Beautiful Weekend

We have had beautiful weather here lately! It has been fabulous! We had a pretty low key nice weekend. Friday night I had 2 of the girl scout leaders over so we could plan our bridging ceremony and build a bridge for it. It went pretty smoothly and the bridge came out pretty cute I must say. It will be a very simple to the point but nice and sweet ceremony. I say that but we still have to practice it with the girls. Hopefully it goes as smoothly as we have planned. One of the leaders 2 girls spent the night. They are both really good kids so I wasn't worried, well not until she told me that the youngest (she is 6) has never spent the night with anyone before. It was all going well, I put them all to bed and they were all playing games, the 2 oldest had their DS' and the 2 younger girls had the leapster. They started to get a little loud but I did really think anything of it, as that is typically how little girls are. Next thing I know the oldest girl is crying and I hear "I wanna go home!" OH LORD. So I go up and talk to her and she is crying telling me it is too wild and she wants to sleep and blah blah blah. I tried to talk her into staying but she just kept crying saying she wanted to go home. So I had to call her mom. The youngest was like no way man this is my first sleepover and I am staying. She did great. Her mom was shocked that the oldest wanted to leave cause she has never done that at a sleepover. Turns out they were all dancing and acting silly and she got hot and tired and wanted to stop.... but she wanted everyone to stop NOW. And they didn't, so she got mad. At one point I had all 4 girls crying, she wanted to go home, Kaylee was crying cause she was getting blamed by Mykenzie of being crazy, the youngest was crying cause her sister was sad and Mykenzie was crying because she didn't want her friend to go home! OH MY GOD!! I could have been out drinking and hanging out with my friends! It was insane. So the oldest left, the youngest stayed, they were asleep not 10 minutes after the oldest left and they woke up and had a fun morning playing. I gave up alot of things for that and it sucked. Girls = Drama now you know why my blog is named what it is. How am I going to make it through the rest of my life?

The rest of our weekend went pretty well. I ran to the grocery store Saturday while Travis pressure washed the front of the house. We just hung out, played out side and the girls wanted to eat dinner outside so we did. Had some smores, yummy! And then Sunday was more of the same, church in the morning for us girls while Travis pressure washed the back of the house, some yard work, playing out side, dinner outside and smores :) Nice, easy and relaxing aka perfect.

There is bad news and good news...

Which do you want first?

The bad news is my coffee pot died today :( Bet you thought it was actually bad news. lol It is for me but if that is as bad as it is right now I will take the dead coffee pot. There is a little light on it that says clean.... so I took the darn thing apart and cleaned every inch of it.... dang light is still on and it still won't brew coffee. Can't find the stinking instruction manual, I still have the instructions for my pack and play that I haven't used in 4 years but the new coffee pot I bought 3 months ago... nope. Well it will be making a little trip back to Wally World (Travis bought it, you know I wouldn't have).



The GREAT news is that despite my dead coffee pot I have resurrected my broken dyson vacuum! Yay! The vacuum worked but the wand didn't. I thought it had a hole in the hose, nope... apparently I swept up a pen at some point and it was just blocking the darn thing. Glad it isn't broken after all.

More Great news, I *may* have found someone with a video camera that takes the same tapes as mine who is so wonderfully willing to let me borrow it. She ROCKS! Cross your fingers it will work for me :)



More good news, I paid Norman a visit today for a loooooong over due cut and color. Seriously, I haven't had my hair done since this summer. That is not pretty people. I had him just do an all over color and just make me a brunette again. He took it a few shades darker than my natural color and I love it so much more than the highlights. This girl is just not meant to have any shade of blond anywhere near my hair! So now my hair has gone from the lightest it has ever been to the darkest it has ever been. He also chopped it off. It is about shoulder length now and my head feels so much lighter. Tomorrow will come the real test, that is if I can style it myself or not ;-) Here is a photo for those of you not on facebook who want to see.

Saturday Saturday

Today was test day. I know to most people taking a placement test to enter college wouldn't be a big deal but to me it was. I haven't been in school for 11 years and as far as math, it has been 12+ since I have taken a class. Suffice it to say I have forgotten about everything I have ever learned. I have been studying all freaking week during every spare moment just trying to refresh my memory, from subtracting negative numbers, to fractions, to the Pythagorean theorem. CRAP! I didn't want to take it and find out I am only as smart as a person who completed 8th grade. You know? I went into it thinking that I would not do well on the math and computer (it has been a long time since I have made a detailed excel sheet and have never seen power point) but figured I would do well enough on reading and writing.
So anyhow today was the day. Luckily it started with reading which was pretty easy. I am not the queen of know where commas go so I am sure I missed a few there but ended up with a score of 93 which means I have no reading requirement for school. Yay! Second was the writing, I basically had to proof read an essay. I ended up with a score of 98!! Yay me! This score qualifies me to go straight in college English classes (I have to take 2 for the nursing degree)
The math test seriously left me scratching my head and guessing on about 70% of the test. I had no clue how to do most of the problems despite all of the hours of study time. I knew for sure I bombed it. He comes over to give me my scores and I tell him, "you don't even have to say it I know I did terrible on the math" turns out I was right! lol HOWEVER, terrible is still good enough to put me into college level classes which means I *should* NOT have to take any math (other than dosage calculations) because it isn't required for the nursing degree. Let me just tell you how freaking happy I am about that! Seriously I only scored a 55 and a 54 on the math portion so I don't know what the cut off for it is but that is a pretty low score and I am shocked it put me through.
After that was done I had to take a 30 minute timed computer test. OMG I can't believe that I was worried I wouldn't pass it. If you have ever used a computer in your life you should pass that thing. It was stuff like close this window, what does minimize mean, open this document. Crazy easy stuff. I got 2 things wrong just by accidentally hitting the wrong stupid button and still ended up with a 90 something percent.
All in all it was a pretty darn good morning. I wish I would have done better on the math but in the grand scheme of things I don't really care.

This afternoon we went in search of a new video camera since ours died at Christmas. After 3 stores we finally have a new one and we can tape Kaylee's graduation next month. They gave me some grim news about my old one though. They said there was no way for me to get my videos off my mini DV tapes unless I take them somewhere and have it done. I seriously need to find someone with a video camera with those tapes that would be willing to let me borrow it for a few days so I can transfer my tapes to DVD. Anyone?

So much going on these days!

April has been a very busy month so far! Oh my where to begin? I guess I already blogged about the Preds game so no need to revisit that part of the month. That was Saturday the 4th, on that Monday my friend Amy and her son Ethan came to visit. The first two days were rough cause I had alot going on so I couldn't really hang out with them and I felt badly. Monday night about two hours after she got here we had to run out the door to girl scouts. I had to be there so gotta do what you gotta do I guess. Tuesday morning I had to run around and get stuff for Kaylee's school Easter party as I was one of the party planners and I am lame and waited till the last second... literally we were putting things together as I was walking out the door. The party went well though and the kids made really cute eggs (that I totally stole from Amy cause she brought us some when she came) They were so cute! I didn't take a picture though so I am a bit bummed about it. We will be making them next year for the kids in her class.

Wednesday I let Mykenzie play hooky from school. It was her first absence from school all year so I think it is fine. We went downtown Nashville in search of Las Paletas gourmet popsicles. Ethan had seen a show where they were featured on the food network and wanted to give them a try. I must say it was MUCH easier to find than people in the review articles had me thinking and they were very yummy! I had a rice one, it was so good! Then we went to the Adventure Science museum and let the kids play and have fun for a couple of hours.

Thursday was back to the grind with the kids in school. Amy had something she wanted to see downtown so they headed that way and I just hung out and ended up at Panera with Chandra (shock, lol)

Friday was the day the bottom dropped out. I could write a really long drawn out story but I don't feel like it. So lets just say we planned to go shopping, made it to Hobby Lobby. Left and was headed to Target, EBS came on the radio, we saw a funnel cloud we high tailed our butts into Lowes and hid out in their bathrooms for over an hour. We now know Murfreesboro was hit for somewhere around 23 miles by an EF4 tornado, killing 2 people, injuring many more and leaving hundreds and hundreds of families with no homes. I only personally know 1 person that lost their home and luckily they were not home at the time. Though several friends of mine live just a handful of houses away from the storms path and I have thanked God many times that he kept them and their homes safe. Our city is down and still visibly shaken 5 days later. To watch footage of it ripping through the city on youtube and seeing the pictures people have taken on the various news sites are unbelievable. We drove around to the areas where the roads are actually open yesterday..... devastating. This is a photo of a photo that Amy took with her cell phone while we were huddled in the Lowes bathroom.

Saturday Amy and Ethan headed home and I listened to my children ask a million times why they had to leave so EARLY in the day (it was like 9 am lol) I told them they probably couldn't wait to get back to cozy South Carolina after all they experienced while here, from snow flurries (yes in April, don't even get me started) on Monday and Tuesday to the EF4 Tornado on Friday. I would want to get the hell out of dodge if I were them. We joked with the girls that they will probably never want to come back after that visit! LOL We finally got around to coloring eggs Saturday night. I meant to have the kids do it when Amy and Ethan were here :( Also I totally suck and didn't get a single picture of them while they were here. WTH?


Sunday was Easter!! Hope everyone had a good one. We did the usual, girls get up find eggs and baskets. Squeal over what the EB brought and spend the day playing with their new things, pigging out on candy and strewing easter grass all over the house! lol Travis ended up having to go into work because he got a call that the ceiling collapsed in one of his stores. And boy did it ever! Crazy. So glad the store was closed because someone surely would have been severely injured or worse.

Now we have started a new week and put last weeks total craziness behind us. I have to look forward to this weekend where I will be taking my college assessment test on Saturday! Yikes. After studying math for many many hours yesterday I am now resigned to the fact I will certainly not be testing out of math classes and sadly will have to take math in the fall. There is just no way. I can't believe how much you FORGET! You know why though, cause it is totally useless crap that if you don't work as an engineer or builder you really never ever freaking use. I talked to Amber to get her to walk me through a couple of problems and she actually told me I could be quite screwed (not in those exact words) lol But she walked me through some things and it helped alot. Seriously people I had to sit and google things like what the numerator and denominator in a fraction was (too bad Mykenzie was at school I am sure she would have known) and how to subtract negative numbers! Hopefully the things I re-learned yesterday will stick with me and I will know how to apply them on the test to at least place out of remedial math. Retaking Algebra wouldn't be a big deal to me as long as they don't put my ass in geometry. That may make me find an entire new field to go into.

Last thing for this post. Mykenzie had an orthodontist appointment yesterday. Friday night she popped one of her brackets off (she was biting her nail) He told me it was fine and just to wait to come in since she had an appt. yesterday anyhow. So they ended up taking that bracket off, it was the one on a baby tooth on the side of the gap that the tooth has been missing from for 2 years! They went ahead and took it off because it is FINALLY starting to come in! yay!! They also took the palate expander out of her mouth! She is so happy. She hasn't had to tighten it in about a month or so but she is happy to have it out! She can talk normally again. :) She also got something put on the front of them which I guess will tighten them up and pull the gap between her 2 front teeth (caused by the palate expander) back together. So now she has pink braces which she likes much better :) I can't wait to see what her teeth look like when she can finally get them off, but we have a long while before that will happen. That tooth has to come in and get its own bracket to straighten it up first.

I lied, 1 more thing... I am still working out! woo hoo! This is probably the longest in my life I have kept it up. I didn't last week cause Amy was here but have twice so far this week. I *think* I figured out a work out plan that will fit into my schedule and get me at least 3 workouts a week that are at least an hour long! I am determined to remove my wings tone my arms, lose the friction from the thighs rubbing together shape and tone thighs, and lose my second ass. Not to mention become more (much more) flexible, and to be able to do things without being totally winded. I have already seen a HUGE improvement in the amount of back pain I have. For those who don't know I have terrible back pain, I guess it is technically my shoulders but I have had it for about 8+ years. It is daily just some days are way worse than others. I still have pain but it has been so much better!! Thank you yoga.

Alright I have sufficiently procrastinated enough for the day. Time to hit the books, joy

*Look what I did last week!!! This was my first try at french braiding ever in my life. It looks pretty dang good if I do say so myself. Not sure I will ever be able to do it again, beginners luck and all that but I am proud for the moment ;)

A day with my girls

We have had a really busy really fun day today! In fact I am too hyper to sleep and technically it is now tomorrow. We started out the day by going to McDonalds for lunch and playtime with Chandra and her kiddos and then ran across town for more playtime at the DC. Mykenzie has been begging to play with Ryan so she was so excited to hang out for a few hours. Then it was home to get cleaned up a bit and head back out the door to meet up with our girl scout troop and head into Nashville for our first Predators hockey game!

Kaylee was so excited and was cheering a lot for the blue team (Preds). She definitely wanted the blue team to win and not the red team (Columbus Blue Jackets). Much to her dismay the blue team was not winning for alot of the beginning of the game :( She was cheering one minute and I swear sleeping just 60seconds later. Crazy. Let me tell you it was LOUD! It was scout night and they sat us all in the same section... yeah it was loud. Poor kid was so tired, I didn't think she would fall asleep during the game though. The rest of us were wide awake as we watched the blue team grab the lead only to have it get tied up in the last few minutes of the game... what does this mean you ask? OH YES! OVERTIME! I swear I NEVER watch a game that does not end up in overtime, no matter what the sport... overtime, every time, never fails! LOL Overtime turned into a shoot out. (Didn't know what that was before tonight) For those who don't know still, each team takes turns. One player on the ice, he tries to hit in into the goal. 1 guy against the goalie. Then they swap. Each team gets 3 tries, the team that scores the most goals out of those 3 wins the game. Got it? lol

So the blue team gets to chose who goes first (home team advantage? I don't know) They let the red team go first.... nope they miss, blue team.... Miss, red team.. miss again, blue team... MISS, Red team, last chance.... MISS, Blue team, last chance SCORE!!!!! Preds WIN!!!! Yay!! Seriously, what a great game! We picked a good one to go to for our first one! Mykenzie loved it and wants to go back. Kaylee I am sure would like to go back as well, we just need to make sure she naps first. :) We will definitely go back as a family at some point and hopefully not have to sit in the nosebleeds next time! lol Bad choice of words I guess, I hope the dude that got smashed in the nose by the red teams high sticking is A OK now.

Hello there

In two days it will be April. This year is passing us by so quickly!! There is only 2 months left until school is out for Mykenzie and even less for Kaylee. April isn't even here yet and it is shaping up to be quite a busy month for us. Starting Saturday we will be on the go. We are going to our first hockey game with girl scouts! Travis may be going up to Ohio this weekend to see a friend that needs him right now. Then my friend Amy is coming to visit us on Monday and staying till Saturday afternoon. Sunday is Easter (add that to my list of things to do/buy) I have my college course assessment test on the 18th that I need to study my butt off for. I am trying to work out, read, and get my house clean on top of everything else which is quite frankly making me forget all the things that I must do. Hence why I just now got my new stickers for the car today and they expire on Wednesday! I got my emissions test done weeks ago but forgot to go get the darn stickers. At least I managed to get that done today.

Both Kaylee's school and girl scouts will be over mid May, which will be here before I can even think about it and I have to plan the girl scouts bridging ceremony.... yep, I have no clue how to do that one, nor do I want to. One of these days I need to suck it up and do it. I also think I am in charge of planning Kaylee's school Easter party.... yikes! No clue what to do there either! I just have been bitten by the lazy bug and I don't want to do any of it or even think about it for that matter! Kaylee's school will be having a graduation ceremony soon too. I need to figure out when it will be so I can plan for it. We need to buy a new video camera before then so we can have it on tape. Crap! I have to find out when kindy testing is too!!!

We are planning a trip to Ohio. The day Mykenzie gets out of school we are leaving! The next day I am going out with just my girlfriends, NO KIDS ALLOWED! We very rarely get to hang out just us without having to deal with the kids. In fact I think we have only done it once. Once in all the years I have been moved away and we started having kids. And that one time was in 2006! CRAZY! So we are going out and we are doing it well! Starting off mid afternoon with a spa trip (undecided on the treatment, either facials or pedicures) followed with dinner, drinks and dancing and ending at a hotel room to hang out and chat till whenever we want! I can NOT wait!! I think every one of us NEEDS this! I am unsure what I will do the rest of the week but I do plan to get together with those same girls and let the kids play for a few hours one day and hopefully get a few hang out hours with Rachel one morning.

I need to call the community center and see about getting Mykenzie back in swim lessons again. If they would have had their stuff together the last time she took them she would know how to swim by now and be done with it. Freaking people. She is also thinking about giving tennis a try so I need to look into that. Apparently at some point I made a deal with Kaylee that I forgot about but she has not. I guess I told her when she was 5 she could take ballet? Well she is planning on holding me to it even though I totally forgot so I guess I have to look into that. She is a brute though so I can't really picture her being a dainty ballerina... I may try and talk her into soccer instead. I wish I could know right now what my class schedule will look like so I can start to figure stuff like that out.

It is FINALLY starting to look like Mykenzie may possibly learn how to ride a bike without training wheels after all. Travis worked on it some on Saturday before her friend showed up at our house and she got embarrassed. But she finally seemed interested in doing it when before she would scream and run into the house if you tried to get her on her bike.

The girls had their spring break last week already. We didn't go anywhere as generally the only place we would go is Ohio and I hate going there in the spring. We just hung out at home, played outside and at a friends house, met our playgroup at the park. On Friday we went to see Monsters vs Aliens (side note it is crazy they charge an extra $3 per ticket for a 3D movie but don't offer it in a theater where you don't have to see it in 3D. I was pretty mad when I heard I had to pay $30 for 3 people to see a matinee) the girls both really liked it though. Travis' birthday was on Tuesday so we decorated the kitchen with balloons and a birthday banner and the girls hid and jumped out to yell surprise when he got home. We made him a big cookie instead of a cake and we took him to Fuji (Japanese Hibachi Grill) for dinner and then we all watched Bolt. The girls had a great day! lol After a week of begging for her friend to spend the night chance happened and she was able to come over to play on Saturday which turned into her spending the night which turned into her staying here until 3pm Sunday afternoon. They had a great time and ended up having a pretty good spring break even though we didn't travel.

That was a long update/ list of things to do!!!

OUCH!

I am soooo sore! My arms, shoulders, and back are KILLING me! My legs are sore but the pain in a zero in comparison to my upper body. Wanna know why? YOGA. Yeah I said yoga. WTH? Never in my life would I think yoga would mess me up so bad. Ah, did I mention that this is from yoga I did yesterday! I have been in pain since yesterday around noon. It has gotten worse. So sore! I don't think I have ever been this sore in my life, certainly not from exercising! I am doing good though. I have worked out 3 times this week, including today through my serious pain. Monday I did a yoga core work out (boy that'll set your stomach muscles on fire in about 45 seconds) and a yoga end of the day wind down (it was 11 pm when I did this). Yesterday I did an 11 minute yoga workout that was I using as stretching basically, followed by a 22 minute yoga workout to target buns and thighs and then to top it off I did a 22 minute fat burn that consisted of cardio and some strength training. Know which one messed up my arms? The BUNS AND THIGHS work out, WTH? I promise though that's what did it. Today I was trying to not work the arms since they hurt so I did the yoga core work out again, followed buy a short cardio workout and some strange stripper dance thing that is supposed to work the booty. I was not a stripper in a former life and could never be one now. There was nothing sexy about me trying to do those moves! LOL It did make my thighs burn though, not the booty so much but since I probably wasn't doing the moves quite right that could explain that one ;) Now I am done, till Monday that is hopefully my poor achy body will feel better by then. I swear I am going to keep up with this but I damn well better see results if I am going to be in so much pain everytime I move my arms. Seriously all I could think about last night while I was whining about my pain is how in the heck do the people on the Biggest Loser do it? They clearly haven't been a friend to any type of exercise and they have these people in the gym for 6+ hours every day! How can they walk?!? I bet I won't be watching them while eating ice cream anymore. I feel really bad for them now! OUCH!

Good Citizen

Every grading period 3 kids from each class are chosen to be good citizen for that grading period. The kids have to be well behaved, turn in homework and get good grades. Each teacher choses who will get it in different ways. Mykenzie's teacher this year has the students in the class vote out of those elligible. This grading period Mykenzie was chosen as one of them. Yesterday they had a good citizen breakfast that Kaylee and I went to and it was followed by a ceremony. This is the third time Mykenzie has been good citizen over the years but the first time I didn't have my camera :( Travis Someone took it out of my purse and didn't put it back so I don't have any pics of the award ceremony. I am a bit bummed but I don't know how I would have taken any with Kaylee with me. I did take one of her holding it when she got home from school though so I have something. We are proud of her for getting it :)

Tonight was my parent teacher confrence with her teacher. She said she was a good kid who has really grown since the beginning of the year accidemically. Not that she wasn't where she needed to be before, because she was, it is just she seems to have a real interest in what she is being taught now and that is coming out in her work. She said the only thing that will hold her back in class is that she doesn't take constructive critisim well and becomes very defensive (wonder where she gets that from- HA! you thought me but it is Travis, ok both of us) She said she likes to base things on facts and asks questions until she understands. If she is found wrong on something, she doesn't believe that she is wrong until it is proven to her and explained to her why. These are both good and bad things I suppose. She told me to make sure she doesn't have a teacher that is combative and she should be ok. It may be a long 10 years. Lord help me.

ey yi yi

I went to pick Mykenzie up from school today and as she is getting in the car she says "Mom, why didn't you pick me up today?" I was totally confused because I was in the process of picking her up in that moment. Then she reminds me that I was supposed to pick her up early from school because she had an orthodontist appointment! DUH! At this point we are already 20 minutes late. So I rush across town to at least show up and hope they could still see her. About halfway there I remember that we came home after I picked Kaylee up from school and I say "Kaylee, you don't have shoes on do you?" That would be a big fat NOPE! So not only are we going to stroll into this orthodontist appointment 40 minutes late, but Kaylee is also barefoot!!! Geeze.

We get there and they are all super nice about us being so late and were totally understanding about me just plain forgetting (even though they called yesterday to remind me) They ended up telling me that we only have to turn the palate expander for another week!! Yay! She still has to keep it in till her next appointment (in 5 weeks) but she wont have to have it turned anymore :) She is sooooo happy! He put 2 more brackets on 2 of her baby teeth to try and get the teeth to space out for the permanent tooth that is trying (and has been for a year) to come in. I just have to say if you ever need to take your kiddos (and live in my area) to an orthodontist this is the guy to go to. We have NEVER had to wait (and they are BUSY) they get them in and out quickly and they are SUPER nice!

Just a bitch bitchin'

So I finally went to the doctor and spoke to her about meds for my pms moods. She agrees with me that it sounds like I probably need some and tells me I have PMDD and wrote me a script. So I call my insurance company because getting the meds through them is cheaper for us so for a long term thing it makes more sense. I had to talk to several people because the name of what they had to send me was different than what the doctor prescribed. After a while we finally got it figured out that it is the generic for what she gave me (she told me the generic was something else) great fine, whatever. They tell me it will get to me in 7-10 days.

Fast Forward to yesterday and there it was in my mail. Now I am PMSing and now is the time I need those magic little pills, perfect time to put them to the test, right? I open the package and it is a totally different prescription that what we discussed!!! So I call and it turns out that my insurance company wanted the prescription changed because it would cost them less money! They contacted my doctor for the ok and went with it. Never was I the patient and policy holder notified! The meds they sent are an ANTI-DEPRESSANT, I DON'T NEED AN ANTI-DEPRESSANT! Not only do I not need it but I don't want it in my medical history that I was on one. Not there is anything wrong with it if you actually need it but since I DO NOT I don't want it on there.

So I in my PMS pissy-ness told the man on the phone that I didn't give a shit what the insurance company wanted and I had damn well better be consulted before my medication gets changed again ever! Ridiculous! So they are going to fix it and send me the right stuff but it is going to take another 7-10 business days. Bastards. I have to go in to the doctor in May for a 3 month follow up. Um yeah I won't have been on it for 3 months thanks to these jack offs. When I asked if they would express ship it because of this, I swear they were trying not to laugh and told me I would have to pay $17 for that! I told them I wasn't paying for anything since they are the ones who fucked it up. Really? Do you think it is smart to mess with a hormonal woman who has been prescribed medication to deal with PMS symptoms? Fucking men.

I just want to lock myself in my bedroom and come out in a few days when this is over.

I do have another story with a good ending but I am gonna leave that one for another day

Hey there Nancy!

Mykenzie had to dress up like her favorite story book character today for school as they are doing alot of reading oriented things this week including the book fair. After much thought of what the cheapest and easiest perfect costume would be, we decided on Nancy Drew. Has Mykenzie ever read a Nancy Drew book....no. But luckily there isn't a book report involved so she just has to look the part. I picked up a cute Nancy Drewish cardigan sweater (that she will never wear again) and a trench coat at Target and paired it with some things she already had and poof she was Nancy Drew. Well after her notebook for her clues that is ;)

And a silly picture of Kaylee in pj's cause apparently I can't just take pics of Mykenzie these days.

Snow day!

We woke up this morning to see the ground covered by a beautiful blanket of snow!! We got ready immediately since you never know how long it will last around here and went outside to play!! This is the first time we have had enough of the right kind of snow to make an actual snowman since Kaylee has been around. So she was pretty excited about making a big snowman. Here are the pics of some of our fun...

Lazy days

I haven't posted in 11 days! I guess this blog has been put on the back burner along with cleaning these days. I have cleaned but you can't tell at all so really does it even count? I am on strike. I am just tired of the routine. I was starting to consider getting a job for a couple of reasons. But then I really think about my availability and figure no one will hire me for a few hours Tuesday mornings and Sunday afternoons! lol Whatever. I guess I would have to quit in 2 months anyhow so it isn't worth it.

My children are driving me batty. We have had to have some serious heart to hearts lately with Mykenzie about her attitude and her being disrespectful to us and just mean to Kaylee. Hopefully we will see some improvement. The biggest conversation just took place yesterday so we shall see. Kaylee is doing a little bit better since her and I had our little chat. Fingers crossed. I am not asking for perfection just common sense stuff taken care of and keeping the attitude out of my face.

Mykenzie isn't enjoying her palate expander. It was rough in the very beginning and then it seemed like it wasn't hurting her but now she seems to be in pain every time I turn it. It is definitely working though because she now has a sizable gap between her two front teeth where she certainly did not have one before. I am hoping that when we go to the orthodontist in a couple of weeks they are planning to tighten the braces to begin the process of pulling them back together. I have checked her bite a couple times though and can definitely see an improvement so I am hoping that 2 months will be long enough to have it on.

Kaylee is doing really well in school. She is learning so much this year and is much further along than Mykenzie was at this age. I am so glad that we had her in preschool at age 3 instead of waiting till 4 like we did with Mykenzie. Travis has talked me into letting her go to Kindergarten next year. So now I am really cracking down on behavior and how to act in school. No progress on that yet but I just started. Several of the classes from her school were on the news the other day! The weather man came to talk to the kids and teach them about weather, what to do in a tornado ect. And they got a group photo that they showed on the 6:30 news Tuesday. She was SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to tell everyone and to watch herself on tv! It was really fun to watch how excited she was about it.

As for me I can't seem to get motivated these days to do much of anything that requires me to get off my big butt. I have watched tv, played on the computer, done some work on the computer for my moms group, fed my facebook addiction, watched Changeling, read the last book in the color series about Jane Kelly by Nancy Bush called Ultra Violet, read Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich and washed some laundry and dishes. That pretty much sums up my week! lol SAD! I did go to the doctor on Tuesday, FINALLY and she did end up giving me a prescription for my bitchy-ness. Apparently she thinks I have extreme PMS! LOL Travis I'm sure would agree with that. I am currently waiting for my Ins. company to mail it to me so I can find out if they are going to work. It is sad cause this is the week is when I REALLY need to have it. lol Travis keeps asking if I've gotten them yet but since I believe he need meds too I just tell him to kiss my ass. :)

I am debating on going to Bunco on Saturday. I really want to go but at the same time I have already been out the past 2 weekends with friends, we already have 2 things planned for March (so far) and I have several weekend things for girl scouts coming up soon. I guess I will wait and see how things are looking tomorrow. If we aren't doing anything I may just go anyhow.

I finally called the college I am planning to attend to find out what I needed to do yesterday. It looks like I will be going to fill out an application either Tuesday or Thursday next week. The mere thought of this gives me a panic attack. Not good. I know it will be ok, hard but ok, once I get started but getting there is scaring the crap out of me.

I guess that is all that's been happening here. I am really hoping for some nice weather soon (supposed to have snow flurries tomorrow damn it) that will help motivate me to get off the couch, until then I am afraid I'll be sitting here ;)

Estrogen Overload!

OMG! The hormones are going to just kill me! Seriously my kid is 8. Should I be dealing with mood swings and melt downs already? They have been picking at each other all day which is always followed by a loud whiny mooooooooooooooom _______ did _______!!!!!! I am tired of listening to it so I sent both of them to their rooms for so quiet time. Mykenzie totally breaks down crying, screaming "I don't want to go to my room! This is my last day of vacation and it isn't fair!!!!" So then I told her if she didn't go she could just be grounded from the computer for the week. She stomps off crying as loud as most people can scream, slams her door and has now been in her room for 25 minutes still hysterical crying and talking to herself about how I am such a mean mom and how she doesn't want to be in her room that it is her last day off. And of course how it is all Kaylee's fault (even though she has been the one picking on Kaylee all day)

OMG! I am going to need to be tranquilized to make it through the teenage years! Just kill me now~ I don't even want to know what it is going to be like when they are both hormonal! Geeze!

Happy Belated Valentines Day

We had a good Valentines Day here. Mykenzie and I headed to a cookie booth at noon to try and peddle cookies outside of Kmart. We ended up selling 96 boxes in 2 hours! Yay! Add that to the rest of the booths our troop did and we sold quite a bit in booth sales. I am almost done delivering cookies. I missed an opportunity to deliver some today but I will hook up with her another day this week. Still waiting on a couple of checks to come in the mail and then I will be headed to the post office to mail the rest to Ohio, Virginia and Arizona. Then I will be DONE with cookies for another year! Woohoo

After the cookie booth we met up with Travis and Kaylee and went out to lunch. Figured it would be less crowded at lunch time. Went to get Mykenzie a webkin for her v-day gift and came home, delivered the neighborhood cookies and then just relaxed. Travis got me a dozen roses and another bouquet of flowers :) Thanks babe.

Today was our group's secret Valentine reveal lunch. I got some pretty great things from my valentine and everything is something I will actually use and am happy to have (especially the jelly belly's ;-) ) I can't wait to go to Michael's to use my gift card!!! I love doing secret valentine with these ladies! After most of us went to see the Shopaholic movie. It was good but it was pretty loosely based on the book. I guess the main idea and the character names but that was about it. I was glad I got to see it regardless, I loved the books.

The rest of our week has been pretty busy. Mykenzie got her palate expander on Wednesday. That is a gigantic pain in the ass for me and a pain in the mouth for Mykenize. It doesn't seem to bother her unless I am trying to tighten it. We have to do it every single night. Hopefully it takes less time than they originally told me (3-4 months) cause I seriously after 4 nights of doing it am already done.

We had a family mystery night at Mykenzie's school on Thursday. It was fun but I have to say some of the clues were harder than I would have liked. Thank goodness I am not in school and can go ahead and look at other peoples papers to cheat! lol In the end we were able to solve the mystery though and all was well with the school :)

My house is a total disaster! I can't seem to get myself back into a routine after being sick for that week ( I have not missed a single dose of my medicine btw, big pat on the back for me!). I FINALLY have the last load of clothes in the dryer. This is the first time in 3 weeks laundry has been caught up. Of course now it starts all over again. My goals for this week are 1. get this house put back together 2. get a couple of work outs in. Hopefully I can make that work, since there is no school tomorrow I will be all thrown off again this week. Ahh well, cleaning isn't the most important thing right? You wouldn't agree with me if you saw my house right now...

Oh and in other news, I found out that I am going to be an aunt once again. My sister just found out she is expecting baby #2 and will be due sometime in October. I am hoping for a BOY this time!

It has been a long week.. I am tired

"We're gonna have to check with the general manager on that ma'am"

I had a girl scout project planned out for last nights meeting. And by planned out I mean I knew for a month (probably 2) what we would be doing but the procrastinator that I am didn't have any of the stuff actually ready for the meeting. Fast forward to 4:30 yesterday afternoon just 1 hour before we have to leave for the meeting and see me scrambling around the house getting everything ready trying to make the things the girls would be making so they could see the final project ect. Then I realize that I never went and got those straws I have known for a month I would be needing for this project. DANG IT! So I decide that on the way to the meeting I am going to go through the McDonalds drive thru and convince them to give me the straws rather than me going in with both kids and teaching them to steal straws from McDonalds. Here is the conversation that took place at the pick up window.....

Me: Is there any way you would be willing to donate 20 straws for a project for a local girl scout troop or that I could just buy 20 straws from you?

Girl: Ummm. Let me go ask

The manager is right behind her so she turns around and has a 2 minute discussion with him right in front of the window rather that him just speaking to me directly all the while we are holding up the drive thru line at 5:45 pm..... you know fast food rush hour.

Girl: Yeah I just spoke to the manager and he said for us to be able to make a donation we would have to get in contact with our general manager and check with him.

Me: You have got to be kidding me! That is the craziest thing I have ever heard!

Girl with a sympathetic look: I'm sorry

Me: Look. I am not asking you for 20 boxes of straws I am simply asking you for 20 straws. In reality all I have to do is park my car walk in there and take 20 straws off of your counter or you could make my life easier and just hand me 20 straws. I mean come on it is 20 straws.

The manager is still standing there the whole time this conversation transpires. With a very distressed look on his face as though he felt as if his job could possibly be in jeopardy finally gets a bag and tells her to go ahead.

Seriously you would think I was asking for all the money in the cash register with the reaction I got over 20STRAWS!!!! Ey yi yi

Moral of the story. If you ever need McDonalds straws for something leave the kids at home and just walk in and take them off the counter. Yes I am telling you to steal. If it makes you happy leave them a quarter on the counter to cover enough for them to buy back those 20 plus an extra 1000! For petes sake!

Just call me Rainbow Bright!

No one can ever say that I am afraid of color that is for sure! My house is now a rainbow. I am thinking the only color I don't have represented is blue.... maybe the garage can be painted blue that would be cute! For those who have never been to my house, my bedroom is a yellow gold, my master bath is sage green, Mykenzie's room is pink & Kaylee's room is purple (lavender). Last year around this time we painted the girls bathroom a bright orange (you can click here for a reminder). Our loft was red when we moved in and while we repainted it because they did a terrible job but we kept it red. Downstairs our living room is brown our kitchen is purple (Plum) and now our half bath is BRIGHT green! Now I must say that it is MUCH brighter than the swatch I have is but it works out because I love it anyhow! So now 2/3 of the bathrooms in my house blind you when you walk in! LOL That is what Travis says anyhow. I personally love it so I don't really care. I really hope that when we decide not to live here any more the person buying likes color too cause I will be damned if I am repainting over any of it!! I still have some accessories in mind to add but here are some photos :)

BEFORE

AFTER! Isn't it pretty!!

Signed~ ROY G BIV

This could be a record!

I haven't really posted anything in a while. Sure I did my shame on you post but does that really count? Life has been pretty quiet around here the past couple of weeks both by choice and not. Last week I was really sick, I imagine that most of the people that have permission to read this blog already know that I have Inflammatory Bowel Disease(IBD), I call it old man disease. While most of the time I consider myself in "remission" every now and then it rears its ugly head and knocks me on my ass for awhile. I was out for over a week pretty much laying on my couch sick with a few good hours here and there thrown in to trick me into thinking I was better only to be knocked back down on my ass. Anyhow, while I am no longer saying that I feel better cause every time I do I end up sick again, I will say I am no longer couch bound and am able to actually leave my house without panicking. This started Monday afternoon. So I have run a few errands this week but mostly have chosen to stay put. I haven't crafted other than making a couple more bean balls yesterday to fill up the apothecary jar and helping a friend make a tutu. I have my next one planned and the stuff to do it but I haven't gotten around to it. I have to do the girls valentines day boxes for school first.

The girls are doing really good. Mykenzie got her 2nd report card for the year a week or 2 ago and got straight A's for the first time!! 4.0 Baby! She brought her reading grade up from a B which I was sure she would do since she hated reading until the end of the last grading period, now she loves it and reads more than she ever has and has found some books she really enjoys and is reading above her grade level. This is big because before she really hated reading and would get books that were way under her skill level just to take the easy way out. Last night she was reading a 4.2 (fourth grade second month) level. I realize that it isn't how some people are saying oh "Johnny is reading 2 grade levels above where he should be" but it thrills me to no end. This is such a huge improvement to have her actually choosing books she should be reading. I have no doubt that she can read at an even higher level and she will get there soon. I am just so happy she finally loves to read!!

The upcoming weeks are going to be pretty busy. Not insane but I have alot going on this month. Between Mykenzie's dental stuff and girl scouts and both girls have school things and add in Valentines Day,2 no school days and 2 MNO this month is going to seriously fly by. At least most of it is fun stuff though ;)

Shame on you!

If you are reading this blog without my permission by logging on with someone else's identity you need to back yourself right back out of here. If you would like to read try asking ME! I don't have a problem with people reading but don't be sneaky about it. I made it private for a reason. If you are giving out your log in info out to people, shame on you. I wouldn't do that to you! You know who you are, I know who you are, my suggestion... get a new password and don't give it out again.

Project of the day

While walking around Lowes today I stumbled upon some ceramic tiles marked down to 35 cents each! Yay! Perfect for a project I have been wanting to try out. Pair that with the Hobby Lobby 50% off of stamps and ink sale and I have the makings for a pretty sweet craft that I really needed to have anyhow but didn't want to pay $20 for. I got enough to make 2 more sets for gifts too :)


Here are the supplies.....








Finish Product....





Still don't know what it is? Now look... It is a set of 4 coasters :)