The end of an era...

I just posted on my business blog, but

... wow, I'm so excited. Oh yes, I had a great year and I feel good about the business side of things, but I'm so happy to be getting parts of my life back. I feel like I've been neglecting the kids a bit, the hours have been insane.

But.

I can blame Tom.

You see, I wasn't going to take it. He talked me into saying "Yes!"

His fault.

Alllllll his fault.

Nah, it's been a fabulous year, but I'm looking forward to getting back into a regular routine and having less responsibility for every little thing that happens :)

.

Silent Auction

I had a Mom's night out Saturday night. Tom took the kids to a silent auction and dance (yeah, first graders, okay, I think that's weird) at Jamie's school.

I came home to this in my living room:


Good thing we like games! Lotsa cool stuff in there!

.

Generally Obsessed

I'm starting to worry a bit about Jamie's obsession with this stupid computer game that Tom taught him - it's called Generals (something or other). It doesn't bother me that he plays it, but nearly everything he has to do at school and bring home centers around this game.

For this assignment, it looks like he had to write instructions for doing something. Most kids maybe built a fort or a lego house or something. Not mine... he writes for how to play the game.

We've already cut him way back to only being able to play a set time on weekends only. I have no idea if that will work. I shouldn't be surprised, his dad is addicted to World of Warcraft. Must run in the blood.

Anyway, here's his cute drawings anyway *laugh*

Heard From...

inside Walgreens... LOOK AT THE BIG HAIRY BALLS, JAMIE.... All 10 ppl around us cracked up.

Easter Day Photos

In a rush, so I just threw these up and cheated by doing a slideshow ;) The celery thing is a big mystery in our house. I am pretty sure the kids had a snack and left it on the table. We have a clean up after yourself rule. They say they didn't do it, and the bunny must have... hmmm... what do YOU think?


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Long Day

Egg Dye is so 2007... this year, it's EGG Painting

Tom and I were trying to skip out of the whole egg dye thing. I hate it. They splash it everywhere, stick their fingers in there, get it on their clothes, me, Tom and no one eats the stupid eggs. Then I started to feel guilty and like the anti-mom, so I remembered we bought these kits a couple of years ago and never used them. So, we dyed some eggs... well, we painted them. This kit was AWESOME. I have no idea why I thought it was going to suck - well, plus we did it outside, much easier than inside crammed at a small table in an apartment with two little little kids that think the yellow one is lemonade - oh, those were the days!

This was cool though, they got to be artistic (and I don't mind doing like REAL craft stuff with them so this worked out great) and I didn't have to deal with the tablets that won't dissolve. Cool! We had 2 packs, but they decided to share the paint (which is basically dye with eyeshadow applicators) and use it next year too. The little holder thing I thought would suck, but we didn't break or lose a single egg.

Coolness!

So, the pics...

Jamie told me to take this... he is such a little ham sometimes.



So serious....





Cassie was much more freestyle artistic :)



See? Cool, eh?



Why, yes. Yes, I am easily entertained.

Edit: They are called Dudley's DecorEGGer (get it? LOL) and I think I've seen them at Target and WalMart for like $4

.

Cassie's Bubbles

She was being a snot about taking her picture so I took it through a dirty window (I obviously need a new maid *snicker*)... she had the best time with this thing.

Spring is officially here, folks! And I got really sick this past week. More info on my review blog. I cannot wait until after April when things calm down a bit. I'm exhausted. Too much work.



Gah, that child looks so much like I did at that age, it's FREAKY.

The Fort/Playscape is Completed!

We had a great day yesterday. I give Tom a hard time, but he did a great job with the playscape. He did it all himself, no plans, just used the old one as a base and went for it. Pretty impressive, I think :)

These pictures were taken before he added some extra bracing underneath. I'm sure it was fine, but it's my job to worry so he added some more. I tried to push it. It's not going anywhere. And hey, if something starts to fall apart, it's pretty easy to fix it since he did it himself with real wood and not the crap we had before. I think he probably spent about $200 in lumber, not too bad!

The kids wanted to have dinner up there (see, a table and 3 chairs fits up there with enough for room a dance floor *laugh*, so we made kabobs, invited the neighbors over and had a great relaxing night. We ate outside, it was wonderful. There's no mosquitoes out yet so the only thing that bugged us was the leaves falling - entirely doable. The kids had a blast and I did too. As an added bonus, the little girl next door got to sleep over (which is, apparently, the ultimate in fun times).

So, now the pictures... did I mention that we hit 90 here in Austin the past couple of days? It's cooled off now, but the kids were hot, so we broke out the little pool...

Heard from the hair place

My daddy is bald (just blurted out loudly when the place was deathly quiet)

.

Putting the roof on...

I think he's stopping for the day once he gets the roof on it. The only thing I'm worried about is the bottom. He says he's going to put some more bracing in there, but of course, I'm all worried.

Where is Wendy and Lofty when you need them, Bob Tom?

He can build an entire fort for the kids, but I STILL haven't gotten my mini-blinds up and it's been almost TWO YEARS.

Heh.

.

Bob Tom Hard At Work

This should give you some idea of how big this thing is...



And we are working on breaking a record high today. It's like 90 degrees outside. It's not even Spring yet.

Ugh.

.

Can He Build It? ---- Yes, He Can!

So, the kids old fort/swing/playscape is starting to fall apart. The beam that holds the swings is all bent and it's just a mess. And the kids are getting bigger. Tom had already rebuilt the ladder up to the monkey bars thing so he decides to re-build the whole thing and be done with it.

Oh, but we aren't JUST going to rebuild it. No. We are gonna make it bigger (insert Tim The Toolman Taylor-like grunts here). This fort is freaking HUGE... dude. He's still building it... here's an in progress shot and one of the kids in the old fort. I don't think this picture even begins to explain how big this thing is.





And yes the swings and slide are all gonna go back on it. In theory. I wonder if we are breaking a deed restriction or two... I'm so not gonna go look.

.

Big Girl Cassie and more Signs...

Lookit how long her piggy tails are? Wow! She looks so grown up, her looks have changed so much just in the past few months. She's such a little girl!



So, the little girl next door was over a few days ago playing and apparently Jamie did something that ticked the girls off. I found this taped to Cassie's door:


It says "No boys allowed, we give up on you" and a heart with an X.

I'm sure this was devastating as Jamie tells me he's marrying the little girl next door and here she is Xing out the hearts. Harsh, dude!

So, Jamie retaliates with THIS sign:


It says "No girls, do not bother or else. I am mad. Girls come in and I chase them I ????" and LOTS of Xed out hearts... double harshness!

They seem to have made up because they are all out there watching Tom build the new improved big fort... pictures coming up soon!

.

.

Jamie's Rules....

The kids beat us up this morning and we found this on the dining room table:



It Says:: "No making big messes, No jumping in the toy box, No parties at night, No staying up all night, No hitting pushing or kicking or running in the house"

He had some YES stuff, but well, I guess he decided the no stuff won out. He scratched out what I think said "Yes you can party at birthday"

He just sucks the fun right out of life, eh?

*laugh*

.

Heard from my friend...

Dy is over here letting the kids play while we work... we were talking about Tom Cruise and all that stuff. We were saying how Katie is really young and probably couldn't even drink yet...

Dy says -- > "Yeah, poor woman, got knocked up by a little tiny crazy man and couldn't even get drunk"

I dunno why, but I nearly lost it... that's freaking funny stuff...

.

More Art Crap from Jamie...

These came from school over the past week...

The first is a boot. I think that must be some book they read or something. It says "Dear Armadillo Boy, you did good but that boot was not an armadillo. From, Jamie"



And this is a "Quilt Story". I think he took this more literally than he was supposed to because it's about... well, it's about he and his sister... making a quilt. *laugh*

Whacha Doin'?

This is Cassie's latest catch-phrase... we think it's SO CUTE. I had to beg her to let me tape her saying it and she told me I cannot put it on the blog, but I'm a rebel, so here ya go...

Kids Singing Eye of the Tiger

My ears! My ears! The bleeding!

Latest Art From Kiddos

Cassie has her 5 year check up today - Tom says he's gonna post about it later.

In the meantime...

Jamie drew the houses. With the really small doors and really big snail. Ummm... okay.

Cassie did the invitation to my birthday party (no, we didn't have one - we did have a little celebration with just us) with her MiMi.

Anniversary, Tooth, And Rapper

Today makes 15 years that I have been putting up with Tom. Yes, we got married 15 years ago today (see that little "family since" thing at the top? Bet you thought I was making that up!). Even if you are a pain in my tushie, I still love ya, Tom - and expect to have to put up with you for at least 50 more! Love ya, doody-head!

Six months ago, we took Jamie to the dentist for a regular check up. We noticed that his teeth were crowding a loose one, but weren't worried. The dentist wanted us to see about braces. Dude, he's SEVEN. So we waited. Went back to the dentist recently and noted that his teeth had moved around to not crowd that loose tooth that WAS STILL IN HIS HEAD. He came home today with a necklace - it was a plastic tooth that opened up... inside was THE TOOTH. About time that sucker came out!



Cassie is apparently gonna be a rapper when she grows up. Yo!

Last Day of Sports This Season...

Saturday they had their last games.

Cassie scored a GOAL! She was so proud of herself. Even though the picture I got was crappy, I did get a picture, so I'm sharing it.

Jamie was horrid. He was dancing and chasing and not paying any attention. He won't be playing sports again. We'll have to find something else for him to do. He sat out about half of the game. The coach was nice. I would have kicked his butt out of there WAY before he pulled him.

Anyway... the pics!

Birthday Gals!

A friend of mine and I have birthdays which are just a few days apart. This year we decided to have lunch and go to... (you will be shocked)... the book store! We had dinner at Texican Cafe and then wandered around Barnes and Noble while she watched me spaz out, grabbing books and telling her to read this one and that one and not bother with that one. (Tom hates to go with me, I touch everything). I came away with BOOKS! Oh and we had cheesecake at the Starbucks there. Yum!



I got:
1. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming - Okay, I am 99.9% sure this book was due out on March 4. But it was there and it's for sale on Amazon. I feel gypped because I had specific plans to get this book the day it came out and it's already out! *laugh* It will be read VERY soon. I love this author!

2. Beautiful Boy - I know, I read depressing stuff sometimes. This is a neat memior though. Instead of it being about the person... it's written by the father watching his son go through drug addiction back.

3. Eat Pray Love - I KEEP LOSING THIS BOOK. It freaks me out. The first one I had to return to who I borrowed it from because I didn't read it. The next one has disappeared. It's no where to be found. If this one disappears too, I'm going to assume that someone doesn't want me to read it.

4. The Red Tent - My friend (Lana) says she loved it and has mentioned it a few times. So Imma give it a shot. Not my usual thing... but there ya go. She bought this one for me :)

I bought her The Time Traveler's Wife (No, she hadn't read it! Freak!)

Yay! I gotta start on the Jackson book seeing as everyone got a day or two jump on me *pouts*

Happy Birthday, Lana!

.