Halloween 2010

This year for Halloween our girls were a princess, Tinkerbell, and a VT cheerleader. Poor Emily wasn't feeling so hot still from her cold, so she wasn't much on trick or treating. That's ok though because her sisters cleaned up shop in the candy department so there is plenty to go around. Several family members came by with little treat bags for the girls, and then of course they enjoyed trick or treating several times next door at my parents house before we even ventured off to some houses nearby.

Laura and Rachel were really excited this year and bickered over who was going to ring the door bell. Rachel really was in Tinkerbell form and kept pretending she could actually fly. They also thought they were pretty hot stuff because I put makeup on them for fun.

I'm dreading taking down the halloween decorations because I will be sad to see it go. I don't have any Thanksgiving decorations besides some pumpkins that we didn't carve. I did print a Keep Calm and Gobble sign off a blog that someone shared as a freebie that I will frame. I never bought any mums because plants die about a week later under my care. I'm horrible with flowers..... But that's ok because soon I will be dragging out come Christmas decorations! I have already had some people at work asking me what I am crafting for Christmas, and sadly I just don't have any ideas just yet.... Hoping I will see some cool ideas on some blogs soon.

I think I have just about recovered from my melt down the other day and I appreciate the nice comments. It really did help me feel not so alone, and not feel so crazy. I realize now that I am burning the candle at both ends too much. My softball games are almost over for this season, and I am pretty sure that I will not be play softball this coming spring, as it will be the easiest thing to give up. Tonight I had a late night at work and all I wanted to do was come home and spend time with my kiddos, but I had to change clothes and leave right away for my game. And I have to do that two more nights this week... But in all seriousness, I really, really, really, really, just want to sit down my 90 some year old grandmother and ask her, how in the world did she keep such a tidy house, have such awesome homemade meals for her family each night, keep up with the laundry and iron EVERYTHING, all while not owning a dishwasher and other nifty inventions. Oh to be a 50's housewife.

Today feels like Monday when it should be a fun Saturday....

I had a rough morning. Yes, I did get up early to read some, but about an hour later my day just went down hill. It was a really busy week for us. I had two sick kids, a lot going on at work, lot's of other committments, etc etc. Anyways, I am in a neighborhood bible study that I find very interesting as it is the first kind of bible study I have ever been in, and I like getting to know my neighbors better. I do continue to feel akward as these woman are obvously at a much different place in their spiritual journey, and I am waayyy younger then them. Not that the age difference is a bad thing, it is what it is. So there were plans to meet for breakfast this morning at a local place with them, and I had told the leader of the group I probably would not be there as my husband would be at work and so I would not have childcare. Ok, so I could have brough them, but I didn't want to waste money on food that they would ask for (tight budget going on) when they had already had a breakfast that morning, and I knew I wouldn't be able to visit, with three kiddos begging for my attention.

So fast forward to 10 minutes before it was supposed to start. My mom called and said my dad would watch them if I wanted to go, and I turned it down as I was still in my pajamas and was now focusing on trying to clean our house. I told her I wouldn't be making it, and then I got another phone call from the head lady, and so then I felt really guilty for not going. I threw my hair up on my head, got dressed, and went, but before I got there I had a mini meltdown in the car.

Some of my thoughts- "I shouldn't even be going, my house looks like crap" "my house never looks clean because everyone just goes behind me and makes messes." " my husband only has one weekend a month home with us, and most of his other days off he's in court so I am always the one doing everything in the house, and he doesn't have a clue how hard it is", "how can the city council in his area sleep at night knowing that they increased their own salaries by %8 a few days before they elected to not give raises to the other city employees for the past 2 years, THEN approve a bonus to head of the department for keeping costs down, and go on to say it might be 2-3 years before anyone gets a raise." "did I leave a candle burning." "do my kids really play with their toys or do they just break everything and shove everything in awkward places." "that does it, I need to hire someone to clean my house again once a month,I just need some help, oh wait, we can't afford it."

So yes I made it to breakfast in a frantic state, and hopefully I hid it well, and then went home to clean and take care of my kiddos. I have been spending the day trying to declutter and organize but I just can't help but feel completely overwhelmed, and when I am working on cleaning or fixing something, I feel like I should be sitting down playing with the kids, creating something together, or taking them somewhere fun. And of course when we do the fun things, all I can think about is how my house is a wreck and I need to be cleaning it.

I am telling myself to keep calm, and maybe just maybe if I can do a lot of cleaning today it will make me relax a little.

New read....

I finally got around to updating the What I am reading sidebar on my page. Truth be told, I had not read anything in a good bit. I heard about this book, "Thirteen Reasons Why". It's a young adult book, (stop judging, the Twilight books are young adult too, and they rocked). I spied this book at Barnes and Noble, BUT I ended up getting this yesterday from our local library, and they had like 4 copies or something crazy.

I am a few chapters in, so I don't want to give any spoilers, but this is a crazy good book. I seriously woke up at 5:30am to have some time to read before everyone else woke up. That good.

This book is about a highschool girl who recently committed suicide, and before she killed herself she recorded herself on several audio tapes explaining her thirteen reasons why she had to do it. The tapes are being sent to the thirteen people who she feels are responsible for her death. Yes teen angst. Roll your eyes all you want, but teen angst is pretty much something we can all remember and relate to. This book will suck you in. Buy it, borrow it, or get from your library asap.

Working for the weekend....

I have been a blog slacker lately, but life just has been getting in the way of real blogging with pictures. I have so much going on and so much I need to do that it's beginning to freak me out. Christmas is less then two months away. I have done some shopping, but not nearly enough. I have a pretty good list going of what I need to buy, but I am hoping a few of the items for the kids are major Black Friday specials for the sake of my budget. I am also attempting to locate all of the people from the "Little People" nativity scene that I believe Santa brought last year. I am going to find them all (hopefully) and put aside for safe keeping until I break out the decorations. I should have put it away with the decorations, but I thought the girls would enjoy playing with it year round. Silly me, now we are missing the angel, all of the animals, and Joseph. Hopefully we find them....

I have also had two sick kiddos this week and of course it has fallen on a crazy busy week of work stuff, and other commitments. Isn't that how it always happens though? Pretty much having meltdowns about twice daily over just feeling overwhelmed. I really need a good 6 hours more added to each day to get what I need done. Hopefully, everyone will be well and the girls will be able to go to school Friday for their Halloween parties and parade as they have been looking forward it.

I will be back hopefully this weekend with some halloween pictures of the kiddos!

Theme park fun, and a small victory....

One of the great things about living in our area, is that we are very close to Busch Gardens. It is pretty awesome to live near an amusement park, as Season Passes to them are great deals if your into that type of fun. We got passes for ourselves, and for the kids the summer passes after not getting them for a few years as the kids were so young. The kids had a ball this year, I even was super brave and went one time without my husband helping with all three, in the summer, on a weekend. I do crazy things I tell ya....

Anyways, back in the day going to Busch Gardens in the fall used to be the way to go. No lines, no crazy tourists, it was like you had the park to yourself. I used to ride the roller coasters over and over and over again without ever getting off. In 2000 they started Hallowscream though, and that changed EVERYTHING, about fall at Busch. I went a bunch in college when I was home, and the year Dave and I got married we went, but we had not done Halloscream since. We finally went last night, and it was glorious! First of all, we were able to go without kiddos, which means no strollers to push, we are able to actually go on rides together, etc etc. Glorious I tell you! And Hallowscream now has really become a huge event. There are 5 haunted houses, the entire park is decorated AWESOME, the whole park is a scare zone now, meaning there are people everywhere jumping out to try to scare you, they just do an incredible job. As a halloween lover, I was just in heaven. We were also able to ride some roller coasters which was fun. The lines were not bad, and all in all we had a lot of fun and would love to go back, but chances are this will be the one time we are able to get away again for a while. Quite honestly I think it would be super fun to get a job there during hallowscream as one of the scary people. Dave says I would make a fantastic witch. Bahhhahaha. Seriously I am going to look into it next year. It might be a fun way to make some extra money for Christmas....

In other household news, I was excited to finally find the battery charger to my camera. The battery died last weekend, and when I went to charge it the next day I could not find that sucker anywhere! I tore through the entire house trying to find it, and pouted for a week. I usually keep it in a basket on our counter,but I got all paranoid that I might have left it back in September when we went to the mountains... We have a very nice camera so the last thing I needed was to lose the charger, as the chargers themselves are not exactly cheap. So victory was mine as I made a last ditch effort to find it. It had fallen out of the basket, in the floor of the pantry closet behind some clutter. Seriously need to clean out that closer before I end up on that show Hoarders...

Now that I have finally found that I can try to do Christmas pictures with the kids soon. I keep saying we are going to do them early so I have plenty of time to try to capture a cute one of the kids in their dresses. It's always an act of God to get a good one where everyone is looking in the same direction. I have a vision of taking this picture at Lion's Bridge, which is a small park area near our house that is on the James River...We shall see...

I think I know why people homeschool now...

All my life I have always wanted to be a mom. I have to say I never knew how hard it would be. When they are babies we are responsible for feeding them, changing their diapers, making sure they are not to warm, or hot, and it's a lot of work. But I am learning that the infant/toddler rearing is a piece of cake. The hard part is going to be guiding them as they become independent, watching them make mistakes, seeing their first heart aches, and just crossing your fingers and hoping that your kid doesn't end up a failure. I feel like the main role of being a mom is to worry. I know worrying doesn't do you any good, and we can do all the right things but we can't control our kids forever. I still worry though, and honestly if I didn't worry then that's just being a crappy mom. Anxiety is pretty much my middle name.

So here I am, freaking out about what school to put my child in next year. How is it that already my oldest will be leaving preschool. I have already spent this year a little concerned about her class this year, and thinking about switching teachers, as this lady has just gives me this vibe that she's really unsure of her own teaching abilities, and I don't think that Laura is really being challenged in this class, and then I start feeling guilty for becoming THAT PARENT. Freaks me out. I think I finally decieded to leave her where she is at, as it's just preschool, and she's a smart cookie. I can always work with her at home on things to challenge her some more.

However next year as she will start Kindergarten, I find myself getting all worked up all over again. Cue the panic attacks. There are a lot of private school options in our area that I have to get on the ball with checking out. Dave and I had a long talk with Rachel's teacher (who I seriously adore and wish she could just teach all my kids for their entire school careers). I really value her opinion, and as she has a young daughter in our area she's been through the researching. She did encourage us to not completely rule out public school, as she has been very happy with a magnet school in our city. The deal is though they can't get into this school as a kindergardener, they only allow that in 1st grade if it's out of your zone, which of course it is. So this has added a whole another equation in. The snotty school that added a elementry program has been completely rulled out by moi. I know things have not changed there, and I will be damned if I let my daughter either a. be buillied by snobs or b. turn into a snob. Yes it can happen elsewhere but it's seriously a bigger problem there. Yall, someone needs to do an intervention there asap.

I will be visiting schools soon, and taking my time on this one, but I just really need some prayers as I try to make the right decision. Ideally, I would like all three kids at one school, but I know the right fit may not be right for Rachel or Emily so that just adds to my anxiety. Momma needs a chill pill.

Tuesday happenings and a receipe...

My middle child had a small field trip to a produce/garden center that I actually worked at for years and years. I took off to attend this with her, and we got to have some mother/daughter bonding time. This place has been offering a cute halloween program since 2003, for local preschools in which they do a cute puppet performance, hayride, walk through a maze, and then they get to pick a small pumpkin. The teacher brought a fun snack for them to enjoy afterward on the picninc tables. Rachel really had fun, and I enjoyed spending the morning with her and her friends.

This afternoon we have pretty much all been lazy and spent it napping. We all had a rough night, as all of the kids decieded to wake up at 3am, come downstairs, got out some drinks and chips and just had a big 'ole party until Dave and I woke up and asked them what in the world they were doing. Of course then they got up again at 6am. Energy is wasted on the young.

I have slowly tried to get my but in gear this evening, and I have started dinner. Tonight we are having strawberry porkchops and sweet potatoes. We have really been enjoying this porkchop dish, and gasp, it's not pioneer woman! I did find it from a foodie blog, but I have put my own spin on things. Here's how I make it for my family.

4 boneless porkchops

6tablespoons of strawberry jam

2 teaspoons of worshire sauce

1 table spoon of cinnamon

1/2 table spoon of pepper.

stir up all into well combined, and then smooth it on top of the porchops, and then put in the over on 400 degrees for about 40 minutes. So easy, and we all know porkchops are super duper cheap. My kids also love this dish so hey, it's a keeper.