Pictures

While we were sitting drinking coffee last night Michael took a photo of me with his I-Phone. I was less then thrilled. as he goes to archive it he notices a photo of Madeline standing in the living room holding her stuffed dog. He looks at it oddly and tells me he doesn't recall taking this photo and shows it to me. It was cute.. I tell him it was in all likelihood Andrew- the kid with the camera obsession. SO he digs deeper in the archives... more at least 2 more of her that day dancing around with her dog, in the sunshine, barefooted in a sundress.... I will post them when he emails them to me..



Crazy kids, crazy Andrew.. Crazy daddy for leaving and unlocked I-phone lying around. That little "slide to open" can not outsmart a 4 year old....

Date Night- what is that? and life drama...

Michael will be traveling a LOT this summer so I wanted to try to plan a night out where we could just spend some time together and not wrangle kids... something we rarely to never have. So I called up mom over a week ahead of time and asked if they wanted a evening with the grandbabies? They totally understood my request and agreed without hesitation to take on the crew. So my mind started to wander.. What can we do? Where can we in our child-less-ness go????? Michael has gone to PF Changs while on work dime before and has said he cannot wait to take me to try it. I know that they are building one at Summit Mall.. I *thought* I had heard it was to open in April.. so surprising him with that for our evening out would have been a blast... I was getting excited.. Planning a little surprise, the anticipation of it all....Unfortunately, after checking I saw that there are no listing for PF Changs in Akron yet.. I googled a little more and saw that it is still listed as *Coming Soon*. Back to the drawing/planning board.....


Then.....

I got the flu... or something like it...

Lucky me..

Picture this...

Friday morning.. I was on a roll... getting stuff done left a right.. I had a HUGE list of things to do and things already done.. I was on fire... Had JUST finished squeezing a mixture of soynut butter and honey into a bunch of celery sticks and lining them with raisins to take in for Ben's *beach day* afternoon snack... ( I am that mom.. the one who spends 4.99 on a small jar of peanut free spread to make a simple cool snack and not cause any allergic drama)... I was doing the dishes when me midsection started to ache. So sudden.. out of the blue... Did not feel like indigestion.. did not feel like colon.....But it hurt...Oh ye Gawds it hurt....

Of course during this time Andrew reminds me it is lunch time and he is "starbing"...... OMG how can I think.... SO I scramble 3 eggs and toast some bread.. super fast simple hopefully filling food... because mama is going to die pretty soon.. food...

I plate up lunch and run to the bathroom......... Naw... that did not help the pain or nausea at all.. still there.. So I find myself sitting on the stool cleaning the toilet and dry heaving.. the toilet must be cleaned especially if I will be using it.. b/c I was praying at that point for something to happen to remove the pain from my body....

nope, nothing, nada..

but the toilet was now clean...

Michael is downstairs on a conference call. Kids are finishing lunch.. There is NO WAY I am going to be going anywhere. So I call the school and have the secretary let the teacher know I am not bringing a snack in due to illness. Then I call my friend Krista to go pick up club newsletter and come get my labels and stamps.. They NEED to get mailed today and there is NO way I will be managing that task... two things handled.. two more to go.. What can I do with these kids? So I fall back on every mom saver... I filled them each a juice sippie cup, tossed granola bars on the table like I was feeding the animals at the zoo and turned on Noggin....I locked the gate to the stairs and forbid them to go downstairs and bother daddy... Then I went to my bed... ( of course they ignored my forbidding and were downstairs soon enough.. but what position was I in to deal with that?)

Michael realized soon enough that something was wrong.. He made fun of me and called me a lazy faker but I know he KNEW... I mean sure I have lazy lay around days but I don't ever crawl in bed and act like I am dying.. I am not THAT dramatic.....

I went from bad to worse to where the heck am I through the night... The intense body aches, the hours of freezing under 4 heavy layers to the disoriented sweating in the middle of the night.. I was so confused as to WHY my clothing was wet? let alone my hair and nose....

Thankfully I awoke sore, achy and weak..I saw thankfully because the wall of nausea was gone and I actually felt a normal temperature....Michael had taken over the kids.. even if that meant he was asleep in the recliner with them watching tv on him.. at least he was up and I was still in bed.

I took to the day slowly.. very slowly... From a very long shower where I sat on a stool b/c I could not stand to going back to bed to rest and gain strength again... ( I cannot remember the lat time I was so ill.) Slowly with a little coffee and some bread and peanut butter from my hubby I was back on my feet... back to bossing the kids around.. definitely not full speed but back...

I was able to strip the bed and take that down to get washed. Michael worked the living room and I helped the twins by ordering them around in cleaning their room... Ben was a super big help by putting away all the laundry as I folded and directed him. I sat outside with the kids for a while mainly just to get some air and sun... per the orders of my friend Carol.

I told mom to not worry about taking the kids but she insisted.. said if nothing else I would have peace and quiet in my illness... Thankfully I was feeling better by evening so we did go out.. NO partying, no clubbing, no drinking, a simple low key night.

We FINALLY tried 91 Wood Fired Oven.. I mean it only opened around the time BEN was born.. it is only 4 miles from us.. we pass it daily... so we went... and ..... it was okay.... for the price I would hope it was better.. but it was okay... So now that THAT mystery is solved we can check that off our list.. We made it out in time to grab a movie at the cheapo theater so we booked it.. We got there, grabbed tickets and were in our seats with 5 minutes to spare to see "Paul Blart Mall Cop" We had wanted to see it and even though it is on dvd now... it was fun to see in the theatre... We followed that up with a drive and grabbing some (Unnecessary) dessert and coffee at Olive Garden. It was quiet, it was peaceful.. it was too much food and driving on my still weak gut but I survived.

We got home and the house was quiet. We sat and relaxed for a while then headed to bed. Of course since no one was here to wake me my bladder did... Thank you to my lovely internal organ for that... so here I am.. I have total opportunity to sleep in and I cannot..Another day.. Another decade.....

Who needs toys?

When you have a .97 water sprayer from Walmart...

or a brand new roll of scotch tape..( see the spot on the wall just behind Madelines head.. yup that was her attempt at hanging pictures...)

She went through quite a few outfits until she found the right one for the work day....

My Ben

" My brother and sister are the BEST!" all because they picked out Bakugans for his birthday gift. Truth be told Madeline wanted to get him a princess lawn chair and Andrew choosing these was totally self serving. He hoped that if we bought Ben these 6 new Bakugans Ben would give HIM one of the old ones....

Captain Temper Tantrum getting reading to toss a fit when we jokingly told him he was not going to get to open any presents that night( his actual birthday!)

Good Morning Sleepy Head! Woke everyone up and dragged them To McD's for a birthday surprise breakfast.

That was one Windy Saturday.. Look at that amazing sky. Ben was standing on the picnic table and the wind was pushing his shirt.

Just to make things much easier...

I ate the last ice cream bar.. Problem solved!

The many moods of Andrew

This boy is so silly. The first picture he was SO mad at me. I locked the van because he kept getting into it looking for gum and honking the horn. SO when I locked him out he was so mad he tried punching the van door.. Like that really showed me! LOL

The next picture he was so happy daddy rubbed green hair paste in his spikes.

Lastly this is a picture of "wrestling" They all want to do it. Strip their shirts off and knock each other over and pin someone down.. ususally goes on until someone starts crying. Then I get to say. TOLD YOU SO!

Throwback to the 80's

As you can see Maddie is all ready for a night of roller skating.. She has on her velour leotard, her princess stickers/tattoos, single knee pad and spiderman roller skates.

Injuries..

This will be the summer of injuries.. I have no doubt. So far Maddie scraped her chest by playing in the neighbors massive over grown bush. She still has abrasions on her rib cage and of course the tape marks from the band aid she reacted too.. Then tonight she walked by Ben trying to hit a baseball and he actually made contact.. the ball slammed into her ribs.. add that to the blister on her ankle.

Andrew walked into Ben's path tonight also and got cracked with a bat to the mouth.. We will see how fat that lip looks tomorrow.

Ben- so far so good.. guess it pays to be the aggressor?

There is only one ice cream bar left in the freezer...

We were outside playing in the yard this evening and Andrew comes up to me as asks for a Popsicle. I told him we had none( which is true). He tells me I am wrong that there in fact is one left. I tell him I am sorry but we have no Popsicles in the freezer BUT I will buy some at the store tomorrow. "Yes there is mama!( stomping his little foot), it is long, and skinny and bwown and has a stick in it!"..... AHHHH! I know what he is talking about now... so I tell him that THAT is an ice cream bar and we only have ONE left. Since there is only ONE left I cannot let him have it because that will not be fair to his brother or sister OR the two neighbor boys who are playing with us. Andrew looks at me and replies " If they go back to they owns house and daddy and Ben and Maddie gets lost.. then I will be only one and I can have the bwown thing!"

Smart boy!

Why now?

I would like to know WHY, now that I am in my 30's, I suddenly am affected by seasonal allergies? I check the weather and there is a flashing banner that reads. "High pollen counts" TRUST me.. I did not need to read that banner to KNOW that fact. My nose is pouring, my head is throbbing, my eyeballs ache- I only wear my contacts for absolutely necessary things then rip those suckers out. I chased 1000mg of tylenol today with a mouthful of childrens allergy meds b/c I was too miserable to look for adult benadryl. Trust me.. that stuff tastes HORRID!