October October, how I love thee

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I'm slacking this year as far as my decorating is concerned, only because I REFUSE to go in the garage and get bit by a black widow or stung by a scorpion. Call me crazy, I know. However, I have done some pretty darn fun treats for my kids! I've also discovered, I'm not very good at mummy wraps. Oh well! I can't wait for Payton to be old enough to have a halloween party, I have so many fun ideas now. Anyway, we got the kids costumes, and surprise surprise, Ben is Woody, Payton is a SWAT guy, and Savannah is Supergirl (totally cute, and got it on clearance last year after halloween. Tony carved Ben's pumpkin today, and surprise again, it's Woody.

On to other things...

Ben is FINALLY starting to get into the potty training thing! Peeing is his area of expertise, pooping...not so much. Small strides, he'll get there, eventually. So, I finally gave in and went to the doctor. First time since who knows when, other than my OB obviously. Turns out I'm not going crazy, and I really do feel like crap for a reason. I did an ekg at work the other night for fun, showed an elevated t wave (could mean too much potassium...not good), but the one in the doctor's office a few hours later showed premature atrial contraction. Not a horrible or uncommon thing to have, but she's sending me to a cardiologist and also ordering a holter monitor for 24 hours. That just records my heart rythmns and junk, which the cardiologist will read and decide what's next. I didn't even bother telling my primary about my other symptoms since I'm seeing the specialist anyway. So for now, no more caffeine for me. So sad I know. Other than that, we're poor, and everything is breaking. On the bright side, we're all alive.

Life as we know it

I'm not so great at keeping this blog up. Sorry. I'm a busy woman. Our vacation was good, with no one breaking into our car or anything like that. Our pool pump motor died, the pool turned into a pond, motor got replaced, and something else broke on it, pool is turning back into a pond. Work has been surprisingly busy this summer, off and on though. So rather than camping tons this summer like I changed my schedule to be able to do, I've been working. No complaints there though, I'm grateful for the hours, knowing last year it wasn't the case so much. Tony did manage one trip up north though a couple of weeks ago, his bff from high school invited us up to their parents cabin for the weekend. I didn't intend on going since I had to, well, work. I ended up going up to Pinetop anyway though Sunday morning because Tony's car broke down on his way home. Needless to say, I didn't go to work that night, and we're now a one car family for now, which is hard especially for our schedules and how far we both work. Oh well, so far it's been OK. Tony now does 10 hour days so he gets Fridays off =] And he'll be telecommuting some days. This could actually turn out to be a good thing! On to more exciting things. Payton starts 1st grade in a week and a half. I love him, but I am so ready for him to go back to school! Savannah starts preschool on the 30th, 2 hours a day, 4 days a week. She's super excited and can't wait to go. Tony and I have been thinking and have decided that we're going to renew our vows next year for our anniversary. It's the big 10, and after an incredibly rocky year last year, why not? We haven't decided if we want to make a big deal out of it and have it locally so friends and family can actually come, or just go away for that honeymoon we never got, and do it with just the 2 of us. Either way, I'm excited. I love that man!! That my friends, is life as we know it right now. Full of ups and downs, but it's ours and that alone is enough to make me smile =]

Mickey Mania

So here we are folks, on a Disney countdown again. Someday when the kids are older, we'll take more exciting and original vacays, but for now, disneyland it is. We leave June 25th, spend 5 (!!) days there, and the beach, then head over to Legoland for 2 days. Such is the content of our trip. The kids are ever so excited, and ask everyday if we're going to disneyland that day. NO, no we're not. Please stop asking me. In other news, I ordered Payton one of those butterfly gardens, where you get catapillars and watch them metamorphis into butterflies right before your eyes! I just ordered it yesterday, and he's already asked me like 20 times if it's here yet. I sure hope they ship it out very very soon, for my own sanity. Enough of that. I signed back up with my trainer again, because quite frankly, I'm tired of being fat and need someone to kick my butt. And he does, a lot. I'm getting more motivated everyday, and it's much easier to find the time to go to the gym since work has slowed down and I'm not working 60-72 hours a week. I also signed Savannah up for preschool starting in the fall. It's through mesa public schools, and it's pretty cheap, and the best part is it's right by the gym. I'll have absolutely no excuse not to go since going hoe would be pointless for that 2 hour block of time she'll be in school. And it's during my spin class time, so I can go everyday! Whoohoo! Can we tell I'm majorly excited about this? =] Ben is still not talking all that great, and I can't understand a lot of what he says. Everything else, only I can understand and no one else usually lol. That's about it for us for now. Hopefully the summer will be filled with camping trips and fun.

Playing catch up again

Not much has really happened around here lately. Our german Shepherd got out of our backyard last month, she's been gone 3 weeks as of today =/ I'm pretty sure we won't be getting her back. I can only hope she's safe and someone is loving her. We got a new puppy, an adorable husky who we named Kodiak. He was supposed to be a camping/hiking buddy along with our shepherd, but that's obviously not going to happen now. He's 9 weeks old now , and Tony even admitted that Kodiak is a really good dog so far. Ha. He now knows how to sit, proficiently, and is getting a hang on lay down. Anywho, this past weekend we took the kids and puppy up to the snow, just a little past Pine Az, to go sledding. I think they took two runs down the hill and decided they were done. Seriously?? The puppy had the most fun out of all of us. We'll have to make more trips up north this spring and summer. Fossil Springs is on the top of my list of places to hike. Payton is hit or miss at school, behavior wise. Every now and then he just stops thinking and starts doing stupid things, like stabbing classmates with pencils and throwing mud at everyone...I dread picking him up everyday wondering if I'm going to have to talk to his teacher again. Savannah is her normal strange self, constantly singing and dancing around the house and forcing her cat to be her "baby". Ben is my cute little stinker still, who refuses to use the big boy potty. He says he wants to poop in his pants and live with mama forever. Great. We also pulled up a bunch of our annoying and messy bushes in our front yard, thanks to an awesome neighbor! I'm not used to it yet, it looks very empty (which is totally fine), but I have plans to plant different prettier bushes. We'll see how that works out.

It's been a while

Well, I finally reset my forgotten password so I suppose I can start blogging again. I'm sure there's been much to write about, but I don't really remember much that's not big or important, so I'm just going to wing it. We adopted 2 more kittens, I'm not really sure what possessed us to do that. Anyway, they recently all just really pushed my buttons too far so I threw 4 cats out....only 3 came back. Sad, yet I'm not crying. What can I say? Since that one that didn't come back has been gone, my couch hasn't been crapped on! This winter we took the kids on the Polar Express, a fun train ride based on the book, up in Williams Az. There was snow so that was pretty fun, although we froze our behinds. All I heard for the next week or so was the kids ringing their bells that Santa gave them on the train. We were going to go cut our own Christmas tree this year too, bought the permit and all. We purposefully put it in our glovebox to avoid loosing it. Needless to say, the day we were going to go, we were all packed up and in the car, even pulled out of the driveway when we decided to check and make sure it was still there, and it wasn't. How could that be? I never took it out, Tony said he didn't either....? So, we ended up going to a tree lot and buying a tree. I was a bit sad about that, but oh well. Maybe next year. Christmas came and went, and I bought way more than I had planned on, but at least the kids had a good day. New years came and went as well. Nothing special there. I worked new years eve, which is fine because I got all the other holidays off anyway. I try not to make resolutions, because lets face it, I'm probably not going to keep them. I did, however, make sort of an agreement with Tony that if I loose 30 lbs we're taking the kids to Disneyland, and 50lbs he and I are going to Hawaii. Maybe I'll finally loose all the fat from Ben...and drama. lol. Mostly drama related at this point since I did get just 8 lbs away from pre pregnancy back in March. Oh well. Anyway, this past week we've pretty much all been sick. It's been awful. Hopefully we'll be done with the sickness now for a while.

Vacation

I'm beginning to think we're not meant to go on them. I'll get to that later. Anyway, we spent 5 days at Disneyland/California adventures. We needed all of them. It was crowded! Kids did pretty good considering. We all had our moments, but that's to be expected. My mom came instead of Matt, which was great. Not sure if she had a good time, but she was a trooper and got to see some new places. The parade at Disneyland was stupid. No princesses like the good ole classic parade. The pixar parade was good though at California Adventures. Kids liked it. We got to do the character dinner and Savannah got to meet her Princesses. She is so shy though, and din't even smile...until after they had left out table! It was still cute though. While we were there, we apparently experienced out first (and hopefully last) earthquake. we didn't know it until the hostess as Ariel's Grotto told us. Oh well, nothing big happened, and we went over to Disneyland for the fireworks. The show was awesome this year! And Payton slept through the whole thing! Oh well, we tried to take pictures, and got a few good ones of it, so he has fun looking at them. After that we headed down to San Diego and did a day of Legoland. I love it there, it's so kid friendly, and much less crowded than Disneyland. There were lines this time, but not too bad. Memorial weekend...Didn't think of that one back when we were planning! Their new aquarium is pretty cool too. After a day of fun, we stopped at a you pick strawberry patch across the street pretty much from the park and picked strawberries. I'm not a fan of the fruit by any means, but I have to admit, these ones were pretty good. Even if they weren't, it was well worth it for the experience. It was fun! New family tradition. =] Spent a day at the San Diego Zoo. I think we can do without that one for a while now. Nothing really great aside from the pandas and polar bears. Seaworld....well, that day started out ok. The park was fun, the shows were great. Unfortunately, that's where the fun ended for the day. As we walked up to our car, Tony noticed the kids floaties scattered on the ground behind our car. Can we say flashbacks of Vegas?? That sinking feeling in my stomach was back as I noticed the back window wasn't shut. It was when we left the car in the parking lot. Much to my dismay, the kids' bags, all 3 off them, where gone, as well as one of Tony's. Seriously, what is wrong with people?? To steal a little girls princess bag, with HER NAME on it, and little boys' lightening Mcqueen bags, WITH THEIR NAMES on them?? Not to mention their life jackets. Oh well. All material things that can be replaced, little by little seeing how it was hundreds of dollars in clothes and bags, and Tony's razor. We still have our pictures this time, and all our personal information (aside from the kids first names of course) so oh well. To top the day off, we had reservations at the US Grant for the night. When we got there, unloaded our things and tipped the bellhop guy, we were informed that they had over booked and we were going to be staying at the Sheraton 3 or 4 miles away. Right by the airport. Throw in a sick Payton and crowds of people that took a simple drive 45 minutes! Then the outrageous parking price to park our car in the dirt! Oh yes, then the elevator the guy at check in told us to use, wouldn't go to our floor! Oh and it gets a little bit better. The next morning the firealarm goes off, and they don't know why. Not sure what is was from, and I don't care. I wouldn't recommend either one of those hotels. The Hyatt however, was great the night before. We had parked in their garage and some pigeons had crapped on our window basically. The guy at the garage gate thing was all concerned and had the head guy I guess come over and look at it. He refunded our night of parking charges, and gave us $20 to wash our car....we hadn't said a thing about the poop! Service, people. Awesome. And seriously, it was pretty much all on our window, a little bit got on our paint. Main dude seemed like he was going to have a heart attack over it. lol. Wow. All over a little pigeon poo we didn't even say a word about. I like them =] lol. Stay at the Hyatt on the 5th floor parking garage lol. Anyway, Sunday Tony and I went to the Dodgers vs Angels game. Sunday, I know. Sorry. They lost if it makes you feel any better. The temperature was nice, but man, that sun is brutal! Came home Monday to a stinky house. I thought one of our cats had died or something, but after finding them both alive and well (except for the fact that they looked scared to death hiding in corners until they figured out it was me in their house) I explored further. Upon opening the fridge, I found the source of our death smell. Apparently the fridge dies sometime in the past 9 days, and everything in there is obviously, warm rotten and moldy. GROSS. What more can go wrong?? Do i dare ask out loud? Oh yeah, I forgot to throw in my birthday, which was the 18th. I hate it. Something always goes wrong. Never fails. Well last year was a good quiet one, but this year made up for that. We were on our way back to the hotel from Huntington beach, when our check engine light and something else goes off. We've had this car for a month! Then the rpm's start going all the way to 4 or so and not shifting. Not good. Pulled into Costco so Tony could get dinner, which he also picked a cheesecake birthday cake for me. One alarm went off by the time he got back, and the next day or 2 the check engine light went off too. It's running fine now. Go figure. Anyway, after reading the manual on the car in the car, I got car sick (I always do when I read in the car) and it just didn't go away. I ended up throwing my birthday dinner and cake up that night. How sad. Great birthday. And those stupid people who broke inot our car stole my only birthday present too! Tony got me some frames that I like. Now they're gone =[ So there ya have it. Our wonderful vacation. It's all slightly funny now, although parts of it still make me mad and probably always will. That's just our luck I guess...

Bunkbed Mania

Well, we finally moved Ben and Payton up in the world, literally. Oh Savannah too. We got them all bunk beds. Yes, Savannah has her own room, but we figured in case she ever has friends...over....it would be a good thing. Plus it was so darn cute. We've had that one up for a few weeks now. Ben and Payton's FINALLY came more than a month after ordering it. Seriously, did they go cut the tree down and make it after we ordered it? Whatever, it's here, and it's up, and boy are they excited. So far tonight Ben has only "jumped" off the top bunk once. No, it's not his bed up there, but there's no stopping an almost 2 year old boy with no fear. So learn the hard way he will...and did (at least I HOPE he learned). Tony and I each have blisters from the screwdriver but oh well. Hopefully all will be alive and intact in the morning...