A little dry here...

Not too many visitors here to my so called life this week. I'll take the weekend to try to come up with some interesting topics to get you visitors back next week. Have a good one y'all. :-)

A Beautiful Story

I was going to post about something else today, but when I saw this email that my mom forwarded to me this morning, it touched me and I felt like I should post this instead. It says it's a true story, but even if it isn't, it's a touching story and a good reminder to have the child-like faith and love that most children possess. I hope it touches you as much as it touched me. Enjoy your Friday and your weekend!

We were the only family with children in the restaurant.

I sat Erik in a high chair and noticed everyone was quietly sitting and talking.

Suddenly, Erik squealed with glee and said, "Hi."

He pounded his fat baby hands on the high chair tray.

His eyes were crinkled in laughter and his mouth was bared in a toothless grin,

as he wriggled and giggled with merriment.

I looked around and saw the source of his merriment.

It was a man whose pants were baggy with a zipper at half-mast

and his toes poked out of would-be shoes.

His shirt was dirty and his hair was uncombed and unwashed.

His whiskers were too short to be called a beard

and his nose was so varicose it looked like a road map.

We were too far from him to smell, but I was sure he smelled.

His hands waved and flapped on loose wrists.

"Hi there, baby; Hi there, big boy. I see! ya, buster," the man said to Erik.

My husband and I exchanged looks, "What do we do?"

Erik continued to laugh and answer, "Hi" .

Everyone in the restaurant noticed and looked at us and then at the man.

The old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby.

Our meal came and the man began shouting from across the room,

"Do ya patty cake? Do you know peek-a-boo? Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo."

Nobody thought the old man was cute. He was obviously drunk.

My husband and I were embarrassed.

We ate in silence; all except for Erik,

who was running through his repertoire for the admiring skid row bum,

who in turn, reciprocated with his cute comments.

We finally got through the meal and headed for the door.

My husband went to pay the check and told me to meet him in the parking lot.

The old man sat poised between me and the door.

"Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik," I prayed.

As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back trying to sidestep him

and avoid any air he might be breathing.

As I did, Erik leaned over my arm, reaching with both arms

in a baby's "pick-me-up" position.

Before I could stop him, Erik had propelled himself from my arms to the man's.

Suddenly a very old smelly man and a very young baby

consummated their love and kinship..

Erik in an act of total trust, love, and submission

laid his tiny head upon the man's ragged shoulder.

The man's eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes.

His aged hands full of grime, pain, and hard labor,

cradled my baby's bottom and stroked his back.

No two beings have ever loved so deeply for so short a time.

I stood awestruck.

The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms

and his eyes opened and set squarely on mine.

He said in a firm commanding voice, "You take care of this baby."

Somehow I managed, "I will," from a throat that contained a stone.

He pried Erik from his chest, lovingly and longingly,

as though he were in pain I received my baby,

and the man said, "God bless you, ma'am, you've given me my Christmas gift."

I said nothing more than a muttered thanks.

With Erik in my arms, I ran for the car.

My husband was wondering why I was crying

and holding Erik so tightly,

and why I was saying, "My God, my God, forgive me."

I had just witnessed Christ's love

shown through the innocence of a tiny child

who saw no sin, who made no judgment;

a child who saw a soul, and a mother who saw a suit of clothes.

I was a Christian who was blind, holding a child who was not.

I felt it was God asking, "Are you willing to share your son for a moment?"

when He shared His for all eternity.

The ragged old man, unwittingly, had reminded me,

"To enter the Kingdom of God, we must become as little children."

Ah Spring...how you taunt me!!

Dear Spring,

You arrived on Saturday in all your amazing glory. I woke up to your brilliant sun shining through my blinds and felt the inner excitement I feel whenever you arrive. It is now Wednesday, and you are still here. My question for you is: "Are you teasing us, only to bring back your cousin winter again with its mountains of snow, or are you here to stay?"

Spring, you teased me a couple of weeks ago and you actually had the nerve to get me into spring cleaning mode only to break my heart and leave again. The calendar says it is "officially" spring. You can not break the rules of the calendar!!

The whole world (or at least the little world of my neighborhood)caught the fever when you arrived on Saturday. Hubby (despite the broken leg, which is slowly but surely healing) ventured outside to rake up the mounds of leaves that have been nesting for the past few months at the edge of our fence and killing our grass. Fiesty, ever the helper girl, insisted on helping, and oh what wonderful help she was!

After all of her hard work, Fiesty sat down with her favorite snack of M&Ms and a small swig of Mom's Diet Dr Pepper.

Then I, of course, insisted on a little cuddle time for my hard worker!


Spring, you even managed to get a smile out of the hubster today:

While they were working hard, the others were hardly working, yet enjoying you nonetheless:

"Holy snakes in the trees, Batman!!"

"Must you really take my picture?! Can't you see I'm busy saving the galaxy with my ultra cool Lego Star Wars spaceship?!?!"

And now we must rest.

Spring, I enjoyed you thoroughly today, and after taking multitudes of pictures of my family enjoying you, I decided to enjoy something for myself:

Yes, I left you for awhile, spring, and went inside and watched one of the most mindless, fluffiest, but funniest movies ever.

It was a great day, my friend Spring, and I hope you are here to stay!!

Melancholy Milestones

My Fiesty is gone. She has moved on and moved out. Before I confuse anyone, no she did not miraculously age from 22 months to 18 years since last Friday (I don't live in soap opera land, people!) Nope. She just moved out of my room. I'm a real sentimental softy, guys. Care Bear lived in my room after she was born until she was forced to move out when Fiesty was born. Then I moved Fiesty in with us. The plan was to move her out much sooner than this, but I'm not only sentimental, I'm a procrastinator. The mere thought of dis-mantling that crib, moving furniture around in Care Bears room to fit Fiesty, and then re-mantling the crib again (I highly doubt that's a real word, but honestly, I don't care!) was not an attractive idea. Plus, I so love hearing the sound of her breathing and looking over from my bed and seeing her sleeping so sweetly and softly at night. But it was time for her to move on. I attacked the room yesterday, and forced hubby to do the dis and and re-mantling of the crib. Care Bear was so excited to have her sister join her. She told Fiesty, "Now we get to have a sleep-over!". Fiesty was excited, too....until it was time to go to bed. She did alright, though. Me? Not so much. At first, I thought, "Wow. This will be great! I can read at night in my own room without waking her; I can watch TV with the volume above 2 without waking her. I can take a shower (in the bathroom that is adjacent to my room)past 8:00 without waking her".

At bedtime, I went up to my room. I took the shower. I turned up the volume on the TV. I watched about five minutes of "Days Of Our Lives" on Soap Net. Then I turned off the TV and lights and tried to go to sleep. And I could. not. sleep! I missed Fiesty. My room looked so sad and empty and way too big. (Not only that, but with her crib being gone, I could no longer hide the huge piles of laundry that pile up every day!) I actually shed a few tears. Am I pathetic? What on earth am I gonna do when she leaves for college, for cryin' out loud! She just moved 10 feet away, and here I am with missing kid insomnia and the waterworks! It was most definitely time for her to move on to bigger and better things; a lifetime of sleepovers with her best friend in the world. But in a small way, I feel like this is just one thing in a long line of many that are going to slowly but surely chip away at my mommy heart.

I miss my Fiesty. My roomie. I pass the torch on to Care Bear now.

Oh, for the love of nausea!

First two thoughts that come to my head when I'm nauseated. I'm either catching the ever dreaded stomach flu, or I'm pregnant. Which is the lesser of two evils?! I can justify and handle the stomach yuckies when I'm pregnant cuz I know I get a great prize at the end. However that particular prize right now would be too much to handle. Maybe I just filled my belly with too much coffee and Diet Dr. Pepper this morning and not enough food. Yeah. I'm hoping that's it. Cuz I can't leave work today. There's only two of us and I think the other half of our staff would KILL ME WITH HER FORK if I left today. I was gonna go get a Chipotle burrito. Should I or would that make matters that much worse? I dunno. Just want the swirling head to slow down. Pardon me whilst I put my head on my desk for awhile.

More Gorgeous Memories

So, here are Karen and I at our most gorgeous. No, we did not get hit; those aren't bruises on our eyes. That's our make up. Yep. But we were goofin' around. Not getting ready to meet our pimp. Promise.

My co-worker didn't know which one was me in this pic. Have I really aged that much in ummm 17 years?? I guess I better look into some Botox. And I thought I looked JUST the same. Huh.

Tagged on Friday

I picked up this Tag at Morning Glory's spot. Since I have yet to come up with a blog topic for today this early in the morning, I'm going the easy way out and doing this for now. :-) Copy and paste it to your blog and tag me if you do it! :-)

1. IF YOU COULD BUILD A SECOND HOUSE ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD IT BE? On a beautiful, secluded beach by the ocean.

2. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ARTICLE OF CLOTHING? Comfy sweats and sweatshirt.

3. THE LAST CD YOU BOUGHT? Kelly Clarkson

4. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING? My kids dictate that. Anywhere from 5:30 a.m.- 9:00 a.m.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE KITCHEN APPLIANCE? My dishwasher

6. IF YOU COULD PLAY AN INSTRUMENT, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I play piano and flute.

7. WHICH DO YOU PREFER, SPORTS CAR OR SUV? SUV, baby! (Ask me again in 20 years).

8. DO YOU BELIEVE IN LIFE AFTER DEATH? YES

9. FAVORITE CHILDREN'S BOOK? Goodnight Moon.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON? Fall

11. WHAT'S IN THE TRUNK OF YOUR CAR? An assortment of bags and boxes leftover from hauling Christmas presents home from various locations.

12. WHICH DO YOU PREFER, SUSHI OR HAMBURGER? Hamburger. I don't do sushi!

13. WHO DID YOU RECEIVE THIS FROM? Seeds From My Garden.

14. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLOWER? Roses

15. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Anything with Chocolate!

16. POPCORN? Yes, but I have to be in a certain mood.

17. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR? It changes all the time. Blue for now.

18. WHAT KIND OF CAR DO YOU DRIVE? Saturn

19. FAVORITE SANDWICH? Peanut Butter or turkey and cheese.

20. HOW MANY PETS DO YOU HAVE? None

21. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Fort Collins, CO

22. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH? Football (but only if the Denver Broncos are playing)!

23. FAVORITE TV SHOW? Friends (always) and American Idol

24. FAVORITE MOVIE? Anything with Reese Witherspoon!

The Fab Five!

Well, Amanda's comment in my earlier post today made me start to reminisce about the old days. Yeah, the old days. Early to late 80's. Were those the good old days or what?? When I was a kid I was lucky enough to live in the same town with a couple of different sets of cousins. Every summer, my mom would go away to a conference for a week and leave my brother and I with our cousins and they would come stay with us for a week while their mom went out of town. Let's just say, we had quite the imaginations. We enjoyed various activities together; most of them included all five of us playing together. Sometimes the girls would go off and separate themselves from the boys, but most of the time we were one big group. One game in particular that we enjoyed playing involved re-creating our parents and aunts and uncles lives as children. My cousin's mom and my mom were sisters, and they had three brothers; a family of five children. There were five of us cousins; 2 girls and 3 boys. Perfect for the re-enactment. For the sake of anonymity I will refer to the adults that we were imitating as "D", "V", "B", "DS" & "R". I, of course being the eldest, played the role of my mom "D" who was the eldest sibling. Cousin Julie played the role of her mom "V". Chad played "B" , my brother Kevin played "DS" and Luke played "R". We acted out in little games imagining what life would have been like as our parents and enjoyed embellishing on the stories we had heard our parents tell about themselves (and our aunts and uncles at various family reunions, etc.) Since of course they lived in the sixties mainly, we dressed ourselves up in what we felt was appropriate 60's attire....down to the sweaty armpits and geeky glasses. Chad even dotted his face with pen pimples. And here we are: The Fab Five in all our glory:


Of course those weren't the only games we played. Julie and I thoroughly enjoyed busting out the "ghetto blaster", blaring Tiffany tunes and making our own hip choreography to it. Throughout the neighborhood could be heard blaring the ultra hip song "He Was Just Seventeen" and cars passing along on the street were treated to our awkward pre-teen and admittedly GEEKY dancing! But those days, we were too cool for words!

There was one particular and rather disgusting game Julie & I enjoyed for some sick reason. I won't go into much detail except to say there was flatulance and a tape recorder. Hey, what can I say? We were kids. These things fascinated us. Why? I don't know.

Sherry, ask Luke sometime about "Leonard the Strong Boy". And Amanda, ask Chad sometime about being "Alan" the boy all the girls wanted. Yes. That was fun. That game also included some more cousins: Karen and The Queen. Those were some good times. We also used to create skits in an effort to get our parents to buy Little Caesar's Pizza for dinner. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

Not that the whole blog world cares to hear of the utterly idiotic games me and my cousins played when we were young, but it sure fun to remember the days.
**********
One more thought before my day comes to an end. I know I've had a lot to say, but bear with me. I don't talk a lot about my job. It's my job; a means to an end; a way to keep me and my family out of the poor house. Most of the time I enjoy my job. But let me just say that today my job is DRIVING ME NUTS. I work at a large University in the Admissions Office as an admissions counselor. Today, the people I'm helping are (to put it nicely) CRAZY. How many times can the same question be asked and in how many ways? How many times can I answer the same question and in how many ways? I'm a robot today. I could answer these questions in my sleep. I keep willing the phone to quit ringing, but alas that little blinky light on my giganto phone keeps blinking letting me know that when I hang up with this caller, there are yet a thousand more waiting in the queue to ask the same question the previous person asked. See the smoke comin' out of my ears? Cuz I can feel it! Ugh. I'm about to take my thousand pound phone and throw it out my window. At least that way I'd get some air in this stuffy building. For cryin' out loud! How's a person supposed to blog? (Although based on my blogging today you'd think I had all the time in the world.) Nope folks. Not today. This has all been done on lunch and break today. I'm ready to go home. Yep. Can't wait. Thank the Lord I get a reprieve tomorrow! I'm done. In the words of Ryan Seacrest: "This is Kristen. Out."

To My Readers!

I appreciate you. Thank you to my regulars for coming to visit me every day (rather every other day when I am at work and can actually post). Thanks for listening to my meanderings and my musings. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, and sometimes in-between. I realize that my blog may sometimes look as though it as MPD (multiple personality disorder) because I can be down one day and up the next, but it doesn't. (and I don't!) I swear.

Thank you to my new readers who have posted comments lately. I get so excited when I see someone new has come to read what I have to say. Is it silly to get a feeling of "someone new out there actually cares to hear what I say" when I get a new commenter? I know there are others out there who feel the same. Identify yourselves!!

There are times when I feel this whole blogging thing is useless. Especially when no one comments. I think "Do I O-FFEND?" (Remember Pretty In Pink? Ducky? C'mon you remember that. Surely there are other Molly Ringwald 80's movie fans out there!) Why do I bother to come on here every other day or so to post whatever mundane or tragic things are going on in my life? Does it really matter to everyone out there in cyber-land? I mean really? But then I look in my comments and see that there are people who do care. The numbers are small. But hey, that's OK. I will not give up. No matter how few, or how many comments I get, I will continue to post my silly thoughts because "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me". (Is it possible I spend too much time in front of the tube?)

Anyway, I like the blogging. If not only for my blog, but to read all of the other fun blogs out there. I feel like I've got a whole new set of friends and something to look forward to reading every day.

**Stay tuned because later in the day, when I get a chance, I plan to post some pics of my girls all ready for their cousin's birthday party. They were sooo excited!**

ON THE WAY TO THE PARTY! AND BOY ARE WE EXCITED!!

And another year has come & gone

And next year will be the big five. What is that anniversary? Paper? Wood? Dirt? Maybe I'll get a nice piece of coal or something next year for my anniversary. What is it with making stuff like that an anniversary marking anyway? Let's just stick to the precious gems, people. I don't need a hunk of wood for my anniversary! (Although wood did help to make a nice fire that night.)

So, we didn't do anything outrageously special or expensive this year. We just basically had two date nights and spent the night at home while our respective parents spent their nights living out the exhaustion we live on a daily basis. Hee hee! I shouldn't get joy out of that right? But hey, I got two nights of un-interrupted sleep. That gives me a right to be joyous. But like I said before it won't happen for another several months, if not a year. By then I'll have a full head of that blondish grey hair and wrinkles as deep as the grand canyon.

We saw three pretty good movies this weekend. Hubby forced me to go to the theater with him and see "V for Vendetta". The hubster and I usually agree on movies. Movies we want to see, movies we have seen, etc. He's lucky. I'm not one of those "chick-flick" kinda gals (and at the same token, I'm lucky because he's not a maniac sports enthusiast, thus I get to avoid March Madness....sorry Karen.) But anyway, I wasn't sure what I thought of "V for Vendetta" when I saw the previews. But he wanted to see it so bad I gave in. If you like action, on the edge of your seat type movies GO. SEE. IT! It is crazy. Then we saw "Walk The Line" (at home. sitting by the fire.) Good flick. I can see why Reese won the Oscar. But Joaquin should have, too. Hey, I'm no movie critic. It's just my opinion. We also rented "The Constant Gardener", but I fell asleep on it. It was due yesterday. I haven't watched it yet. It better be good for the cost of a day late fee.

The weekend is over. I had a good time, but went through withdrawl. Why is it that I can so look forward to time away from my kids, but when they are gone I miss them like crazy? What a conflict.

Tonight is American Idol. C'mon Ace & Chris. Blow 'em away!!

YIPPEEEE SKIPPEEE!!

WASSUPPP!! So, the weekend anniversary is going to happen. My mom is going to watch the kids tonight until noon tomorrow, we will pick them up and spend some time with them until 4:00 when hubby's Dad will pick them up at 4:00 and take them tomorrow night. Pardon the excitement, but the hubster and I have not had a night out alone in over 3 months and the fact that I get two whole nights in one weekend is almost too much for my over-tired brain to comprehend. It's even greater because I'll get to spend some time with the kiddoes tomorrow (lest I miss them too much...which I will) but then get to have another date night tomorrow. Too good to be true. I better enjoy it while it lasts, cuz I guarantee it'll be another several months before this ever happens again. :-)

Enjoy your weekend all!

If you've seen one...

you might as well see 'em all. I've broken my own rules by showing pics of Fiesty, myself, hubby and Yoda, so I can't leave out Care Bear. Her little feelings might get hurt. So anyway, here's a pic taken right before we went to Disney On Ice: Classic Princesses. They wore little princess costumes given to them by their Grandma Linda and were so proud. Care Bear's aunt put braids in her hair that took me three days to get out because she loved them so much. It's her favorite hairstyle now. At least she doesn't want french braids, cuz I can't do those. Anyway, here are Care Bear & Fiesty last Saturday morning. Happy, happy girls!

Uh Oh, I'm in trouble now!

Yoda's been spending a lot more time with his mother lately. She wants her custody back. There are several reasons that we have no intention of allowing that to happen. Two of them being a)she treats hubby and I with absolutely no respect. b) She can't get him to school on time and has no sense of responsibility whatsoever. For instance, three days this week she has taken him to school. The first day she took him, I had to run over to his school to give him his backpack in the morning. I asked him if she had made him lunch that day. "No, I'm taking hot lunch". "Well, did she give you any money?" "No." Hmmmm....So, I texted her a message today to find out if she had been fixing him lunches or if the cafeteria is owed money. This is how our conversation went via text:

Me: "Have you been fixing Yoda's lunches, or do I need to give the cafeteria money?"
Wanna be Mom: "Who is this?!"
Me: "The person who fixes his lunch every day of his life".
WBM: "I only want to talk to Mike (aka hubby) about our son."
Me: "Interesting since you're always asking me to take his backpack to school when you take him. I am good enough to talk to when you need a favor."
WBM: "Whatever. I'm doing a good job. Leave me alone. I don't like talking to you. I'm going to call the police."
Me: "Well, I guess I'll call the school to see if they are owed money since you won't answer my question."
WBM: "I am calling the police."

Crap. I am so scared, I am shaking in my boots, I'm about to lose my lunch.....I'm being totally sarcastic. This is her M.O. Consistently threatening the police when she knows she's not right about something and trying to use that to scare us off. Psshaw. Yeah, please do call them WBM...I have some things I'd like to tell them about you myself!! Bring it on!!

Now I have to say something about American Idol. I was going to do it in a full blog entry but figured that it might turn off my small readership if any of my readers happen to not be fans of AI. All I have to say is, "ACE!?!? LISA?!?!" C'mon people!! You have got to be kidding me!! Ace is so stinkin' cute I could eat him up (added to the fact that he does have talent) and Lisa puts any past female idol to shame. Ridiculous. Vote. Put Jessica Simpson hair Bucky in the bottom 3 or someone more deserving. I 'bout peed my pants when Ace stepped out on that stage. Really. The fact that he's from Denver certainly has nothing to do with my biased towards him. (Ha Ha).

I'm off to bed. I trudged down to the parents house in robe and slippers to check my email and of course, couldn't resist the draw of the blog....sleep well everyone out there in cyber-land!

Poor Hubby!

The hubby fell down the stairs this past weekend. Hurt his leg real bad. It took him until today to decide to go to the doctor. He's got a broken leg. Hmmm. Maybe you should have gone to the doctor sooner, eh hubs? Now he's got a prescription for 800 mg of Ibuprofen and a prescription for Vicodin. Looks like he's gonna pretty much be a zombie for our anniversary and anything we possibly may have planned for the weekend. Should be used to it by now; he was a zombie all weekend after it happened. Men. You know if this had happened to me, I'd still be expected to continue all motherly and housewifely duties. No rest for me, I'll tell ya. Oh, well. Guess that's why God made females the stronger species right ladies?? ;-) Don't get me wrong, I feel bad for the hubster, just wish he would've not been such a macho man and gone to the doc sooner.

Happy Anniversary to me, Happy Anniversary to me, Happy Anniversary dear Kristen....HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME!! Yee haw!

Four Years & Counting

Well, here it is. The day I married my husband. Four years ago. I woke up this morning, busy with getting ready for work, getting the kids ready for school and the day, fixing breakfast, fixing lunch, etc...I looked over at my husband who was standing at the refrigerator and had a wierd feeling that there was something special about today. But dang it if I can't remember what it is. Then I recalled my blog post from yesterday. Oh yeah....it's the anniversary. I quickly told the hubby "Happy Anniversary" so I didn't look like the bad guy for forgetting, but when he looked at my blank faced and said, "Oh yeah, you too", I didn't feel so bad. Now, don't feel sorry for us for the lack of excitement over the anniversary. It's been a real weird month and no wonder that we forgot. My grandma even gave me a card yesterday and I looked at her confused wondering why she was giving us a card. Wow, when grandma remembers and we forget, that's pretty bad.

In the spirit of Karen and Queen's recent postings, I will give a shortened version of how my husband and I met. It's not nearly as romantic and feel good as theirs, it's more weird actually. I met the hubby when I was attempting to re-connect with my old boyfriend from high school. It had been years since I had seen him and through a series of rather strange circumstances, I re-located him through an acquaintance. Don't ask why I would want to re-connect with this person. Maybe I was just curious and wanted to see what he had been doing for the past 5 or so years of his life since I had last seen him.

So anyway, a friend and I made the trip over to his apartment. He opened the door and looked like he had been sleeping. He looked at me with a very confused look on his face, said, "Kristen?!" and let the friend and I in. After some catch up conversation (in which I found out he was currently trying to patch up a relationship with a current girlfriend) he told me that he has a roommate who has a 1.5 year old son who he was currently with at the time. I didn't think much of it. He invited my friend and me back the next day (looking back on it, I think he was trying to set us up; why else would he invite me back when he was trying to make his relationship with this other person work). Anyway, we did come over the next day, and I met his roommate. He seemed a little shy and didn't say much while we were there. Over the course of the next few weeks, we got to know eachother a little better and I really enjoyed his company. The fun really started when his ex-girlfriend, mother of his son, showed up when I was there one day with his son (who I affectionately now refer to as Yoda on my blog). She was under the mistaken impression that she and the hubby were trying to "work things out" and was not in the least happy to see that he had apparently moved on with someone else. It was not a pretty sight and I'm not going to go into that now....that's a whole weeks worth of blogs in and of itself. I got to meet Yoda that day, who I thought was about the cutest boy I had ever met.

Long story short (because really there's nothing that remarkable about our courtship), we were together for 2.5 years when we finally got married. Yoda was our ring bearer. He was 4 years old by that time.

Here is our engagement picture:

Here is a picture of Yoda at our wedding:

Like I said, not a terribly exciting story, no bells and whistles, but he's my hubby and I love him. He's a wonderful father; I couldn't ask for better. We may try to get away this weekend to a nice little mountain town a few miles from here. We'll see. That is, if anyone can watch our three little monkeys. Any takers? :-)

Have a great day!

Heavy Stuff--read at your own risk!

Last night I got a horrible night of sleep. I'm sitting here at my computer desk running Diet Dr Pepper and coffee at the same time through my veins via an IV I purchased at the hospital just for this purpose. I'm not kidding. They took one look at me when I walked in and handed it over, no questions asked. (Don't I wish). I stayed up too late last night watching a freakin' hilarious movie with hubby called "Wedding Crashers". Not the cleanest movie in the world, but he rented it which of course made me feel obligated to watch it with him since I never stay up past nine and just chill out with him. If you can get past some of the crudeness and the basic premise of the story, it's really pretty funny. Anyway, I crawled into bed at around midnight. My eyes were exhausted, my body wanted desperately to fall asleep, but my legs wouldn't let me. If I could have extracted the bottom part of my body and let them go on a three mile jog by themselves just to go to sleep, I would have. Restless Leg Syndrome. Whoever heard of such a stupid thing?! It would be my luck to have that problem on the one night I choose to stay up a little later than normal. I think I got about four hours, maybe.

It's been a hard, hard month for me, for more than one reason. I know that the Bible says that God will not ever give us more than we can handle, but I sure feel like it's being taken as close as it can come. I'm just absolutely drained. Awhile back, a co-worker of my husband's was killed in a car crash on his way to work. It was a snowy, icy day and about a mile and a half from work, his truck spinned out and rolled and he was thrown from the truck and did not live. My husband worked closely with this man and had been to his house on several occasions. His wife had just left him for another woman (yes you read right) and was refusing to let him see his two children. He had diabetes and was partially deaf in one ear. He was a small man and was referred to as "midget" at work. He was not always treated nicely at work because of his size and his disabilities, but my husband always treated him kindly and genuinely liked the guy. He took the death rather hard.

I attend Bible Study at my church weekly on Thursdays. We are a small group of about 8 people and have all gotten very close over the last two years that we have been meeting. This weekly hour and a half became very important to me right after Fiesty was born when I was having real difficulty with her being colicky, and with Care Bear having such a hard time adjusting to not being the "baby" anymore. It became the time of the week that I looked forward to most every week. Now I look forward to it for the fellowship, the friendship and the time with young moms my age sharing a common love of our children and of God. About two months ago, one of the very young moms in our group (age 20 with a 2 year old and a 1 year old...yikes!) requested prayer for her husband's grandmother, who at the time was 65 years of age. Her husband had pretty much been raised by his grandparents; his mom is a drug addict who is in and out of jail all the time and who steals money when she's not in jail in order to raise money for drugs. Her husband's brother is following the same track as his mother and the two of them conspire together to keep eachother addicts. It's a very sad story. She (I'll call her Jean) and her husband (I'll call him Carl) are very close to his grandparents. Anyway, the request for prayer was due to the fact that Carl's grandmother had recently been experiencing pain, was having difficulty breathing and was starting to fall quite frequently. She was scheduled for a doctor's appointment to see what they could find out. To make a long story a little shorter, they found out that she had lung cancer (non-smoking) and they gave her 6-12 months to live. Within two weeks, after more tests, they determined that the cancer was much more advanced than they thought and gave her 6 weeks. She died last Friday. The funeral was this morning. She was only 65. Two years older than my Dad. I didn't know this woman very well. I saw her every Sunday at church sitting in the 2nd row, center aisle. I knew her grand-daughter and son well and felt like I knew her from them. I knew her great grand-daughters because I see them in the nursery every week. I sat in the funeral this morning and bawled like she was my own grandma. I hurt for the family, I hurt for her husband who is one of the sweetest men alive. I hurt for her daughter who was too pre-occupied with finding her latest score to even be concerned that her mother was on her deathbed. And then for some odd reason, I thought of my children down in the nursery while I was attending the funeral. I felt the most intense urge to run down there and hug them as hard as I could and never let them go. I started feeling overwhelmed by all of the things that are weighing me down right now. I began to feel my own mortality. Yes, I am only 31, but things happen. And my parents are getting older, my grandparents are getting older. Everything just began to flood at me during this funeral. I left there feeling exhausted; still feeling emotional and feeling a little lost. I still do right now. I'm an adult; I have children to take care of; I have responsibilities. But right now, at this particular moment in time, I wish I was a kid again and didn't have to face all this "big people" stuff. It's hard.

What a bummer day for my blog, eh? Well, life isn't always fun. But hey, tomorrow is my anniversary. Not sure if there's anything in the works, but we made it another year. My lovely cousin was with me four years ago tomorrow as my matron of honor to share in my special day after a not so fun trip out here.

And on a lighter note, I got all caught up on my laundry this weekend. Yay me!

Laundry and My Little Leech

Laundry. UGH. 'Nuff said. Well, maybe not quite enough. Do you ever get the feeling that there is some conspiracy out there determined to make laundry something that never gets done?? Well, I do. I spend some time every single day of my life doing laundry and it's always there; an ever present presence just looming out there; beckoning me. I believe that if I were to have a clean, uncluttered laundry room, I would have to be in there every moment of my day, every day. Somehow, my mom has laundry mastered down to a fine art. Even when I was a kid, laundry day was reserved to Saturday. She did it all on Saturday and never had to worry about it the rest of the week. And somehow, in the meantime, the laundry room didn't fill up. How did she do it? Where did all that laundry go during the week that magically appeared on designated laundry day? I don't get it. I have yet to figure it out. There have been a couple of rare occasions where I have gotten my laundry down to about two loads. It was cause for rejoicing. But within a few short hours, mysterious items of clothing began to appear again. It would seem as though my family members are changing upwards of five times a day, but I know they aren't. So, where does it all come from? It will forever remain a mystery. Thankfully, my laundry room door shuts so that I don't have to look at the ridiculous amounts of clothes sitting in there all day, but then when I do walk in there, I get treated with the lovely aroma of dirty socks coupled with the humidity that accumulates in there from the washer going and being trapped in there with the door shut. WHEW! Lovely. Well, now 'nuff said I guess.

I have a little leech, and her name is Fiesty. I love my little leech; I do. But she is a leech. Care Bear has always been very independent. She likes to know where I am, but once she knows, she is fine to go off on her own and do her thing. Fiesty lasts for about five minutes on her own. Once I think I have her occupied in an activity, I rush off to find whatever chore I can do while occupied. Dishes, vacuuming, aforementioned laundry. But within minutes, I hear the pitter patter of her little fit off on the search. Once she finds me, it's over. There's clinging onto legs, pulling down of the pants while she grips onto them (mine) for dear life, and moans of "MOMMMMMY" as though her lifeline has been taken away from her. Whether it's chores, going to the bathroom (potty time isn't even sacred for me), changing clothes or even watching TV, my little leach must be right there. Walking out of the room is cause for a mini panic attack for her. I don't know if this is because I breast fed her (Care Bear was bottle fed), or if this is just part of her personality. She is so attached. I love that she's attached to me, but let me tell you how fun it is to try to do dishes with someone attached to the lower part of your body. I've learned to do dishes leaning over the sink with my butt extending halfway into the kitchen. In Fiesty's defense, she does love to help. At least I have that. Chores take twice as long as they should if I were doing them by myself, but she is my little helper girl. I love my leech!!

Stuff for Wednesday

Well, yesterday was like spring; today is like winter. So much for the spring cleaning. Today I'm sure my carpets and tile will be dirtied for sure with winter boots charging in. Oh, well. I knew it would happen; I was just hoping it wouldn't. I live in a crazy place.

Normally, I don't like to post pictures of my kids, but I can't resist today. The other day, we were at my mom's house using her computer (because as well all know I haven't yet moved into the 21st century and purchased one). Fiesty loves to sit on the computer chair and pretend she's typing. Her little fingers move across the keyboard at lightning speed and every once in awhile she'll move her hand over to the mouse and click away. If I didn't know better, I'd think she really knew what she was typing. Here's a message I received from her today at work. She writes me daily:

dsfjlsdfjg;lgktfkjfjkjkyrlsdngddmf

'dddddddddddddddd

Of course, this message is filed in my "NEVER DELETE OR RISK PENALTY OF SERIOUS INJURY" folder.

Care Bear wears glasses; she has an eye condition called "Amblyopia" which is basically "lazy eye". She may or may not have to wear glasses for the rest of her life. But I digress. Fiesty, having to do everything her big sister does likes to go around sporting the round, blue glasses that came in Care Bear's "Junior Doctor Kit" she got for Christmas, just so she can be like her cool older sister. Care Bear likes to tell her, "When you get older, maybe you can wear glasses, too." Anyway, this day while using the computer, sporting her ultra cool glasses, we were able to get some shots. And I present to you: FIESTY!!

Without the glasses:

With the glasses:

So, there she is. My little secretary. Following in Mommy's footsteps.

One more thing: Tell me if this makes me a horrible mother (in this case step-mother) or not. Yoda is in 2nd grade. He just turned eight last month. I feel that at this point, having been in school for 3 years now, that he should have learned some sense of responsibility and accountability. Am I right? Last night, at 5:45, he informs me his showcase at school is that night and he is supposed to be there at 6:15. There will be a musical performance and art show. Ya huh, is my response. And how long have you known about this? And why haven't I gotten any notes about it? And why haven't you mentioned it at some point before 1/2 hour prior to said event?! He didn't have a good answer. It is at this point that I raid his backpack. I look in his backpack everynight for important things such as this and have never seen anything. I've also found it odd that he never has homework. When I raided his backpack I found a folder stuffed to the seams with notes, homework papers, and other things that I should have seen weeks prior to this. Should I be going in with him every day afterschool to make sure I am getting what I need lest I don't look like a horrible parent to his teachers who notice I don't make it to important events, or should I have this be a lesson to him in responsibility? It's a tough call. And very frustrating. The kid is doing horribly in school and it's no suprise considering he brings his homework home once every three weeks. Ugh. Maybe eight years old is too young to be expecting this sort of sense of responsibility. I don't know. I'm new at this.

Reminders of Motherhood

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day in my town. It felt like spring had officially arrived, and along with that came the instictual feeling I think most women get that first beautiful day of the year: spring cleaning! Now, I'm not too big on the whole get behind and under the fridge and on top of the lamp shades or anything; I should be, but I'm not. I just mean I felt like cleaning anything in plain sight that wasn't presentable should an unexpected guest come by.

For some reason, the first victim of my cleaning binge was my purse. As I went through my purse and figured out what I could keep and what I couldn't part with, I came across some interesting discoveries inhabiting my purse. Some of these you may expect to find in a purse: a wallet (obviously) a key ring with more key chains than keys, some old bills (paid of course), some old receipts from Wal-Mart, Target, King Soopers...wherever. Other things that were found you may not expect to always see in your purse....unless you are a mother of young ones: a My Little Pony, a little board book, one single sock, a bib, and crumbs from some snack one of my children shoved in my purse at some unsuspecting moment. I tossed the old bills, the old receipts and brushed out the crumbs, and kept the important things in there; the pony, the book the sock and the bib.

The next victim was my car. I found similar things in my car that I found in my purse, but on a grander scale. Several toys, crumbs on, under and in between car seats. Fruit snacks stuck to the floor mats, a couple of wrappers from some on-the-go snack, and pre-school and Sunday School papers. I vacuumed up the crumbs and trash and fruit snacks, and stored away the precious pre-school and Sunday School papers in their designated box to be looked at again someday in the future when I'm feeling particularly mopey and sad that my children are all off at college and away from me.

After the car was tackled, I took a long, hard look at my yard, which suddenly reminded me of a rummage sale. Or maybe a Toys R Us that threw up all over our yard. Where did these kids get so many toys? And do they really all have to be outside at the same time? The weather is nice, but aren't we going a little overboard? Oh, well. I decided that could be hubby's spring cleaning contribution.

Upon walking inside, more mounds of toys, dishes in every corner and socks thrown off in a hurry to get outside and enjoy the grass with bare feet greeted me. And I got to cleaning that up.

As my day came to an end and everyone was winding down, Fiesty was having a little trouble getting to sleep. The rest of the house was quiet; Care Bear was asleep already, and hubby and Yoda had run off together somewhere. I took Fiesty into my bed with me in an effort to get her to relax and go to sleep. She tossed and turned for awhile and eventually gripped my thumb into her tiny little hand and drifted off. The last word she said before she finally went to sleep was "Happy". Right at that moment I realized how great it is to have my purse and my car cluttered with toys and books and papers because it makes me feel like my kids are with me when they aren't. I love having my yard look like a rummage sale because that means my kids had fun that day and enjoyed the weather, their toys and their friends. I love the dishes and toys cluttered in the house because it means my kids ate that day and are healthy. And I love that my little girl fell asleep next to me last night holding my thumb because it means she feels safe, secure and loved when she's with me. I wouldn't have things any other way. These are my subtle little reminders of motherhood; it's who I am. And it's the best gift God could have ever given me!!

New Look & Gross Stuff

Well, I am debuting a new look. The poor Queen has spent the better part of her day trying to help me figure out my many blog issues and the decision was made to try out a new template? What do ya think?

Now, ladies, ladies. When you are at work (if you work) and you are using the public bathroom, please do your best to make sure that your sanitary napkins make it all the way into the sanitary napkin container. Even more importantly, in your quest to put the napkin into the container, please ensure that you are not smearing blood all over the container as to make anyone who follows you want to throw up their recently eaten 2 pound Chipotle Burrito!! A simple request, I think. (Now I will go throw up said burrito as that was not a hypothetical situation....I was the lucky one to experience it.) Gross!!

HAIL TO THE QUEEN!!

Well, if you were viewing my blog from Firefox, you may have never noticed there was something wrong with my blog. However, I am using Internet Explorer and it was driving me nuts!!! I summoned the help of Her Majesty (see previous post) and she fixed it! So, thanks so much Queen.

I plan to post a little more later, but had to give credit where credit is due, first. :-)

**UPDATE**

It has come to my attention that there were two others that may have also been a help in fixing my blog: Kelly and Mrs. Trade-Off herself, Karen. Thanks to all three of you for making me look good again. Much love!!

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I'm like any other mom; my kids are the best there is in the world and there is nothing they can do wrong (did I say that? I didn't really mean that). But this morning, after eating her daily serving of oatmeal, Fiesty sat down in her stool at the kitchen, dug into her giganto legos and proceeded to build (in her words) a house:

And here is another view:

While building this, I was treated with squeals of "seeeeee?" and "Watch Mommy!". To which I of course heaped on the praise in overdose quantities. I think I may have an engineer in the works. She was very proud. And by the way, to anyone interested, the pooping and puking seems to have come to an end, and I was treated with the arm crushing hugs I was referring to earlier.

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." --Jeremiah 29:11

This is what I am counting on today as my family has been hit with another obstacle that seems insurmountable at this time. I know it's not; we've been through worse. But have you ever had the feeling that everytime something good happens, something bad is just around the corner? I swear, that is how it is right now.

I realize my blog has seemed rather depressing this week. If there was a blog award for "Blog most likely to send you running for the anti-depressants", I would be a top contender this week I am sure. Believe me, I'm not always like this, it just seems like when it rains, it pours.

I plan to take the weekend to hopefully get back into a better state of mind where things don't seem so overwhelming and come back next week with bells and whistles on; ready to make you all happy. :-)

Happy Thursday

Fun and more fun!!

So, as you can plainly see, I am still having blog issues, however, I have her majesty, The Queen working on it for me, so hopefully I'll be up and running normally again soon. So, if you are wondering where my profile and all my links are, they are wayyyyy down at the bottom under all the other posts. Grrr. Speaking of The Queen, I was really hoping I was going to win her Tuesday guess it game and have my blog posted on her oh-so-famous and highly read blog this morning, but alas, someone else won, someone who I dearly love, so I have no hard feelings. :-) Visit her blog sometime: Morning Glory.

Anyhoo, among other fun things happening in my life right now, Fiesty is yet again enjoying a lovely stomach virus. I believe it's about as much fun for me as it is for her (well, maybe not quite). I've changed enough poopy diapers and been vomited enough on the past few days to last me for the next five years. In fact, as I sit here at my desk typing this, I think I smell a slight odor of yucky poopy coming from my shirt from when I held her this morning. Lovely. No wonder I'm getting such repulsive looks this morning from my co-workers. As well, I have chunks of dried oatmeal all over my shirt. I must look like I hopped out of bed, picked something out of my dirty clothes bin, neglected a shower and drove half asleep to work. Good times I tell ya. GOOD TIMES!! However, as we all know, being a mom comes with the good and the bad and all the bad times in the world wouldn't make we want to trade the millions of more good times I have with my three precious ones. I just happen to be enjoying more difficult times this week. It will all be forgotten next week when my little girl is her happy self again and treats me with one of her arm crushing hugs!!

I'm also going to do my first meme! Yay for me! Karen issued me with the challenge, so here we go!

Five years ago . . .
Let's see, that would be 2001. Ummm...I wasn't married yet, I didn't have any kids yet, but I was dating my husband to be at the time. I don't think anything remarkable was happening at that time in my life.

One year ago . . .
One year ago today I was taking my kids to the "celebrate kids" celebration downtown. They got to stand inside firetrucks, go on horse and buggy rides, and do all sorts of other fun things. Today, my mom will be taking them to the same thing.

Yesterday . . .
I spent the morning with my girls running around paying bills and taking care of my sick little one. In the afternoon, I came to work and encountered aforementioned blog issues. The evening consisted of an ultra-healthy dinner of McDonald's (because I had no desire to cook), which Fiesty promptly threw up. Why did you feed your sick daughter food from the grease pit you ask? Well, she had been feeling better, hadn't had an "incident" in several hours, and she just seemed so hungry. Obviously in hindsight, I wouldn't have done this. Hey, I never said I was perfect.

Tomorrow . . .
Tomorrow is my day off. I will take myself and girls to Bible Study (if Fiesty can manage to keep from losing everything she eats by then), and we will spend a hopefully healthy day together. And I will get some much needed soiled laundry and house sterilization done.

Five snacks I enjoy....

1. King Sized Snickers
2. Peanut butter sandwiches
3. chocolate chip cookies
4. pretzels
5. ice cream

Five things I'd do with $100,000,000.00 . . .

1. Pay every single bill off that I have
2. Buy a new house
3. Buy a new car for me, and one for my husband
4. Put my kids in a private, Christian school
5. Build my parents their dream house

Five places I'd like to go . . .

1. Hawaii
2. Paris, France
3. Disneyworld
4. Any tropical island
5. to bed
   

Five bad habits I have . . .

1. Letting laundry pile up
2. Shaking my leg
3. getting impatient
4. playing on the internet instead of working
5. spending money on things i don't need

Five things I like doing . . .

1. Reading a good Stephen King book
2. Watching a good movie
3. Spending time with my kids
4. Spending time with my husband
5. Sleeping

Five biggest joys in my life . . .

1. Hubby
2. Yoda
3. Care Bear
4. Fiesty
5. Free time
   

Five favorite TV shows....

1. American Idol
2. Survivor
3. The Apprentice
4. Law & Order: SVU
5. Friends (always & forever)

And thus, ends my first meme. And todays post. Have a good one everyone!!