Such a blog moment

I had no problems making our annual Halloween trip up to the grocery store for pumpkins. None at all. Then my friend Adrienne made our family her charity case and insisted on us accompanying her and her husband and five kids to Green Bluff to do the whole pumpkin thing. I am so glad we did! Aside from the pumpkins in the pick-your-own field being complete mush from the freezing temps, everyone had a blast! The kids played in the hay maze, we watched a few pumpkin (half mile!) launches, got some Christmas card picture attempts in, the kids rode in the ginormous wheelbarrow (thanks Trevor), picked out some apples, and we got to spend time with friends. Good times! We haven't done the carving yet - probably today or tomorrow. Should be fun. Oh - and Murphy hasn't decided what he wants to be yet (a tree? a builder?) so we'll have an interesting few days before the two Halloween parties and trick-or-treating!!

Another one bites the dust....

Another basal cell carcinoma removed this morning. An "impressive tumor" as the doctor called it...because it "skipped" - meaning it wasn't one tumor, but many many little ones in a cluster. Lovely. Let's just say I'm in pain right now. Good thing I live next door to my doctor. She hooked me up with some Vicodin for bedtime. The bad news: I can only lay on my left side to sleep because of my headaches when I'm on my right side or flat on my back. I can't win.

And speaking of dust...our basement is a week closer to being a fully functional bedroom, laundry room, living room/playroom!!! And we have white dust over EVERYTHING right now from the man cutting concrete for a egress windows. So exciting though! Pictures to come soon!

Halloween

Well, I must admit...you probably won't be seeing any fanciful, autumnal pictures of my family going to the pumpkin patch this season. Chances are we'll get those orange things from Super One foods. It's all good. The kids will, after all, still have a Halloween. They'll just tell our favorite checker thank you for the pumpkins instead of some farmer! At least I "decorated" the house this year! Like - actually decorated. Not just put up the kids' Halloween artwork from school...

Back in the swing of things

I had a great trip back east for an old friend's wedding. Not an old friend. A friend I have had for 18 years. It was great. Great to see her, her now husband, her family, Philly...it's been some time since I've been there. We drove by my old house and neighborhood. A ton of memories came back to me. Things look so much the same - only updated and more congested. It really was a fun trip!

Now I'm back to the daily grind around these parts. School, kids' school, yoga, Pilates, appointments, swimming, clinic, grocery shopping...the fun continues. And I have to add hand-washing to that list. I am determined to not get sick. I am determined to not have any sick kids. Cross fingers. You know it's bad when the kids' pediatrician himself has H1N1!

Off to get ready for clinic. Here's my schedule for the day!
Take GA to school
Clinic
The babysitter is going to take Murphy and Millie to soccer (I hate when the kids miss things and soccer falls at the exact same time as our rescheduled clinic date)
Pick up GA
Lunch
Murphy's yoga
Run w/ stroller while GA rides her bike (she says she feels like such a big kid!!)
Pick up Murph
Get dinner ready
GA's yoga
Music store for GA's violin book
Pick up GA
Eat dinner (hope it's good)
Tubbies
SLEEP*

All in a day's work

*Millie has been in her big girl bed a few days now. She's done well, only after the second time of her waking up I move in there with her. Let's just say the two of us sharing a flat pillow on a twin bed isn't conducive to a comfortable sleep! Tonite: she's alone. She doesn't even wake up when she's whining in the middle of the night. She's just used to having my pacify her back to sleep. She'll get it...

And the #1 reason I need a four day trip back east alone....

Last night I threw my cell phone into a bag and was tying it up until Trevor notified me it was not in fact the poopy diaper.

Oh how I love these kids

They are so easily entertained. After half an hour of reading library books, Murphy decided to eat his lunch and watch Olivia. Georgia, still reading, is watching Olivia. Apparently Millie wasn't so entertained. Or hungry.

Just another way to waste time!

My friend Amie told me about picnik.com. Could quite possibly be my newest obsession. Makes OK pictures look great. And I have been using Picasa for picture sharing, etc. forever, but just learned from Sarah all the tricks you can use it for...like my banner. So fun!

And now that I have approximately three hours before my power point presentation, I better stop with the photo stuff and prep!!!

Oh George

The kids are out back playing and I hear Murphy say, "Georgia, open the garage!" to which she replies "I'm not opening anything until I hear that magic word!"

I had a potential babysitter come up to meet us/see if she was cut out for the task (which she was!), and we were in the office/playroom chit-chatting when I hear, "Mommy, the trash in the kitchen is really full!" I said it was OK and that I'd get to it in a bit. Georgia says, "It's OK, I am doing it." I hear rustling of plastic bags, the back door open and more rustling and when I checked, she emptied the trash like a pro! Can we say daily job!? I told the sitter she was five going on 15 and she said "Actually more like five going on 25 because I don't know a 15 year old who would've done that."

This morning I made cinnamon rolls (don't get too excited...they were the twist-them-out-of-the-package and pop-'em-in-the-oven kind. I went upstairs to wake the kids up for school and I say, "Georgia! Time to get up. Can you smell the yummy cinnamon rolls?" (Because they really do make the entire house smells amazing). She says "All I can smell is my nasty breath!" Oh George.

Yummy and easy dinner idea!

On my neverending quest to find dinners to (1) prepare ahead, (2) appeal to everyone's taste buds, and (3) make my life easier, I have come across this:


www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/colorful-chicken-alfredo.html
Try it! You'll like it!

And in the Crock Pot for tonight: http://memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com/2008/10/tortilla-chilli.html

And can anyone tell me how to add a link so you can just click and not have the URL written out? Help! :0)

What to do?

What do you do with a smart kid? She says she wants to just skip kindergarten. Says she corrected her reading buddy...come to find out her ready buddy is in 3rd grade. Should I have put her in full day Catholic or half day public? My friend told me (from experience with her son) kindergarten will be easy regardless of where she goes, and would I rather have her bored half day or full day? She comes home yesterday, looks at me and say, "the letter of the week is 'c.' I've known the letter 'c' forever." I know school is a great place for social growth, and that is what she is getting out of it. I almost want her to start having behavior problems from being bored in school. Then maybe she'd catch the teacher's attention. I am going to go in and talk to the teacher...who at this point (2 weeks in) I'm not thrilled with. Sort of dry, not interested in making an effort to talk, etc. I need an answer. What do I do with her? I have been told "you don't want get her too far ahead" grade wise. Why the heck not?! The kid is a sponge. She asks me to teach her things. Maybe it's just that she is off to an early start and she'll be average once the other kids catch up. That's totally possible. For right now, however, I want to challenge her like she wants to be challenged. It's her personality. Completely different from mine and Trevor's...don't know where she comes from. If she didn't look like me I would say she wasn't really my child. What kid thinks going to the library is like Disneyland? Mine. And when we get home I don't see her for an hour because she is upstairs reading the 20 books we checked out. The nice thing is this is rubbing off on Murphy too!

Anyways...suggestions?!?!????

Next project

UPDATE:
I got the "entertainment center." It's sitting in the garage. Once I finish painting the bookshelf that's sitting in front, I will start on the "kitchen!" If only weekends came around more often...
Mission:
From this (which I found for $10 on Craigslist...and haven't even bought yet...):

To (hopefully something that resembles) this:

Sutton Grace: a repurposed entertainment center

Down Time

I feel like the only time I sit down throughout the day is to check facebook...I mean....

I remember the days when Georgia was little and she would sleep (and we're talking really little because she gave up napping shortly after her first birthday) and I would watch a show or two. I could get through the whole episode uninterrupted and actually comprehend the storyline. I would watch Law & Order shows, CSIs, even pop in a movie from Netflix and enjoy. These days I am not so lucky. I have been reduced to having the following shows as my DVR constants:
1. Chelsea Lately. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. She is incredible. One of the only people that I can watch and literally laugh out loud. However, there are two short round table discussions and one guest interview. Easily fast-forwardable.

2. House Hunters. I used to sit and enjoy seeing a couple in search of the perfect home go through their each of their three choices, listing details about each, referring to the houses as "Pricey, big backyard" or "Small, great commute." Now I fast forward through the entire program until the last approximately six minutes, when Suzanne Whang lists the highlights of each home, and the couple says, "The house we chose is...." and leaves me in suspense for roughly 4.6 seconds until their answer is revealed. Frankly, I just like to see the before and after pictures since they moved in. Secretly, I love it when they move in to the house and three months later nothing at all has been changed, because it's lame when they show major renovations having taken place because you know the couple did all the work because they didn't want to look lame on national television.
3. House Hunters International. See above.

4. Design Star.

5. Project Runway (when it's actually on).

6. Rachel Ray. I used to watch her 30 Minute Meals show on the Food Network and love her. Then she started with her own talk show and bugged big time. Somehow, however, and possibly because it's my mission to get two things under control as my job as a mom/wife/cleaning lady/chauffeur/grocery shopper-all while pushing a fricken car cart- extraordinaire: making dinners easy and well thought out so I can say "Yep! It's Tuesday night! We're having Sage-Butter Gnocchi!!" and not "Crap. Is there another Pillsbury pizza crust in the fridge so we can make BBQ pizza?" only to hear "Mom! We just had that last night!" to which I reply "No, no, no we had Thai Peanut pizza last night." I digress. The second thing I have a mission to conquer is laundry, but that's another story. So, somehow RR fits into this mess. She still bugs, but has some great recipes (which reminds me - I need to order replacement ink cartridges so I can print some of those bad boys off).

7. Ellen. Gotta love her, although I find myself fast-forwarding through all but the guests (provided they are worthwhile viewing material. If not, d-e-l-e-t-e).

8. Oprah (I check the info on the listing before deleting prior to watching - has to be a decent description of what's to come otherwise I don't bother).

9. Martha (see above). Plus, most of her recipes are too hard core for my beginner skills.

Pretty much Design Star and Project Runway are the only shows that I watch from beginning to end, sans commercials of course. And I do this from the comfort of my own bed while Millie snores next to me and poor Trevor, adorned with a pillow over his head, tries to rest up for his 6-6 job. This, my friends, is what I have been reduced to.

And don't get me started on magazines. I love Better Homes and Gardens because it has great ideas on, well, home and garden stuff. Martha Stewart Living and Real Simple never did me wrong either. A Women's Health thrown in the pile on top of a Glamour which somehow I started receiving, and some House Beautiful installments and the pile to my right comes up to just beneath my shoulder. I'll get to them eventually. Until now, the glossies are adding some color and height to my desk! And the good/bad news? It's magazine drive time at the schools, and I told my favorite neighbor kids I would order a People! At least I get it look at the pictures, not read the articles! I can make it through, cover to cover, in under 7 minutes.

One day I will get a better grasp on time management and getting everything accomplished during the day to leave me some down time (other than at 10pm when visions of sugarplums are dancing in everyone else's head but mine). That day won't involve a sleepless toddler or supervising scooter races down the driveway or listening to violin "Gee gee gee. Screech. Cee cee cee. Screeeeech." My solution for now? MORE COFFEE in the mornings after my late night dates with Chelsea Handler or Heidi Klum!

Overwhelmed??

I seriously have a lot on my plate right now. School for GA, Murph, me, yoga for GA and Murph, Pilates for me, soccer for Murph, singing for GA (with her best buddies!), swimming for GA and Murph, possibly tumbling...I realize a lot. First, Millie doesn't get to do anything! Ha. No, I realize I need to make more time for Trevor! And for me. And for grocery shopping...while pushing a NORMAL cart, not one of those fricken car carts that the kids go crazy over. They add ten minutes to the shopping trip because I have to do 39 point turns to get out of an aisle! I digress.

Murphy, Millie and I went on a walk and ended at his yoga class at 10:00. Only we were the only ones there because...well Smarty Pants....yoga is at 1:00 for Murphy. 4:00 for GA. SOCCER is at 10:00 NEXT week for Murphy. "Get a calendar" you are probably thinking. I have one. I have two as a matter of fact. Doesn't matter. I have officially turned in to THAT lady once again. That lady who forgets to pick up her kid from band camp.

Yet I keep doing it to myself. I just started my class at GU and am going to love it. I love the feeling I get when I'm in school. Like there are new beginnings all over the place. So much to learn, so many cool people to meet. I feel responsible. Then I go home and feel the same way. There have been times when I am bored. I hate being bored. I make it so I am not bored often. When I am bored I am thinking of the things I should/could/ought to do. When my schedule is full I just...DO. I do things. I get things done. Kids get where they need to get (even if it's three hours early). In the long run - who cares!? Who cares that Georgia put together her school ensemble and looked like a Mormon (nothing against Mormons - just not a current trend in Glamour magazine). Or that Millie throws an arch-back temper tantrum at the grocery store because I helped in her in the cart, when in fact she wanted out only to get back in herself. If things were perfect, they'd be boring. And I don't like boring.

Camera Fixed!

It is so nice to have my camera back in action! I felt lost without it! I took some fun pictures of our walk/bike around the block. Hard to believe summer is winding down and the biking days are numbered!

Mason at daycare!!

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