*looks around * Sigh

This just won't do. Logan is 18 months old in that picture. Now he is four! I need to face facts people. I need a new template!

What I would like is one where I could have three of four photos across the top, preferably ones that I could change whenever I like. I need to pack this old template into some moving boxes and put it on the top shelf of my closet.

I want to look for something brighter, less colorful, more...Minimalistic maybe. The yellows and blues are getting on my nerves. Not nearly as much as the baby photo of Logan, but still. it's time for a change!

Halloween

I read this morning that Halloween ranks highest of favorite holidays for kids.

DO YOU BLAME THEM?

Not only do they get to dress up, but they get to go out and get bags of candy! BAGS.OF.CANDY! I mean, Halloween is my favorite holiday too! I get to stay inside the warm house while Hubs takes the boys out door to door, and then I get to go through their bags, picking out my favorite candy and putting it aside for ME!

I guess the only downside to Halloween is having to turn off the security systems and opening the door for goblins and ghosts all night long!

(This year, we are giving out Play Doh instead of candy)

Cute!

Sammi, Parker, The Girls, Or Logan. Vote for who is cutest.

Fall means Mess

It Means Mud and sand and dirt and sticks and leaves coming into the house. I refuse to wear any of my "nice" shows when I take the kids to school, we have to walk trough a veritable landmine of muck and mire to get to the door (I feel sorry for the school janitors) so whey , WHY are people dressing to the nines to bring their kids to school? I'm talking Oscar de la Renta, perfect make up, not a hair out of place, and of course, all the matching accessories!

It's eight thirty int he MORNING! What time do you have to get up to look like that for eight thirty in the morning?? I mean, Most mornings I drive the kids to school with a coat over top my pajamas! (It's not a big deal people, I stay in the car, no one can see but the boys!)

In a month when we are dealing with -30 temps and the icy sidewalks that come with it, I'd love to see those girls wobble on their four inch heels up to the doors to drop Junior off to class. And me in my comfy pajamas? I'm not going to get snow and slush on MY fuzzy bunny slippers trying to help Little Miss fashion plate get back up!

DCA*

Let me start by saying that I sure hope my family does not read this post! You see, my family thinks that since I take soooo many pictures and get quite a few nice ones ( really though, 1 awesome shot per 100 clicks of the shutter) I am some kind of camera whiz. BUT I'M NOT!

Here goes. I have a Kodak easy Share DX7590. It's a few years old, but its an alright camera. I have been off and on bitching to my husband that I want an SLR camera so that I can get different lenses - particularly a wide angle lens *swoon* and take some really neat shots! The reason I have been so half heartedly bugging hubs for the SLR is the price. Lenses are expensive enough without having to go and get a new camera to go with them!

I would love to have a huge zoom lens, like adding Nikon binoculars to my shutter so that I could get nice, non noisy shots of the boys while playing.. but again, I need a camera that you can interchange lenses on.

OR DO I?

Day before yesterday I was cleaning all the cameras, it's something I do on a regular basis. Nothing worse than getting somewhere you know you want to take photos and finding a smudge on your lens, ya know?

So I was cleaning the DX - something I have done at LEAST a hundred times before, when I noticed wee little grooves around my lens. Kind of almost EXACTLY like the grooves you need to screw in the optional lenses you can buy.

Eye R Dum.

(Eye R Also Shopping for a new lens for Christmas!!)


* Dumb Chick Alert

So... What do Dreams mean?

If I were to tell you that last night I dreamed that my entire house - the WHOLE house, walls floors, the ceiling, even the appliances - were covered in pop up tv's and every time someone Thought about me, their specific TV would pop up and I could see their thoughts?

That was my dream last night. it was very odd. Sometimes your thought made me laugh, but it really is true that those who eavesdrop don't hear good things about themselves, becuase for the most part the dream was sad, scary almost. I kept wanting to wake up and I would finally wrench myself from sleep, thinking" good, it's done", and fall back asleep only for my dream to continue from where it left off!

I absolutely hate dreams like that, the ones you cannot escape. I suppose that some people would say that when you have a dream that won't go away, your subconscious is desperately trying to tell you something, but what? WHAT?

...Because of the cost, mainly.

I was asked recently why I do not have a cell phone. The biggest reason is the cost. The fact that a cell phone bill can be so easily ran up terrifies me! ALL of the bills I get now, The amount is known to me long before the bill arrives.

Another huge reason that I don't have a cell phone is ...No Need. My husband cannot receive or make calls from work, when I go out, 99% of the time it is with him, and if there is someone else I want to call, that I NEED to call, I can find a pay phone!

And the third reason? I'm in love with the iPhone, be we don't get the best coverage here. I'm not entirely sure how all the satelite and cell phone towers and cell signal booster work, but I've heard that if I get an iPhone, I will only get coverage in the city, which is not cool as I live OUTSIDE the city. Quite a bit outside in fact.

So there you have it. Why don't I have a cell phone? I'm Cheap, Boring, and lust after the impossible!

Family Fun Night

Tonight was our schools Family Fun Night. They have a FFN each year as a fundraiser and it is a lot of fun. hectic, but a lot of fun. I've always kind of felt on the Outer Banks when it comes to other mothers. I don't really talk with them at pick up and drop off time- I mean, I say Hi and make random small talk, but I do prefer to not have to talk with them. I just don't feel like I belong!

I've used our youngest son as an excuse for the entire time I have had kids in school to keep from "having" to volunteer at the various school functions there are! Except, this year, Logan is in school too, and I no longer have any excuse to not volunteer, and tonight was my first night as a volunteer.

You know, it wasn't that bad. All I had to do was had out bingo tickets while taking in tokens at the door. It was only a half hour shift, and if I do say so myself, I did not half bad! And...it wasn't that horrible of an experience either. I mean. I was a bit confused at first as to what to do, but after the first few minutes, I got my bingo grove on!

Puppy BREAK!

Parker And Sammi

Sammi loves to sleep with me while I am online

She also loves for the boys to hold her. Even Logan

She is happiest when she is being cuddled.

I'm just happy She is here!

Do YOU think Sammi is Cute? Vote for her here!

I have a secret

It's a weird secret.

I've been watching Lost. The TV Series. Yeah. I KNOW! Now, right now you are thinking, WTF? That's no secret, a million people watch Lost. But the thing is, I HATE TV series, I hate being sucked into something that plays at a certain time on a certain day. I hate that I have to plan things around a Television show, becuase I don't want to miss an episode!

But hubs started watching Lost when our station started playing Season one. Tonight is the Season Two primere. It plays Monday to Friday at 10 PM, which is a pretty much perfect time for us. The kids are long in bed and it is late enough at night that I am back from coffee (when I go for coffee that is).

I sit here, everynight on my very uncomfortable couch, wishing that I had home theater seating, blogging blindly, watching Lost and correcting all my typos on commercials.

I never expected to be interested in this show. I mean, I've read about a million blog posts about how wonderful it is, adn the majority of the world is watching like season 64, but I got sucked in regardless.

Decorating For Halloween

I have to say that as much as I dislike having to be dressed and get out the door at a certain time to get the kids at school, one of the best parts is being able to see all of the arts and crafts the children have done. even better is when there is a festive holiday like Halloween, Easter or Christmas for the children to decorate for!

On a Normal day i pick up Logan at his classroom and wait outside it for Parker and Blake to make their way to me. Imagine the school as the letter "V" Parker and Blake are each one the very tip of one of the "legs" of the letter, and Logan's room is at the point.

Today was Music class for Logan, and parents are Strongly Encouraged to attend, so I of course attended! The class let out about ten minutes before any of the other grades classes did so the children who had parents with them were free to go. I considered - very briefly, because it is cold - going home and leaving Parker and Blake to walk, but decided instead to go and get them from their classrooms.

Since we always pick up Blake first, Logan and I decided to head to Parker's classroom this time, and am I ever glad we did! Because we always go to Blakes room, and Blake is very slow at getting ready, Parker meets us somewhere between Logan's class and Blake's class. We hardly ever get to see the older kids art work! (k-2 is on one side of the V, with 3-5 on the opposite side)

The theme for this Halloween appears to be SPIDERS! Oh man! I have never seen so many at one time! Four different displays, with 30-60 spiders to a display! (kind of wish the school would advertise when they decide to turn their halls into huge spider traps, just for those of us who have phobias!) If you take into consideration that a piece of fuzz caught on the carpet scares me with it's vague resemblance to a spider scares me, you can just imagine what walking down that hall did to me!

Logan liked the eggshell spiders the best - they had cut the rounded part of the egg carton off, painted them black and added pipe cleaner legs and scary painted faces - but my favorite was a decorating idea I had not seen before - At most grocery stores you can get tiny tiny TINY pumpkins, they literally fit int he palm of your hand. The kids had taken these pumpkins and painted them black, and added legs and faces to them. They looked both realistic AND scary!

I am pretty sure I broke Logan's little heart when I told him NO! Absolutely NOT! to the query of us making Spiders like this at home. it is important to note that while there is not much I will NOT do for my children, facing my Arachnophobia is something I CANNOT do for them.

I have tired to get over my fear, as it is a fear I have had for a long long long time. I can remember sitting down to watch the movie "Arachnophobia" as a young teen. I think it was with the hope of making them seem more fictional and fake - less scary, but THAT plan backfired on me. I also went through a period when I decided that you only fear that which you don't know, and researched Spiders.

I got the encyclopedia off the shelf and opened it to the word "Spider". I was put off for a bit by the fact there was a photo of a spider on the page. I solved that by covering it with a piece of paper while I read all about spiders. Now, I know a LOT about spiders, but I am still just as scared of them.

I bet I could write a five hundred page book on all the stupid things that I have done in response to my fear of the creature. One example - At nine months pregnant, I was sitting on the floor, cutting flannel into a pattern to make some sheets for the baby's crib. A Spider, just a little one, no bigger than the eraser on the end of a pencil, crawled out from under my pile of material. To my back was a couch, and directly behind the couch were the railings to the stair. I crawled backwards, in a crab walk to the couch and, still heading backwards, up the back of the couch to the railing, where I continued UP the railing. At nine months pregnant. Over a spider smaller than a baby's fingernail.

Oh well. Only one more week before the kids start decorating for Christmas!

Is it Because I am Old?

We do our shopping every two weeks, on payday, and with the exception of milk and gas, if we forget to buy it then, or run out, we wait until the next shopping day to buy it. So every Sunday after shopping day, I start a new list of items that we need or have run out of, and for the last EIGHT shopping trips I have forgotten to get one simple thing.

See, nine weeks ago our power went out. And everything was fine until about nine PM when it started getting dark outside. we kept hoping that the power would come back on and that we would be able to see and do stuff, but we had to give in, finally, and light candles.

We have a LOT of candles, but most of them are decorative. In my bathroom alone I have nine different candles. Until that power outage, two of my votives, which were a gift but matched the pain on the walls EXACTLY, were kept in the shrink wrap they came in. However, when the power went out, we opened them up, put them on plates and lit them, along with about 12 other candles.

(we were trying to play a card game and you need a surprising amount of light for that - I think that the reason we needed So much light was the game that we were playing, Green 11, you have to be able to see the color of the cards - they are special cards- and with too little light you can mistake a blue 11 for a green 11, and that just cannot happen!)

Ahhhhny way. The item I keep forgetting to buy is two Votive candle holders for the candles that I had opened. I already have two votives in nice holders that I found for under a dollar,and it would be nice to be able to find two more that match it. As it is, those poor little votives are sitting, gathering dust under my sink waiting for a new home.

And yes, before you say anything, I DID get up half way through this post and wrote it down on the shopping list! I wont forget this time!

Just a post for my dad

You will have to click on each photo to make it bigger!

Blake:
Parker:
Logan:
Packages:




Just because a certain pose is shown in black and white, sepia or color, doesn't mean it has to be ordered in that color.

(the little photo in the corner is they one that will be placed in the school yearbook. Ignore it!)

Oh WTF ever, lady

I have been bringing Sammi to school with me when I drop off and pick up the boys all week. Two days in the past week, hubs was home and so I left Sammi with him. I bring her only because it breaks my heart to hear her cry as we walk out the door, plus she is so small and cute and I just want to eat her up!

All week I have done my best to keep Sammi tucked into my coat, knowing that if the 400 students in the school suddenly saw my cute little pup it would cause a hell of an commotion, but yesterday I had to stop into my eldest son's classroom to make sure there were no allergies for the students in his class. He will be bringing Birthday cupcakes on the 29th and I wanted to be sure.

I was in the class, and Parker, knowing Sammi was tucked into my coat told his teacher. He loves his pup and I cannot blame him for wanting to show her off! Well, from there it all spiraled out of control and by the time we made it out of the school 40 minutes later more than 20 teachers stopped in to hold and pet our sweet baby girl.

Therefore, today when I went in to get the boys I made less of an effort to hide Sammi, after all, yesterday the Principle himself was holding and petting her and did not say I should not be bringing her into the school!

We were on our way to the car when a woman stopped to admire Sammi. She kept insisting that Sammi could NOT be a mutt, that she was most definitely a Shitzu. This woman stood there, Starbucks coffee in hand, arguing with me! I had never met her before in my life!

Finally I told her that Sammi cannot possibly be a Shitzu becuase her mom was a Miniature poodle crossed with Miniature eskimo and her dad was a fox terrier. Well, that was the worst possible thing for em to ever say. Where before the woman was trying to get me to giver her an exact address of teh farm(reserve) where we got Sammi (because OMG she was free)(wtf seriously) Now she was backing away from us like Sammi had aids.

Terriers!!!! Have you any idea what you have done! She shrieked. Apparently a terrier needs to be played with 24/7 or they get very destructive.

Whatevvvvvvvvvver!

Every dog is different. Even within the same breeds. Sammi will be a fine dog, as long as we take the time to teacher her the proper ways to behave.

Wow

I know its not proper, nor right, but how the children eat their evening meal sets the tone of how I feel emotionally. When I have fight with the boys to get them to eat I end up with headaches, I am very bitchy and very, almost lethargic?

But when they eat well, my mood does a complete turnaround. I can be having the crappiest day on earth, but seeing them clean their plates sends me over the moon! And trust me, it is VERY rare that the boys eat well.

(They get it from me. I'm an extremly picky eater and so are they - though they are much worse than I am)

I wish I had taken a photo of tonight's meal. The boys ate better than I think they EVER have!

I had taken out pork chops for hubs and I and was not looking forward to fighting with the boys to make them eat that. When I had the chops sliced and marinating (just some garlic seasoning and a dash of italian dressing, enough to coat everything well) I realised there was not enough of the pork chops to feed all five of us. I was looking around wondering what to feed the boys when I saw the slices of ham in the fridge.

My mother in law had sent slices of ham off a ham.... uhm roast? A ham thingy. Those round things with kind of a quilted outside? Whatever, slices of ham. Slices that were sent to my house and were living in my fridge.

I tossed them in a frying pan, no butter, no oil, just sliced ham. I heated it up and browned it a bit and took it out. While I did that the two youngest boys mixed honey and mustard to make a sauce for their ham. Then we just had sliced cheese, carrots and some cheesey pasta.

The boys ate all of their food and then went back for more. And then MORE! I ended up having to fry more ham for them!

It was awesome.

The pork chops were good too. I almost feel like I should be taking diet pills to make up for how much I ate tonight!

I Hate Winter

We will have snow int he next seven days. It's an inevitable fact of life. I always worry about Micah driving to work, but int eh winter, when he has to drive 15 minutes on an often ice coated highway to get to and from work, well, I worry even more.

I often wonder if travel medical insurance works on things like traveling to work, or if it is meant for vacations and what not.

I know that when we go out of province we need travel insurance, and of course, out of country,but is there extra insurance for "normal" travel.

I like to worry, if you had not noticed yet, and i worry about things whether or not they need to be worried about!

L OH L - OH L OH L

Blake - he is six - he cracks me up! Last night he was brushing his teeth while his older brother finished up his preparations for bed. One of Parker's "jobs" to do before bed is to wash his face with medicated wipes. Parker has been getting black heads and pimples (Already!!!?) so we are trying to instill good hygiene early on to make sure his face stays under control when he is a teen and acne is a real concern.

Blake was staring at the mirror, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth when I walked in last night. I told him to hurry up, and he turned to me, dropping his toothbrush, with a big foamy grin on his face "FINALLY!" he said, "I have my first pimple".

Sure enough he had a tiny dot on the side of his nose. I let him use Parker's wipes, just to make him feel big.

I'm not sure I like that Blake is ready and WILLING to grow up so fast!

LE SIGH - What now you might ask?

I just had a shower. Not all together an odd thing, although, the timing of it was a bit off. I normally have my shower either in the early morning or late at night. I was busy cleaning house (PUPPY PROOFING!!) this morning, and I will be busy (PUPPY) tonight, so I had it now.

Everything was fine, until I stepped out of the shower. I was putting lotion on my face when I noticed something off. I wear body jewelry, a belly button hoop and a nose ring. The belly button ring is fine, but somewhere between last night and getting out of the shower I lost the little blue jewel from my nose ring!

Nose rings, the kind I get are not expensive, but where I buy them, you have to call ahead 24 hours (or visit) becuase they take the jewelry out of the display case and put it in their autoclave to make sure it has not been contaminated while on display.

I SUCK at remembering things, so I will not remember to call ahead on Friday night (next Friday) so that I can pick up my new nose jewelry Saturday when we are in the city!

Just my luck!

BAD timing

Our DVD player is broken.

Logan has gotten into the habit of watching a movie every morning - he isn't a fan of TV shows, but loves movies- and now the DVD player is broken!

Hubs did something or other and I can play movies on his PlayStation, but there are weird lines that run up and down the screen while we watch and a horrifyingly ANNOYING buzzing sound. There is a cord in the back, a yellow, white and red one, what's that called? A CAT5e cable? Anyway, hubs said that that corn needs to be replaced and then the buzzing and lines will be gone.

Plus, its way cheaper to buy a cord as opposed to a whole DVD player!

With Christmas in three months, and our eldest having a birthday in three weeks, buying a DVD player is NOT in the budget!

Tonight I win the lottery

No really! I tell myself this every Friday! We buy a weekly lotto ticket for our Provincial lotto, and sooner or later I will win more than ten bucks.

If I DID win, after paying my student loans and mortgage down to zero, I would buy a flash car, like a Ferrari. I wouldn't need to worry about finding Ferrari parts, cus I would have the money to ship them in from over seas...A Ferrari is a European car, right?

I would also take the kids on a super cool vacation - like a Disney cruise!

Please use the comments to name one thing you would do if you won a lottery!

Healthy Eating

I was on facebook last night when a friends status message caught my eye . She said She is starting her Detox tomorrow. I was confused and sent her a message, because I had no idea she was addicted to drugs or alcohol.

She laughed at me. She told me that her body needed to be detoxed from all the junk food and unhealthy habits she had, that she was doing the orovo detox to speed things up.

I guess with the arrival of her new little girl, she is worried about being healthy so that she will be around for them as long as they need her.

I need to make a few lifestyle changes myself. Number one on that list is to smoke less and move more!

Nerves of steel

My hand is shaking. Actually, the whole arm, not just my hand. when I keep it busy, such as typing or walking around picking up toys it is fine, but if I stop, and just sit, it starts to vibrate.

I think it's nerves!

In seven more hours it is puppy time. All I have to do is get the kids off to their nana's after school, and away we go!

We have been keeping the puppy's arrival date a secret from them!

And oh! How i want this puppy. I want her like a shoeaholic needs Beautifeel shoes! I cannot wait to hold her and kiss her and pet her silky back, and most of all, know that she is OURS!

It's going to be awesome!

SO Cold. SO VERY COLD

So, we haven't turned on our furnace yet. Part of it is I hate to see my bills go up, but a bigger part is that as soon as we give in and turn it on we are admitting that summer is over and that Winter really really is coming. And that depresses me.

We are going to have to give in VERY soon and turn it on. Seriously, I am in long underwear, jeans, a tee shirt AND a sweater, as well as fuzzy socks and slippers and I am SHIVERING.

The weather forecast is calling for snow flurries starting tomorrow night. Its time for me to plan one of those Vegas vacations, like Nobody is going on. Its hot in Vegas right? Or no? Tell me quick before I get too far in my planning!

Morning!

It's 10:37 (my time, dunno what time it is where you are!!) And I am, obviously, awake. I'm not sure anyone ever sleep blogs, but that would be kind of cool to read, wouldn't it? Imagine waking up, firing up your blog to find something you had written in your sleep!

I'm not quite sure why I am up, not just up , but quite wide awake, at this time of the morning, But I don;t really want to complain! I actually have stuff to do today!

I need to get the dishes done, and a bit of laundry, but most importantly, I need to run into the city and grab a package of soft paws for the cat. We have the claws from a package of soft paws, but our glue has all dried out. Tigger must have the soft paws on before Sammi comes home. She's rather a grouchy nasty cat, and from what I have heard, Sammi is a very, very playful puppy.

(The word Belinda used was "mean" but she qualified it with the fact that the rest of the puppies in the litter are rather shy and skittish and Sammi, even though she is half their size (she is the runt) is always after them to play. Nomming on their tails and ears even when they are trying to sleep!)

Needless to say, I am very excited to hear that Sammi is a frisky, playful puppy. One of the things we were worried about the most when we had to pick our puppy at four days old was that we would not be able to watch them play and get a feel for their temperment. Looks like we did OK, but really, we will have to wait until Friday (OMG FRIDAY!!) when we have Sammi home with us!

Just a quick reminder of what Sammi looked like at four days old :

For Robin

Yesterday Robin inferred that Wal*Mart, my favorite of favorite stores, SUCKS!

I KNOW!

I told Robin that just for her, I would write a post and try to explain why I love Wal*Mart so damn much. Here goes:

Dear Wal*Mart;

While I find it offensive being verbally accosted by the group of weirdos who would be better off in drug rehabilitation than standing in front of your doors, David MORE than makes up for it. I've "Known" David for about three years now. His scars concern me. I know that he is mentally handicapped by the way he carries himself and the way he speaks. The one scar goes from ear to ear like his head had been split right in half! I worry about him.

When we walk in the store, David does his hobble/run over to us, mussing the babies hair, and handing out stickers. He likes to tell us what he did that weekend. We like to listen. Last Weekend, David got Bender necklace - you know, bender from Futurama - Its pretty cool. I wish I had one.

David always makes me smile. I actually get pretty bummed when we stop in and he is not working.

You see, Wal*Mart, We only go shopping every two weeks, On PayDay, and your store, with it's many wonders, lets us get our shopping over and done with. You have clothes, and shoes, and baby supplies, food, pet supplies, and cleaning crap (I hate cleaning. Please discontinue all cleanning products so that it will no longer be required of me. Thanks.)

I love the fact that if I walk past the gang of drug rehab rejects that hang around the layaway section, I will find my self surrounded by a cornicopia of shoes. And sometimes, those shoes are marked down to three dollars. And I buy them. I buy them all!

I love that I can ditch hubs and the boys in the electronics section and go to your instore McDonalds for a coffee and a Big Mac, and I love the fact that you carry the normal AND abnormal colors of nail polish.

In closeing Wal*Mart, I truly do love you. You DO have lower prices on most things, But the fact that I can complete nearly all of my shopping in one stop, makes up for even the smelliest of washrooms!

All my love,

Bluepaintred