Friday, January 29, 2010

Quick Pic Update

Chillin up at the church on a Friday night... we're party animals. Jeff's working on school work, boys are playing video games, Ben is smashing playdough into the carpet, so I figured I might as well do something.


Don't really have anything fun to talk about, but here are a few new pics.


Last Saturday we decided to get up early and do some fishing in our pond.







Brothers doing their homework =)



There was a picture of Max, buuutttt the computer freaked out and now Jeff's waiting for me in the car w/ the boys so I'd better go =)














Thursday, January 28, 2010

if i hate hateful people does that make me hateful?

So I totally get that writing a blog almost makes some of the authors celebrities of sorts. And celebrities endure a TON of criticism and sucky judgmental people giving their opinions that haven't been asked for.

BUT in the case of Karen Owens, it's simply undeserved. She's my age, but has already gone through so much in life that NO ONE wants to go through, and she's always handled it with grace, dignity and honesty.

She lost her beautiful son in November, after 3 long years of suffering, and through God's grace has managed to get up, dust herself off and move on (www.gavinowens.com), meanwhile NEVER forgetting her amazing baby boy.

Despite those FACTS there are still incredibly irresponsible people who have left comments anonymously on her blog, that are nothing but hurtful and devastating. It makes me sooo mad!! Why are some people like that? What makes them feel the urge to say hurtful things to a heartbroken, grieving mother?! I can't wrap my head around it.

I couldn't help but cry, thinking about that comment "You sound like your son was a burden" must have made her feel. After all the heartache. After all the pain - deep, immense pain. And if that's not bad enough, for someone else to agree with that hatefulness. It's absolutely MIND-BLOWING!

The truth of the matter is when you write a blog, your life is no longer private, and unless you turn comments off, it can happen again, which is just another example of how strong she is.

I really hope that the anonymous hater is a man, or woman with no children, because there's no way that a Mom, who has felt the love, joy and pain children bring to our lives could draw that conclusion. I don't think so anyway. I have been wrong a few times, though. =) Just a few.

Today I'm thankful for...

Some days this is harder than others...

Today I'm thankful that no one reads my blog because if I ever get crappy rudeness from an anonymous jerk-face I'll not be as graceful as Karen is =)

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Christmas Crap...

...is the best Christmas Party game we've ever played! Every year Jeff and I dread all the lame-o Christmas Party games we'll have to play at the many Christmas Parties we're expected to attend. If I have to play the STUPID humming game or listen to god-awful sober karaoke one more time I will cry.

Well, cry no more. This game was amazing.

So it's basically the gift-exchange game, but instead of bringing good gifts, you play this after Christmas and you bring the crappiest gifts that you got for Christmas that year. It's hysterical! We brought scratched off lottery tickets (that were duds) and a tiny naked baby (that my odd sister got Jeff). We were crying we were laughing so hard.

We came home with a Connect-4 game, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory dvd, and a HIDEOUS black and yellow cosmetic bag - Yes we ended up w/ 3 gifts bc Jeff gets so much joy out of being a pain in the arss and had stolen coffee from one chick (just because it's REALLY fun to piss her off), and after the game was over, offered it back to her but she'd have to trade hers and her husbands gifts. Needless to say she didn't consult the hubby - she grabbed his gift and chunked it, along w/ hers at Jeff in exchange for the coffee (which we don't even drink). It was great.

I honestly don't know where we'd be without our Young-Married's family group. And not just because we play cool games =) we have honestly learned so much, thru not only the teachings (which are incredible), but just the relationships. We're all going thru the same things! We're not alone.

After Christmas Crap was over, we settled down a little and started talking about some prayer requests. Ours, of course, was the car situation (and that I don't go crazy in the next 6 months of maddness).

Welllll... After we were finished praying, one of my girlfriends from the group came up to me and said that she and her hubby want us to use their van (new Nissan Quest, which is my dream car, no joke, I'm ridiculous) because it just sits in their driveway since she has another vehicle and her hubby has a work truck. OH MY GOSH I was in shock. I texted her a couple hours later to say "thank you" because I realized I hadn't said it! I am still stunned.

I don't know why. The Lord has ALWAYS provided. ALWAYS. God, You are so good to me and I don't deserve it. I never have.

Today I'm just plain thankful =)

Thursday, January 21, 2010



In all my whining and crying in that last post I forgot to mention

I GOT A NEW CAMERA!! Yay. Even though the loan was much less than expected (and needed), Jeff said I could still get a new camera (it was the one "splurge"... all the rest went towards debt, cross my heart) since my old one broke about 4 months ago, and taking pictures is my heroine. All day I think about new places to take the boys to take pics... everything they do I think to myself "that will make such a cute page in their scrapbook!" It's ridiculous, seriously, but I'm happy!


Still don't have internet at home though, so still won't be able to put many up on here, although I'm on facebook alot more than blogging, so I'm sure I'll manage to get a few on there every once in a while. FB is how Jeff and I keep in touch w/ all our relatives, since we're scattered all over the globe!

I leave you with one more... this is my "undies in the crack" weirdo...




blog-it-out

I'm sooo annoyed w/ Noah's Quest (GT) teacher right now.

So apparently our school district isn't forking enough money over for the Gifted & Talented program so there's only one teacher for all 5 elementary schools in our district. Which means Noah only gets to go to Quest on Friday mornings from like 830 - noon. Well, because she's so busy, he hasn't had Quest since before the Christmas break! She's been teaching in Ft. Worth for some reason and our town doesn't have a sub for that class or something?? I don't know the details, but that's not even the actual reason I'm pissed.

Noah's favorite thing about school (other than recess of course-he IS a boy) is library day, and he's been in heaven this year because when he goes to the library w/ quest, he can get a book from ANY section! Not just the second grade section.

Well, back in October, Noah had checked out a couple of books when he was in Quest, along w/ a couple w/ his regular teacher, but on different days of the week. Well 2 weeks later when it was time to return the books he had checked out w/ Quest, the teacher didn't show, so he didn't get to return the books. I didn't even find out until I got his report card and it said I owed 60 freaking dollars for 2 library books! What!? Well Noah told me exactly what happened and that it was only a 20 cent fine and that his Quest teacher paid it for him.

I chilled out and dropped it.

Fast forward to today. Noah gets home from school and hands me another one of those papers that has OVERDUE stamped on it in big red letters. 45 bucks this time! Noah was almost in tears telling me how he didn't get to check out a book today (w/ his regular class) because he hasn't returned the books from Quest (the class he hasn't had in a month!!!).

It breaks my heart picturing him sitting at a table all alone, holding a piece of paper basically telling the world he did something wrong, while his classmates are browsing the library for books. I know how dramatic that sounds but I also know how exaggerated situations are to kids. It must have felt like hours that he sat there by himself. He even told the librarian the story and she couldn't call me so I could bring the books up?? Aahhh!!

Right now I'm realizing that I've got issues. Obviously as a mom I want to always be there for my kids, but I won't always be able to. I've got to let things like this go. Emotionally - not physically. The school will definitely be hearing from me tomorrow, but I can't let it break my heart. I have to know that every situation like this will build character in my children, strengthen them and that's not a bad thing. It's my job to teach him how to handle himself when he faces things like this, not be there to handle everything for him.

I'm still mad though.

On an even more depressing note - Jeff's student loan was 1000 less than anticipated, and that 500 bucks I mentioned the other day that we could use for a clunker that we seriously need... Yeah, got the electric bill - $504.26. Crap.

One more thing - is it normal that wedgies have evolved into Max running around w/ his underwear completely up his crack, laughing at the top of his lungs? Or is he a weird child? I'm really not sure.

Today I'm thankful for this beautiful day! 65 and sunny! It was wonderful. Ben and I walked to the park to feed the ducks, and we all went fishing in the pond wheh Jeff got home.

I think I'm over the library situation now. Just needed to blog-it-out. =)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

We need a new car!!

OOOhhh my geeze we need a car!

Starting tonight this is our "schedule" (with 1 car):

Monday - jeff works 45 min away, from 7-4, but I've got to get the boys to school at 7:45am and pick them up at 3(every day). Then jeff has class from 6-9pm.

Tuesday - same schedule PLUS Max has soccer practice at 6pm.

Wednesday - currently the only day that works, no prob.

Thursday - thankfully, Jeff's dad will pick him up for work in the morn (his dad is the president of the company), but he doesn't bring him home until 530ish, and Jeff has class (30 min in the opposite direction) at 6pm again. He'll be stinky and have no time to eat (which are both unacceptable for Jeff). Oh and Max has practice again at 6.

Fridays - are cool, cause his dad will take him and he doesn't have class.

Starting in April, Jeff starts "spring training" with the football boys, which is usually from like 330-530, every day but Wednesday. Yeah...

Mixed in w/ this Jeff also has an online class but we currently have no internet at home (we live so far out, it's like 75/month, minimum) so he has to go to my parent's house to use theirs.

AAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

We have 500 bucks we could use for an old junker, I'm way past caring about my image, I just need to be able to get all 4 =) of my boys to school!! We just haven't been able to find one. Jeff's dad has offered to sell us his little toyota... For 5000 dollars. Lol. That's hysterical. IF I HAD 5000 DOLLARS I WOULDN'T HAVE THIS PROBLEM!! Ugh.

It'll work out... It always does, I just forget too quickly how the Lord has always provided.

God, today I'm thankful that You already have a plan for my little family, and if You'd like to share it w/ me that'd be grrrreat =)

Monday, January 18, 2010

I know it's been almost a month since Christmas, but this is the first time I've gotten to get on a "real" computer to upload a pic, and as you can tell, not a great pic, but 3 happy boys doesn't happen often, and fuzzy or not, they're cute =)

super duper randomness

I've been thinking lately about if I'm going to get pregnant again anytime soon. Yes, we already have 3 boys, and no, we're not wealthy, but we have always worked as hard as we could to provide for and teach our kids the basic truths (don't lie, love your neighbor, don't be stupid, etc) that I think we should try again.

A brief T-M-I rabbit trail - my body is weird, not normal at all. Every 28 days, in normally functioning female's bodies', an egg says to the rest of the group "I'm sick of u B's... I'm outta here!" - causing the said female's period. Apparently my eggs are best buds because I only have 1-3 periods a year. Which is super ok w/ me! But does make family planning difficult (although we've managed to get pregnant 3 times already, none of which were planned tho).

Back to the point - we have a pretty ideal family setting to produce more human beings. I mean, we have to cancel out the Nad.ia Sul.emon kids, right?? Not all by myself, but if 5 stable families have 4 kids each, it'll cancel out the poor kids who are growing up in that type of craziness!

One more rabbit trail - I do not believe homosexual couples should be able to get married. Where would it end? Next, could men marry porcupines? (I am not opposed to the idea of some type of certificate or license that read "partners" "pals" or "best-friends-for-life" for that matter - there's no reason that if you were in the hospital, that the person you love shouldn't be able to be by your side. But marriage was and is intended to be between one man and one woman. Don't hate me!) HOWEVER, the Lord can bring good into any situation, and I think the number of children who have been adopted by wonderful, loving, responsible, caring gay and lesbian couples is definitely a pro.  But it also means that us Christians aren't doing a very good job! Again, don't hate me, it's just how I feel. I never wanted to get super religious or political on my blog, and it seems I've broken both of my rules here.

BACK TO MY POINT!

Ok, so will I ever get pregnant again? Who knows, I think I'd be just fine if not... It's not like I have a ton of spare time, but I wouldn't mind going thru 9 more months of miserable, nautious, wonderful fattness to welcome another miracle into the world.

Today I'm thankful for good people =).

Sunday, January 17, 2010

I keep forgetting!!

Today I'm thankful that the boys don't have school in the morning so maybe I can sleep in! Shout out MLK Jr. =)

cheater cheater pumpkin eater

I'm cheating tonight because there's too much going on to pick a single event to discuss (with myself, haha):

1)Where is your cell phone?
In my hand (love my blackberry =)

2)Where is your significant other?
Laying right next to me, checking scores (on his matching bb) and watching Law & Order (if I tried to change the channel I'd be risking my fingers...)

3)Your hair color?
Plain ol brown

4)Your mother?
On so many meds that I'm not sure how she keeps track. Love her with all my heart!

5)Your father?
The hardest worker I know.

6)Your favorite thing?
Wall flowers- those plug-in smelly-good things from bath&bodyworks. I really really like them =)

7)Your dream last night?
Slept like a baby. I remember closing my eyes around 11ish and waking up to Max in my face asking if we could get "piggies" (sausage biscuits) for breakfast at 7ish.

8)Your dream/goal?
Really just to have a healthy, happy family. I mean I'd love to finish school and have an actual job one of these days, but I'd be fine if that never happened. I don't need it. My main prayer is that I will have the wisdom and strength to raise strong, confident, honest boys (maybe a girl one day?) while managing to love and cherish Jeff along the way (even tho he pisses me off regularly =).

9)The room you're in?
My bedroom, that really needs some updating.

10)Your hobby?
Scrap booking!!! I'm addicted, but thankfully I'm broke and busy out of my mind so it's not able to take over my life. Now when we become millionaires and the boys go off to college, watch out!

11)Your fear?
That I haven't learned the lessons that I should have learned by now. I hate stupid mistakes.

12)Where do you want to be in 6 years?
Hopefully not in the looney bin yet! The boys will be 13, 11, and 7. Wow. It's hard to imagine. Jeff will have been out of school and coaching football for about his 8th year, so hopefully settled in somewhere. We'll see...

13)Where were you last night?
At a meeting with our elders, discussing Jeff's possible job change. Our feelings were confirmed... Change is a'commin!!

14)What you're not?
Friggin motivated enough to lose weight.

15)Wish list item?
New camera, fo sho!

16)Where you grew up?
I was born in Amsterdam, NY, moved to Pasadena, CA when I was 4, then moved to Weatherford, TX when I was 10 and have lived here since.

17)Last thing you did?
Ran to Wally World to grab a gallon of milk (6 patches for the boys jeans and a $4 movie) for Baby Ben's ba-ba =)

18)What are you wearing?
Black nail polish, yeah, I'm a rebel like that =)

19)Your tv?
Omg my new favorite show: Modern Family!!! Stinking hilarious!

20)Your pet?
5 (yes 5) cats. 1 cat showed up at our back door about a year ago, and gave birth to 4 kittens a few months later. They're all females (weird, right), outside cats, and GREAT mouse catchers so they're welcome here! We tried the dog thing (a bassett named Caroline =( ) but I got majorly attached and she died when she was only like 6 momths old and I sobbed for at least 3 days, so no more puppies for me!! (Not yet anyway ;)

21)Your computer?
Worthless bc it won't charge. How do I figure out if it's the laptop or the charger w/o buying a new charger?

22)Your mood?
Optomistic about the future but currently veryyy sleeeepyyy...

23)Your car?
Pathfinder. I really liked my Altima better, but it definitely got crammed in there with the addition of baby #3.

24)Something you're not wearing?
Undies! (Great minds think alike, Mrs. OHN!)

25)Your favorite store?
Hobby Lobby, hands down.

26)Your summer?
Is just around the corner. Tuesday's high temp is 72. Ugh.

27)Love someone?
Absolutely. A few someones =) one of which is now snoring in my face.

28)Favorite color?
That new dark teal I'm seeing everywhere - love it.

29)Last time you laughed?
I laugh A LOT. But the last time I like fell over laughing - yesterday while watching episodes of Modern Family we had recorded. Love me some DVR action.

30)Last time you cried?
Friday, there was miscommunication with my job* and I thought my boss* was going to be upset w/ me but he wasn't and he was very understanding. It was a happy/relieved cry. (*i use these terms losely-i do the bulletins for our church)



Well, I don't think the objective was to write an entire blog entry for every question, but apparently I had a lot to say!

G O O D N I G H T

Friday, January 15, 2010

Scrap It

Scrap It meets tomorrow!! I'm so looking forward to getting a few pages done... I'm so stinking far behind! Why did I take up scrap booking?? I need something else on my calendar like I need a hole in my head. I feel incredibly scattered lately - so many things going on but nothing I can actually finish or feel accomplished about. I think worrying about Jeff's job situation, and contemplating what life is going to be like starting next week (him working 3 jobs (so no schedule) and 4 courses, only 1 of which is online, with 1 car, and Max playing soccer, and oh yeah, the boys have to get to and from school) isn't helping any. I need to chill... It'll all work out, it's just that feeling of being in limbo drives me nutty!


What the crap is up w/ these ridiculous looking shoes that claim to tone your legs and butt just by wearing them. is anyone ACTUALLY buying them? They're about the dumbest thing I've seen in awhile... Just sayin...

Thursday, January 14, 2010

MaMa!

I had to explain to Ben (who will be 20 months old tomorrow) that MaMa has a 2000 hit limit to the times she can answer to "MaMa!!MaMa!!!" in any given 24 hour period. I'm completely maxed out for the day. He looked at me like he almost understood my pain, but about 3 seconds later...

"MaMa!"

Now that I've actually had a little more time to read other moms' blogs, I've decided I need to start a new blog where I would be anonymous. There are so many things that I'd love to rant about, and even tho NO ONE reads this, or even knows about it for that matter, it still has my name, husband/kids names, and if I could figure out how to put pics on it from my phone I want to put pics up every day. Sooo I can't really "go there" because there's a chance someone will actually read it.

With that said and without being too specific, Jeff is considering a HUGE change on the career front. His boss right now has been amazing in the past, but as of late has been kinda sucky. He even basically accused Jeff of stealing from the company- yeah, pretty sucky. He had to go thru the past 3 months of company credit card statements and account for every transaction (which he had already done-they have to fill out a form every time they use the company cc). I was FURIOUS. A new friend of his is big into selling Kirby vacuumes, and wants Jeff to work for him, doing the books. He is guaranteeing him 3x's more money than he's making right now (adios poor house!), and he loves all that accounting crap. It's going to be rough quitting the other job. We know the people very well and it will be emotional. It'll be harder on me - Jeff's a typical male, no biggie. Just praying he makes the right choice.

Time to put Mr. "MaMa!" to bed. Until next time...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

biggest loser

Here I sit, watching Biggest Loser, eating a friggin piece of pumpkin pie. Someone please smack me.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

ugh.

Yesterday Maxwell informed me that he shouldn't have given his lunch money to the lunch lady because he would have rather bought the "spencils" that were for sale for $10.

"Stencils?" I asked.

"Yes! Spencils!" he answered w/ a huge grin on his face. Love that kid.

Fast forward a couple hours and Noah asks if he can use my phone to look up facts about penguins. I say sure and start it for him by typing "penguines" into the google searcher thing. He looks at it w/ a confused face and starts trying to read what I typed, "pen-gUU-EEn-es??" I'm like what?? Then I realize Mr. Brainiac can't read mis-spelled words. Good grief. How am I supposed to be his mom when he's like on a completely different intelligence level than me!? I can't pretend to be smarter than him for much longer. He's gonna catch on!

Had a good, but long day today. Got all the Christmas decor put up. I had left it up because Christmas w/ Jeff's mom/brother(and family) was scheduled for our house on Jan 9th. Well, we woke up that morning w/ NO ELECTRICITY. The high was 30 that day. 30 degrees!!! Anyway, we moved it to Jeff's mom's which was fine w/ me, I didn't really wanna clean anyway =). The only irritating part (aside from having no electricity for God knows why) was that I had left all my decorations up. Oh well...

Today I'm thankful for Texas! Omg did I just say that?? I was born in NY and until the last month, I've hated the TX weather and dreamed of the day we would pack up and move back up north, but I've discovered something about myself lately (our highs have been in the 30's and lows in the friggin teens): I'm a total sissy!! Today's high of 55 was definitely welcome. If it didn't warm up soon our Christmas lights were going to remain up indefinitely!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

GO MAVS!!!!

We picked a great one! The Pistons are typically a pretty strong team, but lately they've been struggling, although you wouldn't know that by the first half of the game last night.

We were down like 50 something to 30 something. Mavs shot a whopping 18% again, until the second half! Cue Dirk doing his Dirk thing and we came back and even led for awhile but it came down to the wire.

Tied w/ about a min left, Jet hit a key shot, Gooden had a key stop, and at that point Detroit had to start fouling and it was over.

Go Mavs =)

Today I'm thankful for feeling sore (yes I'm crazy but it's nice to know working out does something, especially when I'm not losing ANY weight).

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Goin to the Mavs game tonight! Woo hoo! 2 nights ago they got killed by like 35 pts so hopefully they got a good butt-chewin by Mr. Carlisle and will actually be ready to play tonight. If not I'm getting another margarita and taking a nap! Ha. I'm old.

Today I'm thankful for this really, really cold winter we're having!!! I remember about 5 years ago we didn't even have a winter. The highs all thru Jan and Feb were in the upper 60's, even getting into the low 80's a couple of times. Just ridiculous and rather depressing. I really would love to live somewhere that had real winters, with snow on the ground, ya know? Not like blizzard city, just WiNtEr =) maybe the Lord knew I was itching for a change so he gave me this beautiful winter =)

Sunday, January 3, 2010

love me some to-do lists

So 2010 already? Thought we were supposed to be hovering around in space craft and that surely I would be skinny, but no such luck. Same ol' same ol' - nothing new, except a new To-Do List! Whoo hoo!

To-Do in 2010:

* tithe over 10%
* save at least 10%
* take at least 2 more college courses
* lose 20 pounds, please God, just 20 pounds!
* be nicer =)
* watch Mavs play for the championship. You can do it, Mavs, even tho you're losing by almost 40 as I sit here typing this... Ugh...
* have consistent quiet times every day, even if all I have is 10 minutes, it's better than nothing

And finally,

* enjoy every second and thank God every step of the way.

Today I'm thankful for the future.