Days that don't go so well...

I think we've found ourselves a new budding artist.
Now if only we can find ourselves a new budding carpet cleaner.

So there, SUCKA!

Guess what telemarketers - there's a new tool to work against your obnoxious calls with your rude & aggressive behavior. It's called Caller ID. Oh yes. I can call you right back and ask to speak with you by name. Or I can talk to your manager and tell him how inappropriate you were when you screamed, "You're rude," at me and hung up because I didn't want to give you my personal information. Oh yes. I can even call all the way up the corporate ladder and tell each exec. how awful and offensive you were in your "customer service."
So you think about that next time you buy my information from some internet site and call me up insisting that I requested you to call and harass me. That's called Karma, baby!

Happy Halloween, a bit late

We had fun this year coordinating our costumes to the Wizard of Oz theme. We even had an early Halloween party where we had the opportunity to preview our attire. Unfortunately, due to bad directions we drove around for an hour and a half before we finally made it to the party -- after it was over.



One thing we did learn, though, was that poor Hyrum was so terrified of my green make-up and black wig that I couldn't wear them on Halloween or my little flying monkey would bawl just looking at me!



And he makes SUCH a cute monkey!

How should I respond

when my 5 yr old says to me,

"Mom, you ruined all my lives! I don't have any left. When you disciplined me the first time it put a crack in my first life. And then my next life after that on the next day and then the next day and the next and the next, until all my lives have been all ruined. And it's all your fault!"

?

Interesting

Ode to Andrea

We love you!!

Ten Points

...if you know who this is:




Answer? Buzz, a cyberbot from the show Cyberchase.

What does that have to do with anything? Andrea's birthday, of course!
Okay, so her birthday was back in September (19th), but I couldn't let the day go unacknowledged.
Andrea turned 5 years old (holy cow!) and received a surprise Cyberchase party. Cyberchase is her current favorite show. Its characters are stuck in a cyber-world and spend their time using math skills to defeat the evil Hacker.



As a special treat Grandma Pat came to visit! The girls spent the morning with Daddy and Grandma touring the SouthFork Ranch.









We played "Pin the wig on the Hacker."



Andrea loved her cake, loved her party, hooray! all was well!

ism

while driving along a 'lonesome' field...
Mom: "Look, Andrea, a fire truck!"
...
Andrea: "Mom! Mom! The firemen waved at me!"
Mom: "Cool, kiddo."
Andrea: "What are the firemen doing here?"
Mom: "I don't know. Driving."
Andrea: "Maybe they're helping a cow."

For a good laugh

isms

Me: "Andrea, do you know that I love you?"
Andrea: "Yes! Why do you keep saying that?!"


Me: "Lacie, come here -- I want to hug you."
Lacie: "Okay, but not too much."


Andrea: "Look! Lacie didn't fold her arms during the prayer, so I tried to make her."

Clarification

When I made that resolution to "stay on top of things" last week, it wasn't so much a promise to keep the house up, dishes clean, laundry done, & dinner ready on time as much as it was an agreement to control any urges to go out and rob a bank.

...

And with that understanding, I'm right on track. So far.

Attack!

An apology to readers who may be overwhelmed at the sheer number of posts made in the last hour.
I had a little catching up to do.

Neurotic

I freely admit I have problems. Issues. Whatever.
One is that I tend to go a little overboard on things that probably don't matter that much.
Last month's issue happened to be school shopping for Andrea.

first-time school mom + shop-a-holic + school uniforms that apparently are only sold June - August + OCD = me needing a spreadsheet to figure everything out.
And that was just to buy.

So that Andrea could "decide what to wear" I pulled up pics of each of the uniform clothes online, printed out multiple copies of each, cut them out, matched up the different outfit combination possibilities, glued them, laminated them, cut them out, and then put magnets on the back so every Sunday Andrea can pick out all her outfits for the week and put them on the magnetic calendar hanging in her closet. (see pic above)

I know. Issues.



ps. for anyone curious, there are 30 different outfit combinations not including the 2 different colored long pants allowed (since it's still way too hot to wear them); so technically a kid (girl) can go 6 weeks without repeating the exact same outfit.

First Day!

(a couple weeks late)



Andrea started pre-K on Aug. 24th. She was SOOO excited. After a year of putting on her backpack EVERY DAY and asking if I'd take her to school, the day finally came that I said, "Yes."
And like a good first-timer mom, I took a bazillion pictures, got there 45 mins early, cried, and took so long to leave that the teacher prompted Andrea to tell me that "it'd be okay; it's time to leave now."

How cool is YOUR dad?

Cool enough to randomly take you to the fire station?






Yeah, don't feel too bad for my girls that I'm whooped over their brother. Mark is obsessed with his girls.