Random Picture Challenge 4.0

My Dad will probably kill me for this one!! This is at my parent's house and my dad is doing what he does best...hanging out in the recliner with Jack the kitty. He likes to sit there and say he is reading a book, but in reality he is usually napping. He is good at that!
Love you, Daddy!!


Head on over to Four Little Men & Girly Twins to play along.

Friday Fill-Ins

1. I'd really like to take a nap right now.

2. "Son of a belly dancer!" is the word phrase you'd most often hear me say if I stubbed my toe.

3. Possession is everything to a toddler.

4. I less than 3 Captain Jack Sparrow.

5. Marshmallows and fire go together like peanut butter and jelly.

6. Time moves on and on.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to more fun with the new Wii, tomorrow my plans include doing some cleaning and Sunday, I want to have an awesome time at Stacey and Mike's Super Bowl party!

Thankful Thursday

I can really tell that I have taken too long of a break from my purposeful thankfulness. I have been in a funk this week, mostly because of recovering from everyone being sick and being way behind on our sleep. And of course, who could forget what will forever be known as "the sled incident." But I am putting that behind me and moving forward. This week I am thankful for:

• My friends-when the incident mentioned above happened, I did a lot of venting online through facebook as well as on the phone. I think I probably got pretty annoying, but no one told me that. They just lent me vent and even a few offered the use of a sled for my kids the next time it snows. You guys have really rallied around me and I am very grateful for it.
• Snow days-up until Tuesday it had been a pretty disappointing winter. Francs kept wondering when she would be able to make a snowman. And the finally it snowed. And even better-the day care was closed. I had no excuse to go outside and play with my kids, so that is exactly what I did!
• My new camera-I was looking back through my earlier entries and noticing how much better my pictures look now. I got a good deal on this camera shortly before Christmas and I am loving getting to know more about it!

Snow Day

It finally snowed! Not a whole lot, mind you, but it snowed. Enough that the daycare (and all surrounding schools) were closed today. The weather forecast was calling for the snow to turn to ice in the early afternoon, so I bundled up the kids early on and went outside with them. Frances was uber-excited about going out, but Henry really didn't have much experience with snow. He reminded me of Ralphie's little brother in "A Christmas Story." He got so bundled up that he could barely move. But he ended up loving it!

We got outside and walked around for a bit and then I went to the garage to get the sled. I pulled the kids around the neighborhood, and then Frances exclaimed, "Mommy put Henry in the sled. I want to slay him!" It cracked me up! So she pulled him around the whole neighborhood by herself. We also did the requisite snowball throwing, snow angel making,and hill sledding. The kids had an absolute blast!! Henry threw a hissy fit when it was time to come inside for lunch. It was really a wonderful day!

Until some jerk stole my kids sled right of the front porch. And then we spent the rest of the day running around town trying to find a store in town that still had some, but no one did and my daughter cried herself to sleep because she wanted her sled back.

10 on Tuesday

Post your 10 favorite articles of clothing:

1. Pajama Pants-I wear them almost all the time at home (and sometimes out in public!)
2. My brown velour jogging suit-it makes me feel relaxed.
3. Socks-I like to wear socks, even with my sandals--DORK!
4. My green courduroy pants-actually I just like courduroy in general, but green is my favorite color.
5. My tennis shoes-after not having a pair for a while, these are pretty comfortable.
6. My new bras (TMI, I know)-After nursing for so long, it's good to get back into some pretty bras.
7. The new scarf my brother bought me for Christmas-I didn't think I was a scarf person, but apparently I am!
8. My brown V-neck shirt-Brown is one of my favorite colors, and I like a good v-neck.
9. My snow boots-OK I don't actually love them, but I get to wear them today! Finally!!
10. My new gloves my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas. No more cold steering wheel in the morning!
    

Not Me Monday

MckMama is headed out on a cruise this week, but she promised she would auto-post her "Not Me Monday" before she left. I haven't posted one in a while, but since I am in a blogging mood, I thought I would give it another try.

• This past week I did not help my daughter dress up my son in a princess dress, wig, hat and shades. And you wouldn't be able to fine the pictures here if you looked.
• I most certainly did not serve canned fruit to my family straight out of the can twice this week . That would just be lazy!!
• I did not do laundry at 2 am because I couldn't sleep.
• I also did not pretend to be asleep when my hubby came to bed so that I could try and sleep longer instead of talking to him.
• I absolutely did not take a shower and then put on clean pajama pants for the day. Even if I had done such a thing, I would never have gone out in public afterwards!

How about you? What have you not done lately?

Business in front; Party in the back!

People have commented to me about it before. I have just laughed along with it. But the truth is...My son had a mullet. There is no way around it. I can't hide that fact anymore. I mean we actually put his hair in a ponytail a few times. Which he hated, took out and then asked for it to be put back. But he's a toddler, he doesn't know what he wants.

I think it is because my kiddos take so long to actually grow any hair at all that I am so reluctant to cut it. But Ken got a hair cut yesterday and I finally decided it was time for Henry to as well. I got out the scissors, comb and plastic bag and then called the whole family together to witness this historical moment.

BEFORE:

He didn't actually react like I thought he would. He twitched a few times when I got close to his ears, but that was because of the sound and not any actual risk that I would pull a Van Gogh. He didn't sit very still, but I think that is because Frances was jumping around and excited and he always copies her (see previous post). After every snip, he pulled away and would lie down on her pillow.
In retrospect, Frances' bed is probably not a great place for a hair cut, but it worked out fine this time. And in all honesty, I am NOT a hairstylist, but here's how it turned out.

AFTER:

For the sake of posterity, I found the bag from Frances' first hair cut and she was a few weeks over two years old at that point. And I think I only trimmed her bangs. But she is a girl and it's okay for her to have long hair. (I am a firm believer that it's okay for boys to have long hair, too...John, Alan, etc!)

Frances' Play Date

Frances had a new friend over to play the other night.

This new friend was surprisingly in to getting all glitzed up for a night on the town (or just hanging around the bathroom).

Then they played "rock star" and Frances even shared her microphone!

This new friend of hers looks strangely familiar?!!?

Random Photo Challenge

One of the blogs I follow (4 Little Men and Girly Twins) has posted a "Random Picture Challenge" again this week. She picks a random month from the past and random number to designate which picture to post. Unfortunately, my photos are not organized by date (my dad's camera does this, but not mine). So I opened a random folder, picked out a random picture and here it is:
This picture is from my preschool class from about two years ago. The date stamp says February of 2005, but that can't be right because Frances would have only been 16 months old at that point and we didn't start at this school until she was almost 2. The oldest kids in this picture are in 1st grade this year, so I am guessing it was two years ago.
We had two presentations that year where the kids would have all been gathered together. One was a dentist and one was the police department. I think this was the police department judging from the pictures around it.
Frequent readers of my blog (meaning you, Stacey) will notice the following kids in this picture:
Back Row, Second from the left: Maryssa
Back Row, Second from the right: Jordan (Bethany's sister)
Back Row, Far Right: Hunter (Heather's brother)
And I just noticed that Oliver is sitting in Maryssa's lap!!
Middle Row, Second from the left: Frances
Middle Row, Middle Kid, grey sweatshirt: Selassie (Latham and Tiberius' brother)

For the names of all the kids (and a good memory workout):
Front Row, L-R: Emma K., Noah, Jonathan
Middle Row, L-R: Tate, Frances, D'Shawn, Selassie, Emma H., Logan
Back Row, L-R: Macey, Oliver, Maryssa, Declan, Keshawn, Keshawna, Jordan, Hunter
There are only two kids' names that I cannot remember. Hopefully they will come to me sometime today.
**Edit: I remembered one! The other kid had a sister named Abrie (I think). It WILL come to me!
**Edit again: I remembered them all!! I am a genius!

Adventures in dentistry

I had a dental check up on Wednesday. It had been a while....we didn't have insurance and I kept putting it off.
Truth be told, I didn't care for my previous dentist. For the two or three times I was there, he flirted constantly. With he hygienists and with me. Despite the fact that I was pregnant. Kinda creeped me out, so I stopped going.
When Ken got promoted last year, I decided that I needed to go back to the dentist. It has been on my to do list for about 15 months now. I finally got around to it on Wednesday.
I picked a new dentist out of the church bulletin. I teach his kids in religious ed and his wife is one of my middle school teachers. I already knew he was a funny man, but when he first saw me there he came in and said, "I am so honored that you have come today."
It turns out that one of my friend's moms also works there, so we had a good talk as she was taking X-rays and other pictures. I have never had a dentist take pictures of my teeth before, but that's what they do! She even had a little mirror to stick in my mouth so as to capture them in all of their glory! But that wasn't even the funniest part of the photo shoot! AS she was getting the camera ready she asked the hygienist to go get the "lip retractors." Now if you are the kind of person that is nervous in the dentist's office, that statement might have freaked you out, but I happened to find it hysterical. I couldn't stop laughing. She tried to put these clear plastic dealies in my mouth to hold my cheeks open so she could take the pictures and I couldn't stop laughing. She has me holding these contraptions and pulling my cheeks out wide and then she asked me to smile! I was lucky I didn't spit all over the office!!

After the photo shoot was done, she handed me a post card to fill out. In six months when it is time for my nest appointment they will mail me this card to remind me what time to come in. Pretty handy, and I've gotten them from the dentist before; but I don't think I have had to fill out my own name and address before. BRILLIANT! Oh, except when I finished I went to click the pen before I handed it back to her and noticed that her pen was not a pen from the dentist office I was currently in. It wasn't a pen from an insurance company. It wasn't stolen from the local bank, and it certainly wasn't a generic BIC. Nope! It was from another dentist across town!! Thankfully not the one I had gone to before. I might be in trouble if he found out I had switched. She told me that people had been using it all day and no one else had noticed. Well I am surprised that I noticed with all the tears in my eyes from the "lip retractor incident."
After the preliminaries were taken care of, t was time to get down to the nitty gritty. You know? That gritty stuff they clean your teeth with?! Love it!! Not really-it gets between my teeth and it makes me drool. Then I have to try not to swallow it while waiting for the hygienist to take the suction thing off of my tongue and let it do its job. I got my teeth all clean and shiny and then Dr. Wright came in to check my teeth over. He said I had the most beautiful mouth in all of Rockingham County. Ken agreed, but didn't care for him making the assessment. :)
I also complemented him of the choice of bib color they had made. I had a lovely lavender colored bib to go with my purple shirt. He caught on rather quickly and said that they had a closet full of hundreds of different colors. His hygienist commented that they have a camera on the waiting room so they can pick out an appropriate color before you come back to the exam room. I guess I will have to make a really interesting choice of shirt color when I go back.
Do you think they will let me borrow Mr.-Across-Town-Dentist's pen again to write that on my postcard??

Frances-isms

Upon seeing a two door car: "Mommy that car only has one door!!"
Me: "mmm-hmm"
FJ: "That's so lazy!!"
Mumbled several more times on the way home: "That car was SO lazy!"
Seriously-who knew that two-door cars were so funny!!


FJ: "Mommy? Do you kow what our phone number will be when I get married to Henry and we live next door to Carlee with our three kids?"
ME: "Um...no, sweetheart. What will it be?"
FJ: "6739"
Me: "Oh. OK."
I never knew she had it planned out so completely!

A tribute to Miss Cindy

Frances is in her second year of ballet this year. She takes lessons at the local rec center and I must say, they are excellent. Miss Cindy really has a way with little ones. She handles her class so well and the girls in there just LOVE it. Frances comes home and shows me things pretty regularly, but tonight she wanted to give me (and Henry a ballet lesson).

You are only allowed to watch it if you keep the following in mind throughout the video:

That mess behind her in the kitchen is a figment of your imagination. My kitchen does not really look like that.

Henry is sitting in my lap and participating. You can REALLY hear him in the video, but for some strange reason he gets mad when I tell him to go away. Toddlers?? Go figure.

He has been sick, so I apologize for the coughing.

He has an appetite like a horse, even when he doesn't feel well. Apparently, I don't hide the snacks well enough in my kitchen.

Yes! My daughter is wearing a leotard OVER her clothes. It's all pink, so according to her "It matches!" She has also been wearing two different colored shoes for three days now. She is a fashionista...or crazy. You decide.

That was a phone call from Ken that I ignored. Poor boy was wanting to come home from work and get some dinner. Sorry, honey!!





Miss Cindy-Thanks for all that you do! Frances thinks you are just about the coolest person in the whole wide world!!

My meeting with Pam

On Friday at the day care, we had a large number of children out sick. We were in the process of deciding which staff would go home for the day when Pam called and asked if I could come to her to her other center for a meeting. And she told me to bring Frances. Hmmmm..... My car had broken down the night before, but that was fine because she actually needed Kristen's van to transport some kids anyway. So I packed up Frances into Kristen's van and headed to Littlest Lamb for a meeting...

Augusta County schools were out on Friday, so Pam was taking the school-agers to Eli's Fun Center. Eli's is very similar to Pump-It-Up in that they both have inflatables, but in my opinion Eli's is much better.

They have more inflatables that the kids can play on more easily. (Frances has trouble climbing up the slide at Pump-It-Up) They have a larger variety of inflatables (as opposed to just bouncing and sliding) such as a Velcro wall, a baseball station, a pop gun station, and a basketball goal.

(Frances thought I was just taking pictures-not video. I love how she keeps stopping to pose!)

They also have one corner set up with some dramatic play items like a house, car, boat, plane and dress up clothes. Of course, this is where Frances chose to spend the first thirty minutes playing!

After she warmed up to the idea of the inflatables, she had an awesome time! She went down the slides and even jumped on the Velcro wall!! The guy who was helping her had to roll up the legs on the suit almost half-way in order to get her to fit in it!

After playing for about 2 hours, the kids were served some of the best pre-fab, microwave pizza I have ever had along with Kool-Aid juice boxes. Then the owner gave each of the kids four free tokens to use in the arcade section of the fun zone. One of the girls from Littlest Lamb was "kind" enough to ask Frances if she could have one of Frances' tokens to win a game for her (there were no prizes for the games). My little girl was trusting enough to let her and still has no idea that she was duped! After most of them had spent their tokens, of of the employees turned on the music and started DJing for the kids. He played Hannah Montana and then some other dance songs. The kids had a blast!!

Oh, yeah, and while we were their Pam and I sat down and discussed the day care for a little while. :)

A good morning song

I did not feel well this morning and I was trying to sleep in a little bit. Well, as luck would have it, Henry woke up early and started crying. As I was trying to get the motivation to get out of bed, I heard another sound. At about 6 am, Frances was singing to Henry so he would stop crying and feel better. I didn't recognize the song, but she told me later that it was "Golden Afternoon" from "Alice in Wonderland."
When they are getting along, they are just the sweetest kids!

Bugs strike again!

One of the *joys* of parenthood is the frequent bugs that your kids end up with and pass along to you. Well, Frances started it this time by throwing up early Sunday morning (4am). Henry has the other option and Ken and I are not feeling well either. Thankfully he had the day off already, so he kept the kids home for the morning. I was able to get half a day off and come home to relieve him for a nap. In a strange way, it has been kinda nice spending the day home with the family. We don't get enough of these kinds of days. It makes me think we should take a *mental health day* together some day soon. Or maybe a snow day...if we ever get any here!!

The best way to wake up...

I fell asleep last night snuggled up nicely to my wonderful husband. I woke up the first time at 6am to an increasingly more familiar sight. Frances had a nightmare and wanted to climb in bed with me. So we squished together and added her in. Then at 6:30, Henry woke up so I brought him in bed too. I was thinking he might go back to sleep, and he did lay down for a minute or so. Then he rolled over and got real close to my face. *MWAH!* and he kissed me...once, twice, three times. Then he rolled over and kissed Ken. Then he rolled back and kissed me again. And Frances wanted in on the action, so she sat up and he half-climbed over me to get to her.
Given the choice between sleeping in on a Saturday and be awakened by lovely 19-month old kisses, I would pick....um...OK-the kisses!!

PS Frances' nightmare sounds straight out of Scooby-Doo (which she has only seen once or twice). She and her friends went to visit a haunted house. It was haunted with "scary people who were nice; not scary people who were mean."