Happy Birthday Sara

(reader note--I like to write a quick note to my children on their birthdays to tell them about their year, their likes and dislikes. My hope is they will look back when they read it and have fond memories in their later years.)

Sara,

Now you are seven years old! Even though you are a middle child, you have found your way and are proudly making your mark on the world. You still love to draw, do puzzles and DANCE


but now you have proudly added two new favorites--reading and math. You love to pick up a book and read to your fish (who keep having babies) and you always 'skip ahead' on your math homework and have it done before we even go over it!

This year daddy surprised you with a fish tank. You are so proud of your fish. You watch them and talk to them. They love to swim up to your hand when you stick it in the the tank so you can 'pet' them.

Your best friends at school are Katie and Sara. You get so excited when your friends come over. You love to sit at the front window and wait for their car to come into the driveway and then you have so much planed.

In that regard, you are a lot like me. I am so surprised how alike we are becoming. You like to have everything planned and organized before you go anywhere (like mommy!) and you can be terribly stubborn (like um someone ;) )especially when I serve a food you hate (coq au vin).

Your favorite TV shows are Backyardigans and Little Bear. You love to play music from Backyardigans on the ipod and sing and dance :)

You still have an attraction to the villian characters on every show. It's OK--Cinderella and Snow White can be so one-dimensional ;) but that doesn't mean you don't love to dress up in your princess dresses and jewelry. You still prefer your pink and white play dress over everything else though!

And you are still just crazy about your little brother! I remember when Spanky was first born, you did not want him out of your sight and most pictures of him have you watching close by. I love this picture even though you weren't the focal point, your expression says it all.


Just watching you with Spanky tells me what a really fabulous adult you are going to be. You always run to him if he is upset, reading little books to him and when I am gone, Spanky always goes to you, his big sister,  for comfort.

Sara, you continue to amaze your family with all you do and I know your future is going to be incredible!

I love you more than chocolate challah bread pudding on a beach vacation!

mommy

Great meal, great conversation, FANTASTIC ladies!

I got to attend my first blogger meeting this weekend. I was excited and nervous at the same time.

To say I was nervous would be an understatement. I did not trust myself to chose an outfit so I asked my future fashion designer daughter what I should wear. After lots of 'no" "that doesn't work" and "maybe we should just go with black", she had pulled together a cute outfit and even let me borrow her butterfly hoops (because they worked better than anything I had lol). She did I great job--don't ya think? (So sorry about the quality--Had to crop out other siblings and I am still not sure how to fix it)



I got an extra treat in that I drove with Holly in the infamous minivan of death--the car was actually quite cool--it had a rearview camera and was very comfy. I knew Holly before and it was fun to hear about all she was doing (like buying markers!) :)

The restaurant was a fun upscale Italian restaurant and was full of beautiful prom couples--some of the boys needed a hair cut and should have really seen a barber before their dates but I digress. Let me introduce our party!

Anglofootball fanatic is just amazing--she put the event together and is as funny as her blog. 

Tx poppet surprised everyone with homemade jam--yum! She's also a gardening queen. 

 Elaine is a sweet mom who has a really beautiful blog--and some really awesome giveaways. 

Holly (mentioned above)  is a smarty, funny gal and her blog is just a riot!

We got a great table in the back and began discussing our various lives both on and off the computer. It was also rather quickly learned I knew nothing about blogging--so ladies be warned I may be emailing asking about tweeters, um, twitter (I think) and pretty blog templates.

I even treated myself to two (!!!!) glasses of wine because 1. I wasn't driving and 2. Spanky is no longer night nursing wooo-hoooo! I was tempted to go for a third (really good pinot noir) but when I thought a girl in a red prom dress was a guy in drag but the person was really truly a she (as my blogging buddies politely mentioned) , I figured I may want to stop ;)

The event was so much fun I didn't mind dealing with a sick Miley the next day who wanted to watch High School Musical Two again and again and again....

A True Beanie Baby Missionary

I was busy tidying up Miley's room this morning and found this, instead of neatly folded shirts and extra blankets, in her armoire.

It's a Beanie Baby House complete with an altar on the upper level.  I loved that she has created this whole little world complete with wall paper all by herself; and at the same time I was curious why she chose to take the cross off our mantle and the light up angel out of the Christmas box.

I asked why she made the altar and she said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "Well, for church service of course. It's easier for them to have service at home."

I honestly spent a good hour trying to figure out why she would want a church in a house and then it hit me--if you have church in your house, you won't be late.

Note to self--Do not forget to set the alarm clock on Saturday night!

A Math Riddle

One little boy with a stomach bug (enough said!)

+

One big girl that has missed out on reading 'Little Women' with Mommy (because she was dealing with the little boy with the stomach bug)  compensates by crawling in bed with mommy

+

One baby boy breaking in two year molars (already!) who wakes up to nurse every 43 minutes in the night starting after he finally crashed at 11:40 pm after finding red fingernail polish to adorn his hands and zipper :0

+

One little girl who has been promised if she wakes up first (she has been oversleeping), she can ice the cinnamon rolls--she does wake up first--at 6:12 am

=

X

(The amount of coffee mommy needs to keep her sanity and smile during the week's most hectic day)

Please answer quickly! I need to know so I can start my second pot (hint, I have already realized it is more than three).

A quick 'love' note to the husband

Sweetie,

I want to thank you again for buying me this super cool Mac Book Pro on a past Mother's Day. I am flattered that you, a former PC programmer turned real estate agent, appreciates the beauty that is Macintosh. I have to admit I am still baffled when your fourth PC died last summer and you bought another PC. You had to have known there was trouble when you needed to use my Mac to register your PC.

Now I know the Mac is quick, virus free and your PC is neither but I am afraid we are experiencing some marital strife. You see I know you enjoy to check your google account and update clients with housing info in the late evening. The problem is you use my Mac to do this and you sign into your google account on my Mac. It used to never be an issue until I began to blog. Now when I get time to comment on my super cool friend's blogs, I have noticed it is under your account. Now my super cool friends think an axe murderer named "Mike" is commenting on their children's tantrums and clothes with comments like 'Your kids are so cute' and 'Oh I love that little dress'. I think these comments scare them. And I am worried one may end up telling her husband who will use some sort of tracking mechanism to find you and who knows what this could lead to.

So I leave with two options:

1. Stick to your PC

2. Buy your own Mac

Love,

Your adoring wife

Why the heck did I buy all those American Girl Doll$$$

We have a treasure box at our house. The kids earn passes through successful completion of their homework on home school days and the passes allow a trip the treasure box. Yesterday, the girls took their passes to look for treasure.

Now I fill up the treasure box with Tar-jay (Target) items, esp. the $1 spot section. Last time I was at the lovely Tar-jay, I spied a $5.99  craft kit with fashion designs "Fashion Model Makeover--Fashion Runway"--two little stick figures and all sorts of shirts/skirts/pants complete with runway. 

 Since Miley has wanted to be fashion designer since she wrapped her Barbie in Charmin as a wedding dress at 18 months, I thought she would like it.

So of course, Miley grabs the kit. She looks through it, giggles and oohhhs and aaaahhhs about the cute purses and shoes (!!!) she can design and then comes running to me, screaming at the top of her lungs "mom, this is the greatest thing you have ever bought me!"

If I only knew this was all she wanted from the start, we would have college paid for at this point.

A Tale of Two Brothers

Two brothers eating pasta with red sauce. One has never even needed a bib in his life; the other may want to consider eating his meals in bathtubs. Can you tell which is which?

Yes. Dino is my neat freak. Has to change shirts if there is a chance of a spot. Always washes hands after going potty without being told. Makes every other kid in pre-school (including girls in pretty dresses with matching bows) look like slobs. Favorite phrase is 'nice and clean'.

**Note the napkin in his hand--he does not like to eat without a napkin in the rare change he gets food on his fingers. Utensils are mandatory in his world.

And now onto Spanky. Spanky takes after his older sister Miley (also a child that sees no point in changing out of favorite shirt simply because it is covered in this morning's breakfast). Sees no value in spending time to keep things clean when food (or mud or play dough or markers) is involved. Feels the messier it is, the more fun he is having. Takes baths daily, sometimes at the top of every hour (and yes, he splashes everywhere). Favorite phrase 'more'--a true gusto for life.

**Note this is not the only mess, the bench is covered too :)

They are going to need to separate rooms or one will not live to see high school graduation.

Spring has sprung

Ahhhh..finally time to discard the lightweight coats in favor of short sleeves. Yes, it's that one week in Texas when we can frolic about outside under the big blue sky without fear of freezing rain or heat stroke. It is the perfect week. But which time honored spring tradition shall we do?

Take an invigorating bike ride?

Pick up a bat and enjoy America's great past time?

Prepare our feet for open-toe shoes with a pedicure?

OR wallow in the mud like a spring piglet?

Reason we need to move 1-the old man

Have ever met a person that's always grumpy? You know it could be 73 degrees, sunny and when you comment on the beautiful day, he says rain is supposed to be coming later. Yeah? Well, maybe you met my neighbor, the mean old man. I'm actually thinking we had that conversation once but I am not sure as I try to block all meetings with him out of my mind. For his privacy, I am showing his picute ala June Cleaver style:


Note the obvious frown and the fist shaking in the air. This is his usual stance.
I could bore you (or scare you) with his numerous antics, complaints, etc. but I am going to describe a conversation we had with him yesterday.
Setting the stage--we are in a fairly 'new' neighborhood. We all have two to three trees in our front yards given by the builder. Recently the trees have started to mature and finally give shade during our triple digit summers. Well early in the morning, our homeschool morning was disturbed by the annoying sound of a wood chipper. It turns out our neighbor had someone come out and chop down his trees, completely.
I panicked thinking it must have been some really wacky tree disease and mentioned it to the verybusydadwith4.
The next day, the verybusydadwith4 sees mean old man.
"Hey, what happened to to your trees," sweet verybusydadwith4 inquires.
"Chopped 'em down," mean old man mutters.
"What was wrong with them?" verybusydaywith4 continuing the painful conversation.
"Too many acrons," he grumbles.
"Yeah," verybusydadwith4 said always trying to find the good side of people. "They can be a pain."
"I don't like picking 'em up," her pauses. "I don't like 'em."
And then he went inside.
It's just one of the reasons I really want, no need, to move.

My Very First Tag!

Oh I am so excited! I got tagged for the first time (twice!) by Elizabeth...mommy...etc and mamachristina.
(If you get a chance, give them a visit--both blogs are great!)

Here are the rules of the game...
1) Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog
2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4) Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

About me…

1) I have been married for 10 year 1/2 years.
2) I have also been pregnant and/or nursing for the past ten years and five months and going strong (three of my kids weaned by me getting pregnant--no clue how I am going to wean Spanky because I am not getting pregnant again). Yes, we got pregnant on our honeymoon.
3) I went to The Ohio State University and graduated with a major in journalism and minor in marketing.
4) The only time I worked for a newspaper was as a telephone soliciter. 
5) I was on the Dr.Phil show as a guest.
6) I can cook a six course gourmet meal but I can't sew a button on a shirt.

7) I only like my coffee if it has cinnamon, sugar and cream.

Today I am tagging....

1) Purple Teacup
2) Staci
3) Motherhood for Dummies
4) Jen (and then sum)
5) Full Hearts and Full Hands Mama
6) Just Jamie
7) Jacque