Hmmm...

I'm debating on whether a phone call to The Teenager's school is necessary...

He's taking a systomatics class(weightlifting) this year and has a 100% average in there. Well, the semester final is being able to bench press your own weight. If you are able to do this you will earn a "C" for the class. The Teenager has gained some weight this year and started to fill out a bit. He's 6'3" and weighs 193 pounds. He's only benching 160 at this point and with only 3 weeks to go has decided that he needs to lose weight! (As anyone who knows him can see, he CLEARLY does not need to lose any weight. The kid is freakin' tall and skinny!) So, he's stopped eating. Clearly, not a good thing. He's not even going to be able to lift the 160. I guess my question is, is this a reasonable expectation from the teacher of this class? Is it fair to be graded on it and to only be able to get a "C" if you have had an "A" all year? And what about my child's safety? How can they possibly do this???

So cold!!

It's a balmy 45 degrees this morning. That's freezing here! I do not like the cold. Give me 110 degrees any day over this.

I'm going to the Dr. This morning. Anyone who really knows me knows this is big. I do not go to the Dr. Ever. But, I was vacuuming yesterday and my back got all funky on me. I was having a hard time at church last night and then when I got up this morning, my legs were not functioning properly. I could only walk about 5 feet before I had to sit. So, my husband is insistent that I go. I have new insurance so I had to actually find a new Dr. I hope they are nice!

Our Christmas lights are up! 18 hours of work from my hubby! The inside is decorated as well with the exception of the tree which I think we're going to get on Sunday if the tree lot at church is open by then. Rochelle?
I have started my shopping but still have some to do as well as a whole quilt to finish. Bahaha. Wish me luck!

Vacation photos

I put up a few photos in my Flickr account. They are restricted to friends and family though. If you want to see and can't, let me know!

Merry Christmas!

Thanks to Karin for my new look!

We're Back...

And had a lovely time, of course. I really love my family and it is so much fun when we can get away and just have a good time together. My kids were so funny and so sweet and fun with each other. It was great to watch and listen to them interacting and having a great time together.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great dinner and lots of fun at my sister-in-law's. Good food and lots of laughter. I have much to be thankful for this year, as always.

I have an amazing husband who works really hard to make sure that I can be at home with my kiddos and still have most everything my heart desires. He protects me and takes care of me and puts up with me. He makes me laugh hysterically even after 20 years of listening to his jokes. He makes me feel beautiful and special all the time, every moment of every day. I love him more than I could ever put into words.

I have four wonderful kiddos who bring joy and light into my life. They are so much fun and I just can't get enough of them. I am extremely proud of all four of them and so thankful that they were given to me to care for.

I have a wonderful mom. She is the greatest grandma ever and really a good friend to me.

I have a brother who is funny and witty and would do anything for me or my family.

I have great in-laws. My MIL drives me really batty a lot of the time, but I know that in her way, she loves us so much. And my father-in-law, who last night told me he was going out of town next week, but he had made sure to schedule his flight back so that he could be here for the kid's Christmas program on Friday. My sister-in-law who is truly a gem. She is always ready to help out and always available to listen and she forgives my frequent memory loss. My nieces and nephews and brother-in-law are all pretty special as well.

I have good friends and a beautiful goddaughter.

So much in my life to be thankful for. So many blessings. My heart is full.

We're Off

To see the wizard...

Okay, well at least Shamu and Mickey and friends! We're leaving as soon as the kiddos are out of school today and returning late Wednesday night. Thank goodness for my lovely sister-in-law who agreed to host Thanksgiving this year even though it was my turn.
Hope you all have a great week and a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know that my family has much to be thankful for!

Hooray!!!

My dishwasher is FINALLY here!! Woohoo! You know, I didn't have a dishwasher for the first 8 years of my married life, but since I've had one for the past 4.5 years doing without for the last month has really been a pain. I am a happy girl today!

Lunch

I hate making lunch. It is, to me, the worst meal of the day. I never know what to make. I have two little ones here to feed plus the other kids lunches to pack and ugh...It just gets boring after a while. What do you eat/make for lunch?

Girls Rock!

So, I've been having some trouble dealing with Best Buy and getting my dishwasher. It was supposed to be here last week, then this week and so on...But, I've been dealing with male managers. Today I called and the manager I normally harass wasn't there, so I spoke with a female manager who told me that she would check into it and get back to me. Yeah right! But, she did!!! And, get this! The dishwasher is actually still in California, but she got them to ship it tonight and it will be delivered to my house tomorrow! I should have dealt with her in the first place!

I need a nap...

I am so tired today. I am an eight hours of sleep kind of girl and since I rarely get that, (what mom does??!) I feel constantly sleep deprived. It's worse though when I can't sleep at night or am up much later than expected because then I am almost nonfunctional the next day. Like today. My friend Karin, when I backed out of walking with her again this morning, said that maybe I would get some rest on my vacation next week. Maybe, except I'm taking four children to Disneyland. I'm thinking sleep is not going to be happening so much!

Fashion DON"T

Now, I admit that I am anything but fashionable but I've never used a silly patterned diaper bag as a purse...When my kid was 4 years old! I mean, she was carrying it on her shoulder like a purse as she dragged the four year old across the crosswalk. Eewww!

Happy Monday!

It feels good to be back in our routine after a four day weekend(partially due to illness). I have a lot to do this week as we are leaving on Friday for San Diego and then to Disneyland until Wednesday. Yes I'm pulling my kids out of school. They are all doing well and this is the time of year we like to go. They are still my children after all!
My other bathroom is all torn up and waiting for the rebuilding to begin, hopefully tomorrow. As for now, we're back to one bathroom for the six of us. Thank God we're leaving for 5 days. At least the hotel room has two bathrooms!lol!

Sleepover

Social Butterfly had a friend sleep over last night and her sleepovers have two requirements:
Brownies for dessert.
Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.
I LOVE sleepovers!lol!

All I Want For Christmas Is...The Clapper???

Yep, you heard it correctly, my 10 year old daughter, The Social Butterfly has decided that all she really needs for Christmas is The Clapper ! She think it will be fun to turn her light back off in the morning when daddy turns it on when he wakes her up. This ought to be interesting...

Well, I'm better

As is The Princess. The middle two are feeling better but were up much of the night so they are home today. The Teenager is fine which leads me to believe that we had food poisoning since he's the only one who didn't eat with us on Tuesday night. Mark is far sicker than the rest of us were. My hubby never takes a sick day, I mean never, but he was up literally all night long vomiting and can not even crawl out of the bed today. The Future Engineer has been terribly worried because daddy never doesn't go to work.

The Princess is having her first bath with the jets in the new tub this morning. I ran the bath for Mark but then he couldn't get up so the girls are in there. Princess is laughing hysterically. It's so fun to listen to!

4 down 2 to go

The Social Butterfly and the Future Engineer are both sick now as well.

So sick

The Princess and I are both ill with some stomach thing. I even called in sick to my daycare parents which I never do. We'll be staying in bed much of the day.

In the school parking lot...

Several people from my church also have kids who attend the same school as my kiddos. One of them yelled at me across the parking lot this morning...

"Hey Marlene, when are you and Karin going to record an album because I really want to buy a copy!"

They like us, they really like us!!

So Tired...

I went to bed at 11 so I should have gotten enough sleep except this happened...

I felt a small body by my feet. Now, three of my four children may come in to my bed on occasion, but not very often anymore, so I wasn't sure who it was and started groping with my foot in the dark to figure out who it was and I felt shoes and socks. Who had on shoes and socks when they went to bed? The two littlest ones were in bed already when I got home but I did check on them and they had pajamas on...So I felt further...A belt? Well that could only be the Future Engineer, but why does he have a belt on? I look over at the clock, it's 1:08. "Ummm...Hey Buddy, why are you all dressed for school?" "Because I didn't want to do it later." He was then up and down for a long time, getting water, going back to his bed, coming back to ours, finally laying on the floor in the little makeshift bed we keep for these occasions. I, of course, could not get back to sleep and tossed and turned and heard annoying songs over and over in my head. Here's hoping for a better night tonight...

Monday Monday

Here we are again...At least it's a short week this week because of Veteran's Day.

We had a good weekend. Friday night was the book fair and family feast at the elementary school. I spent way too much money, as always, at the bookfair, but I did get some Christmas shopping done. One niece and nephew off my list and some stuff for my kiddos as well.
We took the kids to see Chicken Little after that. Very cute movie! During the drive to the movie I was on the phone arguing with Best Buy about my new dishwasher that was supposed to be here this week. Long story short, they screwed up when I ordered and were already having to give me a more expensive dishwasher at no extra cost, but now they've screwed up again effectively delaying my dishwasher an extra 3 weeks! I'll be there when they open this morning.
Saturday was a rehearsal and then a family night minus Mark who was working on the media presentation for Generations. We did steal a few minutes to watch the Wildcats trounce 7th ranked UCLA! We haven't had good football in Tucson in a while but this was fun to watch!

Sunday we had Generations and then went to eat at Nothing But Noodles and then back to church.
Today the kiddos have a football game. They are in an elimination tournament right now. Fun stuff!

I am tired but it was a good weekend and nothing was torn apart in my house so I'm relatively calm!lol!

Flashback Friday:Comfort Food

Head on over to Karin's to join the fun.

Most of my earliest memories revolve around my grandma and the ones to do with food are no different. My grandma was an amazing cook. Everything she made was wonderful, but the real food memories I have of her involved very little to no cooking. I was a very big vegetable eater as was my grandma and one of the things she would make me for lunch whenever I was there was hardboiled eggs with fresh from the garden tomatoes and thousand island dressing. I've tried to eat that on my own, but it never tastes the way I remember it tasting in grandma's kitchen. Whenever all of the cousins were there for lunch she would make everyone peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Again, I can't seem to get the mixture quite right. My grandma did make the absolute best in the world yeast rolls. Unfortunately the recipe was in her head and died along with her. I've tried to duplicate but can't quite get it. One thing that she made so well that I did learn from her was pie crust. My grandma made the best flakiest pie crust ever and she taught me to make it shortly before she died. Pie crust is tricky sometimes, but I followed her instructions exactly and mine tastes just like hers.
My grandpa made some pretty good things as well. We had a ranch in the desert and we visited every weekend. While there my grandpa would make sourdough pancakes with his own homemade prickly pear syrups and jellies. He also made the only mincemeat pie I would ever eat.
My mom was not a cook at all, but there were a few things she made that are still my favorite foods, none of which my family likes so I never get to eat them anymore. My mom made the best Tuna Casserole ever and chicken fried steak as well. And, my favorite meal? hamburger gravy and fried potatoes. It's probably a good thing my kids don't like this stuff because I'd weigh 300 pounds!

There's no one like you...

I was walking by the computer this afternoon and a picture of one of the children popped up on the screen saver and I thought "Gosh I love that kid. He/she is just my favorite right now...Except that so and so is doing this oh, and so and so is doing that and oh, yeah, what about this?" and I came to the realization that today, this minute, all four of them are bringing such joy. It's not always that way. There are times, days or weeks even when one or more of my children is a challenge for me to deal with on a daily basis. There was the struggle with the Teenager a couple of years ago which I honestly thought would tear our family apart. And of course my earlier entry about my Future Engineer and his idiosyncrasies which can be maddening and then there's the Princess and the challenges that being the baby provide and there are times with The Social Butterfly when she is so shy to adults that are hard to deal with. But today? None of that is in my heart. Today I'm thinking about the Teenager and how much he makes me laugh. He has my sarcastic sense of humor and my gosh I must think I'm funny because that boy can make me laugh like no one else. He's also recently started wearing a hat that keeps his hair out of his face since it's rather long right now and I am so in love with that face that I feel like I haven't seen for a year or so. I just keep looking at him and his amazingly big and gorgeous eyes that change colors with the weather or his mood. They go between blue and grey and green. Someone who once drew him said that his eyes were so amazing and that he just couldn't find the right color for those eyes. They are stunning.
and then there's my girl, the SB. She is so kind and compassionate and loving and amazing. And the Best. Big. Sister. Ever. She is so caring and wants to be next to me and do whatever I do, but she also is everything I ever wanted to be. She is strong and athletic and graceful and amazingly beautiful. I am honored to be her mother. Really.
My Engineer is so cuddly. He loves for me to lay with him as he falls asleep. He plays with my hair. He prays every day for everything. He wants to be just like his daddy. He loves buttonup shirts and nice pants. He likes to get dressed up for church. He loves animals and babies and has a really big heart.
and The Princess who is who she is. There's no shushing her. She says what she wants when she wants. She'll talk to anyone anywhere anytime. On her terms only. I fought with her for an hour last night to take some medicine and then when I put her to bed she wrapped those arms around me and looked deep into my eyes with the biggest brown eyes and the longest eyelashes I've ever seen and my heart just melted. She sings all the time. She is the sunshine in my life, truly. She held our family together during the challenges with the teenager and the bond between the two of them is something to behold. The Princess in pink with the 6'3" teenager in black and she can get him laughing like crazy. They have their own little world sometimes and it is beautiful to watch.
So, today is a love affair with all four of them. What will tomorrow bring? I don't know. More of the same I hope, but if not we hang on and muddle through. For today I'm going to go watch my girl cheer for the football team that my teenager coaches and watch the two little ones run and play.
It's a good day.

The Hardest Part

of being a mom for me is that these beings are independent people and sometimes I just don't get them.
The Future Engineer is a 7 year old genius. Okay, maybe not technically, but I don't think there is anyone who knows him who wouldn't say that this kid is beyond his years in the way his brain works. He has been described by his teachers as a deep thinker. His teacher last year said that she always saved his answers to any thoughtful questions for last because she knew whatever he had to say would just be light years beyond the other children. He is interesting and funny and a character, but the flip side of this is that he is obsessive and very much a perfectionist. Yesterday he didn't want to go to school because he had a test and was worried he would miss one. This is a 70 problem test that he takes every week and he always gets 100 but he was worried...To the point that we ended up leaving in a very bad mood because getting him dressed was a major struggle. He cries easily and gets angry easily. I love him very much, but dealing with him lately has been so hard because I don't "get" him. But last night? He wanted to take a bath in the new big tub with the jets. So we filled up the tub and turned it on and left him to it. And I heard him laughing and giggling and making up stories and I peeked in at him and he was being such a little boy...And my heart melted...And I realized that, as annoying as some of his behaviors are to me? Living with his own expectations at 7 years old must be really difficult for him and I need to be gentle with that little soul. He is just a little boy and I love him so.

16 days, 5 hours and some odd minutes

Until the movie comes out. We will be at Disneyland and as the movie is rated PG-13 we will not be able to see it until Thanksgiving weekend, but The Social Butterfly and her daddy and I are all VERY excited!

My Hubby...

Is a gem and I know it, really I do, but he gets EXTRA brownie points for this one...

Last night,when Mike and Karin and Baby Girl were over, Mark and Mike were discussing the other bathroom that we are going to be renovating this month. Mike asked if we wanted marble shelves in this one like in our other bathroom and we said yes. Mark then said that we needed to have a shelf so high and held up his leg to demonstrate. We were all like, Okayyyy...And I said "Why?" and he said "So you can have a place to put your foot when you shave your legs." I am just impressed that he thought of that, because I didn't! Thanks honey!