#2 is 11

Travis is 11 today. Or rather will be at 11:15 tonight if you want to be all official like. This one snuck up on me. No, not really. How could it with "my birthday is in 2 weeks, 6 days, 4 days, 2 days, tomorrow...."? Know what I mean? The boy has been asking for a Lego train for like, ever. And every day since then.
Teagan told me a little while ago "If Travis gets a Lego train for his birthday, I will be so proud. Because he will help me do Lego crashes." Yes, apparently there is a whole Lego crash movement out there on You*Tube. And my 5 yr old said he would be proud. That was the funniest part of that sentence.

We will be officially celebrating tomorrow since I will be headed to work shortly. Or maybe not. I guess I'll be on call. So I can keep my cooties at home.

Conversations that may never be repeated

The littlest T has caught the germs that have been floating around the house for the last week. Despite falling asleep twice on the couch today, about 8:40 tonight she says.....
T: Mama?
M: What?
T: I tired.
M: You're tired?
T: Yes. I wanna go bed.
M: You want to go to bed?
T: Yes. Where's Dora blankie?
M: Your Dora blankie is in your room. You want to tell Daddy nigh night?
T: No.

Then we walked to the stairs, she said "Hands", so I took her hand and we walked up the stairs.
Her latest thing is to sleep with every blanket in her room, so after throwing "Dora blankie", and "balloon blankie" into the bed, we had to throw in "bear blankie" too. I put her into bed, bundled her under her blankies, she curled up on her pillow and said "Guh night, Mama." And that was that.

It is these memories I savor. Sometimes they are almost too sweet for words.

Hits and misses from the weekend

Hit: Got to spend time with this chubby cheeked fella.

Who am I, you ask? 

I'll give you a hint......it starts with an "O" 

Miss: Although I loved snuggling with the boy, his mother insisted on reminding me about this huge paper we have to write AND made it a point to tell me it is due a whole week earlier than I realized. Darn it.

Repeat the mantra....last major paper, last major paper, last major paper....... 

Hit: Taking the peeps to the Children's Museum on "free day"! 

Miss: Frugal Mom fail. Apparently every mother, father and grandparent in Indiana and Ohio had the same idea. And it was raining. 

Hit: The kids enjoyed it anyway and I got to count activity points for the massive amount of walking. 

Miss: It was freaking packed. So much so, I'm surprised the fire marshall didn't show up to shut them down. 

Hit: Packed a sensible lunch and stayed within my WW points.

Miss: This is what I looked like when I stepped on the scale this weekend. Freakin 1.8 lb gain.

Hit: Four free kids meals at Frisch's with Valentine card coupons. Woowoo!

Miss: I don't really like Frisch's. 

Hit: Had a nice long week off of work.

Miss: The kids gave me their cough and chest congestion the day before I'm due to go back to work. Heathens.

Hit: Tess peed in the potty all day long today.

Miss: She only does it if she is naked from the waist down. Not sure how well that will go over at daycare.

Hit: Finished my state and federal taxes. Should get a big fat check!

Miss: Can use it to pay my city taxes. Blah!

Flight of ideas.... cause that's how my mind works

Aunt Krista had a birthday yesterday. Her last from what I hear. They will no longer be mentioned or celebrated, hence, she will not age after this year.

Yep, she's older than me. Still.

I mentioned going out to eat for her birthday but she is doing pretty well on this fancy shmancy diet of hers so she didn't want to mess it up. (Has to be fit to walk the Great Wall, don't ya know?) Instead she went to look for paint samples. Ooh, the excitement.

I, however, am not doing too hot this 5th week into my diet despite joining back up with ww. Okay, so I did lose a whole 0.8 pounds this week, but aren't you supposed to lose a FEW when you first start following a diet? So far I have gained 0.2 and lost 0.8, so really I'm only down about a half pound. Ugh! I'm not even going over my weekly points, darn it.

To get my mind off that mess, the hubs and I went out for a pre Valentine dinner to this place. Kind of a little hole in the wall stuck in a strip mall so you might never even notice it. It was worth the God forsaken amount of points I ate though. Thank goodness I had only eaten whole grain waffles for breakfast.

Even still, I really bit into my weekly points. And if you ever taste the sinfully delicious coconut shrimp with PINA COLADA sauce, you would totally understand. My ground beef enchiladas rojas were a little greasy and nothing too spectacular but Bobby's carnitas tacos with cilantro and lime were yummo! (And probably a whole lot fewer points, come to think of it.)

I guess it's a good thing I weighed in this morning. :op I have a whole week to make up for it. I think Jillian and I are going to have to start hanging out again. I'm going to try to stick with the 6 week 6 pack abs since I will be heading to Cancun in, count em, 6 weeks and 5 days!! Maybe I really will have a 6 pack by then. Jill says I can.

Got to be on call at work on Saturday so we caught up on a few movies. We watched The Road which is an utterly depressing take on the post apocalyptic world based on the book of the same name. Which I should mention, you should probably not read if the movie was depressing enough for you. While I'm not thinking the world will be all sunshine and roses in the aftermath, I would like to believe in the decency of people. Yep, that's me, the eternal optimistic. What? Stop snickering.

Also watched The Last Exorcism. Sort of the Blair Witch Project for exorcisms. It's a little slow to start, gets a little freaky, yet possibly explainable, then throws in a surprise ending that ends up being expected, if that makes sense. Bobby didn't think it was very good, but I thought it wasn't too bad. Definitely slow to start, but plausible, at least until the very end when the rational explanation kind of went out the window and the freakiness turned into typical horror movie antics. Still, it freaked me out enough that I had to fold clothes while turned sideways in the darkened hallway for fear that a possessed/mentally unstable 16 yr old girl would be standing behind me if I turned my back. 

Yeah, I have a window phobia too. Can't look out the windows in the dark because there will be a possessed/mentally unstable 16 yr old girl looking in..... See how the idea is planted?

Speaking of planting ideas, also watched Inception. That was a good one. Can't even begin to fathom the depths of imagination of the folks who came up with that idea.

How bout you? Seen any good movies lately?

Oh, remember how I complained that The Other Guys was the dumbest movie ever? Not so. It actually had a couple laughable parts. No, "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" with Nicolas Cage, that's the worst movie ever. I actually had to turn it off. The acting actually got worse the further you got in, if you can believe that. Even Nic Cage sucked, which is too bad cause I liked him in almost every other movie he was in. National Treasure, Face Off, Lord of War, Matchstick Men, The Family Man, THE ANT BULLY, for chrissake........ even Con Air with his horribly bad southern accent was a good one. Please, if you like Nicolas Cage at all, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE.

Oh, and happy Valentine's Day, the official Hallmark holiday.

Is it Spring yet where you are? I could almost believe it yesterday when the thermometer reached up into the 50's, but then I think back to just a few days ago when it was 0, yes, ZERO degrees...... I'm ready for warm. Or at least, not so darn cold.

The first of several

February is the month of birthdays around these parts.

Hard to believe but this one is turning 14.

What happened to that cute, snuggly, little baby boy?

I'll tell you what.

He turned into a typical, lock yourself in your room, avoid your parents and ignore your siblings teenager.

Yeah, birthdays aren't too exciting at 14. He came out of his cave for dinner, went back to the cave to eat it, then came back out to investigate the darkened dining room.

He stayed long enough to blow out some candles, open a card, and eat a piece of cake.

Isn't Teagan's expression a hoot?

Daddy got a card too although he was behind the camera and claimed he's had too many birthdays for this one to matter anyway. Their birthdays aren't for another week but I had to give them their gifts a little early since they got the same thing.

Tickets to see this guy this Friday......

P.S. The scale is still not my friend. I broke down and jumped back on the WW train, logging into WW online last Thursday. Hopefully this new points plus system will work out for me. Unfortunately, my weigh in this week was after birthday cake night and only 2 days after starting back to WW.

And the scale moves the wrong way, again, 171.8lbs.

I think it is determined to keep me from seeing the 160's........ever.

Happy New Year!

Welcome the Year of the Rabbit! I think it's going to be a great year!

Icy wonderland

There was no school today. We celebrated with a happy snow day cake. Or should I say ice day cake.

 
I know it may be hard to tell on the steps

but everything was covered in a sheet of ice.

And what's worse, it started raining in the afternoon and just kept coming down.

School has already been cancelled for tomorrow.

Just hope the power wires hold out....

Week 3

Weighed in yesterday at 171.6, which is sort of a gain, but technically a loss...... if you remember the rude things my scale had to say last week. :op

For those of you adventureous enough to venture out tomorrow, could you bring me some Koolaid and diapers? Forgot to pick those up this morning at the grocery. Probably because the grocery was a MADHOUSE. I got a little flustered. I don't do crowds. Have I mentioned that?

Guess the kids will be drinking water and Tess will be potty trained by the time this storm of historical proportions passes through. Have already gotten the 2 hr delay call for school tomorrow. Pretty sure the kids will be spending the day with me. So much for catching up on some studying.....