Four For Friday-Girls Edition

1. Oh Sade.....She's in love. With a 10-year old boy, no less. He happens to be one of Megan's good friends, Jake. She has been known to utter phrases like, "Mom, Jake is so funny." And, "Jake is so nice." And whenever we are going to the church, her eyes sparkle, and she says with great intention, "I really hope Jake is there." Today in the car she sang a song she made up and and asked me, "Mom, do you think I should sing this to Jake?" I of course told her yes.

2. She also has been bringing me the camera on a nightly basis and asking me to take pictures of her while she "poses."

It involves turning away from the camera, and then whipping forward quickly so she can get the perfect shot.

 

It's good she has already chosen a career path.

3. Now my little Megs: Today she was selected as Student Of The Month!!! Finally.....My goodness it is almost the end of the school year. I was starting to worry :)

The ceremony was held indoors due to the crazy wind we have had this week! As I was blogging about the above picture, Sadie said to me, "It's too bad we didn't see Jake there today." I tell you, she is obsessed!

Good job Megan!

4. And now on to me. This morning I was once again the lucky recipient of a prize. This time it was 2 tickets to Terry Fator's show at the Mirage! Woot, Woot.

Try not to hate me.

FOUND!!!

Because of the plumbing work, the layer of dust covering every inch of my house is pretty significant. I have been mopping like a fiend all day! In the spirit of obsessively cleaning I decided to move the washer and dryer and clean behind them. Mind you, this is a chore that has not been done in the 9 years I have lived in my house. To put it mildly, it was a bit scandalizing. Or gross.........

See what I mean.

And to those of you who do not visit my house often, I would like to put your minds at rest and assure you the rest of my house does not look like this!

But lo and behold, I FOUND MY MISSING WEDDING RING!!!

Sitting nicely in a layer of filth. I lost my wedding ring over a month ago, and truly felt like I had searched everywhere. I have my shoddy plumbing system to thank for this piece of good news. And I needed this bit of good news today, because Eric's truck is once again not working. It is at the mechanics as I type. I am dreading the call when we will find out how awful much it is going to cost. After finding my ring I joked with Eric that now we can sell it to pay to fix his truck. Why can't I just be rich? And be able to buy two brand new cars? And to live in a mansion? Is it really too much to ask?

I also need to report on another piece of good news. The painter came today, and I have to say the results are quite tremendous. I really can't even tell that any work has been done. And! They left me all this extra paint:

That's like $250.00 right there!

Swiss Cheese House

Well.....We are having the plumbing in the entire house redone. Apparently a part that was used in the original plumb is defective, so after a lawsuit, the builder has agreed to fix it. What this means for me is that the entire inside of my house is encased in plastic, and I have large holes in almost every room!

The entryway.

We cut a slit in the plastic in Megan's room so she could get to her bed. Luckily Jackson's and Sadie's rooms were not touched.

The view from my bed.

And now for some of the holes:

 Yesterday they did all of the plumbing work, while today they are doing the drywall. Thursday they are  painting, which is the part I am most worried about. They tell me they can match the wall color perfectly which hopefully is the case. It is a serious pain, but having the pipes burst would be worse! And at least we don't have to pay for any of it.

Monday Miscellany

I have a bit of picture catch-up to do. The time change really affected my kids this Spring. For DAYS I had to wake them up at 8 am to get them ready for school.

Sleeping the morning away....

Lately Megan has been sleeping with 3 pillows behind her head. She is basically upright while going to sleep, and looks incredibly uncomfortable. However, soon after falling asleep she ends up off all of the pillows for  the remainder of the night. Then this last week she started sleeping on top of her covers because she says it is more comfortable. She has the strangest sleeping habits of anyone I know.

Eric snapped these pics of Sade and Megan the other day. Both technology junkies:

It was once again Awards Assembly time at school. Jackson received an award for Principals Honor Roll!



Megan received an award for attendance. Just attendance. Megan generally gets "A" on her report cards. She is capable of it and works hard to do so. The WEEK BEFORE grades came out she brought home her progress report from school and her grades were  "A"s. Fast forward to a week later when she brings her report card home and she inexplicably has a "C" in science. Say what? I don't know what could have happened in a week's time. Especially when her progress report showed no missing assignments, and they didn't have any last minute tests. I sent a note to school inquiring about the grade, and was told by the science teacher that she didn't really know what caused the grade to drop, and since she had already submitted the grades she couldn't look it up. Needless to say I am pursuing it further.

And lastly I will leave you with a picture of a new lawn ornament my neighbor gave me.

Did I mention it is a lawn ornament, and thereby has to be displayed in the front yard? And since it was given to me by my neighbor he is going to notice if I do not display it. It's not that I find it hideous (well maybe I do find it a little hideous), it is simply that I am not a lawn ornament type of person. It is a dilemma for me.

What would you do? Would you display it?

12 X 12 - March 2011

It's a good thing I do these 12 X 12's or I fear I would never blog again! My day started off at 10 am.

 Due to having sick kids most of the week, taking an allergy pill the night before, and Eric being out of town the entire week, I needed to catch up on my sleep!

When I awoke, I discovered the tooth fairy had remembered to come. Megan has lost two teeth this past month. She has lost both at lunch, at school, and has accidentally thrown both of them in the trash can. So in place of a tooth, she wrote a note that said something to the effect: "Dear Tooth Fairy (AKA Mom), I accidentally threw my tooth away at school, but please give me the money anyway." Being Megan, and being as artistic as she is, she also drew a detailed picture of the tooth being thrown away.

I also awoke to Eric loading the dishwasher, and discovering he had the day off. Woo-Hoo! However, about 15 minutes later he received a phone call and spent about the next 2 hours dealing with work-related issues. But at least he was able to deal with them at home. Right? At least that is what I am telling myself.

With breakfast (pancakes) I had my new drink of choice, Diet Coke with Lime. I truthfully don't even miss Dr. Pepper that much. Shocking!

Sadie, Sadie. As I mentioned previously, my kids had been sick. Jackson and Sadie had been taking antibiotics all week. On Saturday Sadie decided she did not want to take them anymore (they really do taste terrible), and threw a colossal fit. She could not be swayed, so I sent her to her room until she decided to take them. She was in there for a loooonnnggg time, and still refused. Eventually she fell asleep. When she woke up from her nap she was more agreeable, and finally took the medicine!

While the fit was taking place, I retired to bed to work on my lesson the next day for Young Women's.

I finally got ready and headed out to run a couple of errands. Now I have to properly prepare you for the next picture. It will be shocking. Please remember that my children had been sick, and Eric had been out of town. Okay? So all week I had been doing laundry. But I never had a stitch of time to fold any of it, so instead I put it behind the couch (where I couldn't really see it most of the time). And there it sat, and grew with every load I finished. On Saturday it looked like this:

Don't say I didn't warn you! So while I ran errands, Eric sorted and folded it.

When I got home, we dropped our kids off at our friends house so Eric and I could go out. Don't worry, my kids were not still sick. They were just still on antiobiotics that they have to take for 10 days. And the friend that was watching them knew they were still on their antibiotics. Now that I have that off my chest, I have determined that I am going to employ Megan to babysit when she turns 11. That means I only have 4 more months to worry about finding a babysitter! I am positive she could do it now, but 11 seems much older than 10, so that is the magic number I am waiting for.

Eric and I. Alone.

We first went to The Cheesecake Factory. Eric and I had eaten there years ago, and neither one of us had liked it. However since then I have gone a few times with friends and enjoyed it, so I convinced Eric he should try it again. He was much happier with it this time.

We then went miniature golfing. Eric won :(

We picked up the kids, put them to bed, and then I made these boxes of "warm fuzzies" for my Young Women the next day. I then went to bed, because all I could think about was how hard it is for me to make it to church at 9 am, and I was going to have to be an entire hour earlier (due to the time change)! But I am happy to report we made it.

Windfall!

I have to admit my life has been filled with luck lately. Either that, or extra blessings. For example, a few months ago my vacuum broke. Who should call me, but a few days later, but Rachael. Who asked if I had any need of a vacuum. They had just purchased a new one, and didn't need their old one anymore. I gladly accepted, along with this awesome Shark Vacuum to use on my concrete floors.

Then our printer broke. But how lucky (or blessed), that my husbands boss had given us his old laser printer, that is also a copy machine, and fax machine combined!

It now sits proudly in my tiny office/laundry room.

Did I mention that my garbage disposal broke over a year ago? Well it did. I never replaced it, because I always had something else to spend a $100 on that I deemed more important. But just 2 weeks ago guess what I saw sitting outside my neighbors house?

That's right! A garbage disposal. It was attached to a sink they were getting rid of, but it still worked perfectly well.

And then, just recently our T.V. broke. It was still fairly new (about 2 years old), but alas it had problems it could not overcome. But guess what? My visiting teachers happened to be visiting me 3 days after it broke, and low and behold one of them had just gotten a new T.V. the day before, and they were giving away their old one!

Lucky, lucky me!!!

Now for some BIG news. A week and a half ago I won 4 tickets to LegoLand in California.

For 10 years I have been calling radio stations trying to win tickets for one thing or another, and have NEVER been able to get through. Until.........I did. And what a prize to win!!!! They informed me they would call me in a week or two to let me know when my tickets were ready, and to let me know if I was the GRAND PRIZE WINNER. The GRAND PRIZE WINNER also was to receive a $100 gas card, Four 2-day Park Hopper tickets, and 2 nights hotel at the Sheraton Resort & Spa.

Guess who was lucky enough to win??
 

ME!!!!!!

I know someone is looking out for me and my family. And I know who it is.