Refund, Please...

To Whom It May Concern:

Because I feel like this today:

I am requesting a refund for the whole day!

It all started around 2:30 this morning when Nathaniel woke me up for my nightly wake up call. I did what I usually do when I get this call. I get him a bottle, we snuggle up on the couch until he falls back to sleep and then I put him back in his bed. This morning it took about a half hour for that scene to play out.

After I put Nate back in his bed, I go to the little ladies room (Thanks to #5, it's a nightly ritual as well - I still love you though). While in the ladies room I hear Eric say, "Go back to bed." Which means that Nathaniel has ONCE AGAIN escaped from the confines of his bed and room. I spend a few extra minutes in the ladies room until I am sure Nathaniel has exited the room.

When I get out of the ladies room, I listen for a minute and all is quiet, so I climb back into bed. I try to sleep, but you know it is sometimes a fruitless effort being pregnant. So around 3:30, I hear something going on in the kitchen. I think that one of the dogs is getting into something, so I go to see what's up.

I get into the kitchen and see Shaylyn getting Nate another bottle...I tell Shaylyn thanks for the help and tell her to get back to bed since it is a school night. I try to snuggle with Nate again, but he will not have it. He is just so ornery...So, because I haven't had a lot of sleep and feel a headache coming on, I take him to bed with me.

For the next 2 1/2 or 3 hours, he sleeps very restlessly. At times talking (mumbling), other times crying, and sometimes just not holding still. He is just not sleeping well and so neither do I. Around 6:00 he finally settles down and we get some sleep. I only get about an hour of sleep before the older kids wake up. I stay in bed though as they can fend for themselves.

I am aware of the older kids as I drift in and out of conciousness. At one point when I "wake up" I realize it's time to do Shaylyn's hair, but I should probably go to the potty again...So, just as I'm coming out of the bathroom I hear the front door close. Apparently Tanis & Shaylyn decided to leave for school early, which means my daughter most likely looks like an orphan. It doesn't occur to me to run to the door and call them home either, instead I just crawled back in bed.

A bit later, Nathaniel wakes up. He is actually in a good mood and plays with Lex for a good part of the morning. I do my usual "computer" stuff while they are playing so that I am aware of when it's time for Lex to go to school.

When 12:30 hits, I tell Lex to go. He wanted to ride a scooter so he went out the door to the garage and out the garage. A few minutes later, I hear violent wind and when I go check the door to the garage, it was still open. So I close the garage and the door and lie back down. A few minutes later, I hear violent rain. I check the time and it's time for Kindergarten to start, so I relax.

Now, for whatever reason - maybe about a half hour later - I am in the kitchen and decide to check if there are really any new messages on the phone or if they are all old. Well there are 2 new messages. The first one is from the vice principal - one of those prerecoreded messages that every parent in the school gets and it was about something I'm not even going to pretend to care about.
The next message is from Lex's school teacher asking me something to the effect of, "Did Alex make it to school today. A few kids said they saw him riding his scooter, but he's not here. Call me back, but I'll call your cell as well." (Just for the record, I never heard either phone ring)

Just as I'm ready to freak out that my 5 year old never got to school, the phone rings again. It was Lex's teacher and she said that she found him. He got caught in the major downpour and the vice principal caught him and took him to the nurse's office so that he could get out of his drenched clothes and get into some warm clothes. I breathed a sigh of relief and asked the teacher if he needed his own clothes. She said it would probably be nice.

Well I hadn't gotten ready for the day, so I took a quick shower. Then, while I was cleaning my contacts to put them in, I broke one in half! So, I had to resort to using my glasses (which, by the way, are the wrong prescription and probably have been for 5 years) and I HATE glasses. There is a reason one of my very first 'real' paychecks went towards contacts. So for the next couple days I get to wear glasses that I can barely see out of and which cause me headaches.

So, I figure the day couldn't get much worse...and it was okay for a bit. Nathaniel finally took a nice nap and I was able to watch a show from last night in peace. But, when Nathaniel decided to wake up - it was hell.

Nathaniel spent a good hour or so, just screaming. I don't know why. Sometimes he is just that ornery and nothing can calm him down. And just about the time he decides to calm down and go downstairs to play with his siblings, he falls down the stairs! Luckily he is fine - but the screaming starts up again!!!

So, please can I have a refund on this day and start it again around midnight, where Nathaniel actually stays asleep all night???? That's not too much to ask for right?

Sincerely,
Eager For Some Real Sleep

P.S. I think I should also get credit for not complaining about the rain....besides the fact that my kid got caught in it...

What Happens Next...

Weekend Fun

So, this past weekend we took a semi-impromtu trip to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. I say semi-impromtu as we only planned to go the week before.

As I explained last year, my family goes to Lava every other year, with my grandparents taking the other years. Well, this year my grandparents decided they weren't going to go and asked my mom and dad to go instead.

Eric and I didn't think we would go at first as we had decided we wanted to visit Eric's grandparents in Nebraska this summer, instead. Well this was before Eric got his new job and all of that fun stuff. It was then decided that we probably wouldn't be able to get to Nebraska since Eric wouldn't have enough time off. (We may still try to pull the cat out of the hat - but that's yet to be decided)

So, I asked Eric if he thought we could maybe do Lava, just for the weekend. Since he has Friday's off, I figured we could leave on Friday and come home Sunday night. I also decided to keep it a secret from the kids. That was a hard task because at least one of our kids really enjoys Lava and I knew he'd be excited.

FRIDAY MORNING APRIL 2

I wake up bright and early at 6:30. I had some last minute stuff to do and I wanted to be gone by about 9, so that we could be at the rental house around noon, like I told the owner. The kids were a bit confused about why I was up and ready when they were, but I let them think it was just an odd day.

We had breakfast and did all the usual morning routine stuff - cleaning the house, getting ready for school, etc. All the while, I let the kids think they were heading to school.

Around 8:00, I called the school to let them know that the kids wouldn't be going to school that day. Shaylyn overheard and said, "This is the best day ever!" At this point the kids were under the assumption that I was letting them stay home so that we could dye eggs. HAHAHA...So not a reason to keep them home.

I then start packing up the last minute things and tell the kids to get their pillows and blankets. They then figure that we are going somewhere and keep asking, where, where, where? I tell them, "We are STAYING somewhere we've never STAYED before." So that I didn't have to lie to them.

We leave the house around 9:30 and Eric decides he wants to stop at Fanzz to use some gift cards he got at Christmas time. We stop at the Gateway around 10 and are finished by about 10:30. We are then on the road.

The kids still aren't sure where we are headed, but they are excited. When we get into Idaho and see the Idaho sign, Shaylyn is sure she knows where we are headed. We just tell her we are headed to a pink house called Wayfarer's Rest. She had no idea what that meant.

We finally get on the small stretch of road that leads to Lava and on this road there is a "wishing bridge." Lex pipes in and says, "I know we're going to Lava because of the wishing bridge."

Our game was pretty much up, but we still kept quiet until we actually pulled into Lava. The kids were so excited and I was glad to finally be there.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON

Because my parents and little sisters family wouldn't be arriving until later Friday night, I decided that we would dye eggs to pass some time. I had to pray that the little store in Lava would have vinegar as we didn't have any to take with us. At first, I couldn't find it but after a second look through, I found it.

So we head back to our rental house and start dying eggs. It didn't take nearly as long as I thought it might. I guess the kids were just too excited to take their time and whatnot.

It's a good thing dye is non toxic. Nate thought he should taste it, thus the look on his face.

Lex's Eggs on Left, Nate & Mommy's Eggs on Right

Tanis' Eggs on the Left, Shaylyn's on the Right

After I got the mess cleaned up from the dye, Eric and I decided to head into Pocatello to see if we could find a game store and to get some dinner. We checked out the mall first, and found nothing. We then try to find a store that Eric had found through his phone that was listed. We drove around and around and just couldn't find the store.

We decided to just forget about it and get dinner and then we'd head back. So we stopped in at a Pizza Hut. While we were eating Eric decides to try and look again for a game store somewhere in Pocatello. Well, he finds one and after we are done eating we go in search of it. We find it, only it has closed down in the meantime.

We then decide to just go to KMart and see if they have any games we don't have. We spend way too much time and money on some games and then head back to Lava. By this time Eric is exhausted and just wants to go back to the house and take it easy for the rest of the night. I, however wanted to go visit with my parents who had finally arrived in Lava. So, Eric took the kids and went back to the house and I went to visit with my parents for a bit. I stayed long enough to welcome my little sis and her family and to make plans to meet up around 11 the next morning.

SATURDAY - APRIL 3

We get up on Saturday morning and get everyone ready to meet up with the rest of my family. We get to my parents condo around 11:30 and it's decided that we will stop at a Subway for lunch and discuss further plans.

The kids really wanted to go to this Outer Limits place that we went to last year with the black lit golf. The adults really had no ideas, so Outer Limits it was. The kids and a few of the adults mini golfed and Grandpa went shopping at a thrift shop next door.

What a difference a year makes: last year Lex didn't want to go near this Dino.

After the mini golf, no one knew what to do. So because no one could make any type of decision - Eric and my brother in law took the kids back to Lava to play games while my parents, little sister, Lex and I went to Walmart to get lunch for Sunday.

I hate grocery shopping with anyone. I just want to get in and get out, but that doesn't work so well when I am with my mom. It took an hour or so to get what we wanted and then we stood in the checkout line for who knows how long.

When we got back to Lava we decided to head to dinner at a restaurant there. The rest of the family then decided they were going to go to the big hot pools. Well, I didn't know that I wanted to go. Eric was adamant that he wasn't going to go (since it was SNOWING), and since I couldn't get in all the way - I wasn't sure I wanted to go either.

It ended up not making a difference anyway because I started feeling yucky anyway. So, we spent the night just relaxing. I did feel bad for the kids, however, cause I think a big part of what they love about Lava is going to the hot pools. But what else was I supposed to do? We called it a night around 10:00.

SUNDAY - APRIL 4

Happy Easter! The Easter Bunny found our kids even though we weren't at home. They woke up and couldn't wait to search for their baskets. Each of them found them quite quickly and kept trying to dig right in to their candy. Luckily I caught them all and made them eat breakfast first.


After breakfast it was time to pack up and clean up. It took me almost till 10:30 to get it all done, but then I had a half hour to relax.

Around 11, we said goodbye to the "Pink House" and headed to my parents condo to have some lunch and visit.

We were able to catch the last hour of conference and I was thankful that my little brother took the older kids outside to play so that we could actually hear. Nathaniel even took a nap, so that helped.

After conference was over we played a quick round of my new game and had lunch.

We decided we needed to leave around 3, so around 2 we had a wonderful dessert of Strawberry Shortcake. After dessert we headed out. We got home around 5:30 and watched New Moon to close out our night.

It was a whirlwind trip and I was upset that the weather was so bad, but all in all we still had a nice getaway and I think the kids were happy to have a short vacation.

What Happens Next...

Free Desktop Wallpaper

So, for a long time I've been getting my desktop backgrounds from a digital scrapbooking site. Well, I finally decided to try my hand at creating my own using a digital scrapbook kit. You can find the kit I used here.

Anyway, if you are interested here is what the background looks like:

And if you click one of the links below you can have your own 'copy' and paste in whatever pics float your boat.

1024x768 Screen Resolution

1280x800 Screen Resolution

If you happen to use the background, let me know and I will post the one I make every month.

Also, if you need any help getting the wallpaper to work for you, let me know. I am more than willing to help out. (You will need a paint program other than just Microsoft Paint to get your pictures posted onto the wallpaper)

What Happens Next...

Come On...Help A Girl Out...

So, just because I get bored and I really, really, really would love to get $100 for "free" I did this. And now, I want you to do the same.

This girl is writing a thesis on blogging and needs all the responses she can get AND she is offering a $100 gift card to Target. Woot!

So go here and do what she asks...or don't. If you don't that leaves me with more chances of winning. ;)

What Happens Next...

Funny Thing About Peer Pressure...

See this:
This is my cute "baby" brother. He is at the ripe old age of 14 and will turn 15 this Summer.

So a few months ago, I see this post on Facebook that he was going to try out for the part of "Jafar" in their school's play of Aladdin. I about died. I never knew this kid was into acting. Sure, it was something that my older brother, one of my younger brothers and I enjoyed. But, I thought that's where it would end.

Well, a few months go by and I find out that baby brother got the part of one of Jasmine's suitors. I knew that I had to go see the play. I figured the older kids would enjoy it, but was kind of frustrated that I had to take the little boys, not knowing how they would react. But I also knew that if I just stayed home I would regret it.

So, Thursday after school the kids and I headed to my parents house. I wanted to have some time to relax before needing to head over to the play. (Didn't want to make the kids sit longer than necessary...) After being at my parents for about a half hour, my little sister and I decided it was time to go get dinner for us and the kids.

We brought dinner back to my parents and had to eat somewhat quickly, so that we could get to the school and get a decent seat. HA! Hardly anyone showed up. I'm not sure if it's cause it was on a Thursday, or what, but it really wasn't that crowded at all.

So, we all sat anxiously awaiting the show to start.


The play the school did was actually a shorter version of the Disney movie, Aladdin. They had to change the dialog up a bit to make it all fit and they took parts out of it, but it was still as enjoyable as a Jr. High production can be. It's interesting as well to see Jr. High productions because you can see where the talent is and where the talent isn't.

Anyway, so little brother comes out to do his part, which interestingly enough isn't even a speaking part. All he had to do was show off his muscles and act really macho. When it came time for him to join in the chorus in some scenes, he hardly even sang. I thought that that was pretty funny. I then found out that the only reason my little brother tried out for the play was because his friends all convinced him to do it and then they quit. But because little bro got some sort of "part" and because we were raised to see things through, he couldn't quit.

All in all it was a fun night spent with the family and as I thought the older kids enjoyed the show quit a bit. Lex got a little antsy as he couldn't see real well and my older sister took care of Nate, so I'm not positive as to how well he was acting.

I was upset that I didn't get a good shot of my brother in his costume. He is the dude in the middle of all 3 princes. Apparently the kids couldn't go see family until they changed out of their costumes...Thankfully, little brother allowed me to take a few pics of him, even without his costume. But after only a few shots, he was done and immediatley took the makeup off.

What Happens Next...

A Wee Bit O' An Update...

"If it seems like I've been lost in 'let's remember', you think I'm feeling older and missing my younger days, then you should've known me much better cause my past is something that never got in my way..."

So, I figure it's been a while since I posted anything of relevance or anything - so figured I'd do so today. It's not that anything too exciting has happened lately, just the opposite actually, thus the reason for no real posts. Life is just the same as always, with a few exceptions.

Firstly, Eric got a new job (thankfully) and started a week ago. He now works four 10 hour shifts from Monday - Thursday and then he has Friday's off. This has taken some getting used to as he leaves around 6 in the morning and doesn't get home until after 7 at night. Some days are harder than others and I'm sure when summer comes I'm really going to hate the long days. I am loving his Fridays off, however. Though technically he's only had one so far.

This past Tuesday I got to take the Gestational Diabetes test. (Oh, good news - with the new job Eric got, my doc still accepts the insurance) Because Eric had just started a new job the previous day, he wasn't able to come with me this time. So, I enlisted the aid of my little sister. (I needed someone to keep an eye on Nate). I also had to drink the drink during the drive since you have to finish it a half hour before your appt. and the dr. office is at least 40 minutes away. This time around I chose the Fruit Punch flavored drink. And yes, I am one of those crazy people who doesn't mind the taste of these drinks too much. Although, it did make me a bit spacy afterwards...Lil' Sis' will attest to that one. The blood draw wasn't that bad either. I prepared myself for pain when the nurse stuck the needle in and when she changed vials, but I was pleasantly surprised. I had very little pain. And I haven't heard any bad news, so hopefully that's good. I was also surprised when I went to make my next appt. that they told me it was for 2 weeks...Seems too early for that.

On Friday, Eric and I met up for lunch with one of his buddies. (Okay, truth be told - I tagged along, but only cause we had plans afterwards) The boys decided on a Chinese food place that they both love and frequented while they worked together. I am a very picky eater and Chinese food has never been big on my list. True, I've only tried it a couple of times, but I never cared for anything I had. I decided I would be a big girl on this day and tried something new: Orange Chicken. It was something I actually liked okay. I couldn't eat a whole lot of it as it did have a funny taste at times, but it was still a good lunch and I was proud of myself for eating something new.

After lunch, we headed over to IKEA to buy a new bed for Nate. With Baby Girl coming in just a couple weeks, he needed to get used to a bed and I wanted to crib in place in Shaylyn's room. It was just one of those things I wanted DONE! We had looked at IKEA a few days before and knew what we were going to get, so it was just a matter of getting the numbers and getting it home. This is the bed we bought:

And yes, it's just taken off the IKEA website. I am too lazy to take a pic of Nate's actual bed and post it. It's just how I feel lately. Aren't the sheep so cute? I wanted to get the blue bed, but Eric (being the logical being he is) made us get the white one so that Baby Girl could use it in the future as well...DANG IT!

Saturday was spent cleaning Shaylyn's room and making room for the crib. What a job that was. I apparently did way too much though as I was in pain for the rest of the night. One of these days I'll learn exactly what is too much...Strange thing is, I didn't do any heavy lifting or moving - just cleaned.

Eric had the job of taking the crib apart and reassembling it in Shaylyn's room, then he got to turn around and put Nate's bed together. He did it quite quickly and without much complaint. I was really surprised at just how quickly he got both jobs done.

And that is pretty much it from our side of the world. Right now we are just watching these strange dots that have popped up on Nate's face...Our first thought was Chicken Pox, but he hasn't really seemed to get any more and they are mainly just on his face. Kinda resembles pimples, but is it possible for a kid to get so many and then another one on an ear and one on the back??? I dunno...

What Happens Next...

Must Be 30 or Older To Read...

So, Eric forwarded this to me in an email today and I thought it was just too good to not share...

ENJOY!

Oh, and I did change a few words from cuss words to slang words, just so you know. ;)

If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in heck I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a darn Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the darn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our butt! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a darn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OMG !!! Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!

There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!

And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!

And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!

And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were luckily, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!

See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd

What Happens Next...