Exciting stuff

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!!

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

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

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!

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

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

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.