Awesome Deal.

Okay I am not one to post much about good deals but this is WAY TOO GOOD to pass up!

Restaurant.com $25 Gift Card for $2.



Now through Halloween Restaurant.com is offering $25 Gift Cards for $2!

It's Simple. Go to Restaurant.com and chose your restaurant(s). Add the gift certificates into your cart in amounts of $25. Enter the code TREATS at checkout and use the gift certificate code generated to select and print out your certificate(s)!!

Take special note to read the requirements of the restaurant you are choosing. Some require a $35 + minimum and or add gratuity. It just depends but make sure you check it out before you buy.

I just bought 2 $25 gift certificates there and I spent $4.00! SWEET!

Thank You to Brea from The Boyd Team for all this info!
http://theboydteam.blogspot.com/

Me a stupid mom?

According to the old lady at the grocery store, I am a stupid mom.

I wanted to get Nylin the new Tinkerbell movie from the Redbox last night. I had all three kids with me. I pulled in front of the grocery store and parked in front of the door (in the fire lane). I got out, locked the doors and went inside--leaving the kids to sit in the warm car. I was literally 10 feet away from them. I never took my eyes off of the car. People were walking around my car in disgust as I was half blocking the front door. It was cold and I prefer dirty looks at my car than chasing kids around the grocery store while I am trying to get a movie.

This old lady was looking at my car all funny and looking around. She then came into the grocery store (where they keep the carts--this is where the Redbox is). I was staring at her the whole time. Finally she made eye contact with me and asked if those were my kids.

I told her yes.

She then proceeded to tell me I was a stupid mom and something really bad could happen to my kids if I am not watching them.

My reply??? "Oh yeah? I am pretty sure nothing is going to happen to them with me standing right here watching them. I was getting ready to walk outside and drop kick you for just staring at them, who knows what I would do to someone trying to hurt them."

She walked away.

Good news!

Granny is home from the hospital and she loves her new place.

Nylin went to the dentist today. The x-ray did not show any major permanent damage.
The two top front teeth are a little loose but the good doc says this is ok.

Jace and Kara have not escaped yet but stay tuned.

Time to bust loose!

There is never a dull moment around here. Everyone and everything is busting out.

Jason's Granny has been in and out of the hospital for the last 2 weeks. That is never fun. In the middle of all that we moved her from one apartment to another. Good news though--the new one is SUPER NICE and SUPER BIG! I love it. I hope she loves it, she has not even seen it with her things in it yet. Hopefully I will be heading to pick her up soon. I just talked to her and she is ready to bust out of there. I told her I better not catch her wheeling down the highway when I get there.

Ms. Nylin decided she did not like her front teeth strong and in place. She knocked them on the slide at school. They are a little wiggly. I wonder how she knocked so hard that they busted loose? Ahh well she will be cute even with 2 teeth missing for 2 years right? You better tell me I am right. Even the thought of her running around with 2 missing teeth makes me laugh out loud. Good thing she already talks really well.

Mr. Jace is growing more and more everyday. He has now figured out that he can open the front door all by himself. Thank goodness for the screen. Jason busted him over the weekend trying to use the broom handle to knock the latch off the screen.

Ms. Kara is trying to get away from is all. One minute she was discovering her toes now she is off trying to discover the world (or mykitchen, whichever comes first). She is a fast little booger. If she sees you coming she laughs and crawls even faster. I think her and Jace have come up with a master plan to bust out of the house and take off. We are going to have to watch those two!

Trouble for Starbucks!!

It is already pretty bad that my friends and I have an acronym for the Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks. We call it PSL.

Now I am in serious trouble.

The new Circle K by my house (formally a Shell station) has lots of new things. Among those things they have a new cappuccino machine. I look over today as I am about to dispense my regular coffee out of the machine and I see that they have Pumpkin Spice Cappuccino's.

Hmmmmmmm. I wondered if this was in anyway close to my very favorite drink at Starbucks.

There is no way it could be for $0.99 (16 oz) right?

WRONG!!!!! I am in love. This PSL is VERY CLOSE to the Starbucks version.

I (meaning my rear end, hips, thighs and tummy) am in big trouble!


(BTW: I looked it up and it is 5 WW points, I could so skip breakfast for that )

Rough day.

So today has been a rough day so far.

I woke up to Nylin coming into my room telling me that her brother is driving her crazy. I looked at the clock and it was only 4:45. He was screaming at the top of his lungs and was inconsolable. I took him into the bed with me. He was looking for his daddy, when he realized that daddy had left already he started in again. I thought I would take him into the living room and turn on Sesame Street. I got up and headed toward the door.

No sooner than I stood up I tripped over a laundry basket. I went flying forward with Jace in my arms. I tried to protect him as much as I could but I still landed on top of him and he slammed his head into the floor. Of course I am freaking out.
As soon as I grabbed him up to check him out, in the complete darkness, Nylin swings the bedroom door open screaming for me--smacking me in the head with the door. She was worried when she heard us fall. She was asking if she needed to call 911.

Now I am holding 2 crying babies telling them it is ok. Once they were calmed down they were playing and running around. Mommy on the other hand will not be running anytime soon. I think I twisted my ankle, broke 3 toes and I have a very badly bruised shin.

The day can only get better right?

Our trip to the Punkin Patch.....

We took the kids to the pumpkin patch yesterday. They had a blast. It was Jace and Kara's first time there. Last year Jace had an asthma attack on the day Nylin went with her school, so he missed out.

We had a really good time. I think I enjoy it more than the kids do really.

Aren't they cute?

I took the kids for a little walk around our property and the neighbors field (the family field would have been great too, except the hill back up to the house is a killer!). I just kept taking shots of the kids playing and I ended up with 141 pictures, oops. Out of those I think maybe 100 came out good. My kids were in rare form, smiling and looking at the camera. They never do that, haha.

Ms. Kara was sleeping already--the babysitter wears her out!! Stay tuned for pics of her at the pumpkin patch though. I hope to post those pictures today also!

Enjoy

















Okay maybe Jace was not smiling but at least Nylin was :)

My feelings are hurt.

I am going to TRY and be rather candid about this because I do not want anymore drama started.

Somehow I got thrown into some mess that I do not belong in. I have been careful not to give my opinion on the the situation and to stay out of it.
Well doing something that I do everyday some how got me in the middle of it.
Now I am the one that has to deal with the mess. I have so much going on in my life as it is. This is the last thing I need to deal with. After I am done with this blog I am done with the entire thing. I am going to be an adult and LET IT GO.

My heart breaks just thinking about this entire situation. There have been things said and done that no person should ever have to hear or go through. When those things come from people you love it hurts even more.

I am truely hurt and I do not know what to do about it. I want to scream at the top of my lungs but all that will do is make my throat hurt and wake up the babies. Lord knows I do not want to wake up the babies!

If the person that threw me in this mess is reading this then you know who you are. I doubt you will spend anymore time on me or my family so I doubt you are reading this. For the sake of my sanity I have to get this out. I do not want a screaming match over the telephone nor do I want no hard feelings, so here on the blog it goes.

I am sure that you know that you hurt me in a way I can not explain. I have never in my life done anything to hurt you or your family. I feel like I am being punished for being related to someone I have no control over. FYI- I am related to you too. You are my family and I love you. I have always loved you. Nothing that has happened over the past year has changed that. It is not my business at all and I have made it a point to tell EVERYONE that I am not getting into it. It is not my fight.

I am sorry that I am not choosing sides. I really hope you were not expecting me to, judging from your actions this week I suppose you do. I am sorry but I am not like that, no matter what you think.

You have had to make a choice that no one should ever have to make. I am truely sorry for that, however, it was your choice, not mine, so why am I being punished for it?

The deliberate removal of myself and my family from your life will do nothing but hurt you in the end. Of course my heart is broken at this time, but I have no control over it, you do. If you chose to remove me from your life, that i something you will have to deal with.

Random Pictures from Picture Day

Justin and Candace's Wedding

I forgot to tell you all about justin and Candace's awesome wedding.
The bride looked amazing. The groom looked awesome too. They were both so happy the entire day and night. Every thing was just gorgeous.

Enjoy the pics!

Sneak Peek

Here is a quick sneak peek of the pics taken this past weekend. I think you can click on them if you want to see them bigger, I am not sure though, lol.

All pictures taken by Seelen Photography http://seelenphotography.wordpress.com/

I will post more when we have more...

Lots 'O Family!



GRAND KIDS



My cute little family minus Kara, she was done by this time, lol. There will be more with her later, this is just a sneak peek.




Playground shot!



Lots of kids heads ;)

Family picture day

Today was family picture day. I can not wait to see the great shots that Trish took of us all. I know people in this family can be difficult, especially the adults. I am glad most everything went smoothly though.

Jace was being a 17 month old so I am pretty sure we maybe got one shot of him looking at the camera, lol.

Nylin is not much better these days, remember all the awkard pictures from age 4-6, mostly looking the other way or giving the fakest smile ever? Yeah that was Nylin today.

Kara was too busy looking at the trees to smile. LOL

Hopefully Trish got at least one good shot of us all, lol.

I will posy some pics as soon as we have them. It will be a few weeks probably because she is going on vacation, SHE DESERVES IT!

There will always be lots to do....

Here is an interesting tidbit I found on a fellow bloggers site www.mamablogga.com: according to a survey of 7000 moms by AOL’s Platform-A and OMD, the average mom fits the equivalent of 27 hours of activities into a 16-hour day. Only 1.4 of those hours are “personal time,” of course.

The one thing I question about this study: what mom do you know that gets eight hours of sleep?!

Monday or Tuesday’s Oprah talked about overwhelmed mothers (which I am still in the middle of because sometimes my kids do not allow me 1 hour of quiet time to watch a show that is not on the Disney channel). She had an expert on the show telling mothers basically they need to stop focusing on and devoting all their time to being their ideal of a perfect mother. Instead we all should start putting some of that focus on us, our state of mind and our happiness.

I think he is pretty much right. Who are we as mothers and wives if our state of mind is out of whack and we are not happy?
Certainly not good ones.

This expert goes on to say In today’s society we are all pushed to handle multiple tasks at once.
He says that multitasking does not exist, we move from one task to another without ever giving our whole selves to each task.

Obviously he is not a mother.

As much as I make a joke about it—it is true. Very rarely do we do 3 things at once. We may do them all in the same few minutes but we do not clean the kitchen, fold the laundry and nurse the baby all at the same time. We move from one task to the next, only worrying about the next task and the one after that. In doing this we do not do these things as well as we could.

We as mothers need to ask for help. We need to ask our husbands, our friends and our family. If I start to get overwhelmed I need to ask for help. If not it could spiral out of control. Things will only get worse if I do not catch myself and step back and take a look. If I am not doing well I need to realize that and not be ashamed of it.

I know these things. However it is not as easy as it sounds. It is hard to admit that you cannot handle all the things you are expected to do. It is hard to admit that you cannot do everything and still feel good about yourself. It is hard not to be so critical of yourself.

There will always be a lot to do. Sometimes I just have to remind myself to slow down and enjoy life. Life being my kids, my husband, other family members and my friends.

The dishes will eventually get done, the laundry will too. No one care if there are toys strewn about. No one cares if my kids did not get a bath last night because I decided to take the time to spend with them instead (as long as they do not stink). No one cares if every hair on every kid is in the exact place, or even mine for that matter. No one cares if the floors are clean, the beds are made and the trash is taken out. It is time to slow down.

There will always be lots to do, so enjoy life now, as it happens.

It has been crazy!

I assume that it will only get crazier in the coming weeks and months. With the holidays quickly approaching I am left wondering how we are going to handle all of the activities and still maintain what little sanity we have left.
I guess if other people can do it, we can do it too.

I know it has been a little while since I posted but like I said, It has been crazy.

This week alone has been enough to run a person into the ground.

I decided to go back into the office a few days a week. This is good for everyone in the long run. I work better there, less distraction. The kids need some time away from me and I need some time away from them. I love them with all my heart and soul but adult interaction is never bad for ones soul. When Jason is out of town I could talk to the grocery store cashier for at least an hour 

The start of the week was not fun at all. Monday and Tuesday were pure hell.
Monday I went back into the office for the first full day in a long time.
Nylin had dance from 5:30-6:30 then we had Parents as Teachers @ 7.
Nylin and Kara did great with their evaluations. Jace did not do as well.
Nothing to be alarmed about yet. They are just concerned that he is only saying “DaDa” these days. He calls everyone that.
Occasionally he will call Nylin “dissy” but not enough for the likings of my awesome parent educator, Pamela.
She will come back on Jace’s 18 month birthday and do an evaluation—we will go from there.

THEN---Jason injured himself. He scratched his eye with a piece of vinyl. OUCH! He was out of town when it happened and he had forgotten his insurance card. He had to drive back into town and meet me at Urgent Care. Luckily it was only a scratch, and not a bad one. A few drops and some creams and he should be as new in a day or so. It is already much better.

Then there is Kara- the babysitter informed me on Tuesday (same day I had to meet Jason at Urgent Care) that Kara was cranky, was to eating or sleeping and had pooped a lot. When we were at Urgent care I realized her lip was swollen. I did not think too much about it. About 15 minutes later I looked at her again and her lip was more swollen and she was crying. She had a scratch on her lip for about a week and it got infected. Of course when any of my kids get infections it is scary. They are all carriers for MRSA (for more info on that you can look here http://morissa-adayinthelife.blogspot.com/2008/08/random-answers.html ) When a person is a carrier for MRSA and they get some type of skin irritation or even a bug bite it can be BAD! Well of course this was bad and growing rapidly. At that point I had 2 choices, wait till morning and take her to the doc for some antibiotics OR get to the ER asap and have them give her antibiotics right away.

Of course I chose the latter. We went to the new Cardinal Care @ St. Anthony’s hospital. When I walked in there I almost started crying. There was hardly a place to sit. Yes you read that right, the place was so packed there was hardly a free seat!
I finally got Kara signed in and found a seat. I sat next to a very nice couple that had been waiting already for 3.5 hours.
Shortly after I sat down they called me up. I thought that was strange since this poor couple had been waiting so long. They wanted us out of the ER waiting room though because of the MRSA/Staph. Big mistake though---they thought I was the patient. Um, okay I wrote the date of birth on there of 2-13-08, did they think it was 1908 or something?
Since they thought it was me instead of Kara they made a boo boo. They told us there were no pediatric rooms available and we needed to go back to our seats. Luckily a nice man next to me told me we could go into the pediatric waiting room. It was so nice back there, quiet and a flat screen TV, I did not even have to miss The Biggest Loser 

We waited another hour and then got called back.
Within 10 minutes of being in a room the doc was in there and telling me what they were going to do.
They were going to drain what they could and send us home with antibiotics to start ASAP. YAY! This is exactly what I knew would happen. I had to leave the room while they did the procedure. I cannot stand to watch someone over my baby with a needle, I could still hear her scream though, I think I can still hear it. We were home before 10 PM. Not bad for an ER visit.

She is doing much better, Thank the Lord!

That is all I can handle for the week ;)

Of course we have a jam packed weekend ahead of us—A wedding and reception on Saturday and Family Pictures with Seelen Photography ( http://seelenphotography.wordpress.com/ )on Sunday morning. I will be sure to post a link to the pics as soon as Trisha puts them up. I am so EXCITED to see her. It has been AT LEAST a year since we have seen each other. She is an old knot.com buddy.