Birthday gift

My birthday was in July. The 20th to be exact. Last Friday (yes, late in August) I got a package from my mom that had my birthday present in it. It is wickedly awesome (yes, I really do still say that), and definitely worth the wait. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what it is because she bought something similar for my sister-in-law Lisa and didn't send it yet. Lisa's birthday was July 8. So, if you happen to be one of the people I see on a regular basis, ask me if you can see my gift. I will be happy to show it off. If you aren't one of the people I see on a regular basis and you promise not to call/email/talk to Lisa then call me and I will tell you what it is. If you are Lisa don't bother asking. I am not going to tell. Have you wondered why I haven't talked to you in a few days? It's because it is killing me not to tell you!! But trust me, it will be worth your wait too :)

Thanks Mommy!!!!

Second Day of School

Me: Good morning, Kenny

Kenny: Mommy, will you homeschool me?

Me (thinking about this and this): Let's have breakfast and talk about that one!

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. They both had a great day. Their school seems really nice and so do their teachers. Chase changes classes just like a middle school kid. If you want to see their school click here. The website doesn't seem to be very up-to-date though.

I also started classes today. I enjoyed them, but parking was a mess. I am definitely going to get my exercise walking from the parking lots to my classes.

I'm done at noon on MWF so I'll have plenty of time to do my studying and get my errands done before I pick up the boys from school. Waiting until 2:45 was torture today. Leaving them at school after being together for 15 months was harder than the first day I sent each of them to kindergarten. Although I think I was the only one who felt that way because they sure didn't seem to miss me as much as I missed them!

Texas Friends 101

Last night Brian and I had a couple of people over to watch UFC 74. I decided to take a few pictures to help out my family and friends back east with name/face recognition. It seems that I'll be talking to someone on the phone and instead of being able to say "Kelly and I took the kids to the pool" or "Jennifer and I went to Hobby Lobby" I end up saying "The other first sergeant's wife" or "The commander's wife" So this posting is Texas Friends 101. Now you'll be able to put a face with the name :) The above photo is all of the girls: Precious Jumper, me, Kelly Ludwigsen, and Jennifer Starr.

This is Eric and Kelly. He is the B Co. 1st Sergeant. I have also referred to him as "the hunter" and "the family that lives in our neighborhood" Brian and Eric were platoon sergeants together at Fort Meade in 2001 and they were also at Fort Bragg at the same time as us, although Eric was in 3rd Group, not 7th. They have three kids: Austin (10), Hayley (8), and Matthew (6). Kelly is a speech pathologist and librarian. In their spare time they like to ... he he he ... just kidding!

This is Scott, Jennifer, and Skylar. Scott is Brian's commander. I am done referring to Jennifer as "the commander's wife"! She is the funniest blogger I know. They have four kids: Ashlyn (8), Hailey (6), Owen (3), and Skylar (7 mo.) We never knew them before we got here, but they have filled us in on lots of funny stories about their adventures all over the world. They have been stationed in Alaska and Hawaii and are still trying to decide where to go next. Fort Bragg is too muggy, Fort Lewis is too rainy, Germany is too far away, .... suggestions anyone? (Amber, this is where you vote for Italy)

This is Will and Precious Jumper. He is Eric's commander and the most recent addition to our little group. They just got here last spring. Will has a 12-yr old son from his first marriage and they have a little one due to arrive in early December. Brian, Eric, and Scott have 11 kids between them so Will & Precious have a little bit of catching up to do!

Chase and Austin

Hayley L. and Ashlyn

Matthew and Owen

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Kenny and Hailey S. are not pictured because Kenny fell asleep before the end of the night and Hailey was too tired to pose for me.

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Ok, that's it. No more explanations involving adjectives or adverbs or anything like that. All you get from now on are names. If you are confused, just pretend you aren't!

Ebay as entertainment

Jennifer sent me an email this morning with a link to the (second) funniest ebay listing I have ever read. The first would have to be the guy who listed his ex-wife's wedding dress a couple of years ago. That was pee-your-pants hilarious and if I can find a link to the story on the internet I'll post it. Anyway, if you want a good laugh, check out this lady's ebay listing for some pokemon cards. Sadly, her grocery store trip really reminds me of recent shopping experiences Jennifer and I have had together, but you know that misery loves company, right? So that makes it even funnier. Here's the link to her listing: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130144061675description

And if you look at the places I visit you'll see her blog has been added. It's called "Because I Said So" and I am sure it will continue to be a fun place to get a good laugh.

Ok, I just did a search for the wedding dress guy and guess what I found .... Yep, www.weddingdressguy.com Seriously! If you decide to go, the link to the original ebay ad is on the left, near the top. And now that I've read it again I will have to say that the pokemon card lady is probably funnier. Or maybe I can relate to her better than I can relate to wedding dress guy. Either way, it's nice to know that ebay is a good source of entertainment once in a while, instead of just serving as a funnel for Brian's hard-earned money.

Priceless

Cost of tuition for fall semester: $2,250
Cost of fees for fall semester: $799.32
Cost of books for fall semester: $362.85

Being busy every minute the boys are at school: What the heck was I thinking?!?

Happy 1/2 Birthday PJ

My little Penelope Jean is 6 months old today. She is quite a character and has gotten into the habit of getting me up early the past couple of days. I think someone forgot to tell her that summer vacation isn't over yet. On the plus side: she can 'sit', 'lay down', 'speak', and give 'high fives'. She loves the kids and the other pets and although Sammy has definitely warmed up to her the cats are still running away at warp speed. Oh, and she's extremely spoiled ... as you can see she is sitting on the dining-room table for her picture.

The White Stripes -- We're Going to be Friends

Our new life

I heard this song this morning and instantly loved it. It made me think of our new life in Texas. We miss our friends in NC like crazy and we miss being within driving distance of my family even more, but we just love our Texas life. My neighborhood is very quiet and safe. My kids play outside more here than they have since we were in Germany. They choose basketball, biking, swimming, and playing in the woods before they even think about playing video games or watching tv. I can't tell you how many times I used the garden hose to clean mud off from them this weekend. And I love it!

Building the Taj Mahal

These are Chase & Kenny's friends: Haley, Matthew, and Austin. They have spent many days working on their many forts out back. Today we went to the pool to swim and after about an hour they were asking to leave so that they could continue working on their fort. This is my idea of good, healthy, active fun! Oh, and it keeps them out of the house and makes them sleep like babies at bedtime too :)

Moms of the Year Award

Yesterday I watched Jennifer's (FOUR!) kids while she went to a doctor's appointment. They are Ashlyn (8), Haley (6), Owen (3), and Skylar (7 mo.) She wasn't gone very long and everything went fairly well.

Owen slept until about 2 minutes before Jennifer got home.

Skylar was easy as pie and happy to be entertained by Ashlyn (a.k.a. little mommy).

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And Haley was ok after she woke up all the way.

As soon as Jennifer got home we unpacked all of her new Creative Memories stuff and realized she was missing one thing. She got on the phone and called a Creative Memories consultant that lived only about a block away from her. While she was on the phone Kenny and Haley used every tool she bought and shredded about 50 million pieces of paper onto the floor. Jennifer made an appointment for us to go to the consultant's house after lunch and we headed out the door to find something to eat.

Six kids in the car and the batteries for the DVD player were dead. That was fun.

We bought Sonic for ourselves, our kids, and our husbands. I think we spent almost $50 between us. Yes, at Sonic!

Then we lost Skylar's pacifier and had to run back to the house for another one. She only screamed when we stopped at red lights, stop signs, slowed down for corners and tried to navigate around all of the retirees that decided to drive the same streets as us.

We took lunch to the guys and headed over to Hobby Lobby. That was an interesting adventure. I let Chase, Ashlyn, Kenny, Haley, and Owen to go to the kids' crafts together (without us). It was very relaxing for us, but not so much for the Hobby Lobby employees. We bought what we needed and everything went ok -- that is, other than Owen running out of the store and almost getting run over.

As if all of this isn't bad enough, after we got back to the house we decided to go to the Creative Memories consultant's house without the kids. Skylar was asleep and we were only going to be about 100 yards away. If you want to read about that adventure click here. Trust me, it's funny. And by the way, you will never, ever, ever, ever, ever nominate me or Jennifer for a Mother of the Year award after you read what she had to say about the last 45 minutes of our day together.

Oh, and one more thing ... please don't tell Brian or Scott! They don't really need to know what goes on while they are at work, do they?!?

More Critters

Yesterday when Kenny tried to put on his sneakers he found a spider in his shoe. He is usually pretty tough about all of the critters we have seen here in Texas, but I think anyone would be unnerved by sticking your foot into a shoe with something like this and feeling it on your toes! Chase got a coin to put on the floor next to the spider so it would be easier to see how big it was. It wasn't huge, but big enough. And by the way, it's about 1/4 the size of the spider Bethany found in Chase's room last week. I didn't even have time to get the camera because I was busy yelling for Brian to get it out of my house right that very instant.

See you next time!!

Dylon and Bethany went back home to Oklahoma on Sunday. We really enjoyed having them here and our time together went by way too fast. We love you guys!!!

Who says

You can't teach an old dog new tricks?!? Sammy turned six last month and he learned how to catch a frisbee today! He'll probably sleep for three days, but at least he had fun tonight.

You Tube

A couple people have mentioned that they can't view our videos (Kids vs. Wild and Staying Cool). I went in to my You Tube account and changed some of the settings. Hopefully it will work now. Please tell me if you can't get them to work.
Thanks!
~Amy

Staying Cool

It is 96-degrees here right now. (And I think it's cooled down a little since this afternoon.) The boys decided to use their ingenuity and find a way to stay cool. All they needed was a broken water hose and a trampoline.

That's not redneck at all, is it?!?

Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice

I am so ready for Grey's Anatomy to start back up and for Private Practice to start. If you are a Grey's fan (who isn't?!?) then check out these websites that I just spent way too much time on while the dishes sat dirty in the sink and dinner went uncooked:


http://abc.go.com/fallpreview/privatepractice/index?u=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Practice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey

Perks

Even though Brian works such long hours (44.5 in the first three days of this week) and has to deal with phone calls in the middle of the night (we had four incoming and four outgoing last night), there are some perks to the job. For one, he is a first sergeant. That is pretty cool to be able to say that my husband is a first sergeant with 390 people in his company. And, he gets along really well with his commander so that helps. Oh, and when he passes the students they all have to stand up and yell "At Ease!" which is highly entertaining considering the boys think the students think Brian's name is "EDDY" and are simply yelling a loud hello! But by far, my new favorite perk is the free food. Yes, free food. Drill Sergeant McDaniels gave Brian this:

Included in this gift was:

• One package of deer backstrap filet (???)
• One package of Elk steak
• Two packages of deer hamburger
• One package of deer butterflys (???)
• One package of Elk hamburger
• Two tubes (???) of wild game summer sausage (???)
• Two packages of wild game uncooked sausage
• One tube (???) of wild game jalapeno cheese

Now, although I am grateful, I am also at a loss. What do you think wild game jalapeno cheese is? And deer butterflys (yes, that is how it is spelled on the package) ? I am not sure what any of it is. But it was super nice of SFC McDaniels to think of us and share. And if anyone else finds themselves wondering what to make with Elk hamburger you should try this recipe for Elk Chili. We had it last night and it was absolutely delicious!!!

Stolen Posting

Ok, I totally stole this posting from Jennifer. I mean CUT & COPIED it because it was so funny. So while you are reading it, keep in mind that "I" means Jennifer and "Amy" means, well, me.



Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Jeez

Today Amy and I took all our kids to Mr. Gatti's for some lunch and good fun. So let's see...there was her two children and two step-children and my er, 4 kids, so that's um, 8 kids total: Dylon (13), Bethany (12), Chase (10), Ashlyn (8), Kenny (7), Haley (6), Owen (3), and Skylar (6.5 months). Amy and I are both 33, in case anyone out there is wondering or cares. And yes, we deserve medals, bight shiny medals. Or cash.

3 hours later Amy and I were both broke and I'm pretty sure Mr. Gatti's will never be quite the same. And because the playdate was so successful we decided to cap it off with a trip to WalMart to finish up buying school supplies. With all 8 kids. Apparently all that Dr. Pepper and dessert pizza went to our heads.

I have come to accept the fact that I will never be able to find a spiral notebook that does not have perforated pages (it MUST NOT have PERFORATED PAGES, NO, don't try to send your kid in with a notebook with perforated pages) for Ashlyn so my school supply shopping will never ever be complete. I know this because WalMart doesn't have them. And if WalMart doesn't have them then they must not exist anywhere except in some 3rd grade teacher's twisted mind. Also, there is some type of folder that Chase needs that is on the shelf right next to the spiral notebooks that DO NOT HAVE PERFORATED PAGES. You know, right beside them. In La-La Land.

At some point during the time at WalMart Owen decided to lay down on his back on the bottom of the buggy that Kenny was pushing at warp speed around the store. Some time after that his shoe became lodged in the bottom of the buggy. Owen became upset and Kenny started lagging behind us, pushing the buggy while bent over trying to help Owen get his foot unstuck. This, in case you don't know, causes massive weaving of the buggy, which can then crash into displays and/or other unsuspecting shoppers. And Kenny's all pointing and gesturing to Amy and me and we're up ahead kind of pretending we don't know them and nodding and saying "Yeah, we see Owen! How cute is that!" not knowing he was stuck until some stranger stopped and began to help. So Amy and I ran back and to make a long story short we had to take the shoe off to get Owen out. Not a big deal, but attention grabbing for sure, as people heading towards the check out lines all gawked at us as they passed by, probably thinking we were on some day-care center field trip.

Then Amy forgot that she needed some butter and so she went back to get it while I mama-ducked my way to the front of the store with all the kids straggling behind me. We passed a man whose smile faded as the line of children parading in front of his buggy seemed to go on for miles. And he asked me. You knew he would ask me. Somewhere inside everyone there's a little bit of class that somehow flies right out the window as soon as you pull into the WalMart parking lot. That's why you see all those freakin weirdos in WalMart all the time.

"Jeez lady, are all these kids yours?" (eyes bugged out)

And I got to say "Er, no, only half of them are mine." (weak smile)

But you know, somehow that didn't make it any better.

Blogged by Jennifer at 9:12 PM

My $88 Box of Tissues

Today we bought most of our school supplies. I am having trouble finding the specific folders that Kenny needs and the specific scissors that Chase needs. So we are almost done. I spent a little over $88. And just think, I bought a ten-pack of tissues and the kids only need nine boxes so I get to keep one box for the house! Woo-hoo!

The Sunday Paper

This morning I asked Dylon & Bethany to walk to the store to get the Sunday paper for me. I wanted to look through the ads to see where we should go shopping for our school supplies. This is how the paper came back to me five minutes later! Bethany said, "It was really windy outside." and Dylon said, "It was Bethany's fault!"
TOO FUNNY!

More Scary Bridge Info

This is from an article I just read online:

More than 70,000 bridges across the country are rated structurally deficient like the I-35W bridge, and engineers estimate repairing them all would take at least a generation and cost more than $188 billion.

Here's the link to the article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_re_us/bridge_collapse

I don't know about you, but it makes me want to just stay home!

School Supplies

It's that time of year again ... time to go out and buy a bunch of stuff that our kids need for school and that the school doesn't provide. Like tissues, paper towels and soap. I can see buying paper and pencils for your kids, but Chase needs 48 #2 pencils -- 48!! There are 175 days of school here. So I guess that means he only has to use each pencil for 3.6 days.

Trying to make sense of school supply lists created by four different sets of teaching teams in two different schools was overwhelming so I let my slightly OCD tendencies take over for a little while and made one master list of school supplies. Different teachers described things different ways. Some have more specific requirements than others. So I decided to make one list and try to consolodate as much as possible. We went to Sam's Club already, but the only thing they had that fit into our list was the tissues and pencils. I spent $27 on tissues and #2 pencils!! I think I will have to close my eyes when it comes time to pay the bill for the rest of this stuff!

Binder 3 ring, 1 ½“ size 2 Dylon
Binder 3 ring, 1” size 2 Bethany
Colored pencils 12 count, full length 2 boxes Bethany
Composition notebook 2 Chase
Composition notebook Hardcover, no spiral edges 2 Kenneth
Crayons 24 count 1 box Chase
Crayons 24 count, Crayola 2 boxes Kenneth
Eraser 1 Dylon
Eraser 1 Kenneth
Erasers Pencil top ? Chase
Glue stick 1 Chase
Glue sticks Large 3 Kenneth
Highlighter 1 Chase
Liquid hand soap 1 bottle Kenneth
Markers 8 count, Crayola (regular) 2 boxes Bethany
Markers 8 count 1 box Chase
Markers 10 count, Crayola, Primary colors 1 box Kenneth
Notebook spiral, 70 count 1 Dylon
Notebook Spiral, 120 pages or larger, with pockets 1 Chase
Paper graph paper 2 packages Dylon
Paper regular ruled notebook 2 packages Dylon
Paper wide ruled notebook 2 packages Bethany
Paper Wide ruled, 200 count 3 packages Chase
Paper Wide ruled notebook 1 package Kenneth
Paper towels 1 roll Chase
Pencil pouch Zippered 1 Chase
Pencil sharpener hand-held with cover 1 Dylon
Pencils #2 wooden 24 Bethany
Pencils #2 wooden 24 Dylon
Pencils #2 wooden 36-48 Chase
Pencils MAP COLORS (colored pencils) 1 box Chase
Pencils #2 wooden, solid yellow 1 box Kenneth
Pens black 2 Dylon
Pens red 2 Bethany
Pens red 2 Dylon
Pens Black, erasable 1 package Chase
Pocket folder with brads 6 Dylon
Pocket folder PLASTIC, Mead, with brads 1 Kenneth
Pocket folders without brads 2 Bethany
Pocket folders With brads – different colors 5 Chase
Pocket folders With brads, Mead 6 Kenneth
Ruler wooden 1 Dylon
Ruler Customary & metric 1 Chase
School box Plastic 1 Kenneth
Scissors Fiskar 1 pair Chase
Scissors Fiskar, pointed student scissors 1 pair Kenneth
Tab dividers 5 count per package 1 package Bethany
Tab dividers 8 section 1 Dylon
Tissues 3 boxes Bethany
Tissues 2 boxes Dylon
Tissues 2 boxes Chase
Tissues 2 Kenneth
Watercolors 1 set Kenneth
Ziploc baggies Sandwich size 1 box Kenneth

Scary Bridges

Do you remember my posting about my 7 things? (see #7)

THIS is why I obsess about how to save my kids if we are ever on a bridge that collapses!!!

THIS happened while we were moving from Maryland to California. The boys and I were driving from NY to Oklahoma to meet Brian who was driving from Airborne school @ Ft. Benning, Georgia. Ever since this happened I have been panicky about crossing large bridges with the kids. The boys and I were coming from the NE so we weren't on I-40 until OKC, but Brian was on this bridge just a few hours before it happened!!!