My Son.... The Frog....

Today at lunch, Liam (4), informed me he wanted to be a frog so that he could eat all the flies. But he couldn't because he was not green.

Now, he is wearing half (the top half) of his brother's frog costume from last year. You know the ones from Old Navy? They are nice and puffy, so he has a "belly". He says his belly is full of flies.

He just pretended to throw up.

The end of another day...

My mom took the 2 older boys overnight last night and brought them home this afternoon. I spent the morning cleaning. It's funny how you can scrub a bathroom spotless and not 15 minutes later have it smell the same as when you started. I think it's actually my toilet seat, things getting trapped in the hinges that are impossible to get out. I think I should get a new toilet seat/lid.
I was supposed to take the little boys back to the Dr's office to have their TB tests read.. however, they were not open? They told me to come in on a day knowing they would not be there. Really. I don't know what they were thinking, so we have to go back on Monday.
I think I need to replace the batteries in my wireless notebook mouse again.. it's funny because the box said one battery should last an entire 6 months. I guess that's 6 months worth of normal human use lol. I've had the computer for about 2 months now. I have super-human computer using strengths!! Ok, that may not be something worth bragging about lol.
My mom took the older boys to the dinner making place this morning too. You know, the ones where you go and do all the prep work and make your entrees and come home and throw em in the fridge/freezer for later? Well, she brought me a bunch of meals so tonight we had Cheese Ravoli w/ Red Pepper Pesto sauce and broccoli mixed in. It was really very good, fatty but good. Actually, I ended up tweaking it a little so it wasn't all that bad for me points wise. I had to mix in some milk, but I used fat free instead of regular and I picked out all the nuts from the parmesan cheese that came with it. DH isn't a fan of nuts that aren't his own. We also had "Back to School Apple Crisp" for dessert. THAT I did not have any of. I couldn't justify the 450+ calories and 17 fat grams per serving. Did I mention I am back on WW? No? Well,there you go :)
I buddied up with one of my CT Members and we are doing it together, mailing each other what we ate the previous day. It's been a week and so far we have each lost a pound. YAY go us!
I am apparently in a design funk. I am trying to come up with something fabulous and well, it's not going very well. I keep tossing everything I try, nothing looks right. I think I might scrap. I started a layout yesterday that I haven't finished yet. I just have the title left to do. Alrighty, you talked me into it.. I'm going to go finish it.
Catch you all tomorrow, thanks for reading!

C'mon baby take me to the movies!

I've been watching alot of movies at home lately, I do love to go to the movie theater but because of the kids I am unable to go as much as I would like. I'm really only going for the popcorn lol. No matter how hard you try, you can never really recreate the taste of movie popcorn at home. There is just something about movie popcorn and butter topping.
Sometimes, I am even tempted to invest in some home theater popcorn machines !!
Anyway, enough of my rambling.. on to the movies!
Movies I wanted to see in the theater but missed out:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean 3- I am so bummed that I missed this but I have my name on it for when it is released in December.
2. Harry Potter (8 million? or was it 4? )
3. Knocked Up
4. Waitress
5. Georgia Rule
I am sure there are more.. those are the ones that came to mind immediatly.
Movies I've seen and loved (theater)
1. Premonition w/ Sandra Bullock. LOVED this. I saw it with my mom, dh hasn't seen it yet but I am willing to see it again just for him lol.
2. Peaceful Warrior w/ Nick Nolte and Scott Mechlowicz. Fabulous movie, I didn't think I would like it but it really makes you think. And it was easy for me to relate to because it took place in an area near where I live and it is based on a true story.
See I told ya I don't get out much lol.
Last night we watched Zodiac. What an amazing cast! I absolutely loved it! I really coulda used that popcorn machine, but I did have some micro pop in the house thankfully!
Thanks for reading!

Small Chicks Drive Big Trucks...

DH recently bought us an Ford F150... it's really funny because he originally bought it for work-related purposes. However, he's been driving my van to work and I have the truck. Which, by the way I love with a passion... now. I didn't before but that is a story for another time.
Reasons why I love the my truck: It's big & got a big engine lol. My son calls it a "monster truck". And I play my country music stations as loud as possible and sing to my heart's content.
My husband thinks its hot. Small Chicks in Big Trucks.. I'm 4'11".
So, anyway... now I'm looking at truck accessories I want to get one of those cargo nets that you can hold your groceries. Whenever I go to the store, my food slides all over the place and I end up having to crawl in the back and get it. It's not easy for someone my size to climb in the back of a pickup truck. It's hard enough climbing up into the cab! The ones I am looking at are reasonably priced too.
Anyway, I better get going.. the kids are "supposed" to be in bed and well.. they aren't!
Have a great night!

A little of this ALOT of that...

The kids had Dr appts yesterday, Liam needed his 4-5 yr checkup to get everything out of the way for school next year and so we can get him enrolled in a pre-K program. They had him do a hearing test which in itself was a hoot! He wasn't quite grasping the concept of pushing the little red button everytime he heard "the beep". Not to mention that the button was hard to push the way she wanted him to hold it. And I think her accent was hard for him to understand.

After I explained it to him (you know like a mom would to a 4 yr old), he seemed to do fine and passed his hearing test. There was no doubt the child could hear... listening on the other hand.. THAT is an entirely different subject.

Then was the vision test, how many 4 yr olds know that this + is called a plus sign or a cross? Not many that I know.. mine called it an X. I thought that was an appropriate answer for his age. I'm not entirely convinced that these types of tests are very accurate with young children.

Me on the otherhand, even wearing my glasses am blind as a bat.. AND they let me drive!

Then it happened....

I was handed 2 specimen sample cups. She says, I need them to pee. Ummmmm, 2 little boys, who haven't been potty trained for very long, don't have the best aim, and you want them to pee in THAT little cup? Uhh yeah ok. Well, too bad because you took over 35 minutes (PAST) my appointment time, they peed right before we came in. Sucks to be you!

I did, however, manage to squeeze a dribble or two out of Greyson since he pees like ever 5 minutes. But Liam.. um yeah nope.. the child has a bladder of steel. So, I had to take it home and I have to get a sample from him before I take them back on Saturday to have their TB tests read.

Immunizatons went pretty well.. Greyson got 1 in the leg + the TB test.. he cried during the shot. Liam got 1 in each leg and took it like a champ. He's so big.. I guess that scares me a little that his pain tolerance is pretty high. I see many (more) ER trips in my future.

In other news...

I was asked by Hummie to write a little blurb for her blog, so look for my Designer Technique on October 5th. I am very excited to just have been asked and a little intimidated being preceeded by Christina Renee and Faith True.

Safeway (food stores) are having a pretty cool promotion through Sept 25th. If you buy 20+ of selected items , you will get an instant $20 discount. That is on top of your club card savings. If you have coupons for said items, you save even more.

I went last night just to test it out.. bought lots of things I don't really need but when I thought about it, I actually do lol.

From the list I bought:

4 boxes cake mix (betty crocker)-I have 3 bdays coming up I need to make cakes for.
4 frostings (BC)
2 pkg hotdogs (BallPark)
2 pkg hot dog buns (BallPark)
2 family size bags of tostitos scoops (dh wanted)
3 boxes CapriSuns
1-24 pk diet coke
2-10 pk boxes of Orville Smart Pop

Things I bought not on the list:

Milk, Applesauce, and Store brand cooking spray, cottage cheese.

With my club card AND the 20.00 discount I saved 47.19

My out of pocket balance was 47.12

Not too bad.. I saved about 50% off my bill.

Our luck has been pretty good as of the last few weeks. Last week, we won the saftey bingo at Dan's work. Although, the pot went from $500 down to $100 about 10 days before because one of the mechanics had some sort of accident... I think it involved a forklift and some boxes.. i don't know. I went to have lunch with Dan to bring him the Bingo card so they could verify and we could get our check and I find out that the day before he had ANOTHER accident, same guy no less and the pot dropped BACK down to $100. So our payout was $103.


I said, "I think Matt needs to be fired." Dan said, "I think he owes me $400." We giggled.


Now fast forward to Tuesday afternoon. I walk in the door from picking up Braeden from school and the phone is ringing. The machine picked up before I could get to it so I couldn't see who it was on the caller ID, but I grabbed it and it was Dan and he sounded all happy. Earlier in the morning he was all pissy, so I knew something was up. That and he said I'd be happy lol.

Apparently, they had a Back to School raffle for those who had school age kids and guess who won??? Crazy huh? Now here's where it gets good... we won $200 PER school age kid! We have 3 in school full time, $600!!!!!

Can you say "Shopping Spree?" Because I sure can :o)

It doesn't matter who or what I am buying.. I'm just happy spending money LOL!

Anyway, bless you if you've made it all the way through today's rambling and thank you for reading!

Didn't you know? Pizza IS Flammable

Note to Self: Don't let 6 yr old use the microwave.

In my defense, I showed him which button to press. However, he did not listen to me and set it wo "Express" cook for 3 minutes. In a 1200 watt mondo microwave.

Took 10 minutes to clear the smoke. Luckily, I caught it before the smoke alarm had a chance to be annoyingly loud and embarrassing.

Doesn't that look appetizing?

Update on Weekend Alone...

When you have kids, (and friends with no kids) things rarely go off without a hitch.

Originally, we were supposed to go on a motorcycle ride with friends up to Yosemite. Well, turned out that DH's best friend's GF couldn't go until later in the day due to a prior engagement. It is a 2-3 hr drive one way so we would have had to leave really early in the am.

DH and I decided that we'd *let* my mom keep the kids anyway so we could have some us time. I was kinda bummed b/c I knew now that our plan had gone awry, we'd probably sit in the house and ignore each other. I really was looking forward to going out and doing *something*.

GOOD NEWS! We did not sit at home. Instead, DH's boss gave us tickets to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where he has a membership. We also, went out to breakfast at IHOP before we left. Most of the day "out" was spent sitting in traffic, as it was a holiday weekend and apparently everyone in California was on this specific highway right at that moment lol.

We did have a nice time at the aquarium. They have a new white shark that got caught in a fishing net off the coast of Southern California. He's just a youngin', not really huge yet. We got some photos but they were hard to come by since the lighting was BAD and they asked that no one used flash photography when taking pics of the shark. Made for some blurry shots :(

Link to more info about the shark:

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/whiteshark/

One thing I learned is that if you go there.. go during the week, when school is in session and no one is on a fieldtrip lol. If I had taken my kids on this trip, it would have been IMPOSSIBLE. I would have lost someone or spent the entire time doing head counts.

We ended the night with dinner at Red Lobster.. hmm yumm. I love lobster and rarely get it so it was a HUGE treat. Usually, I try to avoid eating things with eyes, lobster is the exception to the rule. DH put the claw shells on his fingers and "pinchered" me lol. Silly man.

The kids did not go to the beach on Monday as planned, I kinda figured this would happen. Upside... we still have these friends.

Kids are all finally back in school and no one is off track. YAY! Although now I have to leave 45 minutes early to pick up my 1st grader from school and we live less than 1 minute (drive time) from the school. But I have to get there at least 30 min early to get a good spot iin the pick up line.

Why don't I walk? Well, I'll tell ya. I have 2 little ones.. only one of which will make it both ways. The 3 yr old will be great one way and then refuse to walk home, so he ends up being dragged home kicking and screaming. Not exaggerating either, I'd much rather sit in the truck in the parking lot for a half an hour.. wouldn't you?