Thursday, July 30, 2009

What I should be doing

I have a list of things to do, a long list I might add. In fact, I've gone completely off the deep end and have decided to knit gifts for a LOT of people this Christmas. I know, it's only July, but knitting takes a long time! There's the laundry, the dishes, picking up dog poop (everyone's favorite, I'm sure), feeding my children, the list goes on and on and on and on and on, you get the idea.

Instead, I have been perusing the internet for the last hour. An hour! Of sitting and doing nothing but staring at a computer screen. At first I was outside, but then G wanted to watch Iron Giant (be proud, we've graduated from Car Guy). Sitting and checking my internet, blogging, which as you can see, I apparently don't have too much time for.

So, I am going to commit. I will do the things on my to do list, and blog about them. I will tend the garden - where the plants are being dwarfed by the weeds that I CANNOT pay my son to pull. And believe me, I've tried. There is knitting, and sewing, and cooking. I will blog and take pictures and everything. You will all be so proud. So, keep checking in, it will get more interesting I'm sure.

Of course, there are always stories about my children...

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Spoiled Milk

So, the past couple of days have been interesting. It stared when my husband S, had breakfast yesterday morning. It started out just like every other day with s and is convinced hredded wheat and milk. Well, then everything went sour. Ha! So, the milk was spoiled, and yet he ate it anyway. And now he's sick. Now, he did notice that it tasted funny, but he thought it was the shredded wheat, or something.

So, then my son, M had some cereal, and milk. Yay.

Then, S starts to get a tummy ache and blames it on the milk. I just assumed that he was joking around. Well, it turns out that he wasn't. He whined and whined and went to be early. I went running with L and Queue.

I awoke this morning to a son that was puking away in the loo. Ewww! So, I cleaned him up and put him back to bed. Then, he was puking some more. More yay... Well, h started feeling better, but he still hasn't eaten a real meal yet.

Didn't I say the other day that there's never a dull moment at our house? Case in point...

Friday, July 17, 2009

Longing for a Dull Moment

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have a dull moment. I was talking with our nanny yesterday, and jokingly said that we never have a dull moment around here. She agreed - every day is something new.

The lastest not dull moments involve lice. Yes, you read correctly, lice. Creepy, crawly, egg laying, multiplying, disgusting little lice.

M had lice a couple of years ago. We bought him a new snowboarding helmet, and we're pretty sure the little buggers were hiding in there. Anyhow, they were everywhere, it involved a lot of combing. I thought that it was terrible, because his hair was pretty long (for a boy, you know).

Well, it's gotten even more exciting... In addition to M's new case of lice, L now has lice. Her hair is thick, and down to the middle of her back - almost to her waist. AAAAHHHHH! The washing, and combing, and using tweezers to get little teeny tiny nits that will not come off with the comb. Speaking of combs, who designs these things? The ones that come with the treatment are terrible, so when M had lice, I bought a different set, which works better, but still doesn't get the teeny tiny nits. So I use tweezers instead. It's quite laborious. Quality time with the kids though, right???

So, today I stayed home from work to wash and comb my children's hair and do lice laundry. I am now excellent at both. Great skills. :-) Hopefully you never, ever have to deal with lice. It is terrible!

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Car Guy

Car Guy, who is Car Guy, you ask??? Lightning McQueen - according to Disney. To G, it's just Car Guy. He is the bain of my existence. While I love Disney, and I do love the movie Cars, I cannot take it anymore. G has figured out that watching Cars is the best thing EVER, and we watch it everytime we watch TV. When someone wants to watch something else, G screams, and throws a fit and bellows "No!!! Car!!! Guy!!!".

It's been an obsession since the middle of May, and at first it was a great distraction. I could, for example, take a shower and dry my hair and put on makeup - UNINTERRUPTED!!! Or, I could cook dinner, without holding a toddler. What bliss! But now, the little one has become more demanding. I must sit next to him and WATCH Car Guy. I can, for short durations, sneak off to do something else, like go to the bathroom, or get a binky, or get Master G a snack. But, he comes to find me if I take too long and states simply "Mom, Car Guy." Okay, I say, and we wander downstairs to watch Car Guy. If I try to sing along to the songs, he puts his hand on my mouth and shushes me. So I tried lip syncing to see what he would do, and that was also unacceptable. We may need to work a bit on a certain someone getting his way.

So, G now has Car Guy underpants (newly purchased as incentive to actually use the toilet), Car Guy cups, and Car Guy pull ups. But, he also has Toy Story pull ups. Now, some nights I can put those on him, as long as he doesn't notice. But, if he does notice, he demands we switch to Car Guy. And the sucker that I am, I make the switch.

This weekend, we were able to venture out of the box and watch - you won't believe it - The Incredibles. (We are a family of Disney freaks, I tell you.) He actually watched about half of it before demanding to watch Car Guy. And now, we are watching Toy Story, but only because he knows those are the guys on his pull ups, and he finally conceded. We're 20 minutes in, and no mention of Car Guy yet...

Friday, July 10, 2009

Dogs, Dogs...

The last few days have been crazy. I'm not sure why, but crazy... After the painting was done, we (and by we, I mean S), worked on the closet in our bedroom. He did lots of demo, but then my sister (A) and her friend (K), came into town. I convinced Scott to go boating instead of working on the house. Now, considering that we've been working on our basement remodel, I'm not sure that redirecting a motivated husband was the best idea, but boating was super fun. We managed to flip a three person tube over multiple times. My leg still hurts from hitting the water. Sadly, there is no bruise as proof that it actually hurts, but it does.

Monday and Tuesday were relatively uneventful, but Scott did work on the closet. Progress... We had lights in the closet and the sconces up on our bedroom walls by Tuesday night. Woo hoo!

Then, Wednesday, I was a little overzealous. My horseback riding instructor's birthday was on Tuesday, and since our regularly scheduled lesson is Wednesday, I made cupcakes. I might, have a teeny, tiny obsession with cupcakes. They are the most adorable, perfect packages of cake and FROSTING (this is the entire reason I eat cupcakes) that they are just the right thing for a celebration. They were Snickerdoodle Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's website. And, they were delicious. Little bites of bliss, I say!!! (Here's a link to the recipe, hopefully I'm allowed to do that and not violate too many copyrights: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/snickerdoodle-cupcakes?lnc=98d20356c0041210VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&backto=true&backtourl=/our-best-cupcakes?lnc=98d20356c0041210VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&rsc=slideshow_food_our-best-cupcakes&contentid=ff6442b4fa881210VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD#slide_7 ).

The cupcakes were a hit, and my family was excited because they actually got some. Usually I make yummy snacks and cart them off to work, much to the dismay of my daughter. And, I found out that G (our two year old), can say cupcake. It sounds like "stuck", but it is cupcake, and be damned if you tell him that he can't have one. The screaming ensues and there is stomping and hitting. It's not pretty... Sadly, I failed to take a picture of the cupcakes, along with Ed, the horse I ride. I haven't quite figured out the picture taking part of blogging yet.

Thursday I took our puppy, Queue out for a run. We went two miles, which I figured would just get her more excited, but she was tired afterwards. It was great! Usually after a 4 mile bike ride, she takes a 20 minute nap and is ready to go again. But on Thurs, she just came home and passed out on the couch. Yay!!!

Tonight, we had a puppy play date with a friend at work. She is watching another co-worker's dog while she is on vacation and the puppy seems to have developed a taste for books, asthma medicine (I think just getting into the package of meds, not actually ingesting any), and pretty much everything else that he's not supposed to. So, we got the puppies together in hopes that it would wear Jake out. I'll get the full report on Monday, but here's hoping. Oh - and Queue only escaped once from the office property (there was an employee still in the office that didn't realize the dogs were out there and opened the gate). It gave me quite a scare.

So here's hoping this weekend is relaxing, although I have quite a list of activities planned - repainting a mirror, cleaning house, finishing all of the weeding in the flowerbeds, grocery shopping... This is not sounding like the most relaxing of weekends. Maybe the next one...

Monday, July 6, 2009

Painting

Yay! The painting is done!!!

Since we had a long weekend due to the 4th of July holiday, I convinced Scott we should repaint the main living area of the upstairs of our house. Boy was it a job. The main area consists of the living room, dining room, kitchen and hallway. Also, I thought we should paint the stairway that leads to the basement. Well, that part didn't get done (all of the way, it is primed...). But, the great news is that we got everything else done. Woohoo!!!

We got the paint a year ago, yes, you read correctly - a YEAR ago! There was a guy at work that knew a friend that was opening a paint shop. For an entire weekend, he could give away as much paint as he could mix. The good news is that we got about 15 gallons of paint, enough for all of the rooms upstairs and our bedroom downstairs. The bad news is that the paint is terrible (this might be an understatement) to use. So, instead of just priming and painting one coat, we got to prime and paint two coats. In the 100 degree heat, with limited air conditioning. (We have a window unit, but it just can't keep up when it's that hot out). So, it was quite a job. The good news now is that it's done and looks great. Below is a pic:



Now for some decorating... Finally...

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Beginning

Well, I've thought many times that I should start a blog. Not because I'm extraordinarily interesting, but because it's a good place to document our crazy life. For example, as I type this, our youngest son, G, is attempting to convince me that I should let him play in our boat - by himself and is trying is hardest to figure out how to climb inside. Our dogs are barking and playing chase along the fenceline with our neighbor's dog, and will not stop. But, such is life.

Anyway, originally, I was going to start dogski. Dogski was intended to be about just that - skiing with dogs. I'll pick it back up this winter, with fun posts, stories and pics, but for now it will lie dormant. There is also another reason - we lost one of our puppies in January - the height of skiing season. I just didn't have the heart to write about it, so it sat...

Then, I am such a procrastinator, I just couldn't find a good time to start just a generic blog, like this one. Every week there was an excuse - not good enough material, not enough time, better things to do (the dishes and laundry are still waiting for me...). So I decided that July 1 would be the day. Then, I almost forgot to post! Hah! That would have knocked me back another month. Good thing for random thoughts (something I am excellent at). Ironically, in the last few weeks, we've had quite an interesting time of it. The awning blew off of our travel trailer during a freak windstorm, our children thought they would make the rope swing on our trailer harder to climb, so they cut the bottom of the ropes. Yes, our crazy expensive Rainbow playset. S & I could not believe it. It took a while to calm down from that one.

So hopefully the funny children stories will abound and the material for the blog will be easy to find. We'll see!