birthday girl

yea! it's my birthday tomorrow! i hate getting older but i love my birthday! i always have! i have a whole birthday week. my brother and sis-in-law came in for my birthday (oh, and easter weekend). we are going out tomorrow night and then we will have a fish fry at my parents house on saturday night. i still claim to be 29 but i started thinking that i should probably claim to my real age because if i don't i'm gonna be hit really hard when i turn 40 and i wonder what the hell happened to my 30's! plus people will be thinking "damn, she doesn't look very good for being 29!"

let me get on my soapbox for a minute

i don't understand what is wrong with the world today! people have no sense of self - no sense of self respect, no self restraint and no accountability! they have no respect for their homes, their vehicles or even their bodies. i don't think anyone knows what self restraint even is anymore - on the news i recently saw a story about an 8th grader that stabbed another student REPEATEDLY with a pair of scissors and another story about a man that shot someone over a parking spot! what the hell? and apparently accountability is completely gone nowadays! why the hell are our grandkids going to be paying for bailouts of companies that screwed up and people that bought a house that was way too much for them. we bought our house 2 years ago - maybe we should have bought a $300,000 house so that the government can help us pay for it now!! what are we doing to our children if we can't set an example of how to accept any mistakes we have made and apologize for them and face the consequences of our actions! and like i tell my own children "you still have to apologize even though it was an accident and you still have to take your punishment". i just recently received this email and what a profound short little paragraph that says it all!!!

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

what timeless words - it could just have easily been said yesterday about the state that our nation is in right now!

alright, that's it - i'm putting my soapbox away and i promise my next post is going to be something lighthearted and fun!

S.O.S. - i'm out of wine!!

okay, i am burnt out on kids!! my husband has been out of town for 5 days so i've had my 2 and my weekday baby and today i even had picked up one of the boys that is in my kindergartner's class and kept him for a few hours. as if i didn't have enough to do, i also had to build a car by myself made entirely out of food for the kindergartner's school project. i haven't been able to go workout or tan or go shopping or even go to the bathroom without having 1-4 kids with me at all times! i don't know how single parents do it, but even then at least they go to work during the day and have some sort of adult conversations - i'm going insane!! to top it off, i'm so tired i can barely keep my eyes open most days. i don't know what's wrong with me because i'm already on thyroid medication and i know i'm not anemic (i have a blood disorder that causes too much iron in my body, but that's a long story for another day). all i know is i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!

he called! he called!

i sound like a teenage girl waiting for a call from some boy i have a crush on, but no, it's actually my brother i'm speaking of! no, it's not like that - we're not from arkansas (sorry, anyone from arkansas). i had not talked to my brother in 5 weeks and 1 day (not that i was counting)!! we were very close growing up - we were air force brats so we moved around a lot and it was just the two of us. when i was in 6th grade and he was in 4th grade, a 5th grade boy was picking on him so my best friend and i beat up the 5th grader (he hates that story)! i would help him pick out his clothes in high school and even before his first day of school at texas a&m, he called me to ask my opinion on what to wear. he has since traveled all around the world for work but we have remained pretty close. he now lives 1000 miles away and i know he is really busy (he is going to school for his masters, works as a federal agent and just recently got married), but i miss getting to hang out with him and at least talk to him! and you may ask, "well doesn't your phone work in both directions" and yes, i tried to call him quite a few times and sent him emails and still got nothing. at one point, my parents were sick of hearing me complain about him not calling and they asked me if i did something and he was mad at me. i told them "if he is mad, i don't know about it because he won't call". well, he finally called Sunday night and we talked for over an hour and then we talked two more times last night. he didn't believe that it had been that long but he promised that it will not be that long again! i'm also excited because he is coming down here next month and our family will go up to see him this summer and spend five days!

all about my "little one"

i just need to brag on my little one for a few minutes. she keeps me laughing all throughout the day! i remember that my kindergartner was so much fun when she was this age too (2 1/2, almost 3). so maybe i just love this age or maybe it's just her that is so entertaining! my friend said the other day "she is so funny" and i said "yes, she is, but what did she do now?!" i gave her whole strawberries (i usually cut them up) and she asked me "why you put leaves on my strawberries"? a while back, she asked me "why we go to that place?" (we had just gotten home from chruch so i knew that's what she meant). i said "well, we go there to celebrate God and be with Him". she said "why he can't just come to our house"?! how do you argue with reasoning like that! :-) she does EVERYTHING that her big sister does - "monkey see, monkey do"! i think maybe she will be an attorney because she could argue with a brick wall. and if you tell her "wow, you'll argue about anything", she'll argue and say "no, i don't"! she's very stubborn - which can be a bad thing, but as she gets older it can also be good if she stands up to peer pressure. even though she's stubborn, she's also very sweet and sensitive. she's constantly telling me "i love you, momma" and "you're the best mommy in the whole world". she is a great mommy to her babies too. she's always dressing them and giving them bottles and putting them down for naps. she's starting to get to the point where she doesn't want to take a nap anymore. if she doesn't take one, then she's fussy and whiny in the evening and if she does take a nap then she's wide-awake at bedtime. she's very independent and easily entertained. the other day she had a tag that had been torn off of a shirt and she called him "little tag" and made a whole game out of "little tag" going places and talking to his "mommy" (which was a big tag). the other day i even had to take her with me to the PTA meeting and she was the only kid and sat there quietly for the whole hour! well, mostly quiet - she decided that would be the perfect time to let out a nice loud toot! everyone turned and looked at us, but at least she's polite and almost always says "excuse me, i tooted" with a big grin on her face! her voice is so sweet and she still "baby talks" so she could say anything and it sounds cute. this weekend we were watching horton hears a who and horton said "shut up" and she repeated it. even though it sounded kind of sweet when she said it i told her that we don't say that. that's a side note that i will have to get into another time - kids shows that are not always appropriate! she calls her perfume, "te-spume". my dad always corrects her when she says stuff wrong, but i think it's so cute and she's my last baby! if she's gone for awhile, you have to go look for her - she's usually in the bathroom playing in the water ("washing" her hair or wetting klennex to wash her babies). the other day she was stuck in her sister's room because she put lotion on her hands and then couldn't open the door! she was also in her sister's room and put tons of makeup on herself! my husband jokes that when the girls get older, she will be the one that is taking the keys to the car in the middle of the night! the poor little thing is so skinny and has no butt so her pants are always falling down. i affectionately call her my little "crack baby" because i can always see her crack. she may be scrawny but she is tough - the other day the older kids were running over her and she would just get up and keep going. i keep telling my kindergartner that one day my little one will probably be as big or bigger and she is gonna whoop her. last month, my little one did give my oldest a black eye, but it wasn't intentional! at least, that's what she said!

motherhood

well, i've had 2 full days back with my "weekday baby" (her parents were out of town so i had a week off). i was able to go so many more places and get so much more done while i didn't have her. while my kindergartner was at school, my little one and i went to the mall, target, walgreens, cvs, james avery, to lunch, etc. and it was so easy. i remember, a few years ago, when i just had 1 kiddo and i thought it was difficult to get stuff done and now when i just had 1 kid with me, it seems like a vacation. one of my friends said just wait and see how much you can get done with no kids during the day (when both of mine are in school) - wow, that sounds like a dream to me! don't get me wrong, i love being able to be a stay-at-home mom! it's a lot of work (i feel like i'm running all day and then at night i wonder what the hell i did all day), but it is so rewarding when my kids say how much they love me and they are learning and developing so well. even keeping my "weekday baby" has it's perks. because the kindergartner is off at school all day, it's nice for my little one to have someone else to play with and because they are so close in age (18 months) they do bicker over toys and so it's good to teach both of them to share and play nice. they are both the youngest of their respective families and so they need to learn that they can't always have their way. and they do get along really well most of the time! my "weekday baby" gives huge smiles to my little one and is even starting to say her name. another name for the "weekday baby" could also be "destruction in a diaper"! she literally goes into a room and tears everything out of a drawer, basket, shelf, whatever and then moves on to the next room - she doesn't even play with the stuff! my house looks like a tornado hit it everyday when she leaves! sometimes i think it would be so much easier to not keep her but the money that i make helps to pay for my kindergartner's private school and i feel that it is really important. it may be a little (or sometimes a lot) more work for me, but i think it is all in all the best thing!

it's been a while

i guess it's been a while since i have written on here (i even had to look up my password to log on)! truthfully, i don't really know why i even am a blogger. i definitely do not "feel this need to express myself before I burst", i'm not especially witty or funny and i never even liked writing when i had to do it in school. i guess it's good for me to actually use my brain for something other than kindergarten homework and calculating recipes and seeing how many bills i can pay, loads of laundry i can fold and dishes i can put away all during one cartoon. i used to write in a journal everyday while i was pregnant with my first and for most of the first year of her life. it's really a great thing to have and i love to go back and read it now. i really wish that i could still do that now but i just don't have the time. i still try to write in it at least once a month (or so) and now i have this blog so that i can look back on. i have been very busy the past few weeks - i'm the room mom at my oldest's school and they have had their 100 day party and are about to have their valentine's party. i have also gone in to help the teacher with some projects. her teacher is the greatest - i wish she could have her again next year! on top of all of that, our whole family was sick as hell! it started with my oldest throwing up and within a couple of days all 4 of us were throwing up and it took a few days before we felt like we hadn't been run over by a truck! right after that we had a super bowl party at our house and so i had to scrub the house before we could have people over. i washed every door handle and light switch because i didn't want anyone else to get that crud that we had! this is the first year we didn't get a flu shot (because i forgot about it) and i will never do that again! well, i better get to all of the chores i've been neglecting lately but i'll be back soon!