How I get through the day...

My existence today is brought to you by the letter C and the number 2. Do you ever have those days where you wonder if you can make it through the day??? I do. That's why coffee is my friend. He gets me through the day.Today was a home brewed day... I am partial to Folgers French Roast (ahhh... can you smell it???) with a splash of Coffee Mates Italian Sweet Cream... (I am actually drooling right now!). If you haven't tried it... DO! It is fabulous! If its a Starbucks kind of day, I am all about the Skinny Vanilla Latte... YUM!

It has been a rough week... and it shows no sign of stopping. I am currently watching my 3 year old undress himself for the third time today so he can wear his beloved Thomas pajamas...

Me: Jack, we are leaving for gym class in a minute... keep your clothes on.

Jack: (pointing to his Thomas pj shirt) This is mine outfit.

Me: No,(holding up normal shirt that I dressed him in this morning) THIS is your shirt.

Jack: (Pointing again) THIS is mine outfit.

Me: You can't wear pajamas to class... let's put on your shirt now.

Jack: YES! THIS IS MINE OUTFIT!!!!

Three year olds are nothing if not persistent...  I think it may be time for a third cup!

Living La Vida Loca

As the title of this post suggests... life has been CRAZY!!!! The week after school started, the house closed escrow and the fun began! We are redoing A LOT inside this house. The people who owned it before us obviously had NO IDEA how to treat a house as it was pretty beat up. We are installing all new flooring, new paint everywhere, new bathroom tile and granite, installing a pantry, etc. It has become a fairly costly large  project... and that doesn't even begin to describe the little things that you don't think of, like drawer pulls, and fixtures, and baseboards, and fans. It is all a bit overwhelming for someone used to moving into a "new" new house! But I am SUPER excited to see how it all looks when we finish. Mind you I say "we" are doing all of these things, but "we" are not so handy... okay not handy AT. ALL. Jason tries... he really tries... and I love him for it.... but... well... let's just say Ty Pennington won't be recruiting him to help on Extreme Makeover... (unless they need help on the demolition crew! ) HA!
Here are some "before" pics of the house...

I wanted to redo the cabinets, but OH MY is THAT ever expensive. So for now they are getting painted! :)

Living and Dining Room... can't wait to see the new floors!

HUGE Master Bedroom

The family room... it is getting new flooring and the wood cabinets will be painted.

I can't believe that I didn't take a picture of the front or the back. The back yard is what sold me on the house. It is great! So far, all of the flooring has been cleared out and the painter begins today! I'll update the pics soon ...

Crockpotalooza - Italian Dip Sandwiches... YUM!

I am going to TRY to link up with Kelly's Korner for her crockpotalooza today. I LOVE her blog and I LOVE my crock pot, so what better day to give this a try. I use my crock pot all the time... with 3 kids running around, plus all those years of working from home, I had to. If I didn't start dinner in the morning... dinner may or may not happen in the evening. We packed away my beloved 6 qt. crock and, while I thought she was headed to the apartment, apparently she was shipped off to storage... I miss her! I can't wait to bust her out in a couple of weeks when we get in to the new house. Thankfully, I brought her smaller, though still useful, sister with me. So I am still able to make a few crock pot meals in this sad little excuse for a kitchen. So here it is... a meal that EVERYONE is happy to eat. This is super simple and even requested by my "sandwiches are not a meal" husband... Italian Dip Sandwiches.

1 beef roast ( I have used chuck, eye of the round, and even tri tip... use whatever!)
1 envelope of Italian dressing mix
1 can of beef broth
1 jar of pepperoncinis

All you do is place the roast in your crock pot, pour the dry dressing mix over, then the can of beef broth. Put in 10 or so pepperoncinis( depends on your spicy-o-meter... I shoot for spicy so I usually toss in a few more)  and pour in some of the juice from the jar. Cook on low for 8 hrs. When it is done shred the meat and let it soak up some of the juice. Then place on crusty rolls with melted provelone cheese if that is how you like it, ( and I do!!!) I like to serve with a side of juice for dipping... SO good. Even my picky 7 year old loves this.

First Day of School

The lazy days of summer are over! BOO!!! Today, my sweet Hailey entered the first grade. First grade is SO different from Kindergarten. It means lunch at school, longer days, more interaction with the "older kids", bathrooms down the hall rather than in the room. All of these things make me nervous... then they make her nervous... which makes me even more nervous! However she was very excited to be a big first grader and start back to school. I am not! I can't help it... I like all of my babies home with mama. Truly, I did not think I would be so sad about it. I was more concerned with the fact that we needed to be at school by 7:45am...Yikes!  This is the same time we are usually rising around here... like I said... they have been lazy days indeed!

This morning began at 5:15am!!! Yes, you read that correctly... 5:15!!! Apparently there was an air of excitement in the house as Hailey came dashing into the bedroom asking if it was time to get ready and then Paige woke up too. Any previous thoughts I had about being able to get ready in peace were soon dashed... Paige was NOT having it this morning. Thankfully, Jack decided to stay asleep... LOVE him! Miraculously, by the time my dad came over to sit with the younger two, we were ready to head out. I still wasn't thinking sad thoughts... just getting excited for her as she was so obviously excited!

Once I got her in her classroom, the big lump in my throat came. I gulped it away and started chattering about something else... and it came back again... and again. I knew that I could not cry in front of her... and I didn't. But once the teacher told them to say goodbye to their parents and she ran across the room to grab me for a hug one last time... I was done. I made it outside before the ugly cry face came and I bailed out of there and made a beeline to my car... which was, of course, about a mile away because the place was a zoo!!! At least I got some exercise... nothing like a power walk in heels!!!

So here I sit... anxiously awaiting pick up time. Jack has asked to go pick her up no less than 15 times already and we still have 3 hours to go. I am wondering how lunch is going. If she found the special Hugs and Kisses and note that I tucked into her lunch bag. If she found the bathroom when she needed it. Is she playing with her friends? I thought about going to school and spying... (yes, I do that... one day I'll share my preschool stalker story... I am THAT mom!)!!! Haha! I know that with each day that passes it will get easier. I am praying that she had a wonderful day and comes home with a smile, excited to go back tomorrow. But for today... this mama is sad. I'm missing my little sidekick snuggling in the chair next to me in the morning, and sitting across from me at lunch. At least the weekend is only a few days away. :)

This little poem I saw on FB... it makes me cry ( surprise, surprise) but it is so true! :)

I don't want to kiss you goodnight,
so I'll just keep holding you tight!
Because I know, you'll change and you'll grow...
You'll get bigger with each morning light.

I know that the sky is full of stars,
and dreams will call your name from afar...
I'm anxious to see all you're going to be,
but I'm sure gonna miss who you are!

But I'll keep you right here, in my heart,
and I'll memorize each little part.
One day you will grow, and I'll miss you so,
But I'll keep you right here, in my heart.

Each tooth that you'll gain or lose...
Each time you'll need bigger shoes...
Each step that you take, will be further away,
but to stop you is not what I choose.

These fingers that curl around my hand,
must do things that no other can.
I know you're not mine, but God's own design,
and I want you to follow His plan.

But I'll keep you right here, in my heart...
And I'll memorize each little part!
Because one day you'll grow, and I'll miss you so...
But I'll keep you right here, in my heart!

Being Trendy

After finally losing the last of seven years worth of baby weight... I realized I had not only been fat chubby for the past seven years,  I am OUT OF SHAPE!!! So..... I decided to try running. Jason is a runner, and seemingly everyone and their mother has been taking it up lately. I keep saying its trendy and I'm not going to do it, but who am I to buck the trend, so I decided to give it a shot. I mean, if everyone else can do it... why can't I. So I put on my shoes, and did a couple of stretches... all the while pumping myself up with a little "You can do it!" cheer. I quickly checked on the kids... Jack was putting together his Thomas puzzle, Hailey was watching something on T.V and Paige was in her playpen. Great... that should allow me about 20 minutes of "free" time. So I turn on Jason's treadmill and get going. I manage to get a half mile before I hear a commotion in the other room. So I hop off the treadmill, but leave it running, so that my time and progress doesn't get erased, run to the family room, solve the problem and head back to the treadmill. I start to step gingerly back on... but apparently I had forgotten how fast I had been going (I am , afterall, an overachiever...ha!). I get thrown off sideways and fall down on my shoulder... ON THE TREADMILL. As it just continues spinning away and burning the skin off of my shoulder and elbow, I roll myself off stunned. Seriously???? Who does this happen to? So now... instead of feeling accomplished by my impressive running skills... I feel like a freaking idiot who can't even run on a treadmill. So embarrassing!!! My shoulder is killing me too. Thankfully my husband felt sorry for me, and didn't make fun of me (too much) for being such a doofus! But he did make me promise that I wouldn't try running again until he was there to supervise! HA! I basically told him I am never getting on that death machine ever again!!! But this morning... with my shoulder only throbbing slightly I am ready to reconsider. After all... this girl is nothing if not trendy!!!!

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, Apartment Life's NOT for me!

I felt the need to write this post, not because I am ungrateful for having a place to live, but because I want to have a reminder to NOT do this again, should I ever get the bright idea to move into an apartment again while waiting to buy another house. Ha!

This apartment was my idea.  Not necessarily having to move into one, but when our old house was closing and we hadn't found a new house yet, I basically had the following options:

1. live with my parents (yeah... they would've LOVED that one too! haha)
2. live in my BIL/SIL's trailer (ummm... I'm not a camper really)
3. live in an apartment

I OBVIOUSLY chose the only option that would work for an extended period of time. So with about 5 days left before moving day, I quickly found an available apartment and we took it. It is a two bedroom, ONE bathroom apartment in a good location. It is very close to my parents, which has proved to be fun, and has a beautiful lake and fountains all around so it is asthetically pleasing. I feel fortunate that we have a place to stay that is safe and clean....this is where the positives end!

All I can say is apartment living is very different when you have a full sized family than it is when you are single and in college. As I am writing this post, my head is reverberating, and my eyes are beginning to blur because there are men working on the patio with a jackhammer and a sledgehammer and seemingly every other kind of hammer designed for destruction. Mind you ... they just constructed the patio enclosement about 2 weeks ago... Why are they redoing it??? Beats the crap out of me, unless they are just trying to grate on my nerves. If this is the case, then they have succeeded!  Poor Paige is trying to take a nap, and I have no idea how, but she is still asleep. This construction has been going on for the past month... beginning around 6:30 am and not ending until around 6:00pm. It looked like they finished the other buildings in about half the time... apparently they are putting a little extra effort into our building... Gee Thanks! I would be happy if they half assed the job and moved on to the next building. Fingers crossed they finish this soon...

The next lovely aspect of apartment living is not knowing your neighbors. Sharing walls with randoms is not something I considered when moving to an apartment. I was hopeful that we would be next to some people who kept normal hours, and honestly was more worried about the noise that WE would make. When we moved in, I have to say that the surrounding people in our building were fairly quiet and respectful. The only ones we had some question about were the people above us. They were VERY quiet, until like three in the morning when they would start playing eerie music and start banging things around up there. It sounded like they were moving furniture. It also sounded like they had a small pony up there... as we could hear it galloping back and forth across the floor when they would return home. We later learned that apparently the ceiling is far from soundproof as the "pony" turned out to be tiny weinerdog. HA. Thankfully, they moved out at the beginning of July, so it had been very quiet and enjoyable for the past month. Then... about a week ago, we gained some new neighbors.

Now I'm not judging them based on looks, (okay maybe a little bit! ) but these people are not your average folks. The man looks like he could be one of Jack and Larry's buddies from Three's Company. Everytime I see him I wait for the theme song to start playing. Apparently he didn't get the message that it isn't 1973 any more. While I actually find this somewhat entertaining... the fact that they are CHAIN SMOKERS and continually pace back and forth to their balcony on the previously mentioned non soundproof floor 800 times a day... I DO NOT find entertaining. It goes something like this... CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP, Slide door open, SLAM. Reverse,  repeat approximately 799 more times. Enough already!  Also, I mustn't forget their beautifully decorated balcony... I should take a picture... it's pretty spectacular if you go for the gaudy and bizarre look. I especially love the odd tablecloth, and all of the knick knacks... I don't even know how they have enough room to stand out there. Oh well... they seem to enjoy it. Usually at around 11:00pm when the woman decides to go out and sit (and smoke of course) while she chats on the phone and cackles loudly. Ahhhh apartment life!

Our new house can't close soon enough for us!!!!

July: Part 2

Almost done with my catch up posts... then I can start something different. Yay! A week after our vacation, Hailey and I were sick... NOT. FUN! I don't know what the heck I had, but body aches, chills and a cough were the main symptoms. Hailey felt fine ... but had a cough that kept getting worse,... until it turned into pneumomia. YUCK! We missed celebrating Mimi's 80th birthday with everyone, which we were very sad about. Luckily, we were mostly recovered by Hailey's 7th birthday. This year, was the first year that we were able to include school friends which was a VERY big deal! :) We decided to have her party at an adorable children's boutique in town called Spoiled Rotten. She wanted a Rock Star party there and she was SOOOO excited. Apparently, this was the "BEST.PARTY.EVER"!!! She had a great time singing, dancing and acting crazy with all of her friends. She also received a BFF bracelet and ring from her friend Lauren and that, pretty much, made her whole year. :) Here are some pics from her party... Oh, and don't miss the pics of Jack (he reminded me of Steven Tyler here... he gets his style from his dad!!! haha).

Happy Birthday, Hailey... 7 years has gone by WAY too quickly!!!