Random Facts & Info

1) The sound of fingernails being clipped grates on my nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. Especially when I'm in another room and I hear the sound coming from one of the kids in the kitchen. Eeewww.

2) I'm on book 3 of the Hunger Games - love it and cannot wait until the movie comes out next month. The girls are both on book 2 of the series as well.

3) I'm doing audio books from the library on my way to work lately. The one I just finished is called The Wedding Date and the woman who read it had a British accent - very entertaining...about a girl who invents a boyfriend and hires an escort to keep up the lie. I LOVE that accent. I think if I had a British boyfriend he could tell me anything and I'd love him even more. "I just made some love with a lady from the pub - and I may do it again sometime." "I beat up the bloke who you used to fancy - hope you don't mind." "I stole a few thousand pounds out of your handbag." I'd keep him around just to listen to him talk. Hahaha.

The audio tape I'm listening to now is called Daddy's Girl and is super interesting - a suspense sort of one. The American woman's voice sounded so harsh at first in comparison to my sweet British friend, but I'm used to it by now and she is very expressive.

4) I never get into bed before midnight...on work nights! I get home from work around 5:30 or so and that is when my day really begins. Getting the kids in bed at the end of the day is a hurdle in itself...they all want me! LOL. There's homework help, activities 4 nights a week between the 2 girls (dance and swimming), making supper and eating around the table together most nights, talking, helping sort out feelings/friend issues, watching the DVR'd TV programs about once a week together (faster - you can skip commercials), getting all of them to get into their OWN beds with their teeth brushed, contacts removed, and lotion applied where needed (2 of the 3 have skin issues)....and finally I need a little Facebook wind-down after all that and if I'm lucky I get to squeeze in a blog post.

5) I love every minute of my crazy life.

6) I got Lil Bro's picture taken for his 4th birthday coming up. Yay me! Yay him! There were so many great pictures!! I got the girls to do some pictures too so I have some of all three together and some of each of them too. Here's a sneak peek:

He wanted his Angry Birds in some of the pictures...my awesome photographer (who happens to be my BFF) pretty much let him do whatever he wanted...and that worked! :)

7) MK takes her driver's license exam next week. Yikes. I'm old. She'll pass. It would be nice if I could send her on errands here and there...she could even drive herself to dance! :) I'm scared to death of her driving by herself and she's in no hurry either so we'll probably take it slow.

8) MK's teen survival class is learning about the whole reproductive process...so I get a recap each day of the stuff they talked about and how much of it makes the guys in their class squirm. I never had a class like that in high school. They go over everything - even tools used in a pap smear - complete with one to show to the class...you know the shoe-horn one. The guys concluded that they were so glad to be guys because they could never go through that. That was yesterday. Today they watched a couple of births - on DVD of course. She has a whole new respect for me. She couldn't believe I survived them sticking the epidural needle in my spine for Hollywood's birth. I'm like WHAT? That felt GOOD compared to the pain from the contractions. She described in great detail what the pelvis has to go through to just get the baby out - bones moving - everything stretching. I reminded her that she got stuck in that spot and I pushed for over 2 hours trying to get her out of my pelvis. Like I said, she's got a whole new respect for me. LOL

I do think one thing they are forced to do - guys and girls alike is awesome! They have to write 4 papers taking a different approach to teen pregnancy with each one - 1) keeping the baby as a single teen parent 2) getting married to the other parent and raising the baby together 3) giving it up for adoption and 4) abortion. It has brought about many great discussions between the two of us on each option. It's very interesting to hear her thoughts on the subject. There have been take home questions too - like what would my first reaction be if she came home to tell me she was pregnant. After we discussed it for some time she left to write everything on her paper. Later she came back to me and said "Thank you" - for supporting her with her fake pregnancy. LOL I'm not worried at all about that ever happening with her.

9) Okay, 12:27 am - off to bed. :)

So - how is your life? Mine's pretty good right now. I have taken a step in the right direction with my weight. I want this year to be my year - the year I lose all this fat and get to a much healthier weight. I joined Weight Watchers on Feb 1st. My mom and MK joined too. I've been doing really good at it. I just had my 2nd weigh in and I'm down 10.4 pounds total. I try not to think about how much more I have to go...too depressing. So I set smaller goals for myself...like losing 20 pounds to start from here....and then I have numbers I want to get to..numbers I remember being at before I gained...numbers on my way down to what they set my goal weight to be. Honestly, I don't care if I don't get all the way to the goal weight for me. I'd be happy at about 13 pounds more than they say...but I'm going to shoot for the goal anyway and re-evaluate along the way. I feel so much better already...just finally seeing the scale going down instead of up.

We've been passing colds around here...so right now MK is pretty sick..sore throat and cough. Lil Brother is getting better and Hollywood is also a lot better...for those 2 it was short-lived, so I'm hoping that's the case for MK. I have the littlest bit of discomfort in my throat that just started tonight. So I guess I'm next. Boo! Hiss!

Today we had Lil Brother's check up for his teeth. The pediatric dentist told me that his mouth was the 2nd smallest he's ever seen or had to work on. He stressed that it was really difficult to get in there...and I translate that into "save up for braces in about 7 or 8 years". He said that the caps look good...I've been too delicate in the brushing since he's had the work done though so I guess I can be more aggressive now. I've been scared to brush too hard...I felt terrible the first few times I brushed and he said it hurt. Now he just has to go back for check ups every 6 months and it should be good.

The hygenist that was working in another booth noticed Lil Bro's Angry Bird he had with him...she started to tell us about another little guy who brought 2 Angry Bird pigs in to surgery with him...and then she said - "Wait - was that you?" It was. Lil Bro had brought his 2 Angry Bird pigs in with him and she said they all thought it was so cute. :)

Part of my weight loss strategy is to get more sleep than the 5 or 6 hours a night I usually get (and drink more milk). So - I'm off for now. Goodnight.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We made Valentines this year for Lil Brother's classmates.

Updates Feb 2012

Life is still moving on. Weird how that happens. I mean you know it would, even after you lose someone you love....life goes on. But now you have to adjust...in ways that you never let yourself think of before. Like trying to explain to a three year old boy why his Nana B can't come to his birthday party....like not having a place to stop by in town while the kids are at an activity....not having her face light up when she sees us come in to visit her. I miss her. We all do. Little Brother does too. He tells me that a lot.

Updates on everyone, youngest to oldest....

Little Brother had his dental surgery done 2 weeks ago. I was so scared that something would go wrong...but thank God, it didn't. He had a tough time with everything though. The dentist came to talk to me after he was done and before I saw lil brother. He said lots of stuff - the things that stuck in my head were 1) He has a very small mouth even for his age 2) He had a lot of trouble getting the work done because of the space 3) It was a good thing they didn't attempt to do the work in office because of how hard it was to do.

Then they came and got me so I could go see him in recovery. I was unprepared for what he looked like. He was still out of it but he sat up to search for his Angry Bird pigs that I had given to him before the surgery...his mouth looked disfigured - the swelling was so painfully big that his little lips were at least 4 times the normal size. He was bleeding from his nose, had an abrasion under his left eye and he just looked like hell. I felt so horrible for him. My stomach did a flip and I wanted to cry like a baby. The nurse told me they had trouble with his breathing tube...which was inserted through his nostril since they were working his his mouth. They had to remove it and reinsert a smaller one. I honestly cannot even think of him laying there while they did this stuff to him. It makes me sick. He did much better after they let me hold him in my arms while he came out of it. He was really brave and did great. We got to the hospital around 9 and were home by 3.

He was in rough shape - his lips had ripped in the corners and had sores inside of them from them stretching his poor little mouth out. He also had a low grade fever and of course wouldn't eat a thing. I stayed by his side, reading books, watching TV, singing songs, and getting him to eat bits of food and drink. Wednesday I had to work so MK stayed with him. I kept him home from daycare all week until Friday. That was the only day he went. By Saturday I had my boy back to pretty much normal. He talks a little differently than he did before...harder for him to say his "s" sounds. We have a follow up this week to make sure that things are good inside there. The molars to me seem a little big...like he can't get his front teeth together anymore. He even said that his teeth are big. I suppose they would feel that way though since they no longer have craters in them. Ugh, glad this is behind us.

Hollywood:

She's doing great in school...and by great I mean all A's. She's rejoined swimming and dance so she's busy 3 days a week with that. She seems to really enjoy both. They just got their dance pictures taken this week so I'm looking forward to getting them back. I do have a hard time swallowing the $ they charge for pictures. I could take them myself for a few dollars a print. But I don't have that choice. :)

Her BFF is in both activities with her so they have been hanging out a lot also. Her BFF spent the weekend here. They always have such fun together and I hardly notice she's here really. They went out for a walk together Saturday morning and took some pretty cool pictures from behind our house.



Her kitties followed along behind them as well:

Mary Katherine:

She continues to do awesome in school too. She's in her 2nd year of Spanish in high school and I'm amazed by how much she knows. Sometimes she and I text back and forth in Spanish for fun...except she's going from memory and I have to use google translate for everything. She's still in dance...they had their 1st dance competition of the season last weekend. She's got nerves of steel. I don't know how she does it. I'd hide in the bathroom while my team went out there, but not her! She was flawless. I didn't get to see her in person...a close family friend passed away and I was at the visitation. It was the first competition I've ever missed, but I saw it on tape afterward. She was so sweet about me missing it...she told me it was important for me to be at the visitation and she could go with her friend to the competition. I was relieved she was so understanding about it.

Me:

I'm doing pretty good. I got a nice raise at my new job...puts me back up to where I was (and then some) when I was at my job of 14 years that went under. I think I continue to prove my worth to them. I do a LOT there...they are totally getting their money's worth out of me. :) Seriously...I've never worked so hard in my life...and I love it. I love learning new things...getting things done for them that they had only hoped I would be able to sometime in the future. My boss doesn't seem like one to give you much credit until you prove yourself to him...but I've managed to get a couple compliments out of him and the raise said a lot to me. I'm starting to find my groove there.

I have to say that I'm as fat as ever. Fatter, really. Fat as I have ever been...even heavier than when I was 9 months pregnant - by a LOT. So disappointing to me. I have been gaining weight pretty steadily since about the time my love life fell apart last year. I'd like to think that had nothing to do with it, but who knows. Only one thing I do know- I can't stand it anymore. So last week I joined weight watchers. I have done really well and am sort of looking forward to my weigh in this week. I am trying to follow the plan completely...and I am finding it pretty easy. It's the points plus system. I went overboard a bit today with the Superbowl party food I had, but I had enough "bonus" points to cover it. The scale will tell....

I have not gone out since my class reunion back in October last year. I've been reading a lot. I started playing Farmville again too. Don't laugh. Hahahaha. I already gave it up again though...too time consuming. The reading is too, but I feel like I'm doing something more constructive that way. I read all the books in the Twilight series...yes, I know what happens in Part 2 of Breaking Dawn. But I won't tell. And now I'm on the 2nd book in the Hunger Games series. Those are really good books too.

I have not been doing much with photography since my main computer got a virus and I'm too broke to fix it. But here's a picture of my back yard Saturday morning:

This weekend we went to visit Hollywood's grandma - she made us homemade pho and eggrolls. To die for! Here's a picture - Hollywood, her Ba, my would-be nephew J. (he spent the weekend at my place this weekend too), and Hollywood's aunt (my ex's sister - she's awesome and I love her!):

Since we had 2 extra kids sleeping over, Lil Brother slept in my room last night. He's so sweet - I have a big fluffy down comforter that I sleep with and it was bunched up between us this morning...I heard him stirring so I was awake and I see his little head pop up over the comforter to see me...he said, "Hi mama." I said, "Hi sweetie."  He laid his head down and he said, "I love you." Awwwwww...what an awesome moment. I love him so much it hurts.