Just to have something to laugh about..

Okay, well AI proved to not have anything funny to laugh about last night, so thank goodness for Youtube.com.. we pulled up our favorite from last week.. THE BIRD MAN! and brothers forever. :)




Wednesday was a good day! Ethan is signed up for his fourth season of soccer and LOVING it! and we signed Scarlett up yesterday for "nastics" aka gymnastics. She was so excited she wore her new leotard to church underneath her track suit and told everybody that she was going to take "nastics". Ms. Tammy, her new teacher, told her to work on her splits and she is working very hard at them. She asked mommy to show her how to do the splits and that was a definite laughing moment at my house! WOW! how did I ever do them! Her first class is Monday and she can not wait. Ethan has already told her she had to have a bag to carry her things in and then a lock to put on her locker.. as if she has something very valuable! :)

Wednesday nights are always one of my favorite nights of the week.. I know.. not the norm, but when you work on the weekends you don't really look forward to Friday. The kids leave for dinner at church at 5pm and get back home around 7:15pm so Jack and I have made that our "date" night. We have a couple of hours of alone time and that is always a nice thing. Last night we went to dinner at Senor Tequila! YUM!!! Home by 7:00 in mommy/daddy mode feeling a wee bit rejuvenated.

Ramblings about American Idol...

I love watching American Idol! I missed the first season, but have managed to catch a lot of it on Fox Reality TV and I gotta say, as much as I like Kelly Clarkson's music, I am not so sure she would have been my winner! The only year I had a definite favorite was season five with Chris Daughtry and we all know how that ended. I am sure he is much better off for not winning the competition. Katherine McPhee, Rubben Studdard they've all been dropped from their record label. So does winning the competition matter as much as getting your name out there and your voice heard. On that note, after watching American Idol auditions the past few weeks...Do you think some of these people have anybody at home that can hear???? Scarlett wants to be the "next American Idol" she gets her stool and stands on it right in front of the TV and sings for us. I wonder about when she is sixteen and can try out for American Idol.. what if she is bad? I mean really bad like these people on the audition??? Do you trash your child's dream and tell them they are a really bad singer, or do you take them there and let them hear it from Simon, Paula and Randy.. or Okay, mostly Simon? We like to try to guess based on the interview if we think they get a golden ticket. We all take turns saying our reasoning behind the "yes" or a "no". The kids pretty much follow mom and dad. A sure sign it will be a BIG FAT NO is when they compare themselves to another singer, especially lines such as "...people say I sound like (insert any singer here)." Those are usually the worst! My husband likes to base it on how they annunciate words. I am not that scientific, if they seem humble and have a slight confidence they are usually a yes. Two nights of AI usually gets us through the week with at least one thing to laugh about. My kids are still going around singing ".. I am your brother..." and yes they know almost all the words! Aren't you jealous that you can't hear that song on a daily basis? So, here's to hoping tonight has a new "birdman".

Homeschooling a Drama Queen!

Homeschool? That sounded like a wonderful plan to be able to keep my sweet children at home just a little longer.. but if you homeschool one you homeschool the other I heard my husband say.. and well, my second born, AKA Scarlett is a bit of a drama mama! Ethan is eager to learn, ready to do anything and she wants to color, cut , draw and glue all day! She is a lefty, so I of course blame a lot of it on that, she is just more of a creative soul. Over the past YEAR I have tried to get Scarlett to write her name, and if you could see the piles of a wasted paper, that she destroys when she writes one letter wrong and gets mad. She wants to do things right the first time and if it is not or if I begin to correct her, she tears it up and says " I can't do this!" (this is an older picture, but this is a face often seen at my house when it is "time to do school work) and goes back to coloring which is something she does very well. But yesterday was the day, I was so excited!!! Scarlett wrote her name, her whole name TWO TIMES! and her handwriting, being that we have worked on it for a year prior to getting the whole name down on paper is very neat for a four year old! I was so proud of her! Can you tell she liked the letter E? I had to teach both of by telling them "run to first base, then round second and to third and then all the way home" HUH??? you ask.. just write and letter E and say that in your head.. it works!

The second "lesson" of the day was writing the number 3.. Scarlett wrote her number three and then wanted to color the dolls, which she did. Then the tables were turned, she looked at me and said, "Now you tell me, which doll has on the different dress?" ha! Pretty smart girl!

It's a date...

Okay, well, if you read Leigh Ann's blog then you know where I was this Saturday night! Girls night! Yeah!!! I look so forward to it and now it's an official date every month. Yippee!!! We decided that the fourth Saturday each month will be our night out, our night to tell old and new stories and laugh about what's going on in our lives. The girls have been my best friends forever it seems! We have all laughed and cried and shared some great memories together. I am so thankful to have such a core group of friends. Our meaning of a night out has definitely changed over the years but it is still a lot of fun. We laughed because Leigh Ann took out her camera to take pictures for her blog, but secretly I had my camera hidden away in my purse! Rather than take out my camera I am still learning to use, I just told her to "email me the pics". I have decided I am going to start a scrapbook from our nights out and just our times together, I think it will be something special for Scarlett to see when she is older, I am hoping I can go back and find pictures starting from way back in the beginning! You know back when we were younger. :) So, girls if you got any pictures...bring 'em on!

Here are a couple of pictures from our dinner at Lily's Dim Sum and Then Some

Michelle and I
Abby and Abby

Toni, Kim and Leigh Ann

I've been tagged...

My friend Leigh Ann tagged me so I am supposed to list some things I love and some things I hate... So, here we go...

Things I LOVE:
sitting on the couch next to my husband
being with my kids
New perfume and lotions
Candles
watching my kids sleep
going shopping with plenty of money
the beach or any vacation
dates with my husband
when the house is clean and I can sit and relax
scrapbooking
my family
girls night
my friends
working out.. I feel so much better when I do it.. even though it could be on the hate list, too!

THINGS I HATE or atleast have a strong dislike to...

COLD weather!!! UGH!!
negative people
bad drivers
feeling overly busy which leads to my next...
stress
trying to lose weight
Fish
folding and putting away laundry
hearing my kids cry
sick kids

That was fun! :) Thanks Leigh Ann!

Confessions of a Shopaholic...

I am totally in love with Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series. It rings so true to home.. except for the fact that Becky (the confessed shopaholic) finds and marrys her millionaire, and well, I fell a little short in that department. But not in 2008, I have started the year out with a plan. I was going to BUDGET! and I mean budget really well, with a very well developed plan. After reading Financial Peace (yes, trust me.. the two books were not something to be reading at the same time, talk about conflicting interests) I decided Dave Ramsey had it right, maybe the envelope system was right for us. So, three weeks in it is going okay, with only one meltdown. Jack is so proud of me, even told me it made him love me more.. and here I thought there was no room for more love! I think it has taken a load off of him to not be so stressed and worry daily about "what has Michelle spent". I am excited and working hard at staying on budget, I even bought a day planner! I am so not a day planner kind of girl, but now I have become overly anal about checking and rechecking my figures and budget. One obsession to another!

Now for the meltdown... I am a ebayholic! Love it! and I love the Fisher Price Little People. I have boxes full of them that I refuse to get rid of even though my children no longer play with them. While browsing Ebay I found the 1972 vintage Little People Sesame Street set.. I snapped! I had to have it, so I bid.. and bid.. and bid.. next thing I know I have spent $56 plus shipping on a TOY!!!! What a thing to have a meltdown over.. it should have been a purse or a great pair of shoes! Anyway, Sesame Street arrived today and I must say I did not get the warm fuzzy feeling and did not feel like I made a good purchase decision.. guess should read Financial Peace again! But I am back on track and really, really trying.. which is a first and a definite step in the right direction. I hope this helps takes some stress off dear hubby who is SO patient with me! Love ya, honey! :) New year, new start.. new budget...one that I can stick with.

Here is a picture of the "not so worth breaking down, breaking the budget" purchase of mine.. but at this very moment my two kids are having a blast playing with the toy.. so maybe all is not lost.

Gilrs night..POKENO!

I recently started playing Pokeno with a group of friends from church and I have had the best time playing and laughing and knowing that once a month I have a "date" with the girlfriends! January was my night to host, and being that my house is too small to host a big group and fit all the tables in I asked my mom if she would host and fill if for one of the missing girls. You would have to know my mother to know that she takes an idea and runs with it, and pretty much takes charge and leaves me with nothing to do even though it is my game, my friends, and my job to host. I came home grumbling about how she had taken over and was doing it all and I my sweet husband reminded me that I should be thankful! I stopped to think about how right he was, how many women would love to even still have their mothers around, much less welcome the chance for their mother to help out, take over and be there as a major supporter. I realized how blessed I have been and I have truly taken advantage of the fact that my mother is still 100% a mom. I am thirty five, married with two kids, and she still will jump in and do anything I need just like I was still at home. Next time my mom wants to jump in and help, and even take charge I will simply say "Thank you!" and know that deep down she needs to be helping me out just as much as I need her to still be there for me. Hopefully my mom will decide to join us and meet us for a game of Pokeno every month, she really enjoyed her "girl's night out" .

Hot Sticks and Amoxicillin

What could those to possibly have in common? If you were in my house this weekend.. a lot! My sweet little long blonde haired daughter has the straightest hair in the WORLD and she wants it curled daily! I try a lot of times with hot rollers they just will not work and this weekend I got a better idea.. why not HOT STICKS! They used to make my hair super curly way back in the day.. so I wondered if they still made them. I promised her we would find something that would curl her hair just as soon as I got home from working 7p-7a on Saturday night. In the meantime both Ethan and Scarlett are not feeling well and beginning to run a high fever.

By the time I get home Sunday they are really sick, with temps over a 102' so being that I work at a hospital I decided to take them up the ER and let the doctor have a look.. STREP THROAT! UGH!!! Scarlett has never been on antibiotics and Ethan just once, so I was worried about them; mainly Scarlett, taking her medication. The pharmacy must have these things figured out, Scarlett medication is in a nice clear bottle that proudly shows off the bright pink medication and Ethan's is in a red bottle that makes it appear red! Such joy over pink medication that taste like bubble gum! But then again.. it is day one.. not day ten... let's see how we do three times a day for ten days! :)

Back to the curlers, I kept my promise and Sunday evening after our visit to the ER I sat down with my newly purchased pink and green box of Hot Sticks and curled Scarletts hair and it worked fabulously! She was so proud of her hair, she said, "..it's big, but it's pretty and that's good!".

and yes my pictures look funny! The color is off, which means there is an operator error. I bought a new camera and I have not figured out how to use it unless I am outdoors.. outdoors it takes great pictures but indoors, well the settings must be all wrong. :) Thus, another great reason to blog.. I can work on my photography.

Another New Beginning...

Recently my dear friend, Leigh Ann, started a blog and I have had the best time reading her blog about her daily events with her family and friends. I decided it would be a great thing for me to do.. again. I used to blog and I really enjoyed it and then as life and work took over it slipped away and now after reading Leigh Ann's great blog it got me remotivated to try again! :) Thanks Leigh Ann!

Now, to come up with a name! "Love you a Google" seemed like the perfect name for my blog since it is a game my children and I play daily! We started off with "I love you" and "I love you more", and then we learned the meaning of a GOOGLE! That definitely seemed like an infinite amount of LOVE that could not be beat. So, we would say "I love you a google!" My kids have such a great time "winning", thinking they love me more! Of course, I always tell them "they win". As much as they love me, they have no possible idea of how infinite my love is for them.

So what is a google? That is a ONE with ONE HUNDRED zeroes behind it.