happy halloween!

hey look! i made it back, and before a whole month went by! i'm cutting it pretty close, but aren't we all doing that about something???

anyway, this may have made the rounds of the blogging world a long time ago, but i'll post mine anyway :)

from HelloQuizzy

You Are an Audrey!

You are an Audrey -- "I am at peace"

Audreys are receptive, good-natured, and supportive. They seek union with others and the world around them.

How to Get Along with Me

• * If you want me to do something, how you ask is important. I especially don't like expectations or pressure
• * I like to listen and to be of service, but don't take advantage of this
• * Listen until I finish speaking, even though I meander a bit
• * Give me time to finish things and make decisions. It's OK to nudge me gently and nonjudgmentally
• * Ask me questions to help me get clear
• * Tell me when you like how I look. I'm not averse to flattery
• * Hug me, show physical affection. It opens me up to my feelings
• * I like a good discussion but not a confrontation
• * Let me know you like what I've done or said
• * Laugh with me and share in my enjoyment of life

What I Like About Being an Audrey

• * being nonjudgmental and accepting
• * caring for and being concerned about others
• * being able to relax and have a good time
• * knowing that most people enjoy my company; I'm easy to be around
• * my ability to see many different sides of an issue and to be a good mediator and facilitator
• * my heightened awareness of sensations, aesthetics, and the here and now
• * being able to go with the flow and feel one with the universe

What's Hard About Being an Audrey

• * being judged and misunderstood for being placid and/or indecisive
• * being critical of myself for lacking initiative and discipline
• * being too sensitive to criticism; taking every raised eyebrow and twitch of the mouth personally
• * being confused about what I really want
• * caring too much about what others will think of me
• * not being listened to or taken seriously

Audreys as Children Often

• * feel ignored and that their wants, opinions, and feelings are unimportant
• * tune out a lot, especially when others argue
• * are "good" children: deny anger or keep it to themselves

Audreys as Parents

• * are supportive, kind, and warm
• * are sometimes overly permissive or nondirective

and my halloween lesson...if twizzlers aren't red, don't eat them, and be a little embarrassed that you handed them out to unsuspecting trick or treaters. oops.

october is...

fire prevention awareness month! seriously, CHECK YOUR SMOKE DETECTORS!!!

i've been a member of a mommy message board, and although we've changed hosting boards a few times, there's about 40 of us who have been together since october of 2001. we all came together because we were pregnant and due with a child in june of 2002.

last night, one of these wonderful ladies had a fire in her kitchen that raced so quickly through the home that it damaged her 2nd floor. thankfully no one was hurt, the family pets were all rescued, and she managed to grab her purse & laptop (she's in college and a year away from graduating with a teaching degree). however there's a lot of clean up to do, lots of smoke & water damage and the windows were all broken by the firefighters as they were doing their job.

there's so many things to worry about in her situation (financially mostly), but thankfully they are together as a family. her three daughters are safe and her and her husband are healthy.

anyway, october is a busy month. but take 5 minutes and check & replace the batteries in your smoke detectors. make a fire escape plan for your family. teach your children what to do if there's a fire. plan ahead.

round 4...

i've survived the worst of it i think. i still feel bloated and grumpy but i'm not having to visit the toilet every hour so i'd say that's an improvement. now it's cade's turn, he threw up last night and again this morning so he's the last of us to get it. hopefully rob doesn't get it when he moves up FOR GOOD on monday. (yes, he misses us so much that he's coming up on monday instead of tuesday. i should start lysoling all the doorknobs now, i guess?)

i downloaded my 2nd nina simone album just now. i have a feeling i may have discovered an expensive habit.

i advertised for a babysitter on care.com. i'm looking for someone to come in and watch cade & elisha for a few hours in the mornings so i can help out in reese's classroom. does that sound dumb, paying someone to watch the kids so i can volunteer in reese's 1st grade classroom??? i've never gotten to do this and now cade & elisha are old enough to welcome a care provider, so maybe i should just escape a few mornings while i can.

cade's first week of preschool went well, his tantrums weren't *too* bad when it was time to go home. he's produced worse, what can i say. today will be his first sick day. i'd say poor kid but he is acting fine so i'll say 'poor mom' instead.

he gets thursdays off from preK and he's missing today, so it's going to be a long long weekend. and did i hear it's supposed to be rainy too? i think i did. good times.

maybe i'll just let them wreck the house and let nina keep me company on the nano. reinforcements are on the way!!

short and not that sweet

it is monday and this monday is rougher than usual.

i've been afraid to leave the house for the last 24 hours and i've spent way too much time on the toilet waiting for the bowel cramping to pass. i don't know what yucky little germ i got into but it really is gross. i have some body aches and nausea but that's manageable with ibuprofen.

the best part is that we could use some groceries, cade starts afternoon preschool this afternoon, and i really need to do some laundry.

just one of those days i wish my husband was in town. one week from today is his detach date!! everyone stand up and do a little dance with me. he will officially be done as executive officer on the submarine and have 2 glorious weeks of leave before shore duty starts.

anyway, i better wrap this up. my innards are starting to gurgle. sigh.

etc and more etc.

dare i show my face in here? almost 3 months has passed since i last posted. as always, i have EXCUSES for why i haven't had the time to post. well, correction...i've had the time, just not the concentration perhaps.

the move...
we are now residents of northern VA. we moved during the middle of july from a single story 4 bedroom house to a home with 3 levels, 4 bedrooms, and a huge basement. there's a fenced backyard with a good-sized deck, 2 swings for the kids (which will be a source of irritation soon, 2 swings for 3 kids means lots of arguments in the future), and we're on a pipestem off of a cul-de-sac so we have a thick line of trees behind us for a little extra privacy in back. we really love the house. i'm not sure how long it's been a rental but it's probably seen its share of tenants, it's a little beat up here & there...but just enough so that don't have to panic about what our kids might add to it.
we like the area well enough so far. there's lots of shopping available (if that's your thing) and we seem to have moved near a really good school, and it's only a few miles to the nearest target, grocery store, panera & starbucks (all in one PLAZA even, how wonderful!). sometimes it's just a little too much...but that's why i like coming back to this peaceful house, just a few houses down there's a big open common area to use. yeah, it's on a hill but what isn't around here?!?!? :)

the road trip...
i decided we didn't have enough drama in our lives so i packed up the 3 kids, boarded the dog, and hired a petsitter to check on the cat and drove back to iowa for a short visit in early august. we went for the sweet corn, the homegrown tomatoes, to hang with the grandparents, and to check out the iowa state fair.

we had a ball last year at the fair...not so much this year. reese & cade picked that day to become superbrats (and yes, that's brats as in asshole kids, not bratwurts...mmm..bratwrusts...). anyway, i threatened to leave them home when i saw how our day was headed but really, i WANT them to see the fair, like i did when i was a kid. although now everything costs 4x as much and kids today think they're ENTITLED to a dozen rides on the giant slide. when i was a kid, wandering around was the fun part. reese thinks we're just supposed to go from spot to spot so that she can do something at each place, whether it's a ride or eating or buying some tacky, possibly lead-coated toy.
they got the corndogs, the iowa t-shirts, the $25 of giant slide tickets (hell yeah, i went too, that thing is fun!!), some ice cream and they wore me down to buy them toys on our way out the gate that afternoon. i could have stayed longer if it wasn't for their whining. we didn't even make it to the poultry barn. :/

the first day of school...
was fine. we just finished our first week of school and i'm already overwhelmed with the begging for volunteers from the PTO and reese's teacher. i plan to help out, i just have to find a babysitter first. i'm going to volunteer in reese's room, i didn't get to last year (and if i had, i probably would have run away screaming, with 36 5 year olds in one room), but now that cade is doing afternoon preschool, i think finding a babysitter for elisha will be easier. or even a sitter for an hour or 2 in the mornings for both of them.
can you believe i didn't get pictures of reese's first day? we were 1/2 way to the bus stop and i realized i forgot the camera. we had time to go back but rob said to me, 'it's ok, no one else will have their cameras either.' note to self...rob is full of beans. when the bus pulled up there were at least 15 parents, about 20 kids, and 9 cameras beeping and snapping away. sigh.
cade's first afternoon of preschool is on monday, i will be bringing the camera for that.

etc...
i got reese signed up for brownies/girl scouts. the neighborhood troop is really on the ball, i'm a little intimidated. our daisies leader in florida left a lot to improve on, i guess. the girls already have a camping overnight scheduled and a 'warm up' overnighter just down the road at a neighbor's house. i believe there's 16 girls in this group. can you imagine 16 6 year olds "sleeping" at your house?!? and the hostess is the PTO president, i really hope reese keeps her hands out of her nose and butt while she's there. we're going to have to do some intensive training during the next week. also on the brownies schedule: a trip into DC during december to go see the nutcracker ballet. i'm really torn about this. i don't think i'm brave enough to get myself to DC, do i trust 2 women to take 16 kids into the city and have them sit through 2 hours of ballet? i've heard wonderful things about these leaders, but this seriously scares the shit out of me. this might be one of those things that reese skips, i don't think there's a badge involved, it's just a holiday excursion.

why does it seem like so many things get scheduled for the same weekend? the first weekend in oct seems to be that weekend for us. there's a 'light the night' walk that i want to go to on saturday night, and i was planning on taking reese with me but that is the brownies camp out weekend. rob heard about a 5K/fall celebration about an hour away that he's planning to do on saturday morning. i'd really like to stay local in case the campout doesn't turn out well for reese and we need to go pick her up. we'll come up with some solution.

speaking of weekend activities...
the 'step out to fight diabetes' walk is october 18, locally. i'm not sure why, but i feel like i should participate in that as well. what's up with my desire to walk around for sick people?!? i don't know that many people with diabetes or with complications due to diabetes...although it's a disease that is claiming more and more lives. my interest in 'light the night' comes from a blog that was shared by a fellow member of a mommy board. poor poor max. what a brave little boy...and there's so many sick yet brave children out there..and actually both of these organizations help people of all ages, not just children. it can't hurt to go do it, right? it can only help.

more etc...
elisha is now a 2 year old! her birthday was last sunday. she had her 2 year checkup this past week and she's 30 lbs (birthweight was 8.13...a gain of 21 lbs in 2 years) and 35" (birthlength was 21.5"...a gain of 13.5 inches in 2 years). we have to go get Xrays this coming week, she's extremely flexible in her hips and she prefers to "W" sit so the doctor wanted to make sure all was well with her hip joints (esp with my hip pain and my mom's recent hip replacement).

• why didn't anyone before now tell me how COOL nina simone is??? i downloaded an album of hers and i could listen to it all day. i'm trying to decide which album of hers to get next.
• only 9 more days til rob is done at the base down in georgia!!! yay!!! he hopes to return there for a weekend function in october, but otherwise he'll be living up here soon. he'll take 2 weeks of leave and then start his new job in DC at the end of september.
• hummus rocks. red pepper hummus to be exact.

ok, i've dorked enough time away on this post. it's almost scary how long it takes me to compose my thoughts into a semi-logical arrangement on here. if this presentation frightens you, then you definitely don't want to see my kitchen.

and it came from the sea...

greetings! we're back from our little vacation and it is just lovely to be home. our hotel was truly awesome but anytime you go overnight with 3 kids, it's ALWAYS good to come home. when we got back last night, the kids played for hours with the toys they hadn't seen for a day and a half. they introduced their new toys to their old toys. and they stayed up until 10pm since they all had a 3 hour nap on the way home. *yawn*

sunday afternoon was spent at the mall of florida.

i bought myself some new oakley sunglasses. they look better in action ;)


we visited m&m world...and bought $9 of m&m's, priced conservatively at 10.99 a lb. why did we need such expensive m&m's? i have no clue. they tasted EXACTLY like the ones in a bag that you can get for 60 cents at walmart. i told the kids we weren't going to buy very many, then rob comes over with a big bagfull. he told me he got all the colors you can't get in the store. okaaaaay. whatever. then last night i gave them to him as we were unpacking and he says, "what should i do with these?" EAT THEM, dude. you spent $8 on them, eat them.

luckily the pictures out front were free.
another interesting tidbit...on sunday we were all wearing green. i don't know how that happened. cade picked out his own shirt, rob bought himself a new green t-shirt that he had to promptly change into (and no, he didn't turn green like my mother always told me would happen if you didn't wash your new clothes before wearing them), and then i changed into a green tank top later.

since it was reese's birthday we stopped by the build-a-bear workshop and reese made herself a new friend. she picked a husky and named it 'rosie.' awwww. she really wanted to buy clothes for it but i drew the line there. instead we chose a happy birthday hat and noisemaker instead, since rosie & reese now share a birthday.

after the mall we found our hotel and it was just wonderful. i had picked it on travelocity, based on the pool pictures. and ironically enough after we arrived it sprinkled and thundered and turned too cool to swim. the pool was still pretty from the lobby though. i was very impressed with it in general, it truly made our weekend feel like a vacation. if we had chosen a super 8 or the like, i would have been stressing about how clean or how dirty the floor or the bathtub was, but instead i just relaxed. the room was spotless and wasn't damp at all (as most hotel rooms in florida seem to be). if you're looking for a hotel in orlando, choose this one.

we had hoped to find a japanese restaurant for dinner, but the one that advertised a kid's menu was impossible to find. and once i teased rob about chicken fried steak, he had to have some. so we had supper at denny's. the kids had pancakes and rob had his steak. then we went and played mini-putt. we hadn't played since before we had kids, and we had a fabulous time. it had been a while since i had laughed so hard.

and this is afterward, walking back to the car. rob was happy that he beat me by 5 strokes.



we spent all of monday at seaworld, well until we all got tired of each other so we left at 3:30. 6 hours in an amusement park in orlando heat is probably the best we could have hoped for. we skipped all the shows. even though those are the biggest attraction, we skipped them because they were the biggest attraction. 45 minutes of standing in line with all 3 kids? i don't think so. just standing in line with rob alone would have been enough to make me go crazy, let alone with the kids who are hot and have been told there's roller coasters in the park somewhere.

this was cade's favorite part of the day:
he could have stayed in the arcade for at least another hour, and that's with no quarters or tokens in his pocket to spend.

they both went on the kids' roller coaster, the shamu express. rob and i took turns going with them. cade only went once but reese went 3 times, she loved it. then cade lost himself for about 7 minutes. he took off to the upper levels of their huge playscape without telling me where he was headed. after searching for 3 minutes, i went right to guest services for help. i was so surprised he turned up all the way on the top level of that thing. i really thought he would stay on the lowest level. he didn't seem that excited about the playscape when we first got to that area of the park.

i didn't bother bringing swimsuits into the park, thinking all the water play was across the street in a new waterpark. however, there was a big splash area for kids to play in. i think we could have stayed another hour if the kids had gotten cooled off. let me rephrase...if ROB had gotten cooled off. he was getting tired of the crowds and the heat and the whiny kids, so we started making our way toward the exit. we were steps away from leaving the park when it started raining. i had brought 4 umbrellas with us but we took cover under a storefront. it poured for at least 10 minutes, then lightened up enough so we could make a run to the car.

it rained and stormed all the way through orlando and actually we had rain almost all the way til daytona beach. so maybe rob's attitude is related to the weather? like the lower the barometer, the more unpleasant he makes life so you'd rather just head for cover in the car? i don't know. might be something to study during future road trips.

speaking of, we have another one coming up! we're heading to the DC area to go house hunting next week! should be loads of fun. (notice the sarcasm there???)

happy anniversary to me...

8:06 am.
june 15, 2002.
a hospital in new london, connecticut

a baby is born.

that baby is a healthy 7 lbs, 10 oz and is quiet for the first few minutes after birth, then lets 'er rip. the noise hasn't stopped since.



this should read 'happy birthday reese', but it's my blog so i get titling rights. :)

off to seaworld for 2 days to celebrate us surviving for 6 years.

30,000 miles and counting

• listening to: 'take me there' by rascal flatts, interrupted here & there by today's episode of 'the backyardigans'
• reading: 'the good earth' by pearl buck
• drinking: dunkin donuts french vanilla with a shot of hazlenut biscotti creamer. yum.

i just finished reading my book. i stayed up til almost 1am reading, and only went to bed when my eyes started blurring and i had to stop and think about who wang lung was. (he's the main character, by the way.)

excellent book. i see why oprah chose it as one of her book club selections. oh, and of course why it won the pulitzer prize in 1935. i think i'll be looking for more of her work when we go to the library today. i'm going to get the kids a few more books, whether they like it or not. reese and i read her junie b. jones book together a few days ago and i'm thinking we're not going to get anymore of them. there's a lot of name-calling in her stories, which i really don't think is an OK thing to model to beginning readers.

yesterday i took the car in and finally got the oil changed. and miraculously, the odometer read 30071, which meant it was a perfect time to get my 30K service (i got a laugh that about 40 of those miles i drove to GET to the dealership in the first place, but whatever). at first i was annoyed i would have to pay an extra $160 for the extra services as well as spend an extra hour or two with all 3 kids as the minutes ticked by toward lunchtime. but then i realized it was actually excellent timing, better than making an extra trip anyway. there were 2 other children in the kid's area at the dealership and they played with my kids and before i knew it, the car was done. we were out of there by 12:30pm.

we would have to drive past the zoo to get home from the dealership and it had been ages since we had been so we made a short detour. we have an annual membership to the zoo that expires in august so we might as well use it as much as we can. we ate lunch near the jaguars and we headed straight for the snake house as it started to sprinkle. for the next half hour we hung out in there as the rain came down. it was air conditioned and all the critters were behind glass, so i felt pretty fortunate.

when we ventured out after the worst of it, there were some monstrous puddles here and there
so i think the zoo must have gotten at least an inch or more in that short time. i was wearing my leather reef sandals though, and those got soaked. i still have orange feet from the dye/oils from wearing them when they were wet.

we finished our short tour of the zoo (it was getting close to 3pm and elisha had barely had a nap in the car earlier and cade was starting to lag behind), hit the gift shop, and headed home.

it was pretty fun, rain or not, and i think most of the fun came from the spontaneity of our zoo visit. the kids were wonderfully behaved and were more than happy to have cereal for dinner. now THAT'S a good day.

wordless wednesday

summer lovin'...

school is out for the summer! last thursday was reese's very last day of kindergarten. she wowed the teacher and managed to get herself promoted to first grade. i showed up for the awards "ceremony" on wednesday afternoon and got to see reese receive an award for her end of the year tests. mrs. reeves was very surprised to see that reese got perfect scores on both her math and her reading tests! she said she's never had that happen in all her years of teaching! wow! both rob & i thought that was pretty cool. after the awards, the kids were treated to sundaes. Seems like this school and JUNK food go hand in hand. throughout the year i was really surprised and disappointed to see the crap food that was included in their school parties. in fact, most of the time the entire party revolved around eating junk food together. i know they had a huge class (36 kids!!!) but surely they could have had a fruit salad or graham crackers for a treat? maybe i'm just a little touchy on this subject, but really, reese came home with so many foods that she would not have gotten if she was homeschooled.

but reese enjoyed her ice cream and since cade and elisha were with me, they were treated as well, and of course they loved it.

so far so good as far as sumer vacations go. we've gone to the pool a few times, gone to the library, gone to target, gone to mcd's, gone to home depot (twice). today i plan on getting an oil change in preparation for SEAWORLD! woohoo! this is a birthday trip for reese, she'll turn 6 on father's day. i remember she was born on the saturday before father's day, at 8:06 in the morning. she's always been a morning girl and i'm thinking names really do influence the person. reese is welsh and means "enthusiastic" and that is my first-born to a T.

the enthusiastic one has been playing with elisha a lot since school has let out. during school, elisha didn't see much of reese, just a few hours after school and during dinner time, then on the weekends. but now reese is enjoying her little mommy role, trying to teach her new words and all about animals. and elisha enjoys running off with reese's stuff...mainly her goggles.

we went to the library on the first day of summer vacation, how's that for LAME. at least we slept in a bit to celebrate summer. :) the kids picked out some books, 4 each. i picked out 3 for myself and i'm starting to rethink this reading thing. i chose 'the good earth' by pearl buck and i'm 100 pages in and i'm not sure if i want to finish it. it's so damn sad, i don't know if i can handle that much more sadness. in case you haven't read it, the plot involves a chinese farmer and his wife 120+ years ago and follows them as they have good years and bad years, even to the point where they consider selling their children as slaves in order to survive. the thought of being put in that position as a mother makes my stomach hurt and my shoulders sag. sure, it was a completely different time, but in extremely rural parts of this world, i'm not sure things are that different. there's still starving children all over, in all corners of this earth. i know i should finish the story, i'm a big believer in "finish what you start" and i really want to see this farmer's life improve. but in the mean time i'm working in some stephen king to make myself feel better. i'm 33 pages into "duma key" and it's helping.

rob was talking to some friends the other day and they mentioned that they read my blog (hi chris & kim :) how's the baby doing?). after hearing that i went back and read some of my earlier posts and holy cow...was i a freaking psycho or what? oh my. some of what i had to say about rob was just unbelievably mean. i'm convinced that during some of my pregnancies or post-partum months i should have been on mood-altering drugs. for some reason, as i wrote these old entries, every problem seemed to be HIS fault. reading them really makes me want to start this blog over. i mean he has his faults (as do i...no, really, i do) but i was just really out of line to bitch and moan that much. so in line with that, i'm trying to focus on the positive.

1. he's gone to the pool TWICE with us in the last week. the man hates swimming in chlorinated pools and hates being around strangers' children even more, but he's taught reese how to submerge her head underwater and he's been taking cade on piggyback rides around the pool.

2. he scrubbed the hell out of my kitchen sink for me. we have a stainless steel sink and i use bar keeper's friend (ooh look a free sample!!) on it but it really hurts my fingers to have to do the actual scrubbing part. he's strong enough that he gets it twice as shiny as i do.

3. he let me sleep in on saturday morning. of course i had to TELL him i was not getting up, but he handled it well. he and cade even invented a new game called "damage ball." i think it involved hitting a wiffle ball with a lincoln log and then tackling someone?

4. he hasn't batted an eye when i told him i bought a new dyson vacuum (only i got it for $20 cheaper than that link) or a new stroller. hey, what's a nuke bonus for, other than keeping the wife happy?

5. he's taking us to SEAWORLD! i know it's for the kids but i can't wait to see shamu!

see? he's a good man :) so i just need to keep my mouth shut and start keeping the positives closer to my heart. besides, our anniversary is coming up and i've been hinting about how much i'd like an eco-drive watch.

squeezing in some fun where we can

so the submarine is back. i think.

rob worked so much this weekend that it's almost like homecoming never happened. the only way i know he's back for sure, is that our bedroom has that special submarine smell, from all his seabags being unpacked.

saturday he was gone from 7am til 4pm, sunday was about the same. then yesterday we ran a few errands and intended on going to the beach in the afternoon. cade fell asleep, then rob fell asleep, then i fell asleep and we finally arrived at the beach around 6pm. we squeezed a little bit of memorial day fun in there, after all.

really, after an hour at the beach, i'm ready to go home anyway. by this time reese gets all kinds of sand in her swimsuit (from doing 'sand angels', the tropical version of a snow angel) and elisha has gotten bold enough to chase the waves as they roll back...just to get knocked off her feet with the next incoming wave. cade is actually pretty good at the beach, he brings a shovel and he'd be content to dig til his little tykes shovel breaks. anyway, within an hour you know someone is going to get hungry or thirsty or have to pee, so we plan short excursions. i can't wait for the day when i can go to the beach to relax or snooze in the sunshine or just people watch, uninterrupted.

today is tuesday and i would have sworn that rob said he'd get a few days off this week. i'm not holding my breath. :/

the wait is over

he's HOME! yay! :) the tennessee was gone for 67 days but they're back now, and that's the most important part, in my mind. they had a great patrol and it sounds like all inspections went well. rob even got the news that he was selected for commander (to put on the rank in july '09) and best of all, the captain seems pleased with the world right now.

however, being back home means the sailors are put back into the same domestic squabbles they left 2 months ago. rob fully expects his workload to increase as young sailors learn their lessons the hard way. we've all been 20-something, but i wish there was some way to save these people from themselves. DRAMA seems to be the word of the day!

homecoming activities went well. there's no pictures though :/

i raced to the beach to try to get a picture of the submarine floating upriver toward kingsbay, but *surprise* the sub was early! i had heard they'd be by at 11am, we left home at 10:20 to drive the 10 miles to the beach. i thought we'd be plenty early (all my experiences with the sub coming home, it's been late every single time), but we got stuck behind some bicyclists who would not share the road! finally we got to the beach where i could see the tug boats floating by from the car...meaning the sub was just passing by. i didn't even have time to get the camera out. i was so disappointed, this could possibly rob's last patrol if he doesn't make commanding officer, and of course, cameras are not allowed near the pier for homecoming.

i watched the boat on by and realized that WOOHOO, my man was inside there and would be waiting on the pier in a few hours so what the hell was i doing here??? i got back in the van (hadn't even had time to unbuckle the kids out of the car, and elisha slept through the whole thing) and headed home to go change into something pretty. i wish we could have gotten some pictures, i think we all looked pretty good. but there was no time to waste...by now i was in a rush to get there!

we made the 30 minute drive to the base, debated an extra 10 minutes about if this was the right gate or if that was the right gate and finally picked a gate and breathed a sigh of relief that we had chosen correctly. (the closer you get to the submarines, the tighter the security and the bigger the guns in the hands of the marines standing next to the gate.)

we stood for about 10 minutes, chatting with the other wives and seeing the sailors drift off the sub one by one. we couldn't really even see the sub which was a disappointment. all we could see was the sail, it seems the piers at this subase are set quite high. at the subase in connecticut, the piers are low enough that you can really see the sub and get an idea of it. i'm not even sure reese or cade could tell where the submarine really was yesterday. there were some HUGE overhead cranes though, elisha was very taken with their movements. (so was i, i'm turning into my father...we both enjoy studying how things are done and then discussing the ins and outs of the process.)

the officers wear tan cotton uniforms and from far away they all look alike...i guess that's why they wear the uniforms in the first place?? :) all men were wearing their hard hats, due to the cranes, so about the only way you can tell them apart (aside from obvious differences like height and belly shape) is their stride. i saw one tall guy and thought it might be rob...the long stride was about right...then as he got closer, i saw his big old eyebrows and realized it was my husband. i whispered to reese, "hey, who is that guy, reese?" she recognized him right away and sounded the alarm... "DADDYYYYYYYY!"

she would have raced toward them but a street divided the pier from our grassy location, and i had told the kids that they needed to stay on the grass for safety so she patiently waited for daddy to walk on over. she was ALL over him, hugging and jumping and giggling and trying to tell him all about the last 2 months in the first few minutes. cade was excited as well, only there was less hugging because of his shoulder and rob didn't want to hurt him. elisha, however, would not even come near him, and instead just gave him a frown. toddlers do not forgive long absences easily.

he looked good. food on the submarine is pretty good and rob usually is not one to deprive himself if it tastes good, so i had expected him to get chubby here and there but he really looks great. tasty even ;) he did look a little pale, but if he had come back with a suntan i would wonder just what they were doing out there. one thing i have noticed is that his hair on top is getting thinner, i think he's getting his dad's hair pattern. but really, it doesn't even phase me. he still looks yummy. :)

the families were all corralled in one area, and i'm an avid people-watcher so i did enjoy the emotions as husbands were greeted. the wives all try to look nice, some try to look sexy, but i think we all agonize over what to wear. i know i did, even so far as to post picture on a private mommy board to get feedback (thank you, juniverse!!). whatever the choice is, a wife should really make sure it's appropriate and it fits. one woman was wearing a pink satin-y shirt and tan short-shorts. she definitely should have picked a bigger size as well as a longer rise on the shorts...when she threw her arms up around her husbands neck, all the wives got a good shot of her butt crack because her shirt rode up and her shorts weren't big enough. is it sad that *that* is what stands out in my mind about homecoming? :/

we stood around chatting/hugging/smooching for about 20 minutes and then some of the crew had to go back and finish up for the afternoon...that included rob :/ we left and came back home. actually i had left quite a bit of cleaning to fill the hours between when we left base and when we had to go back and pick him up. we made a welcome home cake, hung up some welcome back signs on the front of the house, cleaned up the kitchen a little bit, and suddenly the phone was ringing and it was time to go pick him up.

our evening was fun, i wish we would have put the kids to bed at around 7pm so rob and i could have had more time to talk. when the kids went to bed at 8 he was already sound asleep on the sofa. hopefully he can stay awake a little later tonight so we can have some grown up conversation. or, maybe a little less conversation and a little more action ;)

waiting...waiting...waiting

it's strange, i spend a lot of my time WAITING for things. waiting for naptime, waiting for reese to get off the bus, waiting for bedtime. waiting for rob to get back. waiting for school to be out for the summer. waiting for us to move to DC.

i'm tired of waiting, let's just get on with it already!!! especially the part where rob comes back! :) i haven't heard any bad reports from the tennessee so i guess that's good news. we have a family group meeting tonight, so hopefully we'll learn a bit more. i can't share it here of course.


it will be good to have him home. i think.

i've finally gotten used to sleeping alone in my bed though. and i've gotten used to having the whole bathroom to myself. and to having a tidy vanity in the bathroom (the man loves clutter around his sink! arg!). and i really don't miss doing all the extra laundry...although my kids have been so messy the last week that i have a lot of laundry ANYWAY. which reminds me, i need to add oxyclean to my shopping list.

i think the best part of having him home will be that daddy is back. the kids love rough-housing with him and that's something that i just don't do well. i'm one of those people who bruise easily ;) and i'm so excited to get some time to myself. not so much time alone but just so i'm not the only one in charge. i really miss going out for a bike ride with just one of the kids, or just taking the dog for a walk. i've been kind of a lump, really, when it comes to exercise during this separation. my one option for serious cardio is to do a program on the treadmill out in the garage, after the kids go to sleep for the night. i've been able to do that once in the last 2 months. ONCE.

what usually happens is that after they're finally tucked in, i'm too exhausted to do the treadmill. or 2 of the kiddos go right to sleep but then one of them is stubborn and stays up for another hour. i'm one of those people who hates to get interrupted when i'm focused on something (aren't we all like that to some extent?) so i need to know that they're all asleep and won't come creeping out to the garage to bug me.

and since i'm really good at coming up with excuse NOT to exercise, let me add that i have 2 blisters on my pinky toe this week. for some reason the sandals that i've worn for the last year decided to rub my toe the wrong way. and of course my kids step on my feet half as much as they step on their own, so my poor toe is feeling pretty abused. i didn't want to aggravate him further.

i don't know what excuse i'll use when my toe heals up. what excuses have you used to avoid exercise?

bumps and bruises and fractures, oh my...

why is it that i sit down to put in a post and the kids immediately start BOTHERING ME??? apparently it's lunch time and they're starving.

i'm letting them eat one cookie, just so i can do this. elisha is asleep and i have a fullish battery on the laptop so here we go...

the trip to tampa was good. as good as it could be for a mom trapped in the car with 3 kids for over 3 hours...one way. everything worked out well for the most part. we didn't get lost, our hotel room was ready & waiting for us, our friends were just lovely, and no one died. so i'd say it was a very good trip.

something scary happened, however, and i'm so relieved that i was surrounded by friends who are also mommies. elisha was sitting at the kitchen table in steph's house and i was feeding her sliced grapes as dinner was being prepared. elisha sat down into the chair from a kneeling position and her butt and body slid right through the chair (the chair's design had 2 horizontal slats at the top of the back but it was open space from the lowest slat to the seat of the chair) and flat onto steph's ceramic tile floor. elisha opened her mouth to scream and took such a deep breath that she passed out as i picked her up. her eyes rolled back in her head and i immediately thought concussion.

she came to a minute later and then she really began screaming. she had had the wind knocked out of her; my other friend, misti, said she landed back first and not head first as i had thought. but that didn't keep elisha from screaming herself to sleep, then waking up to vomit all over herself during our evening meal, which is concussion-like behavior i think. elisha continued to improve and return to her old self over the next hour, and since misti is practically certified in head trauma in children, we skipped an ER visit. all seems to be back to normal for miss elisha...she's actually started adding quite a few words into her vocabulary that weren't there before tampa. now she says "stuck", "down", and she barks like a dog when she sees one.

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and since rob is still deployed, of course, one of the other children must get injured as well.

cade fell out of bed overnight thursday night. when he woke up whining & crying & refusing to eat, i knew a doctor's appointment would be in the works. with it being friday, i did not want to go all weekend without knowing what was ailing him. thankfully we got him into the doctor's early and the nurse practictioner sent us to a jacksonville hospital for xrays, she suspected a fractured or broken clavicle (collarbone). turns out it was fractured and the next stop was to go get a brace or splint from a medical supply store and bring it back to the local doc's office to get him fitted.

here's where i started getting annoyed. the medical supply store was about 5 miles beyond the doctor's office, through heavy fast traffic. the first brace they sold us was a shoulder immobilizer and we had to go all the way to the doc's office to find that out that it was not the right one. so, back to the medical supply store where one of the salesladies was the most worthless lump i had ever seen. she didn't know anything about anything. the other saleslady was a lot more knowledgeable and managed to find an extra small adult clavicle brace that would fit cade. and it was even $4 cheaper than the immobilizer. :)

so back to the doctor's to check the fit, and after more stickers and suckers for cade & elisha, we were done and home we went. reese had been picked up at the bus stop by a neighbor, so we stopped & got her and then went home to collapse. i was about in tears at several points during the day, just frustrated with having to make so many different stops to get what we needed. cade was just wonderful all day. he didn't complain about the pain or having to go see all these new strange places, he just collected the stickers as he went. the final tally at the end of the day: 6 big ones!

monday afternoon we have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for more specialized information. hopefully they'll have a child-sized brace, b/c the one that cade has keeps slipping off. he's supposed to sleep in it but he whines that it's uncomfortable so last night i let him go without.

turns out he'll always have a bump in his collarbone from this adventure. apparently it never mends perfectly no matter how much milk you drink. and the collarbone is one of the easiest bones to break. the nurse practitioner said that his injury was one that is common in newborn babies, when they are squeezed through the birth canal.

so now reese is due for some kind of injury, i'm just suprised that it hasn't happened yet.

or it could be me who's next. i'm already sporting a big yellow bruise on my forehead (from bumping my head on the cart at walmart while loading the lower rack) and a huge lumpy bruise on my shin from walking right into the playscape at the local playground.

it's probably good that active duty military gets such complete health care coverage. we will probably need it a lot.

wake up blogger.

i tried clicking the "create" button in order to share my delightful thoughts with you all, but instead i got an error message, complete with an alphanumeric code. wtf? i guess blogger hasn't had it's coffee and fiber for the day? it was a quick fix, i love that little back button (i wish life had a BACK button!) and so now here we are...

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i'm reading "the poisonwood bible" by barbara kingsolver and i really like it. the first 10 pages were a little longwinded but now i'm enjoying this story of a baptist missionary in the congo in 1960. in fact, i wish my kids would leave me alone so i could read a bit more, but i frequently wish that no matter what i'm doing. i should try to pace myself, however. i sat down to read last night after the kids were tucked in and quiet. i woke up 3 hours later, my glasses still on my face and my book on the floor, closed. i was most annoyed that i had lost my page.

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is it summer break yet?

i had to carry reese to the bus stop and stuff her onto the bus. the whole thing started when she couldn't find a small plastic bunny that she's been carrying everywhere for the last few days. she decided to bring it to school moments before we had to go to the bus stop, but then she couldn't find it. it turned into tears, sitting defiantly on the sidewalk, me dragging her 2 houses down and then finally carrying her the last 50 feet to the waiting bus. i haven't had a call from the bus driver or her teacher so hopefully she's over it. the bunny has been found (under her bed, of course) and is waiting for reese's arrival home. and i've realized i need to stop feeding her, that girl is heavy.

seriously though. i'm over the drama. she fell and scraped her knee last night. she was running at top speed and fell full length onto the sidewalk. i'm lucky she only got her knee, really...it could have been a lot worse (i'm thinking knocked out or broken teeth!). she proceeded to cry for a few minutes and then limped all around the house for the next hour. i'm almost sure a skinned knee doesn't hurt that badly. have i just gotten used to working through my own physical pains that i don't allow anyone permission to hurt? with rob working so much, i pop some ibuprofen if it really hurts but otherwise i suffer through it.

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i'm heading to tampa on friday! road trip! i know road trips are usually on the spur of the moment, but a week's notice is pretty spur of the moment when you've got 3 kids and 2 pets. we'll be back home on sunday, so the cat is staying home and the dog is going to the local kennel. we'll be staying at a hotel and hanging out with some wonderful people from a mommy board and checking out the tampa zoo as well. i'm excited! i try to plan some little adventure like this when rob is gone, it seems to make time go by a little faster.

the weather forecasts are interesting, however. in northern florida, we're getting highs of 75-80 with a nice breeze. it's still cool enough to leave our windows open during the day (too bad i have to close those windows at night for security's sake, seems like the house gets so stuffy overnight). this weekend tampa is predicting highs around 88 and above. that will be a preview for jacksonville weather in the next month.

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i went to a wives' group meeting last night. we discussed homecoming plans! whoopee! now keep in mind that all this preparation takes time, but it's just nice to see that plans are being made! the end is in sight :)

so that's what they look like...

i was in the shower and had just finished using my mesh sponge when i saw the cord was all tangled up. i couldn't just hang it up like that, things need to be squared away in my world, so i untangled the cord and the whole thing fell apart. crap.

but i put a positive spin on my mishap, and turned it into a learning experience. did you know that those things are one long strip of circular netting? seems like it should be useful for something. i don't know what....any suggestions on how to reuse that?

the whole thing is about 7 feet long in the bottom picture, it would probably stretch to 8.5 feet if it was taut.

we went on an emergency run to target (ha! emergency my ass, i came home with 3 pairs of shorts, one top for myself, one bra--also for myself, a big box of diapers--not for me, and some cookies and snacks for the kids) where i purchased a new purple "puff". i shall try to resist untangling any future knots in the cord.

what are they called anyway? do they have a formal name? i've heard puffs, boofahs, mesh sponges...what do you call yours? and what color is it?

Family Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family web site - Family tree research

filch it friday...filched to perfection

it is friday again! exciting for some but not really for me, it just means a whole 64 hours until reese gets on the bus again monday morning. did i do my math correctly? who knows. who cares.

aaaaaanyway. this topic seems to have been well filched, i found it at miss magpie and then found it at isis who filched it from jarrett who has more info over there if you're in the mood to trace it further. i'm too exhausted to do so. just tracking it that far has really done me in.

the good news: NONE of my music is exactly 2:42. out of 2260 songs, apparently i have not yet found the perfect pop song. if rob was home i'd check his ipod, he loves to spend money at the itunes store. i'll have to remember to do that when he comes back.

filching done. carry on.

is it friday yet? is it june yet?

rob has officially been gone for a month and 3 days. i don't miss him as much right now, i guess i've gone into survival mode and have stopped thinking about him so often. it sounds heartless and i'm actually sad that he's not on my mind more, it seems like he should be all i'm thinking about. however, as always, life interrupts my love affair with my husband ;) the kids and the pets, the laundry, the lawn, etc.

tomorrow my oldest is going on her final field trip of the her kindergarten year...the zoo! who knew a teacher could whip out so many worksheets on zoo animals?!? some of the worksheets seem so simple, though. i'm wondering why the teacher isn't challenging them more? i also notice that a lot of the art projects are simplified, i think it's purely for the teacher's benefit. reese recently brought home a 'spring hat', covered in cutouts of springy things (guess what the last unit was covering...SPRING!). all the spring things had either been cut out by a teacher or else had been ordered from somewhere that way, all uniform and prepared. so pretty much all reese had to do was pick out 6 things and use a glue stick to attach them to her hat. not exactly a challenge at this point in the year. i think the teachers are just getting tired. i don't blame them, so am i :)

we have plans to head to tampa the first weekend in may. i'm really excited, we'll be hanging out with friends and having some girl talk if the kids will let us. we're also going to be going here and staying at a hotel in the area. i hope the youngest is a happy camper during this trip. in the car she used to be a gem but then over the last few months, she's gotten so grumpy whenever she's in that carseat. even just for a trip to the store, she's back there cussing me out in her toddler-jabber. maybe she just doesn't like looking at cade, she's still rear facing. (if i turn her facing forward, then she doesn't have any one to watch, just the back of my head...not too exciting.)
she's used to sleeping and napping in her crib and nap times and bedtimes are pretty well scheduled. so we'll see how napping in a stroller and sleeping in a hotel bed with me can disrupt her life. the good news is that tampa is about 3 hours away so at least she'll get a good nap at some point during the trip, probably after she screams herself hoarse. hope the kids bring their earplugs.
the bad news is that we'll be missing out on this. sigh. tampa better be good.

everyone keep this girl in your thoughts. she's been going through a tough time and every financial challenge you can imagine has been thrown her way. hugs for you, lola. believe it or not i miss all your pictures, imagine making me hunt you down for them!

better than the home depot paint section

anyone else play with their blog colors a little too often?

i know i do, i'll try to wait a few weeks before i do that again.

reflections of a saturday

not much to report on today. yesterday sucked. really sucked. it was one of those days when you're counting the seconds until bedtime.

a lot it was my fault. i should have taken the kids out to play but the bugs were biting and i really thought it would start pouring any second, so we stayed inside. the kids pestered me for food and uno games all afternoon. i started supper early just to get the whole bedtime process over a bit faster. the kids were tucked in and quiet by 8:15. thank god.

i've realized that even when i don't feel like it, i NEED to get these kids outside everyday, otherwise they will drive me crazy. even on a good day, i've about had it by bathtime but last night i just wanted to hose them down and throw them into bed, dripping and screaming.

after they were in bed, i medicated myself with ice cream and a movie. then i felt guilty about eating way too much ice cream, i turned to fitTV and found they were showing namaste yoga so i tried that. it was really quite fun; i didn't feel enlightened or reborn but i did feel refreshed. and i don't think i'm as flexible as i thought i was. my hamstrings were quite stubborn. anyway, i'm going to try and make it a nightly thing. if nothing else, i might sleep better.

it's friday!

my morning started off just lovely.

i finally got out of bed at 6:38 and hustled reese along a bit and she was out the door by 6:49, just in time to catch the bus at 6:55. as i was repeatedly hitting the snooze button, i was accepting the fact that i'd have to drive her to school today, but when i heard the toilet flush and realized she was already awake, i got my hustle on. in our house, it really does help to pick out clothes the night before.

on my 2nd cup of coffee this morning, i burnt my tongue. sigh. how annoying. and painful.

i made some bread and it turned out beautifully. we ate almost a 2 whole mini-loaves for our afternoon snack. fresh wheat bread with strawberry jam is the yummiest thing in the world. some day i'm sure i'll go 100% crunchy and make my own jam. but not anytime soon, since we'll be moving in july. funny, how i consider something like homemade strawberry preserves something too "valuable" to trust to the movers. computers and TVs, no problem. but something that i CREATED, then i'd have to pack it in the van & drive it up.
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i read this on simplynutmeg today and wanted to try it out...

The rules are simple: Hit shuffle on your iPod, then answer each question by hitting next. NO CHEATING!!!

Q: What does next year have in store for you?
A: The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish (instrumental with chorus) from "For the Boys"

oh my.

Q: What does your love life look like next year?
A: Play Me by Neil Diamond

Q: What do you say when life gets hard?
A: In the Ghetto by Elvis Presley

Q: Song that reminds you of good times?
A: Release by Timbaland, feat. Justin Timberlake

Q: What do you think when you get up in the morning?
A: Let's Get Retarded by the Black Eyed Peas. how ironic, really that is what i was thinking this morning.

Q: What song will you dance to at your wedding?
A: I'd Die Without You by P.M. Dawn

awwwww :)

Q: Song that reminds you of your first kiss?
A: What's on your Mind? by John Denver

Q: Your favorite saying?
A: February Song by Josh Groban

Q: Favorite place?
A: Ode to My Family by The Cranberries

sentimental but not true. favorite place would be as far away from my noisy family as possible.

Q: Most Missed Memory?
A: Tailor Made by Colbie Caillat

Q: What song describes your best friend?
A: Got It Right This Time by Keith Urban

Q: What song describes your ex?
A: Winter Wonderland by Jason Mraz

Q: Where would you go on a first date?
A: Stranger in My House by Tamia

um, not my house. that's not safe.

Q: Drug of choice?
A: The Cat Came Back by Laurie Berkener

i put some kids' music on my ipod...purely for travel purposes! i swear!

Q: What song describes yourself?
A: Something Bad from the Wicked soundtrack

i disagree!

Q: What is the thing you like doing most?
A: Henry the Octopus by the Wiggles

i get off on guys in plaid outfits.

Q: The song that best describes the President?
A: Voulez Vous by ABBA

anyone speak french? is this something that would describe Clinton better?

Q: Where will you be in 10 years?
A: Track 09. which is something by Air Supply, iTunes didn't download the album info.

Q: Your love life right now?
A: One Day You'll Be Mine by Usher

this is actually cute, since rob's on deployment :)

Q: What is your state of mind like at the moment?
A: Born to Lose by Ray Charles

when you're outnumbered by kids 3 to 1, of course you're going to lose.

Q: How will you die?
A: In Pace by Andrea Bocelli

ok. i can live with that.

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notice i used some capital letters up there? classy, eh?

i really apologize. i'm a horrible blogger but it's been almost 6 weeks since i last wrote in here. that is just inexcusable. of course, i don't have a huge fanclub, but just in case someone is out there, i'm back.

rob is gone, however. he's out 'on patrol' on the USS tennessee, so let's everyone think good thoughts for them. the tennessee doesn't have the best reputation among submarines but let's just hope they don't screw up too badly. they have improved in the last year, hopefully rob and the current commanding officer are partially responsible. there's so much gossip about the downfall of the tennessee, there should probably be a book written. it's pretty juicy. sex, lies & videotape & all that.

he'll be back before school is out for the summer. reese's birthday is june 15 and we have plans to head to seaworld as a family for her birthday, so he better be back by then. i really don't want to go without him.

everyone is doing well. my parents just finished a LONG visit and arrived safely back in iowa yesterday. they stayed for almost 2 weeks. i'm used to about 8 or 9 days. i did enjoy the free babysitting though, so i should just shut up. it is nice to have the house to ourselves again. maybe i'm becoming anti-social but i just could not make conversation for squat during their visit. and my parents are getting to the age where they're repeating their stories. yeeeeeah. good times.

reese is getting tested for the gifted program at her school. i can't believe it's come to my mind so often today, wondering if it was hard for her or if she got really frustrated or what. she loves school so much, so i'm sure she thought it was a blast to get to go with a new teacher to do new things. the note she brought home said that she has to have a score of 130 in order to continue the testing. i'll keep you posted, unless she scored a 5. then i'll just drop it and you can just assume the whole thing was a bust.

a close game

that it was. those germs almost had us but then we whipped out our secret weapon from the ER and they didn't stand a chance.

the last 2 weeks of my life have been horrible. my 5 year old had a sinus infection. the 3 year old had pinkeye (in BOTH eyes) and an ear infection. the 18 month old had something they didn't put a name on but antibiotics have helped clear that up. i had bronchitis and (i think) a bit of a sinus infection...bronchitis doesn't really produce that much snot does it!?!? rob thinks he had the same thing as me but i say no way. i was much sicker than he was.

for about 3 days, all i did was lay on the sofa. between my 102 degree fever and the snot pouring from my nose, i could do nothing but struggle to breathe.

that is why i'm still catching up on housework, laundry, and cooking. i took my last dose of zithromax today so hopefully that was enough to do the dirty work on those germs. the girls are still finishing their antibiotics, elisha has about another 3 days and reese another week. i've been squirting their doses into jello and it really goes against my dietary habits to give them jello for breakfast, even if it is laced with their meds. but to have the excesses of snot disappear from my house, i'll do it.

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i borrowed this from kate, who got tagged by someone else. i'm not cool enough to get tagged, but i post this anyway. it's my little tiny corner of the internet, i can do what i want in it.

The rules are simple. Look up from the computer, look around the room where you're sitting and pick up the closest book. And closest really means closest. No cheating by running upstairs to unearth your pink-highlighted college copy of The Critique of Pure Reason or the Prolegomena. Open the book, turn to page 123, count down to the fifth sentence on that page, and then post the next three sentences.

i'm reading "dawn on a distant shore" by sara donati. i've started this book at least 3 different times and have lost it once and now bought it twice. arg. here goes, uppercase letters and all:

He muttered a question in Pepin's direction and got a brief word in reply. The escape plans seemed to have brought about an uneasy truce between them, but Nathaniel intended to keep a sharp eye on the butcher. "Any sign of Runs-from-Bears?" asked Robbie, putting voice to the question that kept Nathaniel awake night after night.

just some jabber

some miscellaneous items...

my mom had hip replacement surgery a few weeks ago. she has been suffering with arthritis in her right hip for the last 20 years and this last year had been horrible for her. when she and dad came down for christmas, she was walking with 2 canes and it seemed like she was having a hard time managing her pain with pills.

the surgery went ok, but when the new joint was put in, her femur shattered so it was necessary for the surgeon to band her femur around the prosthesis with additional metal wraps. it means she cannot put any weight at all on that foot for another 6 weeks. she'll have to go in for a bone density scan, turns out osteoporosis has begun and that is why her femur was so weak. so, i went out and bought myself the eco-size of viactive calcium chews and i'm taking them faithfully so far. (follow the link and print out the coupon!!!)

if she's going to go through the pain & suffering, i can at least learn from her experience and try to avoid it.

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this is reese. isn't she cute? she's been growing out her hair for the last 6 months and now she thinks she wants a haircut.



this is the haircut she wants to go back to. this is from june of '07 when she turned 5. she's had the bob since she turned 3. it was adorable when she was 3 and 4, but now she's getting older and i'm not sure i can go back.

she's getting tired of the hair in her face and having me pull her hair back every morning. does she realize that she'll have to get her bangs trimmed all the time? and that means more money out of my pocket and another appointment to keep?

i'm kind of undecided on it. maybe i'll braid her hair and see what she thinks about it.
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rob has become a running fool. he's training for this and thinks that we'll be using the shuttle buses to see him cross the finish line.

keep in mind that that the shuttles run from 5am til 7am. and none of the locations are anywhere close to us. did i mention i have 3 kids??? 3 kids before 7am in the cold just so we can see a sweaty rob finish his race. he's only doing the 1/2 marathon (which is impressive, i'm not knocking that) but i think i'd rather have dental work performed on me than do this.

but to actually tell him i don't want to go would really hurt his feelings. so i'm hoping for a stomach flu to visit our house that weekend.

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i'm still resisting re-joining weight watchers. i feel like i'm eating all the time and most of the time i do it when i'm stressed. so it's purely by luck that i've only gained about 2 lbs in the last 3 months that i've been off the program. i'm trying sparkpeople, maybe hoping that having to track it all will slow me down.

unfortunately, those damn ready to bake cookies always get me. ugh...why does my body want those???

my jeans are feeling a little tight in the thighs & butt. still wearable, just a little tight. so i need to get out & get moving as well as stop eating crap.

i don't know how i resisted chocolate for so long. hm.

happy new year!

it's still january, i'm not *that* late.

can i just say how COOL the blogger is getting? i know some people hate it and look down their noses at it, but for those of us who are clueless about web design (and sure as hell don't even know what HTML stands for?!?), it's kind of neat having some more choices. i managed to spend over an hour playing with my colors on here and this is what came out.

impressive, eh?

anyway, i need to get back to playing scrabulous with my husband. he signed up for a facebook account, just so we could play scrabble on our laptops. yes, we're sitting on the same sofa, just a foot or 2 apart, playing this game on our computers while our poor old scrabble board sits neglected in the armoire in the other room.

oh...and to top it off, we're both listening to our own individual ipods as we hem & haw over our word selections. we're dorks. i admit it now.