Happy Birthday Troyer!!!!

My oldest son turned 10 years old today! Wow I can't believe I have a child in the double digits already! I am just not old enough! ;-)

For his birthday today, he got to watch all the tv he wanted (he is a tv junkie, in spite of the fact that we only get 1 1/2 channels!). He watched the usual shows, but this time didn't have to bargain for them. His favorites are Arthur, Zaboomafoo, Between the Lions, and CyberChase. PBS just started showing George Shrinks in the afternoons, and he likes that one too. These are all kind of young shows for him, but we don't get Nickelodeon or Disney (I am *not* crying over that!) and these are semi-educational, so I am happy to let him watch them. Hey, he isn't picking Barney or Jay Jay or Caillou, LOL.

We had to go out shopping to get icing and cake supplies, because he chose to have a homemade cake instead of a bakery cake. All the other boys chose a bakery cake because they want the toys on top; Troyer designed his own cake and created the topper. We also had to pick up dough for pizza. I didn't have enough money to buy take out pizza (we went to McDonald's twice in the last 2 weeks, so bye bye money, lol), which he really wanted, but he was happy enough to have homemade. I also got some wrapping paper, and some milk. We got home in time for him to watch more tv, and I got to work on the cake.



I have to say, I think the cake turned out ok. I didn't have the right size decorating tool for writing, so I had to abbreviate and leave out his name, but he didn't mind. He made car forms out of clay, and saved foil wrappers from way back at Valentine's Day, lol, to wrap them in, and then drew up the Finish sign and taped it to straws. The roadway is chocolate sprinkles. Much tastier than black icing, if you ask me! All in all, it is certainly not a professional job, but he is soooo proud of it, and if he is happy then that is what counts :-)

I made 3 pizzas, because most of the kids will only eat plain cheese pizza, but Troyer wanted pineapple on his, and Chris likes pineapple and olives, and I like mushrooms. I decided to make some of each and make everyone happy. Yum!

The cake tasted even better than it looked, and then Chris had a surprise, he had stopped at DQ on the way home and gotten 2 Treatsa Pizzas. Double Yum! Of course by now no one was really that hungry any more, but there is always room for ice cream, lol.

Next Troyer got to open his presents. He had a theme this year, in that most of his gifts were Muppet stuff. He loves Kermit the Frog and The Muppets. He got The Muppet Movie on DVD (we have it on vhs but the dvd has all the extra interviews and stuff), a Muppet computer game, a Muppet beach towel, and a CD of Muppet songs from the tv show. He also got a Thomas DVD (yes, he still likes to watch Thomas the Tank Engine. This makes Micah very happy!) and some Ninja Turtle bubble bath. His aunt got him a stuffed lemur that looks a lot like Zaboomafoo, that was a big hit; and his other aunt got him a Bionicle, also a big hit.

After all the gifts were opened, we listened to some of the songs on the CD and then it was bed time. Chris actually let me take a picture of him and Troyer together, and it turned out great! There are precious few pictures of Chris anywhere that don't have him making faces or trying to hide, lol.

Blog Wandering

I have spent the last few days wandering through blog-land, reading strangers' blogs. I just followed a link from one, and followed a link from that one, and so on. It was pretty fun! Usually I don't have time for that sort of thing, but this weekend Levi was just on a weird sleeping (non-sleeping?) schedule, and some of my regular bloggers were away for the weekend or just not updating, so I had time on my hands. I must say, though, that I feel so inferior now! Not only is my writing style nothing to shout about, but I can't do the fancy stuff I've seen on the other sites. I haven't even figured out how to do the list of links yet. I know I know, once I stop procrastinating I can figure it out pretty easily; I just haven't felt like putting the effort into it.

It is really neat to be able to read about other people's daily lives and thoughts; some of them make me feel grateful for the pretty easy life I have, others just make me laugh, and sometimes I can even identify with a particular experience. Mostly, though, I think it helps me see my own life in a different perspective. As a SAHM in a somewhat rural setting, I can get kind of isolated and start to get bogged down in the annoying things in my life. For a while a few years back, I got so bogged down I became depressed enough that it affected my family, and it took a year or two of talking with a therapist to climb back out of it. It feels funny to admit that, but at the same time, I am glad that was all it took, and that I didn't need to take any medications, so it didn't affect my pregnancy/breastfeeding cycle. It also helped after the sessions stopped, because I can still use today what I learned then.

This period now, post-partum just 6 weeks out, I find myself coming closer to that edge again; add to that the stress of my dh's new job, plus having to move, and homeschooling 3 kids. I am sleep deprived and most likely nutrition deprived too. I have too much time to think about how fat I am, how messy/dirty my house is, what a bad job I'm probably doing teaching my kids, and all that kind of stuff. I think at least 10 times a day about how I am going to get into shape (I've been saying that for 15 years), how I am going to take better care of myself (like try to shower every day or at least every other day, and get dressed every day), and take better care of the house (should I consider it a victory that I have a laundry system that is still working for me? LOL) .

But surfing around and reading others' experiences, I see that lots of people are going through similar trials, and lots of them are going through much worse. I can laugh at a story about a trip to the store with all the kids, or about a big mess a toddler made, because I've BTDT. It makes it easier to laugh at myself when it happens to me.

I'm finding it hard to come and post here, because I feel like I can't write as well as others, and I don't have any fancy stuff in my posts or in my sidebar. I'm pleased with myself for just getting pictures on here! lol But I am also somewhat inspired too. One of these days I'll get it figured out.

Murphy's Law?

We went out yesterday, were gone for the whole day, from 7 am until 9:30 pm. So what do you think happened? One of the roofing guys FINALLY called me back!!! But was I here to take his call? Noooooo. Aaarghh!!!!! Luckily he gave me his cell phone number and I was able to call him today. He is going to come over on Sunday to look at the damage and see how much needs to be done. Let us hope we have good weather again next week!!!!



On Tuesday the boys were out playing in the yard until dusk. Samuel and Micah, as usual, attracted all the mosquitos. Samuel got quite a few bites on his face. On Wednesday morning his eyelid was swollen, and we figured he'd gotten a bite on the lid. His bites always swell up more than normal, but they usually don't bother him and they go away fine. We weren't really too worried about it. Well, today it was worse! Plus, there is no center to the swelling where the bite would be. I can't figure out what happened. He says it doesn't hurt, just itches a little when he touches it. He is really good at not bothering it. I hope I don't need to worry.

I got extra lucky last night, because Levi slept!!! He was up a lot, but kept going back to sleep in the bassinette, so I actually got some sleep last night!!! Wow, I wasn't expecting it. I even got a shower this morning; good thing, too, since I have my 6 week check up tonight. Wow, Levi will be 6 weeks old tomorrow, already! That went fast!

House Hunting

Today Chris and I went down to the area we are moving to, and drove around a bit to look at what is for sale. Chris had a meeting at the office of his company that he will be transfering to after we move, so I suggested we all go down together and while he was in his meeting, I'd drive around and look at houses. We got down there about 9:30 am and dropped Chris off at his building. We all got to go inside because he needed help carrying in papers and things. The office is in a renovated factory building, and is really neat inside. They have an elevator in the center of the building that has an open side with a window; the boys thought that was really cool, lol. After we dropped him off, and I nursed the baby, and changed Micah out of his pajamas into shorts (we waited to change him because it was pretty cold when we left, but knew it was going to get hot later in the day), and passed out some snacks, it was after 10.

First we drove west, and looked at 3 houses in that direction. The boys were terribly thirsty from the crackers they had eaten, but oops, there wasn't any water in the car, so I tried to stop at a McDonald's and get drinks. Unfortunately, the one that was right where we were had a delivery truck blocking the drive through, so we couldn't get any drinks there. That meant I had to hear about thirsty thirsty thirsty for 2 more hours, lol.

I liked the first house we found, but it is in a development, so I don't think Chris will go for it. He really wants a rural farmhouse type property. I think he is going to be out of luck, actually, because those are all pretty expensive, and our price range is pretty low. The second house was just as nice, but the neighborhood it is in was a little bit run down looking. The third house we saw was on a bigger road, and it looked even more run down that the other neighborhood.

We drove back out of that town, hoping to see that the delivery truck had moved away from the McDonald's drive through, but no luck, it was still there. From there I wanted to head north of where we started, but I had not printed out any maps that showed a way to drive that way directly. I didn't want to drive all the way back past Chris' office and then head north, that seemed too out of the way, so I just guessed at a left turn off the main road I was on and hoped it would take me to the main road north that I wanted. The boys got really freaked out that I didn't really know where I was going, LOL. I kept saying, I don't know where we are, but as long as the signs keep saying East it should take us where we want to go. They didn't like that, LOL. In the end, I was exactly right, it took us to exactly the right place. I'm so awesome, LOL.

I headed north, and soon came to house #4. It was a very nice looking house, in a quiet wooded neighborhood; unfortunately it was built in an area on top of a steep hill. The house itself was supposed to have almost a half acre of property, but if it did, the back half of it was all cliff. Certainly not a yard the kids could play in. Oh well. Darn, it had 6 bedrooms, I was excited about that! LOL On to #5.

#5 was just a bit further north, but I had promised the boys a drink, and I knew there was a McDonald's in the area we were at. It was now over an hour after the snacks, and they were all whining. I was pretty thirsty too, even though I hadn't eaten any of the crackers. So instead of taking the quick way to the next house, we drove past the McDonald's and got drinks. Caleb had fallen asleep and woke up grumpy, he complained and cried for the next half hour. blech. We got back on track and found #5 pretty easily. It looked like a nice property, but it was too hard to see the house from the road, it seemed to be back behind another house. It was a big property, 10 acres, so we are guessing that the house itself must be a pretty big dump. I just couldn't tell.

By now it was almost time we were supposed to meet Chris at his office to pick him up for lunch. I had miscalculated a bit when we arranged it, though, and hadn't figured in the getting ready to go at first and the stopping for drinks while out, so we were about 15 minutes late. We headed out of town to go to his sister's house and meet her for lunch. Unfortunately, Chris forgot the best way to get out of town towards where we wanted to go, and we ended up taking the long way. It made us pretty late, it was almost 2 when we got to his sister's house. I had arranged to meet a realtor down there and talk with her about properties, but she had to leave town at 3, so it was too late. Oops. Well, we got to relax at SILs for a few hours, and Chris took a little nap, so that was nice. She made us chicken rice soup for lunch/dinner (since we ate it at 3:30, LOL) and the boys watched some tv while Chris checked out some of the new improvements they had done to the house.

We had also arranged to meet his mother after she got out of work. She works in an elementary school, so she was home by 4. After eating and letting the boys run for a bit, we drove over to MILs to see her. She had surgery this summer, back in July, and was still recovering when Levi was born, so was unable to come up to visit and see him, so this was the first time she was getting to meet him. She also hadn't seen the rest of the boys since spring, so it was nice for them to have the chance to see her. We stopped in just for an hour because there was one more house I wanted to drive past that would be on the way home from her house, and I wanted to be sure we could see it before dark. We had a nice visit with her and left about 6. I think it was probably a nice thing for her to have the short visit; she had only started back to work this week after her recovery, and was still tired after being at work; so she got to see us but didn't have to cook or get worn out from the boys' noise and mess, lol.

The last house we drove past was very nice. It was on a short quiet dead and street and was very nice looking, as nice as the picture that I had found online. It was closer in to town than Chris liked, but it was not in a development, which was a plus. His only real objection with that one was the price, it was just out of our range. Darn, lol. But at least we found something that fit what we wanted! We got to that one just before dark, and then it was finally time to head home. Poor Chris was so afraid of getting lost, driving around on roads he normally doesn't drive on. I suppose he would have been freaked out earlier in the day, just like the boys, LOL, but I wasn't worried. Most of the roads out there will eventually lead to a main road that we recognize and we would know where we were going. I was right, and got us back on the route we usually take to get home from MILs, no problem.

About an hour later we were on the highway, heading home, when the van started making a ticking noise. It grew louder and louder, and was definitely from the engine. It grew to a knocking noise, and became pretty clear it was an oil issue. We had not planned to stop on the way home; Chris wanted to go in to work early the next day to make up some of the hours he had taken off to drive around house hunting, and so didn't want to get home late. Well, the van had other plans, so we stopped off at an exit with a McDonald's and I got the boys dinner while he put more oil in the van. It's a good thing he did, because he said it was about 3 quarts low. Oddly, the gauge hadn't shown a problem with oil pressure, we had had no idea about it until it started knocking. Luckily the McD's was next to a convenient store, because we only had 2 quarts in the van, he had to go buy 2 more. He said he got the last 2 on the shelf! lol The boys were pretty happy that we had to stop, because they got food out of it. Poor Levi was not so happy when it was time to get going again. He was soooo good all day, but he was really sick of his car seat! LOL

So we got home about 9:30 and put the boys right into bed. Levi actually didn't stay up much longer, which surprised me, I figured he'd be up all night after sleeping in the car so much; but maybe his crying from the McD's until home wore him out, lol. Of course, he is up now, and there is no telling when he will be going back to sleep. Oh well, LOL.

Wet Weekend

Overnight on Thursday night, the remnants of Ivan came north and dumped some rain on us. It rained from Friday morning until early morning Saturday. I had to run out for bread and milk on Friday afternoon, and we were probably lucky we got done when we did. I decided to try Levi out in my sling for the first time; I figured he'd stay drier than trying to carry the infant seat into the store. I think I was right, but we were still pretty wet. Yuck. We got home just at dark. By then it was raining pretty hard and the water was all over the roads. I am really glad that Chris had decided to clean the gutters earlier this summer, we had no water in our basement! Most of our neighbors were not so lucky. When we woke up Saturday morning, our neighbor to the right side of us had water in their yard all the way up to their front steps. Their back yard usually has water in it after a rain, but I had never seen it come up around the front of the house. The side road was washed out on either side of the culvert. It is just a gravel road, not paved, so all the stones were washed downstream. Our neighbor to the left has a gravel driveway that is parallel to the stream, and the stones had all been washed into the grass last week during Frances; this rain just took them further down the yard, lol. Our yard didn't have any water in it :-). I think we got about 6.5 inches of water or so, at least that is how much was in our pool, which we had emptied before the rain.

Chris took the boys to church and I had intended to follow him about an hour later with Levi, but I got a call from a friend who said Chris didn't want me to come after all. (Our church has no phone at the moment, so our friend had to go to a nearby house to call; Chris didn't call because he was busy cleaning the church basement of all the water down there) It turned out that he had to try several different ways to get to church, and all had roads closed from rising streams. He finally found a way in, but he had the big van; he didn't think I should chance it with the car. Wow, I was tempted to go out just to see lol. The water really didn't go down again until this morning. The weather was a bit deceptive, because it was bright and sunny all day; it seemed odd to be trapped at home when it was so nice out.

Today was even nicer, more sun, and it was much warmer. We had real estate agent #3 come over this morning. #2 had come over on Thursday. She was definitely not in the running. I could practically see her skin crawling as she walked through the house. She kept looking at the walls and such and wrinkling her nose, lol. She was very critical and not helpful with suggestions. Then she gave me a very low number for the house. I think she just didn't want to be chosen to show it, lol. No problem, there was definitely NOT a good match of personalities. She is the type more suited to list the expensive houses.

On Friday I was feeling pretty low after the numbers she had given me, and I decided to try one more agency. I called and set up an appointment for today. It turned out that the agent coming over lives just a mile down the road from me. She seemed excited to come over and see the house. As it turns out, she grew up in this neighborhood, and had often played in this house as a child! It was fun to walk her through, she was telling me what was different and what had changed. She recognized the wallpaper, LOL.

I think she ended up being a very good match for us. She likes older farmhouses and properties; she loves this area; and best of all, she said she knew at least 2 young couples who are searching our area for a house just like this right now, plus another person who is looking for houses to buy as rentals. Being in a college community, it is a very good market for renting. She was fun to talk with, had great suggestions, and came in with a number that sounded right to both me and Chris. What a relief, after realtor #2! So it looks like everything is a go, we will make an appointment to sign with her this week. It looks like our house may not even make it onto the market at all! Now we just have to find a place to move to......

One Realtor's Opinion

On Tuesday we had our first realtor walk through the house. I am having 3 or 4 come through and give me a spiel, then Chris and I will choose which one we like best to list our house. I liked this first realtor, she was very nice, not too "salesman-like." She had emailed me an initial guess at property value after just driving by the house last week. After walking through, however, she knocked the price down a few thousand dollars. Just confirming what I already knew, I live in a hovel, LOL. No really, not that bad, but it really does need a lot of work. Painting and carpet, etc. Even more frustrating is Chris' unwillingness to do any work on the house, any more than he is forced to. For instance, a few of our shutters (cheapie aluminum ones) had blown off our house, some before and one soon after, we moved in, years ago, and he never wanted to spend the money to replace them. It looks dumb, but how could I argue about the money, kwim? But now, for curb appeal, they need to be replaced; but he refuses. He sees it as a waste of money. If *we* bought the house with shutters missing, why wouldn't someone else? Well, because other people actually care what their house looks like??? Grrr. I'm wishing now we had gotten new carpet 5 years ago, so the old stuff we have now wouldn't be even older and more gross. I am now beginning to understand why Chris was thinking our house would be on the market a long time; if he isn't going to do any work to make it look nice OF COURSE it won't sell!!! Grrr.

We have another realtor coming today. Luckily for me the boys were on their best behavior on Tuesday, I hope they are as good again today.

I have to post this picture of Levi, just to remind myself that he *does* actually sleep sometimes, lol. Yesterday morning he was up from 3 am until 8:30! Aaaugghh. Obviously by the time he fell asleep, the rest of the boys were up and bickering and chasing and screaming and throwing cereal and making a mess in every room of the house, and probably doing some bleeding somewhere in there too, though I was trying to put them on /ignore, LOL. I yelled and screamed and threatened bodily harm, and they quieted down somewhat, but not enough for me to actually make up any sleep. Oh well. Last night went better, only because I put Chris on /ignore and brought Levi to bed, lol.

One Month Old Already!

Levi is one month old today! He has grown so much already, he is not a newborn anymore. He is finally starting to sleep better now. He sleeps best with me, unfortunately for chris, lol. But at least I have figured out how to get some sleep for myself ;-).

Getting Ready

Today I made appointments with 2 different realtors to come over this week and look at my house, and give me an evaluation of its worth, and maybe some hints on what to do to help it sell. Actually, I know already the number one tip will be, Declutter. My house is just full of piles of junk. It's all stuff I like and want to keep, but have nowhere to put it. I am going to have to let go and give it up.

Today I had a good start. I cleaned off my refrigerator. It might not be the place most people would think to start, but it was the least painful for me, LOL. The front of my fridge was virtually papered in pictures of the kids, and artwork, and a huge collection of magnets. Once I got that cleaned off, I took down a bunch of stuff from the walls of the kitchen. Birthday cards, more artwork, postcards. It looks a lot different now, and I haven't even finished yet, LOL. Caleb followed me around while I worked, and he is really getting into the whole move thing. He kept asking, will we take the dishes too? Will we take our coats? Will we take the peanut butter and jelly? LOL The answers to that being, yes, yes, and no, we will eat it all and buy more when we get there, lol.

I am thinking maybe I should take before and after pictures, and keep track of my progress; maybe that will motivate me to get more done. A big problem with trying to clean up for me is where to put the stuff I box up? The reason it is in piles everywhere is because there is no place for it! I will throw a lot away, but there is still a lot that I need to just store somewhere. I know I will be happy when I get it done, but it's hard to get started!

Catching Up

First I want to post a Happy Birthday to Chris! His birthday was last week, I just haven't had time to post about it until now. I spent the day cleaning up the kitchen and baking him a cake (he prefers homemade to store-bought; I guess he doesn't need all those cool cake topper toys like the boys want LOL), and getting the boys to sign a card for him. I had to run out the night before to buy the card, nothing like waiting until the last minute! Of course, it was the night that the remnants of Frances hit us, so lots of flooding and standing water on the roads, yuck. Also, Levi was having a growth spurt or something last week, he wasn't sleeping well, and wanted to eat constantly! That and dragging him out in the rain made for a pretty lousy shopping trip to WalMart, LOL.

It was worth it, though; Chris enjoyed his birthday. I had the cake ready by the time he got home, and made pizza for dinner. I even put olives on one for him, and as a special treat left off the mushrooms ;-). Chris is funny about them, he says he doesn't like to eat fungus on his pizza LOL. Poor Micah, he was very impatient for the cake. He ate quickly and finished first, and had a tantrum that he had to wait for everyone else to *gasp* have more than one piece, LOL. Finally he got his cake, and he was happy again.

I only put 5 candles on the cake; I didn't really want to try to light 38 candles, LOL.

Yesterday I had planned for a deep clean of the house. We are starting the motions for our move, so we need to get the house ready to sell. I have already been on line looking at the houses in the area we are moving to. It was a beautiful day, I had considered driving down to check out some of the houses I had seen, but then realized that we are not anywhere near ready to make any offers, and by the time we are, for sure the houses out there now will be sold already. So cleaning sounded good instead.

The day started out ok, I also planned to give the boys haircuts, desperately needed, since it was nice out. I did get that done, and Chris supervised the cleaning of the play room and the living room. Then for some inexplicable reason, he decided to go mess with the toilet. It has been clogging a lot lately, so he was just going to try to clear it. Then he decided the problem was that the toilet wasn't level, so he emptied it and took it up. Please note that he didn't warn anyone that he was going to do this, and give us all an opportunity to use it first before he took it out of commision! I had also planned to run to the bank and open an account for Levi, finally getting rid of the $34 in pennies and nickels I had rolled and sitting in my kitchen. I thought it was also a good chance to get Noah in for his birthday portrait. My trip was delayed a bit when Chris had to run to Lowe's to get a seal for the toilet. He left us here with nowhere to "go" lol.

Finally I got out with Noah and Levi, it was already after 2. Keep in mind that I had had to go to the bathroom since 11:30! I told him I couldn't wait any more to go out, I had to find a rest room! LOL Levi finally decided to behave and was perfect for our trip. We went to the bank, and he slept through it; we drove up to McDonald's to get Noah lunch, but oops, there was a power outage and they were closed. Oops, WalMart was also closed, so no portrait for Noah. It was after 3:15 now, and he was hungry (and I still had to go to the bathroom)! We drove across town to the other McDonald's, and ate inside. Levi slept through that too :-). Our last stop was the grocery store to use up my coupons that were going to expire that day. He slept all the way until the check out. I couldn't get mad at him for waking up as we stood on line. I fed him as soon as we got back out to the car, and he was good until we got home. I did have to feed him again when we got home, and the groceries had to wait to be unpacked, but again, he'd been so good, who could blame him?

I was disappointed when I got home that the boys hadn't really done any more cleaning. Chris had only just finished messing with the toilet, and when I got home he was cleaning more tomatoes. Have I mentioned that we are being crushed under the avalanche of tomatoes? And I have absolutely no taste for them at all. He is mad that I am not eating them quickly enough, but I can barely make myself look at them. I usually like tomatoes, but lately I haven't wanted any. It might have to do with last year's overabundance of tomatoes and how I got really sick of them. So yesterday was a waste, cleaning-wise. :-( And I hadn't even cared about the dumb toilet!

Visitors and Visiting

I had a busy weekend last week. My sister Aimee came to visit with her two kids, they stayed from Friday to Monday. Our birthday was Wednesday, so we figured we'd do something fun while she was here. We rented a bunch of "chick flicks" that our dhs would never sit through, and got lots of snacks. It was great! LOL We were disappointed by Drop Dead Gorgeous, it was much darker and less funny than we expected. I liked Miss Congeniality better (saw that one a while ago). We loved The Importance of Being Earnest, I think we will have to watch that one again, the kids kept interrupting and we missed some dialogue. We rented Osmosis Jones for the kids; I think it was more for older kids than the under 10 crowd we had here. I hope most of the referrences went over their heads! lol We also watched Win a Date With Tad Hamilton, which was ok, but I found kind of annoying. We almost got Love Actually and Laws of Attraction, I think we should have gone with those, lol.

On Saturday we all went to church together; it was the first time I took the baby in, and I was a little disappointed that more people didn't stop to say hi and take a peek at him. Oh well, that usually annoys me, lol. After church, Aimee and I took Levi and my niece and left early while Chris stayed with the other 6 boys to have lunch. Chris made the soup so he had to stay to serve it. He says it turned out really well, he didn't even burn it :-). We girls took a drive to go visit our sister Michelle, who was camping with her family at Raystown Lake. It is about an hour and 15 minute drive from my house, but since we left from the church I was going a different way, and missed a turn, so it ended up being almost 2 hours. Oops! lol Levi got hungry on the way, so we stopped at a McDonald's for a coke and directions, and Levi got a snack and a clean diaper. We finally reached the campground at 3. The weather was very warm in the car, but down at the lake it was beautiful, with just enough of a breeze to keep the bugs away. We stayed for dinner at the campsite, and left just after 7. I wanted to leave so that I'd have enough daylight left to find my way home. It was a much faster drive home, since I didn't get lost LOL.

The boys had a great time with their cousins, my nephew is a huge Bionicle fan along with my boys, so they were in heaven trading sets and building new stuff. My poor neice felt a little left out, as we have a shortage of girls here ;-). I had a beautiful Rapunzel Barbie for her, though. She loved that.

Here are the kids all together. Samuel was doing his best to get out of having his picture taken.

Monday was Chris' and my 12th anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been that long already. It doesn't feel like it! He got me flowers and a card, woo hoo! I love flowers, and I appreciate his getting them for me, especially because his philosophy about them is why spend the money when they will just die? But I like them, thank you. Unfortunately, Levi didn't cooperate with MY plans for our anniversary, for later that night :-( We're waiting for a raincheck on that LOL.

Monkey Chair

Today I got a package in the mail. A very large package. It was labelled Baby Style on the outside, so I knew it was a gift for the baby. Obviously an expensive one, so I knew it was from my aunt. I was intrigued what she could choose that would be so big. I opened it to find... a Monkey Chair. Yikes. Definitely not something I would have chosen, LOL. Absolutely not something I'd pay $60 for! (the price tag was still on it) That would have been about 6 packs of disposable diapers, something I'm *going* to be paying for, LOL.

Why is it that people who don't have small kids (my cousins are all grown now) have little taste and absolutely NO recollection that more big stuff is NOT good? LOL Well, the older boys are having a great time jumping on it and karate kicking it and in general treating it badly, lol.

Happy Birthday Me!

Well, actually, yesterday was my birthday, but I wanted to wait until the end of the day to post, just in case something special happened; silly me, lol. It's the mom's job to make her kids' days special, but who is around to make her day special? No one. Oh well. The kids did make me nice birthday cards, which they woke me up at 7 am to give to me, because they were so excited about them. This was after Levi was up from 1:30 to 5 am, and was on his way to sleeping until 9 am. I missed out on the last 2 hours, lol. I ended up not posting after all last night, because I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open to write.

I decided to skip school yesterday; I just wasn't up to fighting about it, so we took a holiday. Chris says he emailed me to say Happy Birthday, but I didn't get any, so I guess it got lost in cyberspace. He did get me a card and a bag of M&Ms, but I didn't know about them until he came home from work. I talked to my sister, A, whose birthday it was also :-), and we talked about nothing for probably over an hour. That's always fun! I decided to ask Chris when he got home if I could go out with the baby and just drive through at McDs and eat in the car, to have a little quiet time to myself. He wasn't thrilled at the idea, as he wanted to mow the lawn, but I (maybe not so gently) told him that I didn't consider mowing the lawn to be a good birthday present, LOL. He let me go ;-). The weather was really nice, so I enjoyed it a lot. It was just what I needed.

Once again last night, Levi was up a few hours in the middle of the night, so I didn't get enough sleep. Ugh, it's starting to take its toll on me. I'm thinking of skipping school again today. Well, that's why we started so early, way back at the end of July; I figured I'd be missing a few days here and there after the baby was born. I was right ;-)