Thanks Zerg!

I am no longer Mom, Mommy, Mama...just call me Zerg. Last week I bought Kyle the Toy Story 2 movie since I knew I'd be needing some extra entertainment this week while Derek is out of town. And now, I am Zerg. Kyle has been wearing his Buzz Lightyear Space Commander sunglasses for two days now. Even in the bathtub...


After lunch he decided that I am now Zerg and the conversation went a little like this:
Zerg: Let's go potty before naptime
Buzz: You can't get me Zerg!
Z: Zerg is going to get you, you better run to the potty!
B: No Zerg, No! (as I am chasing him to the bathroom)
B: I going, Zerg, I going! I need toilet paper Zerg.
Z: Here you go Buzz. Let's go upstairs to lay down.
B: Don't get me Zerg! (I pick him up and he's writhing in my arms)
Z: To Infinity and Beyond! Let's fly upstairs!
B: Can we rock-a-bye, Zerg?
a few minutes pass and I lay him in his crib...
B: I need my cold ice water Zerg.
Z: Okay, I'll be right back.
B: Thanks, Zerg. Night-night.

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Can o' beans

A friend, who shall remain nameless, frequently suggests ways of tweaking recipes to make them better for you. I loved it when she shared an idea for making chocolate muffins using devils food cake mix and a can of pumpkin. They were delicious and my kids ate them up.

At the same time she had mentioned a way to tweak brownies that I decided I'd take a wait and see approach on. Well, she told me that she made them this week and they turned out good and her husband ate them as well. Since Derek is out of town and we can have chocolate in the house this week, I decided to give it a go. First of all, I probably made a mistake in the brownie mix I purchased. She told me to get the Betty Crocker low-fat brownie mix and I went for the Krusteaz fat-free mix since it was on sale. I should have known better since I absolutely despise the taste of artificial sweetener. So no matter what I did to these brownies I probably wasn't meant to enjoy them.

So I opened up the special ingredient, rinsed and drained them, put them back in the can and added water to fill the can. Yes, you guessed it, black beans. Then I pureed them in the food processor. Katie stirred them into the brownie mix and kept saying, "But Mom, it smells like beans!" I reassured her that it would be good and she wouldn't notice. 35 minutes later and voila! It still smells like beans...and tastes like chocolate covered beans and splenda. Gross.

So I just wasted a can of beans. And brownie mix that I probably could have made with the can of pumpkin sitting in my pantry. Although I still wouldn't have liked it since the overwhelming splenda taste ruined the mix in the first place.

Sorry friend, but I'm going to have to let you enjoy this one all on your own.

**update** Katie decided to try just a teensy tiny bite...I don't even think it went into her mouth before she just started shaking her head and saying no. But then she told me when I started to throw the entire thing in the trashcan that I was being "wasteful".

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Knock on wood...

He's asleep...no paci. Didn't even ask for it. I did keep him up late tonight though! We'll see how the rest of the night goes...

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Turning Appelita

Wondering what Appelita is aren't you?

Tonight Katie asked if we could play Guitar Hero together for a while. Then she continues on and said, "I want to play 'Turning Appelita, turning Appelita, I think so!' Most of you will recognize it now...but for those who don't, the song goes:

"I'm turning Japanese
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so"
Turning Japanese by The Vapors

Inside I cracked up.

For some unknown reason I decided to ditch the pacifier today. I think it's because Derek is gone and in my head it was better for only one of us to suffer through the night than for both of us to suffer. I tried cutting the tip off of one of them. As he screamed and screamed and screamed, I sent Katie up there to do my dirty work. I told her to give him the one with the tip cut off. I know, terrible mom. She came back down and said, "at first he was really happy and then he just got mad." Um, yes, I can hear that. After 10 minutes more of screaming, I went up there to rock him. Usually I rock him a 1/2 to one song and he's ready to lay in his bed and he goes right to sleep. So as I am talking to him, he is sobbing and he looks at me and says, "Mommy, I broke my paci-fi-er." Poor little guy thought he had broken the tip off! I rocked him a few more songs and laid him down, patted his back and then started to leave. I have never been one to wait until he's asleep and leave (I made that mistake with Katie and I refuse to do that with him!) I closed the door and he started wailing again. I caved, found one under the bed and gave it to him. I am weak. Sorry Derek. The good news is, he fell right to sleep. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. We'll see.

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We're doing nothing this week and I love it!

This has been my week to do nothing. Literally, I planned it that way. I left this week "blank" on purpose because it has been the first week since school let out that I have had nothing scheduled, planned, committed or otherwise there to take up our time. It's been fantastic!

Monday, we spent the morning at home sweet home, ran a few errands and then headed to the pool for a couple of hours. I had originally told the kids we'd only stay for "one safety break", but Katie insisted that she was finally ready to go down the slide at our pool. I don't think she's been down that slide since she was 3. With five minutes left until the next safety break, I told her that if she would go down the slide before the next break that we could stay longer. She hesistated and procrastinated up until the very last minute and literally the second she splashed into the water from going down the slide, the lifeguard blew the whistle. She was so excited that she was finally brave enough to try the slide again. So, we stayed another hour and she spent the entire hour going down the slide. She even made a new friend on her own which she doesn't usually do when I am around. Something about having mom around makes her so shy and insecure. I do not like that I have that affect on her and I hope we outgrow it at some point.

Tuesday, we met some friends at Chick-fil-A for lunch and then headed to the library. I am sad to say that I cannot remember the last time we were there. I took a list of 6 books that I wanted to look for (for myself) and they did not have one of them on the shelves. How disappointing! The kids each picked out some books and dvds and then we stopped in the little "Friends of the Library" store so I could find something to read because I've been without reading material for over a week now and I'm going crazy! I found two books on the cart for $1 each. I've never heard of them or the authors, so it was a gamble, but so far I'm enjoying the first one I decided to read. We got back in time for Kyle to take a short nap, ran a couple of errands and then rushed back to the house to greet Katie's friend Reagan. Reagan's family were our neighbors across the street until about 6 weeks ago. They are moving to Qatar on Monday and we are so sad to see them go. The girls have been asking to have a sleepover for a year now, so we invited Reagan to come over to spend the night. They had a great time full of giggles and screams. We ordered pizza and the girls played and then danced to High School Musical 2. I'd say watched, but they really just danced during the entire movie. They had a popcorn fight all over my living room, but promised to clean it up when they were done and they did! I decided to just push the couches together like last weekend and it worked perfectly. Kyle, of course, did not have quite as much fun since they didn't want boys around. He just didn't understand why he couldn't play with them.

Today I went to Houston for lunch with my friend Christy who I haven't seen in about 2 years. It has been so much harder to keep up with friends since Kyle has come along. We had a great time talking and catching up and now I miss her even more. Hopefully my new work schedule will allow for a few more lunch dates this year! When I got back, I met the kids (and Amy and Bethany) at the mall. We rode the carousel and then did a little shopping. Katie was worn out and Kyle was ready for a nap too, so we headed back to the house just in time to pick up Derek and head to the airport. Both kids slept on the way and Kyle slept all the home too. Derek just emailed that he got to Mexico and didn't see one drop of rain the entire flight. I guess they took the long way around Hurricane Dolly!

So for a week of nothingness, I've been pretty busy. But it's been my choice as to what we have been occupied with. I suppose the other weeks it's been my choice as well, but I have felt more tied down to those things...camps, VBS, vacation, party, swim lessons, etc. Tomorrow morning I have nothing planned and I plan to keep it that way. Every now and then it's good to have nothing to do.

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Reflecting

I know I am in the minority, but I never really set goals for my life. I did in a sense, in that I always knew I wanted to have a family. I finished school as quickly as I possibly could, but never really felt like it was leading me toward something in particular. I suppose you could say I was there for the MRS. which I got (and love, by the way). But I never knew what I wanted to do when I grew up (and still really don't). Over the past year, I've come to realize that while I love my kids and my husband, I don't think this is all that I'm meant to do. The problem is, I still don't really know what it is I should be doing. I enjoy teaching for the most part and when I look at the perks (part-time, summers off, home with my kids when they are off), but at times I still feel like something is missing (decent pay, a feeling of accomplishment, pride). But then I start to think if I go back to school for a graduate degree, am I committing myself to working full-time, and if so, for how long? And what does that mean for my kids? I'm not saying that it's wrong for moms to work full-time, I just don't know that I'm cut out for that. I think in a way I feel like I will miss something or that my kids will miss out on opportunities. Then there's the other part of me that feels like they will miss out on opportunities because of my choice to stay home and the financial ramifications of that. And along with that goes my thinking that if I am going to bother working full-time, I'm going to want to be compensated well for giving up my time with my kids (not to mention the great tan that I have this summer from the many hours at the pool). So those are my thoughts on this Monday evening. That and how in the world would we ever pay for me to go to graduate school? Ugh, details...

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Couch Campout

When we returned Friday afternoon from our trip to Dallas, I was heading out the front door to get something out of the car. I felt a blast of HEAT coming from upstairs and asked myself outloud, "Why is the HEAT on?" I went up there to check the thermostat and it was at 88 degrees. I don't think it was even 88 degrees outside! The kids rooms were unbearably hot and after some investigation we figured out that the fan outside wasn't even turning anymore. Derek almost burned himself on the unit. Thank God we have a separate one for the downstairs or we would have been heading into Houston to stay at my parents' house. The strange part is that our bedroom was the coldest room in the house. That has not happened in the 7 1/2 years that we have lived here.

Kyle still sleeps in his crib. He hasn't tried to crawl out so I figure why mess with a good thing? He goes right to sleep and is contained all night long. I loaned my pack and play to Amy since she is keeping twin boys in her house during the week and she was out Friday night so that was not an option. Kyle has slept a few times in a bed in a condo or hotel and we haven't had any problems, but I was still nervous that he would wander the house. So, I decided to push the couch and love seat together to make a somewhat contained bed for the two of them. The novelty of it was so exciting to both of them that it was hard to get them to settle down. Finally they both gave up around 10pm (another late night for them) and they stayed there until morning. It was so cute that I took a picture about an hour after they had fallen asleep. Tucker (the cat) was sleeping on the top of the couch above Katie as though he was watching over them. That was amazing in and of itself since he doesn't really like the kids that much; he just tolerates them.

Unfortunately the camera is not communicating properly with the computer so every time I download the photo it doesn't show up on the computer. So until I can troubleshoot that, there will be no picture.

We did get our a/c fixed on Saturday. It was just the compressor and not the entire unit, thank God! Now if I could just figure out the camera issues.

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The last 28 hours in 500 words or less (not really even close!)

And if you count the number of words, you really need to find something else to do with your time...

Yesterday we decided to tag along with Derek to Dallas for a quick overnight business trip. I must preface this whole thing with that fact since Derek booked the trip thinking it would be only him.

Sam's Shower
So, we thought we'd be smart and take Derek's Accord coupe to get better gas mileage. Yes, he does receive a per diem per mile, but I thought it was a good idea too. So after about 20 minutes we realized that it probably wasn't the best idea to have the kids sitting quite so close to each other. It's been a while since we've stuffed both of them in that car together and we had a lot of name calling, touching and fighting over toys and books. But we survived! They calmed down a bit by the time we reached Huntsville. Not because of anything we said or did, but because there is a HUGE statue of Sam Houston
that the kids love to see as we drive by. Well, apparently yesterday was the quarterly, bi-yearly, yearly? pressure washing of the statue and the kids got a kick out of that. Katie said, "Sam's taking a shower!" And as I just added that photo, she said, "Sam had a good shower yesterday!" It was definitely a highlight of the trip.

La Quinta no longer means "Next to Denny's"
So, we arrive in Dallas with no major incidents - hooray! Derek booked a room at the La Quinta in Lewisville. I've never really been to Lewisville, but I know a few people that used to live there (or may still). I remind you, he booked this hotel thinking it was just going to be him. Nothing fancy, just somewhere to sleep that was close to the place he was going for his meeting. I didn't have a problem with it. I was planning to go out to dinner with my friend Trish while Derek and the kids went swimming. The place had a pool, and the room was fine for one night. As long as it's clean, I'm not that picky. So we got there and the first thing I noticed was that the "Denny's" had closed down. So there was an abandoned restaurant right next door. This also ended up being one of the sad La Quintas that did not go through the renovations or was rebuilt a few years back. This was an old La Quinta. Still not a problem. However, just down the freeway about a mile were decent shopping centers. The only red flag was the empty restaurant. I even said to Derek as we drove by it - well, this one doesn't mean "next to Denny's".

We got settled in and Derek realized that his co-workers wanted to meet for dinner. So I changed my plans and decided to take the kids with me to dinner. Derek went with us since we were going so early and he set his meeting for 7:30. Trish and I had a great time. We caught up and unfortunately didn't get to visit longer. I was sad to say goodbye. Derek, the kids and I headed back to the motel (why even bother calling it a hotel when it really wasn't). He left for dinner and the kids and I went swimming. They were doing great. Katie was actually swimming half the pool without goggles which is a milestone for her. Last week she wouldn't even get her hair wet if she didn't have goggles on. Kyle was in his little tube but kept going under on the steps. If I hadn't watched him do this over and over a few days ago I would have been really paranoid, but he was fine.

There was another lady there with her two sons. One was a teenager and the other was probably 9 or 10. Apparently Kyle was giving her a mild panic attack because he kept going under. So we started talking a little - how old are they, etc. She got on her cell phone and her kids had come back to sit by her out of the pool.
About that time, a guy runs down the sidewalk, pauses for a second and then takes off running toward the back of the property. I heard something drop near the pool, but hadn't really put together that he had thrown something near the pool. I saw the teenage son look down, I glanced over there but didn't think anything about it. I was too far away to see what it was. About a minute later, the lady is off her phone and they are quickly gathering their things. She looks at me and says, "get your kids and get back in your room - someone just threw a bag of drugs in here." What?!?!?! All I could think was get the hell out of here now. I grabbed the towels, told the kids to get their shoes on and all the while, Katie is asking me "why do we have to go Mommy?" and Kyle is screaming because he doesn't want to get out of the water. I am shaking by the time we get back to the room. I know I was overreacting and I don't think I would have freaked out quite so much had my kids not been there. I locked everything I possibly could on that door and put the kids in the bathtub. Katie all the while keeps asking me "Mommy why did we have to leave?" I started calling Derek who took the car otherwise I would have just jumped in the car and left. He didn't answer the first 4 times I called. I texted him and called again and he finally answered. He thought the phone at the table next to him was ringing the entire time. He stayed and finished his meal while the kids and I packed up everything and watched tv. At 9pm he got back and I had calmed down, but I still didn't think I would be able to sleep there. We ended up checking out (and getting our money back) and moving to a very nice little Residence Inn about 2 miles down the road. I realize that La Quinta is not responsible for what happened but I did not feel safe there and I didn't want my kids staying there. I hope to never be in that type of situation again, especially with my kids two feet away from a bag of whatever that was.

It's a Robot
As Derek went to check in at the Residence Inn, the kids and I waited in the car. It was about 9:20pm, so it was obviously past their bedtime and dark outside. Kyle announces to Katie and I,
"I see a robot!"
"You do? Where?"
"I see a robot and it's flying."
"Oh, is it an airplane?"
"No, it's a robot and it's orange. Oh, now it's a duck."
I love two year old's and their imaginations! I'm guessing the robot comment came from his seeing Wall-E a few weeks ago.

I guess I didn't really have anything interesting to write about today. We ate, went shopping, Derek went to his meeting, we ate again and drove home. I love that I have nothing else to report. Hooray!

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Facebook Frenzy

So, one of my dear friends (you know who you are!) joined Facebook this week at the urging of her sister. She sent me an invite and I thought, hmm, okay I'll check this out knowing full well that I rarely get on the MySpace page that I created (at the urging of friends also). In less than 12 hours (I did sleep in there) I have somehow become addicted to looking for people I haven't seen or talked to in YEARS. And I must confess that I like it SO MUCH BETTER than MySpace (despite my other friends telling me that they didn't). I think because it's cleaner looking, easier to navigate and seems more professional. MySpace seems like a big drunken party where you walk in and go "what do I do? where do I go? where are my friends? where are the drinks?" As you can see, I'm not comfortable walking into big drunken parties since I haven't done that in quite some time. So I think I'll be working on my Facebook profile a little more and see where it leads. I've already found a sorority sister who I haven't seen in ages as well as a few friends from high school that I've lost touch with. Who knows it could be the novelty of it all for now. The newness may wear off and I might actually forget about it. If you are on there, feel free to send me an invite to be a friend. I might actually add you!

So are you on Facebook???

P.S. Because I overanalyze everything, I realized while drying my hair just now that I may have offended my friends on MySpace. That was not my intent at all! Do not take it that way. I'm not abandoning you and I promise, I have no other friends! And sometimes I enjoy those big drunken parties on MySpace (and at Wings N More) Tee hee.

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Can't forget the boys...

After a week of very girly stuff, we decided to have our nephews over to spend the night. We took them out for pizza and then had a Playstation festival. They tried to master Guitar Hero for a bit, but ended up spending most of their time playing Star Wars Battlefront II. After church today, we took all of the kids to the new "aquatic center" in The Woodlands. The best part was floating down the lazy river...I could do that all day. It was a great afternoon and a great visit. We hope they come back soon!

Noah

Derek and Joel

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Princess Prep School

Katie and Meredith attended Royal Purpose Ministries Princess Prep School this week. They had a fantastic time singing, dancing, learning etiquette, making crafts and learning about how to truly be a Daughter of the King of Kings. Each day they came home talking about the puppet shows, singing the songs and reciting their Bible verses. And every day as I dropped them off Kyle would whine, "I want to go to Princess camp!" Lucky for him, they have added a "Warrior Prince Academy" for boys, so when he turns 4 he will be able to go as well. One morning in the car he kept saying "I want to go to Princess camp" and I asked him, "how old do you have to be to go?" We had already gone over this several times this week and he usually answered 4, but this time he looked right at me and with some insistence answered, "TWO!" Poor little guy has to wait two more summers.

After the Graduation Ceremony, Leslie, Nana and I took the girls to the Whistle Stop Tea Room for lunch. What a great little tea room - the food is fabulous and the desserts are HUGE. It was very busy, but well worth the wait.

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Horseducks?

From the back of the car, I hear giggling and then the question:

"Mom, is it cowducks or horseducks?"

What?!?! Oh, yeah..."it's cow BIRDS, sweetie."

We've been driving some back roads to Tomball this week and on Monday morning while passing a pasture full of cows, Katie said to Meredith, "there's a bunch of cows and a duck too." She remembered I had corrected her but apparently didn't remember what I had said. Probably a good thing since technically it's not a "cow bird", it's a "cattle egret". Did you know that? I always thought they were just cow birds.

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Lollipops!

This past weekend I got to see one of my college roommates, Stacey and her son Logan. It has been WAY too long since I've spent time with her - probably 10 years! I didn't even know that she and her husband Jason had a child until we ran into them in Kingwood on Easter weekend. Logan is almost three years old and oh so cute. We were able to meet them for dinner while they were in town. It was so great to spend time with her again and I'm looking forward to the next time they are here. As you can see, the kids had a great time. They each had 2 or 3 lollipops while we were at dinner, but at least we got to catch up!




Kyle and I spent the morning together (Katie and Meredith were at Princess Prep School) getting the car washed and vaccuumed out and then I took him to get his hair cut. As you saw in the above pictures, it was time! Today marked a huge milestone in the hair cutting experience for us, he made it through with no screams, very few tears and a lollipop that for once was not covered in hair. Since he was sitting so nicely I told her to cut it short, and cut it short she did! He looks so different, but I'm getting used to it (it didn't stay spiky all day either). I had to take a picture once we got back in the car because I was in such shock that his hair was gone.


And no we didn't have lollipops, but we took Katie out for her birthday dinner last week so I thought I'd include those pictures too...especially since I don't think I look quite as fat in this picture as I do in the one above!



Have a great week!

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Happy 4th of July!

Yesterday we had the privilege of spending time with friends in Riverside (near the Trinity River) for a 4th of July bbq. It rained for a bit (actually downpoured), but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. Once the rain left, we put out the blow-up pool for Katie, Kyle and Jackson and they had a great time. We watched fireworks on the river and set off a few of our own.

Glitter Graphics - GlitterLive.com

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Plastic Chef America

Apparently yesterday in my haste to clean up the kitchen during the party I shoved the chicken wrap tray into the oven. I now recall that I accidentally dropped the tray when I opened the refrigerator, so I had transferred all of the wraps onto a silver tray and then put the plastic tray (complete with lettuce and tomatoes) into the oven. So today Katie and I started to prepare the baked beans for the 4th of July picnic we are going to tomorrow. As you can probably guess, I forgot the tray was in the oven and I preheated the oven. You can imagine my surprise when I opened the oven to put the beans in and found this:

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Have a Fairy Happy 5th Birthday!

I can't believe our little girl is going to be 5 tomorrow. Where has the time gone? She's growing into such a special little person and I love seeing how she matures and changes every day but I really just want to make it slow down. We had a magical party today. Here are a few more pictures that didn't fit well into the slideshow. Kyle got into the fun too!

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Great job picking an outfit, but...

it's 82 degrees outside and I think the pink velour pant and jacket set might be a bit warm for today. Her response? That's okay, if I get hot, I'll take the jacket off. What to do? She matches, she's comfortable (for now), and she has a plan. I guess I let her wear it. Surprisingly she even picked out a shirt that she doesn't usually wear (I think it's been out of this house once).

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