As if. . .

Well, it's been awhile since I blogged, but not for lack of blog-able moments. Here's some of the more fun moments from this month:

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Maggie and Gracie were making perler bead creations before dinner, and wanted to complete them after dinner. Once the table was cleared, it was very close to bedtime, so I told Maggie she needed to go get ready for bed and finish her bead creations the next day. Maggie threw a little temper tantrum, complete with smacking the counter and jumping up and down in frustration.

Jerry asked, "What was that?!"

I replied, "A temper tantrum, just like she was two!"

Jerry asked Maggie, "Do you need a spankin', like you're two?"

Maggie replied, "No."

Jerry: "So why did you do that?"

Maggie: "'Cause I was upset."

Jerry: "And what do you do when you're upset?"

Maggie: "I throw a fit."

Jerry: "No. What do you do when you're upset?"

Maggie: "I throw a fit!"

Jerry, looks at me a bit incredulously, so I ask Maggie, "What else could you do when you're
upset?"

Maggie, not missing a beat says, "Whine and whine and whine and whine and whine."

Jerry and I immediately cracked up, losing all parental authority in the process. Oh well.

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A couple of weeks ago Maggie asked me if I would please take her to Michael's so she could use some of her recently earned allowance to purchase an item she had seen there. She asked very nicely and politely, so we hopped in the car and headed to the mall and shopped.

Afterwards, as we pulled up in the driveway, I was trying to coach her to remember to say "Thank You" for the trip. I praised her for asking so nicely to go, and asked her if she had anything she wanted to say to me. She said, "Oh yes!" and hopped out of the van and started to come around the van to my door. I opened it up, she gave me a big hug and said, "I love you as if you were the greatest mommy in the world!"

As if. Hum. "As if?" I said, a bit questioningly.

"Well, everyone thinks there own mom is the greatest, but no one's really is." She explained.

Makes sense, I guess. And definitely keeps my ego in check.

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Our big September event was the State Fair. Granddaddy and Nana came up from DFW and to enjoy the fair and the Disney on Ice show that accompanies it with us. This year the show included Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and Tinkerbell. As always, it was a great show. We got to the fair in the early afternoon, after morning rains. It was a bit steamy at first, but once the sun dipped down in the sky it was quite pleasant. Jerry's company makes discount tickets available for the fair, show and midway rides, so we had fun at a reasonable price - except for food. Wow! That stuff is expensive!

The girls were much more into the midway rides this year, so next year we will have to get a few more ride coupons! They tried the swings, fun house, big slide, aerial tramway, small roller coaster, the scrambler and the Himalayan thingy. Nana was an amazingly willing ride participant on almost all of them. She also loves fair food, so she was in her element!

We got our requisite cotton candy at the ice show, complete with hat. The girls were so cute at the show - they gasped with amazement at the characters, and waved like crazy at Minnie, although we were so far away, I'm sure we were but tiny dots to the person in the costume. The girls waved like it was just her and them though. I don't look forward to the day when they get 'too old' for all of this. I try to enjoy every minute that it lasts.

See y'all in October!

Sounds like life to me. . .

Well, this post is for my friend Jane, who mentioned to me that she kept up with my family this summer through my blog and thought that I needed to write another post. I'm so flattered that someone actually reads this stuff, how could I refuse?

Yesterday morning I got up and had lots of deep thoughts running through my head and I thought, "Hey! I should go write a blog entry about this!" but instead I laid there fifteen more minutes and then go up and started my usual day. You can't really write a good blog entry on deep thoughts in fifteen minutes anyway. So this morning, I got up early (for me) at 6:00 and thought I'd go write a blog entry. Two things got in the way though - first, two other family members got up with me, and second, I have no deep thoughts this morning. Oh well. So, here we are, with only light and fleeting thoughts for today.

Well, we are now two weeks or so into school, and the girls seem to be enjoying it. It has been super crazy around here though, because our church postponed VBS to this last week, from 6:30 to 8:30 at night, which meant that the girls came home from school and we had to cram homework, dinner and playtime in so that when they got home they could go straight to bed. They really enjoyed the VBS though. They took our neighbors across the street with them, so we got to know them a little better as well.

Gracie's first couple of weeks at school have been a bit up and down. She seems to have a good time most of the time, although when I ask her about her new teacher, her overwhelming impression is that she's "loud." Mrs. B does have a rather low, booming voice, but I don't find her overwhelmingly loud. I've heard that she is a fun teacher though, so I'm hoping Gracie will warm up to her soon. Gracie will certainly get the chance to know Mrs. B. - she got moved to a desk near her because she is having trouble keeping focused on tasks. I got a note about that already. Still, she seems to be doing just fine in class for now. On the playground though, she had a bad day yesterday. She was put in time out for part of recess for chasing another kid that didn't want to be chased. She apparently was so upset about it that she cried until she had a bloody nose, for which she had to go to the office. So, when she got home, our conversation went something like this:

Me: "How was your day at school."

Gracie: "Good. Except I got a bloody nose."

Me: "What? How did you get a bloody nose."

Gracie: "Well, I was playing and chasing and got in Time Out and crying and sad and Ben and Edmund and . . . "

So we sat down and talked about what exactly happened. Then I said, "Okay, well, what else happened today that was the good part?"

"What?" asked Gracie.

"You said you had a good day when I asked how it was - what was the good part?" I replied.

"No, that's all I remember. I guess it was a bad day."

I suppose it's all in the details.

Maggie is a busy girl in her new class. She hasn't talked very much about her teacher, but seems to be just as enthralled with her as she was for the last few teachers. She gets 40 minutes of Spanish each week for this first semester and is excited about that. So far she's learned how to say, "Gimme Five!" in Spanish - very, very useful stuff!!! (No, really, in our house, that's useful!)

Maggie's first two weeks have been marked by social angst. She got off the bus last Friday swearing that she would never ride again. Why? Because one of her friends hasn't sat with her since school started, of course. Her solution? "I will never speak to her again, and then she'll know I am mad!" So we had to sit down and talk about how people can't read minds, and this friend probably doesn't even know how she feels. She spoke with this friend the next morning (after some coaching) and they sat together on the way to school, so that crisis was averted. Of course, that afternoon she found out that a friend was having a sleepover with six friends, and she was not among the selected six. Sigh. . .

I know that this is a life lesson that she needs to learn, and yet, as a mother, I wish I could shield her from anything that would make her tender heart ache. Still, it's a part of building character and all, so I wouldn't truly want to shield her from that either. It's a fine line between raising a well-mannered child and a real spoiled brat. I hope I get it right.

Other things that have been going on are of course, my birthday. The girls and Jerry brought me presents in bed and we had a nice little party before the day got started. Jerry took a photo that he posted on Facebook, so I'm not sure that there's anyone in the world that hasn't already seen it, but here it is:
That night we all went out to dinner and then tried a new frozen yogurt place. When you walk in they give you a tub to fill up with the 20 or so flavors of frozen yogurt and a wide assortment of toppings. Then you get to the register and put it on a scale and pay by the ounce. We had been warned by friends though, so we didn't fill our tubs up to capacity - just got a modest amount, and got out for about $10. It was quite delicious. Maggie got PB and chocolate, Gracie got strawberry and banana, Jerry got cookies and creme, and I got a smidgen of chocolate, vanilla, cookies and creme and orange. The orange was so orange-y it made my eyebrows want to leap off my face! It was tasty though, so I see a return trip in our future.

One thing that threw me for a loop on my birthday was finding out about the death of the father of one of the Girl Scouts in my troop, David. He did just about everything with our troop. He went on our camp outs, our field trips, came to every award ceremony, provided snacks when it was his daughter's turn - he was a wonderful father, and a good man. He had a massive heart attack and died the Tuesday before my birthday. It used to be that things like that happened to my parents friends, but now I'm getting up there, and it's people I know. Quite a sobering thought to have. Even more sobering is the thought of his daughter, going on without him. I can't imagine going through the loss of my father at my age, much less being 9 years old. My heart just aches for her.

Several such things sobering have happened in the last few weeks - one friend's baby being stillborn and another friend whose water broke at 28 weeks who is now looking at a long hospital stay. These occurrences present challenges that can be difficult to resolve in my mind. How can a loving God allow these things to happen to folks who love Him? I know it is natural to have these doubts, these feelings of uncertainty, even anger, but the thing that makes it harder is when my children, so young in their faith, have the same questions. When I told Maggie about David's death, she got upset, understandably. She was sad for her friend, she was worried about something like that happening to me or Jerry, but she also wanted to know, "Mom, who decides when these things happen? Is it God, or is it the Devil?" Sometimes I wonder too.

Well, that's about all the Saturday time I can take for blog posting - Jerry and I are tackling the clutter that is on our bookshelves, and has been since we moved here a year ago (broken tea cup anyone?) We may be able to have another garage sale by the time we finish. If anyone is in the market for a large china cabinet, let me know - it's still hanging around!

First Day of School

Well, we woke up to a gray and rainy first day of school again this year. Maggie is so excited about school though, she didn't mind - she was up, dressed, bed made, and ready to go before I even got to her room - about six minutes after her alarm went off. Gracie, on the other hand, was just rolling out of bed, looking through the blinds, and ready to return to bed. She is NOT ready for summer vacation to be over.

We did our school routine - breakfast, make lunches, get ready, brush teeth, brush hair. . . Maggie, however added one more step essential for fourth graders - put on lip gloss. Ummm. Well. Ok.

We took our traditional first day pictures, and I asked the girls if they wanted me to drive them to the bus stop or would they rather walk with umbrellas. They looked out and the rain was pretty light, so we headed out with our umbrellas. Of course, the first day, the bus is always a little late, but today it was about 15 minutes late. The rain picked up quite a bit before the bus got there, so we all huddled under the eaves of the house that the bus stop is located at. Gracie got more excited about things as her friends got to the bus stop. By the time the bus got there, she was, I think, ready for the school day to start.

Once the girls left, I walked back home and the silence of no kids. And now I've uploaded photos and made a blog entry, without a single interruption. While I do miss the girls, I must say, school days have their perks. Now, I'll go see what else I can get done, and perhaps make a fresh-baked cookie or two so that when the girls get home we can sit down and enjoy a special treat while they tell me about their first day of school.

California Dreamin'

Well, we are (reluctantly) back from our vacation. We had a great time. It's nice to be to the point where the kids can do things for themselves, and it is really a vacation, instead of just a change of location, but still having to do all the feeding, cleaning, entertaining, etc. Jerry and I were talking last night about him not wanting to go back to work, and me not wanting vacation to be over, and I asked him what his favorite part of vacation was.

"The beach." was his reply. "What was your favorite part?" he asked.

"Not having to cook. Or clean. Or do any of the usual things." Was my reply. He just laughed and called me practical. I suppose it was just the opportunity to fully enjoy all the things that we did. And being around an uncle that the girls dote on just made it better. They constantly wanted to be around him, hold his hand in the parking lot, sit next to him in the booth at the restaurant and so on. I'm sure that it probably got tiring for Aaron, just like it does for me, but it gave me the opportunity to have some closeness with Jerry without a lot of maneuvering to do so.

So here's the post vacation synopsis:
We didn't particularly want to get up super early on any day of our vacation, so we scheduled afternoon flights. This put us into California a bit late, so we checked into the hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, and visited Aaron's place for a small birthday celebration for Gracie. Aaron had found these super cute cupcakes for the girls - lots of icing and lots of smiles!

Since our first full day was a Sunday we headed to the Santa Monica pier, figuring that the traffic would be lighter than on a weekday. We took in the sights of the pier, and then the girls rode the roller coaster with Aaron and Jerry. Gracie was aching to put her toes in the water, so we walked along the beach for a while - getting a bit sunburned in the process, because we failed to apply the sunscreen we had just bought before heading to the beach. The water was nice and warm on our toes, but after we were done the sand on the way back to the boardwalk was super hot! After a quick lunch we stopped by Old Navy on the 3rd street promenade and got us some flip-flops so our next beach adventure would not be so painful!

The next day we were feeling pretty roasted, so we headed to the California Science Center for a nice, sun-free, air-conditioned day. It had lots of hands-on exhibits, and we had a really good time. The only down moment was when Maggie realized that she had lost her purse. I had tried to convince her to leave it in the trunk of the car, but she had insisted on bringing it with her. Luckily, an honest person found it and turned it in with her souvenir money intact. Hopefully she learned a valuable lesson - time will tell. At the end of our visit we stopped by the gift shop, which was filled with neat items. We got the girls and Aaron the old-fashioned whirly-copter things, and they flew them around before we got into the car. We headed back to the house, and I made chicken and dumplings for dinner while Jerry, Aaron and the girls went swimming at his neighborhood pool.

The next day we were ready for some more beach fun. We headed to Zuma Beach, which I had read about in a magazine, and was supposed to be a very clean, family friendly beach. What that article didn't say was that this beach faced the north currents, and it was COLD!!! The lifeguards were wearing jackets! Still, it was a very sunny day, and literally, within minutes, Gracie was buried in the sand. Aaron and his friend Jason were with us, and they had brought boogie boards. The girls and the guys braved the waves - they were pretty tall. After a few waves, Maggie got hit by a big one and toppled off her boogie board - a traumatic experience for her, to be sure. She was soaked, and spent the next 30 minutes warming up on the blanket, swearing she would never go in the ocean again. Eventually I convinced her to take a walk on the beach with me, and pretty soon she was wading in the waves again. On the way home we stopped at a seafood place and Jerry got to enjoy the fresh seafood that he so rarely gets to have (being married to a seafood-hater.)

The next day was our Disney day. We got up earlier, but still didn't make it to Disneyland until around 11:00. Back in 1986 my family had gone to Disneyworld and had gotten five-day park hopper passes that never expired. We only used four days of those passes, so I brought them along with us on this trip to see if we could use them. They said we could, so Jerry, Aaron and I got into the park on day five of those passes (they cost $81 for five days in 1986. The price for a one-day pass that day was $97 dollars!) We only had to buy tickets for the girls, so that made this the cheapest Disney vacation ever!!! We really expected a crowded park and long lines, but it wasn't bad at all. We used Fastpass on the two really crowded coasters, but even the Matterhorn was only a 20 minute wait. Maggie and I walked right on to the teacups while Gracie, Jerry and Aaron rode that one. I think we rode everything we wanted to. The girls even tried Space Mountain - Maggie loved it, and declared it her favorite, but Gracie found it a bit scary. We hit Denny's on the way back to the hotel, and it was 1:30 in the morning before we got back to the hotel.

The next day we didn't do anything. We hung out at Aaron's house - the girls played with the dog, Booker, we all played a card game, "There's a Moose in the House!", did a little laundry, took a nap or two, the girls went swimming with Aaron again, and then we had a nice dinner and some ice cream before we headed back to the hotel to pack up for our return trip home. A nice relaxing end to our vacation. I don't think any of us wanted it to actually end though. I guess that's the mark of a good vacation!

Eight Years Later. . .

Well, today we celebrate this:

As we remember this:

And wonder this:

Where did the time go?

Where ever it went, it certainly went quickly. Kind of like this summer has gone quickly. All of the sudden we have reached the end. We have one week of swim lessons, a week of vacation, another week of swim lessons, and BOOM! we are back in school. Yikes!

We have had a pretty busy summer since we've been home from the grandparents. We've been to the local museum, which has a nice little turn-of-the-century (1900's) town built kid-sized with a home, store, bank, prison, etc. . . for the kids to play in. We've hit the park a couple of times when the heat let up. We played games at Chuck E. Cheese when it didn't. We joined a local neighborhood pool, which the girls have enjoyed immensely - here's some shots of them there:

And of course, we had Gracie's birthday party this weekend. Now, those of you who know Gracie will not be surprised at her party theme - no princesses for this girl, thank you very much. This year she wanted a Mario Cart theme. I tracked down Mario Brothers party ware, and talked Gracie down from a 3-D mushroom cake to a flat one plus mushroom cupcakes. We also did our traditional 'Pin the _____ on the _____' game tied back to the theme. This year it was "Pin the Moustache on Mario." By the time the game was finished, it looked like Mario was being attacked by bats!

We did a water fun party in the backyard and played a lot of the same games we played with our friends in Farmington. Cousins Will and Carissa showed up with Nana and Granddaddy,

and almost everyone we invited came, so we had a group of about 12 kids all together. A perfect number for games!

All in all, another successful (but exhausting!) birthday party!

C'est la vie

Okay - I had a really weird dream last night. It wasn't that I was in a strange place, or that it had strange people, or a strange theme. The weird part is, I was speaking French in my dream. Jerry said that when you dream in another language, it usually means you are becoming proficient in it, but I don't know any French - just ask the people in France that I tried to speak it to. They all immediately said - "I know English." (Inference - stop murdering my language!)

ZOOM!!!

That was the sound of June passing me by, just in case you were wondering.

I can hardly believe that fully half of summer vacation is gone! Maggie is counting down the days until school starts again (about 40) and Gracie is lamenting the passing of each one. I do not look forward to the day when Maggie gets a teacher that is less than "perfect" in her eyes and this enthusiasm falls by the wayside.

Speaking of things that fall by the wayside, the other day we were walking into Wal-Mart and the girls were jostling for position on either side of me trying to hold hands with me. (Mind you, this is one of the main arguments I made in the discussion of how many kids to have. "Why would you want more kids than you have hands to hold on to them with?", and yet, somehow, two hands are not sufficient to stop the arguing. One hand must have mysterious powers and is therefore more desirable than the other.)

I stated, "I sure will be sad when you guys grow up and don't want to hold my hands anymore."

Maggie looked horrified. "I will always want to hold your hand! Why wouldn't I want to hold your hand?"

"Well, sometimes when kids get older, they feel like they are too old to hold their mom's hand anymore, like when they are teenagers" I reply.

"I will always want to hold your had because I love you very, very, very, very, very, very much!" cries Gracie.

"I hope so!" I say. But really, I doubt it, because the girls have already, on more than one occasion, done something so teenager-ish that I pray right then and there, LORD, help me when they turn 13!!!

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So, what have we been doing for the last 40 days? Well, for two weeks the girls headed to Texas and rode the conveyor belt of grandparents - first Nana and Granddads, then Mimi and Pepaw's house (with Uncle Aaron visiting - BONUS!!!!), then Grandma and Papaw's house and back to Nana and Granddads to wrap things up. Jerry and I drove them down and stayed for four days, then left them in their grandparent's capable hands.

I had a full week without them, and it was so quiet, it was a bit spooky. I got one project fully done - I finally made the dress that I cut out last May for Maggie's Land Run. I cozied up with the owner's manual to my sewing machine and figured out how to make buttonholes, and also how to decorative stitching. This was also the first garment I've ever made with sleeves, so I was quite proud of myself by the end of this project.

By the end of the week, I was ready to have the girls back. Although, they started bickering and whining in the backseat before we hit the city limits of Decatur, and I thought maybe I should take them back.

But I didn't.

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Mid-June I was having yet more issues with body aches, so I made an appointment with my general practitioner again. Before I left, I looked through all the paperwork for my appointments since we've moved here, and I could find appointments where I've been complaining about these same muscle aches for almost a year now. I went in, explained what was going on, and told him I wanted to get to the bottom of this. A little more blood, one more x-ray, and I was referred to a rheumatologist.

So far, based on all the test I've had, they have a long list of what it isn't. Now we are working down a big list to see what it is. The first thing he wants me to do is go for two weeks with no excess refined sugar (read: No Dr. Pepper or M&M's -sob!-), no artificial sweeteners, no vitamins or meds other than birth control, eating oatmeal for breakfast every day, avoiding extremely fatty foods, and swimming at least three times a week. Because I am committed to finding the root cause of this issue, I have followed his instructions to a T. Because I am following his instructions to a T, this has been one of the longest weeks of my life. Jerry says I am a BIT grouchy, whatever that means. Only four more days left, and then I have my followup appointment. I think I'll stop at the first convenience store I pass on the way home and get me a Dr. Pepper and Snicker Bar. Then I'll be able to fly home from the sugar high - Ha!!!

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One of the positives from this week of restricted diet and activities is that we finally took the plunge and bought a pool membership at the neighboring neighborhood. We have been swimming every day this week, and the girls are loving it. Gracie is as tan as a little Indian, and Maggie is getting so much exercise that she is eating twice as much as usual without even complaining about what I fix.

Since I only have one bathing suit that I've had for at least 3 years, I decided to go bathing suit shopping. I don't hate bathing suit shopping as much as I used to, since they now have two piece tankinis with skirted suits, but the second week of July is a bad time to shop for bathing suits, as they are now getting in fall clothing, and the selection is, shall we say, picked over.

I ended up getting two - one at Target that I could only find a small bottom piece for (I really would prefer a medium) and one at Kohl's. The problem was, when I got out of the dressing room, I found that instead of separates, the pieces I had chosen were each a part of a two piece set - just not the SAME two piece set. I could never find the other pieces, so I approached a cashier. He said he was not allowed to sell mis-matched sets. So I approached the manager, who approached the cashier and told him that yes, he could. I mean, really, who wants to take two mis-matched pieces to the back room if you have a willing buyer for the swimsuit detritus that is left in mid-July?

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Well, I'm sure there's more to say, but I've left and come back to this posting several times, and I'm afraid that if I don't post it now, it will go the way of the last four postings that I deleted before they ever posted. If it sits in the draft folder too long it becomes old news! I'll try to be more prompt on the new news, and perhaps a picture or two! Later!