Which I love, but it's not so good if you are trying to sell something! I felt really bad for them because they REALLY wanted costumers, but of course there were NO people outside! After a while, they got bored and ran off to play...

Dancing and Cleaning

2009-08-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

Pinky loves to dance! Here's a video of her at a party we went to the other day. She was trying to line dance with everybody...

So all last week I purged my house! I went from room to room and threw away almost everything we owned that wasn't a piece of furniture. How liberating! It all started because Elle will be in public school this year, so I cleaned out the homeschool room. I ended up with something close to 20 bags of giveaway stuff! And more stuff that couldn't fit in bags! On Saturday, hubby and I loaded up both our SUV's FULL of crap and hauled it to Goodwill. And besides the giveaway, we had about the same amount of bags for the trash man! Our yard looked like a landfill before the garbage truck came last week! Our house is pretty much cleared out at this point, we still have a few big things that wouldn't fit in the car and the trash guy couldn't take.

So I cleared out the homeschool room, moved Pinky into it, cleaned out Elle's room, cleaned out my room, cleaned out the basement... I hate STUFF!
It's funny because I threw out ALL the toys we have! The kids cried and cried! The amount of toys I kept are so few, I can literally fit them all into ONE small box! The kids' rooms have nothing but a bed and a dresser. And guess what? They stay so CLEAN!!!!

Also the basement was FULL of toys... all gone now! The whole toy area has nothing in it but carpet and wall! Man, the way the kids carried on, you'd have thought I'd killed their best friend. But they haven't suffered one bit. They haven't been bored a single time! They've had just as much fun playing with the minuscule amount of toys I DID keep that you would never know they didn't have anything else.
I'll tell you one thing though, my house has never stayed cleaner!

Updates...

2009-07-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, I've been fairly busy these days! it's time for some updates and pictures!

The 4th of July was fun, here's a picture from a parade we attended... see how big our dog has gotten.

Elle's swim team is coming to an end. She has loved it... I can't say the same! But I love that SHE loves it! Here's a picture of her playing a game on my phone in between her swim turns.

Yes, you read that right, I got a new phone... an iphone! It's only the coolest phone I've ever had!

Hubby and I are are enjoying our new 'hobby'. In case you haven't figured out what that is yet by talking to us, then here is a picture of Elle wearing some of it!

The girls are in a bible camp this week, so far so good! Pinky loves it because the theme is robots and she happens to love robots I guess! They both came out of it today jabbering about how much fun it was! Oh, I successfully have a garden! This is the first time I've ever grown anything besides tomatoes! I have gigantic squash and lettuce! The green peppers and tomatoes aren't ready yet, but here's a photo of what I pulled from it today! I'm so proud!

Things on the homefront are great. Hubby is working hard as always and giving us a great life! I'm trying to keep up with the cleaning. But with the warm weather, I'm finding its harder because Loki is shedding a bit more and he is usually wet from swimming in the lake. And wet dog trumps any cleaning I get done during the day!

We have also decided that Elle will be starting back in public school this year. She was pretty upset about it for the first few days, but now that it has had time to sink in, she's really excited to ride the bus and for some reason she is dying to (as she puts it) "stand in line with a tray and buy school lunch" Um... okay. I give it a month before the novelty has worn off and she is ready for some REAL food for lunch from home!
Pinky will also be starting preschool this year. She is attending the same one Elle went to. I'm really excited about that! I LOVE this preschool and I know Pinky will thrive in it.
I don't know what I'll do with myself with my new found freedom during the days! I need to get a hobby!

Cousins

2009-07-02T13:28:00.000-07:00

After Aspen Grove, the kids and I stayed at my cousins house and hung out with my family. That was really fun! There was a cousin BBQ, my family knows how to throw a party!
Kiss table at the party

They even broke out the fireworks!

Pinky asleep in the back of my dads convertible. She must have been really tired!

I tired to wear them out by playing at the Gateway. It worked, they slept most of the flight back home!

Aspen Grove

2009-07-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

After all the hiking we met my dad at Thanksgiving point, that was fun I've never been there before. Here's Elle being squashed by a dinosaur!

The entire next week we were with hubbys family and stayed in Aspen Grove which is in the mouth of Provo Canyon above Sundance. There were endless activities for the kids to do. And they loved being with their cousins all day everyday. We stayed in little cabins and the kids slept in the loft. Climbing up and down the scary ladder was half the fun for them.

Here are some pictures:
Here we are one morning for breakfast looking our loveliest!

This is s neat picture. I like the mountians in the back ground!

Elle on the climbing wall

Heres my sister and I in climbing gear, we did a ropes course one of the days, it was scary, but I'm glad I can now say I did it!

Hiking In Utah

2009-07-02T12:52:00.000-07:00

We've had a busy 2 weeks! Hubby and I visited Zions National Park and Snow Canyon. Those were SUPER fun!
At Zions we hiked up to a waterfall, then it actually started to rain... I mean POUR! Apparently that's pretty rare up there.

Here are the kids after we made it up to the waterfall!

The next day we played in Snow Canyon. That was amazing for completely different reasons that Zions was amazing. We weren't prepared to spend a long time at Snow, so we didn't pack very well. We hiked really far in the blazing sun and didn't have enough water.

We were all pretty parched by the end because we only had a little bit of luke warm water, which hubby and I were saving for the kids. it got so unbearably hot that the kids took off their shirts! Little Pinky started to get (we think) heat stroke, so we cut it off and went back to the car fast.

No Doubt!

2009-06-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I went to a No Doubt concert last night. We had great seats and it was a rockin' concert! Paramore was opening for them, and we completely missed them because we were stuck in traffic! The concert started at 7pm, and we left about two hours before that... but we didn't get there until 9!! Traffic literally CRAWLED the last half on the journey. But we got there in plenty of time to see No Doubt start.

PIE

2009-06-13T19:09:00.000-07:00

The girls and I went to Butlers Orchard the other day to pick strawberries.

Then I came home and whipped it into a strawberry rhubarb pie! (yes, I even did that crust by myself!)

It's okay, I know what your thinking... and the answer is YES! it was Delicious!

Swim Team

2009-06-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

Elle has been in summer team for about 2 weeks now and this morning was their first 'time trials' where each kid has to get timed in different swim strokes. Today is Saturday and the trials began at 7 o'clock in the morning! Luckily the weather was great and the coaches provided breakfast. Which was good because we were there for 3 hours and left at 10. Even when we left though, the older kids were still doing stuff, and the trails were going strong!
I had to take Pinky with me this time which was okay. She did very well and cheered at all the right times!

Here it was at the beginning:

Here's Elle about to dive...can you tell which one is her?

Even though Pinky did great, she didn't take kindly to be waking up at 6:30am, so she snoozed on my lap for about 30 minutes at the pool.

Swimming makes a person hungry!:

I was so proud of Elle today! Even after 3 hours, I thought she was going to collapse, but she came up to me and said "It is time to go yet?... Because I don't want to go! I want to stay and swim longer!" What a trooper! She wasn't anywhere near the fastest for her age group, but she has accomplished the one thing I set out for her to accomplish which is, she will never drown and is completely confident in the water! With the added bonus of her LOVING the water!

Having issues...

2009-06-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted! My Internet is perfectly fine in every way except allowing me to post! I couldn't log in... for no particular reason at all that I could see. Every other website works just fine but blogger.com... not so much! Anyway after much fiddling with things, hubby found a roundabout way for me to log in and post (the initial problem still isn't solved), but at least I'm able to get around the problem. I'll post more later when I have more time!