An AP moment, blink and you'll miss it!

Jack was driving Jessie distracted by holding up a Thomas the Tank remote to her ear and playing the theme tune, over and over, at her head. It's loud and annoying!!! Jessie screamed "MUM!!!! He's ANNOYING ME!!!!" I called out "Jack! Jessie doesn't like when you do that.... she likes when you give her a kiss!!" He immediately leaned over, gave her a kiss and the next thing I knew they were happily playing Thomas together in the kitchen!!!! LOL!!! It's like Magic if you ask me!! ;D

Saturday Night's gonna be alright.....

But what about the rest of the day? That's what I want to know!! ; D Well it snew last night !!! Not enough to be a real nuisance, but enough to bring the children joy and to totally sink the puppy when she jumped into the ditch to go poop this morning !! ( Evil titter! ) The kids have already been out to play in it with the dogs. We had the usual twenty minutes of getting on of boots, snow pants, gloves, hats etc but to give them credit they did stay out and play for a goodly while! ;D LOL!! I love that word, Goodly!!! ...

Rexy is out in Kansas at a sports show with his buddy Bruce .... ALL DAY LONG mind you.... AND it's a Saturday. I'd better be getting some Brownie points for not bitching about it!!! LOL!!! Eh, you know I owe him big for watching SIX kids last week when Alicia and I were gadding about!! Well I'm calling it even now anyway!! ;D

I'm not sure what I'll be doing with the kiddoes today really only that I will be spending TIME with them. I've been pretty lax lately at Parenting, preferring the BUGGER OFF method rather than the Close and Attentive method!! *guilty look* I was talking to Hubby about it this morning and realised that I have a friend who has a bunch of children who are all pretty well behaved, fairly calm, mostly quiet, and she is usually to be found carrying at least one of them about. She opens their cheese slices, unzips bananas and all that stuff and her kids really do seem to be calmer and closer ( than mine! ) I thought I'd call her and ask her advice on how to be a better parent to my children, but I KNEW what she would say. She would tell me I needed to spend time WITH them. I need to cuddle them more, scold them less. I need to be smiling and happy rather than scowly and mean.

The other night Jessie and Jack were yelling at each other on the stairs. He was at the top YELLING at her, she was YELLING at him. Yelling REALLY pushes my buttons and I was PISSED OFF at them. All I wanted was for them to get themselves ready for bed and I'd come and tuck them in ( see how I wanted them to just GO and DO IT THEMSELVES....I'm such a lax parent. ) .... Anyway, I stomped up the stairs towards the bedlam and Jessie started yelling "It's HIS fault!! It was HIM!!!" and he started yelling back "SHE did it!!! SHE did it.....!!!" Amazingly I caught the moment and I said "I love you Jack. Would you like a hug?" LOL!!! Oh I wish I could show your their faces!!! Jessie's jaw LITERALLY fell open and Jack was just stunned!!! He stood there for a moment and then said "..... yeesss....." He came to me, we had a hug, then I got up and took them both into the bathroom and helped them get ready for bed!! A~Mazing!!!

Parenting. I really ought to try it more often! ;D

Finally FRIDAY!! :D

LOL!! Like it makes the slightest difference in our house!!! EVERY DAY IS FRIDAY!! :D

Well at least I'm not dizzy this morning, right?!! I'm going just a little nutso though. I have a tune stuck in my head. The trouble is I've never actually heard it! How does this happen?!?! Well when your child has a Tooth Tunes toothbrush it does. I keep humming this irritating bundle of sound waves, including muffling them as I only ever hear them from inside someone's mouth!! LOL!!! ;D Hannah Flaming Montana in Jack's Mouth!! LOL!!! I bought the thing for Jessie, but she hates it. I tried it and I hate it too!!! The vibrations of it on my teeth make me about hit the roof!!!! {{Shudder}}

Well today looks like another fun one! :D As I didn't start my day until 11am yesterday I still have some decorations to take down ( hangs head ) and the kids want to go to Super Target ( I always want to add Du Du Du Duuuuuuuh to the phrase "Super Target" ) and spend the gift certificates that have been burning holes in their pockets since Christmas!! Oh woe. A trip to Super Target. How will I cope. !!! ( Please note the heavy sarcasm here! ) Hubby has just left for work, the kids are having breakfast, reading "Sherman's Lagoon" and watching Curious George. I think I'm going to start my day the Caffeinated way! :D

Have a great one.....because I'm the Mom... that's why!!! ;D

Dizzy Broad.....!

Well I'm off to a literally shaky start this morning! I woke up and was so dizzy I walked into the wall and about fell down the stairs when I went to put the puppy out!! Rex insisted I went back to bed ( which is one of the reasons I love him so ) and the kids brought me tea and toast. I slept until 11 am and still felt a liiiittle wobbly but hey, there is laundry to do and promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.....!! ;D LOL!!!

Good Morning Campers!! :D

Well I went to bed early last night and slept until late! (Ish) !! It felt so good to sleep in!! I have a long list of things I need to get done today... laundry, cleaning, laundry, a bit more cleaning.....!! I may get to taking down some of the Christmas decorations today!! Whoo hooo!! ;D It's funny, I really love having my decorations up and think the house looks so bare when I take them down, but then it also looks so very tidy and clean when they are gone!! After a month or so of trees and such it's nice to have tidy and clean for a change!! :D I'm looking forward to it! :D

Well I don't have much to share this morning!! It's a sort of cloudy looking day, cool, but pretty looking. It looks like spring outside....somewhat deceptive!! Rex is off at work, Jessie is showering, Jackster is watching Aladdin ( again! ) and the dogs are rolling around on the floor playing together!! ;D I guess now is as good a time as any to get the day started!! ;D

Enjoy yours, K? :D

Now what am I going to do with my time?!?!?!?! :D

Well Alicia just phoned and said she is back home safely in record time. My house is a mess, the kitchen a disaster, the place is covered from basement to top floor with confetti! There are streamers, cards, paper balls, paper balloons, everything, everywhere!! I need to wash all the bedding and I have MOUNTAINS of laundry that I ignored in favor of being a host!! The windows are covered in tiny hand prints that are being silhouetted by the setting sun..... but I'm content! I'm really amazed and satisfied that everything went so well! ;D The last month has been... well..... busy??... to say the least!! Alicia came in early December. She left on the 10th. On the 13th Rex and I went away for a short weekend. On the 15th Mum arrived, 25th was Christmas obviously, on the 29th Mum left and Risa, Alicia, Victoria, Annalee, Jack and Alex all arrived!! We had a lovely New Year's Eve party and on the 5th of January celebrated Alicia's 40th birthday ALL DAY LONG!! We started with 40 gifts, all wrapped and displayed on our table. We'd decorated the room with a homemade banner, streamers and the like ( oh yeah, and MORE confetti... ) and there was general merriment and mayhem for quite a while! We made Alicia's favorite breakfast ( well, poached eggs anyway !) and we watched her go through all of her loot!! At about 1:30 hubby arrived home early from work to watch the kids so we could go and party some more!! ;D We headed first to the spa where she got a massage and a pedicure!!! It was wonderful fun and I think she enjoyed it!? : D After that we hit Taco Bell ( I know, classy eh?! ) and THEN Cold Stone Creamery!! Hooo boy! ;D Whilst pigging out on ice cream we drove on over to the laundromat. Yeah.. I thought I'd do a quick load....!! Actually they had a little thing I like to call a POOL TABLE and she loves to play pool, so we stopped in there for a quick game!! Pretty early on Alicia sunk the 8 ball, so I technically "won"... we continued playing though and at the end I asked her to please help me sink the last two ....!! She finished the game so we sort of both won ...in one game! ;D After our game we headed to Hy Vee where, unbeknownst to her, Alicia's hubby had ordered a cake and roses and I was going to pick them up! Well we had a couple of other things to get too and she wanted to get some stuff for her trip back home.... so I let her wander off..... I went to the customer service desk and told them I had a little "message" I needed them to share. ahem. They picked up the mic and said over the loudspeakers..... "Attention Customers! One of our customers are celebrating their birthday today! Happy Birthday Alicia Bayer!! 40 today !!!" :D

Oh MY!!! I was so thrilled and laughed so hard!!! I told everyone we came across that she was 40 and didn't she look MARVELOUS!?!?! All that sort of nonsense!! :D After our trip to the store we went home for a while to relieve poor Rex of the 6 kids!!!! He was getting a liiiiiiittle frazzled! ;D We cleaned up the place, made dinner for everyone but ourselves and put Jackster and Alex to bed! Once they were sleeping we got ourselves dressed up a little more and headed BACK out to a fabboo restaurant in town. Again I burst in with "This lady is FORTY!!! Doesnt' she look FANTASTIC!?!?!?" I was a tad deflated when the waiter said "Yes. Two?" LOL!!! I guess it worked out though.... the margarita she ordered was apparently wonderful and the free Tequila shot at the end of the meal was a nice birthday treat too! ; D

We got home about 10:30 and tried to stay awake until midnight to see the day through to the end, but Alicia had a baby who was calling for her around 11:40 and I ended up falling asleep on the couch! A pretty successful day none the less!! :D

Here are some pics!! :D

Anyway, as I said, they are now back home, Risa is back in Canada and Rex is at work. It's just me and the kiddies and ALLLL the pets. I suppose I COULD get out the vacuum and start on the confetti!?!? :D

Looks like a pretty sound start to 2009 though. I'm enjoying the heck out of it so far! ;D