We Made It!

We're finally in Oklahoma!  We arrived a little after 6pm so we made pretty good time.  In the end we travelled through 7 states!  Seven states in one day, crazy!  Boo never fell back asleep after her short snooze this morning so the trip didn't get much better.  At one point she was literally crying, ripping her hair out, and biting her arm.  I think she may have been so tired she was just delirious.  On the opposite side of the spectrum though we had Crazy deep in sleep for a good 1-2 hours.  Now that we're here though we can relax and enjoy ourselves (at least until we have to drive home). 

The view from my aunt's balcony overlooking their dock

Greeting from Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas

Just before we crossed the Mississippi border (again!) we stopped at the Welcome Center for the kids to use the restroom. Crazy wasn’t as impressed with the Mississippi river as Hubby was.

From there we headed into Louisiana via small state roads. I’m starting to wonder about the route MapQuest told us to go. I think on the way home we’ll just follow the GPS instead. Now we’re in Arkansas and as I look out the window all I see are soybean and corn fields. It’s not exactly what I had in mind when I pictured Arkansas. Although to tell you the truth I’m not sure what I had in mind, maybe some rolling green hills/mountains? We just got done eating at a McDonald’s in some small town and now I’ve taken away Crazy’s DVD player in the hopes that he’ll take a nap. He didn’t even put up a fight (he’s been contently watching Scooby-doo before we stopped for lunch). Now Crazy’s quietly staring out of the window and Boo is using every stall tactic in the book to keep from taking a nap. Hubby has nicknamed her the “pterodactyl” and I have to say she sounds like a fairly convincing one. We’ve got to keep telling ourselves that the lake will be relaxing, we just have to get there first! Oh, wait! Crazy’s asleep! Man I love that kid! Such a first-rate traveler…

The Early Bird Gets Less Sleep...

My cousin’s wedding is this Saturday and the kids are in the wedding (plus it’s on the lake) so we are making the very looong trip up to Oklahoma. Our GPS says it’s about 13 hours. So when you factor in stopping for lunch and dinner we’re looking at roughly 15 hours. Ugh! Needless to say we’re not looking forward to the drive. Boo is the worst traveler ever. Our trip to Texas in May proved that. As we were discussing strategies for the trip, the mention of her pacifier came up. We decided that desperate times call for desperate measures. We bought a pacifier for emergencies and let me tell you, she had it in her mouth by 5am this morning. I know, I’m weak! We left our house at 4am (I took the first driving shift) and by the time we were in Alabama she was crying and screaming at us. Plus, I forgot to mention that she’s been losing her voice the last two days, so she has that raspy smoker’s voice. Around 5:30am along an Alabama back road right at the Mississippi line I had to pull the van over and threaten a 2yr old. Hubby and I had to switch places because Boo wouldn’t let him even look at her. It was ridiculous! I was literally parked in front of the “Welcome to Mississippi” sign telling my 2 yr old that I wasn’t crossing another state line unless she changed her attitude and stopped screaming. Thankfully once Hubby was driving and she could see me again, Boo fell asleep (with the pacifier and a dose of Benadryl, remember she’s sick) for about an hour and a half. This trip is not off to a good start!

Get Well Card

On Monday my Dad had bypass surgery to fix an artery.  He was in the hospital until today and we wanted to send him a card but were worried it wouldn't make it in time.  To make sure that didn't happen and to make it more personal we made a photo get well card.  I printed out "Get Well Soon Granddad", one word per page and had the kids color and draw pictures on the paper.  When they were done I took pictures of them holding up the words.  I emailed them to my Mom and she printed them out and taped them together.  Once he was moved out of ICU and into a private room she hung them on the wall.  Apparently they got quite a few compliments.  How could they not?  Look how cute they are!

Baby Beluga

So Boo's favorite song of all time is Raffi's "Baby Beluga."  We have a book that is the illustrated song that she just LOVES!  I'm ready to throw the book away and scream the next time she requests the song sung.  I am no longer a fan of that little white whale.  She wants the song sung to her at least 3 times a day, on the way to daycare, on the way home from daycare and before she goes to sleep.  Hubby's not allowed to sing it either, I have to!  It's so bad that the other night I went to bed and couldn't go to sleep because the words to that song kept going through my head over and over.  I think I'm losing it!  One thing is for sure, we won't be vacationing to Sea World any time soon because I don't want to see any whales, let alone a white one.

Happy Birthday Boo!

Happy Birthday to my adorable 2 yr old!!!

Fun in the Garage

Boo stayed home with me for two weeks until she could start at Crazy's daycare.  I was kind of worried about keeping her entertained all day, but apparently I had nothing to worry about.  Why, you ask?  Because we have a gargage packed with fun things to do!!  I was making lunch one day and was calling for her.  I found her in the garage.  She had crawled through the cat door and put on Crazy's old bike helmet.  Then she started playing with the cat's Turbo Scratcher.  Boo loves the lighted ball that runs around the track.  It's the little things that keep 'em entertained!

Dancing With the Stars

A local ballroom studio and the area's Hospice recently sponsored "Life's a Dance".  It was basically Dancing With the Stars, complete with several of the dancers from the show.  Hubby and I went with another couple and had so much fun.  The show lasted about two and a half hours.  Some of the stars from the show that were there were Mark Ballas, his dad Corky Ballas, Edyta Sliwinkska, Tony Dovolani, and Chelsie Hightower.  Everyone was great!  We weren't allowed to take pictures while they were dancing or I'd have a ton to post.We loved watching Edyta.  In one dance she was almost completely clothed, that's a first!  Mark Ballas played guitar and sang a song he had written while Chelsie and her partner (a dancer from Season 1 that I can't remember) danced.  Lot's of fun and great motivation for our ballroom dance lessons which start next week!

The Blackthumb Strikes Again

When Hubby and I got back from our little trip to Texas we checked on the garden and found this:

Oops!  Looks the the cucumbers were a bust!  I guess expecting them to survive for a week in Florida weather on their own didn't work out so well.  Lesson learned!  On the other hand we finally saw some peppers growing.  However, after the cucumber disaster we're not holding out much hope for the peppers!

More Goodbyes

Tomorrow is Boo's last day at her daycare.  She'll start at Crazy's daycare when she turns two.  We've loved her teachers and she just adores them, but overall we haven't been impressed with the daycare as a whole.  Not to mention we're paying almost double for her daycare compared to the new one!  As a goodbye we ordered flowers for each of her teachers and she "wrote" them thank you/goodbye cards.  They in turn gave her a goodbye gift consisting of a baby doll, blankets for her baby, her favorite book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?", and the Barney toy she sleeps with at nap time at the daycare.  

One of her teachers sings a couple of songs to her that we don't know but Boo always requests so she graciously wrote those down for us.  One was a Scottish lullaby that she even translated for us.  For weeks Boo would ask us to sing some "Bee-baw" song and would scream hysterically when we didn't.  Well apparently it was the Scottish lullaby that she wanted.  However Boo only lets me sing the first part of the song which is more like sounds rather than words.  I don't think she recognizes the English words in the second part so she just cuts me off when I get to that part.  She seems to be happy with the first par though, at least she's not screaming at us anymore!

Update:  Hubby picked Boo up on her last day and he said that it was a tear-fest!  No one wanted to say goodbye to her and there were so many tears and hugs that he felt very uncomfortable.  He told me that if he had known that was going to happen he would have made me pick her up.  I told him to just be glad they were sad to see her go rather than throwing a party to celebrate her being gone!

Traveling Light...

I told the kids that we needed to start packing for our trip to Grandma's house and that we needed to pack only the essentials.  I explained that we wouldn't have a lot of room in the van so I needed them to share a small suitcase.  Well Crazy got really excited about packing because that meant that we would be leaving for Grandma's soon.  He offered to help pack Boo's things, you know, the important ones.

This is what he came up with:

He explained to me that Boo would have to have "Meow" (her cat lovey) while at Grandma's and that she might want more than one.  After all, it is a long way to Grandma's.  So, that's why he felt the need to pack not only "Meow" but her bobcat, her gray cat, another orange cat, another grey cat, and a teddy bear (in case she didn't feel like a cat).  He also tried to pack an extremely large Hello Kitty in the main compartment before I drew the line.  As sweet as it was for him to think of her and her stuffed animal needs, I told him the limit was two.  Fortunately he agreed, after all, I was limiting his sister's toys right then, not his (yet!).

Cats, cats and more cats!

Boo just loves her cats!

Saying Goodbye to Mr. Raincloud

It was a sad day at work when we had to bid farewell to Mr. Raincloud (no that's not his real name, by the way, he agreed to that name!)  Mr. Raincloud some what abruptly decided to retire the end of May much to my displeasure.  No amount of begging and whining on my part could convince him to stay until after we moved away.  So I sucked it up and ordered him a cake.  I have to say it turned out pretty cute. 

It's kind of hard to see but it depicts Mr. Raincloud sleeping at his computer with a comment bubble saying "Dreaming of Retirement" and another photo in the upper right hand corner showing him at "work".  Now I'm going to claim to have had no part in the taking and creating of the picture that went on the cake.  The two ladies that I work with were the ones that snuck up on him and took pictures while he was taking a little snooze.  And it was our supervisor who photoshopped the two pictures together and added the comment blurb.  I just took the photo to Wal-Mart to order the cake and then taped it up with evidence tape.  We thought about wrapping the entire cake box up in tape because Mr. Raincloud is known around the office for using EXCESSIVE amounts of tape but we figured it would take too long for him to open the box and we all wanted some cake!  Mr. Raincloud managed to show up that day (it was his day off ) and was (hopefully) pleasantly surprised to find all of us waiting for him with delicious cake.  We even managed to capture a rare smile from him.

Birthday Cake

One of the girls at work recently had her birthday so I made her a cake.  Since she spent her birthday soaking up sun at the beach I thought it would be cute to try and make her a cake that showed something to do with water or the beach.  I had bought the new cupcake book, "What's New Cupcake," a few days before and used one of their creations.  I adapted it for a cake so it sped up the time to make it because I didn't have to ice a bunch of cupcakes. The kids helped me make it and we were able to finish the decorating in about 20 minutes.  Boo even managed to add a 3rd eye to one of the people.  I personally think it came out very cute and my co-worker loved it (or so she said!).  Here's a picture of the cake:

My Growing Garden

Here's a recent picture of my extremely fast growing garden.  Can you believe how much the cucumber plants have grown? 

Here is a picture of one of the potato plants:

We have cucumbers!!!  Look how small they are.  I was so excited when I saw the first one.  Then I started looking through all the plants and found quite a lot!  Hubby asked me if every flower would turn into a cucumber (there are a LOT of flowers) and what we were going to do with all of them.  I guess we'll be eating cucumbers at every meal.

I'll post more pictures soon!  All the rain we've been getting has really been helping them grow.

Mother's Day Weekend

So my Mother's Day weekend kicked off with a less than ideal start, literally.  Friday night I managed to kick the corner of the half wall in our bathroom and broke the last joint of my fourth toe (the one next to the little toe).  Being the weenie that I am, I immediately started screaming and crying.  Hubby came to see what the fuss was about and less extremely short of comforting me.  Our conversation went something like this:

Hubby:  "What's wrong?
Me:  (sobbing) "I think I broke my toe!"
H:  "You mean you stubbed it?"
Me:  "NO!!"
H:  "What did you do?"
Me:  "I hit the wall with my foot."
H:  "You mean you kicked the wall that's always there?"
Me:  (giving the evil eye while sobbing) "No, I hit the wall that moves around!"

Shortly after this conversation took place Crazy came to see what was going on.  He then started laughing at my misery.  Needless to say that he was promptly banned from my room for the rest of the night.  Hubby still didn't believe that I broke my toe until the next morning when I described the pain I was still feeling as along the lines of my toe felt like it was giving birth.   Saturday was spent trying to rest my foot.  I did get some sympathy from Crazy when we told him that Mommy couldn't climb up into his tree house because of my broken toe.  Sunday morning (Mother's Day) I woke up to my fantastic family making me pancakes.  The kids fell over each other trying to be the first to give me their card.  Crazy picked out his card himself.  It was a birthday card showing an old man pulling a bus with is teeth.  Completely random I know but sweet that he picked it out himself.  The kids also gave me the movie Leap Year which I've been wanting to see.  When I opened Hubby's card it said that he'd signed us up for the next round of ballroom lessons!  (Almost makes up for the toe)  I've wanted to take ballroom lessons for years and he finally pulled through and signed us up!  I've got the best husband ever!!  Eight weeks of dance lessons!  We start sometime in June so stand by for those posts.  The rest of Mother's Day was spent hobbling around the outlet mall in Destin.  So even though "my" weekend started out terrible, it ended on a high note thanks to my terrific family! 

Our Little Lion

So for the past 4 days or so I've had a terrible headache that just won't go away.  On top of that my throat feels, and looks, terrible.  I spent the whole weekend in bed miserable.  A trip to the base clinic determined that I do not have strep throat but an unknown virus.  So today after taking large quantities of Advil I started to feel a little better.  What's a person to do after feeling horrible for so long and is now feeling better?  Well if you're me, you shave your long-haired cat.  Yes, you read that right.  It was time for our cat, Tator's, semi-annual haircut.  Apparently feeling bad for days on end makes one ignore the large orange clumps of cat hair that is scattered around ones' house.  Well it came to an end today and I have pictures to prove it!

Here's a "before" picture of Tator with my little helpers:

And here are the "after" shots:

The kids, cat, and I were all crammed into the kids' bathroom while I shaved him.  At first Crazy did a great job of picking up all the hair as I cut it off but he quickly got tired of that once he realized how much hair that involved.  Towards the end the cat was stressed and my headache was coming back.  But after a trash bag of hair, half of which Crazy dumped on my head, we were finished and we now have our own little lion.  Crazy loved the idea of watching his show "Between the Lions" with his own lion by his side.  Now I don't have to worry about shedding and every time we see him, he brings a smile to our faces.

Super Sunday

Today was a busy day.  The weather was nice which was great since it stormed yesterday and we were able to get quite a bit done.  We started the day off with maple iced donuts (YUM!  The breakfast of champions!) and the newspapers.  Then we made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to pick up some more soil for the potatoes.  Boo and I covered up the potatoes again, while Crazy played in his treehouse with a neighbor boy, and Hubby weedwhacked.  Lunch time was quickly followed by naptime for Boo and more playtime and popsicles for Crazy and two friends. 

Boo sporting her super cute sunglasses

Once Boo finished her nap we headed over to the local town festival.  We weren't too impressed but we also can't expect too much seeing as we live in a small town.  The highlight of the festival (at least for me!) was the Trolley Stop Ice Cream Shoppe.  It's a old trolley that has been restored and turned into a ice cream shop on wheels.  Crazy ordered the "Dirt Cup" which was chocolate ice cream covered with crushed Oreos and gummy worms.  Hubby got a rootbeer float and I ordered the Scratch Ankle berry split.  Delicious!

Crazy with his "Dirt Cup"

Boo trying out a worm

After we finished off the ice cream we headed over to the river so Crazy could watch some of the boats going by.  When he started getting a little cranky and asking us to carry him we knew it was time to go.  We ran some errands on the way home and then decided to hit up McDonald's for dinner after listening to Crazy beg all day to go because he wanted some more dragons (toy in the Happy Meal).  After driving to 3, yes 3, McDonald's, we finally realized that they are completely out of the dragons and have moved on to a new toy.  Yes, there were some tears and a near meltdown but we managed to sidestep it.  Unfortunately Crazy's exhaustion caught up to him shortly after his bath.  I was doing some laundry when I heard him crying and yelling.  This is the conversion that ensued:

Me:  What's wrong?
Crazy:  (crying) I don't like Daddy!  I want to sell him!
Me:  What did you just say?  You want to SELL Daddy?
C:  Yes!  I want to sell him to another family.
Me:  Well how much money are we going to ask for him?
C:  $2
Me:  Well I think we should ask for a lot more than $2.
C:  Okay, $3.

The entire time this conversion was taking place I was trying not to laugh.  But I'm happy to say that now he's fine with keeping his Daddy, at least for now.  He even let Hubby read to him which he normally doesn't want him too.  Hubby told Crazy to go pick out some books and put them in his dump truck and then bring them to him to read.  After about 5 minutes Crazy comes back into the living room with his bedtime books.  I think from now on Hubby will be a little more specific when it comes to the number of books.

Expect the Unexpected

I was making lunch today and went into the garage where Hubby had disappeared to earlier to let them know it was time to eat and found this:

Yes, those are my children in a ladder stand that Hubby bought on Friday night.  I had completely forgotten that Hubby had bought it and definitely didn't think he would put it up in the garage.   The only thing I could think of was that it was going to come crashing down and the kids were going to fall out and break multiple bones.  The kids (and Hubby) thought it was great.  Crazy even requested to eat his lunch inside the stand.  No, I didn't let him, because I'm mean like that.

Garden Update

My vegetable garden is still alive and growing fast!  Hard to believe right?  I waited too long to thin the carrots out it so it was quite a task.  The gardening book I have said that you should cut them off with scissors at ground level so you don't damage the roots.  You're supposed to only have one carrot plant every 3 inches.  Well I had about 30.  It took me 30 minutes of triming to thin them out and I probably did more damage to them thinning them than if I had left them alone.  Only time will tell though...

I thinned out my onions as well.  They were much easier to thin than the carrots.  Even though they were only about 3-4 inches tall and no onion bulb had formed yet, they definitely had that onion smell! 

Crazy watching a butterfly that was visiting the garden

The kids watching one of the cats stalk the butterfly

Overall of the garden

The top section is cucumbers, the middle is onion rows, and the bottom is 3 rows of carrots and 2 bell pepper plants

White potatoes before I covered them up

Extra cucumber plants I threw in a pot

I'll post some more pictures of the garden soon.  The cucumber plants are growing like crazy and I need to start running them up the tomato cages I put in.  The potatoes kind of got away from me and didn't cover them up when I was suppose to (when they are 6-7 inches tall).  I need to get more soil because the giant bag I had wasn't enough for all 3 trashcans.  As a side note, the butterfly pictured above was eventually caught by the cat.  Hubby was slow to react because he was apparently unaware that cats will do anything to get a bug/insect/anything they want and the butterfly was biten to death.  He now resides in a glass jar on Crazy's nightstand. 

She's at it again...

Seriously, we can't leave her alone for 10 seconds anymore.  Looks like I'll be buying more toothpaste sooner than expected.

Lipstick Anyone?

I was cleaning the kitchen this evening when Boo came running in.  I look over to see this:

I was less than thrilled but thankfully she only got the lipstick on herself and not anywhere else.  I guess it's time to lock up the makeup!

Beach Day!

Sunday the kids and I met up with one of my friends and spent some time at the beach and pool.  Crazy ran up and down the beach like a wild man.  We couldn't figure out what he was doing.  Boo enjoyed herself but stayed sitting in my lap most of the time.  After Crazy stated that he was thirsty and wanted to go home for the fourth time we packed it up and hit the pool.  Crazy demonstrated his newly acquired swimming skills which included floating on his back with a noodle and treading water also with the aid of the noodle.  His swimming lessons are really paying off.  He's now comfortable with relaxing his head in the water and getting water in his ears.  Hopefully by the time the swim lessons are over he'll be able to float without the noodle.  When the pool got to cold for us we hoped in the hot tub which was lukewarm.  After 15 minutes or so they turned the hot tub on and we decided to get out, everyone except Boo who pretty much demanded to stay in.  Good thing Mommy has veto power!  My friend had made us a picnic dinner that we enjoyed by the pool and then we headed to her condo for a while.  The kids had a blast and I enjoyed getting out of the house for a little while after cleaning all weekend.  After Sunday I'm actually looking forward to beach trips this summer!

The Cluttered Kitchen

This weekend Hubby is on a cross-country flight to Houston so I thought it would be the perfect time to declutter the kitchen.  I started with the refrigerator.  It was disgusting!  I can't believe I'm sharing these pictures with you because it's highly embarrassing the state the kitchen was in.

Before

I put everything in coolers and then pulled it out and unplugged it.  I would just like to add here that Hubby doubted my ability to pull the refrigerator out by myself but I did it with ease!!  I soaked the drawers in the tub and went to town with baking soda and water.  It took a lot of elbow grease to clean some parts of it.  I took off everything from the outside of the refrigerator and only put a few magnets back on.  That took a lot of self-control because I'm a magnet freak. 

                                                    After

Once the refrigerator was back up and running, I started on the cabinets.  I got rid of two set of glasses, a ton of the kids' plates, any tupperware that didn't have a lid, and half my pots and pans.  Next up was the pantry. 

                                                   Before

We have a pretty large pantry that you couldn't even walk into because of all the stuff on the floor.  After two hours, three donation bags, and two trash bags the pantry was decently organized.  Crazy went to town with my new dustbuster sucking up all the dirt and cat food on the floor.  He absolutely loves that thing! 

                                                    After

I didn't finish the kitchen today simply because it's a lot to tackle in one day with two kids to keep entertained by myself.  Tomorrow I'll finish up the oven, which Boo almost burned her hand on while it was self-cleaning, wipe down the walls, and clean the countertops.  By the time Hubby comes home he won't recognize the place.