My future stars.....

When I had my first baby, Laura, I got prepared with the Baby Einstein Videos, Sesame Street, etc. She never paid any attention to it, or to the TV at all for that matter her first few years of life. Rachel was the exact same way... I tried seeing if they liked Dora, no beuno though, not fans at all...However, within the last 6 months there's been some Chhhhangggessss.... We have found out their interests...

My older kiddos are into Musicals people. I never realized little girls that young would get into them, I wouldn't call myself a fan either,but hey. Singing and dancing, yeah that's gets their attention.



Their favorite musical is currently Mama Mia, following closely by Highschool Musical 2.



Lately, I have been catching them perform "Dance Shows" where they proudly are working on their moves. Rachel has one move in which she tells you she's going to shake her booty to the right, and then the left. Emily, who watches everything her big sisters do attempts to join in on the dance shows now.

I am not going to lie, I will take this obsession over some cartoon, toy induced buying fad.

P.S. Dave is working hard on redeming himself for the Mother's Day let down, and he is able to verbalize exactly why I was hurt and upset. I got it like that =)

The Post in which people will pray I find Jesus...

This story begins almost a month ago... the husband called me at work one day, and gave me this song and dance about how he really wants to be off for Mother's Day, and he found someone to take his shift, but he wanted to clear with me a day to take the other guys shift. He said he wanted to spend the day with me and do something fun. Turns out, he really only wanted today off because Obama was in town for a college graduation, and he figured it would be a crappy crazy work day.

So...I have been eyeing the Reebok Easy Tone commericals, and hearing how comfy they are, and apparently if you where them alot, you behind will look A-M-A-Z-I-N-G... Of course I doubt anyone really sees any results from just wearing the shoes, but hey it's a chance I am willing to take. Anyways, Mother's Day was coming, and he had not asked me what I wanted, what size I wore or anything, so on pay day I decided I was going to get a pair of those shoes. I informed him Friday evening that I wanted to go to the mall and buy a pair, and he told me he thought they were stupid, but he took me anyways...he sat and watched me check them out at a few stores, and then proceed to buy a pair. (Side note, I freaking love them, they are sooooo comfy). He watches me be so excited about them friday evening, and all day Saturday...

So fast forward to Sunday morning. On the kitchen table awaits a wrapped present, some huge flower thingy that makes my eyes water and my nose run a marathon. I get all excited as he hands me the present and then he tries to get the camera. I tell him to put the camera away as I just woke up and I look like hell. I open the present and the dumb ass has given me a pair of the Reebok Easy Tones... He goes on to tell me he had already bought them, and that I could just take them back. I was not amused. He's but had time to hurry his tail back to the store to return them and come up with something else. Honestly, a card from the kids would have been fine, because it would have had a lot more care and feeling then this crap. He should have not taken me to the mall and watched me buy them...All he said to me before was he thought they were stupid, so he didn't even really make a effort to stop me from buying them. I was still sitting on the couch attempting to be grateful and try to act happy for the kids sake, but then he left the room to get something, and that's when I felt the tears so I bolted to the shower to cry without being seen or heard. It's how I handle things.

The rest of the day? Total waste. I kept thinking we were going to do something, but the highlight was going to Costco to get diapers, and then watch all three of my kids have a melt down as we dined out the $1.50 hotdog combo, and have to leave before we could finish our meal because of their behavior. I didn't get to really spend any time with my own mom as she and my dad are really contagious, so I took her gifts over and did a quick visit,and then got out of there as the kids have been sick enough lately and don't need to catch anything else... Then after nap time I was hoping to go out shopping, but Dave's mom came by and then took the girls to a icecream place, by the time we got done with their visit the shops I wanted to go to were closed.

The part that ticks me off the most? I attempted to be calm and hide my feelings, but I caved and told him I wasn't exactly pleased with Mother's Day... (Did I also mention that my daughter made me a votive holder at school, but apparently she likes it as well as she refuses to let it out of her room, and told me I needed to share with her) Anyways, he's mad, that I am mad, and that's just not a way to win me over. Butt kissing and returing those things pronto would help, but he's not smart enough to figure that out. Men are retarded, in my next life I am going to be a lesbian or asexual.

Book Review: Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

I recently read a book by Sophie Kinsella (author of the Shopaholic books), called Twenties Girl. I read ALOT, and this book is going to be in my top 10 favs. I stayed up on night until 1am finishing reading this, and by the end of the book I was bawling. Without giving too much about the book away, the book is about a twenty something girl whose 105 year old great aunt passes away. The great aunt never married, never had any kids, and her surviving family members didn't even really know her as she lived for over 20 years in a nursing home after a stroke. Basically, after the aunt (Sadie) dies, she comes back as a ghost as she is upset about a missing necklace, but instead of a old lady ghost, she's a 23 year old ghost. Only the main character, Lara, can see her, and as she only met her great aunt once as a small child, so she gets to know her great aunt and help her solve a mystery of where her necklace is.

The main character becomes very close with her great aunts ghost, learns about the great love of Sadie's life, what her interests were, what she did for fun, and what life was like back in the 1920's. It made me stop and think about the people in my life that are my elders. When I look at my 91 year old grandmother I just see a frail elderly lady, with white fluffy hair, and pale wrinkly skin. I have no idea what she was like as a young adult, and I have no idea about how she met the love of her life, and if she was a fun person. I know her, but I don't know personal stuff about her. She's never really shared, and I have never have asked. Everyone has a story filled with drama and ups and downs worth telling. I guess it just made me want to know the younger selves of a lot of my family members. We spend so much of our lives trying to respect our elders, and just making polite conversation, but do we really know our elders? Would we have been friends with them?

I may have two inch long roots, but my hair is soft like butter...

Back in Fall 2008 I fell in love with a hair product called Morrocon Oil. The stuff is serious hair crack. Smells insanely good, makes your hair shiny, and works some serious miracles for those who like to hit the bleach bottle. It's on the expensive side, but the stuff does last a long time... when I ran out of my bottle (which lasted about a year) I thought I would be all resourceful and use a product from Sally's Beauty shop called Aragon Oil, which is supposed to be just like it. I really wanted to fall in love with it just as much, but alas, it's crap and I should have just sucked it up and got the real deal again.



I finally got my grubby hands on some more of the real thing today, AND I also got the Shampoo and Conditioner, and it's pretty much the best shampoo and conditioner in the entire world. You can of course buy it online from a few places, or if your like me and don't have time to wait for it to ship find a salon near you that carries it.... In my home town a lovely salon by the name of Style by Design carries the line, which is where my stuff came from. It's worth checking out people....and if your looking for a new place to get your hair did, check out their Salon.

Green Acres is the place to be...

I know pretty much nothing about plants, landscaping, gardening, etc... We do not know what to do with out backyard, and so we have pretty much done nothing with it.. except get one idea about clearing it out and growing grass which was pretty much a disaster involving a landscape company getting their tractor stuck and have to be towed out by some 18 wheeler strength tow truck. It was not a fun night in the household that night back in 2007 let me tell you.

Apparently, one of my coworkers has a green thumb, and her husband is an expert with grass, plants, etc, as he is in charge of a really nice golf course in a swanky area, and she is going to take a look at my back yard, and give me some ideas of what the heck Dave and I can do. She's given me homework though which includes figuring out how much sun parts of the yard get, and where the sun sets and rises... and that alone is stressing me out because I feel like I would need to camp out and stare at it for 24 hours to figure it out. I look forward to her help though, cause man it can not get much worse...

Last year I got wild, and attempted to do some tomato plants in a topsy turvy thingy.... Didn't work out so hot for me.... I got a few dinky tomatoes, and was not worth my investment in making sure the stupid thing had water. I did however, have success with my green pepper plants... So this year I attempted to expand the "garden", and I have a little row of different things on the side of our house. I don't think it's going to get enough sun, but I am going to try anyways. Anyone have any gardening tips?

Foody stuff....

Today is my mom's birthday, to celebrate I deceided to have a small cookout for her. Hot dogs and hamburgers are always crowd pleasing, if you don't like either, then your not American. I also decieded to tackle another Pioneer Woman receipe from my cookbook. Here is the link to the same one on her website : http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/04/macaroni-cheese/

Homemade macaroni and cheese is something that just screams "hi, I really want to gain about 10lbs, and have my face blurred out on a news program about obestity. " It's worth it though every time, and under no circumstances when you have a people over and you serve mac and cheese should it be Easy Mac, or Stouffers. That just says , "I really didn't want you over, and I didn't even like you enough to make an effort that involved heating something up, or taking an extra step after boiling water." I didn't have any cheddar cheese, I just had a massive bag of mexican cheese from Costco. Overall, it was ok, but would have been a million times better with good ol freshly grated sharp cheddar.

Another crowd pleaser I have been serving lately for partys is this easy punch that I got from Kelly's Corner recipe blog. It's super easy and everyone loves it.

I have a large beverage dispenser, and all I do is dump in two 2 liters of Sprite, two frozen limeaide thingys, two jars of cherrys (juice too), and then add some ice, and some sliced limes, and you have some yummy cherry flavored limeaide. Looks really pretty as well.

The cutest cornhole boards ever....

The husband has been a cornhole board making fool.... Above is one of the boards he made for me. I sewed the matching bags. Right now he's working on making a Atlanta Braves themed boards for someone we know, who is giving it to her husband for a gift. Also not very long ago he made a really cool UNC one.

So far this year we have not played much, but as cookout season is gearing up I am sure we will be throwing around the bags soon!