Little Mama

Frogger

2012-02-10T18:49:00.007-06:00

This is my hubby's mistress. She's cute in a very green, boxy sort of way. I call her Frogger. She was a gift from my brother in law-I guess she used to be his mistress. So that's kind of weird.

Mike doesn't have a lot of free time but often times when he does he chooses to spend it with her. He tinkers. He gets his hands dirty. He whispers sweet nothings to her like "come on and start up baby!" She's been sitting in our garage for a year now. She wouldn't run. I think she was depressed.

Mike also doesn't have a lot of extra money but when he does get some he buys her parts instead of buying his wife baubles or bangles. I'm not the least bit bitter.

Well, today it all paid off for them. Mike finally got her running and before I knew it she had him and both my kids buckled up, driving off into the sunset. I was left standing in the driveway remembering the time when I had a family.

But then I looked down and realized that she was leaking some sort of fluid as she went. I knew they would have to come back. Seems she was leaking gas which can't be good. I felt kind of sorry for her. After all, since having the kids I've been known to leak a few liquids here and there as well. She looks old and run down. I look old and run down. She has holes in the interior. I have a bad back. I'm pretty sure at least one family of mice has taken up residence in there at one time or another and probably never even told her thank you. I decided a truce was in order. If they ever made it back to the driveway I would welcome them all with open, loving arms. And guess what? They're back.

oh, what a beautiful morning!

2012-02-07T19:05:00.004-06:00

The kids and I had such a great day together today! Since that doesn't always happen I thought I should write it down. We started off the day with a half batch of some homemade whole wheat blueberry muffins. I love the Cookie Madness blog because not only does she always have yummy recipes posted, she often makes half batches in case you're not feeling like making a whole bunch of something.

After breakfast we went to the Y so I could inflict torture upon myself in the form of pilates. Emma Mae does not like going to the YMCA. She says the people in the nursery are scary and she throws a fit every time I drop her off. Of course, every time I pick her up she is totally having fun and smiling so I think it's all a ruse. The work out made me feel so good that I took the kids to the park afterwards to play. It was a gorgeous morning. We even made new friends with a neighbor and her cool Doberman pincher.

When we got home we ate lunch and played a card game together. Everything was going so well until Emma's naptime. She has become a bear at naptime. I would give it up completely except that she is a also a bear when she doesn't take a nap. It took me 30 minutes of laying in bed with her, rubbing her back while trying not to flip out everytime she kicked me or told me that "taking a nap is not my favorite mommy" before she finally sacked out for a couple hours.

Then instead of trying to clean or nap myself I spent the afternoon reading to Jake and just playing with him. So much fun! Too bad it doesn't happen more often around here. Love my kiddos and love the fact I get to stay home with them most of the time while they're little and don't think I'm embarrassing.

My core just isn't what it used to be

2012-02-03T11:20:00.009-06:00

In an effort to get rid of a few pounds and some extra padding around the middle, Mike and I decided to join the YMCA last week. It didn't hurt that they had a special deal going on because we all know by now that I can't pass up a good deal. Running is out for me now because of all the stess it puts on my back and even my walking has been hit or miss lately because of the weather. The great thing about the Y is that they offer lots of different workout classes that I can go to and free childcare so I can go whenever I want. And we can always cancel if we don't feel we're getting enough bang for our buck.

Anyhow, I attended my first class last Saturday. I chose water aerobics. Specifically the "aqua burn" class. It sounded challenging yet like something that wouldn't aggravate my back. So I took my first water aerobics class with five of the nicest senior citizens in Buda, Tx. At first when I saw my fellow aerobicizers I thought that maybe I wouldn't go all out on my workout because I didn't want to put them to shame. Well. I shouldn't have even considered that. These people were lapping me in the pool. We would be running or frog hopping or riding a bike from one end of the pool to the next and I would always start out in the lead. Then before I knew it Richard, the Denises and Scottie would all be passing me up. I was humbled. When it came time for the water noodle workout I was a little stressed out. The instructor gave me a smaller noodle than everyone else and I still had a hard time with it. I could not keep that thing under the water to save my life. Finally, the instructor just looked at me and said "why don't you try this without the noodle for now honey?" Humiliating. However, the others were very understanding and kept trying to council me and tell me that I would get better with time. I honestly don't know if there will be a next time. I actually felt really good afterwards and my back was pain free so I may have to endure further humiliation and keep working out with the seniors.

I also went to a pilates class with people more my age that I loved. It was a great workout and I actually kept up with everyone. Can't wait to go back.

And go back I will because last Sunday the two sweet ladies I teach Sunday School with at church asked me if I was with child. Ya'll. I am not. Let me hand out some advice here that I can't believe I'm having to hand out. Never, and I mean never, ask a lady if she's pregnant. If you have to start out your sentence by saying "can I ask you something without hurting your feelings?" then don't ask it. Because chances are you are going to hurt that persons feelings. I think all three of us wanted to cry when I told them that I was not pregnant but apparently I looked like it in the dress I was wearing. So, hello YMCA! I'll be with you until I no longer appear to be preggo.

Monster juice

2012-02-02T13:52:00.002-06:00

Okay, I've jumped on the green smoothie band wagon. And I really love them! I tried to get the kids to love them by calling it monster juice. They're not that impressed. Here's the recipe I use:

1 banana
1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt
2 cups spinach
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon peanut butter

Put everything in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Lightning, leaks and loveys

2012-01-31T13:22:00.002-06:00

So last Wed. morning as we were getting ready for school our house was struck by lightning. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard. The kids and I all started screaming. Above the screams, I realized that something down the hall was hissing at me. It was our AC/heater unit. I didn't smell gas coming from it but I did smell something weird and I was a little freaked out. So I called Mike. He told me to get the kids and get out of the house. So I did.

I took about five minutes to look around the house and decide what I should take out in case our world blew up that morning. I did get the kids-each with a coat and a pair of shoes on although Emma wasn't wearing any pants and it was cold outside. I grabbed Jake's crab and Emma's favorite blanky. I grabbed my rings and I stuffed my laptop into my new Vera Bradley purse. I grabbed the dog but couldn't find the cat. Didn't even think about the lizard. And then for some reason I grabbed Emma's half eaten cereal bar in case we needed to eat after the house blew up.

We left everything in the house exactly as it was and ran for the car. Then I drove down the street and parked so I could watch the house while I called the gas company. The emergency line. They told me someone would be right out. Then they told me to go back in the house and open all the doors and windows. Now, I didn't want to go back in, but I did. I was hoping I could find my cat while I was in there. No luck. She wouldn't come to me and she wasn't in any of her favorite hiding spots. I went back out to the car.

Almost an hour later, the gas guy still hadn't shown up and the kids were getting restless. They wanted to play a game on a device that was still in the house. I debated about two minutes then I ran back in the house to get it. And this time I also found my cat. Finally, we had everything we needed. I wouldn't have to watch our house blow up knowing my kitty was bbq. The lizard was a whole different story. Sorry Scratchy.

So, finally the gas company arrived and decided the house was safe. There was a leak but it wasn't natural gas. It turned out to be freon. We also had some electrical damage and the modem for our computer got fried. We were without internet for 24 hours. That was the longest 24 hours of my life. $400 later everything is repaired and we are back in business. Pretty eventful day after my birthday!

Nothing that a few cuddles from these two can't make better.

My parents came to see us that morning and took me out for dinner that night. These are the two sweetest parents anyone could ask for. Later, Jake was talking to my dad about the morning. He mentioned that I was "vewy cwanky to Emma" during the whole thing. Possibly because Emma decided to throw a fit about putting on her shoes during this whole escapade. She threw herself on the floor and said she couldn't put on her shoes and, in fact, she couldn't even stand up anymore. Because there is no better time to play control games with your mama then during a possible life changing disaster.

Brother/sister conversations

2012-01-30T18:18:00.006-06:00

Actual conversation between Jake and Emma Mae coming home from school today. Neither one of our children choose to pronounce the "r" or "l" sound yet. So, I'm typing it the way they spoke it.

Emma: "Jake! I got hit two times today and I did not wike it!"

Jake: "Who hit you Emma?"

Emma: "Zachawy did." "Two times."

Jake: "Well, the next time Zachawy hits you just tell him that he's not being nice and you don't want him to hit you ever, ever, ever again! Tell him your friend Jake said so, and also I'm your brother. And then just tell him to go hit someone else."

Emma: long pause..."Jake! Zachawy can't hit other people either. That's not vewy nice."

Jake: "Emma, you wight. Just tell him to go hit himself next time."

Both kids laughing hysterically.

Jake: "Oh Emma! Tell him to hit himself. That's so funny!"

Emma: "you wight Jake! that is funny!"

Both kids spent the next five minutes laughing while hitting themselves on the head. Why can't I be so easily entertained?

42!

2012-01-24T11:07:00.026-06:00

Wow. I'm gettin' on up there. Fairly certain I'm going to need bifocals this year too. Sheesh. But, I hear that you're only as old as you feel and most days I feel forty. Tops.

Some nice hubby bought me these pretty roses. He also gave me a nice card and he gave me a separate card from our offspring. On the front it has a mug shot of a cat with the words GUILTY and STALKING on it. Then you open it up and it says "May birthday happiness follow you everywhere...day and night...always there...every freakin' moment." Signed appropriately enough, Jake and Emma.

We started off the day with a trip to Starbucks because anyone who just turned 42 needs a good jolt of caffeine to get going. I bought the kids their very own hot chocolates which they took two sips of and then declared they were done. Oh, no you didn't. When somebody buys you Starbucks, you drink every single drop. They did eat their entire birthday donut with sprinkles though. And I ate every bit of my berry coffee cake and drank every drop of my FREE grande skinny vanilla latte. The skinny part is very important because even though it's my birthday, I'm not gonna go all crazy with calories. Until someone gives me cake.

Don't ask me why Jake has scissors.

I spent the rest of the morning doing laundry and cleaning the bathrooms. Looks like 42 is going to be just as glamorous as 41 was. At the beginning of the year I declared Tuesdays to be bathroom cleaning day. I wish I had had the foresight to look ahead and see what day my birthday fell on this year. I might have declared Thursday to be bathroom cleaning day instead.

By 1pm Emma Mae had approximately 32 emotional meltdowns and ended up having to go to time out. Which may be why Jake never busted out that chocolate cake he was talking up.

Mike had to go straight to school from work so my sweet friend Leslie insisted that I bring the kids over to her house for a home cooked meal. Thank you Leslie! She made yummy fudge pie for dessert.

Don't ask me why I look so surprised. We took fifty pictures before we came up with this one that's barely passable of me.

I got home from dinner and had these lovelies waiting for me on the doorstep. Thank you Papa and Sally!

And last but certainly not least, my sweet hubby brought home my favorite birthday cake for me after school-chocolate bakery cake with white buttercream frosting. And I don't feel at all guilty eating cake on top of pie. All in all I've had a great birthday. Thank you everyone!

the day before 42

2012-01-23T20:44:00.003-06:00

Well, I had a relatively good last day of being 41. We went to school/work today and our kids were really good. Then we came home and Jake and Emma were really good. I made sure they both knew that tomorrow is my birthday because I want to make sure we have a good day tomorrow and a little prep never hurts anything. Jake was so sweet and told me the necklace he made for me at school today was actually my birthday present. I bet he was glad his teachers made him make a necklace this morning. He is totally covered now. He also told me that he wanted to buy me a birthday cake tomorrow. He even asked me what kind I want. Then he said "okay, mama. i'll buy you a cake as long as you're good and don't put us in time out." Note to self. Teach Jake about unconditional love and selfless giving.

For her part, Emma Mae promised not to have any emotional breakdowns tomorrow that might result in me yelling/screaming/having a rise in blood pressure or pulling my hair out. We'll see how that goes. When I tucked her in bed tonight she said "mama, I have some bad news." I was all "okay?" and she was all "i left a big mess in the playroom, i got a lot of toys in there." So, I told her that it was okay this one time. I think she was just wanting me to know about the mess tonight so I wouldn't see it first thing in the morning. Such a sweet girl!

Birthday week 2012

2012-01-22T14:24:00.004-06:00

It's here! I declare my birthday week begun! I believe deep in my heart that everyone should celebrate their birthday for a full week. So I will be celebrating until midnight on Saturday. Well, who are we kidding? The odds of my being up at midnight on Saturday are non existent so let's just say 10pm Saturday is when birthday week ends for me.

I started things off with a bang today by making my new favorite breakfast-a poached egg and an english muffin with a nice hot cup of mocha cafe. Who is this person I've become? What happened to pancakes and pop tarts?

Then I hauled the kids off to church and afterwards I used my first birthday coupon of the week-a free small sandwich at Schlotsky's. Love it! I think Mike is going to make me watch football tonight which is not my wish really because the Cowboys aren't playing. However, I'm gonna let it slide because last night I made him watch New Moon with me. And that it two hours that we can never get back. Anyhow, let the birthday festivities begin!

Addicted

2012-01-21T12:49:00.012-06:00

So I stayed up late a few nights last week and managed to read the entire trilogy of The Hunger Games books. I loved them! I don't think I've been so hooked on a series since the Harry Potter books came out. Well, okay there was also the Twilight series but I had to enjoy those in private because they were just so embarrassing. Although I'm done with the books, I'm still living with Katniss and Peeta in my head.

Speaking of hunger, this is what 40 pounds of chicken looks like.

Turns out 40 pounds of chicken is way more than I thought it would be. Why do we need 40 pounds of chicken, you ask? Well, let me tell you why. We don't. This is where I need to confess something. I have a recently developed problem. I'm currently working on it with my shrink, otherwise known as Amy. Here's the deal. One of the mom's of a child in my class at mother's day out has this blog called Saving with Shellie. I only discovered it a few months ago. I love it. She tracks down all of the good deals of the day and posts them for those of us who don't like to pay full price for anything. I found lots of good deals for Christmas presents. It's a great website and I recommend visiting it. However, it seems to have awakened some sort of beast within me.

First of all, you have to know that I always try to save money. I don't buy expensive clothes. I hardly ever buy clothes at all. We don't eat out much but when we do it's at moderately priced places and I probably have a coupon for the place. And I'm also the girl who will rinse out zip lock baggies and reuse them. Good for the environment and our bank account. That's a win win situation. We are not poor but we have to watch our money. The problem is that ever since I discovered Shellie's website, I've started buying things just because they are a good deal-not necessarily because we need them. Like when I bought myself a Keurig coffee maker that is regularly $149 for $85. Great deal, right? Except that when I bought it I didn't even like drinking coffee. But for $85 plus the cost of those little K-cups you can bet I learned to love it! In fact, I really look forward to my morning cup of coffee now. Then I bought a skin brush because everyone needs one of those, right? My bargain buying has become a problem. And that's why we now have 40 pounds of chicken in our freezer. Last week, she had a deal from Zaycon foods where you buy 40 pounds of boneless, skinless, steroid free chicken breasts and you get it for $1.67/lb. I couldn't resist. So, now we will be eating chicken every night for three months. Got any good recipes? Or any ideas about how to regain my sanity?

Sorry, it's just a list...

2012-01-19T18:40:00.003-06:00

1.) I went to the dentist for the first time in seven years today. Seven years. I was deeply afraid. Guess what? Perfect teeth! I have to thank my parents for living in Hereford, Tx for a few years while I was young. High flouride in the water equals no cavities for me! Plus, I loved, loved, loved my new dentist office-I may go back in six months instead of six years.

2.) It took Jake about 20 minutes to put his toys away tonight. That's twenty minutes that I will never get back. Because I had to supervise the entire thing. Because although I have explained the organization system put in place in his bedroom about 400 times, he forgets it every single night. Frustrating. During all the putting away, he found two pieces of trash. He asked me what he should do with them. I said "how about you throw them in the trash?" He said okay, but first he had to unzip his pj's all the way down to his feet. Then he began looking in the feet of the pj's and even in his underwear. I was all "jake, what are you doing? that's not where the trash goes." Turns out before he could throw away the trash, he had to find his little toy dinosaur that he had stored in his jammies or underwear first. I'm not sure where exactly he located the little guy because I had to leave the room at that point.

3.) I love it when Jake figures something out for the first time and then says "mommy! i'm smart because I have big brains."

4.) Mike started back to school this week. I'm so proud of him. Please pray for my sanity as I am home by myself with the little people more and more.

5.) I have exactly four more days as a 41 year old person. Strangely, I'm okay with that. I have an entire day planned of freebies for my birthday.

6.) You may remember how crushed I was to learn that Rick Springfield was no longer doing the Rick and friends cruises. Well. I discovered a few days ago that instead of a cruise this year they are doing a Rick and friends vacay to Cancun and everyone is staying at Club Med. Fun! How I wish I had $2000 sitting around and nothing to do with it. You can even pay extra to take acting lessons with him! I would totally do that.

7.) We've had some balmy days in the 70's around here this week. Weird having a warm January, but it has made for some glorious days of park fun for the kids.

8.) One last thing. I want to see a movie for my birthday. Possibly all by myself. Should I see Mission Impossible whatever or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or the new Sandra Bullock movie? What's the hot ticket these days?

Princess Em

2012-01-15T18:31:00.004-06:00

I am having the hardest time lately getting good pictures of Emma Mae. She's either twirling around so they come out blurry or she's got some surly expression on her face. But I had to try today since she was wearing her new princess skirt. She actually requested that we call her Princess today instead of Emma. And on the occasions when I slipped up and called her by her given name she quickly corrected me and said "Mama! I Princess, not Emma, 'k?" Girl knows what she wants. Of course later I overheard Jake telling her "hey, Princess? I really just want to call you Emma. Would that be okay?" And she said "sure"! For she is a kind and benevolent princess. If only the queen over here had realized it would be that easy to get her to go back to the name she was born with. And look, I know her hair is a mess. We had it up in a ponytail most of the day which was fabulous, but she tore it out for picture time.

Captain Jake

2012-01-14T08:57:00.000-06:00

A true Superhero, even in his sleep.

Oh My Goodness

2012-01-10T18:38:00.002-06:00

I know everyone thinks their children are adorable, but seriously our children are adorable. I love watching them interact when they're being silly and not fighting. This is from a photo shoot we did just before Christmas. It was one of those deals where they offer you a "Christmas special" of just $14.95 and an hour later you walk out of there with $100 less in your bank account. Gets me every single time.

Emma Mae

2012-01-08T14:05:00.007-06:00

You know the moment you realize that it is way too quiet in your house? In this case, we realized that Emma Mae had been very quiet in her room for about half an hour. This is what Miss Thing gets up to when left to her own devices. She stacks things. She organizes. She loves to take all of her little toys out of their baskets and put them into other containers. Or spread them on the floor. Whatever. I see a future for her working at the Container Store or something.

Bringing in the new year

2012-01-03T19:16:00.008-06:00

Whew. I'm kind of glad the holiday season is over. I love it, but after six weeks of celebrating various things I'm pooped. Time to get this family back on a good schedule.

I took the kids to Amarillo to visit my parents the day after Christmas. They did really well on the long drive. We ended up staying until New Year's Eve because the heater in our JEEP decided to go AWOL at long last. The last two hours of our drive the heater didn't work at all. It was 22 degrees outside. And it was 22 degrees in our car because not only would the heater not work, but I couldn't turn off the cold air either. The kids were bundled up with their blankets in the back while I was shivering in the front with cold, arctic air blowing in my face. Luckily, the car's seat heaters were working. However, they work too well. You can turn them on for about five minutes before the flesh in your thighs and booty starts to sear. So, to keep warm I turned on the seat heater and sat on my hands alternately for ten minute stretches to keep my core body temperature up. It was lovely. Anyhow, when my daddy found out about the driving conditions he took our JEEP to his mechanic and got it fixed forthwith. Do you watch Blue Bloods? I love the way the cops are always saying "forthwith."

Anyhow, we made it back home on New Year's Eve about 6:30. I was so tired from the week of sleeping in the same room with a thrashing Emma Mae and a sleep talking Jake that I didn't care to even pretend to want to stay up and usher out 2011 or say hello to 2012. We were in bed by 9pm. Unfortunately, that was about the time our neighbors decided to start shooting off fireworks. Really? I guess I understand fireworks at midnight on NYE but three hours of fireworks? Our dog was a mess. He is 130 pounds of pure dog until you start making things go BOOM! Then he quickly turns into a shivering, neurotic chihuahua of a dog. Needless to say, no sleep was to be had until after midnight. Bahumbug.

We spent the first day of 2012 recovering while watching Dora and Diego explore the world. Thanks to Pioneer Woman we had a delightful dinner of drip beef sandwiches and black eyed pea dip. Yum. Later, against my better judgement I decided to watch the Cowboys play for a spot in the playoffs. Oh, Cowboys. You keep breaking my heart. And I just keep coming back to you. Well, no more. I've decided that the next football team that comes along and treats me the way I want to be treated is getting my undivided attention next year. Your tight pants, trick plays and time management skills no longer have a hold on me. I think I'm quitting you. I just hope the next team I decide to back has a cutie patootie quarterback that can lead them to the Super Bowl.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-24T14:11:00.010-06:00

To you and yours...

From me and mine...

Merry Christmas! Hoping that you feel the presence of God with you today and that any darkness in your world is overcome by His amazing light.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." John 1: 1-5

"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14

"She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" (which means "God with us"). Matthew 1:21-23

Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T14:06:00.007-06:00

Christmas gifts wrapped?

Check.

Pies made?

Check.

Cookies for Santa?

Check.

Cutie patooties?

Check.

Time for my favorite day of the entire year! Only wish all of our family was together...

Our days in pictures

2011-12-23T20:07:00.012-06:00

Jake's birthday.

Decorating gingerbread man cookies.

Live nativity.

Buda trail of lights.

Cinnamon roll day.

Sea World!

Sea World continued.

Christmas stuff

2011-12-19T13:30:00.009-06:00

Now that Jake's birthday is over I feel like we can officially get down to Christmas. I had most of our shopping done before Thanksgiving but I felt like we hadn't done any real "Christmas-y" things with the kids.

We got out our elf on the shelf and read the book. However, we are really bad about remembering to move him from spot to spot. If you haven't read this blog post about over achieving elf on the shelf parents you should do so right now. I couldn't stop laughing and couldn't agree with her more! Needless to say, we're lucky if Elfis manages to change locations once a week. He fell over on the curtain rod three days ago and has been there ever since. I told the kids he must be really tired from his late night trips to the North Pole. Sad.

I haven't even baked any Christmas cookies this year. Bad little mama! But, thanks to my sister we did get to decorate some gingerbread cookies this year. She brought some cookies she had baked for her kindergarten class over to Jake's birthday party. She even brought the icing so I really had no excuse for not decorating them with the kids.

We tried to make a Christmas craft that Mike's mom sent for the kids to do. I discovered that I'm really good at gluing things together and that the kids lose interest in gluing things after about 45 seconds.

Sunday night we took the kids into "big church" with us to see our church's Singing Christmas tree performance. It was incredible. Emma Mae lasted about fifteen minutes before Mike had to drop her off in the nursery. Jake lasted the entire performance and it actually made me cry to see how interested and excited he was about everything. He loved seeing baby Jesus' birth and kept asking me when the mean king was going to show up. I love that his heart is so tender right now.

Tonight, we plan on taking the kids to our local trail of lights and we will be going to Sea World on Thursday to see how marine mammals celebrate Christmas. Let the festivities begin!

FIVE!

2011-12-19T12:41:00.007-06:00

Well, Jake turned five on Dec. 14th and I'm just getting around to documenting the big day. That Wednesday was also our last day at Mother's Day Out for this semester. We have a nice three week break coming up. Anyway, his teachers let me bring in donut holes for the class snack on his birthday and they all sang happy birthday to him and he got to wear his very own birthday crown all day.

My mom and dad came to visit so they could be here also. We had a family dinner to celebrate. My sister was able to come which was so nice. I made baked potato soup, salad and sour dough bread. For the pi'ece de resistance, we bought Jake his very first ice cream cake. It was in the form of a soccer ball even. He couldn't have cared less. I think he was just birthdayed out. He didn't even want a piece of cake after dinner. What?! He has since tasted (and loved even) the cake so I feel that was $35 well spent. Who knew it cost so much to slap a little ice cream on some cake?

Jake was rewarded for making it to five with a TICKET TO SEA WORLD from my parents! He is counting down the days until Thursday when we will actually see our beloved Shamu in whale again. My sister (supposedly by way of recommendation from my niece Katie) bought Jake his first gun. Sure it's one of those Nerf things that shoots soft bullets that can't hurt anything. I'm just gonna say that Mike ambushed me while I was, ahem, using the potty the other day. Totally defenseless. Cheryl neglected to think about what my hubby would do with a gun in the house. I live in fear people. Fear.

Mike and I bought Jake a Leap Frog Explorer so he can play games and get ready for pre-school all by himself. Oh, I kid. I will totally play that game with him. Today, we had a minor scare about it though. The volume wasn't working. He had dropped it in the parking lot of WalMart the other day so I just knew he had already broken it after just five days. I was about to go on a litany about how important it is to take care of our toys and how I wasn't about to shell out more money on a brand new game when I googled the problem and discovered that there is an actual volume button on the toy that was just turned down. Problem solved.

All in all Jake had a wonderful birthday week. I can't believe he is five years old. He is the busiest, most talkative, most imaginative, funniest, most handsome and loving five year old I know. I'm pretty proud of him.

Birthday Bash

2011-12-11T15:56:00.006-06:00

My sweet baby boy is turning 5 on Wednesday. Let's not discuss the ramifications of this particular birthday. Like the fact that it means he is required to start Kindergarten next year and leave me alone with little girl who is already having mood swings that are the emotional equiavalent of a pre-menstrual teenager who just got dumped by her boyfriend and discovers there is no ice cream in the house. All I'm saying is that Emma Mae is a bit moody. I need a little testosterone around in the day to counter balance her.

This year we decided to invite all of Jake's classmates at mother's day out to his party along with our neighbors and other friends. And that is why we decided to have his party at an outside location to prevent me from having an aneurism burst in my brain from the stress of having so many people in our house. I also decided not to make anything from scratch and not to worry about decorations. I wanted to keep it simple.

So we arranged to have a swimming party at our local YMCA and I think the kids had a ball. We ended up only having about ten kids show up but they had the pool all to themselves and between Mike and another over zealous dad they played sharks and minnows to their hearts content.

Jake decided he wanted to have a Spiderman theme again this year. Mike baked the cupcakes for me while I tried to mix up some red and blue icing to make Spiderman cupcakes. I learned a very important lesson Saturday morning. Red icing is one of the hardest things in the world to make. I won't tell you how much red food coloring I put in that icing because it's probably against all FDA regulations, but it was a lot. And the cupcakes still looked hot pink to me. Of course in the picture, they look orange. Whatever.

Jake had a great time with his friends and has been playing non stop with all of his new toys. In fact, he told us that he doesn't want any more toys when Santa comes. So there may be a rather unhappy plump gentleman visiting us in a few days. All he wants is a "ticket to Sea World" and this nearly five year old boy will be as happy as Spiderman in a room full of super villians.

Jalapeno's, naughty bits and DNA

2011-12-05T17:07:00.006-06:00

1.) Tonight I found out what it feels like when jalapeno juice squirts in your eye. The words hellfire and brimstone come to mind. Also, torturous and someone please gauge out my eyes. On a brighter note, the Chuy's creamy jalapeno ranch dip I made is delicious. Turns out I can still taste even without my eyesight.

2.) The other day I found myself in the rather uncomfortable situation of naming the parts of our body that pee comes out of for Jake. And how the parts are different in girls and boys. Every ounce of my being wanted to give him cutsie names like "pee pee" and "hoo hoo" or even "peanut" in honor of Amy's cute Jack. But I put on my big girl panties (that's right I said it!) and I told him penis and vagina. ICK. Then I thought I might as well go get Emma Mae and make her watch a video about getting your period to see if she had any questions. But then I squirted jalapeno juice in my eye and decided to hold off for twenty more years.

3.) Is anyone still reading? If so, I finally scored a Hot Wheels Wall track set for Jake at Target the other day. This toy is the crack of Christmas 2011. I guess everyone wants one because the stores have been sold out since just before Thanksgiving. I left our hotel room in Kansas City at 12:45am on Black Friday to go across the street to Kohl's to pick one up because I saw they were going to have them on sale. They had four left when I got there. I got mine and wandered the store for the next ten minutes looking for the end of the line. It was insane. I waited in line for about 15 minutes and then I started sweating profusely. Next, my stomach started cramping up and I felt like I was going to pass out. I couldn't even carry the toy anymore because I had no strength in my limbs. I debated for about five minutes about whether or not I could continue to sacrifice my body for a Hot Wheels set. In the end, I set my toy down and walked out into the cold night air in shame and humiliation. I just don't have what it takes for Black Friday shopping. It is clearly an event that proves the theory of survival of the fittest. In a world of malls and over crowded stores my DNA failed me. Which is why my DNA decided to finish my Christmas shopping online. Evolution, look at me now!

A little recap

2011-12-03T13:47:00.012-06:00

Oh, let's see. Where to begin? I'll start with Thanksgiving. We took the kids on a 13 hour road trip to Kansas City to see Mike's family this year. Jake and Emma Mae did surprisingly well on the trip. I'm thankful for portable DVD players. We ended up staying at a Fairfield Inn in Kansas City the first two nights of our trip. My friend Kara works for Marriot and got us a good deal on a room. I'm thankful for friends who work for major hotel corporations.

Jake and Emma were stoked about their first hotel stay. Well, technically Jake stayed at a Hyatt resort with us once for approximately six hours when he was nine months old. It was a trip that ended in us checking out of the hotel in shame at midnight because he wouldn't stop crying. This time, it was Emma Mae who decided to serenade us with the melodious sounds of "I CAN NOT GO TO SLEEP!" and the like for an hour and a half before she finally passed out from exhaustion.

On Thanksgiving we went over and had dinner with Mike's dad, his wife Sally and Mike's sister Mickey and her family. Sally made a Thanksgiving spread like I have never seen before. Except maybe at a restaurant buffet. There was so much food I couldn't even taste it all. Incredible. They let me watch the Cowboys play football afterwards so I was very happy. We were also able to visit Mike's grandma who lives in a retirement home there and his mom was there that day too. That night we took the kids swimming at the hotel and they passed out by 9pm instead of 11pm like the night before.

On Friday we all went to the Kansas City Zoo. It was very cold outside so the crowds were at a minimum. The kids loved it! We stayed pretty much all day. They rode on their first carousel and thought that was pretty much fun. Emma Mae had the biggest smile on her face!

For once the lions were happy and didn't try to attack Jake. Sweet.

This guy was one of the main attractions.

We spent Saturday visiting with Mike's mama and with his friend David and David's sweet mama Shari. Shari invited the kids to go swimming in their new, fantastic indoor olympic size pool. They were in heaven! We had such a good trip and it was great to see everyone for a little while. We started the 13 hour ride home late Saturday night, stopped in Oklahoma City for a few hours of sleep and got back home Sunday afternoon. I'm tired just thinking about it! Thanks to everyone in Kansas City and Bethany!

We're Back!

2011-12-01T14:19:00.002-06:00

Pictures today. Potential words tomorrow.

What's the skinny?

2011-11-15T15:15:00.004-06:00

I have only one thought for today. And that thought is, what happened to my waist? It's gone and I really do miss it. It was so cute and little and indented.

I looked for it at the bottom of a big bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough but I couldn't find it. Then I looked in a big pan of chocolatey brownies for it but no dice. I fear it may be hiding in a salad or, worse yet, a bowl of raw vegetables.

There is also this little voice in my head that keeps telling me I have to do some time traveling and go all the way back to 2005 before I became pregnant with baby number one to find it. And that's a lot of work. I'm not sure I'm cut out for it anymore.

Be still my heart

2011-11-14T06:00:00.001-06:00

He says he wants to marry her.

He says she is the girl he likes the best in all the world.

I know he can't marry her but still I think that is the sweetest thing. And although we're not encouraging the whole marriage thing, we are encouraging the whole best friend thing. I hope it sticks.

Odds and ends

2011-11-12T14:34:00.005-06:00

1.) We have the birthday situation under control. I booked a party at the YMCA for just $20 more than the groupon for Emler. The kids will get to swim in an indoor pool for an hour and then play games/eat cake in a different room for an hour. And the best part is they won't be at our house!

2.) The mighty Panthers had their last soccer game of the season today. I'd like to say that they went out with a bang and that this was Jake's best game yet. However, only one child on the Panthers team really came to play soccer today. The other six children came to wander around aimlessly, pick grass, shoot invisible webs out of their invisible spiderman hands, fall down or cry. Or a combination of any of the above. I wish I could say that Jake was the one kid who came to play but alas, he was of the six. They all got a medal at the end of the game and Jake can't wait to play again next season.

3.) Little girl has been cracking me up lately. Whenever we talk about food she looks at me and says "mama! it might be ta-sty!"

4.) I'm obsessing over a pair of Tom's shoes. I only recently discovered Tom's because I live under a rock but they are so cute! We normally don't spend much on shoes. Who am I kidding? We normally don't buy shoes period. But, I think I'm gonna have to buy me a pair for Christmas. Plus, I guess they donate a pair of shoes to the underprivelaged with every pair you buy. That sounds nice.

5.) Have I told you that some lucky people just got back from the last ever Rick Springfield and friends cruise? Have I told you how bummed I am that I never got to go on one? Hopefully, one day when we have an extra $2000 lying around Rick will reinstigate the cruise and Amy and I can go. Of course, by the time that happens he will probably be in his 70's. I hope he's still jammin' then.

Sit down, this may take awhile...

2011-11-09T19:32:00.014-06:00

Back in the summer, I bought a Groupon for a swimming party at a heated indoor pool for $99. The company is called Emler and they have two branches in Austin. We actually went to a party for one of our neighbors children there a few weeks before I saw the Groupon. It was a fun party and I thought it would be cool to do the same thing for Jake's 5th birthday this year. At $99 the Groupon was also a steal.

On Tuesday I got out my trusty Groupon and called Emler to book the party. Some sweet teenage girl answered the phone and told me that all of the Groupon parties had been booked for the year but they could certainly fit me in next summer. I was all "well, that doesn't really work for me because my child's birthday is in the actual winter month of December." And she was all "oh." And I was all "can I talk to a manager?" And she was all "okay."

So next up was the customer relations manager. Now, she was very nice and professional and I could tell she was OVER this Groupon business. It seems Groupon had sold all of these coupons with the wrong expiration date on them. Emler had agreed to book parties until Nov. 30th but Groupon put the expiration date as Dec. 17th on the coupon. Which is why I bought the thing. Because Jake's birthday is Dec. 14th. And, also it was a steal.

So, I told her that I understand that mistakes happen but that I still needed to book my child's birthday party so what was she going to do about it? She informed me that I could either have his party the weekend of Thanksgiving or I could have his party during the summer months. Because every five year old wants to wait half a year to celebrate his birthday. It makes the day that much more special when you have to wait an eternity to party. I mean six months in five year old time is like 7 years. So, I told her that wasn't going to work and who has birthday parties the weekend of Thanksgiving? For one thing, we'll be out of town that weekend and even if we weren't chances are all of the guests would be. It would just be me, Mike, Jake and Emma Mae bobbing around in the pool like little corks in a big ocean. Oh, and she also told me I could pay an extra $250 and have his party on Dec. 10th just like I wanted. Now, it's clear to me that the reason I bought the $99 Groupon is because there is no way in the world we would spend $350 on a birthday party. Unless it was to get Rick Springfield to play at my party.

She told me she realized that this whole thing was very disappointing but she really couldn't do anything else. Now. I'm thinking she didn't have any children of her own. Because disappointing is a mild word when you have to tell your child that his cool indoor swimming pool birthday party in the middle of winter isn't going to happen. Needless to say, I haven't told him yet. I'm hoping he takes it much better than I am.

Anyway, I spent the next ten minutes on the phone with the people at Groupon who told me that just ten minutes ago they had worked all of this out with Emler and he was going to call them to straighten everything out. Either he would call me back with a refund or they would call me back to book my party. No one ever called me back.

The next day I called back to Emler and asked for their corporate office phone number. Again, sweet little teenager on the phone without a clue what I meant. Finally, she found a number for the site director of their property. I called her and left a detailed message and asked her to call me back. She didn't.

This morning I called Groupon and demanded my refund. They obliged. Not two hours later the site director called me and left a message saying that although the mistake was not Emler's fault they would be happy to book my party on Dec. 11th from 6pm to 8pm. Seriously? Not an ideal time for a party but I was going to take it. However, when I called Groupon back to see if I could reverse the refund they said no. Ugh. What's a mama got to do around here??

So, basically my idea for a hassle free, super cool, memorable party for the Jakester is not happening. I'm trying to decide if I want to scrap the idea of a party all together or have our same old try to squeeze people into our house while I try to decorate an awesome cake and clean the house and not stress out at all party. What to do?

Are you there God? It's me Little Mama.

2011-11-08T13:42:00.005-06:00

Emma Mae had a full on temper tantrum that lasted about 20 minutes today when I put her down for her nap. She didn't want to take her nap and she didn't care when I told her she would feel better after a rest. She begged me to lay in bed with her, but when I did she lay there sniffling and crying and telling me to let her out of her room. So I told her that if she didn't stop whining I was going to leave the room. That elicited a ten minute monologue of all of the reasons why she couldn't stop whining and crying. Sheesh.

Through all of that I started thinking how parenting these children was surely a much smaller scale of God trying to parent all of us. I wonder how many times He has thought "Wow. What is she whining about now? And why can't she stop? She prayed for me to give her these children for ten years and now that she has them she continues to complain."

I began to think that all my children want from me is me. They want my time. This morning Jake wanted me to be Darth Vader to his Luke Sky Walker. He was so happy for that fifteen minute block of my undivided attention where we fought to the death and saw how good wins over evil. Every single time. However, to get those fifteen minutes he had to wait for me to check my e-mail, clean up the breakfast dishes and put on a load of laundry.

I feel like that's how I treat God most of the time too. And all He really wants is me. My time. Shouldn't I feel honored that He would want to know me at all? Should He really have to wait for me to not be busy?

So, I started thinking about how a phone call from God to me would go. It would probably start with God wanting to know how I was doing and me asking Him to hold on a minute while I clean up the dog vomit, fold some clothes and try to get the kids to sleep because goodness knows I can't talk on the phone when the kids are awake! And then when I finally got a chance to talk to God I would probably start off asking Him to do all sorts of things for me like give us more money, give me more patience with the kids, give me more friends, heal everyone I know who is sick and make my daughter eat vegetables.

Wow. Sounds kind of like my children talking to me everyday! They come at me from the minute they wake up until the minute they go to bed wanting something from me or needing me to do something for them. It's exhausting.

It's a good thing that God is too big for exhaustion because waiting for us to fit Him into our lives and then whining and complaining the whole time about our lives would probably be more than He could take. He should just tune us out.

Last night after I got Emma Mae out of the bathtub she asked me to sit with her on the couch and watch Scooby Doo. Now, I've seen Scooby Doo more times than I care to admit and I could die happy without watching anymore. But my little girl wanted to spend time cuddled up with me on the couch so this time I obliged. I put aside the laundry and the dishes and I sat with her on the couch. And instead of watching Scooby she looked at me and put her little hands on the side of my face and said "Mommy, I love you sooo much! You're the most pretty, funny, silly girl I know and you are my favorite girl in the whole world!" Melted my heart. Because for the first time that day instead of wanting or needing or taking from me she praised me. She loved me. She told me the things that she likes about me.

Isn't that what God really wants from us? A time in the day when we stop complaining, stop asking and just honor Him for who He is and for what He has done? So at the end of my imaginary phone call with God I hope I would tell Him good job on creating the world! That opposable thumb thing is awesome! I hope I would thank Him for making the oceans with all of its wonders. I hope I would tell Him that He is the most awesome, grace giving, merciful being in the universe and that I love Him above all else.

Show me your pumpkin recipes

2011-11-05T19:19:00.015-06:00

I love fall! It has finally cooled down to where we only have highs in the upper seventies or low eighties. Today, we actually had to wear jackets to Jake's soccer game. My parents drove a whole lot of hours to come down and watch my nephew Tom play football last night and then they drove more hours to get to Jake's game this morning. Then they turned around and drove a whole lot of hours to get back to Amarillo so dad could teach his Sunday School class tomorrow. They are super sweet. Or super crazy. Or maybe both.

The mighty Panthers fought bravely today but were pounced upon by the more focused Tigers. It's okay because I seriously doubt a single Panther realized they actually lost the game. My dad got a great picture of Jake at the end of the fourth quarter (before the game was over mind you) where he is alone in the middle of the field with both hands raised majestically over his head. I wish I could tell you he was praising the Lord but he was actually shooting Spider man webs at some unseen foe in the sky. While his team was playing the actual soccer game behind him.

Anyhoo, this fall weather has led me to do some serious baking. Oh, who are we kidding? Any slight dip in barometric pressure can lead me to bake. I actually don't need an excuse to seriously bake. As evidenced by my expanding waistline. But I do love the smell of baking pumpkin in the fall. Here are a few of the things in our kitchen lately.

These are my favorite pumpkin muffins. They have cream cheese in them and they are delightful.

These are my favorite pumpkin brownies. They have a layer of pumpkin in between two layers of chocolate. Phenomenal.

These are some pumpkin bars with cream cheese icing I made yesterday. They actually taste more like cake than a bar. And they are not my favorite but they are still quite good. I'll call them moist and pumpkiny-spicy. Autumnal even.

What about you? Show me (or just tell me) your favorite pumpkin recipe.

Halloween 2012

2011-11-03T12:54:00.007-06:00

I'm finally getting a chance to blog about Halloween! My friend Eva and her hubby brought their three cute girls over to go trick or treating with us this year. They have recently moved back to central Texas and live out in "the country" with no neighbors so I thought they might like to go around our neighborhood with us.

Some of our neighbors get SO into Halloween. It's really fun. A couple of the houses had a whole spread out in their driveways including snow cone machines, popcorn machines, cookies and games. It felt like being at a carnival!

This year I let the kids decide what they wanted to dress up as for Halloween. Jake picked Spiderman (of course!) and Emma Mae picked Tinker Bell which is good because she already had a Tink costume in her closet so we didn't have to go shopping.

They had so much fun. I have to say it was a much quieter Halloween trick or treating with three well behaved girls as opposed to running around with Jake and Friend Aiden! as in years past.

Although we did run into Friend Aiden! about an hour into the festivities. He was also dressed as Spider Man. They are like two peas in a pod. The boys were joyful to see each other and spent the next thirty minutes hounding people for candy. Then the weirdest thing happened. Both of our kids decided they had enough candy and they wanted to go home. Really?! I don't think I ever voluntarily stopped trick or treating. Amazing.

Spectacular Spiderman

2011-10-28T16:30:00.011-05:00

The best gift Jake has ever received is this Spiderman costume my friend Katha gave him for his birthday last year. He has made use of it more than anything else he owns-with the exception of his beloved crab.

I think it is hilarious that he needs to cover it up with clothes when he's being SpiderMan's alter ego Peter Parker. He seriously thinks no one will know he is Spiderman if he has a short sleeve shirt and shorts on over it.

Yesterday, he dressed it up with a hat so he could wear the mask but still be incognito. We went to the park with him dressed like that. Surprisingly, some of the children there recognized him as Spider Man despite the disguise. He was called upon to fight evil and save the park from the bad guys. He did not fail. Except when some older boys pulled a toy shot gun and a toy knife on him and scared the heck out of him and made him cry. Seriously? You let your child bring these things to the park?? Of course, their mama's were probably thinking, "seriously? you let your child dress like that out in public?"

Spidey loves to play at the park.

Emma Mae declined to play the role of Mary Jane and went about her business all by herself. These two crack me up every single day.

Six years!

2011-10-23T06:09:00.002-05:00

Today Mike and I are celebrating our 6th year wedding anniversary. Six years ago today we got married in a park over looking the ocean in California. It was one of the best days of my life. Perfect spot. Perfect amount of friends and family (except for a few out of state friends we missed). Perfect person for me to marry. Since then we have moved to two different states, somehow lived through the deaths of my two beloved pets (which I'm convinced I couldn't have done without Mike), had two adorable little kids and moved into our first official house. Wow. That seems like quite a bit for just six years. The one thing we haven't done yet is taken a honeymoon. Maybe for our ten year anniversary??

Not every day since then has been perfect because I am not perfect. As hard as I try I know I am a difficult human being to live with. So I thank my hubby for putting up with me and for doing so with a smile on his face almost all of the time. I thank him for not seeing the bags under my eyes or the wrinkles on my face. I thank him for taking over with the kids when he sees I've had enough. And I thank him for working so hard while going to school to give us a better future. You're awesome honey!

We've actually been celebrating this anniversary for the past two weeks. Mike arranged for a babysitter a couple weeks ago and took me out to dinner (yummy shrimp tacos) and a movie. Then, a week later we did something wild and crazy. Something that we had both wanted to do for years. Something that says, "yeah, we're married and old and tired but we're still super cool." We decided to forgo the traditional six year gift of candy, iron or metal and opted for ink instead. Ya'll. We got tattoos. Because nothing says I love you like permanent marker.

It was really a fun bonding experience for us. We drove into down town Austin and went to this place called Electric 13. The two guys there were awesome. Mike knew exactly what he wanted (USMC on his arm) and even took in a picture of the font he wanted it to be done in. I, of course, was more on the vague side. I wanted a small cross and a small, realistic looking dolphin. I was thinking something tiny on my ankle or foot. Well. My tattoo artist, Mig, drew up something combining the cross and the dolphin that was really cool without looking like the dolphin was being crucified. But I felt it was too big for my ankle. So I opted for my lower back.

The entire time we discussed doing this I was really worried about Mike. He has a fear of needles and pain. I may have done a little smack talking. But I've been pregnant twice and had two c-sections so I really thought I could handle this tattoo stuff. Well. It hurt. The parts on my spine hurt a lot. I even said owie once but trust me I was thinking of other words in my head. Mike did really well aside from his arm falling asleep during the procedure. Three hours after arriving we walked out with fresh ink and a new zip to our step. And no sooner had we gotten in the car than Mike turned to me and said "what do you want to get next time?"

Pardon the back fat. When did I get that??! It's really hard to get a decent photo of the tattoo without showing a little skin. I apologize, but some of my friends have been hounding me for pictures. And yes, my dolphin's tail is a little disconnected from his body. Several people tell me that's how it is supposed to look but I'm considering going back in to get him to fix that.

We also went to a wedding Friday night. Mike was a groomsman. It was nice to get all dressed up and go out!

How can I wear out the children?

2011-10-20T21:36:00.005-05:00

Today Mike had to leave for school at 7am and I knew he wouldn't be back home until 10pm so I decided to pack the day with activities to keep us busy. First things first, I had to let Jillian Michaels back into my living room. It's getting a bit too chilly to take the kids on our usual morning walks so I'm resorting to a work out video to get my exercise. I hate it. Emma sat in there watching me the whole time going "mama! you doing exercise?" So normally the things I would say out loud to Jillian about her workout torture had to be kept silent in my brain. That was a work out in itself.

Later I took the kids to a new bouncy house place that I had a coupon for. Jake hooked up with several boys his age there and they just took off being super heroes the entire time. I think it is just in a boys DNA to fight bad guys and ward off evil. Poor Emma Mae had to play by herself a lot because the boys just didn't want her around. To make it up to her I took them to Chick Fil A for lunch afterwards. She loved it. Jake whined the entire time that he wanted to go home because he was so tired and said he just really doesn't like chicken.

As it turns out, when I got them home they both felt feverish. I loaded them up with Ibuprofin and told them to both take a nap. Amazingly, Jake perked up after laying down for ten minutes. It took Emma ten minutes of screaming in her room that she was "NOT TIRED MOMMY!" before she passed out for the next hour and a half. I will never understand why you would fight someone who is telling you it is okay to go lay down and go to sleep in the middle of the day. I would bring that person gifts and tell them that I will love them forever.

After naptime, we went to WalMart because I've been promising Jake that we would replace his old Spiderman costume before Halloween. He lost the mask and the costume itself is riddled with holes. Spiderman has been a busy guy. Well, our WalMart didn't have the cheaper $10 model in his size so I ended up spending more money on a muscular Spidey that turned out to be two sizes too big for Jake. I immediately had buyers remorse but I cannot pry that thing out of Little Man's hands. He keeps telling me that it is falling down on him, but when I tell him we should take it back and look for something in a smaller size he gets very misty eyed and says that he will just grow into it tomorrow.

Also, he brought me the old costume tonight and said "mama, can we just give this old one to those people who need things?" Clearly, my talks of giving to those less fortunate than us are sinking in. Sure, it would be nice if he wanted to give the less fortunate nice, good things instead of stained up things with more holes than swiss cheese. I have to remind myself we're making baby steps here. And I remind myself that he is saving up his allowance money to buy his sister a new doll. And maybe some chicken nuggets because goodness knows he doesn't need any of those for himself.

2011-10-13T20:45:00.007-05:00

We started today with a little bit of this...

then we did a little bit of this...

(that's watercolor all over Em's face)
then we did a whole lot of this...

Top 10 reasons I'm fairly certain I'm losing my mind

2011-10-12T18:01:00.004-05:00

1.) The other morning I asked Jake three times if he wanted me to make him some soap (instead of toast) for breakfast. Shockingly, he said no.

2.) That evening I made myself a nice salad for dinner and went to the fridge to get some salad dressing but came back with peach jelly.

3.) The next morning I tried to heat the syrup up in the spice cabinet instead of the microwave. Shockingly, that did not work.

4.) Today as Emma was pressing a chocolate granola bar all over the kitchen table making a huge mess I just said "that's cool" when she informed me she was making chocolate patterns.

5.) For the last month I've been asking friends what happened to our local Christian music station because I wasn't able to tune into it in our car anymore. I also couldn't seem to get it to come in at work so I figured it had gone off air. My friend Jana told me she was listening to it every day so I verified the FM number for it and tried it again the next morning. No dice. This lasted an entire month ya'll until I discovered last week that I was really just dialing in the wrong number. 100.5 instead of 105.9. I am Crazy.

6.) Frequently losing my words. I've just stopped talking because so much of the time I can't think of the word I'm trying to say.

7.) Totally can't remember the other four reasons I know I'm losing my mind....HELP!

Tuesday, tuesday

2011-10-11T07:08:00.006-05:00

Our air conditioner decided to take a leave of absence Thursday evening. I think it was feeling under appreciated. After all, it has kept us cool through 100 days of 100plus degree weather this year. And we hadn't said thank you or bought it anything nice lately. Also, a bird committed suicide inside of the unit. We finally got someone to come out and fix it yesterday afternoon. Evidently, air conditioner repairmen don't do weekends. And really, what are the odds that someone in central Texas might need AC assistance on a weekend? I'm sure we're the only ones. Fortunately, we got a little cool front in over the weekend that kept our house a toasty 85 degrees instead of an unbearable 103. In fact, I think we all got used to the warmer inside temps because after he fixed it yesterday Emma Mae woke up from her nap saying "mummy, I soooo cold!" And this crazy wet stuff fell from the sky for about four hours on Sunday. I believe it is called rain and I believe we are very grateful for it.

Today, I took Jake and Emma Mae to run errands with me which is their very favorite thing on earth. They were pretty good while we were out so we made a pit stop at the pumpkin patch and I let them pick out some little pumpkins for themselves. When we got home they promptly got out the markers and stickers and decorated their pumpkins. We also made not one but two trips to the park today. And those kids were still full of energy at bedtime. I am not. I feel like the AC must have felt last week. Here are some pics from the day.

Go Panthers!

2011-10-08T17:26:00.004-05:00

The Panthers played valiantly today but if you keep score based on how many goals each team scored then I have to say they lost the game. If you keep score based on the fact that everyone is a winner then I guess they won. Jake did really well. He got in there and kicked the ball some even when it was surrounded by other kids. He is still very bummed that he hasn't scored an actual goal during a game though.

Is this the cutest pony tail you've ever seen??

Bouncy house visit

2011-10-06T14:10:00.009-05:00

On Tuesday I took the kids to a bouncy house to play for awhile. We were the only ones there for the first thirty minutes. It was heaven! They had so much fun. I took the opportunity to try to figure out my new camera. I'm still learning.

Look at this cool feature that lets you turn your photo into a drawing!

We had a fun time right up until Emma Mae peed all over the tile floor. She NEVER has accidents. But the two times she has had them they have been in very public places. The other time was at our neighbors house at their one year old's birthday party. We were all out in the backyard and looked over just in time to see her peeing all over their brand new playscape. What a way to make an impression! I'm glad no one had a camera out then to capture that particular moment.

Dolphins and words

2011-10-04T18:47:00.006-05:00

Sunday night I had a date night with Jake. I took him to see Dolphin Tale. He was so proud to be going on a "date." He kept saying that we were on a date and that dates were for boys and girls. Mike put the idea of popcorn in his head before we left so I had to spring for a kids snack pack when we got there. It came with the longest piece of Laffy Taffy I have ever seen. It must have been two feet long. And Jake ate every single inch of it before the movie even started. Then he polished off his popcorn and Sprite halfway through the movie.

We went to a six o'clock showing so we didn't get out until after eight which is pretty late for Jake. He was so hyped up on Laffy Taffy, popcorn, and sheer dolphin love that he was bouncing off the car walls on the way home. I kid you not he was talking a mile a minute. I didn't even know half of what he was saying. Turns out he didn't either. At one point I heard him say something like "mama! I squashed it! I don't even know what squash is, what am I saying?" Then he kept telling me that he was killing bugs that were trying to eat him and that he had a small fire coming off of his lips from the spicy (salty) popcorn he ate. He was hilarious. I plan on stalking up on Laffy Taffy for sheer entertainment purposes on days when I'm bored.

The movie was fantastic. It was nice to see a movie about a dolphin and watch my boy show the sheer joy of the same animal I love so much. We talked through the whole thing about dolphins. I'm sure our fellow movie goers loved us. At one point Jake actually cheered and said "I just love this movie!" It was also cool to be able to show him the amputees in the movie and try to explain to him that his daddy wants to make "cool legs and arms" for people that need them. We will definitely see it again.

On a side note, if you did not read Big Mama today you should do so. She was talking about a word cemetery that her daughter's teacher created for words that are totally over used. I just noticed that I wanted to use every single one of them in this post. Several times. In the comment section of her blog she asked people to put what words in the English language they would like to bury. Of course, I said the "p" word that means underwear. I was happy to see so many people agreed with me about that word! I've been led to believe over the years that there is something wrong with me for hating that word. Well. I'm here to say that I am normal. Several people also hated that word. Also, words like scab, epic and moist. In fact, so many people were disturbed by moist that I'm starting to not like it either. Unless you're describing a brisket in which case moist is great! But if you were to combine the moist word with the "p" word I would be completely disgusted and I would have to go live with the dolphins in the wet ocean where they only speak in whistles and clicks.

Soccer and coffee cake

2011-10-01T18:50:00.008-05:00

Today was the Panthers second soccer game. They were great. I think the game ended up in a tie but as Jake's coach told them "they were all winners" so I'm not sure who really won the game. Jake is having so much fun. He is a little out to lunch on the field but I'm trying to be okay with that. Also, he started doing some very weird sort of chicken run today that is very unlike his natural run. We think he's having equipment malfunction of some sort. He's so short that his shin guards cover almost his entire leg and we think they are bothering him when he runs. I want to make him a t-shirt that says something of this sort so that other people won't make fun of him. I have issues.

Mike is a wonderful daddy and arranged to have Saturday morning off from work so he could come to the rest of Jake's games. Praise God. Because I need someone to keep me in check too and remind me that this is just a game. A four and five year old game. Although there are two kids on this team who could probably go pro next year. But they have probably had a bit more practice and they probably don't feel like they're running on stilts. I'm just sayin'. Enjoy it now, Max and Diego. You just wait until Jake grows into those shin guards!

Jake did make two goals today. Of course, they were both in the pre-game warm up. And there was nobody else playing or defending the goal or anything. But he made those two goals, threw his hands up in the air, jumped up and down and said "yahoo!" He was so proud. I love it.

This is what Emma Mae does during the games.

I tried another new recipe tonight I want to tell you about. It's actually a breakfast food, but it took several hours to bake so we ate it for dessert. It's a lemon pull apart bread that I found on pinterest last week. Normally, I don't do recipes that look like they're going to take a long time. Especially if they use words like "meanwhile" in them. But this looked so good I had to give it a try. And it really turned out good too. Very lemony and not too sweet. It would be good for a brunch or shower or something. Here's the link to the recipe.

Burritos, tacos and booty's, oh my!

2011-09-30T20:05:00.007-05:00

Today I was able to get away for a little bit to spend some much needed time with my BFF. It seems like I don't get to see my friends much anymore so I really appreciate my hubby taking on the kids to let me get out.

Anyhow, I met Amy at Freebirds for lunch. This was our first experience with a Freebirds burrito and it did not disappoint. Very yummy. Also, very big. I'm still in awe and a bit embarrassed that I ate almost all of it. We got caught up, had some laughs, and I got some parenting advice. All in all a very good lunch.

Mike and I tried our hands at making carnitas for dinner tonight. I've never had carnitas so I don't know what they are supposed to taste like, but these tasted good. I will try them again. I got the recipe and idea from a fellow blogger and friend who said that they rocked. And they did. Thanks Suzanne! I was a bit concerned because we don't do much pork around here and I just wasn't sure I was going to like it. Especially because the recipe called for a pork shoulder roast but our little HEB here only carries pork booty roast. I asked the butcher if they had a pork shoulder in back somewhere and she just pointed at the pork booty and told me it was the same thing. Now, look. I'm a Biology major. I know there is, in fact, a difference between a shoulder and a booty. They are pretty far apart on a person's and a pig's body. They have different characteristics. I mean, one you sit on and one you use to lift and carry things. I know if I eat a pan full of brownies the calories are all going to go to my booty and not to my shoulder. So I didn't know if pork booty was going to be as good as pork shoulder. Let me tell you this. Pork booty is good. Especially if you cook it for four hours in some beef broth and chunky tomato salsa. Click here for the recipe.

Today's news

2011-09-29T19:50:00.008-05:00

This morning I went to have my annual mammogram. I mention this only because when I got in the room the lady doing the mammogram was all upset that her dimmer light wasn't working. She told me they always dim the lights during this procedure to make their patients feel more comfortable. Of course! It wasn't the fact that she was smushing something that is supposed to be more balloon like down to something more pancake like. I felt uncomfortable because there was no mood lighting.

After my procedure I came home and picked up the family for a fun filled morning of errands. First, we got to watch Mike get his hair cut. Then we went to heaven on earth (Target) and did a little shopping. After a quick stop at Home Depot (but NOT Bed, Bath and Beyond!) we went to Subway to grab some sandwiches for lunch. Ya'll. The guy putting the veggies on the sandwiches was clearly a new employee. He was slower than everyone else and looked very nervous. That I can handle. However, he was also sweating. Profusely. Like, the sweat was beading up on his face and running down his nose. Dripping even. Seriously. I noticed it after he had made my sandwich and he was working on Mike's. I saw this big drop of sweat just hanging from the end of his nose and I was completely horrified. I could not look away. It was like watching a movie scene in slow motion or something. I was thinking how long can a drop of water essentially defy gravity and hang onto the tip of someone's nose?! I caught Mike's eye and nodded towards the guys nose. I think I had a horrified expression on my face. Mike and I could not look away. Now, the guy knew he was sweating and every so often he would turn his head and wipe his face on his sleeve. But this one drip did not make it to the sleeve. I saw it fall. I almost screamed. Mike told me that it hadn't landed on his sandwich and that nothing had landed on my sandwich but that he saw something land on the sandwich of the guy in front of me. Gross. I could be wrong but I don't think that sweat is one of the official dressing choices of Subway sandwich shops.

Now I've got the kids in bed and am waiting for Mike to get home from school. Think I'll go watch some Grey's Anatomy (I'm so ashamed I've gotten sucked back into that show this year!). And try to wipe from my brain all images of sweat soaked sandwiches and really flat pancakes.

Play doh, letters and ice cream

2011-09-27T17:54:00.008-05:00

Today we hung out at home all morning except for our daily walk of the dog and stop at the park. It is still really hot out here. It was one of those days where we played a lot of pretend kitchen, play doh, and Jake and I worked on his letters some. The kids behaved well all day and we were going a little stir crazy by the time Emma Mae woke up from her nap.

So, I felt a little treat was in order. I took the kids to this cute little local drug store/ice cream parlor. It's the kind of place with the bar you can sit at and everything. They love going there because they always think they're going to see this lady named Bonnie who was working the first time they were there. For some reason they loved her. I wasn't there that time so I don't know what Bonnie has that no one else has! We've been back twice and had different wait staff both times who were all adorable, but the kids still want to see their Bonnie. They did enjoy their crazy colored ice cream (red/yellow/white) and ended up wearing a lot of it home. Jake, of course, wore his Spiderman costume under his real clothes and was quite a big hit there.

I decided after the ice cream to tempt fate and take my kids to WalMart with me because we were completely out of milk. We looked at all of the Halloween decorations, made a pass by the fish, and managed to get out of WalMart with no one getting in severe trouble. The times, they are a changin'?

What I'm thinking about

2011-09-25T14:44:00.011-05:00

1.) I finally read The Help. I know, I'm a little bit behind the band wagon. It is seriously the best book I've read in a long time. And now I want to get out my favorite book of all time To Kill a Mockingbird and read it again.

2.) I finally taught my son how to make up his bed. I was reading a favorite blog, Christian Mamas Guide about how this mama actually gives her small children chores to do every single day and if they complete those chores they get an allowance. If they don't do all the chores some of the allowance is taken away. I thought it was a great idea. So currently each day Jake is responsible for making his bed, putting away his toys at night and putting his shoes by his bed or in the closet every night. If you only knew how many mornings we've had to do a full house search for Jake's shoes you would understand my need for this chore. If he does everything every day for a week he gets $2. We're on a bit of a budget over here! Then he can save up his money to buy his own toys. Hallelujah.

3.) I was desperately trying to lose five pounds because I made a bet with my brother that whoever lost five pounds the quickest would be entitled to a movie ticket from the loser. Honestly, I lost the weight in a matter of days. However, as soon as I ate breakfast on the day I met my goal I gained back a pound. So I didn't count the win. And since then I have been on a quest to bake any and every chocolate chip recipe I can find. Which is somewhat counterproductive to losing weight. I'm hoping to start back up again before Christmas.

4.) I need serious prayer to just let my child experience his first soccer season without putting undo pressure on him. It's okay that snack time is his favorite part of soccer, right? It's okay that he didn't get around to kicking the ball much, right? It's okay that I want to start doing two a day soccer drills with him, right?

5.) I'm really liking the Pioneer Woman's cooking show. Now, I really want to be her friend. And stay at their lodge for the weekend.

6.) So glad the new TV line up has started for fall. I actually like Coach on Survivor this season. Miracles never cease. I also like the New Girl show. She is quirky and weird and I want to be her friend also. Maybe I should just work on making some more real friends, huh?

7.) At 2:30pm today, September 26th, it was 100 degrees in central Texas. What up with that, Texas?

8.) Does anyone else out there watch Justified? Am I the only person who thinks Raylan Givens is 100% man? Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights was too, but he got cancelled so I'm left with just Raylan. I realize that three of the things I'm thinking about right now all have to do with fictitious characters. I know I have a problem.

9.) This morning I couldn't find my wedding band or my two diamond rings given to me by my parents. They are all special to me. The two rings my parents gave me have diamonds from my mama's and my grandmother's old rings. They are really the only thing of value I own. I quizzed both kids and got no help. Emma Mae wasn't saying anything and Jake just accused Emma and made up two stories of how she had taken my rings and hidden them either in his closet or down my bathroom sink. He also said she needed to go to jail. I also noticed that our front door was unlocked when I woke up this morning. Mike always locks it when he leaves for work. So I put two and two together and figured out that someone broke into our house in the thirty minutes before I woke up and after Mike left for work, without waking up the big barking dog, and stole my rings while leaving everything else in our house untouched. Turns out what really happened was that Emma Mae stole my rings and hid them in the couch cushions. Imagine.

10.) I got nothin else. Peace out.

Cousins

2011-09-25T14:08:00.007-05:00

Yesterday after Jake's soccer game, Mike's brother brought his two girls over to the house for awhile. Jake and Emma Mae love to see their cousins. I'm always amazed at how quickly all four kids start chasing each other around the house screaming wildly. I know that's what my friends and I do when we get together.

They played so hard for the next five hours. Mike made a delicious spaghetti dinner that everyone ate up at once. And I baked the last of my New York Times chocolate chip cookie dough. Delicious. You should try this recipe. It's one of the best I've made yet. And if you make them don't leave out the sea salt. It's what makes them so addictive.

I also made this awesome chocolate chip skillet cookie the other day. Tastes like a pazookie from BJ's. Awesome. Clearly, I've currently given up on my quest to lose five pounds.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures I took of the cousins with the new camera my fabulous bro-in-law gave me yesterday

Soccer!

2011-09-24T16:40:00.007-05:00

Jake had his first soccer game ever today. We went to Academy on Thursday and bought him a ball and shin guards and socks and soccer shorts. He was all set. We even took him outside and practiced kicking the ball around. He was super excited to play soccer.

I figured he would be really good at this sport just because he is super fast and super agile. He always seems to be a bit more coordinated than other kids his age too. Well. We got to the soccer complex a little bit early because I wanted Jake to get the full practice time before the game started. Of course we wound up at the wrong field. That might not seem like a big deal, but we had already hiked a good ways to get to the field I thought he was playing at. So then we had to hike back and go a little bit further to get to the right place. By then we had pretty much missed out on the pre-game practice.

So basically, he was already tired from all the walking and was thrown into a game he knew nothing about. He handled it really well. He didn't have a clue about what he was doing but he followed the other kids around and had a smile on his face the whole time. The only time he didn't smile was when someone made a goal. Even if it was someone on his team. I could tell he was getting really discouraged because he wasn't making any goals. Looks like we'll have to work on sportsmanship and working as a team around here!

He played the first and third quarters. At the end of the third quarter he came and sat down with me, took his shoes off and said "mom, I'm done." He was so tired! He said he had fun though and he wants to go back next week so that's a plus. However, when I asked him what his favorite part of soccer was he said, with no hesitation, "snack time!"

And yes, he is the shortest one on his team. That jersey looks like a dress on him!

Just Emma

2011-09-23T20:08:00.002-05:00

Look at that face. I love that face. Right now that face is the only thing saving this little girl. She is the cutest thing, but she has THE biggest attitude right now. My favorite time with her is right when she wakes up in the morning and she's still all snuggly and cute and telling me she loves me instead of telling me "NO MAMA!" I know a lot of this is frustration on her part. Sometimes I can see the wheels turning in her brain trying to come up with the words she wants to say. I think her brain is just working a lot faster than her mouth is right now. But, that face! Who wouldn't love that face?

Just Jake

2011-09-22T15:38:00.004-05:00

Look at this face. I love this face. Today he told Emma Mae that when he grows up he might be an astronaut and go to the moon. Emma told him that she might miss him if he goes to the moon. So he told her that she could come with him.

I love it when he says "I love you mama." I love it when he says "I just want you mama." I love it when he says "mama, you're so pretty!" We have a pretty cool bond. Cool enough that he felt totally comfortable telling me that "those spiky things on your chin are hurting me mama!" the other night as we were cuddling. Time to get out the tweezers I guess. And time to remember that not everything that comes out of a four year olds mouth will be music to my ears.

Zoos, WalMart and Jail

2011-09-20T16:11:00.008-05:00

Today I got a brief, rare glimpse of what the future might be like with Jake and Emma Mae. After our morning walk they asked me to put this big toy car they have out in the backyard for them to play with. So I did and they played together for about two hours. Two hours. That is huge. They didn't cry. They didn't scream. Most importantly, they didn't need me for anything! I actually took a shower all by myself this morning. That is unheard of around here.

I got to worrying a little bit after the first hour because they were being so quiet and not having any arguments. I feared they were up to no good. But really, they had spent that whole time toting stuffed animals outside and setting up their very own zoo. Now how creative and cute is that??

Of course, I had to go and mess things up. I did the unmentionable and took the kids to WalMart with me. I absolutely had to go or we wouldn't have had dinner tonight. Emma Mae realized we were OUT IN PUBLIC and acted accordingly. She lost the privelage of walking through WalMart due to the fact that she was running up and down the aisles so she had to ride in the cart. Which, it seems, is a fate worse than being dipped in honey and rolled around in a fire ant mound. She was out of control.

Later at home, she had another complete melt down when I told her it was naptime. She kept screaming and screaming at me that she WAS NOT TIRED MUMMY!! And then I laid down with her in bed and she passed out for the next two hours. Oh, what a huge party I'm gonna throw when this child turns three.

I did get to have some quality one on one time with the little man today. He learned how to draw a face! This is great for Jake because until very recently he refused to even hold a crayon or pencil. I love these little moments with them when you actually feel like you are contributing to their growth and development and not just sheltering pod people.

On a side note, the two of them had the funniest conversation on our walk today. Jake was telling Emma Mae how he had gotten in trouble with his daddy last night. He told her that he got a thump on the head. And she started laughing and said that was kind of funny. To which he adamantly informed her that it was NOT FUNNY EMMA! And then he told her that their daddy was going to jail for thumping him.

These two crack me up every day. I can't wait to see how they change this year. And I hope their daddy stays out of jail so he can see it too.

Stairway to heaven

2011-09-19T20:32:00.006-05:00

Last Saturday I broke my new rule of not taking Emma Mae out in public until she turns three. My mom's side of the family was having a reunion and we decided to go for the day. Mike took the day off of work, we packed up the kids and drove to Concan, Tx on the Frio river.

It took us four hours to make a two and a half hour trip. First of all, my hubby and kids needed to stop at McDonalds to eat when we were a mere fifty miles from our destination where I knew there would be plenty of food to go around. You know a stop at McDonalds with little ones turns into an hour long ordeal of watching them climb and play on the playscapes and refuse to come down when it's time to go. And then I drove past a couple of crucial turns so we had a hard time finding the cabin my parents had rented for the weekend.

But we finally made it and took the kids down to the river which is really more of a pond these days due to the stage 2 drought central Texas is in. And it actually rained while we were there which was a huge blessing. I think most people around here are not so familiar with the rain these days. Mike had fun swinging from the rope swing into the river but the kids were having none of that. They did like seeing fish and tadpoles in the water though. That evening we had a big family dinner and it was nice to see people I hadn't seen since our last reunion.

Now, back to Emma Mae. The cabin we all met up in for dinner was a big two story number. The staircase looked like it had been made for people with a deathwish or perhaps a family of stuntmen. It was kind of steep and it had great big openings under each stair. Like the size opening that a two year old could fall through. So I forbade our two year old from going up those stairs. She wasn't having that either. She was starting to create a scene about those stairs so I told her she could go up once. She barely made it down alive. Someone actually had to help her get down. So I told her no more. She didn't listen. She made a break for those stairs the second I turned my back to her. I hustled after her and told her to come down. She said "NO!" I went up and got her and started carrying her down. You would have thought I was cutting off her leg she screamed so loud! She screamed all the way down the stairs, through the living room and to the bathroom. These relatives of mine had never met Emma Mae before but I'm willing to bet they won't forget her now! And I'm willing to bet that I won't forget my new rule anytime in the near future either.

How about some cheese with that whine?

2011-09-16T10:05:00.002-05:00

Today I woke up with one goal. To wear out the children. So this morning we took Brady for a nice long walk and stopped at the park on our way home to play. Then we went home and changed into our swimming suits and headed to the pool for what will probably be our last time this summer. Bummer.

After lunch I read many books to Emma and put her in bed for a long nap. While she was sleeping and Jake was "resting" I was going to clean out our linen closets because I'm sad to say we still seem to have a mouse problem and I found mouse droppings in the closets today. Gross.

(These are no ordinary mice, people. I'm afraid that word may have been sent out in the rodent community that we provide safe harbor for cute little gray field mice. They figure they can come in here to get out of the heat and roam around eating crumbs while we sleep. I think they know we don't use poison and our non-lethal traps are filled with delicious cheese.)

Anyway. Emma Mae did not end up taking a nap. She played for an hour and kept telling me that she couldn't go to sleep. So finally, I let her out of her room even though I knew that meant the closets were not going to get cleaned until after dinner. They have been going non stop ever since. I wish I had half of their energy. I so love it when they play together. Tonight they were running around all over the house and I heard Jake tell Emma "We've got to get some more clues. You be Fred and I'll be Daphne." They were so playing Scooby Doo! I also over heard Jake calling Emma Mae Daphne and she was calling him Freddie so my five seconds of worrying about Jake having gender issues were quickly alleviated.

My favorite quote from the day by far was from Jake. It happened just after bathtime and he was whining about the fact that I made him put away his bath toys before he got out (which I do every single night by the way). I looked him square in the eye and said "Jake, you have got to stop whining. Whining is not acceptable in this house." And he stopped and looked at me and said "You're right mama. We need to throw these whines away!" And that lasted for approximately 20 minutes until Emma Mae head butted him while they were watching Spider Man.

Road trip 2011

2011-09-09T15:30:00.001-05:00

I just realized that I'm in the house with both kids napping and Mike's at school. It's almost like being alone!

The kids and I drove to Amarillo last Thursday for the long Labor Day weekend. A drive that would normally take me 9 hours (with no speeding) turned into a 10 1/2 hour drive because of all of the pit stops you have to make for little bladders. We hit every McDonald's with a play scape between here and Amarillo. The kids actually did remarkably well being in the car that long.

It was so nice to spend some time with my parents and my brother but I have to say it was exhausting as well. You know how you imagine taking your kids somewhere and how you feel everyone will be blessed by their presence and you will leave them thinking "we really miss those kids. they are so darn cute!?" Well, I'm afraid that might not have happened this trip.

Emma Mae has hit the terrible two's with a vengeance. If I had a dollar for every time she has looked at me since March 12th and said something like "NO! I don't want to" I could fund a much needed long weekend away all by myself. It is really embarrassing when she acts like this in front of other people. Because I don't feel comfortable spanking or marching her to time out multiple times in front of others. So instead I find myself arguing or trying to reason with a very unreasonable two year old. It is pointless.

Poor Jake got sick while we were there so he was a little more emotional than usual. A more emotional than usual Jake is kind of like a teenage girl being denied her rights to the telephone and chocolate. Yikes.

Anyway, we did all manage to make it out to the Amarillo zoo one day with no major incidents occurring. The kids had fun and Jake asked me on our way back home if MeMaw and PePaw could come live with us. I said "sure! just as soon as Emma Mae turns three."

Speaking of the trip home. We stopped in Sweetwater for lunch at Schlotsky's. The kids were both asleep but I had to get gas and we needed to eat or else we wouldn't be able to stop for another couple hours at the next McDonald's. So, I committed the ultimate sin. The biggest mistake any parent can make. I woke up the children. It did not go well. Remember, Jake was sick. He did not want to get out of the car. He cried. And he cried. And then he tried crying. I walked into Schlotsky's carrying him on one hip and sort of dangling Emma Mae off the other hip because we all know two year old feet cannot walk by themselves.

We headed straight for the bathrooms. This particular Schlotsky's location is always very busy. There was a line for the bathroom about six people deep. Now I don't know about you, but if I witnessed a poor, tired mama carrying two kids who are old enough to walk on their own accord and heard the larger child sobbing loudly that he didn't feel good, I might offer her my place in the bathroom line. But let's just say that didn't happen. We waited there about ten minutes with everyone looking at me like "why can't you make that child stop screaming?" Finally we made it into the bathroom and I was able to look Jake in the eye and say "you need to learn some deep breathing techniques child. Breathe in slowly through your nose and out slowly through your mouth." After about three times, it totally worked. He calmed down enough to stop crying and do his business. Then we actually had the most enjoyable lunch together with the children laughing and having the cutest conversations. And now I'm thinking I will sign us all up for some yoga classes because I think we are all high stress individuals who need to learn ways to calm ourselves down.

Wow, this is long. Anyhow, we made it home safely and only had to drive by one of the fires burning in the state of Texas. And now I think I will keep us all at home until March 12th 2012 when Emma Mae turns three.

Mouse capers

2011-08-30T19:47:00.004-05:00

Well for those of you staying up late at night pondering our mice problem I'm here to put you at ease. I woke up this morning to find two cute little gray furry friends in the trap I put under the sink last night. Mike put them in our little cage and set them out in the garage for the day.

After careful consideration we decided to let them go in an open grassy field after dinner tonight. They were just too wild. Every time we got near the cage they started jumping and hitting the wire bars and stuff. I don't think I could have ever cleaned out the cage or fed them without them hopping right out of there. Also, Amy got me all worked up about contracting Hanta virus through contact with rodents and their droppings. Yuck. One way to talk sense into me is to threaten me with a deadly contagious disease.

So anyway, our whole family went and set them free together. We told the kids that they were wild mice who didn't deserve to be in a cage. Then we opened the cage doors and watched as both mice did not want to come out. They even jumped in their little exercise wheel and started being all adorable and stuff. Finally, Mike took the top of the cage off and one of them hopped out and ran for cover in the tall grass. The other one (Anatole, I'm afraid) hopped out and got so freaked out he ran in the opposite direction of his friend into a completely open and coverless area. I fear he's doomed. I said a prayer for their safety and we bid them a fond farewell with Jake and Emma lamenting that they were sure going to miss Anatole. Good luck mice friends. Oh, and please don't come back to our house.

Monday, Monday

2011-08-29T18:30:00.004-05:00

1.) When the kids and I got out of school today the temperature gage in the JEEP said 122. Texas forever. But Texas? totally unacceptable.

2.) I'm afraid the mice have gained control of the kitchen. They seem to be going from under the refrigerator to under the stove to under the kitchen sink and then through the dishwasher and making a big loop. We have set out mouse traps that have not worked. Today, I moved one of the traps under the kitchen sink which is where a lot of activity seems to be taking place. It's time to man up around here. If this doesn't work I'm giving Mike full authority to use his military training and whatever means are at his disposal to get rid of the mice. I've tried to be compassionate, but look where that's gotten us. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

3.) I had hoped to use a quote from Friday Night Lights in every bullet point of this post. Alas, I can't remember any other quotes. Actually, the fact that I remembered two is remarkable and due solely to the fact that they were used so much during the show. Mike on the other hand, can remember lines to movies he saw when he was seven but he can't remember to stop and get milk on his way home from work. Why is that?

4.) Is anyone else out there anxiously awaiting the fall television programming season? I'm ready for some Modern Family, Big Bang Theory and Survivor. I would really love to see another season of Friday Night Lights so I can adore Coach Taylor and his wife Tami from afar and pretend like they are real people I'm friends with. But the people at NBC or wherever decided to rip out my heart and cancel one of the only quality programs on TV.

5.) That is all for now. Thank you.

Big Girl Bed

2011-08-26T19:36:00.003-05:00

A couple months ago I bought a Groupon for $150 off of a new mattress at Mattress Firm. Seriously, if you haven't gotten on the Groupon band wagon then you probably live in a cave somewhere. You should really move out of your cave and sign up. They have great deals. Anyhow, yesterday we went to buy Emma Mae a new mattress for her big girl bed. The crib we bought her converted to a full size bed and I've been itching to redecorate her room for awhile now.

At first, I was looking everywhere for something very sweet and girly. I was thinking pink/purple butterflies or flowers or something. But I never really found anything I loved. And let's face it, this is all about me. Emma Mae doesn't really get a say in this room. It's my time. In five years we'll redecorate again and she can choose what she likes.

I started noticing all of the cute zebra print stuff out there and I picked up a few things here and there when I found them on sale. So, here's the almost finished product. I think I'm going to take back that curtain and get another one that's pink with a stripe of the zebra on it. I have a few more trips to make to Hobby Lobby for some wall hangings and we're done. What do you think? I didn't make it look too harloty did I? I don't want her to have the room of a harlot. Try to picture everything without the smudgy fingerprints on my camera lens!

Seriously. You're not going to believe this.

2011-08-25T20:50:00.003-05:00

Remember how I suspected that we had a mouse in our house? Well, about two days ago Zoe the cat was stalking the refrigerator again. This time Mike was home. So he moved the refrigerator out of the way and again we found no mouse. But, I'm sad and grossed out to say that we found some, um, evidence of a mouse.

Remember how we had captured one of the mice out in our garage in a fish tank and were keeping him as a pet/prisoner of some sort? Well, this morning I got a case of the crazies while we were out running errands and bought a small cage and some bedding for Anatole. It's very hot here and I didn't want him to die of a heat stroke out in the garage. He's an orphan. He's had a tough go of things lately. It's a hard knock life. I thought we could bring him inside in a cage and be one big happy family.

Well. Mike put the cage together right before lunch. Then he went outside and coaxed Anatole into a Tupperware container. Then he brought Anatole inside and tried to drop him in his fancy new home complete with an exercise wheel. Anatole revolted. He jumped out of the Tupperware and took off. The kids were screaming. I was screaming as I jumped up on the nearest piece of furniture. Anatole ran under the couch. Then under a shelf. Mike caught him two more times and attempted to get him in the cage. He did not want to go. Ungrateful orphan. The next thing we knew Anatole was running under (you guessed it!) the refrigerator. Self fulfilling prophesy I guess.

Mike moved the refrigerator out again. No mouse. Mike took apart the refrigerator. No mouse. I have no idea where this mouse (these mice) are. But I know for sure there is at least one in this house. And as Mike pointed out to me what if Anatole is a boy and the other one is a girl? We could have a whole mess of mice in here.

If I hear squeaking in our bedroom in the middle of the night again I'm out of here. If I can move that is. My back is out again and fleeing from an escaped mouse today did not help things out at all. Sudden movements are killer. My back is whack. Not to mention my brain. I mean who tries to get one mouse out of their house while simultaneously bringing another mouse in their house? We need help!

School!

2011-08-24T19:39:00.007-05:00

Our first day back to KKW was a success! My class of little ones did surprisingly well. Between all of the diaper changes, snacks and attempted naps the day flew by. Jake's teachers said he did great and he seemed really happy at the end of the day. Emma Mae had a rough start but her teachers said after about an hour she settled in for the day and did good too.

Here are the pics we took before we left home this morning. You can kind of tell Em was going to have a rough start!

Yes, Jake did wear that hat to school although his teachers made him take it off in the classroom.

Their backpacks are bigger than they are this year but I figure they can grow into them over the next two or three years!

Oh boy

2011-08-23T18:53:00.006-05:00

Wow. I totally failed in my goal of blogging every day this summer. I'm a little behind. I'm going to catch up with a list.

1.) Mike turned 30 on Aug. 17th. His dad and I have been planning to have a surprise party for him for the last year. We almost pulled it off too. I rented out the clubhouse in our amenity center for Friday night. We invited people. We kept it a secret. But then one of his best high school friends whom Mike hasn't seen in 11 years posted on his Facebook account Friday that he was in Texas. Mike knew something was up then. He also claims I was acting suspiciously. I never act suspiciously. It was still a nice party and Mike was surprised when he saw our friends Mike and Ivy who flew in from California for the occasion. Mike told me the week before his birthday that he feels like he always gets jipped on his birthday so I'm hoping this party made up for that a little bit! Also, a big thank you to Mike's dad and his wife Sally who helped me so much with this party.

2.) Today is the day that Rick Springfield was born into this world changing my life forever. Happy 62 Rick!

3.) Tomorrow is our first day of "school" this year. Please pray for me and my co-teacher Jana as we "teach" some precious little 15 month olds this year. Let's hope my back holds out so they can call me Ms. Kim instead of Grandma.

4.) Also, as long as you're praying you might want to lift one up for Emma Mae's teachers this year. She is a pill. Enough said.

5.) I'm hoping this year will be the year that people realize Emma's name is Emma Mae. After all, it's on all of her labels. And she will tell you adamantly that her name is "Emma Mae Fwinn!"

6.) We have adopted one of the mice in our garage. He's in a tank and we named him Anatole. I'm considering buying him a small animal cage and bringing him inside. I also may have bought him a treat at WalMart last night. The crazy never stops over here.

7.) I spent one day last week searching for a mouse in the house. Zoe (the cat) was stalking something under the refrigerator for a good two hours. Then she moved to the stove for another hour. I swear I saw something stick a body part out and then bring it back in real fast when it saw her looking at it. I took the kids to the pool because I was a little freaked out and then when Mike got home from work he moved the refrigerator and the stove. Nothing was there. Except for various toys, a magnet and a dog hairball the size of a chihuahua. However, two nights this week I have been woken up by the sound of something squeaking in our bedroom. I seem to be the only one that can hear it which makes me think the crazy is in my brain alone.

Prayer time with Jake

2011-08-14T19:02:00.001-05:00

Dear God,

Thank you for my sister, my mama and my daddy. I like everyone. I like Spiderman, Iron Man, the Hulk and Captain America. Amen.

What I do when I'm stressed

2011-08-10T18:44:00.007-05:00

Yesterday we stayed home all day because I was babysitting. By 10am I really needed a nice, dark, quiet place to hide. Instead I did some therapeutic cleaning. Namely, the inside of our microwave. It has never been sparklier. Jake and Emma had both been banished to their rooms to play with their own toys all by themselves since they couldn't play nicely together. I may have threatened to throw all of their toys away if they didn't start playing with them. Emma may have told me that she did, in fact, WANT me to throw away all of her toys. Logan was told to stay in the playroom and to leave the other kids alone before their bad manners rubbed off on him. Nice.

Anyway. The twenty minutes I put into cleaning that microwave probably saved lives around here. Also, I managed to burn off a few of the calories I put on earlier shoveling brownies down my throat at 9:15am because Emma was throwing a 40 minute temper tantrum. A tantrum which began because I had the nerve to take her out of her swing outside so that Jake could have a turn. A tantrum that continued because I had the gall to demand that she stop yelling at me and trying to kick me when I manually put her in time out. Oh, the two's. How I can't wait until you're over. Seven more months to go but who's counting?

Later, I continued my cleaning spree while Mike was cooking dinner. Yes, I have a hubby that will cook dinner when I've had a bad day. I count my blessings! So, I decided to clean our bathroom. I hate cleaning bathrooms and put it off as long as I can stand it. Actually, I only cleaned the sinks and the toilet but I felt pretty good about it afterwards.

This morning while I was taking my shower, Emma was in there (of course!)and we were playing hide and go seek. It's really easy because I'm counting in a glass shower and she is hiding in the closet right in front of me over and over again. She thinks it's awesome! Anyhow, I guess she needed to poop but decided to put it off due to all of the fun she was having. By the time she ran to the potty, it was too late. There was poop everywhere. In her underwear, on her legs and all over my newly clean, shiny toilet.

We ended up staying home all day today also because of the babysitting. I did take the kids to the park for an hour before it became hot enough to fry bacon on a plastic slide. I love the smell of bacon but not when it's coming from my children's thighs! I decided to fore go stress cleaning today and instead opted to just stick my head in our clean microwave when the going got tough.

My new favorite obsession

2011-08-08T16:05:00.002-05:00

This is my new favorite lunch food. You toast a piece of whole wheat bread and then spread mashed avocado all over it. Then (depending on how you roll) sprinkle salt on the avocado. Kosher salt is great but if you're hard core then go ahead and get out the sea salt. Now, this is great as is. BUT, if you happen to have some home grown tomatoes in the kitchen, you should slice one up and put it on top of the toast. Yum!

Prayer time

2011-08-06T19:41:00.003-05:00

Jake and Emma love to pray. Well, Emma loves to make the rest of us pray. We don't sit down to a single meal without her holding out her little hands and shouting "NEED TO SAY PRAYER!" She will not be dismissed. There will be no peace until a prayer is said.

The rest of us usually take turns saying the prayer before dinner. This is a sampling of what Jake's prayers sound like:

"Dear God, Thank you for my mommy, my daddy and my sister. I love my mommy, my daddy and my sister. Please let Emma get her tonsils taken out. Amen"

"Dear God, Thank you for mama, daddy and Emma. Thank you for getting my tonsils out when I was four. Amen."

"Dear God, Thank you for...(see above). Please let me have a ____ (insert whatever toy he is currently obsessing over.) And please let Emma get her tonsils taken out. Amen."

He is hilarious. I think he might be confusing God and Santa Claus a little bit but I totally get why. He seems to think that ever since he got his tonsils taken out he is better at everything he does. He is faster, smarter and bigger. That's why he wants Em to get hers taken out I think, not because he wants her to be in pain and agony for two weeks like he was!

Mouse update

2011-08-03T15:59:00.005-05:00

Well, Operation Mouse Relocation didn't go off exactly as planned. When Mike got home from work he went out in the garage to assess the situation. All three mice were still in the tank. They had even built themselves a little home out of paper and sand. They were all huddled up together being all cute and stuff.

We debated back and forth for minutes about whether we should keep them as pets or set them out in the wild. We even called our neighbor over to ask his opinion. He said something about a hammer and their heads so I quickly dismissed him.

Eventually, I had to go inside and tell Mike to do what he though was best as long as he didn't hurt them because the decision was causing me way too much angst and emotional stress.

So I hear him out there with Jake and Emma and I just had to take a peek. Mike was standing hovered over that tank with a tupper ware container trying to catch those mice. The mice were jumping all over the place trying to hop out of the tank. The kids were screeching. I could tell those little mice were just so scared and I had to go back inside to regroup. If I was in possession of anti anxiety pills I so would have swallowed some at that point.

Anyhow, this is how it played out. One of the baby mice got away and scurried away to safety somewhere in our garage. Mike caught the other two seperately and let them out seperately in the vacant lot right beside our house.

So, here is my problem. I am obsessed with the fate of these mice. I cannot let it go. I'm worried about the little bugger still in our garage all alone without his family. How will he survive? I'm very worried about the two in the vacant lot. What if the baby didn't reunite with its mama? It is like a bajillion degrees in Texas. I'm afraid they will die from the heat or from a snake or from a bird. I fear that they are soft from living high on the hog in our garage and have lost their natural instinct to survive in the wild.

It didn't help matters much this morning when my daddy told me that the baby is probably already a member of the food chain. Note to my friends and family. Please let me live in my delusional world where cute little mice do not fall victim to large menacing animals. It's the only thought that is keeping me sane. I live on the border of extreme anxiety and barely able to cope. I'm afraid finding out that we sent those little mice to meet their doom would send me right over the edge. Seriously. I haven't slept well the last two nights for all the thinking about them.

So, we did what any rational couple that just got rid of two mice from their garage would do. We left the garage door open that night in case they made their way back the thirty feet it would take them to get back in. No sight of them yet. But, I'm still hoping.

Plagues and such

2011-08-01T12:29:00.008-05:00

A few weeks ago we discovered that we have mice in our garage. I have heard some skittering about when I open up that door and then we noticed a hole chewed through the bottom of Brady's dog food bag. Okay. No problem. Live and let live I say. As long as they don't come in the house I'm going to pretend I don't know they exist.

But then a couple days ago I opened up the garage door to go out and although the light was off I could still see a little gray ball of fur bouncing around at my feet inches from the open doorway. I did what any nature loving, animal hugging girl would do. I screamed bloody murder and slammed the door as hard as I could. My big, strong hubby came along and opened the door and although he did not see the mouse, he did hear it and he heaved the big huge bag of dog food off the ground and put it on top of an empty fish tank we have sitting in the garage to get it off the floor and out of the reach of the little mousy paws and teeth. Problem solved.

Not quite. I can still hear them. Now, when I open the door I open and shut it quickly a few times before I go out while loudly telling the little mice that I better not see them when I turn on the light. Fast forward to today. I took the kids to the pool. We go through the garage to get our stroller with all of the pool stuff in it. I did my ritual door opening. No mice. They listen and obey. However, when we came home we entered the house through the garage door. I sent Jake and Emma ahead of me because I am their shirpa and I was busy hauling all of the gear from the stroller to the house.

Jake turns around and tells me "Look Mama! We have some cute little mousy pets!" I really thought he was just messing with me. And I thought he was stalling about going inside so I tell him "great! GO INSIDE." He did after repeating his story about the mice three times. We get in and Emma says "MAMA! The micey so cute!" So I said, "wait a second, where did you see mice?" She says "in the cage!" And Jake's all "SEE? I told you mom! There are three cute little brown mouses in that cage out there! Can we keep them? PLEASE?"

Ya'll. I had to open that door to see for myself. I did my door opening ritual. I looked out through a crack and into the abandoned fish tank. There they were. Sitting up on their little legs, whiskers twitching, just looking at me. A mama and two babies. And they were cute. I screamed and slammed the door shut. Then I called Mike and told him the news. He said "want to keep them? we can put em in Emma's room."

Ya'll. Mice carry the bubonic plague. Don't they? I hope I'm not falsely accusing them but I think mice are responsible for wiping out a big chunk of the human population years ago. I'm all for respecting all life forms and I don't want to kill the cute little mice, but I will not have them in my house! We need to come up with a plan for operation Mouse Relocation as soon as possible.

I confess I went out into the garage to take some pictures for the sake of the blog. First of all, there were only two mice in the tank at that point so I was a little freaked out. Secondly, it's hard to take pictures of something when you're too scared to get up close. Also, do you see the hole in the dog food bag? Clearly, these are not ordinary mice we are dealing with. They are problem solvers. And thinkers. And all the things I wish my kids would be.Trust me, these are pictures of the offenders. What do we do??

Comings and goings

2011-07-26T19:55:00.011-05:00

Yesterday I took the kids to see my friend Jana. She lives about an hour away from us so we had a little car ride. Lucky for me, Emma wanted to play hide and seek for the last thirty minutes of the ride. From her car seat. So it was pretty easy to find her every single time.

When we got to their house we saw a little baby bird in their driveway that was having a very hard time getting air born. I told Jana about it and she said they had been watching and rescuing it for the last four days. On our way home I contemplated picking it up and taking it back with us to nurse it along or maybe taking it to the wildlife rehabilitation place we took baby bird Flinn to at the beginning of the summer. Then I remembered that in saving Flinn we murdered another totally innocent bird. Also, mama bird dive bombed my head when I got too close to him. So I left the little guy alone after saying a quick prayer for him.

Today we stayed home to babysit Logan. I have never been bossed/ordered around so much by little people in my entire life. Does anyone else out there have a bossy little two year old girl living with you? She is a mess! My mama discovered this when they were here. Emma told her every morning exactly where to sit and what toys to play with and what room to be in. It's exhausting. By the end of the day I'm tempted to just do what she says because then at least I don't have to think for myself.

Jake on the other hand is so easy going and laid back. Ha! I just cracked myself up. Those two spent the entire day fighting. Which meant there were lots of time outs. Lots of playing by themselves in their own rooms. Actually, Jake loves to be in his room. He cries when I first send him there and then five minutes later he is having a blast all by himself. When my parents visit we always let them stay in his room and Jake sleeps in the playroom in a tent. He enjoys this but we found out this past trip that he misses his room while they're here. I told Jake before they came that MeMaw and PePaw would be staying with us for four nights in his bed. He said okay, that's great. Well, on the morning they were leaving my dad went in the playroom to say good morning to Jake. Jake looked at him and said "PePaw, you've been here for four mintues already so tonight I get to sleep in my own bed!" Hospitality runs short in a four year old.

Brownies and things

2011-07-24T15:41:00.016-05:00

I discovered (again) that my body does not have the same metabolism that it did when I was 20. Last week while my parents were here I went on a pie making/pie eating, brownie making/brownie eating binge. That coupled with no exercise for a few days resulted in the return of two unwanted pesky pounds. Total bummer.

I'm determined not to give into the weight. I will lose it. As soon as the temperature in Texas goes back into the 80's. I'm predicting that will be around Christmas time. Just in time for me to go on a cookie baking/cookie eating, fudge making/fudge eating binge.

Here are some good pictures my dad took of the kids swimming while they were here.

When I look up and see my boy catching more air than a breaching great white shark, I just close my eyes and say "it's gonna be all right" over and over. Or I think about brownies.

Look at the joy on his face! It's exactly the way I look when I take a pan of brownies out of the oven...

Couldn't you just eat her up? Like a big, gooey brownie?

Our children are so petite. They can eat all the brownies they want and not gain an ounce. Enjoy it while you're young kiddos!

Visit from the grandparents

2011-07-20T13:05:00.008-05:00

My parents came to visit on Sunday evening. We've had the best time with them the last few days. This is what I made for dinner Monday night. Yum! We've had the pleasure of eating out the rest of the time!

We've taken the kids to the pool, to Target for some new toys and to the Jumpy Gym to play. But, I think the kids enjoy staying home playing with MeMaw and PePaw more than anything.

Getaway

2011-07-17T15:14:00.008-05:00

A couple months ago I bought a Groupon for a one night stay at a local bed and breakfast. If you don't know about Groupons then now is the time to sign up. Seriously, they allow people on a tight budget to be able to go do things. This was an amazing deal. We got about 60% off of our stay at the Inn Above Onion Creek. I had just enough money left over from my birthday to cover everything.

My sister and Katie drove down to get Jake and Emma on Thursday morning and took them back to their house to spend the night. Then Mike and I were free for about 24 hours. We couldn't check in to the inn until 3pm so we decided to drive on out a little farther and go to Wimberley for a couple hours. It is such a cute little town! Although it was hotter than the sun. But that's pretty much everywhere in Texas right now. We had lunch at a great little spot called The Leaning Pear. I had my first experience with chilled soup. It was chilled celery soup to be exact and it was divine!

At 3pm we went and checked in at the bed and breakfast. We quickly changed into our swimsuits and headed to the pool to relax for the next two hours. At six we headed to the dining room for dinner. Dinner was good although a bit awkward. Most of the guests were on the younger side and everyone tried to sit at different tables and not talk to each other. Then about 30 minutes into dinner two older couples showed up together and flung open the doors and shouted "Hey Ya'll! It's so quiet in here! We're all family!" They were obviously seasoned bed and breakfasters.

After dinner Mike and I took a walk to a scenic overlook and marveled at how pretty it would be if Texas wasn't one big, dry, brown wasteland right now. Then we played horse shoes. Because we're sixty.

The next morning we had Nutella stuffed French toast with strawberries on top. Oh. My. Word. That is french toast stuffed with chocolatey goodness. Sweet! I loved it! If you're looking for a good bed and breakfast in the Texas Hill Country I highly recommend this place. The room was beautiful. The pool was great and we got to spend the morning relaxing in hammocks before we checked out.

Of course I forgot to bring our camera. Bad Little Mama. I was so mad at myself. But this is a link to the room we stayed in. Check out the bathroom! Amazing! And really, sign up for Groupon in case they offer this deal again. And no I'm not being compensated by Groupon or the Inn Above Onion Creek. If only!

I have no poise

2011-07-14T07:07:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went to HEB to buy groceries. After I checked out, the cashier handed me my receipt and asked if I needed anything else. I said "no thank you" and started wheeling my cart away.

Just then the cashier pulled a coupon out of the register and shouted "wait! you can go these right now if you want because with this coupon they will be totally free!" I was all "Score!" I couldn't wait to see what I was going to get.

It was a coupon for Poise pads. She told me very loudly what it was for and I told her in a very hushed voice that I didn't need them. She was all "Ohh, but they're free! Are you sure you don't want to go get them?" And I told her "no, I'm sorry but I don't use those." And then I ran out of the store. I was afraid if I didn't get out of there quickly I might find myself in a cloud of confettie falling down from the ceiling surrounded by overly joyous employees clapping and shouting that I was a free pad winner. And then I would have had to curl up on the floor and pretend to be a speed bump or something until every single person left the store.

This was mortifying on so many levels. First, unless you are my BFF don't talk to me about sanitary pads. And please don't announce to everyone in my aisle and the two aisles beside me that I just won a free box of them.

There are certain things that I am not comfortable talking about and pads is one of them. I also do not like for anyone to say the word panties around me. It creeps me out. Emma Mae does not wear panties now, she wears undies. Okay? Unless you are my mama and then you can say that word because I've already lived 41 years cringing every time it comes up. But my mama is the only one who can get away with it!

Secondly, when I got home I took a closer look at the coupon that I had shoved in my purse on my way out. Poise pads are actually for people with minor bladder leakage. Now, look. I'm not saying I've never had that problem because during pregnancy I sure did. And sometimes a select few individuals have made me laugh so hard that leakage occurred. But on the whole, I am fine in this area for now. Is there something about the way I look that made her think I would really appreciate a free box of these things??

Now I'm nervous to go back to HEB. I'm worried about what other free coupons might be lurking in those cash registers. What if I get one for wart removal or mustache bleaching or (heaven forbid) free panties?

Girl reunion

2011-07-13T20:48:00.008-05:00

We made it through another day of heat and babysitting and minor sibling squabels. All day long I was just looking forward to seeing two friends that I used to work with at the Hyatt. Sharon and her family are here on vacation and Eva and her family just moved back to Texas. I couldn't wait to see these girls again.

We decided for all the families to meet out for dinner. I suggested Nutty Brown Cafe in Austin because so many people have told me that it's a great place to go with little kids because they have a big grassy area to play on. Well. The grassy area is not really available on concert nights. Tonight was a concert night. So poor Jake and Emma had to be wrangled into sitting still for another dinner out. They did pretty well.

The food was good. I had a great big chicken fried steak and ate every single bite. I was a bit leary of the food at first because of the big lizard sized cock roach we saw skittering around the wall above our heads after we ordered. The waitress said she would get it if she saw it again. So, that was comforting. When the food came out I was so hungry that I forgot all about the bugs and just dived into the food.

Emma visited the bathroom seven times in two hours. She used both stalls, every paper towel holder and every soap dispenser that was available to her. Jake was beside himself over one of those claw games where you move the claw to win a fabulous prize. He really wanted the Scooby Doo in there. He really didn't get it.

It was fun to catch up with old friends though. These girls are just the best. Their hubbies are all right too. Oh, and their kids are adorable.

Naps and things

2011-07-12T13:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday my sweet friend Jana brought her two kiddos over for a play date. I haven't seen much of her since she had sweet Amelia back in March. It was so much fun holding a little baby again! And so much fun giving the baby back to mama when she got fussy! Jake and Emma loved just sitting and watching her in the bouncy seat. They both said they wanted a new baby in our house. Good luck with that!

We also had Logan over here so it was a full house. I discovered something vitally important though. Logan couldn't settle down to take his nap while the other kids were here so I ended up putting him down right after they left around 1pm. That's also Emma's usual nap time so I put her in Jake's bed at the same time. And she went to sleep. That's two kids down at the same time! Huge! We're doing it again today. They are both asleep and Jake and I are about to have some one on one book reading time.

Right after he's done saving the world. This kid has super hero on the brain. I hear it's an actual medical condition. The only treatment is surgical removement of the Spider Man mask or the kids imagination. Wish me good luck with that!

Together they will save the day!

2011-07-10T13:24:00.003-05:00

Do you ever wish you had the luxury to live in your imagination as much as little kids do? If I spent half my day pretending to be a super hero or a fairy I would be declared insane.

Have you ever seen a cuter Tinker Bell or a more heroic Spider Man?

Personally, I think Jake has a cooler Spider Man stance than Spidey himself.

Shortly after putting on his costume the other day, Jake declared "First, I have to go potty. Then I will save the world." Even super heroes have their priorities.

Movies and small bladders do not make a good combo

2011-07-09T12:22:00.010-05:00

Mike's dad and his wife Sally and her son drove down from Missouri last week. They were bringing Mike's brothers kids back to him since he's home from Afghanistan. They all made it over to our house Wednesday afternoon. We had a great time seeing them again and made a trip to the pool with all of the kids. We also made a trip to Salt Lick for some barbecue. Yum.

They came back Thursday to spend the day also. We met them at a movie theater in Austin to take the kids to see Cars 2. Now, this was a big deal. Jake and Emma have never been to a movie theater before. Their cousins, Alia and Tayla have so we were hoping the girls behavior would rub off on our kids. As soon as we bought our tickets Jake and Emma decided they needed to go to the bathroom. Mike took Jake and I took Em. We walked into the bathroom to see Sally holding Tayla's little blue dress under the automatic hand dryer and Tayla standing there in her undies. It was a long car ride for them and she had an accident. So I took Emma to go potty all the while thinking "it sucks to be Sally right now."

We got our popcorn and found seats and waited for the movie to begin. Emma was occupied until she ran out of popcorn. That was about seven minutes into the movie. Then she needed to go potty. I had intentionally sat down on the end by the girls so I could take them out if they needed to go. Off we go to the bathroom. I looked behind me only to see Tayla running after us because she had to go again. Let's just say we did that same thing with various rotations of girls for the next two hours. We must have gone to the potty ten times. I have only a vague inkling of what the movie was about.

The last time I had Emma with me. Well, Sally and Tayla came in right after us and Sally and I were both in agreement that the girls would not be going back into the movie. I told Sally to go back and I would watch the girls. I took them outside because there is a really cool water feature/fountain outside the building. It's just for looking though.

The girls were happy to walk around the fountains on the little brick wall that encircled them for a few minutes. They started walking faster and faster until I had to tell them to slow down already before somebody falls into the water. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Tayla fell in. All the way in. The already once dried dress was completely soaked again. I took both girls back to the bathroom, stripped down Tayla and spent the next fifteen minutes drying her clothes under the automatic hand dryer. All the while thinking "it sucks to be me right now."

Anyhow, Jake really enjoyed his movie experience even though he didn't like the last part of the movie and said it was too scary. I learned a valuable lesson. Never take a child under 3 years old to the movies.

I can't believe we didn't take any pictures of all the family together. The only one I took was of Sally and the girls napping in the afternoon. Aren't they adorable?

We had a really good time and can't wait to see everyone again.

Ten things I know for sure

2011-07-06T12:53:00.005-05:00

1.) Emma Mae is officially potty trained!

2.) Little girls have a weird obsession with the potty. They like to visit it 42,000 times a day.

3.) When I hear Jake say "Emma, I have a great idea!" something bad is about to happen.

4.) When I hear Jake say "Emma, that's a great idea!" something really bad is about to happen.

5.) Our dog weighs 133 lbs. and it's all our fault.

6.) Rick Springfield has the single most catchy and awesome song of all time.

7.) The Beatles, James Taylor and Neil Diamond are responsible for most of the other good music in the world.

8.) I am a 60 year old trapped in a 40 year old's body.

9.) Mama's of young children don't have the time or the ability to have long phone conversations.

10.) Mama's of young children don't have the time or the ability to complete complex thoughts.

Happy Fourth of July!

2011-07-04T14:11:00.003-05:00

Believe me, if I had access to some big ole fireworks I would be setting them off right now. I would even settle for a few sparklers. Emma has gone all day without an accident! Woo-hoo! Could it be that both of our children are officially out of diapers? I estimate that will save us about $500 a year! Hey! That's how much we just had to spend to get our Jeep fixed! Again!

Unfortunately, due to the dry hotter than a red hot chille pepper conditions here in Texas there is a ban on fireworks. A fact which I know is killing my nephew Tom right about now. So, I'll just have to shout for joy really loud about Emma's command of proper toilet procedures. Yipee!

Mike's brother just got home this morning from Afghanistan. He's in the army. We were planning on celebrating tonight with him and his girls and Mike's dad and wife. But plans changed. Now, it looks like we'll be celebrating tomorrow night. So I think that instead of grilling burgers we'll splurge and split a big juicy steak. You have to grill on the 4th of July. It's the law.

I love being married to a Marine. It makes me feel even more patriotic. I don't know why. It's not like I fought for freedom personally. But I like being married to someone who did. Go out and hug a soldier today for goodness sakes. And put up your flag if you have one! Ours looks so pretty outside today. I'm trying to explain the significance of the flag to Jake. I don't think he quite gets it yet. Now, if there were a super hero dressed up in a flag he would understand the importance. There should be a Flag Man. I'm gonna work on that idea.

Hope you have a fun and safe Fourth!

Potty training Day 3

2011-07-02T19:19:00.004-05:00

Success! Emma is doing so well. Although I'm not sure I would call her completely potty trained yet. But she is definitely getting the hang of it. And the great thing is that she stays dry during her nap and over night. Love it!

I think we're still going to hang out at the house for the most part for the next couple of days just to solidify everything in her mind. Today we did have to get out for awhile to take Brady to the groomer and she managed to not have an accident while we were gone.

She is so different than Jake was. He did not want to sit on the potty at all until the evening of the third day. Emma wants to sit on the potty all the time. Even when she doesn't need to go. That's why I'm not sure she is completely trained yet. She has had a lot of success but it might just be because the odds are in her favor to get something in the potty when she is on the potty 75% of the time.

This is an outfit she put together yesterday. I especially love the winter hat with no pants.

This is the loot we've been bribing, I mean positively reinforcing, her with for the last three days. Here's hoping that tomorrow we will wake up and have no more accidents!

Potty Training Day 1

2011-06-30T20:42:00.002-05:00

So, we decided to potty train Emma Mae today. We're using the same three day intense potty training boot camp we used for Jake. Yesterday, I spent about two months worth of diaper money on stickers, treats, books and other bribes to positively encourage her to go on the potty.

This morning we got rid of the diapers and handed her some TinkerBell underwear. I have been peed on one time and cleaned up several messes. But, I think she is way more receptive to this than Jake was. He absolutely hated the idea of not wearing a diaper. She was able to get a little pee and one poop in the potty today. I think all of the incidents were more of an accident or just being in the right place at the right time, but I'm hopeful that she will catch on quickly and we will be done with diapers forever.

This and that

2011-06-29T20:17:00.004-05:00

The short version of our day:

Kids slept in until 7am today! We went to the park for an hour and barely made it back home. I wasn't sure Jake was going to be able to walk or ride his bicycle the last block home. The whining was remarkable. I babysat again so we didn't go anywhere exciting. We did take the kids to the pool after dinner to wear them out in hopes of them sleeping late in the morning. We almost didn't get to go to the pool, however, because Mike sent Jake to his room after dinner and I had the misfortune of overhearing Jake saying "stupid, stupid Daddy. i don't wanna play with him!" Oh, my. We couldn't let that slide and I'm really wondering where he is getting that expression from. I don't think we really say that much around here. So he got a stupid spanking and then we went to the pool.

My mind is on food today. These are things I love right now.

1.) The Greek Gods greek yogurt in honey flavor. Now, Amy doesn't like it but I think it is the best thing since sliced bread.

2.) Nature Valley Granola Thins in dark chocolate. Only 80 calories and yummy! I'm trying to convince myself they are the only chocolate I need every single day.

3.) These lemon raspberry muffins I made on Sunday

4.) Yesterday, over at Kelly's Korner she posted a picture of some sliced fruit with poppyseed dressing. I just happened to have made poppyseed dressing the day before so today I sliced some strawberries, bananas, cantelope, blueberries and grapes up and put them on a big plate with the dressing. Then I gave the kids a toothpick to eat/dip the fruit with and we all loved it. Ate the whole plate and Jake declared again that it made him so happy!

Summer Days

2011-06-28T21:27:00.007-05:00

Lately I've been feeling kind of on auto pilot in the motherhood department. I mean I try to plan outings for us or at least take the kids to the park or the swimming pool every day, but I also feel like the TV has been on a lot lately. So I woke up this morning with the intention to be intentional.

It is hard to be a mama with the best of intentions. I baby sat today so we were home bound. It took me two hours just to get breakfast done and get the kids dressed. They literally ate three breakfasts today.

Finally at 11:00 I put the little guy I watch twice a week in bed for a nap. Then I thought "oops! I better go be a good mama to my kids." So I turned off the TV and took Jake and Emma to the playroom for some art time. We got out paper, colors, and water colors. They were so excited! I got them all set up and then sat down beside Jake to try to work on his letters. That's when Logan started screaming in the other room. So I told the kids to keep "arting" it up while I went to rock Logan to sleep and to stay in the play room for goodness sakes and try to be quiet!

Thirty minutes later I had Logan asleep and went to check on the kids. They had done pretty well on their own but I still felt bad that I hadn't been right there with them. So we had lunch and then I announced that it was story time. Emma was stoked but Jake said he didn't want to read books. So he played with his little toy animals while Em and I read approximately every book she owns. I guess quality time with one child is better than no quality time at all.

After story time I told the kids they could go outside and play in the sprinkler even though it totally violates our water restriction laws right now. Shh, don't tell! Again, Jake didn't want to participate. What is up with that? I seriously think he may be getting sick or something. Emma had a good time though.

What is up with our camera? Do these pictures look fuzzy? I wonder if it's just the insane heat around here.

Mean Boy

2011-06-27T18:47:00.007-05:00

I totally messed up my summer goal by not blogging yesterday. No one's perfect. We went to church yesterday morning and then came home and took naps until Katha and her boys came over to go swimming. Jake was on fire at the swimming pool. He seriously was acting like a totally different boy. He was shooting people in the face with a water gun, running and jumping into the pool like a mad man, hitting people with toys and generally running amok and wreaking havoc all over the place.

I had to put him in time out twice. Both times he sat on the side of the pool pouting and splashing water at me with his feet. We've been learning a Bible verse this week. A very simple one. "Children obey your parents." So at one point I pulled him over and told him that we needed to have a little talk. I reminded him about our Bible verse and told him that he was not pleasing God or mama by not listening and obeying. When we were done talking I sent him on his way secure in the knowledge that he was now armed with the tools he needed to do the right thing. And then he bonked a man in the head with this little plastic ball.

He came back over to me and said that he needed to have a talk with me. He told me that I really needed to be nice to him and start listening to him. I referred him back to our Bible memory verse. I asked him to tell me what the verse said. And he said "Listen to your children." One of us is confused.

Anyhow, Mike made tikka masala for dinner and Katha and the boys stayed to eat with us. He is a very good cook and it is always nice to invite people over for dinner when you're not the one doing the cooking!

Today I took the kids to the park and our new friend and neighbor Kristin was there with her hubby and little girl. We're trying to get the girls to be friends. Little Allison went to give Emma a hug and Emma threw herself down on the ground and did her best impression of a person who is not interested in making friends. It was wonderful. I'm hoping Allison won't give up on Emma Mae. Later, Kristin totally saved Emma by rescuing her from stomping on a big pile of fire ants. She got several bites but it could have been a lot worse.

During Emma's naptime I let Jake watch Free Willy while I also tried to take a nap. I don't know what is wrong with me but I have no energy lately. I am ready for bed right after lunch time. Anyway, I couldn't sleep because Jake was being kind of loud watching his movie. I kept hearing him talking to the people on the screen. At one point he screamed "LISTEN CHILDREN! OBEY YOUR PARENTS! I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR NAMES ARE BUT YOU BETTER LISTEN!"

One last thing for today. While I was cleaning up after dinner, Mike went to check on the kids. They were in our bedroom. Jake was naked from the waist down holding our camera. Apparently, he was trying to take a picture of his booty. Fortunately, he was not successful. We now have about 30 pictures of the bathroom and our toilet paper holder on the camera. He was successful at taking the cutest picture we've gotten of Emma Mae in quite some time.

Cancelled plans and cupcakes

2011-06-25T19:08:00.007-05:00

Today we had tentative plans to go to the swimming pool with Katha and her boys. However, that idea got nixxed before lunch time. The kids were on fire. It is amazing to me how quickly laughter and squeals of delight can turn into screams of anger and tales of woe around here.

I warned them multiple times that if they couldn't listen to mama and get along with each other then we would have to call off the trip to the pool. Someday those two are going to believe me when I speak.

We did venture out to the grocery store this morning because I wanted to make some cupcakes. I know I probably shouldn't have made cupcakes and given them one based on their behavior. But I had been craving these cupcakes for weeks and didn't really feel like I should be punishing myself because my kids can't listen.

We prayed when we left the driveway and we prayed when we left the grocery store for God to let Big Red make it home safely with one front tire that was near shreds. God didn't disappoint us. I'm thankful for that because Jake was very emphatic in the back seat that if you ask God to help you He will. Also, I'm thankful because I think having a blow out with two small children in the car and having to walk home carrying groceries would have sucked.

So, we came home and made cupcakes and stayed home the rest of the day. I got the recipe for these Pink Lemonade cupcakes from the Idea Room blog. They were quite good. Very summery. For the first time in his life, Jake ate the entire cupcake and not just the frosting. When he was done with it he looked at me and said "mama, that made me so happy." I know how you feel buddy.

While Emma was napping, Jake and I watched a documentary on the Galapagos Islands. This is probably the place I would most like to visit in the world. I'm so thankful to have a son who will sit and watch things like that with me. He kept saying "whoa! I never knew that before!" about everything. I love that little guy.

Last day of VBS

2011-06-24T15:25:00.008-05:00

Well we made it through the VBS week! Emma was done. In fact, her class was out on the same playground that we had my class on at the same time and she threw a FIT when she saw me. At KKW we could run into each other all day long and she would smile and say "hi, mama!" and then go on her way. Not today. She wanted me to hold her and carry her and take her home. When I had to put her down to pick up one of the babies in our class she fell on the ground and seriously acted like she was possessed with a demon.

All of the classes came together at the end of the day to put on a big musical production. I'm thinking I may change my mind about Jake going into the acting business someday. I thought this might be right up his alley. I had visions of him stealing the show up there singing and doing all of the hand gestures and everything. Instead, our child sat on the front row of steps and kept pulling his shirt up over his head.

That's Jake in the green shirt. Can you see him? Mike came up to see the show and was videotaping some of it. He caught some stuff that I couldn't see from where I was standing. It seems that when Jake wasn't hiding in his shirt, he was intent on distracting the kids around him into doing "the wrong thing." Check this out.

We couldn't be more proud.

Emma's class didn't get to participate in the musical. But they did get to attend the performance. They had great seats in this cool red buggy. We had a great week, but I think we're all ready to get back to our lazy mornings of walking the dog and swimming in the sweltering heat.

Buzz Lightyear and Jesus

2011-06-23T18:53:00.007-05:00

Today at VBS the toddlers let us know that they had had enough already. I think five days in a row for little ones is just too much. There was much crying, pushing, shoving and tantrum throwing. And that was just the adults!

Emma has been throwing huge fits when I drop her off at her class too. I don't know what's going on there. I mean screaming "NO! DON'T WANNA GO!" while kicking me fits. It's great. Her teachers still manage to put on a smile and welcome her with open arms though. They say as soon as they give her a snack she calms right down. Like mama, like daughter.

On our way home from church I was pressing Jake about what he learned today. Every day I ask him what Bible story they talked about. Every day he tells me they don't have a Bible story. Now, I know that's not true. Today he finally told me the Bible story was about a turtle. I guess I missed that book in the Bible. Then we got into a discussion about heaven. Jake wanted to know if Jesus lived on Earth. I told him about how Jesus was born a baby, grew up and then some bad men killed him. He filled in the parts about Jesus being killed on a cross so I was all "Score!" He knows something! Then we talked about how one day we will live with Jesus and God in heaven. Jake started talking about how heaven was really high up in the sky, but he knew how we were going to get up there. I was all ready for some heavy duty four year old theology. That's when he told me that Buzz Lightyear and Iron Man would fly us up to Jesus when we die. Maybe that white light people talk about is really just fire from jet fuel!

Last night Mike informed me that he has been having trouble going to sleep and then staying asleep. I was all "oh, i'm not having any trouble sleeping!" So of course I couldn't go to sleep last night and then I woke up several times and couldn't get back to sleep. He totally jinxed me. Meanwhile, he slept like a baby. I was so looking forward to my after VBS nap this afternoon but I couldn't even get to sleep for that. Bummer.

So instead, I woke Emma up early and we all headed off to the swimming pool. We're all getting some pretty awesome tan lines around here.

Amateur Photographer

2011-06-22T19:55:00.008-05:00

Three days of VBS down and two more to go! It has been fun but Emma and I are worn out for some reason. We come home every day and take looong naps. I blame mine on the absence of Coke in my life.

So, really we haven't done much else this week besides VBS. Jake did get hold of my camera one day during my nap though. He was actually watching an Iron Man episode so now our camera has approximately 199 pictures of Iron Man on it. This is my favorite.

The last picture he took was a self portrait. Nice, huh?

I'm thinking Jake might need some glasses. Tonight at dinner he noticed a picture of Emma I just put on the refrigerator. The background on the picture is oceanic with a big killer whale breaching. So Jake's eyes got real big and he said "LOOK! There's a picture of Shamu on the refrigerator! Right behind that little boy!" Now, I know Emma doesn't have much hair but she definitely looks like a girl. Plus, he's known her now for about two years so he should know that she is indeed a girl or at least recognize her as being his sister. Also, he's been watching Scooby Doo ever since cousin's camp and every time Velma says "shut up" we have to have an in depth discussion about how she shouldn't say that. Only today he told me that Velma is a "he". Again, I realize Velma is a little ambiguous and she has really short hair like Emma, but she is wearing a skirt. Clearly, a girl.

In other news, Emma Mae has worn a hair clip in her hair to VBS the last two mornings. She rips it out as soon as we leave but progress is being made! Also, on Father's Day when we went out for pizza we ordered a salad to go with the meal. Both kids ate salad. This is huge. Not so much for Jake. He's a pretty good eater. But Emma refuses to let anything vegetative pass her lips. She ate quite a bit too! Now, if I had had the camera with me I would have totally let Jake take a picture of that!

Coke, cookies and self control

2011-06-21T14:14:00.005-05:00

I'm trying to kick my Coke habit. That's Coca Cola in case anyone is wondering. I actually kicked my Coke habit a few months ago, but I replaced it with a Coke Zero habit. Then I kicked the Coke Zero habit and replaced it with a Vanilla Coke Zero habit. I figured Coke Zero was better for me because it doesn't have any calories. However, it does have a lot of things in it that I can't pronounce. Things like ACESULFAME and PHENYLALANINE. That last one scares me a bit because they put the fact that my Vanilla Coke Zero contains it on a separate spot on the can. All by itself, away from the other list of ingredients. I think it might be some sort of trouble maker.

Hi, I'm Kim. It's been 84 hours since I had my last drink of Vanilla Coke Zero. I don't seem to be able to just give up a bad habit. I can't mentally tell myself when I wake up every morning that I really like drinking nothing but water all day long. Around noon time I need some sort of pick me up. That's usually about the time the kids start fighting and whining and telling me they don't want to eat anything we have in the house for lunch. My hands start shaking. I feel faint. And I want a Coke. And some chocolate. STAT.

Instead, for the past four days I've been reaching for a glass of iced tea. It's not quite the same because there are no fun, fizzy bubbles in tea. But there is caffeine so I think it is helping me get over the hump.

The thing is that tonight we're having chicken enchiladas for dinner. You know what would go really well with Mexican food? A Coke. I'm really trying to talk myself down from it, but right now I'm not certain about how this is going to turn out. My self control is wavering.

Speaking of wavering self control, yesterday at VBS they brought us extra cookies. I was only going to have one cookie. Then I had two. And then I had three. No will power. Please pray for me. This summer I found cellulite in a new place on my thighs. A place that is going to take sacrifice and self discipline to get rid of. A place that takes no prisoners. A place where Vanilla Coke Zero and cookies cannot reside.

Oh, the tiredness

2011-06-20T21:05:00.002-05:00

We started VBS today. I'm teaching a class of toddlers from 12 months to 21 months. They are pretty cute. And they all did really well today. Not much crying at all which is just the way I like it.

Jake and Emma had so much fun. The theme this year is SonSurf so everything is decorated up beach style and Jake's teachers even had a stuffed Shamu so of course he loves it!

Emma and I took very long naps after we got home. We were worn out. Then Mike made some wonderful spaghetti sauce with tomatoes and basil from our garden. It was lovely.

We ended the day with a trip to the pool. Who would have guessed? Leslie brought her two kids over to go swimming with us. It was so nice to see all of them. I have to say I'm exhausted and can't manage any witty remarks tonight. Can't wait to do it all over again tomorrow!

Father's Day

2011-06-19T20:08:00.007-05:00

Happy Father's Day! I have the best daddy in the world and I really wish I could spend every Father's Day with him. He celebrated today by making apricot jam. And I know he will bring me some on his next trip down here. That's one of the reasons he's the best dad in the world! That and also the fact that he (and my mom) agreed to buy me the coolest car ever when I turned 18. I miss you Powder Puff. Oh, and also, he never says anything negative about anybody, he is super smart, and I'm willing to bet that he never gave anyone a reason to say anything negative about himself. Just a little shout out to my daddy here.

I also married someone who is a fantastic daddy. Even if he is the loudest person in the swimming pool throwing Jake sky high and helping him to make the biggest splashes ever. Jake will remember having fun with his daddy at the pool.

I woke up early today to make some blueberry muffins for Mike before he went to work. The kids and I played hookie from church because I knew we were going to have to be at the church this afternoon for a VBS meeting and the price of gas is killing us!

After our meeting Mike met us and we went out for pizza to celebrate Father's Day. It was really good. The restaurant even gave him a free dessert for being a daddy. It was burnt, but that's okay.

After dinner I had to run over to WalMart to buy an iron. I found out at our VBS meeting that I needed to wear a t-shirt with a certain decal on it all week long. Ya'll. I haven't ironed a garment in at least 10 years. I don't iron. If it's too wrinkled to wear it then we don't wear it. Honestly, I was a little put out that I had to buy an iron and bring it into our house. My fear is that certain persons around here will expect me to begin ironing things. I can't have that. So, if you think about it please pray for our VBS week and please pray that no wrinkles dare to show themselves in our house while I'm still alive.

Pirates, pools and pretend

2011-06-18T13:14:00.013-05:00

The kids slept in until 7am today! But, I was up at 5:45 and couldn't get back to sleep. Still, I had a little quiet time to myself before they got up.

After our morning walk we headed over to the local farmer's market for fresh veggies. I've been looking for okra for four weeks now and they finally had some. Come to mama! I can't wait to fry that stuff up.

Our own little garden is doing pretty well this summer. We have a bumper crop of tomatoes coming in. The only problem is that we also have a bumper crop of stink bugs out there eating them just as fast as they turn light red. Every day I go out there and get disgusted by all the bugs. Then I come in and tell Mike that I really ought to make up some "bug juice" to get rid of them organically. Then I never make it. So yesterday while I was gone, Mike made some for me. And that is why I think I'll keep him. He does stuff like that. Last night I sprayed the heck out of the garden and this morning I didn't see a single stink bug.

After the farmer's market, I took the kids over to the city park. Some days they play together or by themselves and don't really need me much. Some days they want me to swing them and play with them. That's the kind of day today was. Jake called Emma and I over to one of the playscapes and told us to get on his ship. Then we spotted some pirates in the distance and had to deal with them forthwith. (I love that word! They say it on Blue Bloods all the time and I've always wanted to use it.)

Anyway, we had to run back and forth between playscapes for a good twenty minutes fighting pirates off. And I sang "what do you do with a scurvy pirate?" more times than I care to remember. Oh, well. It was fun and I know it won't be long before they will be completely embarrassed of me especially if I'm singing pirate songs so I just tried to enjoy the moment.

I tried to get the house cleaned up before we had to go to FRIEND AIDEN'S! birthday party. Here are the kids playing in the choo choo train they made with our dining room chairs while I was mopping the floor.

Aiden's party was at the swimming pool so we continued our pool marathon. Emma found Jake's hat while we there and put it on.

And now Mike and I are going to curl up on the couch and watch Black Swan while we pretend we're actually in the Carribean not fighting pirates.

The smell of burning hair

2011-06-17T20:21:00.003-05:00

Next week I'm working at the church for VBS. I'm super excited for Jake and Emma to go for the first time. I think they will love it. So today I went up there to decorate our room and then I ran a few errands around town while Mike had the kids.

Before I left for the day I decided to put out the effort to straighten my hair and make it look nice. I got it cut a couple weeks ago and it is much shorter which means it gets much poofier if I don't straighten it out. So I'm in the bathroom spraying on this product I bought (for way more than my normal $3.99 hair care budget) and I'm using the flat iron on my hair. This product is supposed to protect your hair from heat, specifically from the flat iron.

I hear a few sizzles while I'm doing this but don't think much about it. Then Mike who was in the bedroom at the time starts yelling that he smells something burning. Not two minutes later the smoke alarm in our bedroom started going off. All from my hair. I'm starting to think that straightening my hair out may not be the best option for me.

After my errands I came back home to the biggest welcome home committee you've ever seen. You would have thought I had been gone for months overseas or something. Right away Jake and Emma asked for a snack. I lovingly gave them a bowl of Pirate Booty and Goldfish Crackers fresh from HEB.

Ten minutes after finishing that snack, Jake told me that he was still hungry and asked for something else. I told him he could have fruit. So he said he wanted ice cream. I said that ice cream is not fruit. So he asked for cheese. Clearly we need a lesson on the four food groups around here.

The day ended with cheeseburgers and a trip to the swimming pool. Does anything scream summer more than that? Maybe some homemade ice cream, but we don't have any of that around here. We'll have to settle for the delicious mint chocolate chip ice cream Klondike bars we bought yesterday instead. And I'm gonna call that a fruit or veggie since they're green inside and be completely guilt free.

I'm all out of titles

2011-06-16T19:46:00.007-05:00

So today started at 6am with Emma in our bedroom. I took her back to her bed, gave her a cup of chocolate milk and told her to go back to sleep. An hour later Mike and I woke up. It was wonderful. I went in to check on the kids and Emma was laying on the floor in Jake's room wide awake waiting for him to wake up.

We did our morning walk and then took the kids to the pool. Friend Aiden happened to be there with his family so Jake was super excited. I was able to meet a neighbor we had never talked to before and set up a future play date for Emma and her daughter. It's so funny to me that friendships used to be made over shared experiences or common values and now I can go to the pool and see someone with a daughter the same age as mine and say "hey, do you want to get together sometime? my daughter really needs some girls to hang out with!"

Mike put most of the finishing touches on our house painting last night. It looks so good! We painted our living room/kitchen/dining room in cappuccino. Now, when I get up every morning I expect to see a Starbucks barrister in the kitchen making me a skinny vanilla latte on ice. Alas, all I ever really see is the cat staring at me begging for food.

A few months ago I told Mike that I thought our living room would look really good with a mantle even though we don't have a fireplace or anything to put it over. A few weeks after that conversation Mike came home from work with this beautiful mantle that a co-worker had taken out of his house. Ask and you will receive. Mike painted it white and hung it up tonight. I think it looks really good. Okay, I know we have too much stuff on it right now. I'm trying to decide what to keep up and what to take down. I'm just praying the whole thing doesn't fall off of the wall and kill our TV someday.

My favorite part of today was listening to Emma tell everyone how much she loves us. All day long she came up to me, looked me in the eye, put her little hands on my face and said "I wuvs you mama" then she says she wuvs Jacob and she wuvs daddy too. So cute! And Jake spent the day telling me which room he tooted in and which direction the toot went. Lovely.

So many words Wednesday

2011-06-15T13:24:00.006-05:00

Jake and Emma woke me up at 6:30 from a wonderful dream where Amy and I were shopping for formal evening gowns at the mall. Jason Bateman had just come up to me and offered me a huge piece of chocolate cake when I was rudely summoned out of my slumber. I tell you payback is gonna be so much fun when they become teenagers and just want to sleep all day long.

Took Pudgy for a walk. I had plans to go to Target today to buy a birthday present for one of Jake's friends. While I was getting ready the kids pushed every button on each other they could find. There was much crying and wailing and tales of he did this and she did that. My dreams of a fun, peaceful outing to Target were slowly fading by the dark, dark storm clouds of my offspring. I threatened them both with no TV and a possible cancellation of swimming pool privelages for the day if they acted up one bit while we were out.

They made it almost through the check out line at Target. That's when Emma had her first melt down because I wouldn't pick her up. I actually blame the melt down on the fact that I ommitted a crucial step to a successful Target outing with my kids. I did not buy the popcorn/icee combo for them. The price of that combo has climbed from $1.50 to $2.18 this year. That is highway robbery. Everything is going up except our paychecks it seems. Anyway, we still needed to go to the pet store to buy Scratchy some crickets and I wanted to go to Kohl's for a father's day gift. Jake was still being good so I thought maybe we could make it if I carried Emma for a little bit.

Mission accomplished in the pet store. Kohl's on the other hand was a different story. Perhaps I set them up for failure by taking them into a store to look at things other than toys. But, within three minutes they were running around like wild Indians while other mom's averted their eyes from mine and one bemused grandma smiled and said she remembered those days.

I hate it when I have to make good on threats. But, I couldn't let it slide. They were pretty crazy in Kohl's. So, the TV did not come on when we got home. We had lunch and after they were done they finally noticed the lack of noise in the background and wanted to watch a show. I told them "no" in no uncertain terms. Jake went to his room and played with toys. Wonderful! Emma stayed under my feet asking me every five seconds to put on Scooby Doo for her. Then she had to go to time out.

I finally got them wrangled to the playroom where I built the simplest of train tracks on Jake's train table. They played and played proving to me that I don't have to know how to build multi-level tracks with bridges and stuff that I need an engineering degree to design for them to have fun.

We ended the day with, you guessed it, a trip to the swimming pool. My hair will be in need of some deep conditioning by the end of the summer.

Reunions

2011-06-14T21:18:00.009-05:00

So today I was awakened at 6:15 by something rolling around all over my body. It turned out to be Emma Mae. She then proceeded to cup my face in her little hand and demand me to "GET UP MAMA!" Someday when she is a teenager I will pay her back for this nonsense.

We got up, ate breakfast and took the overweight dog for a walk. Sound familiar? Two days every week I babysit our neighbors little boy. Today was one of those days. When he comes over we are basically home bound which can make for a long day. So even though the temperature was somewhere between sweltering and this is where the devil lives hot I put the two smaller ones in the stroller and put Jake on his bike and we headed over to the park. Jake was on fire. He kept switching back and forth between being Spiderman and Iron Man. At one point he was those two plus Super Man and BatMan. It was the perfect trifecta plus one of superheroes. He used up so much energy at the park that he didn't have much left for the bike ride home. Now, I have had to carry that bike while pushing the stroller with two kids in it home before. I was not going to do it today. Plus, there was nowhere for him to ride in the stroller. So Jake had to suck it up and ride that bike home. He cried the entire way. I asked him why he was crying and he said it was because he wanted his Willy (Shamu). I tried telling him that crying wasn't going to solve that problem but he wasn't listening.

We made it home and Jake found all three of his Willy's while I sang the classic Peaches and Herb's song Reunited and It Feels So Good. Then, we all needed a refreshing snack in the form of sugar and ice. So I broke out the Popsicles.

Have you ever seen a child look so pitiful about eating a popsicles? I think he was reliving the torturous bike ride home.

Later in the afternoon we headed over to Katha's house to be reunited with some old friends that moved to Idaho two years ago. I totally forgot my camera, but it was so good to see Jenn and her two adorable kids. Emma and Max spent the entire evening being too cute for words together. And Jake was on fire again. They were begging for bed by the time we got home.

Dear Diary

2011-06-13T21:57:00.002-05:00

I think I need a goal for summer since I'm not working and the days are all starting to run together. I think my goal will be to document every single day of our life this summer. It will be riveting. It will be better than any soon to be cancelled soap opera you might watch on TV.

Today started bright and early at 6am. I asked Jake why he and Emma have to wake up so early and he told me it was because the new clock I bought was too loud for him to sleep. I just laughed and thought he was just copying Mike about the clock. I bought this thing at Ross last week on clearance and it looks really good in our living room. Mike keeps saying it is keeping him awake at night. I thought he was just complaining about it because he doesn't like the wall I hung it on and he's hoping I will take it down. Tonight, I went in to check on the kids in their rooms before I went to bed and I could totally hear that clock ticking through the walls. Now I know why it was on clearance.

The worst possible thing happened after we got up today. I realized we were out of cereal bars. Both kids started whining and crying that they NEEDED a cereal bar. I was not going to the store at 6am so instead I busted out a new recipe for whole wheat waffles. I added some blueberries to the batter and they were delish!

We took the overweight dog for his walk and I was covered with sweat by 8:30am. Lovely. Did I mention that a man in a pickup stopped me on Saturday while we were on our walk and asked if I would sell him the dog? Yeah. And I didn't even hesitate to tell him no. Who would have thought? It seems I don't want to get rid of the beast as much as I keep telling myself I do.

Anyway, I got brave and took the kids by myself to the pool for two hours this morning. They were so good! We had a lot of fun and now I know what most of our days will be like this summer.

Later, I took a nap. Exciting, isn't it? I was worn out. We ended the day with a new recipe from PW that my sister made for the kids at cousins camp and she said they ate it up for her. Emma took one look at it and told me she did NOT want to eat THAT DINNER! Which just proves that she loves Aunt Cheryl more than mommy.

Mike and I ended the evening watching the Prince of Persia and all I can say is that that Jake Gyllenhaal is a cutie patootie. The end.

They're Back!

2011-06-11T11:14:00.003-05:00

Well, Jake and Emma came back to us Wednesday afternoon. I met Cheryl, Katie and the kids at our local hamburger joint to have lunch and do a munchkin exchange. As soon as Jake saw me he ran up to me and threw his arms around me and started saying "Mama! Mama!" It was so cute. He cuddled up to me at lunch and told me how much fun he had at Aunt Cheryl's house but that he was happy to be going home. He actually kissed the house when we got home. Multiple times.

Emma, on the other hand, refused to look at me or even acknowledge my presence when she saw me. She wanted nothing to do with me. She sat in between Cheryl and Katie at lunch and she cried hysterically when they left the house to go home. She kept saying "I want Cheryl! My Katie!" It was so pitiful.

Needless to say, both kids had a blast on their first official sleep over. They went swimming, played at a park and I dare say were spoiled rotten over the course of two days. For some reason, Emma thinks she should be carried around 100% of the time now. Not sure what that's all about.

She was either completely worn out or completely unhappy about being back at home with me. This is how I found her about two hours after they got home.

I guess she had to put her blankies over her face so she couldn't see me. She was probably dreaming about Cheryl and Katie.

I enjoyed my time off from mommyhood. I did almost everything on my checklist. Except for playing the piano. I'll have to bang that out some other time. Mike and I enjoyed a couple meals alone and we even took a break from painting the house one night to go to a movie. We saw Bridesmaids and if you can get over the raunchy parts it really is hilarious. I was super excited to see a painting of Rick Springfield hanging up on the wall in one of the houses in the movie. Crazy! Not only did I get to see a funny movie, but I got to see my Rick as well. Who could ask for more?

I'm so happy to have my little guys back at home. We have been swimming more times than I can count and are looking forward to a marathon of Birthday parties for the next few days.

Sieze the day

2011-06-07T06:50:00.006-05:00

Yesterday, I took Jake and Emma to my sister's house and DROPPED THEM OFF there for the next two days. This is the first time they have slept at somebody else's house without me. I had to call Amy on my way home to ask her why I felt like crying because I missed them so much. She gave me some sage advice. She said "oh that will pass as soon as you get busy. Go have some fun!" Best. Advice. Ever. This is the first time in four years I have had an entire day to myself. I don't know what to do. Now, I have had two other occasions to go overnight somewhere without the kids, but I was with friends for one and with Mike for another. I had fun, but I still had to think about what others wanted to do. I'm looking at hours ahead of me where I can do anything I want to do.

George Michael's song "Freedom" keeps reverberating through my brain. Last night Mike and I went to Home Depot and roamed the aisles forever looking at things without anyone telling us they wanted to "GET DOWN NOW!" or "I WANT TO RIDE THE TRACTORS!" or "SHE'S HITTING ME!" It was blissful. Then we went to Target and didn't have to buy popcorn and slushies as a bribe to keep people quiet while we shopped. Wonderful!

Also, last night I ate a meal without having to get up fifty five times to cut up peaches, put more ice in a cup, refill ketchup or ranch dressing supplies, clean up a spill or threaten to spank a bottom if someone didn't sit down already and eat. Ya'll. My food tasted delicious. It was warm and it was fresh from the first bite until the last one. Also, I stopped when I was full instead of continuing to stress eat after everyone else had left the table to calm my nerves.

After dinner Mike and I started painting the living room. Isn't that what any two people in love with some free time on their hands would do?

Today, the possibilities are endless. I was going to sleep in, but I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5:45am. This proves that you can lead a little mama to water but you can't make her internal alarm clock drink of it. I'm thinking I will start the day off by taking the overweight dog on a walk all by ourselves. I will watch Good Morning America. I will use the gift card my sweet friend gave me for a mani/pedi. I will stop at Starbucks for a highly caloric beverage and maybe even read a book while I'm there. I may go out to lunch. I will walk the aisles of Hobby Lobby for as long as I feel the desire to do so. I will play the piano. I will call a friend on the phone and have a conversation. Today is all about me and I don't feel guilty about it at all.

Do you see the irony here?

2011-06-03T14:15:00.010-05:00

We started off this morning with our walk of the overweight dog. About halfway through Mike spotted a little bird in the grass flapping his wings but not going anywhere. I did what I always do in these situations. I sent Mike to investigate. He picked up the bird and determined that it had a hurt leg. We are both relatively compassionate people and want to teach our kids compassion so we decided to scoop up the little bird in a towel we had in our stroller and take him home with us.

When we got home we let the kids take a look at the bird and told them that it was hurt but that we were going to try to help it. So I made some phone calls. There is a wildlife rehabilitation place in downtown Austin we could drop the bird off at. We put the bird in a box still wrapped in a towel and headed off to Austin. We named it Flinn. Half a gas tank later, we found the place and checked in with a volunteer. She confirmed that we had a baby dove with a hurt but not broken leg. She said it would be fine but that it was really hungry and she needed to feed it right away. Then she asked me if I had fed it anything and I felt really bad that the answer was "no." But, we only had the little thing for about an hour and a half and I didn't think it would enjoy goldfish crackers or Pirate Booty.

The rehab place was on some really pretty land with walking trails so we decided to take the kids for a little hike. We had a really nice time until some sort of foreign object lodged itself in Jake's shoe and he still has not found it or stopped complaining about it.

On our way home we talked about Flinn and how nice it was to help take care of one of God's creatures. I have to say we were feeling pretty good about ourselves. Right up until a bird flew into our windshield and bounced off the car as we were going approximately 55 mph. Mike tried to convince me that he hadn't seen the body drop anywhere and that this bird was probably just suffering from a minor concussion or something. I don't know if I buy it. But I do know that the next time we find a hurt animal we will bring it home, feed it goldfish crackers and hope for the best.

Parks, playground and ponies!

2011-06-01T13:03:00.008-05:00

Mike had to work on Memorial Day so the kids and I just hung out at the house all day. We did make our morning foray to the park. Since the kids are waking up at 6AM every single day now, we can actually get to the park before the temperature soars to somewhere above unbearable.

I started the morning off with a mild heart attack. Imagine being woken up at 6am every morning out of a sound sleep. Then imagine opening your legally blind eyes to a midget in a mask. (Okay, I know I should have written "little person" but come on, the alliteration!) That is what I sort of saw when I was awakened on Memorial Day. Jake is very into Spiderman right now and decided to wear his Spiderman mask to wake me up. It was frightful.

Today marks our first official day of summer break! We woke up with no plans and nothing to do. So I immediately fixed that situation. We went for a walk with our overweight dog. I'm determined to get him (and me) into shape this summer. Then I packed up the kids and my coupons and we headed off to the Jumpy Gym for hours of inside, air conditioned entertainment. After that, we went to Chick A Fil for some lunch and more indoor playground excitement. The fun never stops around here.

I didn't take my camera and I know the only reason anyone stops by this blog is to look at pictures of the kids. So, here are some pics we took at our neighbor boy's three year old birthday party a couple weeks ago. This party had a petting zoo, pony rides, a bouncy house, snow cones, Spiderman cupcakes and I don't know what all else. I'm afraid Jake and Emma may start requesting more than "a little family gathering" for their future parties.

Lions, tigers and sweat oh my!

2011-05-29T14:04:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, our friends the Kelley's came over and loaded Jake, Emma and I into their enormous rental car and we all headed off to the Austin zoo. The boys had been wanting a play date and we thought this would be fun for all. Ya'll. It was approximately the temperature of the sun yesterday. After about ten minutes the two least among us were completely sweaty and red cheeked. We all followed suit shortly after.

However, the kids did have fun feeding some goats and sheep (paper bag and all, sorry mr. sheep!) The two things the boys kept saying they wanted to see were the tigers and lions. We finally made it over to their homes and they were the only animals at the zoo who were not too hot to move around for some reason. The tigers were pacing and there was a big male lion lying around with his lady friend. Well, I guess he forgot to bring home the right thing for lunch or something because they started bickering. There was much growling and throwing back of the heads. I think I even saw them biting each other.

I was all "great! someone's doing something!" Just as I said that the big, ticked off male let out the biggest roar I've ever heard and came charging straight at us at approximatley the speed of a charging lion. Luckily for us, there was a metal cage between him and our children. Unlucky for him, he hit the metal cage at full speed and totally smushed his face in it. I felt sorry for him, but I mean he was trying to eat us. Jake started crying and is now traumatized for life about lions. This isn't the first time a male lion has roared at him and tried to eat him either. It happened once in Amarillo. Therefore, I have made a vow to never take Jake on safari.