Tree Climbing Cutie

Aubrey has learned a new trick. She has learned how to climb a tree. She had me come out back and watch this wonderful feat. Then she said, "Mommy go get the camera and take a picture of me". After I took the picture she said, "now all my cousins can see me climbing the tree". I took that to mean that she wanted me to put her picture on the blog. Here she is my little tree climbing cutie.

The Big 4-0

My dear husband turned 40 yesterday. He is officially an old man. He even has the gray hair to prove it. We woke up yesterday morning to find our house had been TP'd and this lovely coffin was on the front porch. Our friend Max and our neighbor Levi are the responsible parties. Steve went golfing with his friend Scott later that day and then I had a B-day party for him. We went out to eat at a restaurant with 6 other couples. It was a lot of fun. Click here to see the pictures. For his b-day the kids and I bought him an x-box 360. Sam, I am sorry you have to learn about it like this, but your x-box doesn't work with the new games. It overheats and freezes. Sorry. So now Steve has his very own. Happy birthday honey. I love you, you old man!

Oh, and my neighbor thought she would be funny. She said to me, "Allyson, I didn't know you were 40!". I have a long way to go 'till I'm 40. Thank you very much!

Feeling Better

I am feeling better. Or I guess I should say I was feeling better. I left the kids with a babysitter this afternoon and went to get waxed. I was going to take Addison with me because I have never left her with a babysitter before, other than my mom or one of my friends. I decided at the last minute that she would probably be ok to leave. She was just fine and wow. For the first time in a long time I went somewhere by myself. I felt much better when I got home. No more blah. I guess there is something about getting all the hair ripped out of your body that is invigorating and rejuvenating. That didn't last too long. You see I thought it would be fun to take the girls to the mall to buy Easter dresses. I have always picked out their Easter dresses by myself. I thought they were getting older and it would be a fun mom/daughter thing to do. Learned my lesson. Taking all 3 girls to the mall. They were pulling every dress off the rack. They loved them all, they wanted them all. Emily's favorites were the immodest ones. Why do they make clothes like that for a little kid in the first place? We were at the mall for a couple of hours and we ended up with 1 dress for Aubrey. So much for that. The best thing? We get to do it all again tomorrow.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH

That's how I feel right now. BLAH! I don't know what my problem is. You know last week I wrote a post titled "Undone". I talked about how I feel like I work and work all day and at the end of the day I have nothing to show for it because it has all been undone. Since then I have come to the conclusion that my life is too cluttered. We have too much going on and we have way too much stuff in our house. The less stuff we have the less to clean up, right. So I have really been doing a good job of going through things room by room and getting rid of as much stuff as possible. Throwing things away has always been one of my favorite pastimes. I love it. It is so freeing. I just don't do it much anymore because I just run out of time at the end of the day. I barely get the stuff done that HAS to be done as it is. So it is going slow because I don't have a lot of time to devote to it. But what I have done makes me feel good and I can tell it does make a difference. I have reminded myself that I need to be more careful about what I let into my house. So much comes in each and everyday and if I am not vigilant in sorting through it and throwing it away, it really stacks up. For instance, Zac and Emily go to school 5 days a week, Aubrey 2. They each bring home at least, AT LEAST 5 papers every day they go to school. That is 60, yes 60 papers a week. If I am really busy one week and don't have time to go through their stuff we have 60 papers floating around the house. Anyway, I have been doing a lot of purging the last little while and it has helped me feel better. But today is just....I don't know. I fell so...I don't know any other way to say it except BLAH. BLAH BLAH BLAH. And it's not because I have been cooped up in my house for too long. The kids and I went to the Children's Museum and spent the day there yesterday and Steve and I went out to dinner last night with friends for his b-day. And I am leaving in a few minutes to go to a waxing appointment. And I was going to take the girls later today to go shopping for Easter dresses. But I really don't feel like doing any of that. I just feel like sitting and doing nothing. Maybe crying. I don't know. It is making me crazy though. I hate feeling this way. I thought writing about it might help, but it hasn't. Oh well. I have too much to do than just sitting her typing away. I have a baby to feed before I have to leave. And laundry to do and dishes to wash and BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.....

Revenge of the Toothbrush

I am getting the girls ready for bed tonight. I am in their bathroom brushing Emily's hair while she is brushing her teeth. She can't find her toothbrush. I find it stuck in the middle of the toilet paper roll on the floor between the sink and the toilet. Emily gets mad and says, "OOOHHH Aubrey! She always does that to my toothbrush". Then in one swift continuous motion she picks up Aubrey's toothbrush, holds it under the soap pump and squirts hand soap on it. She didn't even have time to think it through and I am wondering how she came up with it. It was so funny the way she didn't even hesitate, just acted, that I couldn't help but laugh. I tried to cover it up with a cough but it just turned into an all out belly laugh. Emily looked up at me with her sweet innocent toothless grin and said, "What are you laughing about mommy?"

The Return Of The Cookie Dough Nightmare

Ya know how I had my whole fun experience of collecting and ordering the cookie dough for the PTA fundraiser? Well the nightmare continued today. It was delivered. Kind of. It was supposed to arrive at the school at 8:30 this morning. It was well after 9 before it came. Then the cookie dough man came and said that the double chocolate brownie cookie dough did not come in and it would not be in until tomorrow. Well it's like this. I had all my volunteers there this morning, a good portion of which was spent just sitting around waiting for the truck to arrive. We had to pull each individual child's order and fill it and deliver it to the classrooms. I already had a ton of people calling telling me they were leaving to go out of town because the kids get out of school early tomorrow and don't come back to school until next Tuesday. (it is spring break and it is the stupidest way to do spring break ever). So I already knew we were going to have a problem with people not getting their orders today, let alone tomorrow. And how am I gonna get volunteers to come and help me again tomorrow. And to have to go through the whole ordeal of sorting and delivering again. Please. But what do you do? So we dealt with it. We sent a note home in the orders saying that the double choc. cookies would be coming home tomorrow. Then we start sorting orders and find out that we are missing a ton of stuff. If you read my previous post about the cookie dough you will remember that after I called in the order we realized that we were missing 2 classes orders. I called those in and he said it would be no problem to add them. Well apparently it was a problem because they didn't come with the other order. I called the guy and called him and called him and called him and called him. Finally he answered and apologized and said he would go to the warehouse and pick it up and bring it to us. Can I just tell you how confusing it makes it to be trying to sort orders and have a ton of orders missing stuff? He finally brings that and I am checking what he brought against the list of things we need and he still didn't bring everything. We were still missing 7 CASES! So he said he would bring them tomorrow with the double chocolate. I said uh, no. You will bring it today so it can go home and the only thing we will be missing tomorrow is the choc. whatever. How crazy would that be to try and figure out that mess?! Please. So he went back to get that and brought it this afternoon. And as people started picking up orders, problems started rollin' in. People were missing things, they had the wrong stuff, there was one lady whose child's order wasn't even there. So I got out my copies of the orders and we had nothing ordered for her kid. She found the order form and $ in the kids backpack. I am scared to wake up tomorrow and find out what other problems we have. Seriously. Scared. Not to mention the fact that I kind of had other stuff I need to take care of tomorrow morning before my kids are out of school for 5 days. My friend who was PTA president last year said they were dealing with problems with orders for weeks after. FUN! What in the heck was I thinking???? Gettin' myself into a mess like this.

Evil, Like The Fruits Of The Devil

That is a quote from one of my favorite movies. Anybody know what it's from? I am talking about Thin Mints. Evil! I told myself last year I was not going to make the same mistake and buy a ton of Girl Scout cookies this year. But then I thought, Thin Mints are my most very favorite ever and I will put them in the freezer in my garage and they can last me a long time. Yeah right. They are so yummy. And the best way to eat them is frozen so keeping them in my freezer is no deterrent. And the biggest problem with them is their size. They are just the right size to pop the whole thing right in your mouth. Thankfully Aubrey and I just opened the last box after lunch today. I won't tell you how many boxes I bought...

Undone

I have a question for all of you stay at home mom's. All three of you who are the only one's who will be reading this anyway. Do you ever get tired of feeling like you never accomplish anything? Now don't get all,"you're doing the most important job", or "your raising the next generation", 'cause that's not what I mean. Let me start off by first saying that I LOVE being a stay at home mom. I would NOT trade it for anything. I would HATE to have to leave my kids and go to a job somewhere. And I am EXTREMELY grateful for my DEAR (and ever so loving) husband who works so very hard so that I can be a stay at home mom. It's just that I feel like everything I spend all day doing just gets undone constantly. There isn't anything that I do that just stays done. I bathe the kids. That is just going to have to be done again tomorrow. I clean the kitchen, that lasts about 5 minutes. I do the laundry. There are 6 of us wearing clothes so even if I get everything washed there are still six complete outfits that are just waiting to hit the bottom of my empty laundry hamper. I clean the bathrooms, doesn't last. Sweep, mop, dust, vacuum. You name it, I do it and then I turn around after doing all day and guess what??? It is all undone. I feel like I am constantly fighting a losing battle. If there was just one thing in my life that I could do that would just stay done and I never had to go back and do it again, that would just be really nice. I know I shouldn't complain. I have a good life. Ok, I have a near perfect life. I should be grateful that I have a kitchen to clean and a working toilet to clean and clothes to wash and kids that are healthy enough to make a mess. Now I feel really bad for complaining. Anyway, I was just wondering if I am the only one who feels this way.

People Please

I am begging you. Please stop voting for Sanjaya! Honestly. I am an American Idol junkie and I can usually guess correctly who is going home. I knew Chris would go home tonight but I thought that Sanjaya would at least be in the bottom 3. I couldn't believe it when they said he wasn't. My kids really like the Kid Bop CD's, which drive me crazy, but I think Sanjaya would be perfect for something like that. But not the American Idol. Come on! Enough is enough. There it is, I have said my peace. My personal favorite: BeatBoxin' Blake.

Lunch Time Dilemma

Don't tell anyone, but it is 12:45 in the afternoon here and Aubrey and Addison and I are still in our PJ's. I really am not a lazy person, just read 3 posts down and you will see. I am just lazy today. Because I choose to be. But anyway. We are hungry, Aubrey and I, and we don't know what we want for lunch. I hate having to decide what to eat 3 times a day, day in and day out. It seriously get on my nerves sometimes. Like now. Nothing that we have sounds good. And everything that sounds good, we don't have. And we obviously can go to the store because we are in our pajamas. One of my favorite things to eat for lunch is a spinach egg white omelet. But I don't have any spinach. So I spot some bacon in the fridge and think a BLT would be really good right now. But I don't have lettuce or tomatoes. We will probably end up eating soup because that is almost always what we end up eating but I am bored with soup. So I just stand at my kitchen counter eating chex mix left over from our weekend trip. Frosted Mini Wheats sounds good but I had that for breakfast. Not like that has ever stopped me before. I ate it constantly when I was pregnant will all my kids. They are practically made up of frosted mini wheats. Well, this isn't helping. I better go figure something out.