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).

.

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!!!

Kids vs. Wild

Have you seen the Discovery channel show called Man vs. Wild? The premise of the show is extreme survival skills based on the military training and experience of host Bear Grylls, a (cute) British guy who was in special operations that is willing to go to such extremes as eating live snakes, grubs, worms, etc and even drinking his own urine...all for the benefit of the camera. Brian and the kids have spent time watching Man vs. Wild this past week. It is just about the only time I have seen them actually sit still for any length of time so I am not going to complain. The only bad thing is the side effect. It is like letting your three-year old son watch Power Rangers ... what does he do after the show ends?!? He karate chops his sister, right? Well, Brian and the kids decided to have their own "Kids vs. Wild" afternoon. Chase, Kenny, and Dylon were thrilled. Bethany went along just to be a good sport. What a good sister :)

First Brian took them out to the Twin Buttes to look for bugs and prickly pear cactus to eat. They all took large, dirty knives and machetes with them. I stayed home and did something domestic and normal.

Then they set up their "camp" -- a tarp on a rope. Sounds comfy, huh?

Some extra supplies -- water and popsicles (it was pretty hot).

An idea? Has he watched too much Man vs. Wild?

Unsuspecting prey?

Well, at least they cooked their grasshoppers before they ate them. Yes, they ate them!

I almost forgot ...

We took the kids to Outdoor World on the way out of San Antonio yesterday. Ok ... Really we wanted to go and made the kids go in with us. But it was pretty cool and we probably could have spent the entire day in there. I felt like a geek doing it, but I took pictures while we were there. I am sure my dad would have some things to say about the evils of capitalism and its power over all of us. Fortunately he never looks at my blog so we can go into stores like Outdoor World and act like little kids in a candy store without feeling guilty!

A Little "Me" Time

Brian's older kids, Dylon & Bethany are here visiting so Brian took some leave time to spend with everyone. He has been working crazy-long hours as a 1SG for the past 9 months and wanted to make sure he had time to spend with the kids while they were here. All four kids get along great and we are having a wonderful time together. Having said that ... I am exhausted! Brian has enough energy to keep up with the kids --- and apparently I don't! I think he is trying to make up for being stuck in his office for 9 months. Let me give you an example: We got home from San Antonio yesterday afternoon. The drive is about 3 1/2 hours. Unpacking the truck was a huge chore! We were tired, but needed to eat so Bethany and I went to the commissary to get enough groceries to make dinner and then went to Jennifer's house to pick up the dog. We were gone about an hour. When we got home Brian and the boys were all dressed and ready to go to the pool. We went over to the pool for a couple of hours, had dinner, then Brian was ready to go exercise. He went running while the kids and I hid in the house and recovered from his endless energy! So ... today I went to Pinky's and bought the supplies I needed for some much deserved "me time"!!!

Sea World

Brian and I took the kids to Sea World this week. The bad news is that it rained the entire time we were there. The good news is that because of the rain we saw this sign at every ride:

Tubing

We took the kids tubing in the lake earlier this week. It was fun and a good way to beat the heat.

Oklahoma City National Memorial

When we left Missouri we went through Oklahoma City to pick up my step-kids for a visit. We got to OKC a little early and decided to go see the Oklahoma City National Memorial. We hadn't been there in several years and I was surprised at how it looked. It was very touching and a good lesson for the boys. They really seemed to understand what happened and how it affected all of Oklahoma and America.

Missouri

We spent six days in Missouri with my friend Rebekah and her family. Rebekah and I became friends in 1994 when we endured the hell known as basic training. We sometimes go years without seeing each other, but the minute we are together we remember why we got along instantly...we have a lot in common and really enjoy spending time together :)

While we were in Missouri we camped at the Lake of the Ozarks Recreation Center. It was really nice there and we had a great time. The "purpose" of our weekend was Rebekah's yearly HBLAMY mini-golf tournament. It was held at Pirate's Cove so we dressed up like pirates (a little bit anyway). On our last day together we took our kids to the Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, MO. The whole weekend was a lot of fun and went by way too fast. HBLAMY Beck!

Abilene

On July 12 (only 6 days after returning from NY) we embarked on our next adventure. We were heading to Missouri to visit my friend Rebekah and attend her HBLAMY mini-golf tournament. My car was in need of a 45,000 mile oil change so I scheduled my appointment for the morning of the 12th -- you see, the closest VW dealership is in Abilene which is 100 miles from here! Since we were heading through Abilene anyway we decided to stop for our oil change that morning. I asked the VW boy to check the pressure on my recently repaired tire. Apparently it wasn't very repaired because it was only holding 15 lb of air. We went down the road to a tire store and had the most interesting Texas morning I think we've had yet.

To get my tire off from the car I needed to unpack the entire trunk (and by the way we were camping in Missouri) just to get to a tiny little tool that would unlock one of the lug-nuts. So I unpacked the whole trunk and put everything in the parking lot. I asked our friendly tire man (Peter) if I could repack my trunk while he worked on my tire. He said he thought that would be ok so I packed it all back in there.

Then came the news that there wasn't a new matching tire in all of Abilene. I had two choices -- I could buy a tire that didn't match and spend $100 or I could drive on my full-size spare until I could get somewhere that had a matching tire. I decided to drive on my spare because I knew I could go to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City and get a new tire for free (we bought our tires through AAFES and had a warranty plan with them). So I got to unpack the trunk again!

By the time I was done unpacking the trunk there were workers and customers alike coming out to tell me how surprised they were that I had so much stuff in there. As I was out there sweating in the 90-something degree summer heat I was rethinking my great idea to bring our own firewood just because I had extra room (Brian had urged me to buy some at the campsite but I said "Why buy it when I have this right here?!?")

Meanwhile, the boys were inside the (air-conditioned) store hamming it up with Dale (I think he's the manager) and a customer named Scotty who kept them busy with tales of rattlesnake hunting. He apparently catches and sells hundreds of rattlesnakes each year. And where does he store them between the catch and the sale? ... In his basement, of course.... hundreds of them. I am thinking that someday we might see him on National Geographic or worse yet, Animal Cops! He gave the boys two large and noisy rattlesnake rattles to keep them busy during the last 650 miles of our trip. Thanks Dale & Scotty for keeping the boys busy. Thanks Peter for attempting to help me with my tire. Thanks to VW for making my car with a full-size spare so that I could drive all over the country with it this month! And thanks to AAFES and Tinker AFB for the new tire.

Oh, and BTW -- all of this was free ... the tire store didn't charge me anything because they said that we were the best entertainment they'd had all week!

She loves me!

My friend Mandy must love me enough to worry about my safety while we are here in Texas. I am assuming she read my blog today because this is what I got in my email:

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/RR/tdr1.html

We're back home ... for sure!

Brian and I took Sammy and Sally for a walk after dinner tonight. We went out on our dirt bike/4-wheeler trail because it's fun for the dogs and we don't have to put them on a leash. We were about two minutes into the walk when I saw this:









Except when I saw it, it was still alive. And right on our trail!!

As I am typing this Brian and the boys are out back skinning it. Chase just came in and told me that they saw the heart still beating and could see what he had eaten!! I think I am going go follow my dad's advice for once and go shopping for some leather hiking boots.

Meet Sally

This is Sally. She's Jennifer & Scott's boxer pup. She is so cute and so sweet and so friendly and so darn fast! We absolutely can't keep up with her! We are pet sitting while her family is on vacation. She loves to play with Sammy and he is pretty tolerant considering he is an old boy who is used to tiny little dogs that are under 10 pounds. Kenny weighed Sally this morning and she is 27.5 pounds...a little bigger than Sam is used to! We are having fun with her and want to be first in line for adoption if the Starrs ever decide she is too much work for them!!

Home

Apparently our trip to NY wasn't eventful enough so we had to endure another crazy travel day on the way back to Texas yesterday ... The first thing that happened was Continental changing our second flight into Austin. I bought our tickets in February so I knew that some small scheduling changes could be expected. We were originally supposed to get in to Austin from Newark at 11:30 am. I thought that would be perfect because we have a looooong drive to our house from Austin. They cancelled that flight a couple of weeks ago and put us on a 2:15-5:18 flight. Continental was pretty accommodating when I called and let us change our first flight from 6:55 to 9:55 so that our layover would only be three hours instead of six. I thought that was nice considering that was the best they could do. The first flight went well and the second flight was slightly delayed due to maintenance problems. We got in around 6:45 and had our bags by 7:00. At 7:30 we were on the road and stopping to buy gas. Somewhere in between the airport and the gas station and the first five minutes on the road I ran over a nail. My tire went flat just as it started to pour cats & dogs. I aired it up enough to go to a Firestone. They wouldn't help because they were closing. I called USAA and they sent out roadside assistance. Yes, I know how to change a tire, but no, I was not thrilled about doing it in the rain after almost 12 hours of traveling. So we ate McDonald's for dinner (so healthy!) and waited. The guy that came out was nice enough and he got the job done. We were home around 12:30 am.

On the bright side ... I came home to an extremely clean house and a bunch of fresh groceries. I even had Klondike Bars (my favorite) in the freezer waiting for me. Yeah Brian!

We're home for five more days then we're heading up to Missouri for the HBLAMY Golf Tournament. I hope that trip is a lot less eventful that our NY trip!

First Haircut

PJ had her first haircut today. She went to Puppy Pals Pet Grooming in Central Square (aka my parents' grooming shop). Brandi (Shelley's girlfriend) and my mom made her look soooo beautiful!!!

Holly & PJ

Here are some pictures we took of Holly Berry Jo and Penelope Jean today. Holly is my parents' Yorkshire Terrier. Holly is five years old and PJ is just over four months now. Today Holly weighed in at 5.67 pounds and PJ weighed in at 5.65 pounds. They are having so much fun together! I think I should try to sneak Holly into PJ's travel bag and take them both to Texas with me. Do you think I'd get away with it?