Real life

Here's a little glimpse into our world, thanks to my iPhone. No editing, no cleaning... Just real life.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Today I'm thankful...

I've had a rough past few days.... It's just a mommy funk kinda time when the kids aren't listening and are choosing destruction as their method of choice. Today I was awoken to them playing with the spackling paste I had left in their bathroom after painting it. It was rolled into tiny balls and they had stuck things to the wall using it. Then they decorated the step ladder (also left in the bathroom with it). Then at this exact moment, a contractor showed up to give us a bid on work we have to do to our house. fun, fun, fun.

All these things and the many other things have been getting to me and driving me a bit crazy. Not to mention healthcare but we're not going to talk about that. (I have an unhealthy obsession with politics.)

So I'm going to choose to be victorious and thankful. Maybe my husband will stop coming home from work late if he knows he won't come home to "the look".  (The look basically says to keep all duct tape out of my reach before I tape the kids to the wall, not that I would ever do that)

Today I'm thankful for....

*My sweet husband who went to the store to get me something special today, just to lift my spirits.

*Princess Goofy's smile

*Princess Girly Girl refusing to brush her teeth tonight so that they will fall out and then the tooth fairy can bring her a gift.

*This little thing next to me that didn't take her second nap until 8pm and now thinks it's party time.

* Spring

*my house. (if you know me personally, don't fall out of your chair) but several of the blogs I usually read all just returned from Africa and you should see the pictures of the living conditions there. Wow, I am extremely blessed.

*getting to watch a baby rub her eyes and try so hard to stay upright. haha.

*my inlaws who are coming this weekend and giving me a princess free day on saturday!

* Plum baby food Strawberry Mish Mash... Princess Newbie's favorite, right behind banana and pumpkin.

*the neighbor behind me who unknowingly let me watch him doing drugs in his backyard this morning. Weird thing to be thankful for but really I am thankful that I never went down that path....It was my first time even seeing someone do drugs. Don't worry, I'm not pure white innocence, I did my fair share of bad things, drugs just wasn't one of them. P.s. if you have a two story house behind you, don't do drugs in your backyard... bad decision neighbor boy... bad.

*earless chocolate bunnies.. or at least they are now.

I think Princess Newbie has reached the end of party time. I need to go cuddle with her and smell her sweet baby head while she drifts off to sleep. Oh I'm blessed... very blessed

Detour

Tonight we're taking a little detour from our couch potato trip to Austin.  We will return to the beautiful views of the Oasis Restaurant tomorrow but tonight we'll have a little lesson about why you should not drive with your gas light on.

Yesterday I drove downtown to pick His Royal Highness up from work where he works in a highrise building with spiffy views. Actually he never looks out the windows. As I approached downtown where it is really hard to find a gas station, my gas light came on. We decided to take the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane back to the house instead of fighting through stop and start traffic. The thing about the HOV lane is that it is one lane with cement barriers on either side. You can't get out of the HOV lane until you are at your transit station. So.... I kinda forgot about the gas and just drove home.

This morning I pulled out of the driveway on the way to a playdate and realized that my gas light was still on.  There was a gas station to my right that I pulled into but I left when I realized how high the gas prices are and figured that I could easily make it another two or three miles to Kroger.

Hm... I was wrong.

All the sudden my van started acting weird and I knew what was happening. I made a u-turn and tried to get back to the gas station but I didn't make it. I was across about 500ft. away when the van just coasted to a stop.

I know what you're thinking, just get out and walk, right? That's a great plan until I tell you that it was raining and I had all three kids with me. I could have still done it and would of had a cop not come to my rescue.

He stood by the van and entertained the kids while I hiked back to the gas station and bought a gas can and some gas. By the way, Mr. Gas Station Attendant... I feel like you owe me a nice steak dinner since you took advantage of me with your super expensive but smallest gas can on earth. This by the way is a gas station that I avoid like the plaque. The last time I was there they were openly selling drug paraphernalia but it wasn't out this time.

I hiked back to the van, got a small lecture about driving with less than a 1/4 of a tank of gas, spilled half of the world's tiniest gas can all over my hands and legs, and then drove off into the wild wild world of other gas filled vehicles. I was extremely moody, wet, and smelly. The Playdate was cancelled but I did happen to make it to Starbucks. You could say that I have my priorities in order.

The rest of the day was much better. Thank goodness.

Princess Newbie has decided to take over the driving from here on out...

Que Sera, Sera

You're never too young to start thinking about your future.

The choices today are endless

How about a paleontologist?

excuse me sir, have you seen any dinosaurs around here?

A dentist:

Open wide... say ahhh....

A podiatrist maybe?

You seem to be missing some toes....

A Psychic?

I see a dinosaur... miniture, not very scary....

Or maybe even a wrestler?

take that mouse! I call this the cheese grater... grrrr..

But maybe, just maybe... someone should master the art of crawling first.

baby steps, it's all about the baby steps.

My Week In Review...

My life is a comedy.

Sunday started the smoke alarm fiasco that has been detailed in the post below.

Monday I slid downstairs and once again my trick knee went out. I didn't slip on water or anything slippery, I was just walking and fell down. It's the story of my life. Can you imagine if I went ice skating or anything truly adventurous? I think I would kill myself. That's why I stick to crafting. The worst thing I  can do to myself is sew straight through my fingers or glue my fingers together. I've done both of those and lived through it, so I'll just stick to what I know. So I spent monday night in bed, tuesday upstairs the entire day, and limping around the rest of the week at a sloth's pace.

Tuesday I somehow got food poisoning from dinner. I am the only one in the entire family that got sick after dinner yet we all ate the exact same thing. So I was a pitiful limping sick person.

Wednesday I was weak and still feeling bad, limping, and up at 2 am to retrieve a smoke alarm from the front yard.

Thursday I heard both girls giggling and yelling at me "the dishwasher is making bubbles." You remember on old tv shows when they would have the scene where someone would put too much soap in the washing machine and the room would be filled with bubbles. The same scene happened in my kitchen with my dishwasher. Tons and tons of bubbles were pouring out of the thing. Turns out Princess Girly Girl had decided to help me with the dishes and put Dawn dish soap in the dishwasher.

Today while I was hiding inside from this freakish cold snap I smelled nail polish. But it was naptime and all the girls were asleep, or so I thought. Princess Goofy was painting her nails in our bedroom. You know you're a mom when you can smell the nail polish three rooms away. This is the princess who can't walk in a straight line without falling but she can paint her nails without getting a drop on the carpet. Oh and she did her toenails too. We're so in trouble when she gets older. She'll think she can drive when she's 11.

There's still tomorrow to go. Wish me luck.

Sometimes you have bad days in life. Sometimes you have bad months. Sometimes you might even have a bad year. Today was just one of those days that you want to file in the return to sender file. haha. Can you do that?

Just a sampling of my day:
1. Princess Goofy got her hand shut inside our sliding van door. Our van has sensors that won't let you close the door if hands or body parts are in the way. Apparently my rear end is too large for the sensors though because it has closed on that before. Don't worry, the door was not dented. Back to the story. She got her hand wedged in the one area of the door that there is no sensor. When I looked in the window from the outside of the van all I could see was her in a complete panick. She was screaming, crying, and jumping up and down all while her hand was still shut in the door. I opened it and Princess Girly Girl said in a perfectly happy sing song voice, "her hand was stuck in the door."  Sympathy, it's a gift that not all four year olds have required yet.  Thankfully her hand is not hurt in any way. She can't even remember which hand it was. We were blessed in that.

2. Princess Girly Girl threw a stompin, jacket throwin' fit in Target. The joy of a mother's heart... fits in public.

3. Gasoline poured out all over my jeans when I picked up the gas pump to fill up the van today. And I thought baby spit up was the new look for winter....

4. Princess Girly Girl slid coming down the stairs this afternoon and rammed her cheek straight into the downstairs toy box. She split her lip open and has a nice bruise on her cheek. Princess Newbie started crying when she heard her sister crying so I asked Princess Goofy to please cheer up Princess Newbie who was laying on the floor on her mat. Princess Goofy was her normal self and went stumbling backwards, falling directly on Princess Newbie. I had three crying Princesses all at the same time.

5. I got the bill for our home birth. Which was about $2,000 more that we expected, thanks to our wonderful health insurance.

6. His Royal Highness beat me at Ice Skating on the Wii. I'm the girl! I'm supposed to win the ice skating!

Hopefully now I can ignore the presents that are on the table, not in the mail as they should be, and just relax for the night. If you are expecting a christmas present via mail from me, please look for it in May.

It might have been a rough day but we are still blessed. I would pay $10,000,000,000. just to have Princess Newbie around and I would put up with a million more tears just to make sure that the older princesses are safe.

You know you're getting old when......

I'm getting older. It's sad but true. I guess it happens to the best of us.

This year several things have happened to make me realize that I'm not the young whipper snapper I used to be.

1.) I do not understand one bit how to use twitter. Sure it seems all innocent but all this RT@ stuff and how do I know when to comment back to someone? ugh! My brain gets friend just looking at the picture of the bird, much less actually logging on. My four year old could probably be one of the most popular people on twitter though.

2.) I was driving to Fort Worth the other day and this car packed full of young college girls from Baylor went zooming by me. They had their music blasting, sunglasses on, jamming and dancing out to their music. My first thought was, "I remember doing that." Oh boy.. now it's a memory! no long an action but a memory! My new motto should be, "If you can't jam out to Barney, who can you jam out to?"

3.) I find myself doing laundry and other household chores at odd hours of the night when I'm supposed to be resting. The thing that proves to me that I'm getting older is that I'm doing it just because it needs to be done. It's not something that I'll skirt around or put off anymore. As my mom used to say, "If I don't do it, it won't get done!"  Oh my goodness. I'm turning into my mother.

4.) Gray hair taking over and in need of it's own zip code.

5.) We only have one free seat in our minivan. I accepted driving a minivan last year. I figured I would just be one of those really cool people that drive one. (those people do exist right?) Last week I realized that there is only one free seat in the thing. No longer can I cram four of my bestest friends in the car and hit the road unless they want to pile on top of the stroller in the back. Oh and we'll have to make stops every three hours while we're on the wild road trip so I can nurse the baby. And we might have to stop a few other times for potty training kids to go to the bathroom. Only the kids will change their mind once we reach the bathroom and we'll have to stop again thirty minutes later when they realize they really do have to go. I think this is where some of these gray hairs come from.

Old age, here I come.... right after this bathroom stop.

Mother of the Year

I have been working on some crafts, I promise. Actually I think I've been working overtime on crafts.

My plans yesterday was to take pictures of a few things I've been working on and post them for you to see.

But in the midst of my day, my trick knee decided to do a few backflips, followed by a joint popping dislocating freeze. Does any of that make sense? My knee sometimes just gets stuck out of joint. It's happened for about ten years. I know I need knee surgery but we live in a two story house with all the bathrooms upstairs. hmmm... Ever try to make it upstairs on only one leg? It's really not that hard, you can crawl up the stairs. The tricky part is making it back down again.

Yesterday as I trying to turn around on the couch to look at Princess Newbie, who was asleep in her pack and play behind the couch, my knee just slipped out of place. Usually I can work it back in place within a few minutes but this time it stayed out of place for over two hours.  It hurts pretty bad but I think the worse thing to me was what I was wearing. What kept going through my head non stop was that we might have to call an ambulance or try to make it to the ER if we couldn't get my knee back in joint by ourselves. It was laundry day and I had just slipped on whatever I could find. The ensemble consisted of pink striped capri pajama pants, a very bright green shirt that has a zillion holes and a breastmilk stain on it (I'll let you figure out where that stain is located), a very old mens bluish gray shirt that I wear when I'm cold, and rainbow colored dress socks leftover from church that morning. Oh I would be admitted to the hospital alright, but probably not for my knee. So I was stuck in a weird position on the couch, wearing a goodwill inspiried clown's outfit, unable to move for two hours. lovely.

Finally I was able to move with His Royal Highness' help and my knee slipped back into place. However after all the craziness of the day, my kids ate pie for dinner.  I'm sure there are some vitamins in apple pie. Don't you think? Oh yeah, and they ate it at 8pm.

Mother of the year award.... it's in the mail.

Maybe I'll get those crafts posted today, or maybe you'll just get a piece of pie, at 8pm.

Natural Science Museum

Princess Goofy loves dinosaurs. Baby Dolls, Dinosaurs, and Tinker Bell are the only objects that revolve around her world. We decided to take all the girls to the Houston Natural Science Museum to show them the dinosaur fossils. At first Princess Goofy did not understand that she was looking at real dinosaurs but after a sweet little talk with His Royal Highness, she understood and she got excited, really excited.  From that point forward she never stopped running. One dinosaur, to the next, those chubby little preschooler feet when round and round the entire exhibit.

It was a great day full of culture and of course, there's not truly american culture without a stop at McDonalds, located directly in the museum.

Houston Natural Science Museum is currently free on Tuesday evenings.

Six Years and Counting

November 8th, 2003

His Royal Highness,

You told me not to buy you a gift or even a card, just a nice note would do it. So here is your note.

You are my best friend, the one that I can't wait to see in the afternoons after work. When something big happens, you're the one I want to share it with. You knew every single part of my past, even the worst parts, and you chose a future with me. That means the world to me.

Even with all my quirks, you still adore me. You overlook the mess that surrounds my creativity and that allows me to fully let the creative juices flow (sometimes onto the floor or counter, but still!).  The pride that you take in my crafts and cakes show me that I'm on the right path in my life.

You have given me three beautiful girls and completed my dream of being a mother. You are one of the best father's I've ever seen. I love the fact that the girls love Star Wars just because you do too.

I can't wait for the next six, followed by hopefully sixty years. I'm so blessed to have you walking this journey with me, even though you are always five steps ahead of me because you walk too fast! and I walk too slow!

I love you and know that God made you for me.

Happy Anniversary,

Your Queen

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

We're home from our week long trip to visit family in the DFW area. I am really wiped out tonight after dealing with sick kids the entire weekend and making the 5 hour drive today.

Overall, it was a great trip. I had a lot of fun visiting with my family. I got to see my stylish sister's new house and it was fabulous. I'm still dreaming of her tan and white accent chair. But then my dream is ruined by visions of red koolaide and green markers all over the chair. Therefore, I will never have a chair like that. I had a great dinner with my dad and got to visit with my grandparents two days in a row. The princesses also got a tour of their uncle fisherman's boat.

I finally picked up His Royal Highness from the airport on friday and jetted out to his parents house. We had plans to take the princesses to a pumpkin patch and then to a halloween festival that night. I guess the girls caught on to the fact that I had totally bombed in the costume department and that they were just going to wear pajamas and carry teddy bears because all three of them came down with this lovely high fever virus. Princess Newbie got it first and had temps of 103 degrees that sent us to the urgent care facility. Next, Princess Girly Girl came down with a 102.8 degree fever that we just treated with motrin. Finally and worst of all, Princess Goofy developed a 105 degree fever that had us all worried. But what would be worse, to take her to the ER and risk exposing her to the flu or to try and treat the fever at home? We just decided to keep a really close eye on her and do everything we could think of to get it down. It finally came down and this morning it was gone. It did come back slightly tonight but hopefully it will be gone again in the morning. Needless to say, there was no halloween festivities for us. Which comes to the worst part of this all..............

No Halloween festivities equals no candy for parents to "steal"/ borrow from their childrens candy bags while they sleep.

Where's my chocolate?

Laundry

It follows me!





I can't escape it even on my mini-vacays!


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Sicko

The last 24 hours have been plain craziness. Here's a little recap for ya....

1. Woke up at three am with a borderline migrane
2. Checked on Princess Newbie while I was up and noticed that she was burning hot. Burning hot. But it was warm in the house and she was really bundled up so I undressed her and turned on the fan to cool the room down. I covered her with the light sheet only and attempted to go back to sleep.
3. Woke up many times during the night to discover she was still hot but had cooled down enough for me not to be as worried.
4. Sometime in the night while I was up I decided to check on the older princesses only to discover one of them had an accident.
5. Banged head on wall.
6. Finally got up with Princess Newbie around 7 when I heard my dad up ( we are staying with him) and borrowed his thermometer. Her fever was almost 103! He went to the store to get her Tylenol and we both started looking for a doctor that would see her since she is so little and we are from out of town.
7. Finally found one 20 minutes away that would see her but they say it will be a very very long wait. And it was.
8. His Royal Highness texts me to inform me that he had lost his wallet somewhere between the bus and work but that he is going to try and catch the bus to look for it. He is supposed to fly up here tomorrow to join us but won't be able to get on the plane without his licensce which is in his wallet. But since he is out running after buses, I can't get ahold of him on the phone.
9. After a long wait, tests that make princess newbie scream and a shot that made her hate this world, we finally left with an ear infection diagnosis.
10. I get another text saying he found his wallet. Yeah!! All is right with the world, well except that I'm a conservative in a liberal controlled country.
11. Our insurance had all the princesses birthdays mixed up, which made getting newbie's prescriptions a nightmare! They tried to tell me that she was not born on august 1st. Hello! I'm pretty sure I was there!
12. We finally got it all worked out and had a nice dinner tonight to top off the rough day. You should always end a rough day with a beautiful dinner.

So the good news is that this day is almost over and tomorrow I pick up His Royal Highness at the airport. I miss him. Next week we celebrate 6 years and I think I love him more than I did 6 years ago.

Princess Newbie is sleeping peacefully. Let's hope that is a trend that continues!


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Texas Blizzard

We are here. DFW area. I love it. No intense humidity and heat. I actually saw people bundled up in coats and shivering when they were pumping gas tonight. I love that! Mind you that it was only 50 degrees out which my family in Chicago would call a heat wave but it was definitely a Texas blizzard.

Unbelievably we made it from Houston to fort worth with no stops and princess newbie slept the entire way! I am blessed! I have two kids with bladders the size of peanuts and I never had to stop. It was great. I had planned to take pictures at all the red lights and bathroom breaks to show you my journey across Texas but I never stopped at even one red light, they were all green.

Tomorrow we are going to see my sisters new house. I have heard from two different people tonight that she has done an amazing job of decorating it. I can't wait to see it. She's the stylish one and I'm the artsy one. Artsy, by the way, stands for unmatching, stained with various baby fluids, and 99% kooky. It's really just an excuse for those of us that can't comprehend style.

The best news of all is that the same stylish sister also just became engaged to the fisherman. I'm sure her wedding will be gorgeous and stylish. I gotta start testing out some new cake flavors for the wedding cake. Any taste testers out there?




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Family Pictures

We went to a local park on saturday night so a gorgeous amateur photographer could take family portraits of our family. Of course nothing went right since the mosquitos thought their wedding feast had arrived and Princess Goofy was against all pictures and had to be bribed.

Here's a few of the pictures from the evening:

And Finally.... Princess Goofy in all her tempermental, three year old glory holding the anti picture protest:

Exhausted, Busy, Tired, Exhausted

ugh... I've been busy which has made me tired and exhausted. I'm going back to the gym everyday to loose this baby weight and all the other weight that has found me over the years. So that is making me sore and tired. To top it all off, thursday we had to empty out all of our cabinets in the kitchen so that the bug guy could come spray inside our cabinets on friday.

Well, being the genius that I am.... I decided that I would just go ahead and give all the cabinets a quick coat of paint while they were empty. I'm laughing on the inside, or is that pain?

Friday morning after our bug guy left, I took the girls to the gym and pushed myself  to the max. I'm going out of town next week and I want the weight that I've lost to be really noticeable to the people that don't see me daily. Hint, Hint.... comment if you see me. Just kidding. No, I'm not.  I walked on the treadmill for two miles and then decided that it would be a good day to start lifting weights.

We got home and I immediately started sanding the cabinets and painting while the girls took a nap. I seriously thought that I would be done by early evening. What I did not know is that I had picked the worst paint possible. Our cabinets were off white when we bought our house and after six years of use and abuse, they have become a lovely stained off white. I was painting them off white again, not much difference. The paint I bought was so bad that it required 4 coats of paint on most of the cabinets. Again let me say, I was covering off white paint with off white paint. It took 4 coats. Are you getting me? It was horrible! Every streak showed through. I finally finished painting the cabinets at 1am last night. All together it took me 10 hours to paint the cabinets in our teeny tiny kitchen. Your momma's closet probably has more cabinets than my kitchen.

This is the kitchen before we started. The handles have already been removed and the cabinets are empty.

I had no idea that we had this much stuff in our kitchen! Notice the box under the table stuff to the brim. Also, the best part happens to be the adorable baby laying on the mat. What a cutie!

I don't have any pictures of the finished project because that would require me to walk downstairs and up again. After my genius decision to start lifting weights on friday mixed with the painting motions that I did for ten hours straight, I can no longer move my upper body. I guess the fact that I am moving like frankenstein works out well for this time of year.

I do have hints for anyone that wants to paint their cabinets

1. Don't. just buy new ones.

2. Paint the backs of the cabinets first and then the front, if you do it the other way around, you might get paint in your hair.  Don't ask me how I know, just trust me.

3. Don't buy Olympia 15 year paint from Lowes unless you like large amounts of mood altering drugs. I kid, I kid.

4. Really though, just give up now and buy new cabinets. They are going to fall off the wall soon enough.

The saddest part of painting the cabinets is that I had to paint over my pet roach. No more scaring people when they open my cabinet. I might just paint my current pant size on the inside of the cabinet and scare myself everytime that I open the cabinet.

Me, Myself, and I

I've been doing some updating to my blog because someone was sweet enough to tell me that it was hard to read. No one else had mentioned this.... uh huh.... So in order for me to make one of the updates that I want to add, I have to write about myself.

1. I am married an extremely handsome man, His Royal Highness (HRH). We will be celebrating 6 years soon! I didn't kill him after the first year like some people might have predicted.

2. I have three beautiful girls.... Princess Girly Girl, Princess Goofy and Princess Newbie. Actually Princess Newbie is so new that I started writing I had two beautiful girls but I had to go back and delete that.

3. I love crafts. My list of crafts that I want to make is so long that I doubt I will ever accomplish it all. A few things that are currently on it are.... pottery lessons, mosaic tile table top, tshirt dresses for the girls, quilted alphabets, baby shoes, and basket weaving. I know, I'm a basket case already. Why do I need to learn basket weaving?

4. I decorate cakes as a hobby and compete in cake shows. This year I'm bringing home the big prize! Probably not since I'll have a new baby to entertain while I work on my contest cakes but hopefully Princess Goofy will know not to eat the styrofoam cake dummies this year.

5. We live in Houston. grrr.... I'm trying to be positive about it.

6. I wear my hair in ponytails most days because I have a new baby and that's a good enough excuse for me.

7. I think that my husband secretly thinks I'm nuts.

8. We are a baby wearing, home birthing family that lacks a Prius. We also don't vaccinate our kids but we really aren't crazy. (some of us anyway)

Me in Labor with Princess Newbie. This is the only picture you will get to see of it!

9. I am obsessed with the Pioneer Woman. Really, I think we would be best friends in real life. Ree, call me.... BFF's....

10. I lack grace but am filled with grace all at the same time....           

11. I have been a stay at home mom so long now that I forget where the spell check on my computer is so if you see any huge errors in spelling, just ignore it. If you see huge errors in grammar, ignore it.

12. I lost a state ready writing competition in high school simply because of my poor grammar skills. Tell that to e.e. cummings.

13. I should have gone to bed hours ago.