Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Out of Commission

We have been misplaced since Saturday, life just hasn't been "normal". I'm actually too tired and worn out to sit here and blog about it. We have been without an A/C since Saturday. It has been as high as 87 in our house. It has been miserable. Long story short, we haven't been home hardly at all, so we wouldn't have to sit in the heat and suffer. We ended up getting a new, upgraded A/C, with no cost to us, since it was still under warranty. Since its a heat pump too, we pretty much ruined it this winter by running it, since it wasn't working right then, however, we had no idea. Hopefully our electric bill will go down and we will have a nice cool house this summer.
I hope to catch up on all my household duties soon, since we haven't been home in days, I have fallen really far behind. Will try to post better stuff later.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Kids At Play

With the weather warming up, we are dying to get out of the house. Earlier this week, I took the kids out to the park for a picnic and play. It was so nice out and they had a blast. Paxton loves the fresh air and Adriana loves to people watch and play. Later in the week, I took them to Chick-Fil-A and to the park. Here are some pictures of us having some fun in the sun!
Paxon watching sister swing.



She LOVES to swing!


Milkshake Mustache


Wild Girl in front of Wild Flowers

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Last Day of School

Well yesterday was Adriana's last day of school. I'm sad to be saying these words. She will be going to summer school, but that's only for a month. I really LOVED her teachers this year. They were so sweet and loving towards all the kids in the class. It takes a special type of person to handle a room full of 3 year olds, I can't even handle one!
As the close to a great year, I was stressing about getting them a good gift, because they truly deserved it. I was on a tight budget this year, but wanted to get them something that didn't scream cheap! I asked my friend Hilary for some ideas. She is super creative and can be very thrifty. I got this first idea from her (altered a bit, but a great idea!).


I gave them a "Bucket of Summer Fun". Nothing special, but it had flip flops, nail polish, beach towel, water bottle, drink mixes and Popsicles. I know it isn't all that grand, but thought it might help get their summer kicked off right. This gift was from us, Ryan and I. The other gift was from Adriana. I stressed and worried so much about how to get this idea together, and I'm so happy it fell together (even it was at the very last minute!). I knew I wanted to have a poem that would have phrases in it that involve different types of candy. I just didn't know how to put it together. My mom is very creative with this type of stuff, so she came up with the poem, and it reads as follows:
Dear Miss Laura (or Miss Nikki),
With this pot of treats are my reminisces,
My PAYDAY to you are filled with HUGS & KISSES.

This year you read me some stories and some made me SNICKER,
You taught me how to care
And share my GUMMY BEARS.

You taught me shapes like circle M&M's
And my colors like red, green and blue,

Thank you for a sweet year, Miss Laura (or Miss Nikki), I love you!

I loved the poem she came up with. I then had the idea to put all the candy that was mentioned in the poem into a bouquet of sorts. I got a flower pot and had Adriana put her hand prints on it and then wrote around the top, "To a Sweet Teacher", "Thanks for helping me Grow".



I put the candy together in an arrangement and was very pleased with the final product.



I had good pictures with Adriana and her teachers from her Valentines party, so I got those printed and put in the pot too.
It was a lot of work, but so worth it. I loved and Adriana loved her teachers so much this year.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Lori's No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Day

Let me just say, last Thursday was a doozy, in every since of the word. It just seemed like, just because it started off bad, everything that day, was going to go wrong! And it did!
Let's go through this wonderful day, shall we?
I woke up to tornado sirens. Ryan had left really early to go have breakfast "A.K.A. a staff meeting". I am normally super alert and a VERY light sleeper, so much so, I sleep with an ear plug in (that's right, just one, so I can still hear the baby). However, this morning, Paxton woke up EARLY to eat, so Ryan got up with him to feed him. I went ahead and put the other ear plug in my ear, so I could rest better. I have been a walking zombie for the last month or so, because Paxton isn't feeling well, therefore wakes up 4-8 times a night. Anyway, Ryan had left for work, and I hear the sirens, in my sleepy state, I was thinking, "I wonder why they are testing the sirens before 8am?". I finally pulled myself out of sleep and realized that it was very dark out and that the sirens are probably going off for a reason. As soon as I took my ear plugs out, I hear Adriana crying for me. I got out of bed to find her downstairs wondering around in the dark, looking for us. I found her and told her I was right here and then my phone rang, it was Ryan, telling me that there is a bad storm coming. My head is in such a fog at this point, all of this has happened in about 2 minutes. I turn on the TV and they said that if you are in the path of the storm, to seek shelter. I saw that I had about 4 minutes before it hit our town, so I got Adriana downstairs, woke poor Paxton up and got him downstairs too. By this time, it had started raining and blowing so hard. Long story short, every time they would talk about our town, Adriana would start asking why we were downstairs and why we can't eat breakfast at that particular time. We rode out the storm and am thankful that nothing too bad happened. After the dust settled, I fixed Adriana breakfast, but first making sure I spilled her whole cup of milk all over the place. I had Paxton screaming because he was tired and didn't feel good, Adriana begging for her milk and a mental breakdown just around the bind. I know there were several other little things that had gone bad that day, but somehow I have managed to block them all out! The next upset of the day was when I was in Paxton's room changing his sheets before his nap when ALL the fire alarms went off in the house. I had NO idea why they were going off, but knew it was really loud and I needed to get the kids out! Luckily, it wasn't raining at this point in the day, so I put them on the back deck. I ended up calling 911 and having the fire department come. As soon as I hung up the phone with them, I ran back in the house, alarms blaring, to go change out of my PJ's and get Adriana in some clothes too. (This was around noon, I had already showered, but for some reason, thought it could be a lazy day, so I put my PJ's back on, what was I thinking?) So I changed, grabbed clothes for Adriana and ran through the house like a mad woman trying to clean up. I don't know what I was thinking, my house was such a mess. Me picking up a couple of items isn't going to make a dent in the disaster that is my home. The noise was so loud, I just ran back outside with the kids. Adriana was whining to go back in the house so she could finish watching her show. Go figure. It didn't phase her at all that there were sirens going off in our house. All our windows were open, so I knew the neighborhood would be able to hear all the commotion. I went ahead and grabbed the kids and we ran back through the house to go out front and wait for the fire truck to get there. Several minutes later they came. Long story short, the could not determine why the alarms went off. Just tack on one more exciting adventure to the day. The whole time I was sitting out there, waiting for the firemen to finish inside, I was thinking, "Man, I wish I had my camera for my blog to take a picture of the fire engine." I figured the firemen wouldn't appreciate me running in the house to grab the camera, so I just waited. When they gave me the all clear we went on inside. I grabbed my camera and took a shot of it through our window, before they drove off.


The more I thought about it, the more I looked around at the mess in my house. I was mortified by my messing home and hated it that it wasn't any cleaner when they walked through every inch of my house. Here are some of the shots they saw from my house.

The table, after me paying the bills that morning.


Laundry, laundry, laundry.


Of course, The messy kitchen.



Aww, yes, the lighter laying on the floor,
next to the hot glue gun (that wasn't plugged
in) and a pair of scissors. They probably flagged
my house as high risk and called DFS on me
for leaving all these goodies laying right on
my family room floor for a toddler to get into.


That afternoon I took Paxton to the doctor's office. He got his shots, but I was mainly concerned about his head cold that he has had for several weeks. Of course she couldn't find anything wrong, but at least I got his 6 month check up out of the way.
That night we had bought tickets for a Springfield Cardinals game through my MOPS group. We didn't know if it was going to be rained out or not. We waited in town, at my parents house to see if the game was still on. At least it cleared up and we were able to go. They took care of Paxton so we could just take Adriana by herself. We had a great time. Ryan and Adriana played on the playground pretty much the whole time, and I got to sit back and do nothing and visit with my MOPS friends. It was a good end to a very interesting day!

This is a HORRIBLE shot of me. I look like a wet dog.
I had been caught out in the pouring rain at the doctors
office, and since I didn't get a chance to go home and try
to fix myself, this is the result.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Just Us Girls

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Susan and her family were coming to Springfield for a day. We had set up for her and her girls (all 3 of them, plus Susan) and me and Adriana getting our nails done at the Academy of Hair Design. Since its a beauty school, they are a fraction of the cost of a real salon. Well, that day, Susan called and said that they were running late, so me and Adriana kept our nail appointment that day, because Adriana was looking so forward to it. We went there and Adriana got to pick out her own nail color. She picked purple, big surprise! She didn't know what to think of someone else painting our nails. She did REALLY good at sitting still and not moving her hands and feet around. They painted little flowers on her big toes and thumbs, she thought that was so cool. It was a VERY cheap way to have some girl time.

Watching closely.

Purple nails!


Trying to show off the finished product.

While we are getting our nails done, Susan called and said that they were already in town, so they went on to the mall and we met them there after our nails were done and had lunch in the food court. We then took the kids to play in the little play area. Adriana LOVED following Alyssa around and playing with her. It was a good visit and fun to see Susan, even if it was just for a couple of hours.

Alyssa and Adriana

Craft Projects

I mentioned a while back that me and my mom are going to try to open a booth at a fall festival later in the year. We have been off to a good start. We are making little "taggie" blankets for babies (will post pictures of those later). We are also going to be selling tutu's for little girls and hair bows. I have never even tried to tie a pretty bow before, so learning how to make hair bows have been quiet a challenge, but I'm getting the hang of it. Its more or less finding the time to do these projects. Anyway, here are some pictures of the bows that I have made so far. I'm learning as I go...





Friday, May 7, 2010

Noah The Musical

Well I FINALLY found my camera. It was in my van, which I figured it would be. Unfortunately, because we are always on the road going into Springfield, our van gets junked up pretty quickly. I feels like we live out of it all the time. Anyway, I will count losing my camera as a blessing because after I scoured it a few times, looking for my camera and still coming up empty handed, I actually CLEANED out my van. Low and behold, I found it! Under the drivers seat, but glad that I was able to clean my van and find my camera. I knew it was probably in our van because we had used it last Friday night when we went to Branson on a date night, to see "Noah The Musical". We have been wanting to see this show down there and had thought about going last year, but quickly halted that idea when we found out that it cost $50/ticket! Anyway, for some reason they were running a special if you lived in the county in which we live in, and you could go for $10/ticket. That's more like it. We made it a date night and had fun. We went to Applebees for dinner and then on to the show. I don't know if I was more impressed by the actual theater or the show. I'm not much on musicals so maybe the theater impressed me more. For starters it smells like roasted almonds, yum! Makes you crave them like crazy, but unfortunately we didn't have any cash, so were just left with our mouths watering. Its a beautifully decorated theater with lots to see. Unfortunately, you can't take any pictures of the actual musical, so I got pictures of the theater. It was a great show with lots of live animals. It was really neat to see. The stage kind of wraps around the audience so animals are all around inside the Ark. Very neat to see and glad we got a night out, got to see the show and thankful for wonderful parents who kept the kids overnight. It was a fun time.

Not a great shot of the outside of the theater,
but you can see how big it is. (sorry its sideways,
it wasn't before I loaded it.)
The wall as you walk in the theater.

The ceiling of the entrance.


The displays in the vignettes. So much to see.




Big Noah's Ark as you walk in the door.


Us in the van waiting for the traffic to leave.
Ryan practically waited till every car had left
the lot before we could leave. Which put us
home around 11pm, way past my bedtime!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

No Camera

I can't find my camera, so I'm at a stand still on posting any new stories. I have torn up my house and van looking for it. I really hope I find it soon!
On some things that I can write about without pictures. We started Paxton on Rice cereal this week. He doesn't really like it at all. After a couple of bites, he'll start gagging. Its so funny! I often feel like a first time mom again. I can't remember when I need to start him on veggies and stuff like that. I think he will like that stuff more.
As far as my weight loss challenge, I have dreaded standing on that scale. I really haven't gotten the chance to do any exercises. I have been trying to eat a little better and I took my friend, Molly's advice, and have been drinking a lot more water. I finally stood on the scale today. Thinking that I haven't lost anything, however, if I had my camera and could post a picture, you would see my chubby feet standing on the scale, with the scale saying I am currently at 165.0 lbs. I have lost 2lbs. I don't know how, and I think its probably a glitch, but I'll take it. Hope everyone who has said they are going to do the challenge with me, is staying on target. I really hope to lose 10lbs, although it seems like a big goal.
Well, I'm going to get to cleaning, I really hope to find my camera. I know its either in my van or the house, I know I didn't leave it anywhere, I just don't know where it is.